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  The Somnambulist

  ( Victoriana - 1 )

  Jonathan Barnes

  Jonathan Barnes

  The Somnambulist

  Chapter 1

  Be warned. This book has no literary merit whatsoever. It is a lurid piece of nonsense, convoluted, implausible, peopled by unconvincing characters, written in drearily pedestrian prose, frequently ridiculous and willfully bizarre. Needless to say, I doubt you’ll believe a word of it.

  Yet I cannot be held wholly responsible for its failings. I have good reason for presenting you with so sensational and unlikely an account.

  It is all true. Every word of what follows actually happened, and I am merely the journalist, the humble Boswell, who has set it down. You’ll have realized by now that I am new to this business of storytelling, that I lack the skill of an expert, that I am without any ability to enthrall the reader, to beguile with narrative tricks or charm with sleight of hand.

  But I can promise you three things: to relate events in their neatest and most appropriate order; to omit nothing I consider significant; and to be as frank and free with you as I am able.

  I must ask you in return to show some little understanding for a man come late in life to tale-telling, an artless dilettante who, on dipping his toes into the shallows of a story, hopes only that he will not needlessly embarrass himself.

  One final thing, one final warning: in the spirit of fair play, I ought to admit that I shall have reason to tell you more than one direct lie.

  What, then, should you believe? How will you distinguish truth from fiction?

  Naturally, I leave that to your discretion.

  Chapter 2

  We begin with Cyril Honeyman.

  Honeyman was a gross, corpulent little man, permanently sweaty, whose jowls flapped and quivered as he walked. His death is a matter of pages away.

  Please don’t get attached to him. I’ve no intention of detailing his character at any length — he’s insignificant, a walk-on, a corpse-in-waiting.

  But you should, perhaps, know this: Cyril Honeyman was an actor, and a bad one. And by ‘bad’ I mean more than simply incompetent. He was wholly and irredeemably awful, an affront to his profession, an ham who had bought his way into theatre and squandered on plum parts the vast allowance he was granted by his overly indulgent parents. At the time of his death he was preparing to play Paris in a production of Romeo and Juliet at some luckless fleapit desperate for cash, and on the night itself he was out carousing with the rest of the cast, the majority of whom were almost as wretchedly talentless as he. He left them around midnight, saying that he was returning home to work on his lines, though he had, in truth, a different destination and quite another pastime in mind. He walked for the best part of an hour, leaving the theatre district behind him and moving with clammy-palmed purpose toward one of the seamiest parts of the city. Just being there excited him. He enjoyed the sense of transgression it gave him, its whiff of illegality.

  He moved through the streets for what felt like an age, breathing in the noisome air of the place, reveling in the dirt and degradation of its inhabitants. The train station had been closed for hours, any respectable residents had long since retired to bed, and the streets found themselves given over to veniality and vice. Honeyman shook with illicit pleasure as he ventured further into this latter-day Gomorrah, through the darkened alleyways and thoroughfares lit only by the sickly, guttering light of the gas lamps. A mist had descended, lending the streets an eerie, phantasmagoric sheen, and the people Honeyman passed seemed vague and insubstantial, only partially real, like characters in a story book. They called out to him, begging for food or alms, promising clandestine pleasures or offering themselves for money, but Honeyman strutted past them all. He had been here too often, had become jaded and bored and accustomed to the sight of mankind sunk to its lowest and most degraded state. Tonight he sought new and baser pleasures. He wanted to fall further into corruption.

  Silhouetted beneath a gas lamp stood a figure of a woman. She was well dressed for her surroundings, a new bonnet perched decorously upon her head, and her figure, lissome and lithe, was lent emphasis by a dress which showed a good deal more flesh than polite company would ever have allowed. Her skin looked as though it had once been porcelain white, but now was pitted and scarred and crusting over with a layer of grime. The city was cruel to women like her.

  Honeyman drew closer and doffed his hat in greeting. Even beneath the greasy ochre of the lamp her youth and beauty shone through. A fallen woman, certainly — but only recently. A woman of the unfortunate type but one still new and fresh to the game.

  “Looking for something?” she asked.

  Honeyman stared back, his eyes licking her shamelessly. Surely, she couldn’t be more than eighteen. Almost a child.

  He gave a furtive grin. “Might be.”

  “Want to know how much?”

  He mumbled: “Go on.”

  “Enough to get me a bed tonight. That’s all I ask.”

  “My dear. You’re far too precious a thing to be dawdling out here. You’re a pearl amongst swine.”

  If she noticed his crude compliment she gave no sign. “Want to come with me?”

  “You have somewhere in mind?”

  “Somewhere safe. Private, like. So we can get more intimately acquainted.” Doing her best to play the coquette, the woman gave a crooked smile. She was tired, probably drunk, and the pretense was obvious, but Honeyman, his ardor now inflamed, saw only a lascivious girl, a wanton, a sylph waiting to be conquered. She moved away and he followed without thinking. Before long his thighs grew sticky with perspiration, rubbing uncomfortably together as he walked. He grimaced, half in pleasure, half in pain.

  “How much further?”

  “Not far.”

  They walked in silence for a time before the woman paused and pointed upwards. “There.”

  Honeyman stopped short as a vast structure reared out of the darkness above him — a thing horribly out of place in the modern age, perverse in its anachronism. Wreathed by the night, illuminated only by the anemic light of the moon, it resembled some primeval monument, a slab of Stonehenge wrenched from Salisbury Plain and thrust unaltered into the depths of the city.

  “What is it?” he whispered.

  She spat upon the pavement and Honeyman tried hard not to show his distaste at her vulgarity.

  “Don’t worry about that. You coming up?”

  “Up there? Why?”

  “Best place to do it.” Her client looked unconvinced. “You’ll like it,” she wheedled. “It’s more of a thrill this way. More exciting. More dangerous.”

  Honeyman gave in. “Let’s go up, then,” he said, and noticed as they drew closer to the tower that it appeared to be constructed entirely from a smooth, sheer metal which glinted ominously in the moonlight. The woman produced a key and let them inside, and Honeyman warily followed, taking especial care to bolt the door behind him.

  By the trickle of light from the street he could make out a spiral staircase winding upwards into pitchy blackness. The woman had already started to climb and he could hear her moving above him. Nervous, but spurred on by the promise of pleasure, Honeyman began his ascent, the handrail cold to the touch as he groped his way uncertainly up the staircase in the gloom. His companion refused to slow down and the actor found himself wheezing and short of breath as the climb went on for what felt like hours. To calm himself he began to recite some of his lines:

  “Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death,

  And therefore have I little talked of love,

  For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.

  Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous

  That she do give her sorrow
so much sway,

  And in his wisdom hastes our marriage

  To stop the inflammation of her tears.”

  As the words echoed around the tower, Honeyman, suddenly uneasy, fell silent. He sensed movement at the periphery of his vision, felt an irrational certainty that there were presences here other than the woman and himself. Suppressing a shudder, he moved on.

  He reached to top of the stairs and walked into an enormous room full to bursting with the very last thing he expected: profound, improbable luxury. A four-poster bed stretched out across the floor, a table beside it buckled beneath an immense feast, a bottle of champagne lay unopened and the air smelt sweet as though tempered by incense or perfume. The room’s sole window was made up of delicate, clear panes of glass held together by strips of lead, geometrically arranged — a window better suited to a church or chapel, to some forgotten cathedral, than to this ominous tower, this giant finger of fate raised in imprecation against the city. Honeyman walked across to admire the view. The streets lay spread out before him, the railway station crouched amongst them, the jutting spire of a nearby church glimmering in the moonlight.

  The woman stood behind him. “Not what you expected?”

  “How many men have you brought here?”

  She sighed — a low, guttural sound. “You’re the first,” she said and slowly began to unbutton her dress, revealing a tantalizing layer of petticoat. Honeyman bit his lower lip hard in excitement.

  “Take off your clothes,” she demanded.

  He wiped his forehead. “You’re impatient.”

  “Aren’t you?” She dealt with the last of the dress and set to work on her undergarments.

  Honeyman prevaricated. “She we have a drink? Seems a shame to waste such good champagne.”

  “Later.” She smiled. “I’ve a feeling you won’t last long.”

  Honeyman shrugged, then eagerly complied. He unlaced his shoes, kicked them aside, took off his tie, unbuttoned his shirt and trousers. Folds of fat and unexpected bits of skin kept getting in the way and it took him far longer than it ought, but eventually he stood before her naked, febrile and tumescent. To his disappointment she was still in her petticoat.

  “I want everything off,” he snapped. Then, with another involuntary nibble of his lower lip: “May I help?”

  The woman shook her head as from the street below there came a deep, sonorous, metallic sound as though something vast had struck the side of the tower.

  Honeyman felt a jolt of fear. “What was that?”

  She tried to soothe him. “Nothing. Nothing. All is as it should be.”

  He heard the sound again, louder this time, and Honeyman was afraid: “Someone knows we’re here.”

  As if on cue, a figure unfurled itself from the shadows in one corner of the room. “Cyril?”

  He spun around to confront the intruder — a grim, heavyset woman lost somewhere in the outer regions of middle age. He gasped at the sight of her. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes. “Mother?” He stared in horror. “Mother? Is that you?”

  A part of him refused to take in the sheer wrongness of her presence and he flailed desperately about for some reasonable explanation. The happy thought occurred to him that this might be the result of some especially fevered poppy dream — certainly it had about it all the garbled, wonderland logic of the opium den. Maybe he had overindulged in some Eastern dive or other and this was all a horribly vivid dream. An uncomfortable thing to endure, to be sure, and most likely a stern lesson in the perils of narcotic excess, but there was nothing dangerous here, nothing life-threatening. All this unpleasantness would pass away soon enough. Why, no doubt he’d come to at any moment to find himself slumped upon a divan, some concerned Oriental type shaking him awake to offer him another pipe or two. He closed his eyes, willing away this terrible mirage.

  When he opened them again his mother was still there, her thick arms folded like hunks of meat, wearing her angriest and most exasperated expression.

  “Mother!” he managed feebly. “Mother, what are you doing here?”

  “You always were a disappointment.” She sounded almost conversational, as though there were nothing at all extraordinary or remarkable in the scene. “Your father and I have become accustomed to your failures. But this…” She gestured vaguely around her. “This is too much.”

  “Mother…” Reality kicked hard against him, and faced with so unexpected and unprovoked an assault, Honeyman could do little more than whimper. He made an unsuccessful attempt to cover his nakedness with his hands. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Better you stay silent.” She turned to the fallen woman. “Thank you, dear. You may get dressed now.” The woman curtseyed and busied herself rearranging her skirts.

  Honeyman looked on, wide-eyed and terrified. From outside there came another tumultuous crash. “You knew?”

  His mother smiled.

  He heard the sound again, turned and peered from the window. To his utter disbelief and horror, a figure was climbing the tower, clattering noisily up the side of the structure, scuttling toward the top, crawling ever nearer as effortlessly as a lizard moves along a wall.

  Cyril wept. “Mother?”

  The figure came closer and a moment later a face appeared at the window, its nose squashed tight against the glass, its breath frosting the panes. It had the form, the size, the shape of a man, but there seemed no trace of humanity about it, as though it belonged to some other species all its own. Its sallow skin was covered in a multitude of vile gray scales which hung in grotesque flaps from its cheeks, lips, chin and eyelids, like molten cheese spread lumpily over toast. It was a face of melted candle wax.

  Honeyman was paralyzed by fear. The creature grinned evilly at him and began, quite deliberately, to pick away at the fragile strips of lead which clasped the panes together.

  Honeyman screamed, “Mother! It’s trying to get in.”

  She smiled benignly. The fallen woman, now fully dressed, appeared at her side and together they blocked Honeyman’s only possible route of escape. The figure picked away some more at the window. It may just have been Honeyman’s imagination, but he could have sworn that the creature was whistling cheerily as it worked.

  “Mother! Mother! Help me!”

  The thing at the window continued to work away, only minutes from getting inside as the lead came off with a horrible, piercing, scraping sound.

  “At least tell me why.”

  Through the cracks in the window, Honeyman could feel the cool night air scratching at his neck, tickling the back of his spine.

  His mother sighed. “You allowed yourself to be defiled. The city has corrupted you.”

  “I’d take it back, Mother. If I could. Oh please. I’d undo it in a heartbeat.”

  “We’re doing this for the poet, Cyril. This is his vision. And I doubt he’d consider you worthy of the merest shred of clemency.”

  Behind him, a bony finger poked its way into the room and tore away a section of the window. The thing dropped it outside and they heard it crash and splinter on the street below.

  “You really are a disappointment, you know. We had such high hopes for you.”

  “Mother, please. Whatever I’ve done — however I’ve disappointed you — I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  With impossible strength and apparently impervious to pain, the thing pushed aside the last of the glass and thrust its way into the room. It squatted athletically beside the actor and leered malevolently up at him, like some maleficent vision from Bosch stepped, still wet with paint, glossy and glistening, from the canvas.

  Mrs. Honeyman smiled again. “My the Lord have mercy on you.” She nodded at the creature, which leapt obediently to its feet and moved toward its victim, forcing him back against the shattered window. Honeyman screamed in anguish and mortal terror. He tried to mouth some final plea but before he was able to speak the monster was upon him, pushing him further and further back until, with a final, deceptively ge
ntle shove, Honeyman disappeared through the window altogether and sailed out into the cold, merciless air.

  He screamed all the way down. Seconds later, the creature followed suit, leaping out of the room, scuttling down the tower, darting away into the night.

  Upstairs, Mrs. Honeyman and the fallen woman linked hands.

  “God be with you,” said one.

  “God be with you,” echoed the other.

  Hand in hand, they left the tower and vanished into the city.

  Cyril Honeyman was still alive when they found him, his dying moments witnessed by a cluster of curious residents and a single police constable. It passed into local legend that his last words were also that of his final character:

  “O, I am slain! If thou be merciful,

  Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.”

  A ham, then, to the last.

  Chapter 3

  I do not like handsome men.

  Mostly this is jealousy, I know — this instinctive hatred of mine, this old, irrational animosity. When I compare my swollen flesh and pockmarked features with the supple frames of the young and the beautiful, I find myself achingly wanting. Even today, I am quite unable to look upon a comely youth without wishing to beat his exquisitely proportioned face into a bruised and bloody pulp.

  So you can scarcely imagine my joy when I realized that Mr. Edward Moon was losing his looks.

  All that silken hair, those perfect cheekbones, that preternaturally well-defined jaw — Moon had once been elegance personified, style and dash incarnate. But now, past forty and barreling toward his sixth decade with what felt to him like indecent haste, his appeal seemed at long last to have faded. His hair had started to thin and the keen observer could discern the first few flecks of gray. His face, already sagging and crinkled, had begun to display an inclination toward corpulence, had lost its handsome lineaments as the testimony of his sins and vices wrote itself across his features in lines and furrows and wrinkles.