Bigot Hall

MANDIBLE

New arrivals at the Hall were a cause of excitement and concern and this was never more apparent than the day we were joined by Mr Mandible, who sat in Father’s study like a principled man.

‘You were referred to me by Roger Lang,’ said Father. ‘What can you say to redeem yourself?’

‘I would like a room here.’

‘You and a million others. How old are you Mr Mandible?’

‘Thirty-four.’

‘Correct. Do you heal quickly?’

‘In a flash. Unless the wound is open, as with a triangular chunk-blade.’

‘Or a tubular coral injury,’ suggested Father, ‘sustained off the Hawaiian islands.’

‘Precisely.’

‘I should tell you that the meals here are acutely poisonous.’

‘I intend to grow cress on the mantelpiece and pretend to be happier than I am.’

‘Excellent. This all seems to be in order.’ Father regarded an action shot of Mr Mandible booting a terrier off a cliff. ‘You understand that the ground floor of the west wing is crawling with nuns?’

‘This won’t be a problem.’

‘And that my mother-in-law is made of metamorphic rock.’

‘That, with all due respect, is not my concern.’

‘Well answered.’ Father held out a hand. ‘And welcome aboard sir. I think you’ll find our little nation a fertile chaos of throbbing trash.’

‘Indeed sir,’ said the new arrival, with a firm and solemn handshake.

An hour later, Snapper burst into the study. ‘Leap’s just told me you accepted a new lodger!’ He was startled and alarmed. ‘Who is he?’

‘Strap-hanger. Plug-ugly. Armed to the nines. Ask no questions. Last resort.’

‘Is he suitable?’

‘I sat here blathering the worst sort of nonsense and he never clanged an eyelid. Shook my whole arm like a man of honour. He’ll be up in his room now, buggering a rayfish.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Snapper, shuffling and eager to begin, ‘I should go and give him the glad hand.’

Father returned to his drawingboard. ‘See that you do.’

Snapper entered Mandible’s room and Mandible, about to flip the catch on his travel case, did not smile. ‘Not interrupting anything,’ Snapper told him. ‘Thought I’d drop by to welcome you into the fold. You’ll find this a pleasant home if you keep your depravities to yourself. That hole over there is for the snake, so keep it clear. The corners of the house are all on the inside. Designed to leach your integrity as you sleep. Madness moves upon us with hardly the snapping of a twig.’ Snapper sat bouncing onto the bed, looking around. ‘This was my room before my brother — who incidentally likes to eat human flesh — told me to live in that treehouse out there.’ He regarded Mandible, awaiting a response. ‘So how do you make a living, Mandible?’

‘I’m in the brain trade.’

Snapper stood and departed with a slam.

In the study, Snapper slavered a substance resembling guacamole. ‘Said he was in the brain trade. The brain trade,’ he emphasised. ‘In god’s name make a remark to comfort me, brother.’

‘Perhaps he was lying.’

‘If that was the lie he selected what pit of hell could he be concealing? You’ve picked a spooky one there, brother. He’ll trundle in at night and suck out your supper with a pipe and bellows.’

In the afternoon, Mr Mandible slowly entered the study to find Father alone at his desk. ‘I should like,’ he stated, ‘to take the opportunity to explain a certain remark at which your brother was perhaps disconcerted. Before matters become unnecessarily oppressive.’

‘Oppressive,’ said Father, cautiously.

Mr Mandible sat down opposite the desk. ‘In the likelihood that you will implore my assistance shortly in the extermination of certain vermin, I have with me the instruments of my calling.’ He patted the shell-shaped leather case on his lap. ‘You see, what you perhaps blithely refer to, through the cigar smoke and laughter of after-dinner conversation, as the human brain, is not by nature an ingredient of the human organism. The brain is a parasitic sea-sponge, brimming and sinister, wielding our bodies like a crane.’

‘A parasite.’

‘You mock my trade by pretending otherwise. More things in heaven and earth sir.’

‘I should say so.’

‘And these particular things,’ stated Mandible, ‘exist at my expense — and yours. Who needs a forebrain?’

‘Ah — who indeed?’ said Father, gripping his chair as though in a runaway sidecar.

‘Insidious sir. Threading through the host tissue. Staked to the brainpan like a hiking tent. The man who realises all this will feel a strong urge to lance his own head like a boil. Resist sir. Or to cop it under a skidding lorry. Resist, resist. It is not impossible to lead a normal life.’

‘An interesting concept.’

‘Corruption sir. Pollution. How to discern between our thoughts and theirs? Do I slap my face — uh — by my own volition? It’s a sad day for one and all when a man can’t take credit for slapping his own profile. And all because of these bloody sea animals.’

‘How do these tiresome brains of yours move inland?’

‘Tortoises sir. Sold commercially. Thick protective shell, ideal cavity size, slow gait unlikely to jolt the cargo.’

‘A skullcase on legs eh?’ said Father thoughtfully, standing. ‘Pardon me a moment will you?’

Father was in the driveway, frantically loading tortoises into the jeep. He pulled away in a spray of gravel as Mr Mandible ran out of the house, aiming a customised harpoon gun.

Near the village, Father threw himself into a callbox and dialled, gasping. ‘Roger you bastard?’ he bellowed down the phone. ‘Mandible. Seemed normal. Tipped his hand. Madman. What are you going to do about it?’

‘Me, old fellow?’ laughed Roger Lang affably, his voice crackling and distant. ‘He’s no friend of mine. Staggered out of an abattoir during demolition. Bothered me. Gave him your address.’

‘Well he’s fallen just short of invoking the devil.’

‘Not surprised, old man — coals to Newcastle.’

‘My reading of the situation is this — you’re a shithead who ought to be posted a burning rag. This extraordinary admission of yours to not even know the man makes everything crystal clear. He was barely in the door before launching into a dismal regatta of barbarity and fear. Insisted that tortoises contain brains.’

‘But ofcourse they do old fellow.’

‘Not that kind of brain you idiot. The kind that comes out of the sea and takes control.’

Lang was feeble with laughter as Father dropped the receiver and bolted from the callbox — Mr Mandible was fast approaching on a bicycle. The car wouldn’t start — Father started sprinting across an adjoining field, holding a carpetbag.

For reasons I refuse to understand, most of the villagers had come to believe that the Hall was an asylum. Seeing this as his trump card, Father entered the village police station and put the carpetbag on the counter. ‘This bag,’ he gasped. ‘Full of tortoises. See for yourself. Chap just escaped from the Hall. Irrational behaviour. Believes they’re related.’

The officer on duty peered into the bag. ‘Perhaps they are,’ he said.

‘Not the tortoises you moron,’ shouted Father. ‘The facts.’

The church bell began to ring and Father ran out to see that Mr Mandible was clinging to the steeple, yelling down at a gathering crowd. ‘Listen to me — don’t deceive yourselves,’ he was shrieking emphatically. ‘We’re prawns in their game — you don’t know what you’re up against. Only one life to lead and frankly you’ve made a balls of it. We’re heading for a catastrophe you fools — a cataclysm from which nothing fiercer than a chicken will step away. It’ll be as much fun as being sawn out of a Volvo and as interesting to watch as Walter Brennan. You’re in denial, the lot of you.’

Gazing up, the police officer gave a scornful snort. ‘Not me,’ he said.

‘You soppy bastards,’ Mr Mandible was bellowing. ‘More noisy than efficient. Hamfisted and bleating. Mean-spirited. Imperilling everything. I draw no distinctions. You’ll end up as charcoal statues. Baked to perfection. Blown to bits. Revenge. One in the face for liberty. I’m incredible, stunning, unbelievable. And I’ve been that way for donkeys’ years.’

The policeman raised a megaphone. ‘Had a bump on the old noggin eh Mandible?’

‘I’m past caring,’ yelled Mr Mandible. ‘I’ve the lion’s share. I’m laughing. Your lies are dense enough to fluoresce in UV light.’

‘As delirium goes,’ said an onlooker, ‘it’s classy.’

‘Makes it look so easy,’ said another.

‘Mutant in a belltower,’ said a third, wistful and misty-eyed.

At that point it began to rain and the crowd dispersed. The officer left, saying ‘It’s all yours, doc’ to Father as he gave him the megaphone.

‘Er…’ said Father through a squeal of electrical feedback.

Huge drops of rain were flying from Mandible’s face and hair. He sputtered and frowned, clinging to the steeple.

‘Er… Mandible.’

Mandible strained his face around. ‘What now?’

‘You may not be suited to the Hall after all.’

‘You… you said I could stay. There are the legal aspects to consider. A spoken agreement is technically binding.’

‘I… I know it is, Mandible, but… I feel I’ve been misled. This brain business, it won’t do — not when it involves harpooning tortoises and so on.’

‘You didn’t tell me,’ shouted Mandible over his shoulder, slipping and clutching at the roof.

‘It’s a house rule, Mandible — one I felt didn’t need spelling out. My mistake old fellow, but there it is. No harpooning of anything smaller than a barn.’

‘And Mr Burst’s ego?’ said Mandible, his face pressed against the streaming tiles.

‘An exception — all egos an exception. Is it agreed?’

‘No turbot,’ shouted Mandible.

‘If you insist, old boy. Do we have an understanding?’

Mandible scrabbled for a handhold. ‘Very well,’ he said, and slipped, crashing through the roof of a horsebox — a gelding burst through the doors and galloped away with a confused Mandible on its back. A week later he was found convulsing in a disused sty and by that time Father had organised a course of tablets — the same medication, incidentally, that Uncle Snap took for his anger. In order to keep track of the Hall tortoises, Mr Mandible devised a pair of heat-sensitive goggles which he wore twenty-four hours a day. And since tortoises are cold-blooded and undetectable by these means, the device was a comfort to Mandible even when one was crawling across his face.