Preface
I hope writing an introduction to a fanfic isn't pretentious (Pretentious? Moi?), but I felt that this latest, and possibly last, installment in my Fawlty Towers series needed a bit of exposition. It is a bit of a departure, in that it belongs as much to H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos as it does to the BBC. As such it draws on a large body of extant and well-known work, and familiarity with the Cthulhu Mythos, although not absolutely necessary, certainly helps in understanding many of the character and event references. Conversely, if you are Lovecraft fan finding this, you needn't be terribly familiar with Fawlty Towers, although I suggest you are missing a lot if you're not!
I suggest the enthusiast of gothic and supernatural horror make the particular point of reading Clark Ashton Smith's short story "Ubbo-Sathla", whose protagonist figures significantly herein, and Lovecraft's own "The Haunter of the Dark". Also, I have pulled in a few threads from my other stories, as well as the factual destruction of the real 'Fawlty Towers' building --Wooburn Grange-- by fire in 1991: all to tie up the whole Basil Fawlty saga into one coherent finale. Still, I hope this works well as a "standalone" piece, and thanks to the fans who have taken the time to write a few words of appreciation for my efforts along the way.
Basil, Darkened
Devon Weekly Post
June 24, 1998
Torquay Landmark Lost in Fire
Local Man Still Missing
Residents of Torquay were saddened this past week by the destruction of a local landmark, known since the 1960s as Fawlty Towers. On the night of 21 June, fire quickly gutted the historic building and burned itself out, almost before local fire brigades had appeared on the scene. The outer walls remain mostly standing, but the interior is a total loss, and the site will be razed. The nature of the fire led initial investigators to suspect arson, but no evidence was discovered.
No-one is known to have perished in the blaze. The hotel was not occupied at the time, but the owner and manager, Basil Fawlty, has been missing since the fire. No human remains were discovered in the ruins, and his whereabouts remain unknown.
This marks the end of the hotel's long, and frequently troubled, history. Built in the 1860's as 'Victoria House', it was originally a charitable home for retired and distressed merchant seaman. Over the years it was, at different times, a hospital, a rooming house, Army headquarters in two wars, a retirement home, and council housing, as well as a hotel. Rumours of madness, misfortune, suicide, hauntings, and two verified murders attended its duration.
There are in Torquay some older residents who are glad to see it gone. Most, though, will have only nostalgic recollection of the old 'Victoria House': already developer's plans have been submitted to the Town Council for low-cost housing to be built on the site.
The Sun
June 23 1998
Haunted Hotel Claims Last Victim
TORQUAY Spook-chasers lament -- the West's most notorious happy haunting grounds burnt to the ground this week. Torquay hotel Fawlty Towers went out in a blaze of glory on Midsummer Night. That's all that's left of it, in the photo on the right. And that's our talented SUN Special Reporter, Sugar Pye, inspecting the damage on the spot. (Yes, lads, sharp eyes you've got. You did just see Miss Pye back there on Page 3, displaying her other remarkable talents.) Fawlty Towers tallied up an impressive scoresheet of murder, mayhem, and madness in its almost-150 year career. And it went down fighting at that. Basil Fawlty, who had run the Towers for the last thirty-odd years (some of those years very odd) seems to have disappeared in the blaze. No body found, no news from Fawlty, he might well have disappeared off the face of the earth. Locals say he was a bit of a nutter himself. So that's the last snap ever of the old place, take a good look, chaps, and while you're at it, take another good look at our Sugar Pye.
Report of Special Investigator D.C. Sedgewick, C.I.D., New Scotland Yard
24 August 1998
To: Chief of Investigations, Randolph Holbrook
Chief Holbrook:
This memo, along with supporting documentation (see which) comprises my final report to your office on the destruction by fire of the Torquay building once known as Victoria House, known since 1964 as Fawlty Towers.
The basic facts are straightforward enough. On the night of 21 June 1998, the building in question was gutted by fire. No lives are known lost, no injuries were reported or otherwise discovered. The owner, Basil Fawlty, has been missing since the night of the fire. The building was properly insured for fire damage, in normal amounts. Fire brigade investigators determined that the fire burned very quickly and very hot, a manner which suggested the possibility of arson. However, no trace of accelerants was found and no claim has been made on the insurance policy. Usually we expect to find significant increases in the insurance value within a year or two before such an arson. This of course does not rule out arson by some third party for motives other than financial reward, however, it would be nearly impossible for a fire such as this to have burned without chemical accelerant such as petrol or paraffin: as noted, no evidence of such was found. My own supplemental investigations found nothing to contradict any of the initial findings. I therefore ruled out deliberate arson as a likely event -- your primary concern. I turned my attention to the possible fate of Basil Fawlty, both as a missing person case in its own right, and in the hope of determining the cause of the blaze.
First, some background on Fawlty Towers itself. As reported in the newspapers, the building in question was first known as Victoria House, and was intended as a charitable enterprise for the benefit of ex-Merchant Navy sailors. It was dedicated by Her Late Majesty Queen Victoria personally in 1863. By 1885, it had become redundant for various reasons which I need not expound upon here, and was taken over by the War Ministry as a convalescent home for soldiers and Royal Navy seamen. Both officers and 'other ranks' were cared for. It continued in this function through the early days of the First World War, and many of the patients suffered what is now known as Post Traumatic Stress, called 'shell-shock' at the time. Consequently, it was mental illness more than physical injury which was treated there, and it was this, it seems, which first started the rumours among the locals that men went in sane and came out mad. (Sorry, there, 'in' and 'sane' are meant to be two words, not that 'men went insane'.)
In 1917, the Ministry found a different usage of Victoria House, and for the rest of the war it functioned as a headquarters of sorts for a number of different American army battalions that came through, mostly rear-echelon command personnel, colonels and generals and such, before going over to the Continent. By the summer of 1918, the local legend was that if a commanding officer had stayed overnight at Victoria House, his men were doomed. Naturally such a rumour reached the soldiers themselves, and was ruinous for morale. By the end of the war, it had reverted to a hospital again, usually the last stop for a Yank before getting shipped back home. I have not been able to determine if there was any truth to the rumour of high casualty rates among troops going in to the war there, but it is true that as a hospital, mortality rates were unexpectedly high. As I said, these were lads getting ready to go home, and should have been in reasonably good shape, but death rates were statistically off the charts. However, it did somewhat specialise in care of amputees, those who had lost legs and arms in the field. A higher infection rate in those primitive days and conditions, combined with the lowered morale of a man who has lost a leg, almost certainly contributed to the statistical anomaly. This may simply have not been recognised at the time, covered up, or simply forgotten over the years. Whatever the reason, the fact remains: many men died there in 1918, in great misery.
After the war, the Ministry sold off the property to a local family, the Youngs, who began letting the rooms to working class individuals, although a few families did make their homes there. It is reported anecdotally that in the early 1930's, a woman brutally murdered her two children whilst living there, and subsequently hanged herself. I say 'anecdotally', as the story is told by older townsfolk as common knowledge, with some of the more graphic details varying, i.e., she killed them with an axe, or a hammer, or a butcher's knife; she hanged herself in her room or in the garden: but otherwise with fair consistency. Police records from the time appear to be complete, yet there is no mention of any such crime in the files, nor in the newspapers. I understand it is this purported event which was reported recently as 'verified'. It is inconceivable, to my mind, that such a crime could have occurred and remain completely unrecorded, so officially it must remain rumour.
In any event, it was about this time that ghost stories first begin to appear about the place. This is unsurprising, given the actual history, that is, the first hospital era, as well as the gruesome story of a double infanticide and suicide, true or not. The rental business began to fall off, and Mr Young, the owner, already in failing health and entering the early stages of elder senility, was put into a nursing home for the aged in 1936. Mrs Young, who was rather younger than her husband, secured a loan on the property, and promptly vanished, along with her one teen-aged daughter. It is believed she absconded to America, although some locals recalled she often spoke of relatives in Ireland, and may have gone only as far as there. Mr Young's fate may have fuelled the rumours of the house's influence, although nothing suggests his mental condition was anything but normal for his age, and the disappearance of the wife and daughter thereafter may have become confounded in popular imagination with the previous tales of bloodshed.
Within that same year, the bank seized the property and tried selling it, but the house's reputation was by then firmly imbedded in local folklore. No one in the county would touch it, and even prospective buyers from outside the area were quickly exposed to the building's shadowed past.
The house was empty until well into 1939, when, with war imminent, the property was purchased for a fraction of its value by its former owner, the War Ministry. This time, it was used as barracks for RAF pilots being trained at a nearby airfield, no longer in existence. It maintained this function for about two years. Of course, RAF Fighter Command casualties were terrible in those early years, but again, the many young men who passed through Victoria House, only to die in the Battle of Britain, added to its sinister reputation.
Later in the war, the building again was again used as temporary quarters for junior officers on their way to the Continent. The same rumours began circulating that a stay at Victoria House was tantamount to never coming home: statistics do seem to bear this out, but primarily due to a large number of the officers being assigned to areas of some of the bloodiest battles late in the war.
After the war, it was taken over by the Town Council. It was drastically remodelled inside, and became mostly single bedroom flats. Council housing being what it is, or was, the building fell into disrepair, and by the late Fifties it had become home to the most thoroughly disreputable elements.
It is verifiable that a group of young people lived there during the last two years of this phase who had been positively attracted to the house by its evil reputation. They themselves contributed greatly to this reputation -- they were in fact cultists belonging to a notorious group known as 'The Order of the Golden Dawn', an avowedly Satanist organisation founded in the 1920's by one Aleister Crowley. Nothing of their actual activities is verifiable except for the usual complaints about young people most anywhere -- wild parties with loud music and inebriates in the streets, drug use, sexual libertinism, etc. Again, our friend 'common knowledge' attributes to them much darker practices involving bizarre rites and blood rituals, although even the wildest tales stop short of human sacrifice.
With this, the town had had enough. They managed to evict the few remaining tenants and squatters, and washed their hands of Victoria House (which had resumed its original name during this era). The building was sold to a German developer, who gutted the inside (yet again!), and restored it to something close to its original floor plan, with the intent of operating it as a hotel. This developer, Krupp & Schneer Ltd. (UK), failed to acquire a neighbouring property which they had intended on developing along with the hotel as a tennis and sports complex, for the pleasure of hotel guests as well as the public, and elected to abandon the business. They did run the hotel for slightly more than a year, under the unfortunate name of 'Krupp Arms', before putting it on the market.
Finally, in 1963, they sold the hotel to Basil and Sybil Fawlty, financially backed in substantial part by Sybil Fawlty's father. In one of the odd coincidences in the building's history, the Fawltys took title to the property on November 23, 1963, the day President John Kennedy was assassinated in America.
A brief introduction to our principals is now in order.
Basil Fawlty was a Korean War veteran, severely wounded, decorated, and discharged for medical reasons before the war ended. He had worked in restaurants, and enjoyed modest success as a chef at some of the better (though not the best) restaurants in London, before taking his career to York. Even while young, he had an abrasive personality which prevented him keeping on at one establishment for much more than a year at a time. I speculate he had run out of London restaurants worthy of his talent, and it was this that prompted his move north.
It was here that he met and married his wife, an undistinguished woman several years his senior. The newly married Mrs Fawlty had spent a brief time in London in her youth, before returning home to York. Living with her parents, she had taken a number of university courses in accounting and business management, evidently with an eye to entering the family business (her father was a well-to-do furniture importer).
Their honeymoon was a trip around England, including Torquay. By chance, they discovered Victoria House for sale, under its name of Krupp Arms. The price was almost absurdly low, for reasons by now obvious. Mr Fawlty's restaurant experience, backed with Mrs Fawlty's business training, seemed to them a good combination for running a hotel. After a brief trip back to York, where Basil's father-in-law agreed to help finance the deal, the Fawlty's returned to Torquay, took over Krupp Arms, and re-opened as Fawlty Towers in early 1964.
The Fawltys were mostly isolated from the local legends surrounding their hotel. They had little contact with townsfolk who might have passed on whispered rumours. Tradesmen calling at Fawlty Towers kept strictly to business, not wishing to pass on any discouraging atmosphere and thereby damage their own business.
With the passage of time, and the modest success of Fawlty Towers -- as well as the new spirit of the era -- by the late 1960s talk of any curse or ill luck associated with the one-time Victoria House was mostly done. There was a slight resurgence of the old stories in the late 1970's, when the so-called 'New Age' movement re-discovered the history of Fawlty Towers and declared it to be the centre of vortexes and Ley Lines (whatever those might be), and it began attracting the attention of spiritualists and vibration-chasers and self-styled Druids.
Fawlty Towers actually had an instance of great fortune in 1972 when, astonishingly, the rock band 'The Who' stayed there while performing a now-famous seaside concert (may I say, as a personal aside, that I still own and occasionally play the album of that concert, which I bought when it was new!). The compensation they received for hosting the band was astronomical (for the day -- it would hardly buy a new auto now) and put Fawlty Towers on a much surer financial footing. The hotel's modest success blossomed almost immediately into substantial success.
The only dark cloud hanging over Fawlty Towers was Basil Fawlty himself. His abrasive personality grew even more so. He had trouble holding on to help -- it was impossible to track down the succession of cooks and chambermaids who worked at Fawlty Towers through the years.
Only two employees managed to stay on at Fawlty Towers for any length of time: Polly Sherman and Manuel Andreas, chambermaid and waiter, respectively.
Miss Sherman was first employed at Fawlty Towers in 1971, and, after the 'Who' stay noted above, was actually married to singer Roger Daltry, although for only two weeks. Polly Sherman was extraordinarily close to Mr Fawlty. Duty compels me to state that their relationship was much closer than that proper to employer and employee, especially after the death of Mrs Fawlty (which is itself of some interest to this case). Mr Fawlty was probably closer to Miss Sherman than he was to Mrs Fawlty, although they never married after Mrs Fawlty's death.
Miss Sherman describes him as hot-headed and temperamental from the earliest days of their association, and often unreasonable. She is quite definite though, that in the two or three years preceding Mrs Fawlty's death he had started becoming downright irrational at times, and after his wife's death, precipitately more so. She stated that she had lived for most of twenty years as a resident of Fawlty Towers herself, moving out and living on her own on occasion, but always returning. She seemed unable to explain her own attachment to Fawlty Towers itself, except in terms of wanting to be near Mr Fawlty. Despite her relationship with him, this explanation seemed somewhat inadequate, and I had the distinct impression (simple policeman's hunch, if you like) that she was either deliberately holding something back, or had a touch of the irrational herself about staying on a resident of Fawlty Towers -- as well as mistress of Basil Fawlty.
Allow me now my own unofficial aside. Upon completion of my interview with Miss Sherman, I did feel as if there were indeed something inexplicable and dark associated with either the place or the person of Basil Fawlty. When I pressed Miss Sherman on the reasons for her repeated returns to the place, she would always get an expression on her face that I can only describe as hazy, as if she was off in her own little world for a moment, and would use the words 'I had to come back' or once 'There was no helping it'. Only then would she explain those words in terms of her attraction to Mr Fawlty. That was when I first wondered if it were truly possible that a place could exert such a hold on a person, compelling her to return again and again, against her own will and best interests. Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. The official part of this report now continues.
Having finished with Miss Sherman, I was eager to move on to interrogating Manuel Andreas, headwaiter at Fawlty Towers for almost fifteen years. He was brought to England by Mr Fawlty via a labour exchange from Barcelona, Spain, where he was the youngest of twelve children in a poor family. Surprisingly -- perhaps another of the odd coincidences surrounding this case -- he is actually a not-too-distant relative of the late Generalissimo Francisco Franco. When this fact was first revealed, I suspected that the fire which destroyed Fawlty Towers may have been some sort of anti-Fascist terrorist revenge, but this proved to be a dead end. Mr Andreas is not that closely related to Franco that he would be an obvious, or even a likely target; his immediate family were no more pro-Fascist in those years than any other family in Spain: that is to say, just pro-Fascist enough not to be shot; and there are no known groups engaged in such activity anywhere in Europe. His family are alive and well in Barcelona, aside from natural deaths: any of them might have made more logical and convenient targets. Granted, logic is frequently not a factor in terrorist mentality.
Mr Andreas substantially corroborated Miss Sherman's portrait of Basil Fawlty: quick temper, not good with people, and increasingly erratic through the years. Unlike Miss Sherman, Mr Andreas did live in his own flat, away from Fawlty Towers. Like Miss Sherman, he displays a fierce loyalty to Mr Fawlty that borders on the irrational. Now married to a local woman, and living in reasonably good circumstances, I asked him if he had any plans to return to Spain. Rather than simply state that he was well-settled now in England and living well, as I expected, he replied (I'll not attempt to reproduce his still-heavy accent): 'Of course not. Mr Fawlty may come back. He may build a hotel again. And then he will need me. How will he find me if I go back to Barcelona?' Again, a puzzling, if not irrational, response. Something that holds two otherwise reasonable, rather intelligent people, in a way that they cannot adequately explain, only rationalise. Either Basil Fawlty himself exerted a fantastic charisma -- in which case we may be glad he did not himself become some sort of cult leader!-- or something about the house itself, which sort of -- gets a hook in you that you can't shake loose -- sorry, sir, I'm off on a tangent again. Disregard that last as part of the official report.
One more observation. The Fawltys themselves rarely left the hotel for more than a day or two at a time. In all their years there, they never took a holiday. Part of Miss Sherman's statement revealed that the Fawlty's had planned a luxury world tour on the proceeds of that 'Who' payment referred to above, but never went, even though they could have easily afforded it, and still had a nice packet in the bank. In fact, the three-day weekend trip to Bath, which ended in Mrs Fawlty's death, was the longest they had been away from the hotel in five years, according to Miss Sherman. One could even suspect that something was reaching out to punish them -- I'm sorry, again, sir, I mean to say, Basil Fawlty voiced that opinion in his notebook, about which I'll have more to say later on.
It was after Mrs Fawlty's violent and bizarre death that Mr Fawlty became increasingly unbalanced. Although that could be seen as natural, given the circumstances. He became much more reclusive and anti-social, and would refuse guests at the hotel even when only a handful of people were staying there. Fewer guests were booking anyway, as Fawlty Towers' new reputation spread. Fortunately for Mr Fawlty, he had enough money saved, both from the many previous years of success and from Mrs Fawlty's life insurance, that he no longer needed the business.
For a time, his behaviour seems to have taken a different turn -- no less odd, just different. He shed his reclusiveness to a degree, and he began to be seen about the town with some frequency. He visited the town library with some regularity, and became a correspondent by post, and later by e-mail, with some notable libraries elsewhere -- the Bodleian, and the university libraries of Harvard and Miskatonic Universities in Massachusetts, America. He became active in the Rotary Club, and was well-known, if not particularly well-liked. He went on to join the local Masonic Lodge. I interviewed the Master of that lodge (he sends fraternal greetings), who stated that Basil Fawlty was initially quite enthusiastic, but gave the impression of being disappointed after a year or so, having attained the Third Degree rather quickly. He was eager to know if that was 'really all there was', and was soon convinced that the higher degrees were indeed nothing more than variations on the same theme (as we both well know to be so).
It was probably during this time that Mr Fawlty first heard the full extent of the dark history surrounding Fawlty Towers, and he eagerly sought out the old tellers of tales who remembered the most garish of legends. He is known to have corresponded by e-mail with several mystical societies, including the same Order of the Golden Dawn whose members had besmirched Victoria House with their presence four decades previously.
Soon afterwards, Mr Fawlty's unusual sociability vanished, and he resumed his former reclusiveness. Fawlty Towers ceased being a hotel. He continued to operate it as a restaurant, hiring some quite talented chefs, but his personality again caused constant conflicts with the staff, and the restaurant ceased operation. He kept Fawlty Towers open as a pub, tending bar himself. Some of the locals who frequented the place as a bar spoke with me: the impression they had of him was that he was afraid to be alone, despite his apparent dislike of people in general, and seemed to grow extremely anxious as closing time came. One gentleman remarked on this to Mr Fawlty, and offered to spend the night, thinking that perhaps he had developed a fear of burglars or fire, but the offer was refused, with the curious observation that 'if anything happens, it's best I'm here alone.' (And no sir, there was absolutely nothing improper or suggestive about the gentleman's offer.)
As it happens, Basil Fawlty had indeed acquired a fear of fire. It was about this time that he had had the new fire sprinkler system installed, at considerable expense, especially in light of the facts that there were no more guests staying (in fact, the hoteliers licence had lapsed), and the main kitchen was not used. Only a small service kitchen near the bar was used.
Oddly, Fawlty Towers as a pub was rather well-liked. A bit off the beaten path, as they say, it was mostly local trade, although occasionally a traveller would pop in who had stayed there when it was a hotel, or who followed an outdated guide to the area, hoping for a room but finding only a pint or two. I am told there was quite a nice view of the garden, and the seaside beyond, and the bar was one long solid piece of well-polished cherry. You don't see that kind of thing much any more. Shame it's gone. I really would have liked to have seen it. Just can't get the picture out of my head, that lovely old place a gutted ruin now. I hope they rebuild something there that will do the old place justice. Oh dear, sorry sir. Mind's wandering again. Where was I? Oh yes. His notebook. Miss Sherman tipped me off on that one, lovely lady. She knew he was keeping a diary, but had never seen it. He kept it in the garden shed, locked in a fireproof strongbox. Turns out he was on to something with that fear of fire, what? Anyway, the shed was far enough from the main body of the house that it escaped any real damage, and we forced the lock on the door and on the strongbox, and sure enough, there it was. I spent weeks reading it, and photocopied a good number of the pages that might reflect on this whole mess, showing his state of mind. Many of the entries were undated, so I've (bracketed) best estimates of my own. I'm attaching the highlights below, and forwarding the original to you under separate cover. Much of it --which I omit in my edit here-- is nonsense. There are pages and pages of lascivious -- one might even say pornographic -- fantasies about Mrs Fawlty, Miss Sherman, and others -- I should say here that he didn't start keeping the notebook or diary until after Mrs Fawlty's death. Death. Death. What a dreadful word. Sounds awful. So -- final-sounding. He's obsessed with death, too. Death and sex. Don't go well together, do they? Ha ha. Unless you're the Birmingham Ghoul. God! Remember that case? We worked on it together, what, ten years ago? Still sends chills up me back. Death and sex. Sex and death. Beginning and end. Alpha and Omega.
Oh yes, the notebook. Here's the edit, I'm sending you the original under separate cover. Did I already say that?
The Notebook of Basil Fawlty.
(Mid-June, 1995)
Still can't believe it. Sybil's gone. I've been drinking for a week now, and thinking. When I cant stop thinking, I start drinking. When I cant drink anymore, I start thinking again. Dont know which one's worse. Have to stop. Both.
(Late June, 1995)
Suicide by gin hasn't worked. Been sober for two days now, and hell's own hangover still has the backs of my eyeballs in clothespins. Likely to kill myself with aspirins now. Hurts to open my eyes at all, but every time I close them, I see Sybil at the morgue. God. I had to identify the body. There wasnt much left. Not together anyway. They still dont know who or how. I think I do. I think it was after me. Christ here goes my stomach again.
later
Havent eaten in a week, just the gin and a few packets of crisps from the bar. Dont know what I'm still throwing up. Soon be blood I expect. Maybe that'll be the end. Maybe Polly can fix me something to eat. She's left me alone these last weeks. I think I was drunk for more than a week after all.
July 12
Feeling better. The nightmares have stopped. Was waking up screaming. Haven't had a drink for two weeks. Eating properly again. Have to sort this thing out. I think I know when it started. I think I know why. It's my fault after all. Mine and Uncle Paul, but mostly mine. Got to get rid of the thing.
July 16
Thank God for Polly. She came to me last night, now that I'm acting respectably again and not the town drunk. We connect deep down in the soul, I can feel it, in a way Sybil and I never did. Sybil! That wasn't a marriage. We were business partners who screwed occasionally. I remember I loved her, or thought I did, but that was long ago. Makes me sick to think what happened to her, and God I do wish she was back. I never wished her ill.
July 20
Damn Uncle Paul! Paul Tregardis, ne'er do well of the family. Traveller and scholar, he called himself. Never worked. Junk collector. Some junk! Mum left me off with him one day, I think I was eleven. Dingy flat in some derelict corner of London. Mum & Dad had some business, I don't recall what. It was a treat at the time to visit Uncle Paul, even if he was a bit frightening. He told me stories of his adventures in Egypt and India, Tibet and Kadath, wherever that was. A lot of it was probably rubbish, but he did have the most astonishing collection of knick-knacks about the place. I recall the thing well. There was an old ship's porthole, made of brass and caked in green filth. The solid lid was shut completely with the round handles turned down, dogs, he called them, so you couldn't see the glass inside the frame, and it mounted up against a plank of thick black wood. I wanted to see the glass inside, if there was any. I thought maybe there was a painting underneath the closed lid, that maybe you opened the lid and there was a painting of the sea, so that it was just like being on a ship, open the lid and see the ocean. I reached up to touch it, and Uncle Paul shouted at me quite harshly, which he never had done before. All that afternoon I kept thinking about that closed porthole, and that maybe the picture inside was of a naked woman, and that's why he made me leave it alone. As the afternoon passed, Uncle Paul sat down in his great chair by the window, getting ready to tell me another story, but he soon dozed off into a nap. As soon as his breathing told me he was sound asleep, I of course went straight to the porthole and began unscrewing the handles, the dogs. I realised I was quite afraid, not of Uncle Paul waking and scolding me, but of the thing itself, even though I was hoping to see a naked lady underneath. What I found was rather disappointing, hardly even interesting. Four or five metal struts were mounted in the inner rim of the porthole, and held in the centre a black stone, about the size of a pack of playing cards. It was like obsidian, though I didn't know what obsidian was at the time, except it was not shiny at all, it was the dullest, darkest black imaginable, almost like a piece of nothingness. Oddest was the shape. It seemed to be carved into flat, smooth, facets, like a diamond, but there was no symmetry to it at all. I reached out a finger to touch it, but the fear struck me again, and I didn't -- I remember thinking it might be cold, so cold my finger would freeze solid and break off. I shut the lid quickly and screwed the handles back down as quietly as I could --they squeaked a little-- and went and sat back down near Uncle Paul. Mum and Dad came back for me just then, and that was all. That memory has always stayed vivid in my recollection and I wonder if more than just a memory stayed with me.
(Early August 1995)
Something was in that porthole, something more than just a black stone. I'm sure of it now. Had a relapse drinking. Just two days this time. Polly and Manuel stand by me through it all. Must thank them both. Feeling well today, but God Polly I want you so badly tonight. Thinking of your firm body rolling against mine drives me mad, every time is like the first time again as I caress your lovely bosoms and feel the silkiness of your thighs pressed to mine. Sybil was always such a stone, a hard, chiselled stone. The stone. I have to understand the stone. I think it did something to me. Or let something do something to me.
August 18
Have written to Dad. God but he's old. Haven't seen him in years. Must invite him down here sometime before he dies. I think he collected most of Uncle Paul's personal collection when he disappeared.
(Note to Chief Holbrook -- London police files record the case of one Paul Tregardis, evidently the individual to whom B.F. refers. Tregardis was a dealer in antiquities and curios who vanished without a trace from his London flat in the 1930s.)
Have asked him to look for that mounted porthole in the attic, but cautioned him not to open it at all, and ship it here if he finds it.
Have to try and find someone who knows what it might be.
September 26
There was a dead bird under the tree in the garden today. I kicked it into the brush, or tried to, but the bottom side was all decayed already, and the body fell into pieces, feathers blowing everywhere. Nasty mess on the toe of my good shoe. Why do things die? What madness, that life should end. What about bacterias and the other tiny single-cell things? They don't really die, do they? They divide, and there's two new ones. Or is it one old one and one new one? I mean, they can get eaten, or starve, but death isn't the inevitable end of their existence, is it? Wonder if there's some little amoeba thingy still alive out there, that in some sense is the original bit of life on earth. A billion-times great-grandfather to everyone and everything alive. Surviving all through the vast and screaming grandstand panoply of hundreds of millions of years of evolution, watching your remotest descendants grow into things that swim and fly and breathe and die. Hello there, Grand-dad. Hope we've done you proud.
October 12
Dad phoned! Took him a week to sort through the rubbish in the attic, but found the thing, along with a trunk full of African voodoo fetishes, Oriental bells and such. Bit of luck--there was a sheet of paper with the names and addresses of some of Uncle Paul's old friends or business contacts. He's sending that as well. Should I tell Polly about this? I know she worries about me, would this make her worry more, or would she help me sort this out? Can't stand the thought of her leaving me. We are both old! But she is still so enthusiastic in bed. I think sometimes it is her vitality and lustiness that help keep me alive.
October 27
I still look at the empty bed where Sybil used to sleep and ache unbearably. I loved her more than I realised. God but she could be a frigid bitch sometimes! She always made me beg for physical attention. For sex. Sex. It was hardly lovemaking. And she always acted so amused at my desire! As if I was her puppy doing its trick when I tried to please her. What I always wanted to do, just once, was storm into the dining room full of guests, strip her naked on top of Table 3, dead centre of the room, and take her there, no, not take her, fuck her, fuck her right on the table in front of everyone, just to see if that would get some reaction, some bloody emotion from her, something besides that stinking smirk on her face as I had my pleasure. I do miss her. I want a drink terribly, but I've promised Polly. I'm trying to do more to run this place than I have for quite a while.
October 29
It arrived today. I think I was expecting it. I mean, more than generally. It was quite heavy, but of course it's a big lump of brass and wood. I half-woke this morning thinking that I was looking at it, with the cover still closed, but somehow seeing that stone inside. I've set it up in the bar. I don't want to open it, not yet. I'm afraid to, on the one hand, and I feel just as I did that day in Uncle Paul's flat. On the other hand, I want to confront this thing, this fear, and ease my mind that it is just a black rock, and not some sinister device with a will of its own.
(Note to Chief Inspector -- neither this rock-in-the-porthole nor any of the other artefacts BF mentions herein were found in the debris. If he is still alive, he may have them with him yet -- if they are not purely products of his troubled imagination.)
November 8
Am debating on contacting the names on Uncle Paul's list. It is very old after all, and most are probably dead, or moved away. Several are in America, some here in England, one in Ireland. I'll ask Polly what she thinks. Getting so I can't function without her.
(Late November 1995)
I've spent several weeks searching the library for some clue as to what it is behind that porthole. I don't know if I'm remembering clearly enough what it looks like--it was a very long time ago and memory fades and distorts. I find I actually dread opening up that porthole, and I'm not sure why. Started to, two days ago -- I actually started unscrewing one of the handles. Almost collapsed, but I still felt that same compulsion to keep going, opening the handles, the lid and -- and what? Look at it? Release it? The desire, the drive, was almost erotic in its intensity. It was an effort to walk away, and the one handle is still half unscrewed. It would have been easier to get out of bed and into a cold shower with Polly already kissing me on my chest and arms and thighs and erection, which she almost always does for me, Christ is she good in bed. I have to open that porthole and make sure of what that stone looks like, but I must do it calmly and rationally, subject to neither fear nor desire.
(6 January 1996)
Finally accomplished it. Took a tremendous effort of will, and just a small glass of sherry, but I conquered the dread and resisted that awful drive. I calmly opened up the handles and lid, and took a short glimpse of the stone. It was just as I had remembered after all -- utterly dead black, and chiselled into a meaningless set of facets.
January 8
Unbelievably, I heard today from one of Uncle Paul's friends, a William Blake, or I should say a relative. Robert Harrison Blake was the man I wrote to. William is his nephew. Robert has been dead for decades. William lives in Wisconsin, America. Not sure where that is -- near Canada I think. I didn't mention the stone in my first letter, but will inquire cautiously. If this is a valuable artefact, I don't want to tip my hand. I am once again able to drink normally. Shared a glass of brandy in the bedroom with Polly. How it makes her skin glow, like she was thirty again! And how much of her skin I saw! We showered together, lathered each other completely with a special soap she buys that smells of lavender, hugged and kissed like that with the warm water cascading around us, watched it stream like rivers down her breasts, little waterfalls over her nipples. I wanted to bend her over and take her like a bull right there, but our previous experiments have shown the shower stall a bit too small for comfort. We dried each other off with the towels and retired to my bed, where she all but pushed me down on my back, and with no further ceremony straddled me, riding me until we both screamed the satisfaction of our passion. She rested her head on my chest, still gasping, and we fell asleep like that, myself still inside her.
January 28
Made contact with another of Uncle Paul's circle, a Swami Chandraputra, living in America's Boston. He knew Paul well, and although my initial inquiry was discreet, as noted before, he immediately cautioned me against tampering with any objects belonging to my uncle. He specifically mentioned something called a Shining Trapezohedron, and enjoined me in no uncertain terms to leave it strictly alone if I had any knowledge of it, and that he would fly to England immediately to purchase it if I had possession of it. His brief description reminded me indeed of my stone in the porthole, but was clearly a different, although similar, object. I therefore replied --truthfully-- that I had absolutely no knowledge of the thing he referred to. I felt that this man was dangerous, but replied and inquired what the nature of that Shining Trapezohedron might be, and if similar things might exist. I am quite proud of my cleverness there. Whatever my black stone might be, I feel quite possessively of it.
(Early February)
I find myself puzzled looking back over my last entries. To both of my correspondents I have kept secret my possession of the black stone, but I have rationalised doing so in exactly opposite ways. With Mr Blake, I wanted to assure a high sale price for my stone, but regarding the Swami, I seem determined to keep it. Very confusing. I've rationalised the same end using diametrically opposite means. I suppose I really do just want to keep the thing as a memento of Uncle Paul. I finally discussed this all with Polly, including my inconsistent responses to the two men, and what I concluded. She rather flippantly observed, 'Maybe the stone wants to keep you.' She meant it in jest, I'm sure, but I wonder if she has something there.
February 8
Heard again from Blake. He asks if I am familiar with some sort of encyclopaedia called the Necronomicon, and names some libraries which have copies. Only the Bodleian here in England seems to have it. I'll inquire at the town library if they either have a copy or could arrange a distance-lending of it.
February 13
Visited the library today, and asked about that Necronomicon. Librarian had never heard of it, but promised to make enquiries. She suggested I purchase a computer and use internet to research it. Some new gimmick, I suppose, but it sounds interesting. Maybe Polly knows about it. The librarian said I could research libraries and information all over the world, and write back and forth to people anywhere with something else called 'e-mail' and have replies almost instantly. She is quite a clever young lady, and tremendously attractive. She dresses primly, almost prudishly, and wears thick black-rimmed glasses, but I can sense the fire and passion smouldering beneath. I wonder if she fantasises about knocking down a huge rack of books on mathematics and physics, some austere subject, and having a boyfriend make violent love to her on top of the scattered volumes. I also researched some geology, but found no stone matching the description of mine. I suppose I can be proud of it; it seems to be unique. Must ask Polly about computers and internets.
February 15
Good luck indeed. Polly actually has a computer, and says she is wired for internet. Still not sure what internet is or why she needs to be wired for it. Even better -- she'll be moving back in here at the Towers. About time. Three months in a rented room on the far side of town. I'm sure she'll be glad to be home. I'll set her up in the room next to mine. Still wouldn't seem quite proper to actually live together in the same room. I'm sure she'll appreciate not having to drive to work any more. And she does love Fawlty Towers as much as I do. Can't stand thinking of seeing her in Sybil's bed. Don't want Polly to remind me of Sybil, that frigid shrew. Always thought that if she fell down the stairs she'd shatter into a million fragments, she was such a pristine, prissy, cut-glass sculpture. Polly says to wait for her to set up her computer here, and I can use e-mail to consult those libraries about the Necronomicon book.
February 19
Spent the day with Polly setting up her computer. Damn few guests to bother us today, thank God. She's been dealing with them for me anyway, and Manuel. She also hired me a part-time chambermaid, said she's stretched too thin managing the place. Wonder what the new girl looks like.
Hope she's attractive, the guests always like that and complain less with a bit of young fluff traipsing about. Remarkable thing, this internet. All done over the phone, computers talking to each other. She found the place where Oxford and those other universities were, and showed me how to write them in e-mail. Wrote at once to Oxford, Miskatonic, and Harvard. Accidentally found shocking reams of pornography and other filth on it as well. Disgusting, made me sick to my stomach. It was like driving by a road accident, you want to turn your head, but morbid curiosity holds your attention against your will and you just have to keep looking. One of these places wouldn't even let me go away from it. I 'point and clicked' the little box to close the picture frame, and more and more picture frames kept springing up everywhere, each more degenerate than the last. Finally the damn thing stopped working, and I thought I had broken it -- just a nasty screen saying I had committed a 'fatal error'! Almost afraid to call for Polly and tell her! She said not to worry, it happens all the time. I was just afraid she'd know about those damn dirty pictures that did it. We have a lovely evening planned with her lavender soap again, and she wants to surprise me with a trick she knows using my silk neckties.
(Mid-March 1996)
Extraordinary. The Bodleian refused to acknowledge that they even had such a volume called Necronomicon in their collection, but hinted that if they did, it was available only to faculty members under close supervision. Harvard conceded that they had it, but emphatically stated that neither the book nor its contents were available to the public. Miskatonic seemed slightly more willing to at least discuss the bloody thing, but suggested that I first research their 'on-line resources' at their website first. The librarian who responded, a Dr Armitage by name, commented -- somewhat accusingly, I might say -- that there was no such thing as a 'casual enquiry' about the Necronomicon. I admit to using that phrase in my missive. I e-mailed back, asking if he knew of such a thing as a Shining Trapezohedron or other similar objects, and mentioned only that Uncle Paul had an odd collection of religious objects from the far corners of the world. Polly never ceases to amaze me. I wonder what other tricks she might know, with or without neckties.
March 25
Back at the library again today, thought that buttoned-up librarian might be able to get that Necronomicon for me. I think she thinks I'm a nutter at this point. Hell with her, even if she is a red hot piece of action. No, her fantasy is more probably remaining virginal and untouched, like some famous book that everyone talks about, but nobody actually reads, and dying primly upright, knees together, pages unsoiled, binding uncracked, not so much as a bookmark slipped between the leaves. Neatly catalogued in the 'Closed' stacks, hardly any more dead than she is now, pristine testament to every might-have-been that ever half-existed.
Christ, it hasn't been much of a life, but at least I've lived. I've killed men in war and taken women in love. I think most people never really come truly alive, just spend thirty or fifty or seventy years stumbling about mostly dead anyway. God! listen to the puerile crap that dribbles from the lips of most people, about heavenly rewards or eternal peace or oneness with infinity, all to the end of being happy about dying. I think only people like Polly and me, who have really come to life, really understand how horrible death is.
(The following was a photocopied page taped into the journal, with the hand-written comment 'Necronomicon, p.266, Dee ed.' at the top)
Happy the eyes which never have gazed
Upon the uttermost secrets of creation
Nor seen the handiwork of the Elder Gods
Wrought in the stone of Kadath --
Light is the heart unburdened with the primeval wisdom of P'nath --
Merry sing the lips which never have
Chanted the calling to Yog-Sothoth
Nor to Azathoth
Neither to the Crawling Chaos --
Blessed is the soul untrothed to the night gaunts or the Deep Ones --
Verily, I say unto you, ignorance is bliss, wisdom is miserific horror.
July 2
Amazing! Dr Armitage knew my Uncle Paul! Not personally, but by reputation. Armitage tells me that the disappearance of Paul Tregardis was a well-known incident in some circles, and seems to be quite concerned for my well-being. Perhaps I should tell him about my stone. I read some of the on-line resources he mentioned, and am quite astonished and in disbelief. Couldn't be sure if it was all meant to be serious or not. The main thrust concerned god-like creatures as old as the universe, some dwelling in remote corners of the world, as Uncle Paul claims to have visited, others existing in something called 'parallel planes' -- as if the universe were built in stories like the hotel, only with no stairs between the floors, just secret passageways. Our world is on one floor, these creatures on another one. Kept talking about 'gates'. I vaguely understand the concepts, but scarcely believe that the references I found were meant to be literal truth. I think I'll tell him about my stone after all.
August 18
Letter from Blake in today's post. Another remarkable coincidence, or maybe not. His uncle, Robert Harrison Blake, died in bizarre circumstances while researching that Shining Trapezohedron! Seems he, too, is concerned about me -- perhaps my inquiry was more transparent than I thought. I wonder if the Swami knows about Blake -- hmm, haven't heard from the Swami again. Warns me about being watched by something. Bloody lot of good that does me. Does match up with what I felt earlier, when I was coming out of the gin binge. God! Why don't I just put the blasted thing out for the dustman?
(Mid or Late October, 1996)
Emailed Armitage at Miskatonic, telling him about the stone. Damned strange. Over the last few weeks, I keep finding myself sitting at the bar, staring at the porthole. Sometimes I imagine I can see the ruddy stone right through the lid. And that something is seeing me, as well. An old brass ship's porthole seems awfully small for one of those parallel planes, though. Suppose I'm just wrought up over that rubbish at the Miskatonic website. Need a good shag from Polly, its been a week now, no wonder I'm not thinking straight. Need her to screw me senseless and clear my mind. Think I'll ask her to do something I saw on another filth site yesterday, by accident. Her bed is big enough, and it would be just the two of us, not three like I saw, but I can imagine Sybil as the third, being humiliated like that. Oh yes, I'd dearly love to see Sybil grovelling on the floor, hands tied behind her back and a dog collar tight around her flabby neck. Teach her a little humility.
12 November
Heard from Armitage, he seems very agitated. Wants to know every detail of how I first came to know of my stone, how I have it now. Wanted to know about Fawlty Towers, the history of the building and the area, how we came to live here. Insolent bastard! He wants the stone for himself, I think. It must be valuable after all. The hotel is very empty these days. There were no guests at all the last week of October, so I told Polly to close the place for the winter. Manuel has another job for the season, in Exeter. The little chambermaid is gone too. Too bad. I'd have liked to have had a bit of fun with her. Think she would have been a sport. Last August, I think, Manuel accidentally dumped a pitcher of water on her blouse, and I brought her back into the private office to dry off and change. She didn't bat an eye, she just stripped off her blouse and bra to put on a dry shirt with me standing right there, didn't even turn her back. Pretty little tits, not big enough to be called breasts, that wiggled in a most endearing way. I nearly took a chance and was going to tell her how she could get the rest of the day off with pay, but I think Polly would have disapproved. Wonder if Polly would enjoy our little chambermaid sleeping in the middle? I told Armitage about some of the rumours I've heard about this place, before it was Fawlty Towers. I'm beginning to believe again that there's something about that stone that's evil. Maybe it likes it here.
(22 December 1996)
Woke up screaming last night. Damn that fucking Armitage and his ghost stories! It was the 21st, winter solstice. Both Armitage and Blake wrote me cautioning me about the date, supposed to be one of the days when the creatures can worm their ways through the secret passageways between their worlds and this one. No wonder I had a nightmare. I was falling into an endless hole, and something was waiting for me at the other end. The logic of dreams -- how can an endless hole have another end for something to wait at? That was the horror of it, being trapped forever falling into infinity, with an invisible, bloated --something-- patiently waiting through all eternity for me. My screaming woke Polly, who came to me at once of course. She sat up with me and smiled, and held my hand, until I fell back to sleep. It's comforting to know that it isn't just sexual compatibility that bonds us.
(Note to Chief Holbrook -- The following was found taped onto an otherwise blank page in Fawlty's notebook. You will observe that it is typed on a sheet of paper 8 1/2" x 11", which is the standard American paper size equivalent to our own A4. That, and the reference to Robert Harrison Blake indicate that Fawlty received this from his American correspondent William Blake. The heading, 'Untitled Poem' etc. is hand-written, in what appears to be fountain pen ink, rather than a modern biro.)
Untitled poem, attributed to the late Robert Harrison Blake...
Rustle, soft fliers, on leathern wings
Among moonlight-glinting granite slabs
Caress of moss: velvet in the comforting dark
Soothing chill of carven marble on my cheek
Incense of trees, of soil, of unnameable things
Beloved stillness of the charnel-field
Fingertips stroke deep into the forgiving soil
Exhausted flesh aches for the restful habit
And the dreamt-of day when also I
Shall be numbered among the brethren of
That most secret lodge,
Lodge of final illumination,
Cloistered monastic in contemplation
Received by the kiss of hungry strange lips upon mine
Perpetual novitiate in the high and austere
Mysteries of the Worm.
(Fawlty's notebook continues)
(Mid-February 1997)
Idiots! Cheats and liars! Freemasonry's a pile of rubbish after all. Spent a year now working my way up, and it's nothing but sanctimonious claptrap. (Note to Chief Holbrook: In this and many previous omitted entries, BF wrote extensively about the work of the Lodge, accurately and in some detail. I have omitted those portions of his writing from this edit, and took the liberty of excising them from the original manuscript as well. If he ever turns up again, he's liable to be sanctioned for that.) All the mystery and aura is nothing but a rehash of old Bible lessons with a dash of architecture smeared over the top. Thought they might have some real insight into the secrets of the universe, some inside line on those parallel planes and what's in them. Pompous old fools, all of them.
April 24
The stone is a gateway. That's what Armitage calls it. Some being, locked in a little bit of reality as close as the other side of a wall, but without a door, just the stone for a gateway. But the thing can't open it from its side, it needs all kinds of conditions, the stone is a gate, but it's also a lock. That's what Armitage says. I told him all about Fawlty Towers, and what he told me seems to make sense. The thing first found me that day in London, at Uncle Paul's, when I opened the lid of the porthole, and it's followed me, sort of, ever since. The land here that Fawlty Towers sits on is a special spot, where the walls between this world and the thing's world are thin. Armitage is convinced that the day Sybil and I found the hotel, it was no mischance. We had not planned visiting Torquay at all that day, we were headed for Cornwall. It just seemed like the thing to do. I recall thinking we'd just drive down the High Street, but turned off on the lane that passed by here. Don't remember what it was called then. The way everything fell into place so neatly --finding this place, Sybil's dad coming up with the money-- we were led to this place, or I was. That thing inside the porthole can influence people, to a degree. A nudge here, a suggestion there. And finally, the stone itself coming here, with me waiting for it, with it waiting for me to release it, the thing, I mean. 'When the stars are right'-- I kept finding that phrase in Armitage's books, and he says that means those days of the year known of old as times when the barriers between the worlds are especially thin, thin as paper, and only the smallest touch is needed to push through: Yuletide, the winter solstice; Midsummer Night, the summer solstice. All Hallows Eve, of course, and something called Candlemas, February 2nd. Never heard of that one before. I'm to be very careful around those dates.
(June 1997)
Midsummer Night just passed, and the dreams were horrible. To be the object of an insatiable hunger, a desire that confounds rationality -- and helpless before it!
Something about that stone makes me think of Sybil. Cold, hard, brittle. Is that what the thing is on the other side? Some trans-dimensional fishwife? I need Polly more than ever. Can the thing use Polly, too? I find myself thinking of the thing as female for some reason. What did they call that, in the Middle Ages? Succubus! A female demon that ravished young men in their sleep. Probably just an excuse to explain to their Mum when they'd been caught wanking. Polly's away overnight, I'll have to resort to that myself.
June 23
Armitage sent me some pages of the Necronomicon by email. God! What a nightmarish thing! If it's real. I'm sure it is. Explains why Oxford didn't even admit to having a copy, which Armitage assures me they do. One page was drawings of ancient signs and symbols used to conjure up these creatures. One looked familiar, for some reason, called the Seal of Ushuruku: an irregular geometrical design. Made a discovery which truly frightened me down to the bones. It's Fawlty Towers! The outside walls are the same shape, right down to the bay windows, and this Seal is a perfect floor plan. I was puzzled by an irregular line in the drawing, off to the left side, wasn't sure it was part of the Seal at all. Then I realised -- the garden wall. Old O'Reilly's piss-poor work had completed the Seal, every last zig and zag of it. The whole place is marked, marked by Ushuruku, I suppose that's the name of the thing beyond the stone.
(Mid-July 1997)
Grand time with Polly last night. She showed me a new position we'd never tried before. Did it outside, past midnight, right in the grass. Had another letter from Blake. Asked him in my last if his uncle had found any way to fight the thing that got him. Silly sod. He said 'Obviously not.' Well, a little more than that. These things do have weaknesses, and the elder Blake did discover that simple light was a defence against the thing he called Haunter of the Dark, and that it was a city-wide blackout that allowed it to be released in the middle of the night and get him. Light against the dark, classic in its simplicity. Opposites? What is the thing in the porthole, that it would have an opposite? Paper? As in, paper wraps stone, stone breaks scissors, scissors cut paper? Doesn't seem quite right. The thing, the being, this --Ushuruku-- isn't the stone itself. Must be a different way to think about it. Must ask Armitage. Almost forget. Heard from the Swami chap again. Apologised for not writing, said he just hadn't been himself lately. Damnedest thing, I could almost hear him chuckling between the lines, as if he was sharing a secret joke and not just dropping a figure of speech. Odd bloke.
August 12
May be on to something with this Ushuruku thing. Passed a few emails back and forth with Armitage this week, says it may be an 'elemental'. Like the old 'earth, air, fire, water' elements, that is, and that an elemental of one type may be fought with its opposite. Just what I was on to with Blake! What kind though? Earth? Or is that just the stone and not the thing herself? Interesting, I find myself thinking more and more of the creature as a her for some reason. Not a woman, just a 'she' of whatever kind of creature it is. Suppose I just need to put some sort of personality to her. To it. It's a thing, not really a 'her'. The real succubus, wanting me, needing me, draining me, and I think that is the dream, I've been having it again, often: falling through endless gulfs of void, not even space, no stars or suns, and her waiting for me at the end, waiting eternally in some bizarre lust. God, monster, angel, demon! Lusting for my -- what? Soul? Do I really have one? Spirit? What's that? Mind? That's a laugh. My life? Sybil and this fucking hotel drained me of that long ago. I sometimes forget how much I did love her once. She was pretty damn good in bed too, for the first few years. After the first few months. Our honeymoon, such as it was, was, well, adequate, I should say, but she seemed so damned --I don't know-- reserved, or closed up, pardon the expression. It was a while before I felt she had really let down her guard and was really enjoying our lovemaking, and I don't know -- connecting with me, I think the popular term is. Then after a couple of years, it was as if she'd just had enough, and making love stopped being that, it was just screwing. Sometimes it was just wanking with company. I didn't want it to be like that, honest to god, just taking, taking, I wanted it to be real lovemaking again. O hell, oh god, is that what this Ushuruku is, eternally taking, draining, and giving nothing in return?
September 14
Letter from Blake. Told him my latest thoughts, and he concurs. I've got an answer, or at least a hope. She is a fire elemental and a mad jealous bitch. That would explain Sybil's death. She didn't like me being away from the hotel, thought she would lose me, and her way into this world, to get me. She needs me, wants me, so she can't harm me, not yet. But Sybil -- she struck out the only way she could into this world, with a small but vicious fury. Explosion! It was a firestorm that erased Sybil and hardly touched anything nearby. No wonder the police couldn't find any evidence of a bomb. It was the mindless rage of a scorned woman. Therefore, a water elemental will keep her in her place. Armitage must help me research this. I know almost nothing about these things, after all. I remember reading about one called Cthulhu who is a water elemental. Calling up Cthulhu --how the hell are you even supposed to say that?-- I hope it's safe. Polly, now she's a water elemental I understand -- she does live for those long showers and the slick friction of our bodies against each other. Polly my dearest, my sweet, your rival isn't Sybil any more, it's something called Ushuruku, and she doesn't like water and I'm going to be her lover in the driest darkest corner of hell with my remembrance of you my only solace, and my greatest torture.
(September 1997)
There is madness in my family, I know that. I had an Aunt Ruth, really a great-aunt or some such, who was round the bend. Her six year old daughter died, I think it was in the influenza epidemic after the First World War. Anyway, by the time I remember her, she was right gone, sat around all day knitting sweaters for her little girl, because she knew the child must be dreadfully cold, buried six feet underground. Sweater after sweater, and all through the war, Second World War, that is, the family gave them away to the charity drives. I suppose Aunt Ruth thought the little girl was getting them all somehow, although why she would have needed sweaters by the hundreds is beyond me. When she died, they buried her right down in the same grave as the girl. Probably with some sweaters. Well, losing a child could drive just about anyone over the edge, but of course not everyone does go batty when something like that happens. Did Ruth have just the right --or wrong-- mental twist, so that the girl's dying triggered her madness? Do I have that same twist -- and did Sybil's death pull my trigger?
October 16
Just came back from a funeral. Old Henry Bullman, one of my pub regulars. Decent chap, old as the hills. Went ashore in Normandy, left an arm there. Now he's planted in the ground. What a farce that funeral was. Every word, every gesture, aimed at denying the one very obvious and unpleasant fact of a dead body in the dirt. One more, rather, in a field of hundreds. Hundreds of nice neat holes, occupied by the quietest and most undemanding tenants a landlord could ask for. Almost worth it to be dead, to manage a hotel like that.
February 2
What promises my Ushuruku makes me! I wake at night trembling at the vistas my beloved lays before my senses, eternities upon eternities of creation spread before us as our diversion. And I as her treasured plaything.
(Early June 1998)
Two weeks until Midsummer. The dreams are more persistent, but just as vague. Is that what hell is? Nothing completely tangible, sense of reality always just beyond your reach? Worst of all is the growing dread and growing desire. Just like my first time with the stone. Mingled hopelessly with the fear is a burning desire to consummate this tortuous union. Must fight both. My mind is going, I think. Can't cope, not without Polly. She's moved out again. Haven't seen her for days. She only works a few hours a day now anyway, tending bar in the afternoons. Almost unbearable effort to make myself look presentable for the evening trade. She hasn't let me fuck her for weeks, am I really that far gone? Can't remember the last time I saw Manuel either, but he hasn't been working for me for -- months now? A year? Hard to keep track of time, except how long until Midsummer's. Must keep up with Armitage.
(21 June 1994)
Midsummer today. Armitage sent me something, a small star-shaped stone, engraved with the Elder Sign. Wants me to try invoking Cthulhu to keep Ushuruku locked away. Said it may not be very effective, with the whole fucking property in the shape of the Seal. Why bother? Why fight? My Ushuruku will take me out of this misery to eternal life. Polly is the only part of this world that I'll miss. Begged her to come to the bedroom a night or two ago, she hasn't put it out for me since I can't remember when. Wanted one last time with her. She asked when was the last time I'd bathed. Stuck-up bitch.
later
God, I'm ready to snap, just start running in circles screaming. Midnight is just more than an hour away. Saw myself in the mirror just now, hardly recognise myself. Look like the town drunk again, but I haven't touched the stuff in months. I look like I'm a hundred years old, feel like it too. I'm toying endlessly with Armitage's star-stone. I rehearsed the Necronomicon formula for invoking Cthulhu, don't know why. I don't why I should fight. Just let it go, let myself go. Fight? For another five or ten years of misery? Let me go now to my Ushuruku, my beloved, into eternity.
later
It's time to go. Lock this journal away, for last time, go back inside. I've thought I might phone Armitage, tell him goodbye, and that he can come get his star-stone anytime. Christ I wish I could screw Polly one last time, Polly or anyone. Maybe it'll all be alright. Maybe at five past midnight I'll know I've been having delusions. Then I can shower and shave, and drive round to Polly, tell her I'm all right again. She'll be glad to hear it. God I'll miss her. Maybe I'll try fighting after all. Cthulhu fhtagn. That's it. Ten minutes to midnight. Time to move. Got a date with an angel.
(End of notebook)
Chief Holbrook: Well, that's it. Fawlty was obviously completely deranged the last few months. He'll turn up somewhere, I'm sure, walk into a police station or wash up on a beach somewhere.
One other observation -- one reason the fire may have burned out so quickly might be that sprinkler system. It may have worked quite well after all, the cellar area was quite thoroughly flooded, almost as if a water main had erupted. If Fawlty wasn't just raving completely toward the end there, we might turn up that stone he was so obsessed with, down there in the mud.
Torquay really is quite charming, you know. Latest plans call for a half dozen detached houses on the property; there is quite a bit of land surrounding the hotel itself. I've already talked to the local estate agent, and she's going to make sure I have first option on the first house to go up, right where the hotel was. Be retiring soon, you know. Look forward to spending a few quiet days looking out at the sea, getting to know the wife again.
Fawlty was right about one thing -- there's something about this place that just gets into you.