Unseen Academicals

It’s a bit harsh to call anybody a denizen, but the people who lived and worked in the candle vats fitted the word to a T. The vats were, in fact, their den. If you ever saw them anywhere in the underground maze, they were always scuttling very fast, but most of the time they just worked and slept and stayed alive. Nutt was lying on an old mattress with his arms wrapped tightly around himself. Glenda took one look and turned to the troll. ‘Go and find Mister Trev,’ she said.

‘Can’t find Mister Trev,’ said the troll.

‘Keep on looking!’ She knelt down beside Nutt. His eyes had rolled back inside his head. ‘Mister Nutt, can you hear me?’

He seemed to wake. ‘You must go away,’ he said. ‘It will be very dangerous. The door will open.’

‘What door is that?’ she said, trying to remain cheerful. She looked at the denizens, who were watching her with a kind of meek horror. ‘Can’t one of you find something to put over him?’ The mere question sent them scurrying in panic.

‘I have seen the door, so it will open again,’ said Nutt.

‘I can’t see any door, Mister Nutt,’ said Glenda, looking around.

Nutt’s eyes opened wide. ‘It’s in my head.’

There was no privacy to the vats; it was just a wider room off the long, endless corridor. People went past all the time.

‘I think you may have been overdoing it, Mister Nutt,’ said Glenda. ‘You rush around working all hours, worrying yourself sick. You need a rest.’ To her surprise, one of the denizens turned up holding a blanket, quite large parts of which were still flexible. She put it over him just as Trev arrived. He had no choice about arriving as Concrete was dragging him by the collar. He looked down at Nutt and then up at Glenda. ‘What’s happened to him?’

‘I don’t know.’ She raised a finger to her head and swivelled it a little, the universal symbol for ‘gone nuts’.

‘You must go away. Things will be very dangerous,’ Nutt moaned.

‘Please tell us what is going on,’ said Glenda. ‘Please tell me.’

‘I can’t,’ said Nutt. ‘I cannot say the words.’

‘There are words you want to say?’ said Trev.

‘Words that don’t want to be said. Strong words.’

‘Can’t we help?’ Glenda persevered.

‘Are you sick?’ said Trev.

‘No, Mister Trev. I passed an adequate bowel motion this morning.’ That was a flash of the old Nutt — precise, but slightly odd.

‘Sick in the head?’ said Glenda. That came out of desperation.

‘Yes. In the head,’ said Nutt. ‘Shadows. Doors. Can’t tell you.’

‘Is there anyone who can cure that kind of sickness?’

Nutt didn’t answer for a while and then said, ‘Yes. You must find me a philosopher trained in Uberwald. They will help the thoughts come straight.’

‘Isn’t that what you did for Trev?’ said Glenda. ‘You told him what he was thinking about his dad and everything, and that made him a lot happier, didn’t it, Trev?’

‘Yes, it did,’ said Trev. ‘And there’s no need to elbow me in the ribs like that. It really did help. Couldn’t you be hypnotized?’ he said to Nutt. ‘I saw a man in the music hall once and he just waved his shiny watch at them and it’s amazing the kind of things they did. Barked like dogs, even.’

‘Yes. Hypnosis is an important part of the philosophy,’ said Nutt. ‘It helps to relax the patient so that the thoughts get a chance to be heard.’

‘Well, there you are, then,’ said Glenda. ‘Why not try doing it on yourself? I’m sure I could find something shiny for you to wave.’

Trev pulled his beloved tin can out of his pocket. ‘Tra-la. And I think I’ve got a piece of string here somewhere.’

‘That is all very well, but I would not be able to ask myself the right kinds of questions because I will have been hypnotized. How the questions are posed is very important,’ said Nutt.

‘I know what,’ said Trev. ‘I’ll tell you to ask yourself to ask the right questions. You’d know what questions to ask if it was someone else, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes, Mister Trev.’

‘You didn’t need to hypnotize Trev,’ Glenda pointed out.

‘No, but his thoughts were close to the surface. I fear that mine will not be so easy to access.’

‘Can you really be hypnotized to ask yourself the right questions?’

‘In The Doors of Deception, Fussbinder did report on a way of hypnotizing himself,’ said Nutt. ‘It is conceivably possible …’ His voice trailed off.

‘Then let’s get on with it,’ said Trev. ‘Better out than in, as my old granny used to say.’

‘I think perhaps that it is not such a good idea.’

‘Didn’t do me any harm,’ said Trev robustly.

‘The things that I do not know … The things that I do not know …’ muttered Nutt.

‘What about them?’ said Glenda.

‘The things that I do not know…’ said Nutt, ‘I think are behind the door, because I think I put them there because I think I do not want to know them.’

‘So you must know what it is you don’t want to know?’ said Glenda.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, how bad could it be?’ said Trev.

‘Perhaps it is very bad,’ said Nutt.

‘What would you say if it was me?’ said Glenda. ‘I want the truth, now.’