Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

“Gum.” At least the mouthful allowed him not to answer too distinctly. He swallowed it as whole as an oyster, only to become aware that his performance had invited however many encores it would take to unload the bowl. He was chewing a chunk that needed a good deal of it when Joe declared “If you’re not a student I’m saying you’re a teacher.”

Jessop succeeded at last in downing and retaining the gristly morsel. “Lecturer,” he corrected.

“Same thing, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t say quite.”

“Still teach, don’t you? Still live off them that works, as well.”

“Now, Joe,” Mary interrupted. “You’ll have our new mate not wanting to stay with us.”

Jessop could have told her that had happened some time ago. He was considering how much of his portion he could decently leave before seeking another refuge from the gale, and whether he was obliged to be polite any longer, when Tom demanded “So what do you lecture, Des?”

“Students,” Jessop might have retorted, but instead displayed the Beethoven score he’d laid out to review in preparation for his introductory lecture. “Music’s my territory.”

As he dipped his spoon in search of a final mouthful Mary said “How many marks would our singing get?”

“I don’t really mark performances. I’m more on the theory side.”

Joe’s grunt of disdainful vindication wasn’t enough for Tom, who said “You’ve got to be able to say how good it is if you’re supposed to be teaching about it.”

“Six,” Jessop said to be rid of the subject, but it had occupied all the watching eyes. “Seven,” he amended. “A good seven. That’s out of ten. A lot of professionals would be happy with that.”

Betty gave a laugh that apparently expressed why everyone looked amused. “You haven’t heard us yet, Des. You’ve got to hear.”

“You start us off, Betty,” Daniel urged.

For as long as it took her to begin, Jessop was able to hope he would be subjected only to a chorus. Having lurched to her feet, she expanded her chest, a process that gave him more of a sense of the inequality of her breasts than he welcomed, and commenced her assault on the song. What was she suggesting ought to be done with the drunken sailor? Her diction and her voice, cracked enough for a falsetto, made it impossible to judge. Jessop fed himself a hearty gulp of Captain’s Choice in case it rendered him more tolerant as she sat down panting. “Oh,” he said hurriedly, “I think—”

“You can’t say yet,” Daniel objected. “You’ve got to hear everyone.”

Jessop lowered his head, not least to avoid watching Mary. Betty’s lopsidedness had begun to resemble an omen. The sound of Mary was enough of an ordeal—her voice even screechier than her friend’s, her answer to the question posed by the song even less comprehensible. “There,” she said far too eventually. “Who’ll be next?”

As Joe stood up with a thump that might have been designed to attract Jessop’s attention, he heaped his spoon with a gobbet of scouse to justify his concentration on the bowl. Once the spoonful passed his teeth it became clear that it was too rubbery to be chewed and too expansive to be swallowed. Before Joe had finished growling his first line, Jessop staggered to his feet. He waved his frantic hands on either side of his laden face and stumbled through the doorway to the toilets.

The prospect of revisiting the Gents made him clap a hand over his mouth. When he elbowed the other door open, however, the Ladies looked just as uninviting. A blackened stone sink lay in fragments on the uneven concrete beneath a rusty drooling tap on a twisted greenish pipe. Jessop ran to the first of two cubicles and shouldered the door aside. Beyond it a jagged hole in the glistening concrete showed where a pedestal had been. What was he to make of the substance like a jellyfish sprawling over the entire rim? Before he could be sure what the jittery light was exhibiting, the mass shrank and slithered into the unlit depths. He didn’t need the spectacle to make him expel his mouthful into the hole and retreat to the corridor. He was peering desperately about for a patch of wall not too stained to lean against when he heard voices—a renewal of the television sounds beyond the rear exit and, more clearly, a conversation in the bar.

“Are we telling Des yet?”

“Betty’s right, we’ll have to soon.”

“Can’t wait to see his face.”

“I remember how yours looked, Mary.”

It wasn’t only their words that froze him—it was that, exhausted perhaps by singing, both voices had given up all disguise. He wouldn’t have known they weren’t meant to be men except for the names they were still using. If that indicated the kind of bar he’d strayed into, it had never been his kind. He did his best to appear unaware of the situation as, having managed to swallow hard, he ventured into the bar.