The Phantasma of Q

The Phantasma of Q——————— Lisa Goldstein Lisa Goldstein (b. 1953) creates worlds just slightly removed from our own. The Red Magician (1982) is set in a recognizable Eastern Europe just before the Second World War where a magician tries to keep his world separate from what is happening around him. Tourists (1989) is set in a variable world, called Amaz, where a family are seeking an ancient treasure which may or may not be part of the world. Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon (1993) is set in an Elizabethan world of faerie. Like Blaylock's work, the shift between fantasy and reality is not always apparent. Just as in the following story. I THINK I'VE SEEN HER AGAIN. It was on one of my rare forays into London, rare, perforce, because my old bones cannot stand the continuous jarring motion of the train into town and the even worse jostling of the people packed into the underground. It is galling to me that I, who have ventured into nearly every continent and seen sights most men can only dream of, should be confined to a little village, that I should have to plan for a trip to the capital with all the care and precision of a voyage to the interior of Africa. However, it cannot be helped. I went to London to deliver to my publishers the latest instalment of my memoirs—and to be treated to a rich dinner at my editor's club, one of my few indulgences nowadays. Over a glass of very good port I hinted at the marvels I would reveal in later episodes: the hippogriff, the centaur, the phoenix I had tracked down in Arabia. My editor listened, as engrossed as a child, and when I had finished he remarked that the first volume of my memoirs had done very well. "People love to read about these journeys to exotic places," he said. "Especially now that civilization is making inroads nearly everywhere. In another ten years, I wager, most of these wonderful creatures will be extinct, or will have hidden themselves so well they'll never be found." "Ten years, is it?" I said. "Fortunately I'll probably be dead by then." He laughed, uncertain whether I had made a joke or not. After dinner I left him and walked, a little unsteadily, to the nearest underground station. The train I wanted was just closing its doors, and I knew that I would not be able to run for it. She ran, however, flying past me, and slipped into the car just before the train pulled out. It was she, I was almost certain of it. She looked exactly the same. Forty years had not changed her in the slightest. Well, they wouldn't, would they? Now the question is, do I tell Wallis? He has less reason to love her than I do. I have just telephoned Wallis. I had no idea whether or not he still lived in London; for all I knew he had returned to the States. And yet the operator I spoke to found him after a wait of only a few minutes, which seemed nearly as marvellous as anything I have encountered on my travels. Perhaps the wonder has not died out of the world after all. He sounded, like myself, years older and years more tired. "Hello," I said. "Is this Samuel Wallis?" "Yes," he said. "Who is this?" "James Arbuthnot," I said. There was a long silence. "Arbuthnot," he said finally. "What brings you to phone me?" "I think I've seen her. She's in London, Wallis." There was another silence. I thought he was going to ask me who "she" was, but he of course remembered her as vividly as I did. "Is she?" he said. "Yes. I saw her on the underground."

"And what do you expect me to do about it? Scour London for her? I don't want to see her again—you of all people should know that. And you know why." "I thought you might keep your eyes peeled. I don't live in London—" "Yes, I know. I've read the first volume of your memoirs. Are you going to mention her, mention that episode, in the next volume?" "I don't know. I hadn't thought to." "Good. Leave it alone, Arbuthnot. It won't do either of us any good." "But perhaps I will now," I said, moved by an impulse I didn't entirely understand. "Perhaps I'll find her, and ask her—" "Leave it alone," Wallis said again, and put the phone down. Over the next few days I couldn't settle down to continue my memoirs. Was I going to mention her? I hadn't planned to, but now I found that I could think of nothing else. There was no help for it. I would have to get that incident out of the way, get it clear in my mind, before I could go on. It started as so many of my journeys did, with the chance word spoken at the Royal Explorers Club. The club itself unfortunately no longer exists, though the building still stands, a massive pillared structure once filled with animals and plants, statuary and stelae, jewels and mummies, urns and reliquaries, all our marvels collected from all over the world. I went there in the autumn of 1885, to give a talk about my unsuccessful voyage to Crete to seek out the Minotaur. Afterwards a few of the members, some known to me and some not, settled back in the club's plush leather chairs to reminisce. "Do you know," one of the fellows said, "a friend of mine claims to have sighted a phantasma in the north," and he named a forest near the village of Q—————-. I was interested, of course. More than a little interested, if the truth be known, because a friend of mine, a man named Witherspoon, had told me a few months earlier that he had invented a device that made it possible to identify a phantasma. (Witherspoon, you may remember from the first volume of my memoirs, is the man who invented the oneiroscope, a device for capturing dreams.) They look like us, like ordinary people, though the consensus among explorers is that there are more females than males among them. The ancient Greeks called them Muses, and had distinguished nine of them, all women. Sightings by members of the Explorers Club seem to suggest that there are more than nine, though perhaps not many more; they are very elusive. A man who had captured one, or who was even in the presence of one, would be filled with ideas that would seem to burst from him; he would never lack for inspiration and creative force. I paid a visit to Witherspoon and arranged to borrow the device he had invented, which he called a musopticon. The musopticon proved to be a bulky, boxlike structure about two feet on each side. Witherspoon had constructed it of mahogany, and the levers, dials and gears of brass; it was also bound with decorations of brass along the sides, so that the whole thing was extraordinarily heavy. I brought it to a craftsman who had done work for me before and had him make me a knapsack of canvas so that I could carry it on my back; he also made pockets in the knapsack for my other instruments. I took a train to Q—————-and a cab to my lodgings. I would be staying with Mrs Jones, a woman who rented out rooms in her house. It was late afternoon by the time I finished unpacking, and I went downstairs to see if Mrs Jones had made tea. I was very displeased to discover that she had other guests, a young man and woman. More people than I had heard the rumours about the phantasma, and I hoped that these other guests were not here for the purpose of finding her. Surely, I thought, an explorer would not bring his wife along on an expedition. And yet what other reason was there to travel to this remote village? We made our introductions. The man was Samuel Wallis and his wife was Adele; from their accents

I judged they were Americans. Wallis was lean and fit, with long glossy hair parted in the middle. Mrs Wallis was as young as he and rather beautiful, with hair the same mahogany as my musopticon and wide slate-grey eyes. We settled down to our tea. "Are you Arbuthnot the explorer?" Wallis asked me. I admitted that I was. "And does that fantastical instrument I saw being carried upstairs belong to you?" he asked. I hesitated, and he went on. "You don't have to admit anything if you don't want to. I should warn you, though, that we may both be after the same thing. Have you heard there may be a phantasma in the area?" I confess that my heart sank at his words. "Yes," I said. "That's why I'm here." "Good man," he said. "It's best to get these things out in the open, don't you think?" He held up his teacup, and I saw that he intended to propose a toast, as though we were drinking spirits. "May the best man win." I could not argue with that. We clicked our cups together and drank. Mrs Jones bustled out from the kitchen. "Can I get you more tea?" she asked. "Or sandwiches?" Wallis's eyes were shining eagerly. And I, too, felt a sudden strong urge to be off, to implement some ideas I was beginning to have, to start combing the woods for the phantasma. "Have you made any discoveries I might be familiar with?" I asked him. "This is my first expedition," he said. Mrs Jones began to clear away the tea things. "But one has to start somewhere, don't you think? And I believe I have some rather original ideas about where to look." "And what does your wife intend to do while you are away?" "Oh, I'm going with him," Mrs Wallis said. I said nothing. It is commonplace knowledge that women lack the stamina and initiative needed for the long, arduous journeys of exploration. I was starting to feel more optimistic; Wallis was a rank beginner and clearly posed no threat to me. We left early the next day. We ate the hearty breakfast Mrs Jones prepared for us, and then I bade farewell to Wallis and his wife in the chill dawn light and set off towards the forest, carrying the musopticon and my other instruments on my back. The forest was ancient, perhaps a remnant of the huge wood that had once covered much of England. I had taken only a few steps in when the light around me grew dim; the trees began to arch towards each other, their leaves and branches plaiting overhead to form a living canopy. Oak and ash, alder and thorn, they grew thickly around me and their leaves underfoot muted my steps. I stopped, took the compass from my pack and got my bearings, then headed north. The forest was terribly silent; I heard no birds, no small animals scurrying in the undergrowth. When it came time for me to take my bearings again, the gloom was so intense that I could not see the face of the compass or the brass dials of the musopticon, and had to light a lucifer match to be able to read them. I shouldered the musopticon and continued on. As I tramped through the woods I wondered how Wallis and his wife were faring in this strange place, whether Mrs Wallis, or even her husband, had grown oppressed by the gloom and turned back. We were all amateurs in the literal sense, all of us adventuring for love and not for money, but a sort of professional ethic had arisen among the members of the Explorers Club, and Wallis did not seem one of our sort. Around midday I felt the first stirrings of hunger. I took out my pocket watch and lit another match to check the time, then ate the bread and cheese Mrs Jones had prepared. Shortly after that I deemed it best to start back. I took another reading with the musopticon, recorded no activity once again, and began to head south, towards the village of Q—————-. The forest seemed even darker as I walked back; oppressively so. I began to go faster, as fast as my various instruments would allow; they made a wild chiming noise together in my pack as I ran. I was eager to see people again, eager even to see Mr and Mrs Wallis. I reached the end of the forest at four in the afternoon and came to Q—————-and Mrs Jones's homely house shortly thereafter.

To my chagrin I found that the Wallises were still out. Mrs Jones fluttered around me (if so stout a woman can be said to flutter), helping me off with my pack, bringing me tea and sandwiches. "Are you certain they haven't returned?" I asked as I settled down with a chipped plate of sandwiches on my knee. "I've been here all day," Mrs Jones said. "I'd have seen them if they'd come back." The stresses of the day were beginning to take their toll. I settled back in an overstuffed chair and watched as Mrs Jones turned up the gas lights and lit the fire. Her tea towel, I noticed, was a souvenir from the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace, over thirty years ago — probably the last time the poor dear had been away from home. I must have been in hundreds of parlours just like this one, I reflected, and the familiarity of my surroundings worked a strange kind of magic on me. I grew certain that I would find the phantasma, if not tomorrow, then some time during my stay at Q—————-; in my tired state I even thought I knew which paths within the forest to pursue. At that moment Mr and Mrs Wallis came into the parlour, talking to one another and laughing. Mrs Jones hurried into the kitchen for more sandwiches. "Arbuthnot, good afternoon," Wallis said. He caught sight of the bulky pack near my chair and laughed louder. "Good Lord, Adele, look at all this equipment. Come, sir, who are you really—the White Knight in Carroll's Through the Looking Glass?" "And where's Alice?" Mrs Wallis asked. "Why, you must be Alice, my dear," Wallis said. "But then who am I?" Their banter annoyed me. "How was your day in the forest?" I asked, as politely as I could. "Oh, very good, very good," Wallis said. "Well, we haven't discovered anything yet, but we have some ideas where to look. And you?" "The same," I said shortly. My annoyance with them grew. To me, and to my fellows at the club, exploration was almost a sacred task; certainly we felt that it should not be approached in such a light-hearted, frivolous spirit. And what were these ideas they claimed to have had? "Dark in there, though, isn't it?" Wallis said. "A bit." "A bit! Listen to him, Adele! I suppose you have gas lamps in that pack of yours? Along with a full set of Dickens?" "I have matches, certainly. Don't you?" "Matches!" he said, smiting his forehead in what was intended to be a comical manner. "I knew we forgot something." Mrs Jones returned with more sandwiches. I stood and shouldered my pack. "I'm afraid I'll have to leave you," I said. "I must write my journal entry for today." And in truth I was anxious to return to my room; I wanted to record the insights I had had while relaxing and taking tea. "Good afternoon," Wallis said. His manner seemed to soften. "I hope we haven't offended you—we were only joking." "Oh, no," I said, abstracted. I nodded to the couple and began to climb the stairs. I set off eagerly the next morning, so early that I did not encounter the Wallises. The night before I had started a map of the forest, sketching in the areas I had already explored. It seemed to me I had found a spot the phantasma might frequent, a lonely place about a mile away that was halfway between Q—————-and the nearest village. Some of the writers I had consulted before I set out thought that these creatures preferred places of solitude and quiet. Now I skirted the forest, holding the compass in one hand and my rough map in the other. The sun rose higher in the sky. As I walked, though, I began to wonder what had made me so certain I would find the phantasma in this area. It looked the same as any other part of the forest, as deserted and as far from civilization as anything I had already seen. If you could count the Wallis couple as civilization, I thought, and laughed bitterly to myself. My thoughts turned to the encounter I had had with them the evening before. What had they

discovered? What were the ideas they said they had? How galling it would be, I thought, if these utter beginners were to find the phantasma before I did. When I had judged that I had walked a mile from Q—————-, I entered the forest. The great trees clustered around me, dark and silent, as I passed. I performed all the same actions as before, lighting matches, getting my bearings from the compass, checking the various dials and gauges on the musopticon. By the time I was ready for my midday meal I had grown tired and irritated, certain I was wasting my time. My evil mood grew worse as I turned back, and continued to plague me as I walked towards my lodgings. I opened the door to Mrs Jones's house and heard Wallis laughing. His wife said something I couldn't hear and Wallis laughed harder. It is strange to relate, I know, but I felt happy and carefree just at hearing their voices. Gone were the fears that they would find the phantasma before I did, the annoyance I had felt the day before at their light-hearted banter. I was eager to see people, I suppose, and I hurried forward as though they were old friends. Mr and Mrs Wallis were sitting in the parlour, Mrs Jones setting out the tea things. "Look, it's the White Knight!" Mr Wallis called out cheerfully. "How goes it, old chap?" I slung my knapsack from my shoulders and settled into one of the overstuffed chairs. For some reason, perhaps to check on my equipment, I thought to open my pack and look inside. Every one of the musopticon's dials was vibrating madly. I excused myself as soon as I could and went up to my room to think. The phantasma was here, in this very house. It was Adele Wallis, I was almost certain of it. Or could it be Samuel? No—the creatures were mostly women, and my intuitive feeling, the one that every good explorer learns to trust, was urging me towards the wife. This revelation created almost more problems than it solved, however. Did her husband know? If he did, why had he come all this way, and why did he claim to be searching for a phantasma? And if he didn't, why hadn't she told him? But so many other things seemed to make sense now. The clarity I had felt in her presence, the way I had seemed to generate one fresh idea after another about where to explore next. Even the happiness that surrounded the couple, that they seemed to bring with them wherever they went: surely the act of creation is accompanied by exactly that sort of joy. What should I do now? There were rooms and rooms upstairs at the Explorers Club containing the strange things that I and other members had found, the salamanders and rocs and mermaids. If I could bring Adele Wallis to London, the club would never lack for ideas; we would explore for ever; we would move from triumph to triumph. And I would get the credit; all of this would be due to me. I vowed to talk to Adele Wallis, to get her away from her husband somehow. I had my opportunity a few days later. The wait was irksome, as I had to pretend to be searching for the phantasma lest her husband become suspicious. I would leave the house and trek towards the forest, then turn back and spend the day in the village, drinking tea and talking to the inhabitants. It seemed to me that even these rude villagers had more than their share of creativity, that, for example, their speech was full of unexpected poetic conceits. Could this blossoming be the result of Adele Wallis's visit? Then Mrs Wallis fell ill. I feigned illness myself and spent the day in Mrs Jones's parlour, covered in a shawl and drinking tea—Mrs Jones moved around me, wearing her everlasting apron, dusting her fusty knick-knacks and sweeping. As the hours passed I began to grow impatient, and wildly excited; it became more and more difficult to sustain my pretence of illness. I saw myself travelling the world, Mrs Wallis at my side, making the kinds of discoveries most explorers only dream of. I would return to England, speak at conferences

and meetings around the country. Perhaps there would even be a knighthood. At last, around teatime, Adele Wallis made her way down the stairs. I had set the musopticon down near my chair, and as she came into the room I opened the pack and took a look at it. As I had hoped, all the pointers in all the dials were vibrating as one. Mrs Wallis accepted a cup of tea and settled in her chair. "Oh, dear, are you ill too?" she asked me. "I wanted to talk to you, Mrs Wallis," I said. She looked up quickly at that. I saw plain fear in her eyes, and she glanced at Mrs Jones to make sure we wouldn't be left alone together. "What about, Mr Arbuthnot?" "I know what you are," I said. Now she looked puzzled. "Do you, Mr Arbuthnot?" she said. "And what am I?" "You're the phantasma. You're what I've come all this way to find, I and your husband as well." She threw back her head and laughed. "I am, am I?" she said. "And what brings you to this extraordinary conclusion?" "Look here." I showed her the musopticon, the rapid agitation of the dials. "This device says that that is what you are." "Does it? Well, then, one of us is mistaken, either me or that device. I am not the phantasma, Mr Arbuthnot. I'm not what you think I am." "Come back with me to London," I said urgently. "Let me present you to the Explorers Club, show them what you are." "And then what? My husband's told me all about your club. Will you lock me in a cage, along with all the other unfortunates you've picked up on your travels? No, thank you." "No, of course not," I said, though in truth I hadn't worked out all the logistics of the thing. How would I keep her at the club during those times when we weren't travelling? Well, I would solve that problem when we got there. "Just come with me. Travel with me back to London." It was at this point, unfortunately, that Mr Wallis came into the parlour. What followed was like something from a bad French farce. Mr Wallis accused me of trying to steal his wife, I tried to explain that I wanted his wife for a higher, more scientific, purpose, and Mrs Wallis, for some reason, kept referring to me as "that horrible man". Finally, after I had repeated the word "phantasma" at least a dozen times, the anger appeared to drain out of him. "You're saying that Adele is—Adele is the phantasma?" he said. "Yes," I said. He looked at his wife. "No, of course I'm not, Sam," Mrs Wallis said with some asperity. "Don't you think you would know it if I was?" "I don't know," Wallis said, bemused. "How would I know? You might be." "Don't be ridiculous," Mrs Wallis said. "Look at this," I said. "It's a musopticon, made by the inventor Witherspoon. Look at these dials. They're recording the presence of a phantasma right here, right in this room." "I have had plenty of ideas lately," Wallis said. "It seems as if I've been full of ideas, more than one man can possibly follow up in one lifetime. My dear, if you are—" "I'm not. I'm Adele Ambrose Wallis, of Boston. You've known my family for years, for God's sake." "Don't swear, dear," Wallis said. "And if I were the phantasma, what did you plan to do with me? This horrible man here wants to bring me to London, to put me in a cage along with the dragons and werewolves and God knows what else. And you? What would you do?" "Why, nothing, dear. You'd still be my wife, my beloved wife. I'd keep you close to me—" "So you could take advantage of all the ideas you'd have?"

"You would of course be a help with my explorations. My muse and inspiration, as well as my wife. I would make the most amazing discoveries—there would be no stopping me. Why, I might even be eligible for membership in the Explorers Club." "And here I thought I was your companion!" "You are that as well, of course—" "But you wouldn't mind using me for your own ends—" "For our ends, dear. Your talent would benefit both of us." "For the very last time, I'm not the phantasma." "Then how do you explain those dials?" Wallis said. "I don't know," Mrs Wallis said angrily. "Ask Mr Arbuthnot—it's his machine." With that she left the room. A moment later we heard the front door slam. "Adele!" Wallis said, following her. "Adele, dearest…" I sat where I was, too astonished by this recent turn of events to do anything else. I happened to glance down at that moment; the dials of the musopticon were, if anything, more violent in their action than before. The only other person in the room was Mrs Jones. I looked up at her, too startled to speak. "Yes," she said. "Would you—would you come back with me to London?" "No, of course not. Not after what Mrs Wallis said. Is it true you put your discoveries in cages?" "Some—some of them." I felt paralysed before her. Her face was ancient, calm, wise. She seemed to have wings—or were those just the ties on her apron? "I'll have to leave you now, Mr Arbuthnot," the phantasma said. She spoke a few words. The room and everything in it vanished; I stood out in the open, with the village of Q—————-all around me. The sun was setting. Far away, on the high street, I could see labourers walking home. Adele Wallis was marching towards the train station; her husband ran at her side, gesturing frantically. I have thought about that incident nearly every day in the forty years since then. I heard through the Explorers Club that Samuel Wallis and his wife got a divorce; Adele Wallis went back to her family in Boston. Samuel made a few discoveries, nothing of importance, and then seemed to give up exploring, or at least his name was never mentioned again at the club. What I wondered about most of all, though, was why I had failed to recognize the phantasma. I had prided myself on having the intuition of a true explorer, an intuition that had stood me in good stead on many of my voyages of discovery. Seldom have I been so terribly wrong. It is only now, writing this, that I think I begin to understand. I am—I was—an explorer; I thought I could solve the mysteries that beset our lives by chasing after the exotic, the unique, the rare. But Mrs Jones showed me another aspect of our condition, what I could only call the mystery of the commonplace. The mystery that exists in aprons, and tea towels, and knick-knacks, the inspiration that can come from all these things. I am sorry now that I never settled down long enough to know any of this. I am preparing to undertake my last expedition. I will go to London, to the underground stations, and search for her there. And if I find her I will not attempt to capture her, but will tell her—tell her what?—tell her that at long last I understand.