The Fabulous Beast Read online

  Above us the blackcloud reaches of the sky emitted a thousand jagged spears of lightning, minute after minute, unrelenting, which with each flash briefly lit our terror-filled eyes. Thunder crashed so loudly that it deafened us with its Heavenly reports. Winds howled. Rain came driving down like nails upon our backs and faces. We were lashed by whips of water as thick as hauling ropes, leaving red weals on our skin. Fish fell out of the sky and lay gasping on the boards. In this celestial violence it was difficult to tell up from down, left from right, centre from edge. The sea and sky were all one: white water, gushing and foaming around us; grey spray-filled air swirling about our heads; dark sky or dark ocean. The very earth below groaned with the weight of the frenzied water and sky which were locked in battle over it.

  The very plates which separate Heaven and Hell were grinding together, and we poor mortals between them, pressed and buffeted by forces of nature beyond control of God or Man. Such a fierceness in the wind there were those who believed this was punishment for straying too far from Man’s place on the planet, or for travelling too near to the edge of the world. There were plots to kill Amerigo Vespucci which might have reached fruition if we were not in the Devil’s cauldron, all our efforts and attentions applied to clinging to our flimsy rafts. Men and women were swept away one after the other, their grey faces screwed into expressions of utter terror, their bodies lost to the giant seas. We cried mercy for our souls and called down damnation on Amerigo and his officers.

  Then came the blessed break in the clouds. A chink at first, which widened to hole. God had poked his finger through the sky! Gradually the wind died, the seas grew calmer and the lightning and thunder which had raged above our heads travelled away to the horizon. We were drained of all energy. We lay on the decks of the rafts gasping like the stranded fish around us, weak beyond measure. Amerigo immediately addressed us, calling us brave and loyal men and women. We had undergone, he said, torments that would have destroyed any other expedition but ours, which he was convinced was sanctioned by God Himself. During the storm, we were told, God had spoken to Amerigo’s priest, Petrucio de la Roma, and told him we were the chosen few whose feet would cross the wide waters of the Atlantic and find safe haven on the far side.

  We cheered him, great man that he is.

  The rewards, Amerigo went on to tell us, would be inestimable. Our bounty would be the riches of the orient: nutmeg, rhubarb, porcelain, silver, silk, et al. Amerigo moreover promised us that if we did not touch land within three days we would turn back, though warned that we were so far from our homeland we would never survive the return journey. We cheered him again, then gathered up the freshly-dead fish from the decks and fried them, feasting for the first time in weeks. There was fresh water too, from the rain barrels, which we drank in contentment. The best wine could not have tasted so good as that cool clear rainwater.

  ~

  Not three days, but two weeks later we sighted land. Half our original number now, we screamed in delight. We had finally reached the East Indies by walking across the Atlantic Ocean. Palm laden beaches were there, and good solid hills. It was a lush green mysterious land that presented itself to us and we could not wait to step off the waves and onto the strand. New fears entered our hearts: fear of unknown people, fear of unknown places. But alongside that was jubilance and gladness. Joy at our triumph. We slapped each other’s backs and praised one another’s endurance and stamina. We! We had walked the Atlantic Ocean, a feat which mundane persons in our homelands said was impossible. We had pioneered a new frontier. Moreover, we would be rich. We would share in the wealth that this new trade route would bring to our countries, our cities, our towns and villages. We were such heroes!

  Walking ashore over a lagoon, many of us realised we were not on a great mainland, but on a small island. Our feet were unsteady on firm ground and many kept losing their balance and falling over after walking on water so long. It is a fact that we walked with the same gait for quite a while after treading on soil, our muscles being used to treading waves, and we laughed at each other so peculiar did we appear with our evenly-timed and measured steps.

  An island then! And more besides, which we found in a chain or archipelago as our leader called it. So be it, the mainland was perhaps not far away. There on that island we came into contact with friendly savages, who made us welcome and fed us meat and drink. They thought we were gods because we had come out of nowhere, walking across the waves, and we were strange to them in our dress and manners. When a gun was fired for their entertainment they ran away and hid themselves for several days, before emerging shyly again, to greet us with wary smiles.

  We stayed on the island for one month to gather our strength before crossing the next stretch of water to the mainland, which proved to be further away than we imagined. On reaching it we found more savages, less friendly than the islanders yet more noble in appearance, but they did us no real harm. They gave us strange chickens to eat, which were similar in looks to Turkish guinea-fowl and Giseppi immediately dubbed them ‘turkeys’. The cooked flesh of these birds tasted delicious. The natives wore the plucked turkey feathers in their hair and we too adopted this odd fashion, finding it pleasing and colourful to the eye.

  While we waited for decisions from our leaders Giseppi married Greta, the priest presiding, and I was asked by both to be their fathers-in-absence which I gladly agreed to be. Sadly, Giseppi fell from a high crag five days after the wedding while collecting birds’ eggs, and Greta was thus widowed almost as soon as becoming a bride. ‘Perhaps you will consider me for your second husband,’ I offered my friend, ‘when we return to our own countries? I would ask you now to be my wife, except that it seems this land might be unlucky for newly-weds.’

  She wept and failed to give answer to this, perhaps because she was so pleased at my offer, or perhaps because it was too soon after the death of her first husband and she was still grieving.

  Amerigo spent many days closeted with his lesser generals and eventually emerged to inform us that they had come to the decision that this was not the East Indies, but a new continent altogether. He informed us that he had suspected for a long time that Posidonius was right and Strabo was actually wrong in their measurements of the girdle of the Earth. If Posidonius was indeed correct, and it seemed he was, then the world was 24,000 miles in girth. This was a new world we had landed in and who knew what riches it held? Gold, very possibly. Rubies? Emeralds? All just waiting to be plucked, for the natives seemed uninterested in metals and shiny stones. What horribly wealthy creatures we would become, this little band of water-walkers from the other side of the world!

  We cheered our great leader until we were hoarse, then called for this new land to be named after our great general, since he was its discoverer.

  I cried out, ‘Yes, let us call this land America, after our most beloved and famous leader, Amerigo!’ But at this the gaunt, red-stoled priest lifted his claw-like hand, the ringed one in which he always carried his black bible, and intoned, ‘Amerigo is not the family name of our glorious general, but Vespucci. Who ever heard of naming a new world using a man’s first name? Vespuccia is what it should be called, and my children, this Vespuccia will be great – make no mistake – I foresee this landscape, which seems to stretch to infinity, being a source of immense wealth and great wonders. Vespuccia then, my flock.’

  ‘Vespuccia!’ we cried in unison. ‘God Bless Vespuccia!’

  Sacrificial Anode

  ‘Is this about the clowns?’ I said. ‘Because I’m already getting help for that.’

  On the other side of a large desk sat his Grace the Bishop of Walsingham, very imposing figure of a man. I’m told you need to be fairly ruthless to reach bishopdom. There was a lot of purple covering his chest, and a red sash too which my mother would have told him clashed with his vest, and a few bits of gold jewellery, and a wooden cross on a piece of string around his neck. We’d already talked about the cross: apparently it was bamboo and came from the South Pacific
islands. A gift, he’d told me, from his parishioners – presumably when he was a lowly priest.

  ‘No James, this is not about the clowns.’

  ‘It’s a psychological problem, I’ve been told. I was probably frightened by clowns when I was little – too little to remember, actually, because I don’t remember it. I’ve never really liked clowns – you know, never found them funny and all that. They’ve always scared me. Then I got to wondering why, and got myself into this state of mind.’

  ‘Nothing to do with all that – quite another matter entirely.’

  The bishop was overweight and shiny faced. His hair was grey and cut short so that the bristles stood on end. I could see myself in his yellow-tinted and highly-polished spectacles: two of me, one in each lens. He was one of those remote people I try to avoid because there’s nothing much you can talk to them about. They live in a different world to ordinary people like me. That’s why I had raised the subject of the wooden cross earlier, rather than sit back in silence while he fiddled with papers.

  ‘And it’s not because I’m between religions at the moment?’

  The bishop looked horrified at this. ‘Good heavens, no. I had no idea.’ He glanced at a piece of paper on his desk. ‘I thought you were currently a member of the Religious Society of Friends – a Quaker?’

  ‘No, I have trouble with worshiping in silence. A whole hour, for goodness sakes. I prefer words – litanies and stuff like that, though I’ve heard that African Quakers are pretty keen on singing and dancing.’

  The bishop shuddered. ‘Are they? I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Oh yes. It’s in their souls. You can’t stop them.’

  When I was told I was coming here today, sent by my psycho-analyst, I was convinced it was about the clowns. You see, I’ve got to pretend I’m getting better, that I’m being cured. They all think I’m crazy, which I’m not: I’m still convinced clowns are disguised aliens invading earth. I mean, there seems to be more of them around every time you look. And what better disguise than all that make-up? And what better camouflage than baggy clothes and monster shoes if you’re not quite the same shape as a human? When you look at a clown you can see he’s misshapen: bulbous head, usually, and long stringy arms. I’ve already mentioned the feet, but there’s the general outline of them, which is sort of pear-shaped. That’s no human under all that: it has to be an extra-terrestrial, an alien. One that has great difficulty with facial expressions and proper laughter. One whose emotions (if they have any at all) are quite different from ours.

  ‘The world is split into two types of people,’ I revealed to the bishop. ‘Those who are terrified of clowns – and clowns.’

  The bishop raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I’m in the first group,’ I informed him. ‘I’m a clown-phobic, or whatever the proper name for it is. I expect you’d guessed that. Come on, admit it. They frighten you too, don’t they?’

  ‘This-is-not-about-the-clowns!’

  His voice had a horrible even sound to it.

  ‘OK, then what?’

  ‘James, listen to me. Are you listening to me? You’re not an unintelligent young man . . .’

  ‘Obsessions mostly attack fairly bright people,’ I said.

  ‘Exactly!’ He spread his chubby hands as if he wanted me to inspect his palms. ‘You are a bright person. That’s why you’ve been chosen. We’re mounting an expedition. The second one.’ He sighed. ‘Needless to say the first one failed, or we wouldn’t need to risk going again. James, we need you. We have to take a sacrificial anode on the trip, to leave the other members of the expedition free to study the environment and gather information.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked, not with any trepidation you understand. I’m not short of courage. ‘It sounds exciting.’

  ‘You apparently know what a sacrificial anode is?’ he seemed surprised, even though we’d just agreed I was quite intelligent.’

  ‘Um, yes. They have them on boats and ships. In the case of ocean-going craft the sacrificial anode is a piece of chemically treated metal attached to the hull near the screw. It attracts all the corrosive elements in the sea water, leaving the propeller relatively untarnished. When the anode is thoroughly corroded it’s removed and thrown away and a new one put in its place. Much cheaper than throwing away propellers.’

  The bishop looked pleased. ‘Well, you are clever, James. I didn’t know what a sacrificial anode was until it was explained to me.’

  I didn’t say why doesn’t that surprise me.

  ‘OK,’ I replied, guardedly.

  ‘The way they explained it to me was by using an analogy with honey and bees.’

  It was my turn to raise some eyebrows.

  The bishop continued. ‘Well, let’s say the government sent an expedition to the South American jungle, where there are terrible insects – killer bees – which might endanger members of the expedition. You would be the man who would be smeared with honey so that the bees attack you, leaving the other members of the party to gather rare plants or animals, or whatever it is they’re there to collect.’

  ‘So I’d be stung to death?’

  ‘Not necessarily. You could be detoxified afterwards. They wouldn’t sacrifice you to that extent. But you would have to undergo a lot of pain in the furtherance of knowledge. That’s what we’re asking you to do now. To volunteer for this expedition in the role of sacrificial anode. I’m told you’re a very brave man. You served in the army, didn’t you? In the recent wars? As a lieutenant? Earned a few medals, I’m informed. Saved a few lives? That’s what we’re asking here.’

  Nearly got my head blown off, more like, but I didn’t say it.

  ‘I’m more interested in the pay. My shrink said you would pay me well. He’s a friend of yours isn’t he? Doctor Franks?’

  ‘Yes, he is. You will be amply rewarded.’

  The bishop named a figure which sounded good. Despite all the medals I’d got in the Middle East, I was still a poor man. The army only pay you your wages, they don’t give bonuses for knocking out enemy strongholds while caught in crossfire. That’s just part of the job. You do if for the honour of the regiment and salute the colours proudly when they give you this shiny coin on the end of a piece of ribbon and expect you to be satisfied. I was proud of myself at the time, but now I needed folding green, or brown, or whatever colour the notes.

  ‘Why me,’ I asked, as I leaned back in the chair, ‘apart from the fact that I’m a hero and I’m very suspicious of clowns?’

  The bishop cleared his throat, before speaking.

  ‘Apparently you fit the bill, James. Your doctor tells us you have an absorbent personality, spiritually that is. I understand you’ve been through – that’s a horrible expression but I will use it – through several religions. You find one, you absorb it, then you move on to the next?’

  ‘I can’t quite make up my mind which is best for me.’

  ‘Understandable, from one whose well of spirituality seems bottomless. Ahem, the fact is, the person we need for this expedition – as the sacrificial anode – needs to be just that – an absorbent personality. Someone who can soak up passion like a sponge. You see James, we’ve found a way to enter Heaven.’

  I stared at him. ‘You’re kidding me?’

  ‘No,’ he said carefully, now spreading those plump white hands on the desktop, palms down, as if imprinting them, ‘not at all. We have discovered a way in, a way to visit while still enjoying this life. Unfortunately, those who went on the first expedition returned in a highly-intoxicated state, permanently drunk on joy. We can get no real sense out of them. Their emotional state is critical. They will never recover. You, on the other hand, we can expect to be stunned for a while, but your doctor assures us you will stand every chance of returning to full emotional stability after a period of readjustment. It seems you have a resilient soul.’

  After my meeting with the bishop I was sent back to my psycho-analyst. This doctor was a genius: he often said so himself.
By the time I left him again I felt very odd. It was as if within me I had a black hole which had collapsed below a critical value, to the point where it was impossible for any other feelings to escape. Just as light was unable to escape the gravitational pull from a black hole in space, so my soul could only suck emotions into itself and add to its own critical mass, containing them inside the equivalent of an event horizon. I knew I was a walking magnet for any feelings which might be loose in the ether.

  Once back in the bishop’s clutches I found I was forbidden any further visitors. I was allowed see no one until the expedition left for Heaven. One week later they came for me and took me to the portal, which was surprisingly a heathen shrine to a Celtic nature god on top of a high mist-shrouded hill. There they dressed me in a white shift.

  ‘This flimsy thing won’t protect me from killer bees,’ I joked with the two ordained young men.

  They ignored me, simply holding my wrists gently, as they steered me into a tunnel formed by the mist. They walked me forward and it felt as if there were something spongy beneath my feet. Touching the cloudy walls of the tunnel I found them soft but unyielding. One of the young men explained that they had – at last – found a way to enter the Spiritual Kingdom. ‘It’s no longer necessary to die to get into the Afterlife,’ said the first young man, ‘we’ve discovered the route and can go there when we like. Of course it’s not an easy place to visit. We haven’t yet evolved. We’re not spiritually mature enough to withstand the emotional onslaught.’

  To my consternation I found the pathway along the tunnel seemed to be sloping downward. What was this? Was I being too trusting? Maybe this was a very different kind of expedition than the one described by the bishop? I froze and dug in my heels, alarm bells jangling in my head, thinking they’re taking me down, instead of up.