Jonathan Barnes - The Somnambulist

A few yards away sat a chap with an eyepatch and a ragged red hole where his nose ought to have been; his neighbor was a man with half an arm who seemed subject to repeated bouts of violent shakes and shudders. Close by sat a scrawny fellow whose face resembled that of a dog or badger in the aftermath of an especially bloody fight.

Dedlock wriggled in his chair, feeling suddenly uncomfortable and out of place. Giving in gratefully to temptation, he took off his tie, unbuttoned his shirt and stripped naked to the waist to reveal a body criss-crossed by a pair of gargantuan milk-white scars. He passed his fingers over their deep indentations, caressed their worn, familiar lines. The man with the pipe looked over and nodded approvingly. Dedlock reached for his cigarettes and settled back in his chair, a rare smile of contentment on his face, home at last.

When he awoke, the room had grown silent, dark and empty. Dedlock’s first thought as he stretched himself into a vague approximation of consciousness was a question: why had the man with the eyebrows not woken him? He felt stiff and uncomfortable and his joints ached from sitting too long in the chair. He rubbed his eyes and was giving serious thought to clambering to his feet when he became uncomfortably aware that he was being watched.

“Who’s there?” he asked, his fingers fumbling for the revolver he kept concealed in his waistcoat, only to remember, too late, that he had stripped half-naked in a show of solidarity with his fellow Survivors.

“You’re awake,” said a voice.

“Who is it?” he asked again.

A figure moved toward him and Dedlock thought he could make out two others flanking the first.

“Do you know who we are?” said a second voice.

“Can you guess?” said a third. Each of the three men spoke with a different, distinctive accent. Together, they were instantly recognizable.

“I know who you are,” Dedlock said, pins and needles pirouetting up and down his spine.

“Bet you didn’t think we were real,” said the first man.

“I knew.”

One of them laughed and the others joined in.

“Mr. Dedlock?”

The scarred man swallowed hard, determined not to show his fear. “Yes?”

“We’ve been hearing stories. Something about a conspiracy, a plot against the city.”

Dedlock cleared his throat and tried to force himself to speak as levelly and calmly as if he were delivering a report to one of the innumerable boards and committees to which he was accountable. “The Directorate knows of a threat to London. We have our man investigating — Edward Moon. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.”

In the blackness, three men shook their heads as one.

“Dedlock?” We need you to be certain. Has this anything to do with the Secret? Is the Secret out?”

A cold trail of sweat snailed its way down his back. “The Secret is safe.”

“You realize what would happen if it were to get loose?”

Another voice. “This affair would seem a storm in a teacup in comparison.”

Dedlock could no longer tell which of the men was speaking. “I promise you, the Secret is safe. Even Mr. Skimpole doesn’t know.”

“It’s imperative it stays that way.”

“You have my word.”

Even though it was pitch black, Dedlock felt certain that all three of the men were smiling and that the smiles they wore were not benign ones. “Then we must place our faith in that.”

Then with a rustling, clicking sound, the three were gone. Curiously, Dedlock found that he no longer had any desire to lever himself out of his chair, but fell asleep again almost immediately, the encounter already fading into dream.

When he woke again, the birds were singing.

Pity Mr. Skimpole.

Ann odd request, I know, given his previous showing as a blackguard. But it would take a heart of stone not to feel sorry for him as he trudged forlornly home to Wimbledon, his breathing ragged and irregular, unsteady on his feet, weaving as he walked like a drunkard trying to persuade himself he’s sober. There was something terribly beleaguered about him, something Sisyphean and doomed.

He let himself into his little house and almost called out his son’s name, only stopping when he realized that today was a school day, that he was at his lessons and — if the tales the boy had told him were true — was even now the subject of whispered jibes and catcalls. The albino sympathized. His own school days were a blur of sneers and note-passing, name-calling and impromptu playground beatings, all the petty humiliations and habitual cruelty of childhood.

As if in reaction to this unsought nostalgia, Skimpole felt another rending deep in his stomach, another surge of agonizing pain. He staggered to a chair, sucking in wheezy lungfuls of air, struggling to stay calm and trying not to think about the implications of his distress. But he knew all too well the meaning of the slimy tugging in his guts, had realized its significance from the moment Slattery had expired on the floor of the Directorate. Time was getting away from him — a few days were all that were left to him now — and he was determined to make the best of that time, to leave a legacy of which he might be proud.

I will be remembered , he decided, as he sat, grim-faced, too weak to move, as the blood thundered through his head and the pain welled up again. I will be remembered .

These were his final thoughts before he drifted into an uncomfortable sleep, a merciful release from pain. He woke to find his son standing before him.

“Dada? What’s the matter?”

With an enormous effort of will, the albino pulled himself upright in his chair. “Nothing. Nothing’s the matter. Just napping, that’s all. How was school?”

The boy looked awkwardly away.

“Come here.” Skimpole patted his knee. His son limped across the room and clambered awkwardly onto his lap. The child had almost become too large for such treatment, but this was an old, much-loved ritual they were loath to surrender lightly. Skimpole pulled him closer and, trying not to betray the merest flicker of his own discomfort, began to sing — crooning a familiar lullaby, a favorite since infancy. The boy laughed and smiled. In the soft cadences of his father’s voice all the horrid travails of school were forgotten, and for a few sweet, fleeting moments, Mr. Skimpole smiled, too.

You will recall that, at the beginning of this narrative, I promised there would be several points in the story at which I would tell you a direct lie. I’ll be honest and confess that this is one such juncture. Everything you have just read concerning Mr. Skimpole and his crooked child is a fiction.

Gruesome old sentimentalist, aren’t I?

Back to the truth. More often than not, the Somnambulist did not appear to require food at all; the pleasures of the dinner table were a foreign country to him and he would go for days or weeks without so much as a morsel passing his lips. But on those irregular occasions when he appeared to require sustenance, he invariably ate in style.

Late in the morning after Barabbas’s death he sat in the hotel dining room enjoying a leisurely breakfast, ladling pink strips of bacon into his mouth, shoveling in egg, tomato, bangers and fried bread and washing it all down with glass after glass of milk. Moon had yet to put in an appearance and the Somnambulist had been more than happy to scoff his meal for him in his absence. A number of other guests, put off by the giant’s noisy mastication, had given him their own plates, still brimming with the greasy bulk of a Full English, with the result that by the time he was finished the Somnambulist had polished off the best part of five or six separate courses. Wondering what was for lunch, he gestured to a nearby waiter. The man walked reluctantly across, disdain etched upon his face.