The Blurred Lands

by Ian W. Sainsbury

  He had fallen silent, so he tried another sip of tea. It was now cold as well as disgusting.

  "Tell me about the show," said Augustus.

  John described Marco's odd pep-talk before the gig, the uncharacteristic nervousness of the hotel manager. Then he moved on to the occupants of the suite. That was when the morning became as strange as the night before.

  "There were two couples," he said. "Brokers, I think. They were celebrating some big trade they'd made."

  He stopped. What was he saying? That was the same story Marco had given him. He visualised the room from the evening before. The table, the black candles, the provocative red-haired woman and her sensuous companion, the giant and the elfin woman by his side.

  "Typical crowd, really. Young, loud, trying hard to impress each other."

  John stopped again. He tried to choose the right words in his mind before saying them. He repeated to himself, one of them was a giant, one of them was a giant.

  "One of them was really drunk," he said, the words and sentences forming of their own accord. "The champagne had been flowing for a while by the time I got there, and it was hard to get their attention. I went through the motions, didn't give it my best. I was glad to get paid and go home."

  Augustus was looking at him sharply. "John. You know I'm always delighted to see you, but did you really come all the way here to tell me that?"

  No, thought John.

  "Yes," he said aloud.

  "Oh," said Augustus. "Well, I'm sure you were the consummate professional, and they got their money's worth. Now then, I have news of my own."

  John smiled, despite wanting to jump and scream that he had lost control of his mind, that he was saying things he didn't intend to say. Apparently, it only happened when he tried to talk about last night's performance and dream. He tested his theory.

  "Marco said something about superstition before I went into the room. He was scared of something." It seemed he could speak freely of events that had occurred just before he entered the Bloomsbury Suite.

  Augustus still had that sharp look. "And yet it was just some drunk city types? Nothing out of the ordinary?"

  John tried one last time, determined to tell Augustus the truth. The creatures, the dust in his face, the seamless transition to the strangest dream of his life. The way he'd been able to leave his own body.

  "Nope. Nothing at all," he said. "What's your news?"

  "I'm going away," said Augustus. "An old friend needs me. I was going to pop by tonight, but you've saved me a trip. I might be gone a week or two."

  John felt a mild twinge of panic. Augustus had never gone away for so long.

  "I don't suppose you've reconsidered your stand on mobile phones?"

  "The devil's work," said Augustus. "I'll have my post forwarded. Write to me here if you need anything." He stepped forward and shook John's hand. "Take care of yourself, my boy." He paused, as if tempted to add something, then shook his head. He placed his other hand on top of John's. His skin was, as always, cold.

  "Take care," he said again.

  On the walk back to Waterloo, John spent the first twenty minutes going over what had just happened. He might be able to persuade himself that last night had been some sort of fluke - a break in consciousness and a vivid dream brought on by overwork, and his grief on the third anniversary of Sarah's death. He didn't believe it, but at a pinch, he might accept it as an explanation. But that couldn't explain the past hour. He was wide awake on a cool May morning in London, and he'd just had a conversation with his oldest friend during which his lips moved and said words without his consent. Which meant what, exactly? He was having another breakdown after all this time? Either that or fantastical beings from some dark fairytale had cast a spell on him.

  John wasn't keen on either diagnosis. He would think about it later. Maybe see a doctor. He knew that's what his son would advise. But, as he couldn't even say the words to describe what had happened to him, he didn’t see how medical expertise would be of any help.

  Maybe a change of scene. A holiday.

  By the time he opened his front door, he had decided a city break might do him good. Berlin had a magic shop he'd never got around to visiting.

  He scooped up the junk mail on the mat and took it through to the kitchen, dropping it on the table. Then he saw it. Underneath a flyer for the church fete, a heavy cream envelope, and his name written in fountain pen across it.

  John knew the handwriting. Burning the woman's letters three decades earlier hadn't destroyed the memory of how she wrote his name. Back then, seeing John Aviemore written in her hand had made his chest hurt. It was hurting now, but for very different reasons.

  He had to sit down before trying to open it and, when he did, his fingers trembled. He slid the letter out, opened it, and began to read.

  Seven

  The contents of the letter made no sense to John at first. He forced himself to slow down and start again.

  He looked at the envelope.

  Looking at that familiar writing three decades on, he felt that old knot in his gut. He was twenty again, believing himself to be in love. What he had really been experiencing was lust, of course, but lust in such an intense, unfiltered, form that it was as distinct from his previous fumbling relationships as heroin was from a sip of shandy.

  The knot in his gut shifted like a coiling snake.

  He was momentarily angry with himself. First, this inability to speak of his experience in the Bloomsbury Suite. Now, an adolescent reaction to a lover whom he hadn't seen for thirty years.

  The single piece of headed notepaper was typed, and signed by the same name printed at the top right, a Tobias Hackleworth. Mr Hackleworth was writing from the firm of Stinder Hackleworth regarding the estate of one Ashleigh Zanash. Mr Aviemore was requested to attend their offices at his convenience to discuss a significant bequest.

  The address was only a few miles away across town.

  Without thinking too hard about what he was doing, John called a taxi, picked up the letter and his keys, and went outside. Four minutes later, he was in the back of a cab, reading the letter for the third time and trying to stop his hands shaking.

  Ash was dead.

  The offices of Stinder Hackleworth were on the third floor of a tall, narrow building that hunched out over the cobbled street below. Tiny lead-lined windows dotted its half-timbered facade, and a multitude of house martins' nests crammed into its eaves. This accounted for the strip of cobbles in front of the building turned white by bird shit.

  John checked above before skipping across the danger zone and up the three stone steps.

  There was no buzzer. John pulled the brass handle hanging in front of the black door. He heard no corresponding bell from within, and he pulled it again. Still nothing. According to the sign, the first floor was occupied by Fishermust, a cartographer, the second by Boddinbrokes Bookbinders. The floor above the solicitors was referred to as The Empty Room, and someone had gone to the trouble of engraving a brass plaque to announce it. A larger sign stated, in black letters on white, Noone House.

  Was that noon or no one?

  An imposing black door on such an old building might be expected to open with a long, loud creak. Instead, it swung inwards smoothly and silently. John stepped inside. The ground floor was laid out like an old-fashioned hotel lobby. A huge oak desk dominated the space, sitting in the middle of the room. The black and white diamond flooring looked original, the white of each tile now a faded parchment yellow, and the whole surface covered with dust. A curved staircase with dark wooden balustrades swept up in a clockwise spiral to the floors above.

  Four doors led off from the lobby. The closest, on John's left, was open, and music came from within, although it was music of a kind John had never heard before. It was rhythmical, but the beat shifted constantly, making it hard to follow. The melody rose and fell, sometimes going so high he could no longer hear it. At those moments, embarrassingly, he felt the beginnings of an er
ection.

  The music stopped abruptly as a young man slammed the door shut. He looked at John's groin and smiled.

  "Music to screw to," he said, and laughed, too loudly. He was unshaven with curly dark hair. Even John knew the navy shell-suit the man wore was twenty years out of fashion. The jacket was unzipped to reveal a vest which may once have been white. The man took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one.

  "Sign in," he said, pointing at the desk. An enormous old ledger sat there, open at the halfway point. A fountain pen lay across its pages. John picked it up and wrote his name, along with the fact that he was visiting the firm of Stinder Hackleworth. He looked at the fifteen or so entries above his own. They were all out of focus. He squinted and rubbed the bridge of his nose, but it didn't help. His own name was legible, but he couldn't make sense of the others.

  The young man leaned against the bannister, taking long drags on his cigarette.

  "You know that's illegal in the workplace?" said John, wondering if this man had just wandered in off the street.

  "Fuck off," said the man, without any particular malice. He pointed the cigarette upwards. "Third floor, first door, knock three times."

  John walked towards the staircase, trying not to appear intimidated.

  Only the presence of a grandfather clock differentiated the second floor from the first. On the third, in place of the clock, there was a long-dead yucca plant.

  John raised his hand to knock, then hesitated.

  —Knock three times?—

  John knocked four times, taking a childish satisfaction in his tiny rebellion.

  The door opened, and John walked in. He looked down at the black and white tiles, then across to the staircase, the desk, and the open ledger. He was back in the lobby. The unshaven young man took the half-smoked cigarette from between his lips and blew smoke in John's face.

  John took a few deep breaths and, like a child in a dream, pinched himself hard on the arm.

  The man smirked. "Three times, pal."

  John focused his attention on the staircase, ignoring the shell-suit. What he thought had just happened couldn't have happened. He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth.

  On the third floor, he knocked twice.

  "We can do this all day," said the young man in the lobby as John passed him for the third time. "But what would be the point, eh?"

  John climbed the stairs again, his mind racing to find a rational explanation. If he was having a breakdown, here was further evidence of its progress. And yet, he had never heard of symptoms like these.

  This time, when he reached the third floor, he knocked three times.

  "Enter." It was a woman's voice, shrill and imperious.

  Eight

  The Stinder Hackleworth office was lit by oil lamps. Although the door was large and imposing, the room behind it shared similar dimensions with a cabin on a cross-channel ferry.

  The lamps might be expected to provide ample illumination for so small a space, but, in fact, the opposite was true. Each one gave off a sickly yellow glow that struggled to stretch further than six inches from its source.

  Towers of paper further reduced the room's usable floor space, with stacks of yellowing legal documents and folders standing as high as John's chest. He edged forwards into the gloom. There was a desk under a dirt-encrusted window at the end of the room. Behind that desk was a heap of discarded clothing.

  "Yes?"

  The voice came from behind him. John jumped. The owner of the voice was a little under five feet, but a few inches of her height came from grey hair modelled into a hairstyle he'd only seen in films from the nineteen-sixties. It was a beehive. It looked like an iron oven glove.

  "I'm here to see Mr Hackleworth," said John. The beehive did not respond. "Mr Hackleworth?" he repeated, taking out the envelope. "I have a letter."

  "What?" she shouted.

  "A letter," repeated John, holding it towards her.

  "No post," she barked. Her hair moved a fraction of a second after her head. The effect was hypnotic.

  "I'm not delivering a letter," he said. "You wrote to me. Mr Hackleworth wrote to me. About a bequest."

  She snatched the letter from his hand and inspected the envelope.

  "Yes," she screamed.

  "Is Mr Hackleworth available?"

  The beehive jerked one gloved hand to the side and extended her finger towards the desk.

  "There."

  After delivering this last volley, she scurried away. When she disappeared behind one of the stacks of papers, her footsteps ceased immediately. She didn't appear on the other side of the stack. John listened, but he couldn't even hear her breathing.

  "Mr Aviemore, I presume? Tobias Hackleworth, solicitor, lawyer, barrister, judge, jury, executioner. You know the drill, I'm sure. Good, good, good. Please, take a seat."

  A face smiled benignly from the top of the pile of clothes behind the desk.

  "Do sit down. I don't shake hands, no, I don't. Forgive my fashion sense, it's just that I feel the cold somewhat. Ironic, for a man of my size, but there it is, there it is."

  John realised that the pile of clothes was, in fact, being worn by the fattest man he'd ever seen. The bald face seemed disconnected from the body beneath because his chins and neck were concealed by at least five scarves. Now that John was closer to the desk, he wondered how Tobias Hackleworth had manoeuvred his bulk behind it. More to the point, how would he get out again? Maybe Hackleworth would eat the desk when it was time to go home.

  John found a low stool and perched on it. The seating arrangement reminded him of parent-teacher nights.

  "Good of you to come in, Mr Aviemore. We've been wanting to have a look at you, haven't we? see what the fuss is all about, all the palaver, the hullabaloo and suchlike."

  Hackleworth leaned forward to get a better view of his visitor. The wooden desk scraped an inch nearer as the enormous belly pressed up against it. When the solicitor snorted, it shot forward and would have knocked John off the stool had he not sprung to his feet.

  "Oops a daisy, a dandelion, a buttercup. Apologies, regret and all the rest, I wouldn't be surprised. I shall lean back, Mr Aviemore, please, please, resume your seatedness forthwith. We were hoping to see you at Noone House, and here you are, how marvellous."

  John sat down. So it was pronounced noon then. At least he'd solved one tiny mystery.

  When Hackleworth's stomach hit the desk, John saw that the items of clothing making up his eccentric outfit—hoodies, baby-grows, dungarees—were sewn together with twine.

  John pushed back against his growing anxiety. Whatever was happening, whatever was going on with his mind, he just had to make it through the next few minutes. He would find out what had happened to Ash. Then he'd go home and decide what to do about the possible recurrence of a mental illness he'd put behind him in his twenties.

  "Mr Hackleworth, I'm here about the bequest." John swallowed. He hadn't said her name aloud for over thirty years. Names had power. "From Ashleigh Zanash."

  Hackleworth's towering bulk shifted to one side and, for an alarming moment, John feared he would lose his balance and fall. At the last second, his hand shot out and grabbed a handle on the wall. John hadn't noticed the handle before. It was heavy brass, blackened by time and oily residue from the lamps.

  Hackleworth pulled the handle, revealing a deep drawer. John looked up at the window and saw, dimly, the early afternoon sun above the rooftops. The drawer was emerging from an outside wall. Which was impossible. It was stuffed with files.

  "Now, let me see, Zanash, Zanash. Z. Inconsiderate, very inconsiderate picking a name beginning with Z. Suppose she thought she was being clever, or funny. Joke's on you, Miss Zanash, because you're dead, dead, deceased and gone, six feet under and that's that. Right then, A...B...C...D...E..."

  As he spoke, Hackleworth pulled the drawer further into the tiny room. It slid out of the wall, past the desk, missed the stacks of paper and con
tinued on its way. In the half-light, John could no longer see the door, but, as the rich voice pronounced, "M...N...," John knew the drawer must have reached the far wall. And yet it continued to emerge.

  "Zebulon. Too far. Let me see, where are you? Slippery minx, this one, but we all knew that, did we not? We did, we did, and that's a fact. Here we are."

  Hackleworth removed a fat file and dropped it onto the desk. With a practised, powerful flick of his wrist, he pulled the drawer back. It reversed its journey in a blur of speed. When it reached the end of its trajectory, there was a loud bang and a ricochet of dust from the wall.

  "Zanash, Ashleigh, late of this parish, born, yes, undoubtedly, or, perhaps more accurately, emerged, certainly, once upon a time; lived her life, since no one else volunteered to do it for her, was cruel, kind, loving, hateful, predictably unpredictable that one, oh yes, yes, indeed. Rumours, speculation, tittle-tattle, all the usual. Not one to be pinned down, hung up, or—dare I say it? I do, I do—beholden to reality, if it didn't suit her, and it rarely did, did it?...here we are, here it is, all is well."

  He withdrew an envelope from the back of the file and placed it on the desk.

  "Well, Mr Aviemore, there it is, the worldly goods. Could she be said to do any worldly good? I would, in the spirit of charity, want to say yes, yes, and yes, but it would be a falsehood, a travesty, an untruth. So, unhappily, I must say no, if pressed, or—possibly—if unpressed. Still, one never likes to lose a client, even if, well.." He stared up at the ceiling, then back at the envelope on the desk.

  John picked it up. "How did she die?"

  The mound of clothes moved. It might have been a shrug.

  "Nothing is immutable, is it, is it? She of all folk proved that. But here we are, nonetheless. The immutable has been muted, quieted, silenced forever. As to how, I'm afraid I have no answer. Illness, old age, at the point of a poisonous dagger? Who can say? But she remembered you, John Aviemore, yes she did. If I could ask you to sign this, if you please, and all is done, done and dusted, dust to dust, Ashleigh's ashes."