Piranesi(45)

‘Oh, yes. As I said, I have an excellent memory.’

‘Oh, well, I … Will it take long?’ I asked. ‘Only I have to …’

‘It takes twelve minutes,’ he said.

‘Oh! Oh, OK. Sure. Why not?’ I said. I stood up. ‘I don’t have to take any drugs, do I?’ I said. ‘Because that’s not really …’

He laughed that rather contemptuous laugh again. ‘You’ve had a cup of coffee. I think that’ll be sufficient.’

He lowered the blinds of the windows. He took a candle in a candlestick from the mantelpiece. The candlestick was an old-fashioned brass one with a square base. It didn’t really match the rest of the furnishings in the house, which were modern, minimalist, European.

He got me to stand in the sitting room, facing the door that led to the hall. This area had been left free from furniture.

He picked up my messenger bag – the bag containing my journals, my index and my pens – and placed it on my shoulder.

‘What’s that for?’ I asked, frowning.

‘You’re going to need your notebooks,’ he said. ‘You know. When you get to the labyrinth.’

He had an odd sense of humour.

(Writing this, I feel a sort of terror descend on me. I know now what is coming. My hand is shaking and I must stop writing for a moment to try to control it. But at the time I felt nothing, no presentiment of danger, nothing.)

He lit the candle and placed it on the floor of the hall, just beyond the door. The floor of the hall was the same as the floor of the sitting room: a solid wood flooring in oak. I noticed a blotch where he put the candlestick, as if the oak there had been repeatedly stained with candlewax, and within the dark stain was an unstained lighter square into which the candlestick base fitted precisely.

‘You need to focus on the candle,’ he said.

So I did.

But at the same time, I was thinking about that pale square in the dark patch and the candlestick fitting into it. And that was the point at which I realised that he was lying. The candle had stood in that precise spot many, many times and he had performed this ritual over and over again. He still believed. He still thought he could reach the other world.

I wasn’t afraid, only incredulous and amused. And I started going over in my mind what questions I could ask him after the ritual in order to expose his dishonesty.

He turned out the lights in the house. It was dark except for the candle burning on the floor and the orange haze from the streetlights outside that penetrated the blinds.

He stood slightly behind me and instructed me to keep my eyes upon the candle. Then he began to chant in a language I’d never heard before. I surmised, from the similarities to Welsh and Cornish, that it was Brittonic. I think if I had not already found out his secret, I would have guessed it then. He chanted with conviction, with fervour, like he believed absolutely in what he was doing.

I heard the name ‘Addedomarus’ several times.

‘Close your eyes now,’ he said.

I did so.

More chanting. My amusement at discovering his secret sustained me for a while, but then I began to grow bored. He abandoned language altogether and seemed to drag out of himself a sort of animal growl that started in his stomach, impossibly deep, and grew higher, wilder, louder, more extraordinary.

Everything switched.

It was as if the world had somehow just stopped. He fell silent. The Berlioz was cut off mid-chorus. My eyelids were still closed but I could tell that the quality of the darkness had changed; it was greyer, cooler. The air felt colder and much damper, as if we’d been plunged into a fog. I wondered if somewhere a door had been thrown open; but that made no sense because at the same time the hum of London ceased. There was a sound of vast emptiness, and all around me waves were hitting walls with a dull thud. I opened my eyes.

The walls of a vast room rose up around me. Statues of minotaurs loomed over me, darkening the space with their bulk, their massive horns jutting into the empty air, their animal expressions solemn, inscrutable.

I turned in utter incredulity.

Ketterley was standing in his shirtsleeves. He was completely at his ease. He was looking at me and smiling as if I was an experiment that had gone surprisingly well.

‘Forgive me for not saying anything before now,’ he smiled, ‘but I really am delighted to see you. A young, healthy man is just what I wanted.’

‘Put it back!’ I screamed at him.

He began to laugh.

And he laughed, and laughed, and laughed.





PART 6


WAVE



I was mistaken!

FOURTH ENTRY FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST DAY OF THE NINTH MONTH IN THE YEAR THE ALBATROSS CAME TO THE SOUTH-WESTERN HALLS

I was sitting cross-legged with my Journal in my lap and the fragments in front of me. I turned away slightly, not wanting to soil any of them, and vomited on the Pavement. I was shaking.

I fetched Myself a drink of water, as well as a rag and some more water to wipe up the vomit.

I was mistaken. The Other is not my friend. He has never been my friend. He is my enemy.

I was still shaking. I had the cup of water in my hand, but I could not hold it steady.

I had known once that the Other was my enemy. Or rather Matthew Rose Sorensen had known it. But when I had forgotten Matthew Rose Sorensen, I had forgotten this as well.