chapter thirteen

Frank's existential nausea is swept away by a chance encounter with a bit of decorative pottery

The Demi-Monde


The bar was situated at the periphery of the newly fashionable docks area. Property developers had bought up the decayed warehouses and tenements along the quays over the preceding dozen or so years and converted them into loft spaces, third generation offices and coffee shops. The school in which the rotten meat that had been intended as Frank VII was a this moment melting, stood like a slightly bewildered dinosaur amongst the raging gentrification because it belonged to a trust the unravelling of which was already occupying a second century of lawyers. Unfortunately for the developers, but happily for Frank, the disused wharf was at the edge of the area farthest from the city centre and the property boom had crashed magnificently only six months ago. The result was an immaculate bar in a superb industrial concrete finish, housing the finest beers, wines and coffees and boasting comfortingly warm jazzy muzak. The only customers were increasingly desperate real estate agents, temporary office workers and four or five characters who thought of themselves as bohemians during the few hours between eleven and two when they were only partially inebriated.

Frank had no such delusions. He had been many things in his several lifetimes, and drunk was nowhere near the worst. He enjoyed the sordid thirst with its utter lack of discernment in satisfying itself as a more pure version of the lusts he had exploited in his victims over his preceding lives. Today, as had become his habit, breakfast was a glass of tempranillo accompanied by chick peas and chorizo. Old habits die hard, and although it cost him the equivalent of a small bottle of Polish over-proof spirits, he still had some standards.

The German sculptor, working on procuring her third husband, a tired American who believed he was using her for sex, approached the bar. Frank was slightly afraid that she would attempt conversation, but fortunately she had forgotten his terse rudeness of the previous night and could think only of wine. He returned to the excellent tapas and then became dimly aware that the sculptor, having received her glass of chardonnay, was engaging the barmaid in conversation about a small model figurine.

“…in Listowel.”

“What were you doing down in Kerry?” asked the barmaid with little interest.

“I was hoping to get some of my pieces into a gallery down there. It’s run by a collective so I went to meet a committee.”

“And did they take anything?”

“Yes, they are showing some children’s furniture, a couple of chairs in ash. While I was there I bought this elf from the artist. Quaint isn’t it?”

Frank looked at the figure, a rotund elf about 15 centimetres in height. It was made with great attention to detail; even the glasses had silver painted frames and real lenses. The face was enigmatic and somehow familiar. He felt cold sweat run behind his right ear. It was more than familiar; it was an accurate image of someone he knew well, someone who was involved in the disaster that was Frank VI. Douglas Hudson was presently serving a life sentence for his part in the cannibal ring that had also included Kevin McNamara and the dwarf known only as Wibz. Now his image, made more disturbing by the fairytale costume, was smiling coldly at the customers in the bar. Frank only enjoyed abstract art and certainly detested this kind of decorative nonsense, but he attempted as much enthusiasm as possible in addressing the sculptor.

“What a charming piece. I have some friends with children who would love one. Do you know how I can get hold of the artist?”

“Just a moment,” she replied, searching in her handbag. “Yes, here’s her card.” Frank took it and one glance confirmed his suspicions: Kay McNamara, Artist, Blue Gamp Gallery, Chapel Street, Listowel, County Kerry. The door was firmly closed on his short career as an alcoholic. Self preservation and the desire for revenge energised him utterly, sweeter than any wine. He gave the card back to the sculptor with a genuine smile. He knew he would never see her or any of the other sad members of the Demi Monde again. Tomorrow he would leave his disgusting bed-sit, but tonight he must plan. It is rare that a man gets the chance to avenge his own murder, and Frank’s genius demanded that his vengeance be beautiful, elegant and magnificently violent.

chapter twelve

The Fishing Hole

In 1866 Frank, then aged five, watched particles of ice form miniature continents on the kitchen window. He had been monitoring the relief map for some months, had named the landmasses, created inhabitants and forms of government for each one. He had also developed histories, cultures, religions and languages but felt uncomfortably aware that these owed too much to his father’s personal history and Norway’s difficult past century or so. In short Frank was already beginning to tire of Art-for-Art’s sake, and wanted to find a more practical arena in which to exercise his imagination.

Shifting his focus he noted that his mother and father continued to fuck upon the permafrost whilst two huskies sniffed at their discarded clothes. After a few more minutes his father stood, brushed ice and grit from his back and ignoring his clothes, marched towards the house. Frank’s mother meanwhile took handfuls of powdery snow and rubbed it into her face, neck, and then methodically into her entire body. It was a post-coital ritual which Frank believed to be common amongst the females of her tribe. His father, although an enthusiast for most things Sami, preferred a hot bath as a way of restoring the circulation to his extremities after love-making.

To his great surprise, and slight annoyance as he was still engrossed in a developing naval conflict between two southern ice continents, Frank’s father called him into the bathroom. The geographical theme continued as his father’s knees and face rose up, islands above the water and beneath the tropical steam; the beard undulating like a mass of seaweed and the pink tip of his penis some kind of buoy.

“I’m sure you agree with me that it is right that domestic duties should be shared equally amongst the family; at least in the modern, enlightened family,” he began, his booming voice echoed by the pine panelling of the walls and at once muffled by the dense steam. “We, that is your mother and I, have decided that you are ready to help in the gathering of foodstuffs.”

“But I do manage the vegetables,” retorted Frank, proud of his herb garden and unique method of propagating root vegetables in gravel under glass-topped igloos.

“I am referring to something rather more active than that!” his father laughed without derision. “Today you are coming with me to get fish.”

Frank thought about the ochre flaps which hung in the pantry. As far as he was aware fish came on the occasional ship from Russia or Norway that made an unscheduled stop at Edgeøya because the captain had been at college with his father. He knew that they once lived; why else were there bones in amongst the tough salty fabric of which they were made?

“Is there a ship coming?” he asked. Again the laugh; warm, protective.

“No, we will find the fish ourselves. I have made a fishing hole. We shall be patient hunters.” The water cascaded from his huge body as he emerged from the bath and reached for a towel. “And we shall go now. Your mother deserves a rich meal tonight. Together we will catch, prepare and cook for our wild empress.”

Frank was astonished at this sudden door opening into his life. He tasted his ignorance and from that moment on savoured the unexpected as the salted herring which hung in the Edgeøya pantry. He rushed to put on his coat, gloves and boots, and within ten minutes father and son were tramping across the impossibly hard ice towards one of the many bays on this side of the island.

They stood on a ridge and watched the ocean smacking massively black into the rocks fifty metres below. Frank was impressed. In later lives he was to meet people who lived by terror, but he would forever be able to anaesthetise fear by visualising that particular spot in the Arctic Sea. His father turned and seemed to disappear into the ice. Frank hurried to see what had happened and saw that there was a steep path; steps cut into the ice leading down to some mysterious destination, and his father standing just below him, arms outstretched, waiting for him to follow.

Frank considered the peril, tried to balance it with the intellectual excitement of discovering what it was to get fish, and then felt himself short circuited by what he later found other people called love and trust. He leant into space and fell, almost senseless into his father’s arms.

At the foot of the steps there was a shelf of rock beneath which the viscous sea boomed ceaselessly. His father took two balls of cord, gave one to his son, and played the other into a dark crack in the ground, fitting steel hooks to the twine every half metre or so. When it was fully unwound he wrapped it about his left wrist, inside the heavy glove, and attached the hooks as Frank let his own line down into the crevasse. Then they sat, breathing, smiling; sharing a common purpose, incredibly safe from the thumping of the sea which produced irregular falls of ice from above.

Frank caught his breath as he felt the strong tug on the line. His father just raised his right hand and the gesture calmed the boy. He relaxed and the line kicked twice. He noticed his father smiling and every now and then mouthing the Sami word for yes. He copied; mouthing the same word each time a new sudden pull was transmitted along the cord. Time passed, It was summer so there would be no night as such, but the faint twilight deepened the blue of the sky which could be seen above the jagged edge of the crevasse. At last his father spoke.

“This place is only accessible for a couple of weeks if the summer is especially kind. We will come again tomorrow should the weather permit it. Now, let us bring in the catch.” He freed his wrist and began to pull up the line, twisting fish after fish from the hooks as he did so. Frank could not wait, he knew his line was likewise heavy with the silver creatures, and he methodically brought them up and added them to the slippery pile that grew between the father and son.

Finally the lines were both clean and rewound. Frank’s father took a knife from his pocket. “You don’t have to do this,” he said, and he slit the belly with one pass of his hand, and on the return twisted to deposit the innards directly into the sea. Frank watched him empty three more fish and then felt a surge of knowledge and power. He opened his hand and was given his own knife. His father was forgotten in the blinding intensity with which a five year old enjoys the repeated process of evisceration. He had loved his father unconditionally for a few hours; this other pleasure was going to last for several lifetimes.

chapter eleven

Kay's father is in a bad way.

Reinforced Glass

From the point of view of the dimensions of light the crystal lattice is neither dark nor pale; it is a sphere where colour is meaningless. Sucking the focus from the glass the disc is immeasurable but somehow sensed; flat, grey. A swarm of jet coalesce into a vertical path, hardening and intersecting horizontals. Reflections now obliterate the glass according to the deliberate imperfections of manufacture; but at the same time the blue definition of the circle appears, and with it the comfort of perceived space.

Within a white grub burrows ceaselessly into the equally white mattress of a wall. It is the patient, a term so appropriate that it has shed its meaning; the patient who rocks his white jacket against the colourless fabric of the air. His life and crimes are recorded digitally, brought freshly into the ward by each visitor like a daily dose of refreshing venom, carbonising his veins, making ash of his neurons, powdering the desiccated material of his brain.

Twice a day he is inspected and his sanitary needs addressed. There is a tube inserted directly into his bladder, but waterproof padding is taped about him to contain other waste. When removed it is always clean, and yet within seconds he evacuates upon the changing mat. The psychiatrists insist he has no sense of external stimulus, and yet it is only the removal of the diaper that prompts the outflow. The nurses feel nothing by profession; they have experienced much worse, and they know he cannot be doing it consciously, it is automatic, not an intended action. It signifies nothing.

Kevin has forgotten his name, his nationality, his aspirations. He breathes, he rocks and twice a day he excretes. He excretes his crimes and his sense of self. He excretes life. He excretes his memories. He excretes guilt and innocence; this is amoral shit. This is not just shit. This is not unjust shit. He excretes tiny ephemeral molecules of Kay. The victims all passed this way years ago, but she can never leave until he himself dissolves in the flames and his ashes float upon the convection currents from incineration to the same place without dimension that only light inhabits.

Kevin thinks of nothing, and in detail that means he thinks of his place on that convection current. He rocks through the falling of the light and the night and the creeping dawn. He rocks with a regularity which stops the clocks; even age fails here. He has already embraced the rising mote of breathless air. He cannot feel, but he feels only the searing heat which strips the bones as he falls.