I fell through the darkness, tumbling slowly, biffed and butted by half-chewed tomatoes and boulders of Rice Crispies which rained down like a meteor shower. It came as no surprise to me to discover that my former games teacher bolted his food, but the revelation that he ate Rice Crispies in the afternoon was a dagger to my heart. Down and down I fell into the abyss. Then there was a splash and for a while I was unconscious.
I woke up on the shore of an inland sea, washed up like a Robinson Crusoe, above my head a domed, cavernous roof. The water lapped gently, rocking me back and forth; the surface sparkled like a moonlit lake. I crawled up the beach, which had the texture and polished, bulbous surface of lamb kidney. I struggled to my feet. Up ahead I saw a light flickering and moved towards it. The noise of conversation reached me, the light began to dance and resolve into flames. A group of women were gathered round a fire, three old crones with Punch-and-Judy hooked noses and hair wilder than the quills of a porcupine. They were stirring a cauldron set on a tripod over a fire of brushwood. The flashes from the fire revealed in brief half-glimpses sparkling pac-a-mac coats above blue suede orthopaedic boots. They were singing:
You can burn my house, you can steal my car
Drink my liquor from an old fruit jar
But don’t you step on my blue suede ’paedies . . .
As I approached they stopped stirring their cauldron and turned to me.
‘Hssst! He comes!’
FIRST CRONE
All hail, Louie Knight, Thane of a caravan in Ynyslas.
SECOND CRONE
All hail, Louie Knight, Thane of Stryd-y-Popty.
THIRD CRONE
All hail, Louie Knight, Mayor of Aberystwyth.
LOUIE
What nonsense you talk, weird sisters. Aberystwyth already has a mayor.
FIRST CRONE
Has yes, and soon will have anew.
More to the point, ’twill be you.
LOUIE
It is an honour that I dream not of.
SECOND CRONE
Oh yes, that’s what they all say.
ALL (Singing)
You should have been a chimney sweeper,
Your bottom warmed by fire.
Instead you were a dirty peeper
With a halo and lyre.
The fire went out, and suddenly there was silence, except for the far-off din of the giant’s heartbeat.
‘Tarry a while, midnight hags!’ I said. ‘I would talk with you.’ But the only answer was the echo of my own voice returning to me from the white cliffs of rib.
I continued walking. My eyes grew accustomed to the dark and I came upon a hall and in the centre of the room a vast round table; around it were seated boys in the decaying cobwebs that had once been school uniforms; their arms were wires of pale flesh poking like coat hangers through the torn shirts. Their eyes had the stare of dead fish. All of them were there, all those boys whose notes from their mums had been rejected over the years, preserved at the age they’d been when they’d run out across the threshold of this world. A boy put a gentle hand on mine. I looked round. It was Marty.
‘Hello, Louie,’ he said.
‘Marty!’ My voice rasped with awe.
‘I told them you would come, but they didn’t believe me.’
‘Where are we?’
‘With friends.’
‘I dreamed I was eaten by Herod Jenkins.’
‘It was no dream, Louie.’
‘What’s the table for?’
‘We are the Counsel of the Swallowed. You mustn’t fret. It’s not so bad here.’
‘What do you do?’
‘We do what we can, Louie.’
One of the wraiths, his face half-obscured by the black webs of his decaying school cap, piped up, ‘We have found a way to give him indigestion.’
I backed away and walked off to the far corner of the room, where an arched door led onto a spiral staircase of stone slabs. I began to climb. It led to another great hall where I met Doc Digwyl wearing a nightshirt and carrying a candle. He greeted me excitedly and told me to follow him. The steps stretched high up into the blackness. He climbed and I followed, higher and higher. Occasionally he would stop and turn and beckon as if we were pressed for time. Higher and higher we climbed; the air got thinner and a wind whistled past. A faint disk of light appeared above our heads, like the moon through thick cloud. We reached a landing and a door opened leading onto a chamber. Miaow, wearing a pointy Rapunzel hat and carrying a suitcase, ran out and gasped when she saw me. ‘Louie!’
‘Come, there is no time,’ said Doc Digwyl, ‘the fight is about to begin.’ He grabbed my arm and pulled.
‘Oh Louie, I’m sorry,’ said Miaow. ‘Everything’s turned out wrong, I’m so sorry.’
‘You’re leaving?’
‘I have to, Louie. I’ve explained it all in the letter. It’s on the table, next to the Jack Daniels. I knew you would find it there.’ She pointed behind her to a writing bureau.
The doc pulled more vigorously and I found myself following him but looking back in dismay, yearning to return to Miaow and the letter.
‘Don’t forget,’ cried Miaow waving. ‘On the desk.’
‘Read it later!’ shouted the doc, ‘We must hurry.’
We continued to climb. The light above our heads grew stronger and acquired an outline in the shape of a disk; the disk became more distinct and turned into a cave entrance. I followed the doctor in. We found ourselves in a cavern the colour of seaside rock, made from pink, translucent flesh; the walls were smooth and curved in giant whorls like those of a satanic cockleshell. The walls spiralled up to a hole in the roof from which daylight streamed. Water dripped from the walls making discordant sounds like a kitten dancing on a xylophone.
I looked up and around at the cavern walls.
‘What do you think?’ he asked in a reverential whisper.
‘It’s . . . it’s eerie.’
‘Yes, precisely. That’s where we are: in the giant’s ear.’
‘Why have you brought me here?’
‘Follow me!’ He took me by the hand and dragged me into the cavern. In front of us on a raised dais there was a hospital bed upon which lay a girl in a wedding dress being attended by anxious nurses.
The bride groaned and a nurse placed a compress on her brow. She looked at me and waved feebly. It was Chastity. ‘I didn’t see you at the wedding, Louie.’