Best British Short Stories 2018 Page 2

  I prided myself on being erudite – such puny accomplishments are very satisfactory – and my ignorance concerning Burton’s work was a serious lapse in my literary learning. So, Melancholy bound, I made my way down some narrow side streets, ill-lit by bleary lampposts, where I knew I would find a number of barrows of second-hand books, and where I hoped to find the work in question. The first two barrows revealed a great deal in the nature of melancholy, but not Burton’s. At the third, which was overshadowed by the towering bulk of a surly woman vendor, who eyed me as suspiciously as though I were a notorious nihilist, I found the book I was looking for. Or books – for it was in three volumes. But they were wedged behind a tall black volume which I found necessary to remove in order to reach them.

  I daresay I was clumsy, or perhaps Angus chose that particular moment to tug on his leash and jerk my arm. At any rate, Angus or no Angus, my hand slipped from the black book which, having been dislodged, fell with a thud on to the muddy pavement, its binding being badly stained in the process. I remember thinking, in spite of my vexation, that the fat woman was no doubt proud of having suspected me of evil intentions from the start, for I was certainly proving myself to be no ordinary customer.

  I picked up the book, and seeing how badly damaged it was, I thought it only civil of me to buy it off her, though many of her books were in more distressing conditions. She accepted my offer grudgingly, and had the impudence to charge me an extra 6d on the original two shillings. Being hardly in a position to argue, I allowed her to engulf my half crown and departed with my new acquisition under my arm . . . and the Anatomy still skulking dismally in its barrow.

  When I got home to my flat – which I shared with my most faithful and congenial of friends, Arnold Barker, with whom I had seen two wars and a prison camp in Germany – I inspected the book I had just purchased. Arnold was out at the time, so I had the flat all to myself. I dreaded so the fearful trash which would have disgraced my library – some cheap romance that would make me shudder. But the binding calmed my fears: no romantic author would have chosen thick black leather to garb his story. The title in gold print was hardly discernible.

  I opened the book and felt a little shiver of pleasant anticipation run down my spine. In bold black lettering, ornamented with fantastic arabesques à la Cruikshank, the title displayed itself to my eyes: Le Dictionnaire Infernal by J Collin de Plancy, 1864. It was in French, which pleased me all the more, as my knowledge of that language was more than fair, and it was full of weird, humoristic and infinitely varied engravings by some artist of the middle of the last century.

  I perused it avidly and rapidly acquainted myself of its contents. An Infernal Dictionary it was, written in a semi-serious, semi-comical style, giving full details concerning the nether regions, rites, inhabitants, spiritualism, stars reading, fortune telling etc, which, as the author informed us, all had to be taken cum granu salis. I hasten to say that I in no way dabbled in demonology, but this book, though certainly dealing with the black arts, was harmless to so experienced a reader as myself. And I looked forward to several days of pleasant entertainment with my unusual discovery. I pictured Arnold’s face as I would show him my find, for the occult had always fascinated him.

  I skimmed the pages once more, smoothing out those which had been crushed in the fall – or perhaps before – when my fingers encountered a bulky irregular thickness in the top cover of the book. The fly leaf had been stuck back over this irregularity, and gummed down with exceedingly dirty fingers.

  To say that I was puzzled would of course be true. But I was more than puzzled: I was very intrigued. Without a moment’s hesitation, I slipped my penknife along the gummed fly leaf and cut it right out; a thin piece of folded paper slipped out and fell onto the carpet at my feet. What made me hesitate just then to pick it up? Nothing apparently, and yet fully ten seconds elapsed before I took it in my hand and unfolded it. And then my enthusiasm was fired, for the folded sheets – there were three of them – were covered with music: music written in a neat, precise hand, in very small characters, and which to my experienced eyes appeared very difficult to decipher.

  Each sheet contained the three different parts of a trio – piano, violin and cello. That was as far as I was able to see – for the characters being very small and my eyes not so good as they had been, I could not read very much of it. I was, however, thrilled; childishly, I must confess, I hoped – even grown men can be foolish – that this might be some unknown work from a great composer’s hand. But on second perusal, I was quickly disillusioned. The author of this music had signed his name: P Everard, 1865, which told me exactly nothing, for P Everard was quite unknown to me.

  The only thing that intrigued me considerably was the title of the trio. Still in the same neat hand, I saw the skilfully drawn figure of a naked man seated on the back of a dromedary, and read, ‘In worship of Paymon’ underlining the picture.

  It may have been a trick of the light, or my imagination, but the face of the man was incredibly evil, and I hastily looked away.

  Well, this was a find! However obscure the composer, it was interesting to find a document dating back to the nineteenth century, so well preserved and under such unusual circumstances. Perhaps its very age would make it valuable? I would have to interview some authorities on old manuscripts and ascertain the fact. In the meanwhile, the temptation being very great, I set about playing the violin part on my fiddle. My fingers literally ached to feel the polished wood of my instrument between them and I was keenly interested at having something entirely new to decipher.

  Propping up the violin part on my stand – the paper, though thin, was very stiff and needed no support – I attacked the opening bars. They were incredibly difficult and at first I thought I would not be able to play them, although I can say without boasting that I am more than a mere amateur in that respect. But gradually I got used to the peculiar rhythm of the piece and made my way through it. Strangely enough, however, I felt intense displeasure at the sounds that were springing from my bow. The melody was beautiful, worthy of Handel’s Messiah, or Berlioz’s L’Enfance du Christ, for it was religious. Yes, religious: and at the same time it seemed only to be a parody of religion, with an underlying current of something infinitely evil.

  How could music express that, you may wonder. I do not know, but I felt in every fibre of my body that what I was playing was ‘impure’ and I hated as much as I admired the music I was rendering.

  As I attacked the last bar, Arnold Barker’s startled voice broke in my ear. ‘Good God, Greville, what on earth is that you’re playing? It’s terrible!’

  Arnold, in all his six-foot-three of ageing manhood, brought me out of my trance with his very material and down-to-earth remark. I was grateful to him. I lowered my fiddle.

  ‘Well, I daresay it could be better played,’ said I, ‘but it is amazingly difficult.’

  ‘I don’t mean you played it badly,’ Arnold hastily interposed. ‘Not by a long chalk. But . . . but . . . it’s the music. It’s wonderful, but extraordinarily unpleasant. Who on earth wrote it?’ He took off his mist-sodden coat and hat, and picked up one of the two remaining sheets of music.

  As he scanned it, I explained my little adventure, and how I had come into possession of the unusual manuscript.

  The book did not appear to rouse much interest in him: his whole attention was centred on the sheet of paper he was holding. As I was finishing speaking, he said, ‘This appears to be the piano part: I could try my hand at it, and accompany you. Though, as you say, it appears to be extraordinarily difficult . . . the rhythm is unusual.’

  He was puzzled as I had been, and I watched him as he seated himself at the piano and played the first opening bars. He was a born pianist: these short competent hands, as they stretched nimbly over the keys, were sufficient proof of that. The only defect in his talent that had prevented him from making a career of it was his deplorable memory and total incapacity to play anything without the music under his eye
s. Now, he did not appear to find his part difficult – not as I had done. Of course, the piano, in this trio, merely featured as an accompaniment, a subdued monotone which now and then picked up the main theme of the piece and exercised variations upon it.

  Arnold played the piece half-way through, then stopped abruptly. ‘Of course my part is rather dull,’ said he. ‘It needs the violin and the cello to bring it out. But, well . . . I don’t mind admitting that I don’t like it. It’s . . . uncanny . . .’

  I nodded in agreement.

  ‘What do you make of the man’s name?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘As far as I can tell, the name Everard has never become famous in the music world, and yet the man was gifted, for this piece has rare qualities. It reminds one of some strains of The Messiah, and yet . . . well, there’s just that something in it that makes it all wrong.’

  ‘It’s peculiar,’ I admitted. ‘Extraordinary luck my finding it. I suppose it has been in the binding of that book since the date when it was written. But why was it . . . well . . . I should say “concealed”? I can’t think. And what about that dedication? Who is Paymon?’

  Arnold bent closer to the picture, and I noticed him suck in his breath as in some surprise. He straightened himself up and cast me rather a furtive look. ‘I don’t know,’ he mused. ‘Paymon . . . and “in worship” too. Somebody this fellow Everard must have been frightfully fond of. But have you noticed the expression on the man’s face? It’s rather unpleasant.’

  ‘Evil is more like it – the man was an artist as well as a musician. It’s very odd. I will have to take this manuscript to old Mason’s tomorrow and see what he can make of it. It may have worldwide interest for all we know.’

  But, the following day being a Sunday, I did not care to trouble my old friend with my mysterious manuscript, and I spent my time, much to my reluctance, practising my part of the trio. It fascinated me, and yet repelled me in every note I drew across the strings. When I looked at that small, hideous picture, I felt as though a cunning little devil had got inside my fingers and compelled me to play against my will, with the notes dancing and jumbling before my eyes, and the weird strains of the music filling my head and making me loathe myself for yielding to that strange force.

  Late in the afternoon, Arnold, who had been strangely moody as he listened to me from the depths of his favourite armchair, rose to his feet and came over to where I was playing. ‘Look here, Greville,’ said he. ‘There is something definitely wrong with that music. I feel it, and I know you do too. I can’t analyse it, but it is there all the same. We ought to get rid of it somehow. Take it to Mason’s and tell him to do what he likes with it, or burn it, but don’t keep it.’

  I was stubborn. ‘It may have its value, you know,’ I remonstrated. ‘And, after all . . . it’s really beautiful.’ And I wondered at myself for praising something which I loathed with all my heart.

  ‘Yes, it’s beautiful. But it’s bad. Don’t lie to yourself – you think so too. I have been watching you all the time you were playing, and by Heaven, if anyone seemed to be in absolute terror of something, that person was you. That thing’s infernal – I’ve a good mind to destroy it here and now!’

  He seized the three sheets that were lying on the violin stand and made as though to throw them into the fire. But I stayed his hand and murmured quite feverishly (and quite, it seemed, against my will), ‘No! Not just yet. After all, it’s a trio, and we have only played two parts of it. If we could get Ian McDonald to come round this evening with his cello, we could play the whole thing together – just once, to hear it as it should be played. And then . . . well . . . we can destroy it.’

  ‘Ian? That boy will be scared stiff!’

  ‘Scared? Of what? Of a few notes on a sheet of paper eighty-five years old? You’re being foolish, Arnold. We both are. There’s nothing wrong with the music at all. It’s weird, uncanny perhaps, but that’s all that’s to be said against it. So is Peer Gynt for that matter, and yet no-one would dream of being scared by it, as we are by this trio . . .’

  Arnold still looked very doubtful, so I pressed my point.

  Why, I wonder now . . . why was I so eagerly enthusiastic about my find, when deep down in my mind I felt a lurking fear of it, as of an evil thing that polluted whatever it touched? I detested it, and yet that little naked figure on the dromedary’s back held my senses in a kind of spell and made me talk as I was now doing: without my being able to control my thoughts and voice as I wished.

  ‘After all,’ I argued, ‘this is my discovery, and it’s only natural that I should wish to know what the whole effect of the trio is like. As we’ve played it – you and I – it was, well, lop-sided. It needs the cello to complete it. And, you said yourself when you first heard it that it was beautiful!’

  ‘And ghastly,’ Arnold added sulkily, but he was clearly mollified. He perused his part of the trio once more.

  On the three sheets was repeated the detestable little figure, and I noticed that Arnold kept his hand carefully over the wicked face, and on replacing the sheet on the music stand, he averted his eyes. So, that drawing held that strange influence over him, too? Perhaps . . . perhaps . . . there was something after all.

  But Arnold prevented any further speculation.

  ‘All right,’ he said, in a resigned voice. ‘I’ll go round and collect young Ian. But remember, I take no responsibility.’

  ‘Responsibility? What responsibility?’ I asked.

  Arnold looked embarrassed. ‘Oh, I don’t know. But if . . . well . . . if this blasted trio upsets the lot of us, I want you to know that I wash my hands of the whole thing from this very minute.’

  ‘Don’t be a damned idiot, Arnold,’ I said with some heat. ‘I never knew you to be so ridiculously impressed by a piece of music. You’re as silly as a five-year-old child!’

  I felt my inner thoughts battling against the words I uttered.

  The little man on the paper seemed to grin at me, and I suddenly felt physically sick. I turned to stop Arnold, but he had already left the room, even as I opened my mouth to speak to him. I heard the clang of the front door as he slammed it. I regretted my insistence. I hated myself for having persuaded Arnold to fetch Ian, and, obeying a sudden impulse, I seized the papers and prepared to throw them into the smouldering fire. The little man’s eyes on the paper followed mine as I moved, as though daring me to carry out my intention. I stopped and stared at the grinning face . . . and I replaced the sheets on the music stand, with a thrill of unpleasant fear running down my spine.

  Arnold was away some time. When he came back, he had brought Ian with him and between them they carried the latter’s cello – a very beautiful instrument in a fine leather case. Ian, compared to both of us, was a mere child: he was barely twenty-eight, with a gentle, effeminate face and a weak body that was greatly at a disadvantage beside Arnold’s towering strength and healthy vitality. But he was a fine fellow for all his physical deficiencies, and in spite of the difference in our ages, we were all three the best of friends, brought together by our common interest in music. Ian played in various concerts and was an excellent cellist.

  I greeted him warmly, for I was very fond of him, and before showing him the music, made him feel quite at home. But Arnold had probably put him on his mettle, for almost at once, he asked me what this blessed trio was about, and why we were so eager to play it, and why we made such mysteries about it?

  ‘Arnold told me it was beautiful and awful all at the same time, and quite a difficult piece even from my point of view, which I presume must be taken as a compliment. I don’t mind admitting I’m keen to play it.’

  Arnold grunted his disapproval from behind the thick clay pipe he always smoked, and I felt a guilty qualm in my mind that for some reason made me hesitate. As Ian looked a little surprised, I overcame my reluctance and, taking up the old manuscript, handed it to him. He looked at it carefully for several minutes without uttering a word, then he handed back the pi
ano and violin parts, keeping the cello part, and remarked, ‘It ought to be deuced good, you know. Yes, that is quite a find you’ve made there, Greville, quite a find. But what an unpleasant little picture that is at the top. It is quite out of keeping with the music, I’ve a feeling.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ Arnold murmured. ‘I can’t say I agree.’

  Ian looked up in some surprise, and I, sensing some embarrassing question concerning the music, rose to my feet and said, ‘Well, since we are all ready, there’s no sense in wasting time talking. Let’s get to work.’

  There was little time wasted in preparing our instruments. Ian was eager and in some excitement; I was, for some strange reason, peculiarly nervous; Arnold, I noticed with a little irritation, was moody, and placed himself at the piano with a good deal of ill grace. Why did he accept to play his part so grudgingly, I wondered as I tuned my fiddle. After all, this was just a piece of music like any other. In fact, it was more beautiful than many I had heard and played. Surely his musician’s enthusiasm would be fired at being given such scope to express itself! For this trio, in its way, was a masterpiece.

  I ran a scale and looked at the little man; the name Paymon in that neat, precise hand danced before my eyes and made me blink. I would have to stop my eyes wandering to the picture if I wanted to play my part properly. But wherever I looked, the man on his dromedary seemed to follow me and leer at my futile efforts to evade him. I glanced at Ian and noticed that he was looking a little annoyed.