The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

After a moment or two an enormous face appeared on the opaque screen. It filled the wall.

‘Miss Cheeta?’ it said.

‘Shrivel yourself,’ said Cheeta. ‘You’re too big.’

‘Ha, ha, ha!’ said the huge face. ‘I keep forgetting.’

The face contracted, and went on contracting. ‘Is that better?’ it said.

‘More or less,’ said Cheeta. ‘I must see Father.’

‘Your father is at a conference,’ said the image on the screen. It was still over life-size, and a small fly landing on his huge dome of a forehead appeared the size of a grape.

‘Do you know who I am?’ said Cheeta in her faraway voice.

‘But of course … of …’

‘Then stir yourself.’

The face disappeared, and Cheeta was left alone.

After a moment she wandered to the wall that faced the cod’s-eye screen, and played delicately across a long row of coloured levers that were as pretty as toys. So innocent they looked that she pressed one forward, and at once there was a scream.

‘No, no, no!’ came the voice. ‘I want to live.’

‘But you are very poor and very ill,’ said another voice, with the consistency of porridge. ‘You’re unhappy. You told me so.’

‘No, no, no! I want to live. I want to live. Give me a little longer.’

Cheeta switched the lever and sat down at the black table.

As she sat there, very upright, her eyes closed, she did not know that she was being watched. When at last she raised her head she was annoyed to see her mother.

‘You!’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘It’s absorbing, you know,’ said Cheeta’s mother. ‘Daddy lets me watch.’

‘I wondered where you got to every day,’ muttered her daughter. ‘What on earth do you do here?’

‘Fascinating,’ said the scientist’s wife, who never seemed to answer anything.

A big arm came across the screen and thrust her aside. It was followed by a shoulder and a head. The father’s face suddenly swam towards Cheeta. His eyes flickered to and fro to see if anything had been altered. Then they rested on his daughter.

‘What do you want, my dear?’

‘Tell me first,’ said Cheeta, ‘where are you? Are we near each other?’

‘O dear no,’ said the scientist. ‘We’re a long way apart.’

‘How long would it take me to …’

‘You can’t come here,’ said the scientist, with a note almost of alarm in his voice. ‘No one comes here.’

‘But I want to talk to you. It’s urgent.’

‘I will be home for dinner. Can’t you wait until then?’

‘No,’ said Cheeta, ‘I can’t. Now listen. Are you listening?’

‘Yes.’

‘Twenty years ago, when I was six, an expedition set out to plot out territory in the south-west. We found ourselves bogged down and had to give up. On our return journey we came unexpectedly upon a ruin. Do you remember?’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘I am questioning you in secrecy, father.’

‘Yes.’

‘I must go there today.’

‘No!’

‘Yes. But who will guide me?’

There was a long silence.

‘Do you mean to have the party there?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Oh no … no …’

‘Oh yes. But how to find him. Who was he? The man who led the expedition long ago? Is he alive?’

‘He is an old man now.’

‘Where does he live? There is no time to waste. The party is close upon us. Oh hurry father. Hurry!’

‘He lives,’ said the scientist, ‘where the Two Rivers join.’

Cheeta left him at once, and he was glad, for Cheeta was the only thing he feared.

Little did he know that someone more to be feared was making his way, all unknowing, in the direction of the factory. A figure with a wild light in his eyes, a five day growth on his chin, and a nose like a rudder.

NINETY

It was not long before Cheeta ran the old man to ground, and a tough old bird he proved to be. She asked him at once whether he remembered the expedition, and in particular the unhealthy night that the party spent at the Black House.

‘Yes, yes. Of course I do. What about it eh?’

‘You must take me there. At once,’ said Cheeta, recoiling inwardly, for his age was palpable.

‘Why should I?’ he said.

‘You will be paid … well paid. We’ll go by helicopter.’

‘What’s that?’ said the septuagenarian.

‘We’ll fly,’ said Cheeta, ‘and find it from above.’

‘Ah,’ said the old man.

‘The Black House … you understand?’ said Cheeta.

‘Yes, I heard you. The Black House. South-sou’east. Follow the knee-deep river. Aha! Then west into the territory of the wild dogs. How much?’ he said, and he shook his dirty grey hair.

‘Come now,’ said Cheeta. ‘We’ll talk of that later.’

But it was not enough for the dirty old man, the one-time explorer. He asked a hundred questions; sometimes of the airborne flight, or of the machine, but for the most part of the financial side which seemed to be his chief interest.

Finally everything was settled and within two hours they were on their way, skimming the tree-tops.

Beneath them was little to be seen but great seas of foliage.

NINETY-ONE