Rawhead & Bloody Bones

By Rhys H Hughes

The story of two dead entertainers and their tour of Europe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Jan 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781440563232

Book preview

RAWHEAD AND

BLOODY BONES

RHYS H. HUGHES

a division of F+W Media, Inc.

to

Tony and Claire,

the Wondersmiths

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Begin Reading

Also Available

Copyright

Laughter is a sort of foul stench, a miasma. That’s what I feel when I’m on stage, refining my act. But even when alive I regarded it with a deep suspicion. Squinting at the audience through the haze of a hundred smoky candles, fixed along the rim of the orchestra-pit like a row of unwashed critics, I wonder what I’m really looking at. There no longer seem to be any individuals; each seated figure is part of a machine, a gigantic bellows. Heaving together, in steady rhythm, they pump mirth at the dark flames and fan the coals of my anxiety.

As the first half of Rawhead and Bloody Bones, the renowned ghost comedians, I’m relieved as well as appalled by the convulsions of the mob. While they continue to find us funny, we can fill up our gaseous bellies. The stress of the job is immense, no question about that, but would be even greater if our efforts were greeted by silence. I’m not as ungrateful as I sound — I know which side my ectoplasm is buttered. Few working phantoms can say as much.

It’s a cut-throat business, sure enough. And that, by an aesthetic coincidence, was the way I went. I was robbed in a narrow alleyway by a figure wielding a stiletto. His breath reeked of ginger and horseflesh. We grappled; I knocked his tricorne hat into the gutter and trampled it. He slit my jugular with a deft motion. Farewell to my brief life, all in all a disappointing affair! In a curious way I ought to be thankful to that sullen rogue, whoever he was. I’ve enjoyed myself much more since I cast off my mortal shell.

Bloody Bones, my colleague, wasn’t so lucky. His life was a decent example of the type. A successful restaurateur, with a pale mistress and an extensive wine-cellar, his death was a ludicrous accident Drunk on a very fine sherry, he fell into a cauldron of sizzling oil. He was fried whole with onions. He claims this as the source of his deadpan humour. Countering his pun with one of my own, I remark that the real bones of his genius is a sauce of different nature: the blood, ripe as ketchup, which coats his exposed joints. It’s a sad fact that the most simple of our followers — the crushed zombies in the stalls — find amusement just in his dripping ichor.

We met by chance, in the middle of a fog-shrouded bridge. Since my demise, I’d drifted aimlessly along the streets, not even hoping to bump into my assassin. I was hungry and bored and needed a change of scenery. My murder had taken place north of the river; Bloody Bones had expired on the south side. It appears we had the same idea at the same time: to cross over into the unfamiliar half of the city. At the bridge’s centre, in the mist, we collided. I jumped.

‘You spooked me,’ I confessed.

His reaction was to pull a wry face. There was something in his lugubrious expression that caught my attention. Instead of passing on, I fell into conversation with him. He too was at a loss, tired of just floating, lacking a substantial purpose.

As a cure for our malaise, we discussed looking for work. Among the ghosts of the city, unemployment was high. With stiff competition, there was scant hope of us securing a position in our former trades. For every man and woman who has lived there is a star. I forget who said that, but I can’t forget the shimmering tide of desperate spirits, pushing through their fleshy counterparts. As they searched for jobs, the means to earn their black bread, I felt compelled to cheer them up. Bloody Bones had a similar urge. Although a scrivener in life, I’d always been attracted to the stage. Ghost Variety was a burgeoning art, a few haunted theatres held amateur evenings mid-week. I saw no reason why I shouldn’t try my clawed hand at something new.

After getting to know each other better, Bloody Bones and I decided to team up. He wasn’t called Bloody Bones then, that’s just a stage-name he adopted when we found ourselves a manager. After winning a number of talent contests, we were approached by a lean-faced man offering to sign us up. He was a mortal, very psychic, slightly seedy, with experience of the entertainment industry. He’d come to London to engage the services of Spring-Heeled Jane, a putrefying crooner. At the time, we were using our real names — Pickett and Gordon — and he insisted we change them to something more memorable. Bloody Bones had already been gnawed by stray dogs, attracted to his cooked flesh, and was little more than a skeleton draped in a few veils of skin. His pseudonym was obvious and indeed, if truth be known, rather bland.

As for myself, I couldn’t think of anything. Musing on my slit neck produced no answers; had I been a girl I would have called myself Gill. I took so long trying to choose a name that our manager grew impatient and thrust his fingers into the rent. Then he peeled my skull, throwing aside the mask of my face, scalp and all, leaving me bald and locked in a permanent bony leer. Thus I became Rawhead, and one of our first acts involved Bloody Bones rubbing salt into my pulsating brow. We repeated this in all the local dives and quickly worked our way up to some of the most respected venues. Soon we were taking trips out of the big city and parading our skills to the more demanding provincial audiences, Borley Rectory and Seaburgh among them.

As we gained in confidence, so our act grew more daring. It may be fairly stated that we turned the stale traditions of Music-Tomb (known as Vau-de-vile in America) into a refreshing spectacle. I’m not going to claim any profundity on our part, nor any perspicacity on the manager’s side. Perhaps we were simply in the right place at the right time. I hate to resort to cliché, particularly as our aim has always been to avoid it, but that’s pretty much how it stands. It’s the way we combine various existing elements, rather than any radical innovation in the material, that has brought us fame.

I am the sartorial one, dressed in faded silks: yellow cravat and huge flapping cuffs. Bloody Bones, in his customary rags, is a suitable foil; our characters are not in any way determined by our dress-sense. We range the whole length of comedy, from burlesque to insouciant wit We take it in turns to play the fool, the sage, the cynic. Our touch is as light as the first clod of earth on a freshly buried coffin. We have mastered mime, mimicry and slapstick.

Caspar Nefandous, our manager, helps to write our scripts. There is plenty of improvisation, but we preserve a core of written material. Not a confident man, he can often be found pacing the empty theatre before a performance, trying to gauge the acoustics, muttering charms against any hecklers that might turn up. During the show, he retires to the wings, a trembling hand clutching a copy of each joke, ready to prompt our fading memories. It’s unnecessary, of course; if a routine goes wrong, we rely on our native charm, or else that perennial favourite: the pratfall. The audience are generally ignorant of our intentions anyway and are willing to accept mistakes as deliberate.

Our meteoric rise is worrying in its own way, as rapid stars often burn themselves out. One has only to think of Gallows Powell, a poacher who juggled hares, or Tuba Theresa, pressed to death by sour euphonium, a dancer. Where are they now? Dear Theresa suffered a dreadful fate, one that