8. Drunken Delirium
Elsie paid the bill for Abel’s hospital stay, of course. Once he was out he took up residence in her flat. He had no job now so couldn’t pay any rent. Elsie lived round the corner from me, I saw Abel hanging about Barons Court and West Kensington, there was something lost about him. He made friends with my neighbour Steve, the transvestite I told you about, I think it was their shared love of alcohol. Abel started to spend his nights and days round Steve’s flat in drunken delirium. Occasionally they ventured out to the Coop, Steve dressed in high heels and furs. They made a strange couple, brought alcohol and intimidated customers.
One day, after Elsie hadn’t seen Abel for five nights running she went round there at 2pm and knocked on the door. She waited, she knocked again. A howl came from within, then the sound of locks being unfastened, eventually she was confronted by a man in a stained white lace blouse, and a pair of grey pants one size too big, which he was partially hanging out of. He had long greasy hair hanging down in rats tails, he was so thin and so waisted one touch and he’d have fallen like a leaf. It was Steve. He’d obviously been asleep and she’d woken him.
“Where is Abel?” she asked
“Wha?”
“Abel”
“Da?”
He beckoned her in. She was reluctant, the place stank of rot and seemed covered with newspaper, but she was worried about Abel. She stepped through the doorway and into the house.
“Tea!” cried Steve, who seemed to be coming round a bit
“Er, no thanks”
Steve put the kettle on, swigged from a bottle of gin and placed two teabags in two dirty mugs.
“Where is Abel?” She tried again.
“Who?…Oa…”
Then slowly “I’ve seen im, I’ve ad im round here.”
The kettle boiled, he tried to pour it but missed. Tried again with more success and handed Elsie half a cup of black tea with teabag still in it and a spiders web decorating the rim.
“Is he here now?”
“Na, gone, gone”
“Gone where?”
“ There. Needed his tablets”
“What tablets?”
“His tablets, yer can get em there, they can get anyfing for yer there. it’s the tunnels see. But they’ll charge, not money, other stuff”
Elsie had two contradicting thoughts simultaneously:
1. “Oh no, what’s happened to him? I must find him!”
2. “Bloody idiot, why am I running after him? I’m not his mother!”
She stood there in the slime covered kitchen, her dark blonde hair covering half her face, a frown appearing over the top of her large brown eyes.
” I’m a lesbian you know” said Steve
Elsie took this as a sign to leave.
7. Hallucinari
The Patient, 12ft x 8ft Oil Painting
Sometimes to pretend that everything is alright when it quite obviously isn’t is the most logical thing to do. Sometimes it is the only thing to do. When the carpet has turned into snakes that are curling round your legs, when the patterns on the wallpaper are growing wings and flying off, when there’s a goat in your bath and David Cameron’s head is emerging from your toilet, it is often best just to take a deep breath and carry on. In fact to the experienced hallucinator this becomes the habitual practice, life would not seem quite right if one wasn’t continually ignoring things and pretending. Life has its rules, if you experience something that logically can’t be there then pretending it is not there is the logical thing to do. Of course this can get tricky, especially to the new comer, I have read many an account of an acid victim whose mind gets lost in the “what to ignore and what to take note of” reality whirlpool. Yet riding the whirlpool can be so addictive!
Abel, despite being a newcomer, was a talented pretender. Perhaps this was one of the reasons for his slide downwards, he was too good too quickly. Where as an experienced hallucinator has often learnt to ride through the descending waters out of sheer necessity, over the years, sink or swim, Abel had an option, he could have turned back.
He could have asked Elsie for help. She would have helped him, she could have guessed what was about to happen. But Elsie loved him just a bit too much for him to ever love her back. He kept his distance, he could see every problem he ever told her instantly become her personal problem. This closeness made a bubble of nauseau pink enclose him and steal his breath.
So it was that at 2am on February 8th 2020, Abel was found unconscious on the floor of the factory. Stuffed in his pockets they found 18 bottles of Spletzer-Martin 5, and one empty. The hospital pumped his stomach. The company, who had noticed increasing amounts of Spletzer-Martin tablets going missing from their pharmacy, made no statement but deleted him from the payroll instantly.
6. Dread
Dread sat in the corner picking his nose. He was naked. A large man, his skin took on the colour of the shadows in which he sat, altering shades of grey throughout the day, a green tint, a blue tint, a touch of magenta. It could be best described as having that quality you get if you’ve been using watercolour paints but never bother changing the water. You dip the brush in, take it out and splodge it onto the thick pimply surface of the watercolour paper, the result you get is like Dread’s skin.
Abel had been seeing him in the corners for sometime now, particularly at work. At first he’d been afraid, a strange naked man appeared to be following him. No one else seemed to notice though. He didn’t dare ask people outright, he knew his colleagues thought him odd already.
He panicked, was this proof of his insanity? Then he came to the conclusion that even if he was mad, he couldn’t afford treatment so probably best just to keep on as normal and ignore Dread, everything would probably be alright.
Once he tried to talk to him, but Dread is a silent creature, the only noise he makes is a munching sound when he eats from his hands. Abel was not sure what he was eating, it appeared to be light.
Attempts at communication were given up. Gradually though, through some kind of thought osmosis, Abel knew that it was Dread, but dread of what exactly he didn’t know. He briefly mentioned it to Elsie once, but the look of terror in her eyes made him shut up. Still it left what felt like a large hole in his gut, and a churning feeling that made him manic when in public. It didn’t help that his diet now mainly consisted on Spletzer-Martins and alcohol.
After six months of Dread hanging around, Abel was getting used to him. At work in the early hours of the morning Dread was somehow a more comfortable companion than those all seeing, all knowing eyes in the machines.
Next – 7. Hallucinari
Previous -
Illustrations for Angela Carter’s Bloody Chamber
-
- Cover Design
-
- “And he kissed those blazing rubies, too.”
-
- ” Grasping the slack of her neck firmly between my teeth, I gave her the customary tribute of a few firm thrusts of my striped loins”
-
- ” He strips off his shirt”
The Further Adventures of the Spletzer-Martin No. 5 – update
A Time Machine
I let the Spletzer Martin out of its cage too early, as it turns out I am having a brain operation now, and I’ll need the Spletzer Martin as an obsession during the long tedious hours of waiting. It can’t really involve anyone else at this period, a private daydream.
Though I’ll still post the story up on this blog, makes me actually start to write the thing.
I think I’ll do the recording session in May, presuming I’m all ok and the glue sticking my brain together is holding.
I have almost pinned down what it is I think: An illustrated animation/film with experimental soundtrack, to be produced as a run of 100 in cd format presented in an origami box. You can do origami in a hospital bed you see, and possibly animation if i can find a suitable app.
Yes. thats what it is, settled then. I think…
Miss Roberts’ New Year Resolutions
1. Use real time instead of imaginary and so get to things on time.
2. Learn to throw stuff away, the wardrobe of single, hole ridden socks will never turn into cuddly door insulating snakes.
3. Accept that tidying will always be with you, it will NEVER end!
4. Don’t loose your temper. This was my resolution for last year and I kept it pretty much, didn’t even loose it when my mum kicked Killer (my dog, also known as Monty) across the kitchen floor this Christmas.
5. Try not to be scared of big monsters, giants and hospitals.
6. Take Killer for walks in the morning instead of the afternoon.
7. Never stop practicing drawing, printing, piano, accordion, singing, harmonica…
8. Remember – decorative glitter was created by the devil!
Giant Monster Flowers
5. Slapdash
Harmonica player outside Baron's Court Station
There’s a woman standing outside Baron’s Court tube station playing, or rather attempting to play, a harmonica. I’ve seen her here before, she hangs out at Baron’s Court Housing project where they do free meals. She wears a wig and theatrical makeup. I thought at first she was a transvestite, like my neighbour Steve who goes to the Coop in stilettos and a mini skirt, but apparently not.
My other slightly more sober neighbour tells me she is an old theatre performer, been out of work for years though, a drinker with mental health issues. “A right care in the community that one” say’s my neighbour “a real special“.
The story goes that she was having medical treatment for a congenital brain disease during the privatisation of the NHS. She could’t afford to continue the treatment with the specialist hospital so ended up going through the Charity Care system. The hack-up job the church hospital did was well meaning but naive and slapdash, her memory was blown to pieces.
This is all just rumours you understand, but she is quite mad!
Still, she stands there at Barons Court station feather bower and all, screaching out lunacy and blowing down that poor old harmonica. The Station manager occasionally moves her along but she’s back the next day. On Sundays she is particularly enthusiastic, her words seem to take on a hell fearing vigor as she denounes the Sunday shopping public.
Next – 6. Dread
Previous -
4. Eyes in the Machines
Abel held his breath, closed his eyes, and counted backwards from 10. When he opened them the machines were still looking at him. Big, metalic, shinning creatures, he wasn’t sure where their eyes were, but they definitely had eyes.
Was it his boss spying on him? New company policy to monitor staff ? Or the government tracking him? All seemed very possible, yet there was something else, something in the machines themselves, that knew him.
At first he’d thought he was delusional but now he knew it was more real than anything else he’d ever experienced. Not only were they looking at him from the outside, they were inside him as well, they could see his thoughts, they could taste the ingredients of his being.
He was coming to the end of his 40 hour shift. It hadn’t been so bad, though he’d had to take another one of those Spletzer-Martins. They were meant to keep you going for 40 hours no problem, but he always found he was flagging after 35. Not that it was tiring work, just rotating those huge machines, but failing to do it properly could muck up the whole network which would be catastrophic. Yes, better that he sneak an extra bottle of Spletzer-Martins from the office pharmacy now and then, than risk the whole network going down.
Elsie told me he was worried about debt, working long shifts to pay it off. It is a relief that one can do that now, what with these new tablets, just keep working and working till you pay off all your debts, as long as you resist the temptation to get new ones come pay day.
Next - 5. Slapdash
Previous -
2. Abel
3. Underlondon
Sketch of a rat on the back of an Individual Learning Plan
Please Note – I cannot be held responsible for what may happen to you should you follow my instructions.
At Baron’s Court Station, after you’ve been past the barriers, take the left staircase down to the west bound platform. At the bottom of the staircase quickly swing yourself off the platform and on to the track.
You’ll find a small pebbled area running along side the track only just wide enough for you to walk along. Walk east, the opposite direction to the trains, towards Earls Court. About 50 metres from the station the tracks separate, the District line stays above ground and the Piccadilly goes underground. Follow the Piccadilly track. You’ll find, once your eyes become accustomed to the dark, that its quite easy to walk along here, sticking closely to the walls of the tunnel for safety.
As you feel your way along you’ll relise that there are lots of openings and gaps in the tunnel wall. About 12 metres into the tunnel you’ll find an opening slighly larger than the others and that if you run your fingers along you won’t come to the wall, but to more and more open space. You can crouch down and squeeze yourself into it, but I wouldn’t advise it yet, not till you know more about its methods and madness.
This is a connecting passage, there are many of them and they connect between the different tunnel networks sprawling under London. So, as a traveller of Underlondon you can go from lost rivers and sewers, to jewel deposit chambers, from nuclear hideouts to the passageway running from the Harrods shop to its warehouse, the old Post Office underground railway to escape passages from the palace. You can in fact get almost anywhere in London via these passages, going unnoticed by the masses above you.
One might think that with todays fear of terrorism and the monitoring of almost everything these passages would be shut off or atleast heavily guarded, but no. Dark, damp and rat ridden they are protected by, as Douglas Adams named it, an SEP field (somebody else’s problem), making them impossible to detect by anyone who isn’t deliberatly trying to find them.
And who in there right mind would want to find them? For here be monsters!
Next – 4. Eyes in the Machines
Previous -
2. Abel
He knows there is blood covering his wrists and the palms of his hands, but something tells him if he keeps his fingers crossed and doesn’t look at it it won’t be real.
So far his theory seems correct as no one else has noticed. Most people are ignoring him.
He looks like a tramp, he is a tramp, and no one wants to look closely at a tramp. The tube station is carrying on it’s normal 5 o’clock rush and the only person who is curious is the newspaper vendor.
Abel just has to get to the station exit turn the corner and then he can slump down in the graveyard for a while. Hopefully.
Baron’s Court is such a nice polite London station, a place you go to watch tennis.
Next – 3. Underlondon
Previous - 1. What YOU Need!
