John Banville - Mefisto

— Oh, him, he said, don’t worry about him. He’s only a messenger boy.

The waitress came, a raw-faced country girl. Felix rubbed his hands. He was peckish, he wanted a fry.

— Rashers, he said. Sausages. Nice bit of liver.

The girl grinned at him in fright, biting her lip.

— I’m not supposed to serve you, she said.

Felix stared indignantly.

— Eh?

— Miss Swan says …

— Miss Swan? Miss Swan? You tell Miss Swan I’ll see her myself presently.

She hurried away, still nervously grinning. Felix winked at me. I looked out at the street, past our faint reflections on the window. He touched my arm.

— I say, old chap, don’t fret, he said. Not worth it, believe me. Forget what’s gone, that’s my motto. Cancel, cancel and begin again.

I was not jealous, not really wounded, even. I felt excluded. Through that crack in the door I had glimpsed a world, subtle, intricate, unsuspected, where I could never enter. Felix lighted up a butt and smoked in silence for a while, glancing at me with a contrite air.

— It was for your good, he said. Besides, you could have had her too. The hints I dropped! Still, you’re better off out of it, with that one. I should know, it was me that found her for him. That was the kind of job I had, is it any wonder I’m getting out?

He met my eye, and tittered.

— Yes, I know, he said shamefacedly, I found you for him too, didn’t I.

I thought of the marionettes, twitching on their strings, striving to be human, their glazed grins, the way they held out their arms, stiffly, imploringly. Such eagerness, such longing. I understood them, I, poor Pinocchio, counting and capering, trying to be real.

Felix rapped the table angrily with his knuckles and stood up.

— Well! he said loudly, if they won’t serve me, I won’t stay!

He threw his cigarette butt on the carpet and ground it under his heel, and took up his suitcase with a haughty flourish. In the doorway we met Aunt Philomena, with the grinning waitress behind her. Felix stepped back a pace, lifting his hat.

— Ah, he said, with a weak laugh, Miss Swan, so there you are.

She stood frozen-faced, her hands gripped before her, looking at the floor beside his feet. Me she ignored. There were crumbs of face powder clinging to the bristles at the corners of her mouth. She dismissed the waitress with a twitch of her shoulder. Her knuckles whitened. She said:

— There’s a matter I want to discuss with you.

Felix gave her his blandest smile.

— But of course, he said. Only, not now. In a hurry. Train to catch.

There was silence. She would not budge out of the doorway. Still with her eyes fixed on the floor she turned her peremptory shoulder an inch in my direction. I squeezed past her. The waitress, loitering in the lobby, gave me a conspiratorial wink. Behind me Felix was saying:

— What? Savings? What? Oh but my dear, I’m sorry, that was in the nature of an investment, I thought you understood. You’re not the only one, after all …

I waited in the street, and presently he came out, shaking his head.

— Phew! he said. See what I mean? No sense of humour. They can’t wait to get in on a thing, then the first minute it goes wrong they bring out the knives, bawling for their pound of flesh.

He laughed, and clapped me on the shoulder.

— But not you, eh? he said. No, not you.

We walked up Owl Street, under the flying spire. The hens were squawking in the poulterer’s yard. Before us the town drifted in the mist.

— Come with me, Felix said, why not? We could be a pair, you and me. He says you have a great future, really brilliant. He’d know, he had a brilliant future too, one time. Ha!

He led me along Goat Alley, down the slimed steps, to the quayside. The sea was calm, mud-coloured.

— By the way, he said, I brought you something.

He opened the suitcase on his knee, and brought out Mr Kasperl’s big black notebook.

— Keep it, he said. As an awful warning. And listen, take my advice, stay clear of him. He’s finished. His time is up. The two of them, finished.

We reached the station. His train was in. He skipped nimbly aboard, swinging up his case, and turned and leaned out the window. The whistle blew.

— Goodbye, he said, winking. Auf Wiedersehen.

Then the train started with a jolt, and he was carried away down the platform, waving, smiling, past the signal box, and the signal, and into the long, descending curve of Coolmine.

Cancel, yes, cancel, and begin again.

Ashburn was silent. I walked through the empty rooms, under the high, shadowed ceilings. A broken shutter, rotting floorboards, a prospect of trees. In the studio the marionettes lay where Sophie had left them, asprawl under their cardboard canopy. How cleverly she had managed the likenesses, D’Arcy’s hair, Uncle Ambrose’s shiny head, my blank mask, and Mr Kasperl’s eyes, those blue eyes that watched me now, impassive as ever. No, not impassive, but as if from a great way off, so far away he could hardly make me out. She was the same, that same remote gaze. She was smiling. She rose to her feet with a rustle, a muffled clatter. Mr Kasperl hung behind her, breathing. I spoke. They could not answer. How could they answer? How silent everything was, suddenly, teetering there on the brink. Then a kind of thrumming began under my feet, faint at first, growing rapidly louder, a great drum-roll out of the earth. The floor sagged, groaning, and with a crash collapsed. The fat man and the girl sank slowly, as if into water instead of flame. His blue eye. Her smile. My hair was on fire. A red roar came up out of the hole, and I flew on flaming wings, clutching my black book, through smoke and dust and splintering glass, into the huge, cold air.

O LAMIA, MY DEAR, my darling, Lamia, my love. How diligent you were, how well you cared for me. I can see you still, your smooth skin of tenderest mauve, your insides white as white, your name in wonderfully clear, minute print, and that coy little letter R, enclosed in a ring, like a beauty spot on your glossy cheek. You melted under my tongue, you coiled yourself around my nerves. What would I have done without my Lamia, how would I have borne my season in hell? There were others that ministered to me, but none that gave such succour. Here is Oread, white nymph of forgetfulness, and Lemures, the deadeners, like little black beans, and skittish, yellow-hued Empusa, hobgoblin to the queen of ghosts. They are angels of a lesser order, but precious for all that.

I slept, it was a kind of sleep. Deep down, in the dark, an ember of awareness glowed and faded, glowed again. A word would enter, or a flash of light, and ramify for hours. I was calm, mostly, feeling nothing. Outside the dome of numbness in which I lay I sensed something waiting, like an animal waiting in the darkness. That was pain. Pain was the beast my angels kept at bay.

They came to me, my guardians, in endless file down their transparent ladder, into my arm, when at last I opened my eyes I saw the sun shining in the plastic bag above me, a ball of white fire streaming outwards in all directions. The room was white, a thick cream colour, really, but it seemed white to my eyes, so accustomed by now to black. Splinters of metallic light coruscated on walls and ceiling, like reflections from a glittering sea.

Water. The thought of water.

At first I was a mind only, spinning in the darkness like a dynamo. Then gradually the rest of me returned, rolling up its sleeves and spitting on its hands with the grim enthusiasm of a torturer. I watched the liquid in the plastic tube, a fat tear trembling on its steadily thinning stalk. Then the stalk snapped, the drop fell. Pain pounced.