Mousehead
Author
BC Derbyshire
Author Bio
I’m a disgraceful ex-hippie, ex- Quality Manager, ex-bus driver, originally from Ealing, West London, recently married to the beautiful Tess and living happily in Cardiff, Wales. I have a son who lives in Switzerland, works in e-learning, writes a mean haiku and plays the didgeridoo. I also have a daughter who lives here in Cardiff, writes poetry and stories, talks and writes about folk-tales, edits, leads ghost tours and occasionally works as an extra.
I’ve been writing since I was in my teens, inspired by the Beat Poets, Donleavy, Kerouac, Conan Doyle and Rabelais, but in spite of some near misses nothing was ever published. I have completed four novels – Mousehead, a surreal, poetic story of madness and redemption; Dragonfly, a fantasy quest for the imprisoned King Dragonfly; Heart’s Desire, a fairy tale with a bite and a spiritual message; and Almos Dali and the Beast of Bodmin, a detective story about a Hungarian, weird, philosophical detective. I’ve also written a short ghost story – the Passenger, about a ghost on an empty bus. I’m presently working on two more novels – Almos Dali and the Muswell Riddle, and Blind Martin, a satire set in Castle Grummelow, told by Martin’s invisible pot-bearer, Pisspot.
Description
Imagine opening a cardboard box full of the remaining papers of Aubrey Mousehead. You take them out and begin to read through them. You realise that in spite of the jumble of dates, a story is being told…
Aubrey Mousehead is 65, alone and going mad. He also young Aubrey, a solitary child, growing up in the 50’s in a house full of books; and Mousehead, the hedonistic, idealistic 20-year-old long-haired 60’s drop-out. Then something of him is to be found in ‘The Patient’, a novel he wrote at some point in his life.
Young Aubrey is an introverted only child, growing up in Cornwall, England, in a house full of books. Particularly Art books. Artists are his Superheroes. He internalises the world he sees and the world of his imagination, but understands little. Slowly he draws closer to puberty.
Mousehead is 20, long-haired and already a long way from normality, living with his parents in Cornwall, writing bad poetry. His only ally is Aunt Dorothy, who lives by choice in a caravan outside the house and amuses him with stories of her regal girlhood. He goes back to London to be with his friends – those reckless Sons and Daughters of Impossibility – living the hippie life of dope, sex and insanity.
The older Mousehead, now in London, is seeking answers from a television screen with the sound off, but the voice of God is either muffled or garbled. Madness grows within him, taking the form of a Black Flower which burrows its roots into his guts. He leaves his past behind and somehow makes it back to Cornwall, trailing behind him a mountain of memories and regret, encircled by demons, covered with black petals.
The Patient wakes in an empty hospital with no memory. He is covered from head to toe in bandages. Outside, an oily sea dribbles on to a beach dotted with padded and zippered erotic constructions. He makes a home for himself in his room, eating tins of food from the kitchen, collecting anatomical specimens. Finally, as the hospital begins to collapse around him, he is able to leave and to discover exactly what is outside.
Book excerpt
The girl’s hand goes to her mouth as if she hopes to hide from his sight this entrance to her body. Mousehead tries again to speak to her, to declare his passion for her, but still he is dumb with the Black Flower pressing against the inside of his lips, forcing his tongue to the back of his throat.
She reaches under the desk and presses a buzzer which sounds obscenely loud in this dreamy, polished, cloistered place. A man in a white shirt and blue striped tie trots down the stairs and stops as he catches sight of Mousehead swaying gently, shedding petals.
“You all right Janet?” he asks, not for one moment taking his eyes off Mousehead. Janet nods, hand clasped to mouth, then shakes her head with a little squeak.
“Now look here,” he hovers on the bottom step, trapped between fear of this shabby lunatic and his need to retain his relationship of moral superiority over Janet. “Now look here. What do you want? What do you want? You can’t just…”
Mousehead backs away from him and he finds his courage. He believes the lunatic to be afraid of him, but in fact Mousehead is staring at Death in grey trousers, white shirt and blue striped tie. Death is grinning from the bottom step, saying something in a tongue he doesn’t understand, pointing a bony finger at his chest, at his heart.
“Out! Get out! Janet, call the police. Come on, get out!” Death is completely in command now. “Do you want to be arrested for trespass? Janet, the number’s on the wall behind you.”
Janet continues to protect with her hand her open body from Mousehead’s lustful gaze. Mousehead continues, in spite of the presence of Death, to desire her above all others. Death stamps up to him and forcefully pushes him towards the door.
“Out! Out! Get out of here! Janet, call the police! Madman! Tramp! Filthy lunatic! Out! Out!”
Janet starts to cry, and Mousehead knows these tears are being shed for the beauty and pain of a love lost, of a Paradise hurled into ruin. He wants to take her into his arms, into his soul, but he is helpless. Death has put his hand on him and he has no choice but to go where he is bidden. So he moves backwards to the glass door, silently on the carpet, mutely, gagged with petals and stamen, deafened by the ragings of Death, loving, loving, torn with sorrow, blinded by regret. Janet weeps, her face concealed, closed to him forever.
The door shuts behind him. He stands confused in bright sunlight. He recalls a small leather-bound book, its old thin pages radiant in the sun which slopes through the window. And in the book, blood. A headless man, a giant fallen, frozen blood. He thinks for a second perhaps he is a child, dreaming at the gates of Hell, then he sees miniature lamp-posts and weedless grass. He sees a patio where once something beautiful and tragic stood. He can no longer bear the pain.
Mousehead runs.
Author Website
https://mouseheadblog.wordpress.com/