The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

As Titus turned and saw her, he recoiled from her pathos. He could not bear it. He saw in her a criticism of his own defection. He suddenly hated himself for such a thought and he half rose from his seat in an agony of confusion. He loathed his own existence. He hated the unnatural from whose platter he had supped too often. The face of Muzzlehatch grew large in his mind. It filled him. It spread deeper. It filled the coloured plane. It filled the heavens. Then came a voice to join it. Was it Muzzlehatch with his eyes half closed upon his rocky cheekbone?

Titus shook his head to free his brain. Anchor glanced at the young man and tossed a hank of red hair from his eyes. Then he stared again at Titus.

‘Where are we going?’ he said at last. But there was no reply.

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY

The darkness fell and the little craft sped on like an insect in the void. Time seemed to be a meaningless thing; but dawn came at last, its breast a wilderness of feathers.

The red-headed pilot seemed to be slumped over the controls but every now and again he shook himself and adjusted some device. All about him were the intricate entrails of the yellow machine; a creature terrible in its speed; lethal in its line; multitudinous in its secrets; an equation of metal.

Juno was fast asleep with her head on Titus’ shoulders. He sat in stony silence while the slim plane whistled through the air.

Suddenly he sat forward in his seat, and clenched his hands. A dark flush covered his brow. It was as though he had only just heard Anchor’s question.

‘Did someone ask where we were going? Or am I dreaming? Perhaps it is all a figment of my brain.’

‘What is the matter, Titus?’ said Juno, lifting her head.

‘What is the matter? Is that what you said? So you don’t know either? Neither of you know. Is that it? Have we no destination? We are moving, that is all; from one sky to the next. Is that what you think? Or am I mad? I have drowned my birthplace with rant until its name stinks to heaven. Gormenghast! O Gormenghast! How can I prove you?’

Titus banged his head down upon his knees over and over again.

‘Dear God! Dear God!’ he muttered. ‘Don’t make me mad.’

‘You are no more mad than I am,’ said Anchor. ‘Or than any other creature who is lost.’

But Titus went on banging his head on his knees.

‘Oh Titus,’ cried Juno. ‘We will search until we find your heart’s home. Have I ever doubted you?’

‘It is your pity for me. Your damnable pity,’ cried Titus. ‘You do not believe. You are gentle, but you do not believe. Oh God, it is your terrible, ignorant pity. Don’t you see it is the grey towers that I want? It is my Doctor; it is Bellgrove. If I shout will she hear me? Turn off the engine, Mr Anchor, and I will call her out of the air.’ Juno and Anchor exchanged glances, and the engine was switched off. The slithering silence filled them. Titus raised his head to cry, but no sound came. Only within himself could he hear a faraway voice calling out … ‘Mother … mother … mother … mother … where are you? Where … are … you? Where … are … you?’

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE

Never knowing where they were, for they could see nothing but alien hills and a great unheard-of sea, yet, nevertheless, they had no option but to cruise ever deeper into the unknown.

They took it in turn to guide the sleek machine, and it was well that Titus took his share of the responsibility. To some extent it kept him from brooding.

Yet even then his mind was half aware. Childhood and rebellion … disobedience and defiance; the journey; the adventures and now a youth no longer – but the man.

‘Good-bye, my friend. Look after her. She is all heart.’

Before Anchor and Juno knew what was happening he pressed a button, and was a second or two later alone, falling through the wilds of space, his parachute opening like a flower above him.

Gradually the dark silk tent filled up with air, and he swayed as he descended through the darkness, for it was night again. He gave himself up to the sensation of seemingly endless descent.

For a little while he forgot his loneliness, which was strange, for what could have been a lonelier setting than the night through which, suspended, he gradually fell? There was nothing for his feet to touch and it was right for him to be, for the time, so out of touch in every kind of sense. And so it was with composure that he felt and saw the bats surround him.

Now lay the land below him. A vast charcoal drawing of mountains and forests. There was no habitation to be seen, nor anything human, yet the stark geology and the crowding heads of the forest trees were redolent of almost human shapes. It was among the branches of a forest tree that Titus eventually subsided, and he lay there for a little while unharmed, like a child in a cradle.