In the Eyes of Mr Fury

By Philip Ridley

On the day Concord Webster turned eighteen, the Devil died. The Devil’s real name was Judge Martin, but Concord’s mother called him the Devil. She said he boiled babies for dinner and made lampshades out of human skin. So why did she, who hated him so venomously, have a key to his house?  

The key will unlock more than just Judge’s front door. It will also unlock a multitude of stories - where magic children talk to crows, men disappear in piles of leaves, and James Dean lookalikes kiss in dark alleys - and reveal a secret history that will change Concord’s life forever.

Philip Ridley’s second novel (following the sexually charged tour de force Crocodilia) was an instant cult classic when originally published in 1989. Now, for this new edition, Ridley has reimagined the story, expanding the original short novel into the world’s first LGBT magical realist epic. A vast, labyrinthine, hall-of-mirrors saga, its breathtaking imagery and stunning plot twists – covering over a hundred years – reveal Ridley to be one of the most distinctive and innovative voices in contemporary fiction.

‘Philip Ridley’s stories compel attention.’ - The Times (London)

'The small-town drama is shot through with a tangible sense of the supernatural, conveyed in a prose style that takes enormous risks.' - Time Out

‘Ridley is the master of modern myth.’ - The Guardian

'Hauntingly original.' - Mail on Sunday

‘Ridley is a visionary.’ - Rolling Stone

• Language: English
• Publisher: Valancourt Books
• Release date: Nov 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781943910373

Book preview

ICING

CHAPTER ONE

I was seventeen years old when the Devil died. We found his body on my eighteenth birthday. A locust on the icing was the omen we needed.

For as long as I could remember we had called old Mr Martin ‘the Devil’. His real name was Judge Martin, although he had nothing to do with the law. Judge was the name on his birth certificate. Or so I’ve been told.

Mum told me a lot of things about ‘the Devil’ as I grew up: that he boiled babies and ate them with beetroot, that he kept scorpions and snakes in his bedroom, that he changed into a werewolf when the moon was full, and that—scariest of all—if I did anything naughty he would keep me prisoner in his cellar.

‘And you know what he’ll do to you then?’ Mum would ask.

‘What, Mum? Tell me!’

‘He’ll shave off your hair—your beautiful, red hair—and he’ll use it to stuff his pillows. Good people like us—we’re content to sleep on pillows made of feathers or foam. But the Devil . . . oh, the Devil can only sleep on the hair of children. You know what he’ll do next?’

‘What, Mum? Tell me!’

‘He’ll hang you from a hook and slice away your skin—your beautiful, freckled skin—and he’ll use it to make lampshades. Good people like us—we’re content to read by lampshades made of linen or silk. But the Devil can only read with light shining through the skin of children. And you know what else he’ll do?’

‘What, Mum? Tell me!’

‘He’ll chop your body into a hundred pieces. Then he’ll boil you for a hundred hours in a saucepan the size of a bath. Then, when all the flesh has fallen from your bones, he’ll take them—your bones!—and grind them to make his bread. Good people like us—we’re content to eat bread made of wheat. But the Devil needs children’s bones to make a sandwich. And then—oh, then!—you know what he’ll do with the fleshy soup that’s left of you?’

‘What, Mum? Tell me!’

‘He’ll feed it to his monster.’

‘He’s got a monster!?’

‘He has. And it’s terrible.’

‘You’ve seen it?’

‘Once.’

‘When?’

‘Years ago. Before you were born. Your Dad and me had been out for the evening. It was gone midnight by the time we got back home. Your Dad kissed me outside the house. And that’s when I saw it. Over your Dad’s shoulder.’

‘What, Mum?’

‘Something was coming out of the Devil’s chimney. It was green. It had horns on its head. Its teeth were long and sharp. And it was huge! Huge!’

‘But how can such a huge thing come out of such a small chimney?’

‘I think . . . its skeleton must be able to contract. You know? Like a mouse. And once the monster was out—it flew away!’

‘It had wings!?’

‘Giant bat wings!’

‘Did Dad see it?’

‘It all happened too quick! He heard me gasp. But by the time he’d turned round . . . the monster had gone.’

‘But . . . where does the Devil keep such a big monster? His house is only the size of ours.’

‘Oh . . . every house has room for a monster.’

We would squirm and clutch each other, shivering and shuddering, electric spiders cobwebbing our spines.

Of course, I never really believed any of these stories. And Mum would try her best to suppress a smile as she told them. They were just an excuse for her to . . . well, talk about Judge Martin. He fascinated her. Like he fascinated all of us.

In the summer months the Devil would shuffle around in a filthy string vest and we could see hair—thick, matted hair—on his neck and shoulders. And it wasn’t just his torso that was hirsute. He had hair everywhere: his neck, his ears, the back of his hands. It wasn’t a huge leap to imagine him—as some on the Street said—a lycanthrope: he was fifty per cent feral already.

The Street, by the way, was how everyone referred to the place—Temple Street—where I was born and grew up. It was one of the oldest streets in the area. A narrow tarmac road with red-brick houses on either side. The Street was one of the few places in East London to have survived the bombing of the Second World War.

I loved the Street.

It was everything I knew.

It was everything I wanted to know.

And our house—Number 37—was at the centre.

When I was about five or six, Mum taught me how to play Knock-Down-Ginger on the Devil’s door. ‘It’s the simplest game in the world,’ she said. ‘You go up to his front door and . . . knock, knock, knock. Then you have to run away before he opens it. It’s fun. Try it.’

I did. It was.

I used to play it with Loverboy. Sometimes we dared each other to count to a certain number before running.

‘Dare you . . . seven,’ I said.

‘Too much!’

‘Coward!’

‘Well, if I do seven, then you’ll have to do eight!’

‘I will.’

I watched Loverboy as he went up to the Devil’s door.

He took a deep breath and knocked.

I counted along with him—

‘One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . six . . . seven—’

Loverboy ran back to me.

I said, ‘That doesn’t count!’

‘Why not?’

‘The door didn’t open. The Devil can’t be home.’

‘Oh, he’s home all right. I heard him. Go on. Your turn. Eight!’

I walked up to the Devil’s door.

I glanced back at Loverboy.

He held up eight fingers.

I mouthed, I know!

He mouthed, Go on then!

I took a deep breath and—

I knocked on the Devil’s door.

‘One . . . two . . . three—’

The door swung open!

The Devil had crumbs in his beard. The Devil had sleep in his eyes. His fingernails were dirty. He blinked when he saw me, surprised almost, as if I was the beast, the barely human.

‘RUN!’ I heard Loverboy scream but—

I couldn’t move.

‘RUN!’

The Devil stepped forward. ‘Leave me alone!’

The stench of his breath caused my T-shirt to crinkle. I’ve no idea what brimstone smells like but I’m sure he’d had a plateful that morning.

‘RUN!’

I soared to Loverboy.

I repeat: soared.

To this day I’m sure my feet didn’t touch the ground for the whole length of the Street.

Sometimes the impossible does happen.

Loverboy and I took refuge in the Psycho Cellar. This was our own private hideaway. It was in the basement of an old house that—again, so I’d been told—had been damaged during the Second World War and remained empty ever since. The basement—at least when me and Loverboy first started using it—was full of old furniture and had a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling. I said to Loverboy, ‘You know what this reminds me of?’

‘What?’

‘That film.’

‘What film?’

‘The one I told you about.’

‘I don’t remember you telling me about any—’

‘It was called Psycho! Remember? It’s a grown up film. I begged Mum to let me stay up late and watch it and she said, If your Dad falls asleep in the armchair, you can sneak in. And Dad did fall asleep. So I did sneak in. Remember?’

‘No.’

‘Well, the film was brilliant. This woman gets in the shower and she gets chopped to bits by this man dressed up like his mum and you see all her blood—this woman in the shower’s—going down the plug hole and the music goes, EEE!—EEE!—EEE! ’

‘Not much of a tune.’

‘It’s not supposed to have a tune! And the house where the psycho killer lives has got a cellar. And the cellar looks just like this.’

‘Wow!’

‘I know! Wow!’

I think that was the start of me and Loverboy becoming obsessed with horror films. It was our joint ambition to be horror actors one day (and I wanted to be a film director and writer too). We created a world of our own in the Psycho Cellar. It was not unknown for us to spend all day in there, enacting scenes from our favourite movies. I was always the knife slashing maniac to his unsuspecting victim, the flesh-eating zombie to his petrified hitchhiker.

I had been friends with Loverboy Tallis for as long as I could remember. His mum had been pregnant with him when my Mum was pregnant with me. The story goes that every time the two women got together, Loverboy and I would twist and kick in our respective wombs as if sensing each other’s presence. ‘Even before you were born you and Loverboy were friends,’ Mum was fond of saying. Me and Loverboy were due to be born—or so I’ve been told—on the same day. But Mum was scared by a sonic boom and I was premature. That’s how I got my name. Mum says it was Loverboy’s dad who thought of it. He used to be good with words. When Loverboy’s dad and my Dad were younger they used to be in a rock ’n’ roll band called the Black Cadillacs and Loverboy’s dad wrote most of their songs (as well as playing guitar). One of the songs Loverboy’s dad wrote was called Girl, I’m Your Loverboy (which is how Loverboy got his name, though usually I call him ‘Tal’, short for Tallis).

And, no, in case you’re wondering, my name is not ‘Sonic’ or ‘Boom.’

My name is much better than either of those.

I won’t tell you what it is just yet.

Things begin with names, you see.

And . . . well, I’m not quite ready to begin the story yet.

When I’m ready to begin I’ll tell you my name.

I’ve been thinking a lot about stories lately.

About how a story can change depending on where you start it.

For example, I think of my birth, inspired as it was by a metal bird cooing like thunder, as a beginning. But it’s also an end. I was already part of an epilogue as I punched my way through a prologue of blood in order to touch my Loverboy Tallis.

For the first eighteen years of my life I thought I was living my childhood, my story. But I wasn’t. Not really. I was merely a sub-plot in the lives of others.

I thought Faith Webster (née Niven) was my mother.

But, instead, I was her son.

I was something she invented.

I was her . . . creation.

I was there to . . . give her good memories.

I was there to . . . be a sequel to a story she wanted to forget.

If the story of me is good enough the story before me will fade.

The old story will self-combust like disregarded celluloid.

But that’s not what ended up happening.

The old story didn’t turn to smoke.

Like a silent movie that had been protected and preserved it was still capable of being projected. Projected across an auditorium called Time onto a screen called Now and its World Premiere would cause controversy and outcry and . . . oh, forgive my meandering metaphors (and my affected alliterations for that matter). I’m getting carried away. I do try to hold back on—what my English teacher once referred to as—‘purple prose’, but it’s difficult not to splash it around now and again. My teacher said it’s because I’m young and that I will—in his words—‘desaturate as maturity hits.’

Maturity hits!?

I have images of medieval weapons striking fragile faces.

One day there was a noise in the Street. A scream of car tires like a feline roar. I rushed out to the Street to see what had happened. There was a large car half up the kerb. The driver was dizzy at the dashboard. Caught under the front wheel was a little girl. Women were screaming. The street belonged to the women and children during the day. The men were all at work. Invisible.

The child was unconscious. There wasn’t a mark on her face. No blood, nothing. She was breathing deeply and slowly. As if sleeping.

Suddenly the girl’s mother rushed from the end of the Street, screaming, scattering shopping behind her. Now the mother was about my size at that time and I wasn’t big for my age. She was a thin, sickly-looking woman. A good sneeze might finish her for good, Dad used to say. And this plucked chicken of a woman rushed up to the car, bent down, and lifted it off her child. Lifted the car high. It could have been made of cardboard for all the effort she put into it. A few neighbours pulled the girl free. There was blood over her left leg and thigh. But she was alive. The mother put the car (a black Jaguar with glinting chrome) back on the ground so, so carefully, as if—despite the trauma the vehicle had caused—she was still fearful of damaging someone else’s property.

I saw this happen.

Anyone’s capable of anything, you see.

We’re forever on the brink of a miracle.

And so I lived my childhood in a place called the Street, where men were invisible, where the Devil crawled like a hairy caterpillar with breath like brimstone, where mothers lifted killer Jaguars from helpless children, where metallic birds enticed babies from wombs with coos like thunder and where, on my eighteenth birthday, a locust landed on the sky-blue icing of my birthday cake and announced to us all the Devil was dead.

My name is Concord Webster.

CHAPTER TWO

‘What is that?’ Mum asked, pointing at my birthday cake. ‘Is it an insect?’

‘It’s a sort of . . . fly, I think,’ Aunt Ivy said.

‘Well, it’s the biggest fly I’ve ever seen.’

It was the biggest fly I’d ever seen too. And I’d never seen a fly—or any insect—that looked quite like this. Its wings were tinged with shimmering pink. And its body gleamed like emerald.

‘It looks like a locust,’ Aunt Ivy said.

I looked closer. ‘Locusts don’t look like this.’

‘Well, it’s as big as a locust!’

‘How do you know how big locusts are?’ Mum asked.

‘I’ve seen them in films. That biblical epic—what’s it called? Charlton Heston wears a fake beard and goes up a mountain.’

‘The Ten Commandments,’ I said.

‘That’s the one! There was a plague of locusts in that. And they were all about the size of that thing there.’

‘Well, whatever it is, I do not want it eating the cake.’ Mum tried to shoo it away. ‘Disgusting thing.’

The insect continued to feast.

‘Whack it with something, Fay,’ Aunt Ivy said.

‘I can’t whack it with something without damaging the cake,’ Mum said. ‘Oh, this is a man’s job. Pick it, Connie. Kill it.’

‘Kill it?’

‘Quickly!’

But I didn’t want to kill it. I wanted to watch it. Its wings seemed to changed colour as it moved. A swirling rainbow effect like petrol in a puddle. And its tiny mouth was—

Angie picked it up, clapped it flat, then brushed away the glittering remains. ‘There!’ she said. ‘Easy!’

‘Angie!’ I cried. ‘It was beautiful!’

‘ "Beautiful! ’ Mum shook her head. ‘Only my son could call a horrible thing like that beautiful". Thank you, Angie! Now, let’s light these candles before they melt.’

We were all sitting round a table in the garden. There was me, my Mum, my Aunt Ivy (Loverboy’s mum) and Angie (Loverboy’s girlfriend).

It was the middle of August and the middle of a heatwave. Newspaper editors had fallen in love with the word ‘INFERNO!’ (always written in capitals, with at least one exclamation mark). Mum had put the table in the shade when the party had started, but now we were beginning to get the sun full blast.

Mum lit the eighteen candles as quickly as she could.

‘Blow them out, Connie!’ she said.

‘And make a wish, honey!’ Aunt Ivy said.

‘Yes, yes, I will!’

‘Well, do it, sweetheart!’ Mum said. ‘Before the wax drips everywhere.’

I thought of my wish and—

I blew.

All the candles went out.

Everyone clapped and cheered.

‘Your wish will come true!’ Aunt Ivy said. ‘ "Candles out with just one breath, wishes true before your death." ’

‘What did you wish for, Con?’ Angie asked.

‘Oh, he can’t tell you! Can he, Ivy?’

‘Certainly not! You should know that, Angie. "Wishes wished but wishes told, will never come true no matter how old." ’

‘Let’s cut the cake!’ Mum picked up a knife.

The blade glinted in the sunlight.

I thought of the ‘EEE!—EEE!—EEE!’ music.

‘Here’s a slice for the birthday boy.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’

‘And for you, Ivy.’

‘Thanks, Fay.’

‘And for you, Angie.’

‘Thanks, Aunt Fay.’

Mum wasn’t Angie’s real aunt. Just as Aunt Ivy wasn’t really mine. But, in the Street, all adult friends of the family were called either Aunt or Uncle by the children.

‘How’s the cake?’ Mum asked.

‘Delicious, Mum.’

‘Delicious, Fay.’

‘Delicious, Aunt Fay.’

Although, in the unforgiving heat, the cake was drying on our plates faster than we could eat it.

‘Oh, it’s such a shame Loverboy can’t be here,’ Mum said.

‘It’s the first birthday party he’s ever missed.’ I said.

Loverboy was helping his dad in the corner shop, Tallis & Son. The shop had been in their family for so long that the ‘& Son’ referred to Loverboy’s great-grandfather, Percy Tallis, who died suddenly at the age of thirty-nine after treading in some particularly vicious weeds down by the canal. His left leg developed a blister the size of an oyster that, in turn, cultured an infection. In the days before antibiotics, foliage could be fatal.

Aunt Ivy said, ‘Loverboy’s dad insisted he did some overtime. There’s an engagement ring to save up for. Right, Angie?’

Angie smiled. ‘I suppose so, yes.’

‘You’re a very lucky girl, Angie,’ Mum said. ‘Knowing who you want to marry when you’re so young. It means you can get your mortgage sorted early and then save some money before you have any children. How many children do you and Loverboy want?’

‘We . . . we haven’t really talked about that.’

‘I want lots!’ Aunt Ivy said. ‘A house full of grandchildren. Look! More of those . . . locust things!’

Two glittering insects hovered round the cake . . . No! Three!

Four!

Five!

Their wings blurred and buzzed.

‘I told you!’ said Aunt Ivy. ‘A plague!’

Mum and Aunt Ivy tried to shoo them away.

I looked at Angie. ‘It must be the heat,’ I said. ‘Attracting creatures from tropical places.’

‘Did you see the news last night?’ Angie asked. ‘A great white shark was spotted off the coast of Cornwall.’

‘Wow! I’d like to see one of those!’

‘That’s exactly what Loverboy said.’

‘Did he?’ The thought pleased me. ‘We’re always saying the same things.’

‘You mean he’s always saying what you say.’

‘That’s not fair.’

‘Okay, okay.’ She smiled. ‘You saying Wow!—That’s something you got from Loverboy. Right?’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ I laughed. ‘ Wow! is a very Loverboy word.’

‘You’re seeing him later, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, I am. We’ll have our own little celebration. You can come if you like.’

‘I’ve got to baby-sit tonight.’ (Angie’s ten-year-old brother, Paul, was chronically sick with asthma). ‘Mum and Dad are going to the pictures.’

‘What’re they seeing?’

‘Return of the Jedi.’

‘Jesus! Haven’t they seen it yet?!’

‘It’s not really their thing.’

‘Surely you’ve been telling them how amazing it is?’

‘Nonstop. That’s why they’re going.’

‘Where’re they seeing it?’

‘The local.’

‘The Excelsior?! Oh, that’s not the place to see a Star Wars film. The main screen’s about the size of a postage stamp. They need to see it in the West End. Leicester Square—where you, me and Tal saw it. They need to hear all that Dolby Stereo. No hiss. Crystal clear. And they need to see all the deep, velvety blacks. It will look all milky on the Excelsior screen. I saw House of Long Shadows there a little while ago. It looked appalling. And the projectionist mucked up three of the eight reel changes. Of course, House of Long Shadows does have something in common with Star Wars. Peter Cushing’s in both films. He played Sebastian Grisbane in The House of Long Shadows—the only interesting part in the whole bloody film, I hasten to add—and, of course, he played Grand Moff Tarkin in—’

‘Con?’

‘What?’

‘Shut up.’

‘Oh. Okay.’

It had long been mutually agreed that if me or Loverboy (but usually me) ever get into one of our rants about films, Angie was perfectly within her rights to tell us—politely or, as in the present instance, not politely—to stop.

Angie smoothed her already smooth dress.

Her hands were shaking a little.

‘Angie . . . are you feeling okay?’

‘Yeah, yeah. It’s so hot out here.’

‘That’s not what I meant. You’ve been a bit—’

‘Don’t say it! Like I’m in the wrong film.’

Loverboy and me made Super 8 films (Mum and Dad bought me a snazzy cine-camera—a second-hand Kodak Instamatic M4—for my fifteenth birthday). I wrote the scripts. I found the locations (mainly the local waste-ground and the Psycho Cellar). I made the props (mainly papier-mâché). I directed and edited them too.

Our most ambitious film to date—Sunrise of the Zombies (an ‘homage’ to George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead) starred Angie (in her fourth film with us) as, amongst other things, Zombie Victim at Bus Stop. Angie, however, often arrived on set—I can’t say ‘not knowing her lines’ because she didn’t have any—but certainly not being totally on top of what the scene required. Indeed, on one occasion, she seemed to think we were still shooting Curse of the Crimson Cat (which we’d completed the year before), causing me to say, ‘Angie, I think you’re in the wrong film.’ Since then the phrase has been used whenever one of us looks a bit . . . like Angie did at my birthday party.

‘I’m fine, Con. Honest.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I’m sure.

‘Now then you two!’ Mum said. ‘What are you conspiring about?’

‘We’re not conspiring about anything,’ I said.

‘I don’t like plans and plots in the garden.’

‘Or pots and pans in the kitchen!’ said Aunt Ivy.

We all laughed.

‘Another slice of cake, anyone?’ Mum asked.

‘No, no, it’s time I was going,’ Aunt Ivy said. ‘And your Ron’ll be home soon, Fay. He won’t want to see me here when he gets in from a hard day’s work.’ She looked at Angie. ‘You coming with me or are you staying, honey?’

‘I’ll come with you.’

I thanked them for their presents—a travelling clock from Aunt Ivy and a bottle of aftershave from Angie—and kissed them goodbye.

Mum showed them out of the house.

Bzzz.

More insects.

They glittered on roses and lilies.

I took off my T-shirt and brushed them away.

‘You’re not eating those!’ I said. ‘They cost a fortune!’

The garden was generally considered to be my ‘domain.’ At the age of twelve—having shown no previous interest in anything horticultural whatsoever—I watched a documentary on television called The Eternal Wonder of the English Garden and, suddenly, found myself obsessed. I read every book the local library had to offer and persuaded Mum and Dad to let me re-design the garden (not that it had ever been ‘designed’ in the first place). Dad said so long as it didn’t cost too much I could do what I liked and Mum said (after some persuading from Dad) she’d give me an eight week trial and, if she liked what I was doing (and it didn’t make any mess), then she’d ‘allow’ it to happen.

The first thing I did (with Dad’s help) was put trellis against all the fencing (and against next door’s kitchen extension). I re-planted the herbaceous borders so they consisted of crackerjack marigolds, geraniums, lilies and lobelia. But, mainly, there were roses. Roses were my real passion. I’d recently seen an article in Classic Roses Magazine about one of the oldest varieties, Dante Daydream (circles of petals in various shades of red), and I was determined to get a bush or two for the far corner but, apparently, they were very rare (not to mention expensive) and, so far, I hadn’t found anywhere that—

Bzzz.

I brushed another insect away.

Where are they coming from?

Bzzz.

Bzzz.

Mum came out, wiping her hands on a tea towel. ‘Angie said you and Loverboy should pop round later. After your boys’ night out.’

‘We are not having a boys’ night out. Ow, leave my hair alone!’

‘I can’t help it! It’s so beautiful.’

‘Mum!’ I pulled away.

‘Oh, let me touch your beautiful red hair, gorgeous boy!’

I laughed. ‘Mum!’ I dodged out of the way.

Laughing, she chased after me.

‘I want the boy with beautiful red hair!’

‘You’re mad!’

‘Hair!’

‘You’re tickling me! Stop it! Ha, ha, ha!’

‘I want to touch that hair! Ha, ha, ha!’

We fell to the grass.

‘I can’t breathe, Mum!’

Tickle, tick—

A knock at the front door!

Mum stopped tickling.

‘Saved by the bell, young man.’

‘Saved by the knocking, you mean.’

‘Oh, very clever— How do I look?’ she asked.

‘Like the most beautiful woman on the Street.’

‘I love you, sweetheart.’

‘I love you too, Mum.’

She went to open the door.

Still gasping for breath, I stood up.

Bzzz.

What were these insects? They were all over the table now, feasting on the last cake crumbs and dregs of Coke.

I became conscious of voices in the house.

I picked up my T-shirt and went inside.

Mum was standing by the front door talking to old Mama Zepp.

Mama Zepp was at least eighty years old, about five feet high and always dressed entirely in black (layer over layer—black silk, black lace—even in this heat). She had long white hair, face covered with wrinkles and a lipless mouth (‘Like a snake,’ Dad used to say). She was also our local fortune-teller, magician, herbalist, clairvoyant and . . . oh, yes! She used to be our local—unofficial—midwife. Years ago, from what I’ve heard, pregnant women would rather trust Mama Zepp than any nurse or doctor.

As I walked up to them I heard Mum saying, ‘It’s nothing to do with me, Mama.’

‘It’s always going to be something to do with you, Faith,’ Mama Zepp said. ‘You know it and I know it. Now I don’t want any more fuss. Why knock down a good door? Go and get the key.’

‘Wait till my Ron gets home. He can climb through a window and—’

‘No! Let’s do it now. Before the men arrive. Death and birth are women’s work. You know that.’

‘You’re an interfering old harpy, Zepp. You always have been.’

‘Stop being a stupid girl, Faith! Get it. Now!’

Mum hesitated for a second, then glanced at me. ‘Put your shirt on! You’re not a bloody caveman!’ She went upstairs.

There was a look in her eyes I had never seen before.

Terror, perhaps.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked, struggling into my shirt.

‘Well, it’s like this, Concord Webster. Suddenly you realize that you haven’t seen a certain someone for a while. Where is that certain someone? you ask yourself. And that’s what I did this morning. About a certain . . . someone.’

‘Who?’

She took a step closer. ‘Tell me . . . when was the last time you saw Judge Martin?’

‘The Devil?’

‘If that’s what you want to call him.’

‘Oh . . . yesterday. No! The day before. Or perhaps . . .’

‘You see!? When you get to be my age you know the signs. Perhaps it’s days since anyone saw him. Perhaps it’s weeks. Who would miss him? This certain someone has no job. No friends. Nothing.’ Another step towards me. ‘He’s dead inside that house of his. I can smell it through the letter-box. I just want to make sure.’

‘But . . . why come to Mum?’

‘As I say. No point in knocking down a good door.’

‘I still don’t understand—’

‘Your mother has the key to his house, my dear!’

‘My Mum has the . . . ?’ I laughed. ‘Oh, you’re . . . you’re wrong. Mum doesn’t even know the Devil. Why would she have the key to his house?’

Mama Zepp smiled.

Another step closer.

‘Why don’t you ask her?’

I stared into Mama Zepp’s violet eyes.

‘Go on!’ she said. ‘Ask!’

I rushed upstairs.

Mum was in her bedroom, closing one of the drawers in her dressing-table. She was trembling all over. Her face looked like it’d just been slapped.

‘Mum . . .’

She didn’t respond.

‘Mum?’

Slowly, she held out her hand.

There was a key in it.

‘Give it to her,’ she said, softly.

I took the key.

‘Mum? Why have you got—?’

‘No questions, Connie!’

‘But—’

‘Just give it to her!’

I waited a moment.

Mum looked away.

I went back downstairs.

‘Aha! There it is!’ Mama Zepp said. ‘She’s a good girl at heart, your mother. Sometimes you have to dig a little to find it. But there’s diamonds in her depths. I’ve never doubted that.’ She clutched at my hand. ‘Give it to me!’

‘No!’ I pulled my hand away. I started putting my shoes on. ‘I’m coming with you.’

‘Oh . . . really?’

‘Yes. Really.’

‘And tell me, Concord Webster . . . have you ever seen a dead body before?’

‘N-no.’

Mama Zepp grinned. ‘Then this will be quite a birthday for you, my dear. Oh, yes. Quite a birthday.’

CHAPTER THREE

We walked down the Street.

Some children were sitting in the kerb.

They were clapping hands and chanting:

‘The ghost I saw

In Chilblain Street

Had blood and blisters

On its feet.’

‘Have you got a handkerchief?’ Mama Zepp asked.

‘Er . . . yes.’

‘Let me have it.’

I gave it to her.

‘It won’t smell too pleasant in there,’ she said, pulling a small glass bottle from her handbag. ‘A dead body? In this heat? Not a good combination.’ Mama Zepp sprinkled something onto my handkerchief. ‘Rose water. Breathe through this when we get in there. It’ll help. By the way, there’ll be rats.’

‘Rats!’

‘I thought you were supposed to like horror films! Aren’t rats everywhere in films like that?’

‘I like them in films, Mama. I don’t like them—’

‘Running up your trouser leg and biting your crown jewels?’ She chuckled. ‘Oh, don’t worry. Tuck your trousers into your socks before we go in there. And as for seeing a dead body for the first time . . . don’t worry. Death is nothing to be afraid of. It’s the same as birth. Nasty to look at but perfectly natural.’

‘The ghost I saw

In Vicky Park

Ate all the stars

Till it was dark.’

Bzzz.

The glittering ‘locusts’ hovered round us.

More and more.

‘I’ve never seen insects like this,’ I said.

‘Perhaps we’ve never had a death like this.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Perhaps I don’t mean anything.’

‘You’re talking in riddles.’

‘Perhaps I am . . . perhaps I’m not. Here we are!’

We were outside the Devil’s door.

Insects crawled round the letterbox.

‘Look at them!’ said Mama Zepp. ‘Like flies round a dog’s backside.’

‘But they’re not flies, are they?’

‘Oh, no. They’re certainly not flies.’

‘Aunt Ivy said they looked like locusts.’

‘Well, let’s call them that, shall we? Open the door!’

I put the key in the lock.

‘The ghost I saw

In Secret Row

Said, "Shhh! Some things

You’ll never know." ’

‘My dear, you have to turn the key.’

‘What? . . . Oh! Sorry, Mama.’

I turned the key.

Mama Zepp pushed the door wide.

The smell poked me in the eyes and sandpapered my nostrils.

‘Told you!’ Mama Zepp said, triumphantly. Then added, ‘Rats! Trousers in socks! Quick! Quick!’

I tucked the bottom of my jeans into my socks.

‘One last chance to back out, my dear. You don’t have to come any further if you’re having any—’

‘No! I . . . I want to.’

‘Good . . . very good. Handkerchief!’

I covered my nose.

‘In we go!’ Mama Zepp said.

The hallway was exactly the same as I remembered from my Knock-Down-Ginger days: threadbare carpet, peeling wallpaper, piles of shoes.

Bzzz.

Locusts clung to lampshades.

Locusts crawled on walls.

Bzzz . . . bzzz . . .

We looked in the living-room: sofa, table, television, shelves of books, piles of books, everything covered in dust.

The windows were covered with newspaper.

‘He didn’t want anyone to look in,’ I said.

‘Or perhaps he didn’t want to look out.’

There was a noise from a dark corner. A rustling.

‘Stamp your feet, my dear!’

‘But why—?’

‘Just stamp! Hard as you can!’

I stamped.

‘There!’ she said. ‘Listen!’

Throughout the house a million pinballs seemed to rolling.

‘That’s the rats!’ Mama Zepp said, almost affectionately. ‘All scurrying back to their nests. Come on. He’s upstairs.’

Locusts on the bannisters.

Locusts on picture frames.

Locusts on the landing.

Bzzz . . . bzzz . . .

There was a large cardboard box

Reviews for In the Eyes of Mr Fury

[Preston Carmichael · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

BRILLIANT. Read this in 1990 and to this day it still remains my favourite book of all time.