Days in Whitby.
Tuesday:
After a morning spent on the modern side of town, I rejoined Sebastian at the hotel. Like an elderly couple in pyjamas, we have one room with twin beds. I forgot to ask what the arrangements would be when I agreed to come here. It turns out that Sebastian’s resources aren't limitless. I guess the hotel staff presume he’s my uncle or something. We ate a tough lunch at the hotel, and then headed out on foot, back from the valley, into the suburban spread, with only the signs for B+B’s, like merit badges on the houses, to remind me that the sea was close by.
Among the daffodils and crocuses around the front lawns of squat, brick homes with net curtains, was a briar patch of unmowed weeds, belonging to a rundown house with all the windows boarded over. Sebastian led me to the front door and pressed a buzzer. Without the intercom being used, the door clicked open and we stepped into a hallway cut off immediately by another front door. This was like an airlock for the sunlight – the second door had been fitted more recently, and it didn’t open until the first door was shut. Weeks of junk mail covered the black and white tiles beneath us. Beyond the second door there was a candlelit corridor with black curtains hung over woodchip wallpaper. I followed through the only door that was open.
More candles, gathered in six-packs, black of course, stood either side of an armchair dressed up like a throne. The walls were a deep red, and the floorboards had been painted with black gloss. Two hard cane chairs had been set out for us. In the armchair was a man who looked exhausted but thirty. He had long, blond, greasy hair all gathered down one side of his emaciated face. He wore black jeans and plated boots, a black jacket over a black cable-knit jumper. There was no heating in the house. He didn’t so much sit in the chair, as poise ready. It was like an American football stance, with his feet wide apart on the floor, leaning forward with one hand on his knee, his chin up, staring at each of us in turn. Sebastian introduced me.
“I have no name to give you,” the man explained. “We gave our old names away when we chose this path.” He went on, in a rambling way, about what his place was in the universe – which was unfixed, as far as I can tell. Or maybe divided.
I was only to meet him alone this time, but not because he was their leader. The others had trusted him to be their voice. They rarely spoke to strangers, but if he approved then the others would also see me. Not sure if this was all worthwhile, I asked if they actually had any information on Challoner. He would not answer me: they needed to decide whether or not I was worthy to be trusted first. “The path we have chosen requires such sacrifice that our secrets are not shared lightly… dark torments of the soul… the horror of a power beyond the reach of mortality…” I tuned out of a lot of what he said, snapping back as pronouncements of doom followed critiques of the middle classes. Things kept scurrying across the floor, living off the decay in the corners. There was a smell that kept distracting me too, of BO, mouldy food and stale dirt; no doubt the nameless one would call it the reek of humanity. Sebastian’s leg nudged mine and I roused to agree to meet him again the next night, which I shall do, but only for Sebastian’s sake. I don't know what the anonymous man thinks he is, but I've seen many, many of them in Games Workshop.
After a morning spent on the modern side of town, I rejoined Sebastian at the hotel. Like an elderly couple in pyjamas, we have one room with twin beds. I forgot to ask what the arrangements would be when I agreed to come here. It turns out that Sebastian’s resources aren't limitless. I guess the hotel staff presume he’s my uncle or something. We ate a tough lunch at the hotel, and then headed out on foot, back from the valley, into the suburban spread, with only the signs for B+B’s, like merit badges on the houses, to remind me that the sea was close by.
Among the daffodils and crocuses around the front lawns of squat, brick homes with net curtains, was a briar patch of unmowed weeds, belonging to a rundown house with all the windows boarded over. Sebastian led me to the front door and pressed a buzzer. Without the intercom being used, the door clicked open and we stepped into a hallway cut off immediately by another front door. This was like an airlock for the sunlight – the second door had been fitted more recently, and it didn’t open until the first door was shut. Weeks of junk mail covered the black and white tiles beneath us. Beyond the second door there was a candlelit corridor with black curtains hung over woodchip wallpaper. I followed through the only door that was open.
More candles, gathered in six-packs, black of course, stood either side of an armchair dressed up like a throne. The walls were a deep red, and the floorboards had been painted with black gloss. Two hard cane chairs had been set out for us. In the armchair was a man who looked exhausted but thirty. He had long, blond, greasy hair all gathered down one side of his emaciated face. He wore black jeans and plated boots, a black jacket over a black cable-knit jumper. There was no heating in the house. He didn’t so much sit in the chair, as poise ready. It was like an American football stance, with his feet wide apart on the floor, leaning forward with one hand on his knee, his chin up, staring at each of us in turn. Sebastian introduced me.
“I have no name to give you,” the man explained. “We gave our old names away when we chose this path.” He went on, in a rambling way, about what his place was in the universe – which was unfixed, as far as I can tell. Or maybe divided.
I was only to meet him alone this time, but not because he was their leader. The others had trusted him to be their voice. They rarely spoke to strangers, but if he approved then the others would also see me. Not sure if this was all worthwhile, I asked if they actually had any information on Challoner. He would not answer me: they needed to decide whether or not I was worthy to be trusted first. “The path we have chosen requires such sacrifice that our secrets are not shared lightly… dark torments of the soul… the horror of a power beyond the reach of mortality…” I tuned out of a lot of what he said, snapping back as pronouncements of doom followed critiques of the middle classes. Things kept scurrying across the floor, living off the decay in the corners. There was a smell that kept distracting me too, of BO, mouldy food and stale dirt; no doubt the nameless one would call it the reek of humanity. Sebastian’s leg nudged mine and I roused to agree to meet him again the next night, which I shall do, but only for Sebastian’s sake. I don't know what the anonymous man thinks he is, but I've seen many, many of them in Games Workshop.
posted by The son of Edward Fold at 6:23 pm
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