The Wanderer

Soundtrack: Hildur Gudnadottir, ‘Unveiled’

One of the most antic texts in my collection is also the longest: a typescript, running to over 200 pages, entitled, on the first, The Wanderer: A True Narrative. It recounts a weird tale: of cursed immortals, aeon-stalked by a being of demonic cruelty; of a dread, eldritch realm, which, at certain liminal sites, abuts this world – a place lurid, grotesque, seething with menace; of a future world, desolated and hostile. It is narrated by its protagonist, one of the blighted deathless, who records its events on an ancient typewriter, on rusting hulk – long before run aground or scuttled in the Thames Estuary – as the Earth slowly dies about him.

The full text of this typescript will be published by Perfect Edge Books later this year. Excerpted below is my foreword to this volume, in which I describe the typescript’s bizarre provenance and those elements which most disconcert me about it, those things that make it seem more account than story.

On the 18^th December 2010, Simon Peterkin, a British Library archivist and writer of weird tales with a small, if cultic, following, disappeared from his Highgate flat. The event wasn’t widely reported in the popular media at the time, for, though the circumstances were bizarre, it was not deemed newsworthy: there was no human angle, no one left behind – Peterkin, who was sixty-three years old at the time of his disappearance, was a man of lonely habits, was estranged from his family, had few friends. It did, however, attract the notice of some horror and strange fiction journals, including The Shambles, for which I had written a number of articles. The editors asked me to investigate and write up Peterkin’s vanishing for the journal; being intrigued, I readily agreed.

A Tiding – Part XI

Part XI of ‘A Tiding’. The first part can be found here.

Soundtrack: KTL, ‘Phill 2’

Mark returns to the tenement – ‘indentured to another god’ – a trickle of blood – a silver brooch of singular design – ‘a little lie down’ – a dream – Marguerite – arcane sigils – a waste strewn with the scattered skeletons of birds – origins

It was past eleven by the time he arrived back at the Kentish Town tenement. He found the old man asleep in his bed with the light on. Seizing him by his shoulders, Mark shook him awake. He opened his eyes, looked blearily about him.

‘Why?’ Mark yelled.

The old man grinned, belched in Mark’s face. Mark cuffed him.

Rubbing his cheek where the blow had struck, the old man sneered.

‘You’re good at reading the signs, but, other than that, not too sharp. She’s indentured to another god, with whom I’ve been skirmishing these past thousand years. That entity knows I recover a little of my strength with every offering presented to me, so had her compromise your collection.’

A Tiding – Part X

Part X of ‘A Tiding’. The first part can be found here.

Soundtrack: Svarte Greiner, ‘The Dining Table’

Mark goes to present his collection – a cry – ‘Welcome to London’ – the old man scrutinises the offering – the seven-inch – a sham – Harris – a dark vision – blue-and-white police cordon tape – the hospital

The light in the sky had dwindled to a faint glow in the west by the time Mark arrived at the square in Kentish Town, clutching a plastic carrier bag containing his collection. Wary, he looked about him before crossing over to the old man’s tenement. The front door stood open. He hesitated on the threshold.

Then he heard the old man cry out. He pelted up the stairs, but when he ran into the garret room, saw the old man sitting placidly on the edge of the bed, gazing at a postcard he held.

He looked up, beckoned Mark to approach. Mark did so, and the old man held the postcard out to him. On it was a photograph of a young woman wearing a bowler hat and scanty Union Jack underwear. Behind her there was a red double-decker bus.

‘Welcome to London,’ Mark said.

The old man shrugged, began turning the card over and over in his fingers, rapidly, so the image flickered. As Mark watched, it seemed the pretty flesh fell from the girl’s face leaving a grinning hollow-eyed skull. Then the old man stopped spinning the postcard, folded it in half, and put it in the breast pocket of his pyjama shirt.

A Tiding – Part IX

Part IX of ‘A Tiding’. The first part can be found here.

Soundtrack: Benoit Pioulard, ‘Calder’

Fucking – a cardboard box falls, scatters Mark’s collection – superficial cult of gaudy – the seven-inch – some kind of arrangement – a really strange dream – a warm evening – a magpie – a drop of the Devil’s blood – a plastic top with LEDs that flashed when it was spun

One evening, Marguerite and Mark were in the bedroom of his flat fucking, stilted, but avid.

Mark’s flat was small – the ongoing cost of the divorce had depleted his savings – the bedroom cramped, the furniture packed tight. The headboard of his bed abutted the wardrobe, and his and Marguerite’s writhing jolted it, juddering a cardboard box that was on top, the box in which he kept the artefacts he was collecting for the old man. This fell, tipped its contents over them. The crime novel struck him on the brow; the tinsel floated down and settled around Marguerite’s neck like a trashy boa. After a moment’s perplexity, she broke into cackles; Mark pushed her off him.

A Tiding – Part VIII

Part VIII of ‘A Tiding’. The first part can be found here.

Soundtrack: Hallock Hill, ‘New Place Aviary’

Balm and quickening – a gold umbrella – the calling card of a prostitute – the giant from the Saracen’s Head – a fight

Marguerite was French, from a small town near Paris. She had moved to London in her early twenties and lived in the city ever since. By coincidence, she was also an academic, taught fine art at a small private university in Kent. Mark found her company both balm and quickening. They shared many interests; went on long walks together, visited art galleries, saw films. Mark went on collecting the city’s offerings lest his meeting Marguerite had somehow been brought about because his efforts had met with the old man’s favour. The fifth item was a gold umbrella, left behind on the tube.

A Tiding – Part VII

Part VII of ‘A Tiding’. The first part can be found here.

Soundtrack: Sophie Hutchings ‘Shadowed’

An answer phone message – a packet of cigarettes – an oneiric dipole – ‘Look up’ – a length of silver tinsel – a plastic spleen – a seven-inch single – a paperback crime novel – Marguerite

On being roused by his alarm clock the following day, he found he felt sluggish and gut-sore, as if he’d been binging.

His day was uneventful. He went out walking the streets of London, drifting, not caring where his feet took him. Returning home in the evening, he discovered a message on his answer machine from Natalie’s lawyers; she was taking out an injunction against him.

A Tiding – Part VI

Part VI of ‘A Tiding’. The first part can be found here.

Soundtrack: High Aura’d ‘La Chasse-galerie’

Colin presents his collection – a one-eyed fox – a pyre – a mistake – Natalie’s parting words – seven oblations – the old man’s offer – Colin’s reward

Pulling free of Colin’s grip, Mark stepped away from the bed. Colin fell to his knees, upended his carrier, tipping out its contents, then held each one up in turn, muttering the while. Mark crossed over to the window. In the narrow alley below, he could see, by moonlight, a one-eyed fox scrabbling in slop spilling from an overturned bin; its sole eye gleamed. When Colin finished, the old man moaned. Seeming to take this as a sign of approval, Colin began chuckling and nodding. The old man indicated the fireplace with a trembling hand. Nodding comprehension, Colin gathered up his things, took them over to the grate, and threw them in. He got down on his haunches and heaped them, crumpling the playing cards and the LP cover. He tore the magazine page into strips, which he twisted into spills.