The Man Who Wanted to Smell Books

by Elspeth Davie

  In great cities the poses Shering took up were sculpturesque. His look could be stern and sorrowful like the expression on statues in public squares. Occasionally his face, which showed the mildness of a sheltered life, could take on the look of a man of violent action – an expression he’d caught sight of on some nearby helmeted figure mounted on a bronze war-horse. On the other hand photos taken in the country showed him as natural and pliable as his backgrounds. He was snapped leaning on gates or bending down to study a flower in the grass – always looking up at the right moment to flash a smile. He had no attractive wife to steal the picture, no restless children to smudge the effect in the foreground. He was suspicious of all tricks in photography – gadgets which made a raindrop on a cabbage leaf bulge like a crown jewel. People who used these devices tended to be more complicated than the others and might show less patience for taking straightforward pictures of himself. In spite of everything he maintained he had more friends all over the world than he could ever keep up with. The friends he spoke of were simply those people with whom he had sat and waited for the sun.

  The hours he had sat waiting for the sun took up the greater part of Mr Shering’s waking life. He had sat waiting with people amongst ruins, on the edge of piers, on mountains, in boats and in buses. Infinitely adaptable, he could wait calmly with a solitary and tongue-tied tourist winding the first reel into his camera as with the seasoned traveller already halfway round the world. Long habits of posing had given him an expression of concentration which never wavered, whether he was listening to the endless comparisons of hotel bedrooms or to the peculiar history of certain engraved stones set in a nearby arch. He was not attending. The brightening gleam in his eyes was not evidence of the climax to a thrilling tale but of the long-awaited appearance of the sun at the edge of a bank of black cloud.

  It was the sun which held all things together in Mr Shering’s disconnected life. His casual encounters were made only in its light, and faded when the light faded. Under heavy skies he lived from hour to hour, dulled and diminished in his own eyes, making few contacts, seeing and hearing little of what was going on around him. But he knew when the sun rose and when it set on every day of the year. Elusive as its shining was, the sun was the only dependable in a monstrously unreliable life.

  One fine morning in summer, Shering, who was coming to the end of a fortnight’s holiday near the south-west coast, decided that for his final outing he would climb as high as he could to get a last view of the sea and the surrounding country. The small hotel where he had been staying had become inexplicably crowded the evening before, and he’d decided to move on as soon as possible. Crowds were not for him. He needed a great deal of time and space for himself and he had resented this inrush of young men and women who overnight had transformed the quiet hotel into a place as busy and noisy as a city office. The irritation vanished, however, as soon as he’d left the village and taken the path which led up through a group of young birch trees onto the slope above. This was the only hill in the district and it counted as high. But the climb was easy. The air was clear. As he went up, the blue spaces of the sky widened out and the mist rolled off the fields until at last he was able to look down at the sea sparkling in full sunshine below. He took the last part of the climb slowly, scarcely looking up till he reached the boulders which marked the top. When he did raise his head and stop for breath he saw a young man already seated there. Shering marked with approval the camera slung on his shoulder. But he also saw as he came closer that the man belonged to the party which had arrived at the hotel the evening before.

  Shering remembered him all too clearly – this businesslike fellow packed with information of one kind or another who’d made it perfectly plain to the rest of the company, as he spread out maps and plans and diagrams, that he and his friends were not on holiday like the rest of them, but were involved in some project of the utmost interest to the entire world. Shering had got well out of earshot long before the nature of this research could be explained. Being on perpetual holiday himself, he had an instinctive suspicion of people who discussed work enthusiastically in public and a particular dislike of those who, groaning at the swift passing of time, insisted on counting up the few days of freedom left to them. Freedom lay heavily on Shering from one year’s end to the next – limitless and all-enveloping. Long ago the word had lost its meaning. When he heard it discussed he felt as much resentment as if words from an unknown language had been suddenly thrust into the conversation. It had seemed to him possible, as he watched the earnest young men and women, that at any minute there might burst on his ears the question of time wasted and made up, a discussion of extra efforts to be made, of timetables, calendars and the hour-by-hour recording of important events. He had gone early to bed.

  The young man on top of the hill, however, showed no particular emotion on seeing Shering. His face was thin and stern and his dark eyes stared confidently out from behind horn-rimmed spectacles. To the older man who was climbing laboriously up towards him he gave the impression, even though slight and rigid in build, that at this moment he owned the hill, the sky, the sea, and the whole surrounding countryside. He was absolute master of the situation, whatever it was, and this time Shering himself had not an inkling how the land lay. The young man gave no clue and threw out no communication line. But Shering, secretive himself, knew he was bursting with some purpose of his own. He was not here for the view. Not a muscle of his body was relaxed.

  ‘We are far too early of course,’ he remarked as Shering came up, and he gave a short laugh as though scorning himself, ‘but I prefer to take up my position before the others arrive.’ He seemed relieved that the necessity of speech was over and done with. He turned away at once and examined the sea with exaggerated curiosity. Shering sat down on the smoothest boulder and looked around him.

  ‘It is early.’ He spoke politely to the rigid shoulders. ‘But not an unnatural time for me to be out and about, I can assure you. I think it’s safe to say there won’t be anyone else around for some time – unless of course you’re expecting friends.’

  The young man turned his head slightly to one side, but said nothing. It now became clear that the set of his face was due to extreme nervousness. He sat straight, his arms tightly folded across his chest as though rigidly controlling himself. Shering, who prided himself on putting all kinds of people at their ease, felt instinctively that this would be as hard a case as he had yet tackled.

  ‘I somehow imagine – I may be quite out – I imagine from certain things you said last night that you are a teacher,’ he began in the hesitating voice which overlaid an inexhaustible persistence.

  ‘Science,’ the young man muttered through his teeth.

  ‘A teacher of Science,’ said Shering with an edge of disapproval to his voice. ‘Then in many ways I think I envy you. To be able to convey something of the mystery … something of the miracle …’ But the young man was staring at the sky where a long strip of cloud was drifting across the sun. His face grew more than ever pinched and severe, and when at last the sun was completely covered he jumped to his feet with a groan. Shering saw what he could only describe as a tearing of hair, and he was amazed. Nothing in his opinion could account for such emotion, unless the relation between cloud and camera. But though he had stood by and watched the disappointment of hundreds of photographers – never had he witnessed a disappointment like this. By this time he also was on his feet and now stood with folded arms, his head flung back watching the sky. He had seen all this before. A whole continent of cloud might move across to blot out the sun. He could be patient.

  ‘If I’m not mistaken it will all pass over in about twenty minutes or so,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ll have your picture, if that’s what’s worrying you. Indeed, if I’m any judge of cameras, that one there will take a very fine picture in just this light.’ But as he spoke these words he knew they were worse than useless – he even judged them downright dangerous. For the young man had turned abruptly. S
hering found himself looking into a pair of glaring eyes, eyebrows raised in outrage above the hornrims. It was a fanatic’s face. At any minute he could be expected to raise his fists in the air and curse Shering for ever having set foot on the same hill as himself.

  ‘I have as much right …’ began Shering, taking a step back and glancing behind as he did so. But what he saw below him cut short all stating of rights.

  A great crowd of people were slowly making their way up onto this hill where, in the last fortnight, not a soul had set foot. They came from all sides – men, women and children, winding their way purposefully along the grassy paths at the foot and looking up now and then with an air of expectancy towards the top where the two men stood. Further out in the lanes below Shering saw that cars were drawing up. Beyond that again and for as far as he could see, cars, vans and caravans were coming in, one behind the other, all along the criss-crossed roads of the surrounding district. Twisting through them and wobbling behind were long, glittering lines of bicycles, with the odd motorbike coming up, jolting and bursting, from the rear. Every now and then those on foot who’d been pressed back into the hedges by passing traffic, widened out again in pairs or groups across the road and were passed in their turn by some solitary figure with a knapsack who had been plodding along since early morning. There was a continual movement going on – a knotting, a fanning out, a stepping back and forward. But there was no chaos on the roads. A single purpose drove them forward towards the foot of the hill where the first arrivals were climbing out of their cars and had started to move up behind the rest onto the lower slopes. In a few minutes solid ranks of people, close enough to hide the green, were climbing from all sides over rocks and through bushes, coming on with the silent determination of an army on the move. There was something strange to Shering in that determination. Were they converging on him? In one panic second his innocent life flashed by. For what crime was he to be punished on the hill? To placate what gods?

  The panic passed. Looking closer he could make out specific groups among the crowd. Small family parties emerged with rugs and raincoats over their arms. Some carried thermos flasks, lemonade bottles and wads of sandwiches in brown paper. Shades of navy blue marked the circles of pupils from surrounding schools, accompanied by their teachers. Here and there official uniforms stood out. A driver and his conductor were coming up with a bus load of passengers. A couple of off-duty policewomen were going along with them, while down at the foot five nuns were paying off a taxi, chattering excitedly, their black habits blowing behind them as they turned to climb. Most prominent amongst the crowd was the large group of young men recognized by Shering as the group who had arrived at the hotel the evening before. It was at once clear to him that they, along with his companion in the hornrims, were the natural leaders of this gathering. They did not spread themselves like the others and their heavy, angular equipment had nothing to do with picnics. They were serious if not actually grim as they climbed up silently together to join the young man at the top.

  Most of the crowd had now gathered on the highest part of the hill and soon the grass was patched with raincoats where the families were sitting down, already surreptitiously unscrewing thermos flasks. But there was something different here from the usual picnicking crowd. These people were focused outwards. It was more than a normal interest in the view. Their eyes remained mesmerically fixed even while they poured the tea and put their hands in and out of paper bags. Shering saw a few miss their mark and more than one stream of tea flowed down the side of a mug into the grass. Meanwhile those solitary persons who had come up to roam restlessly about on their own, now met and passed one another without a glance, only dropping their eyes from the distance once in a while to stare at watches.

  Surrounded as he was on all sides, Shering felt increasingly ill at ease, like the solitary unbeliever in a crowd of visionaries. If he was conspicuous it was because he lacked the expectancy which marked all other faces, and feeling safer unobserved, he sat down cautiously on the ground. All the signs now persuaded him that he was part of a great open-air organization – a political or religious sect grown strong and drawing followers from a vast area. At any moment an orator would spring to his feet. There would be answering shouts and chants and a raising of banners with secret slogans. Shering had watched such things before, but always from a distance. His spirits sank. It was too late to make his escape. There was now an unmistakable rounding-up going on. Teachers were gathering in the pupils who had strayed too far and here and there a parent was running after a child who’d broken away to other family groups. The bus driver had placed himself in front of his passengers in order to count them, his lips moving, his eyes going from face to face. The nuns stood quietly together, their tilted, white-bound brows towards the sky, arms on their skirts. While all around the groups drew closer and closer together, a hush had gradually fallen on the crowd. Shering noticed it first in the nearby families who had stopped talking and seemed to be taking care to fold up their paper with as little sound as possible. Nobody hurried. There was almost stealth in the movement about him and those who had got to their feet did it as though fearful of disturbing the earth they stood on. More and more people were staring at their watches and with an intentness uncanny to Mr Shering to whom time meant nothing. And now the silence which had deepened with every second was broken suddenly by a rustling whisper which swept over the crowd as they bent towards one another like reeds over which an unnatural wind had passed. Shering listened intently to the curious sound which came again and again from those nearest him. ‘The sun!’ It was this word he managed to sift from all the rest. It grew steadily in volume until it seemed his own secret sun obsession was being declaimed from all sides.

  ‘So that’s it,’ he said to calm himself, unaware that he was whispering like the rest. ‘Well, what of it?’ He saw only a bright, mottled sky with one darker strip of cloud hiding the sun. He saw nothing strange. It was the same sky he had always stared at, the same cloud hiding the longed-for sun.

  ‘Are you waiting for the sun to come out?’ he said, throwing his words with enormous effort into a silence. No one answered, but several faces turned momentarily in his direction – shocked faces staring at a blasphemer. Swiftly they turned away again towards the sky.

  Shering had gradually become aware that for the last few minutes a peculiar gloom had been falling through the air. He noticed it first upon his blanching hands. Then he saw the grass. It had faded as though a sudden blight had eaten up its green. Now sea and sky turned grey. If a great storm was impending it was not from the few clouds overhead – but rather from some black cloud rolling up to cover the whole earth. Shering’s only thought was for shelter. But there was no shelter for him on the hill. He saw the sky change to the north and the ground, as far as the eye could see, turned grey as though sprinkled with ash. All over the hill, as the darkness deepened, there was a soft surge of movement as people inside the groups pressed closer and closer together while those on the outside swung in nearer to the others. Shering felt more than unsheltered. He was alone, unprepared for whatever disaster was about to break. For suddenly a single gust of cold wind passed over him, pricking up the hairs of his head. At the same instant, like a great net flung rifling into the sky, a flock of starlings went up behind him and took flight to the west. Shering raised both hands to his head and in the silence heard his own voice whisper: ‘No! Not yet …!’ But this time the sun was no longer a partner in the game. He knew that in less than one minute he was to be witness to its eclipse.

  The smoky yellow clouds covering the sun now turned dark red, changing as the darkness grew to a deep violet which Shering had never seen before, even in the most spectacular sunset. But the rest of the earth darkened and withered rapidly. The faces around him turned livid. Clothes, rocks, grass and blazing gorse bushes had faded to ghosts of themselves. Shering, like the survivor of some dying planet, was appalled to see a few stars shining in the clear patches of the sky. The last light
faded and he covered his eyes. Stooping, his knees and shoulders limp as if even the red blood ran grey, he gave himself up to the darkest moment of the eclipse.

  Half a minute later Shering found himself on the ground staring at the same landscape from which a heavy veil was being swiftly lifted. Colour was coming back over ground and sky with such speed that it seemed a thick membrane covering his eye had split to let in this astounding light. But in seconds this brilliance had faded again into the ordinary light of day. Over the whole hillside there was now an air of recovery and relief and from all sides there came a murmuring which grew gradually louder. Shouts and laughter broke out, and amongst certain groups violent discussions started up. The young men and women from the hotel were putting instruments back into their cases and tucking wedges of smoked glass into the pockets of haversacks between maps and charts. The eclipse had not been perfect. Shering could see the earnest young man standing apart from the others, still staring at the clouded sky, pale with disappointment. But the others had recovered from their frustration and were now rapidly making notes in small black exercise books. On all sides people were gathering themselves together, briskly brushing off the astounding along with the earth and grass from their coats.