Nocturnes (2004) Page 18

  Mr. Edgerton’s limited ability, like that of so many of his kind, was inversely proportionate to his sense of self-regard, and he was therefore generally unwilling to entertain the possibility that his genius could be attributed to any outside agency. Nevertheless, he was a man profoundly in need of inspiration from any source, and had recently been considering opium or cheap gin as possible catalysts. Having heard the story of the inkpot, he required no further convincing. He paid over money he could ill afford for the faint hope of redemption offered by the curiosity, and made his way back to his small apartment with the inkpot and its monkey tucked beneath his arm in a cloak of brown paper.

  Mr. Edgerton occupied a set of rooms above a tobacconist’s store on Marylebone High Street, a recent development forced upon him by his straitened circumstances. While Mr. Edgerton did not himself partake of the noble weed, his walls were yellowed by the fumes that regularly wended their way between the cracks in the floorboards, and his clothing and furnishings reeked of assorted cigars, cigarettes, pipe tobaccos, and even the more eye-watering forms of snuff. His dwelling was, therefore, more than a little depressing, and would almost certainly have provided him with the impetus necessary to improve his finances were he not so troubled by the absence of his muse.

  That evening, Mr. Edgerton sat at his desk once again and stared at the paper before him.

  And stared.

  And stared.

  Before him, the inkpot monkey squatted impassively, its eyes reflecting the lamplight and lending its mummified form an intimation of life that was both distracting and unsettling. Mr. Edgerton poked at it tentatively with his pen, leaving a small black mark on its chest. Like most writers, he had a shallow knowledge of a great many largely useless matters. Among these was anthropology, a consequence of one of his earlier works, an evolutionary fantasy entitled The Monkey’s Uncle. (One newspaper had described it as “largely adequate, if inconsequential.” Mr. Edgerton, grateful to be reviewed at all, was rather pleased.) Yet, despite searching through three reference volumes, he had been unable to identify the origins of the inkpot monkey and had begun to take this as a bad omen.

  After another unproductive hour had gone by, its tedium broken only by the spread of an occasional inkblot upon the paper, Mr. Edgerton rose and determined to amuse himself by emptying, and then refilling, his pen. Still devoid of inspiration, he wondered if there was some part of the arcane ritual of fueling one’s pen from the inkpot that he had somehow neglected to perform. He reached down, and had gently grasped the monkey in order to raise the lid, when something pricked his skin painfully. He drew back his hand immediately and examined the wounded digit. A deep cut ran across the pad of his index finger, and blood from the abrasion was flowing down the length of his pen and congregating at the nib, from which it dripped into the inkpot with soft, regular splashes. Mr. Edgerton began to suck the offended member, meanwhile turning his attention to the monkey in an effort to ascertain the cause of his injury. The lamplight revealed a small raised ridge behind the creature’s neck, where a section of curved spine had burst through its tattered fur. A little of Mr. Edgerton’s blood could be perceived on the yellowed pallor of the bone.

  The wounded writer retrieved a small bandage from his medicine cabinet and bound his finger before resuming his seat at his desk. He regarded the monkey warily as he filled his pen from the well, then put pen to paper and began to write. At first, the familiarity of the act overcame any feelings of surprise at its sudden return, so that Mr. Edgerton had completed two pages of close script and was about to embark upon a third before he paused and looked in puzzlement first at his pen, then at the paper. He reread what he had written, the beginnings of a tale of a man who sacrifices love and happiness at the altar of wealth and success, and found it more than satisfactory. It was, in fact, as fine as anything he had ever written, although he was baffled as to its source. Nevertheless, he shrugged and continued writing, grateful that his old imagination had apparently woken from its torpor. He wrote long into the night, refilling his pen as required, and so bound up was he in his exertions that he failed entirely to notice that his wound had reopened and was dripping blood onto pen and page and, at those moments when he replenished his instrument, into the depths of the small Chinese inkpot.

  Mr. Edgerton slept late the following morning, and awoke to find himself weakened by his efforts of the night before. It was, he supposed, the consequence of months of inactivity, and after tea and some hot buttered toast, he felt much refreshed. He returned to his desk to find that the inkpot monkey had fallen from its perch and now lay on its back amid his pencils and pens. Gingerly, Mr. Edgerton lifted it from the desk and found that it now weighed considerably more than the inkpot itself and that physics, rather than any flaw in the inkpot’s construction, had played its part in dislodging the monkey from its seat. He also noted that the creature’s fur was far more lustrous than it had appeared in the window of the antiques shop, and now shimmered healthily in the morning sunlight.

  And then, quite suddenly, Mr. Edgerton felt the monkey move. Its arms and legs stretched wearily, as if it were waking from some long slumber, and its mouth opened in a wide yawn, displaying small blunt teeth. Alarmed, Mr. Edgerton dropped the monkey and heard it emit a startled squeak as it landed on the desk. It lay there for a moment or two, then slowly raised itself on its haunches and regarded the writer with a slightly hurt expression before ambling over to the inkpot and squatting down gently beside it. With its left hand, it raised the lid of the inkpot and waited patiently for Mr. Edgerton to fill his pen. For a time, the bewildered writer was unable to move, so taken aback was he at this turn of events. Then, when it became clear that he had no other option but to begin writing or go mad, he reached for his pen and supplied it from the well. The monkey watched him impassively until the reservoir was filled and Mr. Edgerton had begun to write, then promptly fell fast asleep.

  Despite his unnerving encounter with the newly animated monkey, Mr. Edgerton put in a most productive day and quickly found himself with the bulk of five chapters written, none of them requiring more than a cursory rewrite. It was only when the light had begun to fade and Mr. Edgerton’s arm had started to ache that the monkey awoke and padded softly across a virgin page to where Mr. Edgerton’s pen lay in his hand. The monkey grasped the writer’s finger in its tiny paws, then placed its mouth against the cut and began to suck. It took Mr. Edgerton a moment to realize what was occurring, at which point he rose with a shout and shook the monkey from his finger. It bounced against the inkpot, striking its head soundly against its base, and lay unmoving upon a sheet of paper.

  At once, Mr. Edgerton reached for it and raised it in the palm of his left hand. The monkey was obviously stunned, for its eyes were now half closed and it was dazedly moving its head from side to side as it tried to focus. Instantly, Mr. Edgerton was seized with regret at his hasty action. He had endangered the monkey, which he now acknowledged to be the source of his newfound inspiration. Without it, he would be lost. Torn between fear and disgust, Mr. Edgerton reluctantly made his decision: he squeezed together his thumb and forefinger, causing a droplet of blood to emerge from the cut and then, his gorge rising, allowed it to drip into the monkey’s mouth.

  The effect was instantaneous. The little mammal’s eyes opened fully, it rose on its haunches, and then reached for, and grasped, the wounded finger. There it suckled happily, undisturbed by the revolted Mr. Edgerton until it had taken its meal, whereupon it burped contentedly and resumed its slumbers. Mr. Edgerton gently laid it beside the inkpot and then, taking up his pen, wrote another two chapters before retiring early to his bed.

  Thus it continued. Each day Mr. Edgerton rose, fed the monkey a little blood, wrote, fed the monkey once again in the evening, wrote some more, then went to bed and slept like a dead man, his rest only occasionally disturbed by the memories being dredged up in the course of his work, as old lovers and forgotten friends found their place in the narrative now taking shape upon
his desk. The monkey appeared to require little in the way of affection or attention beyond its regular feeds of blood and the occasional ripe banana. Mr. Edgerton, in turn, decided to ignore the fact that the monkey was growing at quite an alarming rate, so that it was now obliged to sit beside him on a small chair while he worked and had taken to dozing on the sofa after its meals. In fact, Mr. Edgerton wondered if it might not be possible to train the monkey to do some light household duties, thereby allowing him more time to write, although when he suggested this to the monkey through the use of primitive sign language it grew quite irate and locked itself in the bathroom for an entire afternoon.

  In fact, it was not until Mr. Edgerton returned home one day from a visit to his publisher to find the inkpot monkey trying on one of his suits that he began to experience serious doubts about their relationship. He had noticed some new and especially disturbing changes in his companion. It had begun to molt, leaving clumps of unsightly gray hair on the carpets and exposing sections of pink-white skin. It had also lost some weight from its face; that, or its bone structure had begun to alter, for it presented a more angular aspect than before. In addition, the monkey was now over four feet tall and Mr. Edgerton had been forced to open veins in his wrists and legs in order to keep it sated. The more Mr. Edgerton considered the matter, the more convinced he became that the creature was undergoing some significant transformation. Yet there were still chapters of the book to be completed, and the writer was reluctant to alienate his mascot. So he suffered in silence, sleeping now for much of the day and emerging only to write for increasingly short periods of time before returning to his bed and collapsing into a dreamless slumber.

  On the twenty-ninth day of August, he delivered his completed manuscript to his publisher. On the fourth day of September, which was Mr. Edgerton’s birthday, he was gratified to receive a most delightful communication from his editor, praising him as a genius and promising that this novel, long anticipated and at last delivered, would place Mr. Edgerton in the pantheon of literary greats and assure him of a most comfortable and well-regarded old age.

  That night, as Mr. Edgerton prepared to drift off into contented sleep, he felt a tug at his wrist and looked down to see the inkpot monkey fastened upon it, its cheeks pulsing as it sucked away at the cut. Tomorrow, thought Mr. Edgerton. Tomorrow I will deal with it. Tomorrow I will have it taken to the zoo and our bargain will be concluded forever. But as he grew weaker and his eyes closed, the inkpot monkey raised its head and Mr. Edgerton realized at last that no zoo would ever take the inkpot monkey, for the inkpot monkey had become something very different indeed.

  Mr. Edgerton’s book was published the following year, to universal acclaim. A reception was given in his honor by his grateful publishers, to which the brightest lights of London’s literary community flocked to pay tribute. It would be Mr. Edgerton’s final public appearance. From that day forth, he was never again seen in London and retired instead to the small country estate that he purchased with the royalties from his great valedictory work.

  That night, speeches were made, and an indifferent poem recited by one of Mr. Edgerton’s new admirers, but the great man himself remained silent throughout. When called upon to give his speech, he replied only with a small but polite bow to his guests, accepting their applause with a gracious smile.

  And while all those around him drank the finest champagne and feasted on stuffed quail and smoked salmon, Mr. Edgerton could be found sitting quietly in a corner, stroking some unruly hairs on his chest and munching contentedly on a single ripe banana.

  The Shifting of the Sands

  The decision to reopen the rectory at Black Sands was not one made lightly. The Church of England, it was felt, was not welcome in that place, although antipathy was not directed toward the King’s Church alone. The community had resisted the presence of organized religion since its inception some four hundred years earlier. True, chapels had been built there, both Catholic and Protestant, but without worshippers what was a chapel? One might as well have erected a small hut close to the shore, for at least then bathers could have made some use of it.

  The small Catholic church had been deconsecrated at the turn of the century and subsequently demolished after a fire consumed its roof and turned its walls as black as the very grains that gave the village its name. The Protestant house of worship remained but was in a state of shameful neglect. There was no living to be had at Black Sands. The people of the village, when asked, pointed out that they had no need of clergymen, that they had survived and even prospered through their own efforts, and there was some truth to what they said. This was a treacherous coastline, with riptides and hidden, fatal currents, yet in its entire history not one soul from Black Sands had fallen victim to the sea, and not a single ship from its small fleet of fishing vessels had been lost to the depths.

  Without the support of the community, the chapel at Black Sands had to be resourced entirely from diocesan funds, and only the worst and most desperate of clergymen were dispatched there to eke out a miserable existence by the sea. Most drank themselves quietly into oblivion, troubling the natives only when they were found unconscious by the side of the road and had to be carried back to their beds. There were exceptions, of course: the last rector, the Reverend Rhodes, had approached his assignment with a veritable missionary zeal for the first six months, but, slowly, communications from him became less and less frequent. He indicated that he was having trouble sleeping and, while he had experienced no outright hostility, the lack of enthusiasm from his prospective parishioners was wearing him down. Finally, in the last letter he ever sent, he confessed that the loneliness and isolation were taking their toll on his sanity, for he had begun to hallucinate.

  “I see shapes in the sand,” he wrote in that final letter. “I hear voices whispering to me, inviting me to walk upon the shore, as if the very sea itself is calling my name. I fear that if I stay here any longer, I will do as they request. I will take that walk, and I will never return.”

  Yet he persisted in his efforts to encourage the villagers to change their ways. He began to take an interest in the history of the community, to inquire about its past. Packages arrived from bookshops, packed with obscure tomes. They were found in his study after his death, the pages prodigiously marked and annotated.

  The Reverend Rhodes’s body washed up upon the shore at Black Sands one week after his last missive was received, but the circumstances surrounding his death were never fully explained. For, you see, the Reverend Rhodes had not drowned, but suffocated. When his body was opened, his lungs were found to contain not water, but sand.

  But that was decades ago, and now the decision had been made to reopen the church at Black Sands. There was a duty upon the church and its clergy not to allow a community to exist without the light of the true faith to guide it. Even if the villagers chose to turn their backs to it, still that light would shine upon them, and it was given unto me to be its bearer.

  The chapel stood on a rocky promontory close by the seashore. Scattered around it were the weathered graves of those clergymen who had come here down the centuries, and had breathed their last against the sound of the waves crashing. The Reverend Rhodes was buried close by the western wall of the church, a small granite cross marking his final resting place. A path led from the rear of the chapel to the rectory itself, a modest two-story residence built from local stone. From my bedroom window, I could see the ghosts of the waves descending upon the dark shore, white on black. When they broke, it was as if the very sands had devoured them.

  The village itself was little more than a huddle of small houses spread over five or six narrow streets. There was a shop devoted to the sale of whatever the residents might require, from a cap to a cartwheel. Beside it stood a small inn. I gave my custom to each in that first week, and found that I was treated with a respectful caution, but made to feel neither welcome nor unwelcome. Both premises were owned by the unofficial mayor of Black Sands, a Mr. Webster. He was
a tall, cadaverous man with the manner of an undertaker measuring up a particularly impoverished client for a cheap casket. He politely declined my request to post times of services in both the inn and the shop.

  “As I said to your predecessor, we have no need of your presence here,” he informed me, with a half-smile, as he walked with me along the main street of the village. He was greeted warmly as we made our way. I, on the other hand, received only cursory nods. On occasion, when I glanced over my shoulder, I caught those who had passed us watching me and exchanging words.

  “I disagree,” I said. “Those who exist without God in their lives are always in need, even if they are unaware of it themselves.”

  “I am no theologian,” said Webster, “but it seems to me that there are many religions, and many gods.”

  I stopped short. This, after all, was heresy.

  “Yes, there are many gods, Mr. Webster, but only one true God. All else is superstition and the misheld beliefs of ignorant men.”

  “Really?” said Webster. “Am I an ignorant man, Mr. Benson?”

  “I, I cannot say,” I stammered. “In most things, you seem to me to be a most cultured man, yet in matters of religion you exhibit an almost willful blindness. The people of this village look up to you. Were you only to use your influence to—”

  “To do what?” he interrupted, and for the first time I saw real anger in his eyes, although his voice remained frighteningly calm. “To encourage them to follow a god that they cannot see, who promises nothing but pain in this life in exchange for the hope of some idyll in the next? As I have said, perhaps there are other gods than yours, Mr. Benson. Older gods.”