I had only just dozed off when I heard a noise. A moan of anguish. I lay still, searching for its origin in the flat and endless silence, and then there it was again. A muffled wail, coming from the cottage. I pulled on my boots and went to the edge of the meadow, and stood looking at the house. The night was cool and unmoving. Once more I heard it – a wail, and then a sob, followed by the bulb of Dulcie’s bedroom being switched on to cast flat panels of light across the garden.
I ducked down, afraid of the embarrassment of being spotted lurking without explanation. The light stayed on for several minutes so I returned to my sleeping bag and blankets, my lower legs wet with dew, for one final reading of ‘The Flitting’.
She feels a love for little things
That very few can feel beside
And still the grass eternal springs
Where castles stood and grandeur died.
I drifted off in 1833 and slept for a century or more.
The day was still and dry so I spent the morning working on the final task in the studio’s restoration: painting the outside with a double coat of whitewash. I had already sanded the coarse old wooden panels down so that the last remaining flakes of the previous layer had been removed, and now I slapped on the paint thick and fast.
Soon the transformation was nearly complete, the previously dejected-looking structure that I had found hunkered down in the meadow’s corner, rotting like a storm-felled oak, appearing to stand straight and true now, somehow prouder of itself, its reset window frames impervious to the elements, the scabrous roof tiles scrubbed of cloying moss and free from leaks, and its interior entirely fixed up and ready for habitation again. I had sorted through those possessions in there that Dulcie wished to keep and got rid of the remaining refuse of rancid rags, broken furniture, spent light bulbs and so forth. I had fixed the toilet cistern and even installed a new liner for the chimney flue so that the old wood-burning stove, once soot-stained and ineffective, but now polished up and in pristine condition, had such a strong draw on it that, within minutes of lighting a small pyre of kindling and a couple of long-seasoned logs, it was emitting more than enough heat to turn the studio sauna-like on a warm summer’s day.
I painted for several hours and when the first coat was beginning to dry I added a second coat until landing flies became trapped there; my hair and torso were flecked with pinhead spots of white paint and my arms ached, and I found myself parched with thirst.
I called for Dulcie at the house but she did not respond. I heard only Butler scratching somewhat frantically at the inside of the door. When I opened it he bolted past me and straight into the meadow, sprinting with intent as if tracking the scent of a fox that had had the temerity to stray across his patch in daylight hours.
I followed the movement of the long grass as, hidden, he carved a trail down beyond the tangle of scrub at the bottom end where I had experienced what I could only describe as a reverie or waking hallucination during that first day in this strange and magical corner of the countryside. I picked up my pace and very nearly stumbled headlong into the sunken spring tucked between tussocks of grass, only just managing to adjust my footing and shift my centre of gravity at the last moment.
There was a shape beneath the brambles. A prone figure down in the shadows.
Butler reached her first and I arrived a moment later, gasping for breath, trickles of sweat running down my temples.
It was Dulcie.
She was lying on her side as if in the recovery position, and I saw that her hands were drenched with what appeared to be blood. It was smeared on her face too – a streak of it was around her mouth and one red fingerprint was imprinted on a cheek. Her wide-brimmed hat was beside her.
Gulping for air, I froze. The dog whined and gently ducked down beneath the brambles, and proceeded to tenderly lap at her face.
All of a sudden Dulcie was awake, animated again.
‘Urgh. What are you doing?’
She swatted the dog away, and then looked at me, slightly puzzled. She slowly lifted herself up onto one elbow.
‘Don’t try to move,’ I said.
‘Why the devil not?’
‘You’re hurt.’
‘Am I?’
‘Yes – there’s blood.’
I pointed at her hands. Dulcie looked at them for a moment and then belched, long and low, and then made some noises of mastication. She smacked her lips and reached for her hat.
‘Oh, you are so unnecessarily dramatic, Robert. Honestly.’
‘I thought something had happened.’
‘Blackberries happened. Too many of them. They’ve come up early and are still a bit tart but a sprinkle of muscovado should take the edge off them. I’ll cook them down, make a jam. Or I thought perhaps a nice cool compote. I’m afraid I taste-tested one too many.’
‘I thought – ’
‘What? That I’d snuffed it?’
Dulcie whooped with delight.
‘I saw you on the ground.’
‘Yes, having a nap, as I have seen you yourself do on several occasions.’
She laughed again, louder this time.
‘It’s not funny,’ I said.
‘It bloody is. Now, help me up, will you.’
We slowly walked back to the cottage, with Butler beside us.
‘I suppose down there with the worms wouldn’t be the worst way to go,’ said Dulcie, philosophically.
We pushed through the grass, the sea at our backs.
‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, Dulcie, but I thought I heard a noise last night.’
‘That’s not a question. It’s a statement.’
‘Was it you I heard?’
‘I don’t know. What did you hear?’
‘A sort of upset wailing.’
‘Probably foxes. At it.’
‘Coming from your house.’
She didn’t look at me.
‘Then it must have been Butler. He’s prone to sleep-talking. Dogs do it, you know. They’re perfectly capable.’
Still she looked away, over to the studio, which was a gleaming white cube drying in the midday sun.
‘It sounded more like – ’
‘Kippers,’ interrupted Dulcie. ‘I thought we could have kippers so smoky that you’d swear they were dredged from the ashes of a bonfire. We’ll also have one perfectly poached egg apiece, or perhaps two or more for you as it seems that you have been busy. Consider it the world’s tardiest prepared breakfast, but to make up for it I shall segue quite quickly into a very early afternoon tea of scones as big as your fist to go with the compote. But – oh, buck and fugger. I’ve just remembered we’re lacking clotted cream. Scones without proper cream is a disaster of apocalyptic proportions.’
‘Now who is being unnecessarily dramatic. It sounds more than enough as it is.’
‘In return for the spread I ask just one small favour.’
‘Of course. What is it, Dulcie?’
We were back at her garden fence, standing on the patch I had freed of weeds, but which was already being pulled back by the meadow again. I had lost track of how long it had been since I scythed a passage through it.
‘If the mood takes us later, perhaps you might read me one poem.’
‘Any poem?’
‘From The Offing.’
I hesitated.
‘Well, yes. If you would like me to. It would be a privilege.’
‘Good. Now you should go and wash your hands. The kippers and accompaniments will be served in seven minutes or less.’ She scratched behind the dog’s ears. ‘Fish skin for afters, noble beast,’ she said to him. ‘Your favourite.’
Later, when I returned from my evening swim to burn off the double-portioned feast of the afternoon, the outside table was set with a circle of candles of different heights and colours, their flames flickering in the gentle sea breeze of the settling evening.
‘How was the water?’
‘Wet and wonderful,’ I replied as I towelled the fin
al dampness from my hair. ‘Should I get the poems now?’
She nodded. ‘I’ll fetch a bottle. There’s a brandy I’ve been saving for an occasion, though I never imagined it would be for this. I fear I shall need it.’
Dulcie was lighting a very large cigar with a match that was dwarfed beside it when I came back with the manuscript. She was taking short, sharp draws on it until it was fully ignited, and then she tossed the match aside and exhaled a long heavy plume of thick smoke, followed by a small cough. I had never seen a woman smoking a cigar before; rarely had I seen a man smoke one either. The miners in the village favoured either filterless Capstans or sometimes took pipes during their brief leisure time on a Sunday. Cigars were symbols for things most would never know: wealth and opulence.
‘I didn’t know you smoked, Dulcie.’
‘Only with poetry.’
I sat down. She took from her pocket a large brass ashtray, which was in the shape of a fly whose wings pivoted upwards to reveal a compartment inside, and she carefully tapped ash into it.
‘Which one would you like me to read?’
‘How could I choose when I don’t know its contents? I thought we had established that there’s a reason it has lain untouched, gathering dust.’
‘Maybe I should pick one at random.’
Dulcie puffed on her cigar and poured me two fingers of brandy. I was wearing my one clean shirt.
‘Maybe you should be less decisive.’
‘I’m not too sure about that,’ I replied.
I thumbed through the manuscript and chanced upon a poem entitled ‘Threnody for the Drowned’.
‘What’s a threnody, Dulcie?’
She exhaled smoke. A veil of it rose over her face until she wafted it away.
‘It is almost certainly a word that Romy would use, that’s what. It means a song that is sung in mourning. Or a poem. A lament for the deceased.’ She cleared her throat before continuing. ‘One might even describe it as a wail.’
‘Oh,’ I said, suddenly understanding more than I had expected.
She continued. ‘Without reading it, I think we can assume that this particular work was a foreshadowing of events that followed – a warning to the world, though of course the world never got a chance to heed it.’
‘A cry for help?’
‘Rather a statement of intent.’
I took a sip of the brandy. It tasted like pure fire. Dire. I drank some more.
‘Maybe I’ll read another one instead.’
‘It’s your choice. But tell me – I’m curious – what is the opening line of that poem?’
‘“Blossoms of blood / flower then flood”,’ I read. ‘No, I think I’ll choose another one.’
I looked through the contents. Dulcie’s cigar had gone out, and she struck another match to light it.
‘I think this one is about you,’ I said.
She noisily sucked on the cigar as she went through the elaborate routine of getting it going until the heavy bitter smoke was billowing thick around us once again.
‘I’ll be the judge of that. Let the seance begin.’
‘It’s called “The Honeyspinner”.’
She shook the match out.
‘Oh.’
I proceeded to read it just as it was on the page.
The Honeyspinner
Your breath arrives across
the pillow, a savannah breeze.
Your mouth has produced
no tumbleweeds
while you were sleeping.
And while you were sleeping.
The ravenous wolves have been
cast from the kingdom of cruelty
and outside the first sweet drops
of morning rain fall
like a drunk violinist on the steps
of the marble cenotaph.
When I finished, Dulcie took a large gulp of brandy and then poured more.
‘Read it again, please. A little more slowly this time.’
She closed her eyes. I took a sip of my drink and then did as she requested.
Dulcie said nothing for a long time. The cigar sat smouldering between her fingers. It hung there, a ribbon of blue smoke drifting across the garden and into the meadow. I noticed then bats flitting across the grass, ducking and darting as they gorged on the evening’s insects.
‘Yes,’ she said, her eyes still closed. ‘Yes.’
I drained my glass. The brandy didn’t taste so bad once you got used to it. There was a burnt fruitiness beneath it, an aftertaste that lingered long beyond the final gulped drops.
‘Just one more time.’
I read it again, and when it was over Dulcie opened her eyes.
‘My God. She was a genius.’
She poured us both another brandy and we sat watching as the bats scoured the sky.
Finally Dulcie broke the silence of nightfall’s exuberant theatrics. ‘You know what you want to do? You want to get yourself a girlfriend.’
Her voice was elongated by the alcohol and a slight slurring was making her words bleed into one another.
When I didn’t reply, Dulcie added: ‘Or a boyfriend. Or one of each. Treat yourself.’ Again, when I didn’t respond, she circled her glass in the air and asked: ‘Is there anyone back at home?’
I screwed my face up. Embarrassed to be broaching the subject, I shook my head. ‘Anyone worth bothering with wouldn’t bother with me.’
‘You’re underselling yourself, Robert.’
‘All the lasses round my way are daft.’
Again she circled her glass and this time brandy swirled around its rim and splashed onto her wrist.
‘Then you need to cast your net further afield. Which you are doing already, I suppose, just by being here. Yes, cast your net and reel it in. The fisherman doesn’t wait for the fish to jump out of the sea and into his boat. He goes out to the spawning grounds.’
‘I’m not really looking.’
‘Not even a peek?’
Dulcie looked at me sideways with the faintest of smiles.
Trying not to smile back, I shrugged.
‘Not even a glance at one of the diggers down bay for the day, or at the fresh-faced and strapping farm girls driven in from the moors on their fathers’ tractors while they’re off selling ewes over Egton way?’
Despite her crisp and correct English accent, and the nullifying effect of the drink, I noticed that Dulcie pronounced ‘ewes’ the Yorkshire way – ‘yows’.
‘Maybe a glance,’ I conceded.
‘Of course you do. You’re a young man full of blood and all the rest of it. When I was your age I’d – ’ She hesitated, looked away. Took a sip. ‘Well, we’ll not get into that.’
Now my interest was piqued. ‘What had you done by my age, Dulcie?’
She raised her glass to her lips but spoke before it reached them.
‘I’d scandalised the local vicar’s daughter, that’s what. I was thrown out of school for that, and thank Christ I was. Because if there is a hell on earth then it is surely an English boarding school attended by the dimwit debutante spawn of diplomats, aristocrats, old-money dilettantes and those jug-eared, buck-toothed royals who flounce about flaunting their family names as flagrantly as their crests and signet rings.’
‘What did you do?’
‘With Verity?’
‘No, after you were kicked out?’
‘I began to live, Robert. And to love too. And that is what you must do. Live and love as many mouths, hands and clammy holes as you can cram yourself into, and then, when you find someone who satisfies your soul too, you give yourself to them entirely.’
She sniffed at her drink and then finally took a sip.
‘Pleasure is not a crime,’ she said. ‘It’s a birthright.’
The brandy’s punishment was a dull and insistent pain in my head the following morning. I awoke early but could not move, not even for water, and instead lay still as the sun crept across the walls of the studio, and the floorboards g
roaned and creaked as they warmed up, hard beneath my back. Around me the meadow was waking after a short night devoid of true darkness. It was high summer now. The deepest part of it, when life was peaking in blossoming bouquets of green, and the sap had risen, and even the sea was a true green. It appeared broader now, less of a barrier somehow and more an extension of the rolling land that crept towards it – and beneath it – like a mattress beside a jumbled pile of khaki blankets. I saw a fly overhead. It moved with jerking angular motions, as if drawing squares in the air above me. I went back to sleep and dreamed of great clouds of flies and then the sea closing in over my head, and the muted roar and rumble of its underwater music.
I heard my name being called. It was Dulcie, from around the far side of the cottage. I pulled on my clothes and boots and stepped out into a day so bright I had to take a moment to let my eyes adjust as the glare pressed hot shapes onto my retinas.
I saw Dulcie urgently waving her arms, as if drowning in the roily swell of jade.
When she caught my attention she too shaded her eyes with a forearm and pointed with the other hand to the fence just beyond the lean-to, where the narrow copse that clung to the tiny hillside stream began.
I hurried over. ‘What is it?’
‘A swarm.’ She seemed excited.
‘What?’
‘Bees. A pother of them, just settled – look.’
I followed the line of her finger to a low-hanging branch from which there hung a pendulous swarm, the shape of a teardrop.
‘Apis mellifera,’ she said. ‘The European honey bee. Bloody hundreds of them. What luck.’
‘Luck?’
‘Yes. It is surely a sign, is it not? I rather suspect this is nature’s way of subtly suggesting that I might want to get back into the old honey racket again – with your help, that is.’
I looked back to the branch where the bees were clambering over one another, a seething febrile shifting shape of legs and wings.
The Offing Page 15
