Serenity House

by Christopher Hope

  When Max asked if he had said anything, Innocenta replied carefully, ‘No. He didn’t say anything. But he whistled.’ He whistled a tune she had recognised because she had once had a friend in the Inland Revenue who performed it at Christmas concerts. It was called ‘The Whistler and his Dog’. Did Max know it perhaps? And Max replied gently that he did indeed know it. Would he whistle a few bars, then?

  ‘Yes,’ said Innocenta when Max obliged. ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Are you hurt?’ Max demanded.

  Innocenta replied that she was bleeding. But she wasn’t really hurt. ‘What really hurts is that I didn’t get your things. Now we can’t go away. I had my bag packed, Grandpa.’

  ‘Good,’ said Max gently, ‘because it may be of very good use in the days ahead.’

  And then, speaking very calmly, he told her what to do.

  The ground was muddy underfoot, the grass sodden and defeated. An ankle-high mist hung around the drainpipes of Serenity House. It lay upon the roots of the laburnums like soapy water.

  Now and then Max would come to a stop. He would throw out his right arm and place his left leg as far behind him as possible and then he would count to ten, take a deep breath and with a great looping hop, like a wounded cricket, he would reverse arm and leg. He would do this twice, three times, and then hold on to the fence to catch his breath. He felt he was undoubtedly improving his technique even if he did not appear to be moving.

  ‘What this place needs,’ muttered Max to himself, ‘is a camp orchestra.’ There was nothing better to exalt and energise, to urge the body on. To organise the capacity for labour in meaningful patterns. ‘That’s how it was done,’ Max panted. ‘Oh, yes, it was! We played them out each morning and we played ’em home at night. Those that came home. That’s how we lived every day.’

  Strange! Apparently something was not working. If only he could remember what it was. Max wore his blue blazer and a long red knitted scarf, tubular and skinny, wound twice around his thin neck and hanging down below his waist. His cap was an egg-yolk yellow, a parting gift from old Maudie Geratie, RIP.

  The boys across the road, now on their way to school, paused in stifled delight at the spectacle of the tall, thin old man in yellow hat and red scarf who, slowly and painfully, with a stabbing, sharp mechanical action, like scissors in slow motion, changed the position of his legs and arms with immense effort.

  Just then who should come by but Detective Chief Superintendent Slack, jumping nimbly from his Honda. Neat in salt and pepper suit, Superintendent Slack was in fine form. His team was absolutely first-class, beavering away in Poland.

  ‘Morning, Mr Montfalcon,’ Superintendent Slack felt good enough to allow himself a little jest. ‘Or should I say – Mr von Falkenberg?’

  Max saw a thin man who looked rather like a ferret. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘No need. Stopped by in the hopes that you might be ready to talk to me about von Falkenberg, and the life before Harwich.’

  With creaking precision Max reversed arm and leg. His scarf ran like a banner from neck to ankle. His pixie cap had fallen over his right eye. ‘There is no life before Harwich.’

  ‘What do you remember about young von Falkenberg?’

  ‘He’s dead,’ said Max.

  ‘Yes,’ said the policeman. ‘This many a year. Strange how much we know about this young man. His schools and universities. His time at Oxford. His return to Germany. His rather peculiar scientific interests. What we don’t know is what happened to him. After the war. From one minute to the next young von F ceases to be. In his place there appears one Max Montfalcon. If von Falkenberg is dead, the question is – did you kill him? Along with all the others? Is this how our German frog became an English prince?’

  Edgar the chiropodist drew up in his little van with the angry banner: fl-EEC-ed! Followed by little Lois Chadwick with her portable hair-care salon.

  ‘You a new boy?’ Lois asked Superintendent Slack. She watched Max slowly reversing his arm and leg. ‘Heavens above, Mr M! What do you look like?’

  ‘We’ve been discussing English princes,’ Max spoke slowly – slightly out of breath, but definitely improving.

  Lois giggled. ‘Get Mr M on the subject of the Royals and you’ll be here all day. Him with his nose always buried in Fealty or Homage. You’re an incorrigible old monarchist, Mr M – that’s what you are. Must fly. Byeee!’

  ‘English princes and German frogs,’ Max told Edgar. ‘This gentleman’s just wondering how German frogs can turn into English princes.’

  ‘Piece of cake,’ Edgar assured him, nose-ring glinting in the early light. ‘Wonder no more. Look at Prince Albert.’

  Superintendent Slack began to feel somewhat tense. He warned Max quietly: ‘Time’s running out, sir. The fairytale’s almost over. My men are in Poland and Germany, sifting the evidence.’

  All over Serenity House windows were opening as others began taking an interest in the conversation in the garden below.

  ‘I say! Who are you?’ A stern, imperious female voice called high above their heads. ‘Yes, man, you! You don’t think I mean Mr Montfalcon, d’you?’

  Superintendent Slack looked up to see at a window at the very top of the house a woman with long unkempt grey hair, wearing a pink dressing gown.

  Firm and polite always, was Mr Slack. ‘I’m a policeman!’

  ‘Are you now! Well, young fellow, you could not have come at a more auspicious time. Did you know that there is amongst us someone who has killed and tortured many people? And I can identify him?’

  ‘Can you indeed, madam?’ Superintendent Slack reached for his notebook.

  ‘Whomsoever he brushes against dies!’ thundered Lady Divina. ‘I shall be pleased to supply evidence in private. Your name and rank, sir?’

  He had to shout very loudly but in the end she got it.

  ‘If you could give me his name,’ Superintendent Slack persisted.

  ‘He is the Angel of Death.’

  ‘I see.’ Superintendent Slack replaced his notebook.

  ‘And he’s a thief, too,’ said Max. ‘A sneaking, cunning, greedy, thief.’

  ‘I shall come along to see you soon for a private discussion,’ Lady Divina promised ominously. ‘Now not another word. As you can see, our walls have ears.’

  It wasn’t so much that walls had ears, Superintendent Slack decided. It was rather that windows had heads. They stuck from almost every opening on the face of Serenity House. Like a rather large advent calendar.

  ‘A policeman!’ Night Matron, still on duty though it was high time she clocked off, pulled her head in smartly and closed her window. ‘This might be a bit bloody embarrassing. Who knows what Lady Divina will tell him?’ She turned to where Jack lay on the floor of her room studying the Living Wills of the elders. ‘I wonder who might like to take dear Lady Divina for her walk?’ Matron wondered gently. ‘And a wash?’

  ‘Sure could do with one,’ said monosyllabic Jack, ‘but first I gotta make it for Beryl. Today’s Beryl’s big day. When I done Beryl’s big day – I’ll do Lady D. I owe her one, Lady D.’

  ‘Would you, Jack!’ cried grateful Matron. ‘That would be such a load off our minds.’

  It was Beryl the Beard’s big day. The boys gathering on the corner paused slyly as they glanced up at the window where she would appear. Then came the time-honoured invitation from the infernal little carol singers: ‘Oh, B-e-r-y-l! Show us your beard, please, Beryl!’

  What happened next, generally, was this. At an upstairs window there would appear, faintly at first, like a vision or a mirage, the features of Beryl. For she would bring her face forward slowly out of the gloom, until her nose touched the glass and all the unwanted feminine facial hair of ninety-two-year-old Beryl was plain to see. It ran down the sides of her long jaw in wispy tangles and across her upper lip in a dark hedge and around her chin in soft grey curls. It never failed to reduce the boys to awe-struck delight. And their laughter never failed to make Beryl cry and cry
as she stood in the window, her tears running down her cheeks and disappearing like liquid rabbits into the bush of her beard.

  But not today. True, Beryl did not resist the siren call from the schoolboys in the street below. And, yes, she slowly approached the window. But today something was different. Today Beryl the Beard was without her beard. A miracle? A sudden loss of hair in the night? An impostor? No, the answer was a new Beryl, a born-again Beryl, a good-as-new Beryl! The answer was a four-letter word: Jack!

  For the boy, in a very real sense, appeared to have found his vocation. It was he who coaxed Beryl into paying a visit to the beauty salon in Highgate High Street, who consulted with the beautician about the right combination of treatments for Beryl’s hirsute jaw-line. A judicious mixture of the razor, depilatory creams plus a bleach to tone down the dark stripe of her moustache and blend it into the flesh of her upper lip.

  And so to bed. Beryl, now beardless, tucked beneath the blankets, with Jack sat beside her to tell a bedtime tale called: ‘See Florida – and smile’. With Jack a journey to the Kingdom of Dreams, to the Land of Nod. She held his hand. He adjusted his head.

  ‘Ready, Beryl?’

  ‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’

  ‘Hold tight, then. Here we go.’

  They would start in the Comfort Inn, mid-way between Orlando and Kissimee, keep going south on the Orange Blossom Trail and hit the Gatorland Zoo and the Tupperware headquarters and museum. Head east down Sand Lake Road, past the pink and green Sheraton, hang a left on Orange Avenue and end up just fifteen minutes maximum from the Tranquil Pines trailer park.

  Due west along Highway 4 lies the Magic Kingdom. It’s fun, it’s easy, it’s convenient; it’s marvellously placed for a holiday, hideaway, assignation, ambush. Beryl and Jack, fugitive, fantastical pair, just two more tourists who have flown into the Florida sunshine. It was beautifully warm for March with mean daily temperatures in the low seventies. Flown into Orlando airport on a flight out of Gatwick, England. They admired the alligators in the airport moat. They had hired a car from the Alamo Rent-A-Car, a nice grey Buick with rich port-wine upholstery. They found the Comfort Inn all its name implied. She wore pink shirts and a T-shirt which read: ‘Life’s Uncertain – Eat Dessert First!’ He wore light blue jeans and dark blue espadrilles with a canary yellow golf shirt and a sea-blue baseball cap. You wouldn’t have recognised them.

  ‘Is it like Lourdes?’ Beryl asked. ‘Where they heal people?’

  Jack thought about it. He had no idea where Lourdes was, but he said: ‘Yeah, like Lourdes – but with rides.’

  A fine place, Florida, for the young and the young at heart, and the young who have lived a long time. Those who believe in fairytales come to Florida, to Orlando where there is space for dreams and fantasy and invention. This is still the new world. It is perhaps the only new world left in the New World. In the old world the old just get older. But here they train at Jimbo’s Senior Gym and even the most frail can increase their muscle mass by up to twenty per cent.

  ‘Keep pumpin’ those pecs. You’re looking swell!’

  ‘Thank you, Jimbo.’

  ‘You’re welcome, Mrs Beryl.’

  In the old world, fairytales, like the old themselves, get a bad press. Full of nasty giants and poor kids, bad kings, weak fathers, greedy brothers, paranoid stepmothers, ugly witches and loquacious toads who ask you to do the most disgusting things.

  In Florida you can hug King Kong and get away with it. Even his breath is banana-flavoured. Nobody needs to be ashamed of being, well, senior. Everyone lives in the land of once-upon-a-time, where all the rides end happily. Where the customer cooperates in the sting. Where fortune favours the well-insured. Where they vacuum the streets and disinfect the phones.

  And so it was that Beryl went to sleep with a smile on her beardless face after what had been a very big day.

  And the elders of Serenity House added another form of departure to their list. Some called it, ‘Doing The Mouse’.

  *

  Up in his office, Cledwyn Fox heard the news with gratitude. He wrestled with problems. He’d had a rather scary meeting with Mr Gunther in Cologne. Mr Gunther told him that although Age Without Frontiers saw Serenity House as a positive addition to its portfolio, problems remained. It was top heavy. Mr Gunther pointed a finger at his forehead.

  Mr Fox retorted that his staff were doing what they could to address the problem of top-heaviness. His staff were working at full stretch. Often they improvised. They were short of decent equipment, yet always they went forward with a will.

  Undoubtedly, replied young Mr Gunther. They were doing well. But they would have to do better still.

  Alone in his office now, seeing below him in the garden Max Montfalcon engaged in a strange set of callisthenics, Cledwyn Fox had to admit the substance of Mr Gunther’s merciless analysis. More and more people born. And living longer. Present population increase was about two per cent a year. At this rate the living space available to each of us by late in the next millennium was reduced to a few yards. Fifty billion by 2100, and a century later, 500 billion. Project the figures into the third millennium and the space available to each human being had shrunk to one square inch! Even if you could shoot them into space, you would have to expel around 10,000 an hour, for ever, to make much difference.

  Artificial prolongation of life beyond its natural term was simply no longer sustainable. Hard choices would have to be made. The Tonkian principle of a short life but a merry one. A certain individual freedom was fine, but in the end, only large-scale intervention would deal with the problems. Mr Gunther had liked the pictures of the Nirvanatron, though he was rather scathing about shoddy American workmanship. He thought they could do better in Düsseldorf.

  The air of anxiety, Mr Fox observed, had begun to communicate itself to the elders. Small signs of insurrection were to be glimpsed. Wanderings increased. A directive from Cologne urged electronic ‘nursing’ among the wandering demented be adopted throughout the eventide community. So he took steps to monitor this activity.

  Other symptoms were more difficult to treat. Major Bobbno, on the advice of Dr Tonks, had signed on for a course of male hormone injections. The theory was that ‘regular doses of the hormone improve circulation and stoke up the heart,’ said the doctor.

  Unfortunately it had another, fiercer effect on the old military wallflower. He leapt out of cupboards. He frightened the younger nurses. He planted himself in corridors when anyone female was passing. With solemn staginess, he threw away his Zimmer frame and, swaying dangerously, would cry: ‘Look out, girls – Bobbno’s on the run!’

  Only Max Montfalcon seemed calm. His callisthenics were clearly doing him good. On the day he completed his training he felt ready. Rehearsed. Forward planning. That was the secret of military success. Chocks away! The day had come: J-Day.

  He sat in his room listening to the cries of the Incontinents. He heard Bert calling for help. In an act of liquid defiance the Incontinents had destroyed their boilable knickers. They had razored their catheters. Bert was calling Jack to help him remove the ruined yards of good carpet. Max smiled and went to his cupboard.

  The old bastard was waiting for him as he turned the corner, a sopping mass of carpet in his arms, unprepared for the force of Max’s attack. He was wielding a Glockenschläger, a fencing sword used by the old German student fraternities and named for its bell-shaped guard. A gift from young von F. Max wished he had been using the very old weapon, the Stossdegen. This had unsharpened blade edges. It made an ugly wound when skewering your opponent’s arm or rump. It caused very nasty internal bleeding, did the Stossdegen. Which was why it was outlawed after the grisly death of a student at Göttingen in 1767.) Taking up von F’s old duelling sword reminded Max of what it was he had really been doing in the muddy garden. Not learning how to run at all. That’s why the movements of the feet took him nowhere. He was trying to remember the fencer’s glacé stance: left foot stationary and only small steps allowe
d with the right. All so long ago he had not only forgotten it but had forgotten ever remembering it.

  A certain Glanning had accused von F of being ‘non-Aryan’. Satisfaction was demanded, and given. A sharp lesson for the slanderer. No one trifled with the family honour of Max von Falkenberg.

  Jack’s right arm took the thrust. The carpet he was carrying saved him from further damage. His cries and Imelda’s screams alerted the staff. They had trouble disarming Max. ‘Put it down, Mr Montfalcon,’ Bert kept shouting, ‘or someone will get hurt!’

  Someone was hurt. Jack lay on the floor and the blood that ran from his arm seemed to Max to have a slightly greenish tinge to it – ‘Beanstalk blood’.

  He let them take him away. He gave up his sword. Honour done. Tomorrow was the first Tuesday of the month. Day of diversions in Serenity House. Max was happy. He had seen something in Jack’s eyes. That was all he needed.

  And Jack, what did he think as he lay there bleeding? Well, first of all he felt hungry. Yes, sure, he also felt hurt. But, strange to tell, what he felt most badly was homesick. There was one other thing he felt as he lay on the wet and reeking carpet and watched what might have been his life’s blood draining away – until Matron staunched it. What was it Jack felt? Jack opened and closed one blue eye. Then the green eye. His lips blew a pensive bubble of spittle. There was blood in his hair. But he got it at last. Sure thing. He felt as mad as hell.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Pat Dog Day

  First Tuesday of every month was Pat Dog Day in Serenity House. The Friends of Serenity House arrived by mini-van with Petal the Corgi and Denis the Rottweiler. Little and large, the dogs were led between the beds of the elders. Everyone had a turn – in the old days – from young Agnes and the Malherbe Twins, to Beryl the Beard, and even the semi-comatose, like the Reverend Alistair, Margaret and Snoring Sandra. In the case of the three sleepers, their hands had to be guided to Denis’s broad and ridged forehead. Or into the thick, warm fur of Petal’s pretty golden nape.