BLIND MARTIN Chapter 1 parts 1-2

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bcderbyshire
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BLIND MARTIN Chapter 1 parts 1-2

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CHAPTER 1
Introducing Some of the Principal Characters of Castle Grummelow, and the Castle Itself, and Telling How I Remained Invisible Therein.
1
Beelzebub’s Marbles


Even before Blind Martin opened the womb, his Mother told him, Beelzebub took his eyes.

How is it that I should have come to know this tale, you ask? I who am nothing? I who am nobody? I who am invisible? I who exist only to serve in the lowest place of all? Let me first finish telling what I have started, then I will offer such explanations as - I hope - will suffice. If they do not suffice then I can only say that I will offer nothing further, since one who is truly invisible has no need or even desire to be understood. Truth is truth, and if you prefer to make a fiction of it, so be it. Be instructed or be amused - it’s all the same to the non-existent.

Took his eyes, Lady Cecilia said; plucked them out with his own warty hands and rolled them in his pockets like marbles where they stared at each other as they rolled about, eye seeing eye and nothing more, each seeing itself reflected in its brother’s lens, eye within eye within eye until the whole thing became so ridiculous they laughed as only plucked eyes can laugh.

Quite what Beelzebub wanted with his eyes she never said, though she told the story often enough, regardless of the fact that Martin could never know what an eye is - other than a strange soft and irritable ball in the faces of others - nor what its use could possibly be. Surely that King of Demons has a perfectly good pair of his own, capable as they are of peering into the dark hearts of Men. I could imagine him, though, inserting them into cavities in the back of his leathery head, just behind his horns, affording him the unquestionable advantage of circular vision so Michael or Gabriel could never steal upon him unawares. Or possibly he could attach them to the tips of his index fingers so that he could see even as Martin sees - through the ends of his fingers. Lady Cecilia insisted he just enjoys the smooth coolness of them in his pocket, and the satisfying click as they roll together, click click, colliding with each other in the dark. Beelzebub, she explained, enjoys great tragedy for small reasons.

There! That is the story Blind Martin’s Mother told him; the story I heard so many times in the Nursery it was almost as if it had been told for me. And every time she said “Click click” he laughed so that his face took on such an expression of sublime beauty it was a terrible pity he could not see himself. I smiled too, but neither Martin nor his Mother saw me. I was, of course, invisible.

Looking back on it all from this vantage point of white hair and the crust of decades, my personal feeling is that it was Our Lord Himself - in His infinite mercy - who decided to allow Martin’s blindness so that his life would be lived in the extraordinary way I am attempting to describe in these poorly-illuminated pages. How could I believe otherwise? How could I believe in a God who would allow Beelzebub to take that which is not his to take? Of course, I can’t. That, anyway, is my opinion - but then, who am I...?

II
The Two Babies


Martin and I have but three things in common - three trivialities which have nevertheless bound us closer than those unfortunates who are bound by skin and bone and are paraded on Saints’ Days for the amusement of greater mortals - yet which have also set us apart further than Heaven is from the Pit of Hell, further than the sun from the moon. These three trivialities are: the day of our birth, Martin’s urine and Martin’s faeces. Beyond these three he is truly all while I am truly nothing. I know him closer than my own heartbeat, while he utterly and entirely knows me not.

Whether by Divine intervention, cunning timing on my Mother’s part or mere coincidence, I don’t know; the fact is that he and I were born on the same day, at the selfsame hour, his first cries and mine, it is said, sounding out at the same moment; he - as it should be - in the Birthing Room with its high white ceiling alive with a multitude of fat pink cherubs like a herd of winged piglets, its tall bed so the midwives would not have to stoop, its wooden frame so artfully attached to the bed, its brass stirrups hanging from this frame into which so many generations of groaning soon-to-be Ferrel Mothers have placed their feet in order to lift and separate their legs for the further convenience of the midwives, its bowls and jugs and pump, and its waiting cradle bearing the cowed-looking lion which serves as a crest for Castle Grummelow and the Ferrel family; I - as it should be - in the furthest wing, up the highest stair, at the far end of the most distant corridor, in the topmost attic room, on a bed of rank straw where I promptly obliged my Mother - a poor scarecrow of a scullion maid, it is said, with no Husband and a name nobody bothered to recall - by killing her upon my exit from her worn body, thus freeing her from the toil and burdens of her life and placing her securely in that Place of Rest which is forever encircled by the tender arms of Our Lord.

Because our lives had begun so intimately entwined - so to speak - by this momentous accident or Divine manipulation of timing, and because he was born so great and I so low, it was decided by those who knew best that I should be granted, and brought up solely to perform, that most intimate of offices: Potbearer to Blind Martin.

So, from the age of three I was taught to know as well as my own the workings of his bladder and bowels, to see when he ate and what he ate and to judge the temper of his digestion accordingly. I learned to watch his eyeless face, to search his expressions for the least sign of discomfort, to read the very way he carried himself, until I was able to have the pot placed ready in position a moment before he used it. I began to carry out my duties on my own when we were barely four, and not once did I fail him. Ever. If he woke in the night with a bursting bladder, I was there. If he was caught with the runs while strolling through the Castle, I was there. I was, and still am, his shadow. Whenever he needs to go he simply lowers whatever garments he is wearing around the relevant areas, lifts the skirts of his jerkin and squats without a thought. I see to it that the pot is comfortably under him, and that clean rags are laying by his right hand. I then empty and clean the pot, ready for its next use. Above all, I do all these things silently. For silence, to Martin, is invisibility, and it is because of this invisibility I am able to be so good at this work God has blessed me with.

I realise it probably sounds strange to you - the idea of a Potbearer considering himself blessed by God. Yet there is, you must admit, a Divine Order of things, or else we men are the sorriest of creatures, and it would be churlish of me at the very least, if not downright sinful, to presume that an omniscient God could have placed any one of us in the wrong position; as if (God forbid!) chance tossed us this way and that like leaves in the wind. No! Martin was born to be served, and I to serve him. That in itself would be blessing enough, for I can honestly say I love Martin as much as any servant ever loved his Master. I enjoy my work. I am proud, without being boastful, of the quickness of my eye and my understanding of his needs. Yet, as if all this were not enough, I have been granted one further blessing - my invisibility, which has given me a life few, if any, others could ever have lived.

I am invisible to Martin because he is blind and I am silent. I am also invisible because I am nothing. If he had eyes he would still not see me. I am too far beneath his notice. A fly – buzzing and irritating - would be more visible than I. A flea would itch the skin. A bed bug also would leave its mark. But I am a silent nobody. And because I am a silent nobody I have been able to share Martin’s education and his life. Lord Edmund has eyes, but he has never seen me. Lady Cecilia too. And Martin’s tutors. None of them have ever seen me. I am there, pot in hand, but for them I do not exist. If I were a cupboard door they would notice me more.

But I am only a Potbearer. I am also invisible to most of the servants. Pantaloon has never seen me. His daughter Isabel saw me once when we were both very small children, but she has never seen me since. Only as I descend through the hierarchy of Servants, past the Guilds, into the sculleries and pantries and laundry rooms, do I take on some form and substance. Here, among these other wraiths, these shades, these half-men and almost-women, I - having been given no name of my own - am known as Pisspot.
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