The Clown of the New Eternities
An Exclusive Preview Excerpt
These are the deities which mostly concern us. Three sisters, nasty schemers, violent hangovers, they matured in strength but not mercy. Not any old wine, whisky or beer, mind you, but golden drinks, yellow as the courage of Sir Nanoc, who continued to flee, nobody knows where. Nor any old jellyfish, urchin, tree, but specimens with a thousand protuberances each, sting, spine and branch. Let’s unveil them properly! Wine’or, with breath like a cork, first. Rotten! Malt’or next, bilious and warm. Foul! And most wicked, with an unacceptable head, the sardonic Beer’or, smooth in the glass but gassy in the belly. Overpriced…
“Mother, may I play around in a new story by that fellow, Hughes, who is rapidly becoming a self-indulgent bore?”
“No, Thais, you must ignore his invitations, however couched, as he is precisely the sort of rotund demagogue who’ll attempt to get you on that couch, and that won’t serve literature.”
“He sounds desperate, mother, and honest folks have paid good money to be entertained and it’s my job, after all, to help poetasters improve their work. My involvement might justify the considerable sacrifices his readers have made to acquire this book.”
“No, Thais, it is inappropriate, with your red hair tumbling all in waves down your back and over breasts barely concealed by a toga which a bird could pluck off as readily as a man, a garment which is not only an immodest shift but two millennia out of date. No, I repeat it with added emphasis, considering what happened to your sisters, Chloe, Eva, Phoebe, Alice, Polly, Medusa, Bess and Diggory.”
“Heavens, mother, you fret so! But what happened to this Diggory? I was unaware of a sister called Diggory.”
“He didn’t fit in, Thais. His shape and emotions were wrong. Gambol along now, with your lyre, and leave me in peace, for I am scrumping the apples in the garden of the Hesperides here and if you wake the owner of the apples, who is the horrid dragon Ladon, he’ll throw a poisoned cloak over us, or failing that a poisoned sock, and we shall be burnt together and there’ll be no fine pie for supper.”
“What if I change my toga, mother? What if I drop down in something new? I hear ‘Typhoon’ is having a sale.”
“No, Thais, the clothes on offer at ‘Typhoon’ are scanty and absurd and worn mostly by arrogant women, not nice Muses. If you really want to visit this Hughes you must attire yourself cheaply and abundantly at the Hoplite Surplus Store, with a padded cuirass of Thracian leather, a zinc helmet concealing your auburn locks and leggings of lacquered wood. Only then will I be positive you are safe from his dastardly machinations. He even tried to seduce me once, near an olive grove. Well not a grove exactly, more like a jar, a jar of black olives.”
“But, mother, it will take ages to strap on all those accoutrements and the tale will be half done by then.”
“You must do the best you can, Thais, with the freedom you have. It is foolish to take total responsibility for every scribbler who calls on you. As long as you put in an appearance at some point in the text, even if only in the last chapter, to raise the work above its present prosaic level, you’ll have fulfilled the terms of your contract. Until then, let the pompous jackass stew. Now seal your lips, for Ladon stirs, his scaly eyelids quivering like orange peel maps in a sneeze, his stinking breath withering outcrops of wild garlic. Also his horns are cruel and not even a full Chorus need chant to us of them.”
“I shall, mother, and am grateful.”
The highwayman crested the hill and paused for breath against a boulder. He carried two burdens, heavier than a wife’s shopping, which helped him to regard the universe as essentially bleak and hostile. The first was a mechanical body in parts, strapped to various locations of his frame, as if he was a soul who had burst out of its owner. The second was himself, a younger version thereof, stuck in the guise of a portrait. Nicely done in oils, it canvassed for attention.
“Let me down! My chiaroscuro is aching all over.”
“Fie!” snapped the highwayman. “’Tis I who must bear you over these bumblasted hills. They don’t get smoother.”
“How far have we walked from Lladloh?”
“Four spare heels, a moon and a sack of muffins.”
