There are those who will claim that in the case of adults the removal of one person and their substitution with another who bears a vaguely similar yet somehow different aspect is, quite simply, an impossibility. But this is not the case. There have been many such instances. A well-to-do lady in Ballintack in 1892 returned to find her husband Martin’s chair inhabited by a beguiling stranger with whom she had to spend the rest of her life, eventually being beaten to death by him in a row over cups and saucers. An ordinary housewife in the county of Cash lay in bed one night and awoke to see an empty-eyed stranger – who bore the swarthy features of her husband but did not speak with his voice – climbing in beside her and making illicit suggestions of the most repellent kind. The evidence is ample, to say the very least. And now – here I was! – sharing a car with a jarvey who was not my own. A clammy hand of fear took hold of me and I swore I should never reach Labashaca alive.
*
Which, fortunately, I did, but whether, considering the fate that lay in store for me, ‘fortunately’ is the appropriate word or not is a moot point, for hardly had I arrived at the door of the hotel than I was approached by an oily-looking individual in a hacking jacket who let it be known that his name was Albert Huntingdon. I smiled as best I could, having no interest whatsoever in either him or his name, and was about to tip my cap and push past him into the hotel when I found myself pinned up against a wall and as malevolent an eye as ever I encountered bit into me as sharp and as deep as any sword. ‘Don’t think I don’t know who you are, Mr JJ Parkes, so-called practitioner in the field of medicinal arts! And don’t think I don’t know you are a direct descendant of Fortescue Hastings-Parkes, would-be veterinary surgeon and part-time scientist, who has visited a scourge on the town of Labashaca that no amount of forgiveness can ever wash away! You would do well to remember that, Mr Dr JJ!’
*
As I breathlessly slumped to the tarmacadamed forecourt, I looked up to see my bulky assailant disappearing with a shuffle into the dark. I was bewildered, his harsh words still ringing in my ears. For I did indeed have a relative by the name of Fortescue Hastings-Parkes, a pioneer in the field of animal medicine, who had disappeared without trace in the late 1890s, and who was rarely spoken of now, as though his name were tainted by some horrendously unspeakable shame. As I hauled myself aloft and once more gripped my travelling bags, I was about to consider this ravelled web of perplexity when to my ears there drifted the coarse sound of mocking laughter and I looked up to see the writhing, corballed face of the changeling observing me from the shadows of an alleyway where he had stalled his jaunting car, his mouth a lopsided aperture from which this indulgent chuckling emerged, his pocket jangling with the sound of the coins he had wilily extricated from me earlier. When I looked again, he was gone. As indeed was the hotel, which only minutes before had been standing directly in front of me and was now entirely relocated, brick by brick, on the opposite side of the square. I stumbled across the tarmac, tired and exhausted, unable to probe these mysteries further and, with all the strength I could muster, provided the receptionist with my name and details and made my way upstairs to bed.
*
Throughout that night I found myself assailed by strange dreams. I saw myself standing by a withered tree, holdall in hand, as if anxiously waiting for someone. Which, it transpired, I was indeed, as moments later an autobus came to a halt directly in front of the withered tree. I was astonished to find myself confronted by what appeared to be a middle-aged man in plus-fours and Edwardian jacket, but which was impossible for me to say for certain as he had no face. Surely, I feel assured I hear you murmur, he must have had some face! But no. In all sincerity, reader, I tell you – in this case, of face, or features even approximating thereto, not the slightest trace was evident. And yet, somehow, I heard him speak! I heard the words, as he extended his beautifully manicured hand to me, clear and mellifluous as a stream flowing on a bright summer’s day: ‘Good day! My name is Fortescue Hastings-Parkes. Come with me!’
Within minutes, I found myself transported to the interior of the most magnificent edifice. Through the opened French windows the plangent melodies of Schubert drifted out across the splendid gardens, above which towered the leafy shape of a large horse, to which a bent and aged figure was putting the finishing touches. ‘O’Hagan, our topiarist,’ explained Fortescue. As he spoke, a large red setter came bounding along the hall and pinned me to the wall, licking me furiously about the face and ears. ‘Fergus,’ cried Fortescue, ‘stop that!’
I was relieved when the animal withdrew its paws and sat like a lamb in the centre of the floor. ‘Yes,’ continued Fortescue as we made our way towards the library, ‘I have many things to tell you, Dr JJ! Many things!’
As I turned to face him, I was astonished to find that his face had almost entirely returned, and even more perplexed as I realized, now that it was fully formed, it was what you would describe as an almost perfect replica of my own! As we stood there beneath the packed bookshelves, sipping a tincture of the finest port it has ever been my privilege to taste, I might have been engaged in conversation with my twin. ‘Yes, dear JJ,’ he continued, ‘I have many things to explain. Tell me – has it ever occurred to you why you possess such a sense of – how shall I put it? – “class” – of what perhaps we might call “breeding”? And yet all your life you have spent in a tiny ramshackle cottage in which there is barely room to swing a cat? Has it never occurred to you that you, like some of these poor creatures who claim they are women trapped in the bodies of men, are a blue-blooded landowning fellow, of the finest, purest extraction, marooned in what can only be called a habit of the coarsest, most mundane flesh? Have you never asked yourself: “Why am I called John Joe? Why is my name not Erskine? Or Johnston? Or Ivan Percival? Vernon, perhaps?” Mm?’
He observed me fixedly and I am sure he heard my heart miss a beat. How many times as I lay in my bed had I asked myself these questions? How many times as the rough words of the village corner boys came once more to my ears in such phrases as ‘Good man, John Joe!’ and ‘Take it handy, Squire John Joe!’ had I asked myself those very same questions? Why, from the very day I was born, had I not felt as they did, and instead perceived myself as ‘chosen’? Why did my grandfather, until the end of his days, stare at me with such sadness, a broken and decrepit white-haired man old before his time, crippled upon a crooked stick because of some dark secret in which the world could not be permitted to share? It was all I could do not to hide my face beneath my coat. For if anyone had ever released a dart that found its mark in the centre of someone’s heart, in that single moment, Fortescue Hastings-Parkes had.
*
The following morning, at table, when I perceived that it was the intention of my fellow diners to be less than civil, I decided at once that I would not permit myself to be in the slightest way intimidated by them and resolved to continue as genial a conversation as was possible in the circumstances, passing comments on the quality of the comestibles, toast and the various other items of foodstuffs which it had fallen to us to dispose of that morning. But it was all to no avail and, in the end, I found that I could contain myself no longer, rising to my feet and slamming my knife and fork down on my plate, crying: ‘Damn you all! What is the matter with you! And just what the hell is going on in this village!’ If I felt that this outburst might produce some reaction, I was but a fool! For all the reaction I provoked I might as well have been sitting alongside people made entirely of sponge or straw. With whatever equanimity I could muster, I finished what remained of my breakfast, dabbed the stain of egg yolk that had lodged itself upon my tie and made my way out into the morning.
I had all but gone ten yards when I felt a hand touch my shoulder. Instinctively I turned. ‘Fortescue!’ I cried. But the small round man shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘my name is Considine. Tom Considine. I am informed I am to be your partner here in the village.’ When I heard those words, a huge sense of relief came over me. Such was my u
nease since my arrival in Labashaca that had I turned and discerned before my eyes an Indian warrior or Nazi war criminal I should not have been in the least surprised. Now, for the very first time since my arrival, I found myself in the company of someone I felt I could trust implicitly. Which was foolhardy in the extreme, for, as it transpired, Tom Considine was not only a hopeless incompetent, but also a mean, spiteful, and wholly disreputable individual who would stop at nothing in order to line his pockets so that he might feed his vile habit. Which, I was very soon to learn, involved the consumption of ludicrously inordinate quantities of alcohol. I am by no means prudish by nature, and have no objections whatsoever to the inhalation of a regular opium cigarette or quiet disposal of that substance in tablet form, but such was my partner’s reliance on these vast volumes of liquid intoxicants that it became only a matter of time before I grew to despise him. Hardly had we been installed in the beautiful office which, as he explained, we were to share, overlooking the main street and the blue cloud-necklaced mountains that encircled Labashaca, than his manner toward me began to change – ever so slightly at first, but, without a doubt, with enough significance not to go unnoticed. Initially he would debate enthusiastically with me regarding various ailments particular to the town, advising me on the most appropriate manner in which to deal with certain patients, and going into great detail about any number of exotic illnesses, of which I knew little or nothing, I admit. And I could only marvel at the undiluted breadth of his knowledge as he paced the office floor in his starched white coat. A starched white coat that slowly but surely became a crumpled grey pile dumped in a corner beneath a faded chart depicting the labyrinthine complexity of the human anatomy as my so-called partner and ‘superior’ reached deep into his pocket to produce a twenty-pack of Major cigarettes (acknowledged in the medical profession as the strongest available on the market) and, proceeding to light one for himself, audaciously requested ‘the loan of twenty pounds’. I presumed that its return would be forthcoming later, and thought no more of it. Little did I know that this was but the beginning. Before the week was out, I had parted with the sum of not less than one hundred and twenty-seven pounds, and was slowly beginning to realize that in all likelihood I would never lay eyes upon those monies again. Especally when, upon my return to the hotel late one night, I heard a familiar voice call from across the street: ‘Oi! John Joe! Are you all right for a few quid?’ and looked over to see, not, at first, my medical partner, but a rotund, red-faced man whose face was a mass of sundered capillaries – clearly a knight of the road: behind whom lurked my so-called colleague, doing his level best to conceal himself, the unmistakable sound of chuckling emanating from behind his nicotine-stained fingers.
It was to be some weeks before I was to discover the sickening truth that ‘Dr’ Tom Considine was not, in fact, a doctor at all, and that the coat in which he had been parading so confidently had been secretly removed from the local hospital some days before my arrival. When I confronted him with this, he merely laughed, slamming the door behind him and calling back – or should I say snarling back – that I was ‘Daft! Like all the Parkeses!’ and that I would ‘get what was coming to me around Labashaca’ for what it was I had supposedly done!
As I sat there in the deafening stillness of the late afternoon, staring at the pile of weathered brown folders and coloured pamphlets which arrived daily (the only colour evident in my rapidly greying life at that time), try as I might, I could not still his words, each one tapping away at the base of my cranium as if a tiny metal hammer with a mind and a mechanism all of its own. What did he mean by that? Why did I feel so strange since my arrival in Labashaca? Why had I not been visited by one single patient since setting up my practice? Did in fact a village named Labashaca even exist? I asked myself. By the time I left the building that evening, I was on the point of collapse.
*
On many occasions I have wondered what might have become of me if I had not been fortunate enough that very evening to encounter a person who, to this day, remains a loyal and trusted friend, and whose calm, reasoned and gentle ways proved to be the key which finally unlocked the ‘Mystery of Labashaca’. I found myself in a state of extreme anxiety, particularly after my encounter with my jarvey, who appeared out of the dark as I stumbled hotelward, addressing me with the sinister words: ‘Do you think you’ll be needing me to drive you home, sir?’ and disappearing once more into the dark as I cried out with all my might: ‘What is wrong with you? What are you trying to do? Are you trying to drive me mad? What have I done on you, damn you! What have I done!’
*
Such was my despair as I sat at the counter of the hotel bar that night that when a clammy hand was laid upon my shoulder I instinctively whirled and, with my fists squared, cried, ‘Damn you to hell! All of you!’ only to see before me the tweed-coated figure of a white-moustached man in his sixties, a walking cane elegantly suspended from his pocket, and upon his head a pork-pie hat of expensive Donegal herringbone, its pointed beak momentarily obscuring his bushy eyebrows. I observed him as best I could through eyes that were the equivalent of fogged-up windscreens in the wildest of blizzards. He extended his hand, removing his calf-leather glove before he did so. ‘Oxford Cathcart, at your service,’ he said. It is sad to report that I greeted his extended hand by issuing forth a number of the foulest expletives, pushing him away as if he were some unacceptable person ravaged by contagious disease. ‘Go away!’ I snapped. ‘I want nothing to do with you or anyone else from this godforsaken dump!’
At this, heads turned and I found myself facing any number of sets of malevolent eyes. But I was beyond regret. ‘Go on, then! Look!’ I cried, with all the acidic unpleasantness I could muster. ‘That’s all you’re good for around here, isn’t it, you stupid fools! Look at you, all of you! More chance of finding brains in a jennet!’
As I uttered those words, a hysterical scream rent the air and the last thing I remember is a vase of flowers becoming airborne and sailing towards me through the air, smashing into a million pieces against the wall behind me. As a vast creature (he can only be called a ‘labouring type’) flung himself in my direction, I heard the familiar voice of Oxford Cathcart cry: ‘Run, man! For the love of God, run!’ as he grabbed my arm and pulled me onward, both of us fleeing into the night.
*
I must have passed out at that point for the next thing I remember is waking up in the most sumptuous of surroundings, with Oxford by my bedside dabbing my forehead with a cool cloth. I made to get up but he cautioned me, with all the tenderness and consideration that are the characteristics of the man. ‘What happened?’ I asked him, and his features clouded over like a small rock pool whose implacable tranquillity is disturbed by a small stone or pebble cast into its depths. He sighed, and sinking his hands deep in the pockets of his dragon-festooned dressing gown, faced the wall opposite and, without turning, said: ‘You made a big mistake in that hotel bar last night, John Joe.’
There ensued a long spell of silence.
‘But how, Oxford? Why?’ I replied.
‘Because,’ he continued, ‘of all the words you can utter in the town of Labashaca, there is none more feared or despised than that of “jennet”.’
I considered for a moment and then said: ‘Oh, come now, Cathcart. Surely you must be joking. What harm can there possibly be in including the name of a harmless dumb animal who is but a cross between a mare donkey and a pony in an otherwise unspectacular sentence?’
‘I am not joking, John Joe!’ he replied, to my astonishment with one deft movement removing in its entirety all his facial hair, including his wig, crying: ‘Does the name Fortescue Hastings-Parkes mean anything to you?’ as I felt the blood running from my face and gazed upon the man who now stood trembling before me – a man known only as Fortescue Hastings-Parkes!
I gasped, trying to find the words to express my disbelief!
‘Yes, it is me, John Joe!’ he continued. ‘I wanted it to happen some other way – b
ut after last night, I have no option!’
‘But . . . but, I don’t understand! What harm could there possibly be in saying . . . jennet?’
‘You didn’t just say jennet, John Joe! What you actually said was – you’d find more brains in a jennet!’
‘Yes, Oxford . . . but . . .!’
‘Get your things. We’re going for a ride!’ he declaimed authoritatively.
*
Within minutes, we were bounding through open countryside on ebony-black steeds, Fortescue Hastings-Parkes instinctively slicing through foliage and undergrowth like the noble, determined horseman that he was. It was approaching nightfall when we reached our destination, a secluded valley to the north of Labashaca, a place so ineffably quiet it almost brought your heart to a standstill. ‘Fortescue,’ I began, but was silenced by an expressionless hand. ‘Ssh,’ he whispered and then I heard it, for the first time that night. A time that was to be followed by many others that night before dawn would break. ‘Do you hear it?’ he said. I nodded and cocked my ear to listen again. ‘Nnnngyeeagh! Cheep! Nnngyeeagh! Cheep!’ as alien a sound as ever it has been my experience to hear, emanating from the vast blue table mountain framed against the light-flecked black velvet of the night sky. ‘Let us make a fire,’ said Fortescue, ‘for we have to talk, you and I!’
I gave myself to the task of gathering some kindling and producing flame with the aid of two small twigs and, within the hour, Fortescue was ready to begin his tale. A tale which, initially, I confess, prompted me on a number of occasions towards the words: ‘Surely you must be kidding, Fortescue!’, ‘Really, Fortescue!’, and ‘Oh, yes! I’m sure!’
Little did I realize that what I was soon to witness would haunt me for the rest of my mortal days.