Forthcoming from Broken Sleep in 2027, Andy Croft’s Escape to Moribundia is a verse-novel in Pushkin sonnets. A black comedy about the colonisation of the Future, a study in Hauntology and a bad dream featuring Trump, Musk, Farage, Palaeolithic hunters, US cops, public schoolboys, merchant bankers, Fascists, Daleks, a pack of wolves and a minotaur, it is based on Patrick Hamilton’s 1939 science-fiction satire Impromptu in Moribundia and The Tempest. And it completes a trilogy of novels in Pushkin sonnets (following Ghost Writer and Nineteen Forty-eight).
Chapter 1 was first published in PN Review and Chapter 2 on the Culture Matters website.
CHAINLINK is proud to bring you this exclusive preview of the novel’s final chapter.
Chapter 7
‘Every third thought shall be my grave.’
The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1
‘Thinks: I am indeed glad to be back!’
Patrick Hamilton, Impromptu in Moribundia
1
The Lighthouse Rest Home for the Aged
Stands on a cliff above the sea;
The cell in which poor Cal is cagèd
Is on the top floor. He can see
How Neptune makes the bold waves tremble
And Jove his thunderclaps assemble
As though the world were made of rain.
The tears run down the window-pane
And wash Cal’s windows by the pailful,
While overhead the curlèd clouds
Are gathered like funereal shrouds.
And all the world reeks of the baleful
Bouquet of piss and monochrome
Of every modern Nursing Home.
2
Room 23 is Mr Savage’s
(Cacaliban to me and you),
A monument to time’s blue ravages
And what too much red wine can do.
This cell’s his court, with few attendants
And subjects none. His independence
Has been exchanged for this sad grot,
A lonely spot where this poor sot
Can spend his final years in clover.
The lonely room is bare except
For bits of driftwood Cal has kept:
A portrait of young Tereshkova,
A photo of his younger self,
A fading fuchsia on the shelf.
3
Cal sleeps beneath a pile of woollies.
At least he’s warm. Hark, hark! I hear
Above the squeak of hoists and pulleys
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry, cock-a-diddle-dow. It’s morning.
Another day in Hell is dawning
Behind the yawning curtain drape.
This time Cal knows there’s no escape.
Between the bed, the bog and bidet;
His days are flagged in jingo hues
Of bloody reds and whites and blues
Commemorating D-Day.
(And Waterloo. And Agincourt.)
But who’s that knocking on his door?
4
The sleeper wakes. And still it’s raining.
(A sunny day would feel perverse.)
While Cal’s reluctantly regaining
Some kind of consciousness, the nurse
Wheels in a creaking breakfast trolley
And greets him with some far too jolly
Remarks about the rain being kind
To ducks. She draws the window-blind
In accents loud and estuarial
And lets the greyness in the room.
Cal peers across the porridge-gloom:
Her name-badge says her name is Ariel.
Ding-ding-dong-bell the clock doth chime –
Our fairy’s made it, just in time.
5
Well better late, I say, than never.
I must admit I was well chuffed
To find her working here. However,
Her tricksy spirit’s somewhat scuffed
By zero-hours of greys and beiges;
The agency that pays her wages
Would rather that she didn’t voice
Her thoughts on agency and choice
(About which she can be most fervent),
But her brave spirit can’t be bought
As cheaply as her time. In short,
She is a most industrious servant.
The tender stirring in Cal’s heart’s
Now stirring his more tender parts.
6
Cal perks up for the next half hour.
She turns his bed and tucks him in
(He’d hoped she’d help him take a shower)
And dumps his fuchsia in the bin.
The doors of time, alas, are closing;
Tomorrow left while he was dozing,
Marooned upon this single bed
Where he must lay his lonely head.
(For Pete’s sake, Cal, stop being so tragic –
She works two shifts while you and I
And all the world do snoring lie.)
She turns his telly on – and magic!
It wakes like an insomniac
And stares at Cal. And Cal stares back.
7
A pair of tanned and charmless loafers
Announce the latest breaking news
While grinning at him from their sofas
Like meercats reading auto-cues:
A royal row, a royal wedding,
The soap-star’s cousin who’s been bedding
The grandma of his third wife’s ex,
A TV chef who’s changing sex,
The Boat Race live from S. Arabia,
A quokka who likes smoking crack,
A porn-star with a Union Jack
Tattooed upon her pre-loved labia,
A toady with a book to flog,
A princess with a frog to snog…
8
Cal’s days are spent in channel-hopping
From one bright studio to the next,
Between the claims of TV shopping,
The problems of the multi-sexed,
The benefits of tax-evasion,
The smiling spirits of persuasion
Want Cal to run up gambling debts,
And buy insurance for his pets,
To book a cruise and change his tyres,
To fill his teeth and eat his fill,
Increase his data, write a will,
And switch his energy suppliers –
In short, all that an old man lacks
If he’s to live life to the max.
9
One night when Cal has had a face-full
Of gazing at the TV screen,
He sees her – sovereign, noble, graceful,
Her shiny hair, her teeth so clean,
His skin so soft, her kitchen peerless.
Though Love can make a lover fearless,
If you’re half-monster and half-fish
You soon start talking gibberish;
Meanwhile your insides go all quavery,
Your senses and your self-esteem
Are all bound up as in a dream,
A volunteer for your own slavery.
A touching billboard billet-doux:
Miranda: Just because you’re you.
10
Next morning Cal has made his mind up.
She’s on the unit, making beds,
She plumps his pillows, pulls the blind up
And offers Cal his daily meds –
A polychromous tablet diet
Designed to keep the oldies quiet.
He necks the lot, and very soon
His lonely brain begins to swoon…
The medication pulls Cal deeper
Down green and underwater dreams;
He swims in starlit, branchiate memes
A restless, drowning day-time sleeper
To waken, wreck’d upon the shores
Of consciousness (and pressure-sores).
11
He lies there, caked in sweat and dribble,
And listens to the Struldbrugg calls,
As clear as the Cumaean sibyl,
Guffawing through the chipboard walls.
The land of happy ever after!
If only Cal could share their laughter!
Or will our hero never find
Repose, and still his beating mind?
His heart aches with a lousy dumbness.
The room starts spinning round his head.
But who’s that standing by his bed?
Fuck me, thinks Cal, it’s Mr Tumnus,
His waistcoat stained with buttered scone;
What’s more, he’s clearly not alone…
12
Cal watches as three dwarves, four naiads,
A Mynah bird, a minotaur,
Two beavers and some hamadryads
Come bouncing through the wardrobe door.
He rubs his eyes. This isn’t funny.
(I quite agree, but while there’s money
In furry things that talk and fly
I don’t see why I shouldn’t try
To get them singing for their supper.
Just think of all the merchandise!)
‘I say,’ beams Tumnus, ‘this is nice.
Would anybody like a cuppa?
I’ll go and put the kettle on.’
He beams at Cal. Then he is gone.
13
The beavers are now busy chewing
The legs off Cal’s one comfy chair,
The minotaur is loudly mooing,
The mice are fighting with a bear,
The naiads are all wetly prancing
And several dwarves are Morris-dancing;
A lion is sitting on Cal’s bed,
A bed-pan crown upon his head,
And chatting to some weeping willows.
Cal rings his bell, but it transpires
The mice have eaten through the wires.
He disappears beneath his pillows,
Just as – with one almighty crash
Of beak and feathers – here comes Tash!
14
Cal tries to speak. His voice is shaking,
‘You’re fictional – get out of here!’
Alas, these creatures are now making
A din to fright a monster’s ear.
Oh dear, thinks Cal. My thoughts precisely,
(Why can’t they play together nicely?)
The faun, meanwhile, has found the tin
That Cal keeps chocolate biscuits in,
While several flies are in the ointment
That keep Cal’s teeth from falling out;
He throws it at the Comus rout,
Who throw a look of disappointment,
And, following the minotaur,
Set off along the corridor.
15
Cal listens to the shrieks and screaming
Of neighbours on the floor below
Ejected from their morning dreaming
To find that an imbroglio
Of monsters from a children’s play-room
Are now encamped inside the day-room,
Where, judging by some well-fed moans,
The lion’s gnawing on the bones
Of one of the young care-assistants.
The dwarves, meanwhile have found the meds,
The unicorns are off their heads
And arguing about existence
With Tumnus and a talking seal
Who doesn’t think that fauns are real.
16
One of the young Bulgarian nurses
Runs past Cal’s door with shrieks and squeals
And desperate Cyrillic curses,
The minotaur hot on her heels
(I think it best I don’t translate her).
Cal grabs his Captain Tom rollator;
His only method of escape’s
A bottle of fermented grapes –
He shuffles to the walk-in closet
And turns the handle on the door
(Which is, of course, a metaphor
For something crucial – er, what was it?)
It’s dark inside. The smell’s not nice.
Cal flicks the light switch. Bloody mice.
17
We’re in a place that’s dim and dismal.
A smell of dust and rising damp.
Exploring through the gloom abysmal,
Cal switches on a lava-lamp
To light a cave of boyish treasures,
A hoard of long-lost of childhood pleasures:
Some Fuzzy-Felts, a child’s Jules Verne,
A Dalek annual, Look and Learn,
Subbuteo teams in several pieces,
A broken globe, some Airfix planes,
A box of Hornby Dublo trains,
The Narnia books, some Geoffrey Treases,
A torch, a one-armed teddy-bear,
A cowboy hat, and – over there…
18
A box of supermarket lager.
It may not salve the night’s despair
But it might end this stupid saga.
It’s warm as piss. Cal doesn’t care.
He peers outside. Of course it’s raining.
It always is. The light is draining.
The rain falls softly on the grass.
The ritual sound of breaking glass.
A host of banners line the pavement –
We’re Getting Britain’s Future Back
Emblazoned on a Union Jack.
This is the music of enslavement:
Exterminate. Exterminate.
Exterminate. Exterminate…
19
The Past, the Past, the Past is coming.
Cal grabs a pack of own-brand beers
And listens to the drumming, drumming,
The roar of lumpen-Fascist cheers.
He pops a can and swiftly necks it;
Too pissed by now to find the exit,
He takes another, knocks it back,
And thereby drowns his tongue in sack
To take away the putrid stinking
Of Heine’s bloody chamber-pot
(It might as well be paraquat
For all Cal cares). Red-hot with drinking,
Our man collapses in despair
In what looks like a rocking chair…
20
A squeak. A shriek. A bit of clanging.
A whistle, then a flashing light.
A rumble then a pause. Some banging.
The dashboard flickers black and white.
A thump, a bump, each one more violent.
Before the ancient ship falls silent
The Shipping Forecast, Radio 4,
(The outlook’s moderate to poor)
Plays out the last of our sea-sorrow,
A melancholy lullaby
As planet earth goes sailing by.
To what the skies will bring tomorrow.
Now all is hushed as midnight yet.
An island. Lots of sea. It’s wet.
Andy Croft
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