The World Idiot (7 page)

The band had obviously forsaken me, and now the hotel was following its example. My options were narrowing as I probed the passages and stairways. I was being herded by the slamming doors, the thickening gloom, to a destination unknown, but one I still invested my remaining hope in. Was the building guiding me within itself to a reunion with my comrades? My rational mind doubted it, but my emotions were desperate to believe that, yes, they were waiting for me in some obscure attic room, huddled together with their triumph, a surprise party for me, primed and coiled, requiring only my belated appearance to discharge itself and put my life back to rights.

No such luck. And that’s not too surprising, bearing in mind the fact that my life was never good enough to warrant a return to itself. When I reached the top floor of the hotel, I indeed found a trapdoor set into the ceiling, and a ladder reaching up to it, but when I climbed the rungs and pushed my head through the hinged square, my face emerged not in an attic, warm and itchy with rough insulating fabric, but out onto the roof, slates gleaming in the remorseless rain. I would have tried to climb back down, but I felt the ladder tipping, and was forced to haul myself up and out onto the slippery slope. The trapdoor shut like an apprehended yawn, and my fingers were too wide to fit in the gap around it and hook it back open. I was trapped outside with my sense of failure, high enough in normal circumstances for a decent view over the city, but there was no normality here: this was Birmingham and nothing at all was decent. The sky wept for me.

I went through the expected motions of a stranded adventurer, searching for a way down, peering over the gables and gutters, looking for a drainpipe to slide me to the ground. There were none. I considered jumping to the roofs of adjacent buildings, but the distances were too great, the street too far and hard below. Not being an adventurer but a musician, I gave up at the base of the solitary chimney, too narrow to climb down, too squat to provide any shelter from the rain, and sat with my bass across my knees. I thumbed a few notes, the opening bars of my new cage. I was marooned on the elevated grey of a temperate eyesore: a Crusoe without a canoe, pink or otherwise, a Friday without a tomorrow. A man without sympathetic critics. But I did not die immediately, despite my mood. I lingered and linger still.

Lately, however, I have noticed a change in the geography of the roof. The two sloping sides are getting steeper. This is no illusion, for in the early hours I can hear the hotel narrowing, drawing in its walls, compressing itself like the concertina we planned to use in the next incarnation of our band as a Celtic-roots outfit. And as the hotel grows thinner, the sides of the roof, hinged at the ridge along the top, must obey the rules of shapes and increase their angles. There are no doors to slam here: the edifice has found another way of rejecting me. The process is exasperating, for the hotel dares not draw attention to itself and must move so gradually that nobody will notice what is happening. Not that this precaution is necessary. There are no pedestrians below, nor have I ever glimpsed an inhabitant of the city in any of the surrounding buildings.

Soon I must slip and fall to my doom. Into how many pieces shall I break? It dimly occurs to me, a thought as slick as any to be expected under the onslaught of such oily rain, that the hotel is not vindictive or even amoral, but that it is trying to help my reputation. Fame is not an elusive thing, as is often stated, but is everywhere. And maybe that’s the real reason for my lack of success. So much fame has been used up on so many other people that there’s none left for me. Or is my customary view of young hopefuls as empty vessels waiting to be filled with liquid fame wrong? What if fame is the vessel and we the potential contents? That vessel, the proverbial hall, is crammed to the brim and there’s no more room left, unless, and here I lick my lips as I contemplate the long drop, the additional contents are first smashed into tiny shards, ground into powder.

Yes, that seems likely, and explains why so many artists of my calibre only achieve posthumous fame. Death is essential for reasons of space. We are being pounded to fit. Because I was late arriving at the hotel, I missed out on its first promotion, the granulating of an entire universe, and nameless band, into light and static to fill a television screen. In a similar way, the pillar of a temple from a lost city buried under the dunes of a forgotten desert can just occupy an hourglass by being pulverised. A better example emerges from my childhood. I remember the only birthday present I ever received: from an eccentric aunt. I opened the parcel in breathless excitement to find the fragments of a broken teapot. I assumed it had shattered in transit, at the rough hands of the postal service. I carefully glued the pieces back together. The teapot was a magnificent reconstruction of dismay, ready to brew my bitter frustration. For when it was finished, I realised it was larger than the box it had arrived in. Make of that, and the other digressions in my life, what you will.

That was the sort of person Mr Lewis was, a man who seemed happy to leave the hotel just as the sun was going down and walk into the hills with insufficient supplies and the wrong shoes. Probably a product of his desperate need to compensate for a sedentary youth with belated adventure.

The men at the tables made conversation over their beer as they watched him leave. He had already mentioned his interest in exploring the entire length of Gut Road. A good excuse for dark comments.

“He’ll soon be back.”

“No, we’ll never see him again.”

“You’re both wrong. He won’t come back but maybe somebody else will...”

The path was steep and narrow and soon he was alone in the dark but he knew another hour of hard walking would take him to the beginning of the ledge. Down in the valley there was always some light, the glimmer of the river and maybe a distant village or two. His fear was still smaller than his resolve.

All the same, he guessed his pace was slowing as he neared the broken fence and NO ENTRY sign. Two tourists had fallen to their deaths the previous year and the authorities had made token efforts to comply with official safety regulations. But of course this was a country where the people ignored authority.

Gut Road came as a big surprise. He had expected a concrete walkway bolted to the side of the mountain, an artificial ledge winding its way around the edges of the gorge as far as the reservoir, but instead he was confronted by the mouth of a tunnel. He groped at his belt for his powerful flashlight. He almost regretted it was there. He had no excuse to turn back.

He switched it on and stood on the threshold. Even before he looked to see what the beam revealed he had already called out: “Anyone there?”

Then he sniggered quietly. Anything truly hostile lurking in the tunnel would be unlikely to give him a reasonable reply. As he walked forward he imagined possible answers, all of them absurd by the nature of whatever spoke them.

“Yes, I’m here. A ghost.”

“I’m here as well, a demon of sorts.”

“Don’t forget me, a nameless cosmic horror. From the gulfs between the stars. But what are
you
doing here? It’s not appropriate.”

Mr Lewis nodded. Not appropriate and not clever, but all he encountered was dust thickly spread on the floor. It cushioned his feet and there were no other footprints in it yet. Nor tracks of any kind.

Back at the hotel the men still drank beer and infrequently toasted the faded portraits on the wall above the hearth. Already the landlord was preparing a new picture, huddled over a small desk in a cool corner, dipping his pen into a jar of crusty ink. The scratching of his nib on the rough yellow paper was the only significant sound in the room, a furtive but obtrusive noise like the mirth of a prehistoric rodent. He worked quickly and finished early and rose to glue his latest creation among his growing collection of ink faces.

Mr Lewis had entered a region of stalagmites and stalactites which chewed at his clothes as he ducked and stretched around them, his weary body moving up and down in the precise rhythm needed to dislodge the sweat on his neck and roll it down his spine. He puffed and shivered at the same time and itched under his own salt.

These spikes of rock turned the tunnel into a maze and the idea of retreating began to seem more tempting but he still craved a sense of achievement and could not quite bring himself to give up yet. He compromised by resting for a minute in a clear space, squatting in the thick dust and taking a long drink from his bottle.

He also found a loose cigarette in his pack and inserted it between his lips. But he had nothing to light it with. With a jolt of malign inspiration he unscrewed the lens of his flashlight and held the naked bulb against the tip of the tobacco cylinder. It charred slightly but did not blossom into flame. No matter. He should not risk damaging his single source of illumination.

He groped again in his pack for a match and his fingers closed on his mobile phone. This was a relief but he doubted a signal would be available from his present location. He left it where it was and cast away his cigarette. As he rose and continued his journey he wondered who had constructed Gut Road and for what purpose. Had it really been designed in the shape of a gigantic intestine?

Eventually his own digestive tract started to occupy his immediate attention and he found a secluded spot between the side of the tunnel and a thick column made from three or four fused stalagmites. He chuckled at his own shyness as he pulled down his trousers. There was an awful symmetry in conducting this process here.

Still no signs of other life, no relics of habitation or previous exploration, but he knew many others had preceded him, his guide book had told him so. How could tourists fall to their deaths inside here? Perhaps he was supposed to walk on the roof of the tunnel rather than push his way through it. A simple mistake.

Lighter in body and mind he walked reluctantly and was absolutely on the verge of turning back when his flashlight caught a sign nailed to a pole planted in the dust. NEXT HOTEL 20 LOOPS. Everything was safe again. Travelling down Gut Road was acceptable and possible after all.

The beer was almost exhausted and the next delivery was an hour after dawn but nobody moved. The portrait of Mr Lewis gleamed down at them, fading slowly, fitting in with the rest of the collection.

“Funny this constant exchange of residents.”

“But good for local culture. The valleys are so isolated. That must be the reason it exists.”

“Some people still think it’s a sculpture.”

“Are there other Gut Roads?”

“No, there was only ever one giant. A freak of nature millions of years ago, never to be repeated.”

“Not everyone makes it right through the body.”

The landlord glanced up and made his eyes wise. “Some are digested by their own incompetence.”

He had miscalculated very badly. The loops were further apart than he had assumed and the obstacle course created by the stone teeth was becoming more hazardous. He decided not to think about the consequences.

Although the tunnel had not forked at any point, he felt thoroughly lost, an illusion which excited his curiosity as much as his fear. He realised he was bleeding from a gash below his left knee. At least there would be a trail of blood to follow back this way. But in fact the dust drank it all and his own footprints seemed abnormally shallow. His adventure did not want to let go of him.

The flashlight was losing power. The bulb was dying. Too late to return now but if the going became easier he might still make it to the far end. He limped faster.

Less than one hour later he came across another sign. He snorted with pleasure but his beam revealed a blank square of wood. Nothing had ever been written on it. For an instant he gritted his teeth, furious at the worker who had erected it, but then his expression cleared. He walked past and studied it from the other side. That was the sort of person he still was.

In the timid flicker he made out the words. They were intended for a traveller coming in the opposite direction. NEXT HOTEL 20 LOOPS. He clutched the post for support.

Time to summon help, if he could. He pulled out his mobile phone and thumbed the number of his hotel, already rehearsing the apology he would offer but unconvinced that a connection could be made through the mineral walls. He was astonished to hear the dialling tone. Even before an unseen hand picked up the receiver he was already calling out:

“Anyone there?”

The landlord listened carefully, frowned and then replaced the telephone. The standard answers were no longer amusing. Ghost, demon of sorts, nameless cosmic horror. Not now. Old worn out jokes, completely pointless.

The others began to drift off to bed.

“Are there portraits of us in that other hotel, I wonder?”

“Do they actually look like us?”

“Will they fade with dignity?”

“That was the agreement,” confirmed the landlord.

The stairs did not creak but the carpet made an unwholesome sound rather like indigestion under the weight of tired feet and mildly bewildered souls.

“What I don’t understand is who did that to the giant? Pulled out his bowels and just left him to petrify. Who? Why? And how?”

“It was a long time ago,” said the landlord.

Mr Lewis was resigned to his fate or perhaps it was resigned to him. Either way it was best to abandon the struggle and rest his misplaced being. The bulb was almost dead. It gave off a deep red glow that turned his environment into a hideous kind of photographic darkroom. He selected a place and lowered his pack to the ground.

The only thing that might develop here would be a very sharp panic. But not yet. He sat in the dust and rummaged for the paper bag he had concealed at the bottom. It was still there, slick with leaked grease.

He planted his flashlight in the dust and settled back but the effect was too eerie, the weak beam casting formless bloody shadows on the irregular roof, so he reversed its direction and suspended it from a stalactite like a lantern. He used his belt to secure it in place. No need to keep his trousers up, not here, not now.

He returned to his paper bag. A meal at last. Nothing very palatable but that was an expected consequence of undertaking an expedition with insufficient supplies. Black pudding, an ironic choice. He tried not to breathe through his nose as he bit into it, to avoid the smell and lessen the taste.

Dust to dust, shit to shit.

And guts within guts.