The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times

by Xan Brooks

  But the pictures are glorious so she must not complain. Once the organist has quit the stage, the lights go down and a smoky beam makes a bridge between the far sides of the hall. Up first is a comedy entitled Spoiling the Broth in which a clownish chef wreaks merry hell in the kitchen, and an equally clownish waiter is sent silly by the cooking wine and starts depositing ladles of scalding soup onto the heads of posh ladies and into the laps of the gents. This is followed by a boisterous animation about a pith-helmeted hunter who confuses a zebra for a tiger and only realises his error when he tries to fit the creature with reins. The cartoon winks out to prolonged cheers and applause. Lucy and Brinley are clapping so ardently that their elbows clash and this makes them giggle and goes some way to erasing the tension between them. They reposition themselves to watch an electrifying drama from the American west where painted natives skulk between the cacti and cowboys are shot dead on dust-blown verandas and young women clutch their faces and shed piteous tears. The world, the world! It is too big and too bright; Lucy cannot take it all in. She needs to suck it up through a straw to regulate the flow.

  Afterwards he walks her home. His Adam’s apple is jerking and his pomaded hair has come loose. At the door of the Griffin, seizing his moment as a drowning man might grab at a low-hanging branch, he requests that he may kiss her, and she turns her head to allow him to bump his lips against the corner of her mouth. He repeats that he has recently been taken on as an electrician’s apprentice and so shall have a little money in his pocket from here on in, which is good. He asks if he might one day invite her to come out with him again and she says that he might. She gestures at the pub and points out that he knows where she lives.

  In the kitchen behind the public bar, Nan puts on a pot of tea. She says, “Now that Brinley, be honest. Is he a gentleman or what?”

  “Oh no, Nan, he’s very nice.” She looks around. “Is Tom sleeping already?”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear it. He acts like he’s nice, but you never know what boys are like after dark.”

  “And the pictures were wonderful. They had a wild west one.”

  Nan pours the tea and passes Lucy her cup. “Though I dare say we can aim a little higher than Brinley. He may do for the moment, but we can doubtless do better. Pretty girl like you.”

  “He’s very nice. But I still prefer the funny men.”

  Her grandmother says quickly, “Oh Lucy, good gracious, don’t say that. The very notion, poor Brinley, he’ll do quite well for now.”

  “The Tin Man. The Scarecrow. The Cowardly Lion and Toto.”

  Nan says, “Never mind all that. Drink your tea, slow-poke. Tom’s already in bed.”

  The girl peers at her grandmother over the rim of her cup. This time she gives the names a little musical lift. “The Tin Man. The Scarecrow. The Cowardly Lion and Toto.”

  “Drink up your tea. You’re acting silly.”

  She lowers her voice, mimicking Brinley’s cracked baritone. “The Tin Man. The Scarecrow. The Cowardly Lion and Toto.”

  Nan rises from the table and empties her cup in the sink. She says, “Enough of this, I’m off to bed. Good night.”

  Lucy says, “Good night, Nan. Sleep sound, I love you.” She remains in the chair and blows on her tea ’til it cools.

  Tom had asked, “What do you do when you’re out in the forest?” and Lucy had told him she flew kites and played games and fashioned camps out of canvas. And all of this is true so far as it goes, except that of course it goes further, and on some subterranean level she has always understood that this is what is required; that this is the real reason why she is brought to the woods. It’s for what the boys at St Stephen’s called fucking and what Winifred refers to as “the Terrible Unmentionables”, which she mostly shortens to Mench, as in “Tinny was absolutely starving for Mench, I didn’t know what to do with him” or “the Lion couldn’t manage Mench, he only wanted to blub like a baby.” And it is Fred who points out what Lucy really should have known all along and what she kicks herself for not guessing: that the funny men are somehow paying for Mench and that the money changes hands behind her back, and that this must be why Coach always trots inside the Griffin to say hello to Grandad but never wants to stop for a drink and a smoke. Except even this can’t be right, at least not entirely, because none of the money has ever filtered down to her, and Fred laughs at this and says she’s never seen a penny of it either.

  “But hang about, Luce. It’s not like you get paid for working at the pub.”

  “Well, no,” she concedes. “That’s part of my chores.”

  “There you are then. It’s only another way of working for the oldies. Sometimes we’re indoors and sometimes we’re out.”

  “But it’s wrong, though, isn’t it? Isn’t it bad?”

  “The Mench?” Winifred screws up her face; such moral quandaries exhaust her. “The world’s bad. I suppose the Mench could be worse.”

  There is no preamble, no wind-up, no dance around the subject. If Lucy can say hello to the funny men without bringing up her dinner or running away screaming, then Coach clearly reasons that the Terrible Unmentionables won’t spook her either. Having passed the first test the girl is ready for the second – and besides, the whole night has been bought and paid for upfront. The picnic complete, Toto turns to tell her about the little tree over yonder that he swears looks like Edith. After that he leads her out of the clearing, waddling aboard his muscular hips until they find a secluded spot whereupon he drops the pretence and demands she take him in her hand right away. He explains that he is a fellow in ruins and that everything about him is either scarred, broken or missing aside from his old man which is in perfect working order and this shows that he must be blessed and that the Lord God still loves Toto, if only a little. “Here look,” he says, “see”, and she jumps as though she has trodden on a thorn with bare feet. He says, “Grab hold. Have a look. Tell me how he’s looking” and she backs away and straightens her dress and says, politely, “Excuse me, please, I’ll be back in a moment.”

  It turns out that Coach has followed them partway up the trail. He draws on his pipe as he sees her run up. “Where are you off to, little Luce?”

  “Oh,” says Lucy, suddenly at a loss. She gestures ahead, towards the clearing and safety, although Coach blocks the path so completely she might be pointing at him.

  “Not just yet,” he says almost tenderly and draws again at his old briar pipe. Lucy looks at him a moment, weighing her options, and then she turns away to retrace her steps.

  She goes with whichever of the funny men wants her, whenever they want her, and it is not unusual to attend to more than one over the course of a night, darting soft-footed to various secluded leafy corners until, inevitably, she beats back over old, flattened ground and finds the cigarette butts and wrinkled sheaths left over from previous visits. More often than not she is passed back and forth between the Tin Woodman and Toto, for these two are the most active and demanding, although she is surprised to discover that out of the two, it is the barking, noisy Toto who treats her more gently. The Tin Man is careful to remove his hooks first, and yet he has a tendency to use his stumps and knees to hold her securely in place and this can often leave bruises. It just goes to show, like Nan says, that you never know what people are like after dark.

  Or take the Scarecrow, who can be so kind and thoughtful and interested in what she has to say only to turn cold and distant when he requires her to walk with him to quiet places – as if he actually hates what she does for him there and hates himself for allowing her to do it. It makes no sense and it’s upsetting because the thing is bad enough as it is. “What’s wrong?” she asks and he tells her nothing is wrong, why should anything be wrong? “I’m sorry,” she mutters and this makes him laugh, although it is not a kind laugh. She so hopes he will not complain to Coach about her.

  One night she is summoned to a stretch of tall grass
to work her hand on the Lion while Fred holds his head and strokes his brow. But otherwise she finds she is able to avoid him. Try as she might she can’t feel at her ease with the Lion: he gives so little back; he is like a frightened recluse who has turned out all the lights and double-bolted the door.

  “Does he ever speak much? He doesn’t with me.”

  “Oh yes, he does sometimes. He once said he has a wife called Beverly but he hasn’t seen her in years. He gave me the names and addresses of nice places to see if I ever visit his town.”

  “Really? How strange. What names and address?”

  “I don’t know.” Fred shrugs, losing interest. “Stockport?”

  Occasionally, sitting in the bed of the Maudslay, a troubling possibility will come to her. She wonders whether her Terrible Unmentionables are the same as Fred’s, Edith’s and John’s. Logic tells her they must be and yet the worry keeps nagging. She fears she might be doing something wrong and that the funny men discuss her failings among themselves and then relay their thoughts to Coach, who will listen in horror and tell her that her services are no longer required. Or – worse – he might tell Fred and Edith who would both fall about laughing. Or – worst of all – he might tell her grandad. Imagine that: Coach calling round to explain that the stupid, clumsy girl has been doing everything wrong and that they’ve done their level-best to be patient but the funny men keep complaining and that enough is enough. She gnaws at her knuckles; she is doubled over with shame. It feels almost as though this mortifying exchange has already taken place.

  Finally she is able to bear it no more and conspires to draw Winifred to one side on the walk back to the truck. Fred has been making these Sunday visits for at least a month longer than the rest of them and appears blissfully unburdened by self-doubt. And yet Fred’s home situation sounds more precarious even than her own because she says her grandparents have been told they ought to vacate the premises and, in addition to this, her grandad is given to gambling on the greyhounds and now owes thirty-two pounds to an Eyetie called Falconio who keeps dropping in at the pub and threatening to cause trouble. In the rear of the Maudslay she imitates the loan shark’s sudden Jack-in-a-Box appearances and her grandfather’s abject, oddly operatic attempts to accommodate them. She waves her hands and rolls her eyes. “Ooh Mr Falconio, please permit me to fetch you a drink on the house,” she quavers. “Ooh Mr Falconio, don’t be like that, control yourself please. Oh! No! Falconio!” Fred performs this charade with such gusto that John starts rocking on his heels with helpless, silent laughter. He is constantly badgering her for updates on Falconio.

  Now Fred dips her head and attempts to take in as much of Lucy’s concerns as her attention span will allow. She then assures her that it’s perfectly fine, the way Lucy does the Mench, and she knows that it’s fine because Coach has told her as much. The driver always collects Fred first of all and she likes to ride the opening leg of the journey alongside him in the cab. She takes the occasional drag from his disgusting briar pipe and in those fifteen minutes they converse almost as equals, or as business partners.

  “So me and you are safe and sound. It isn’t us who should be worrying.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? John’s not pulling his weight.”

  If the children have their favourites, it naturally follows that the funny men must have theirs. And yes, come to think of it, Lucy has noticed that some weeks John is permitted to remain on what Coach refers to as the subs’ bench for the whole of the evening, sucking his thumb while the drivers suck their pipes. His popularity is fading; he wears his misery like a scarf. Toto has explained that the boy’s presence is mainly his fault. He developed a taste for his own team when he was playing overseas and he brought this back with him, couldn’t seem to shake it loose. Now he believes he might at last be controlling his habit; he might be heading back on the straight and narrow again. The dwarf credits Lucy, Fred and Edith for their assistance in this and then jokingly thanks John for his own contribution. “You could say he’s the cure almost as much as the girls. Just look at that face. It proper kills off my appetite.”

  Fred lowers her voice. “Between you and me, they don’t like Edith much either.”

  “Oh dear, poor Ede.” But she’s relieved all the same.

  “In any case,” Fred continues, “it’s not like you have to do very much. Just lie down and think of something else for as long as it lasts. It’s them that do most of the work, poor beggars, and a lot of the time they can’t do it anyway.”

  Lucy hesitates and then decides that it’s best to ask the question right out. “Is it rape, what they do?” The very word seems to jam in her throat.

  “How do you mean?”

  “The Mench. I mean, if they make us do things we don’t like doing. That’s raping, isn’t it?”

  But Fred is bewildered. “What, like, if you scream or fight or run away? That’s not what you do?”

  “No. Course not.”

  “Well then, stands to reason. It’s not raping, it’s Mench. And we get paid for it too, so that proves it’s not rape.”

  The girls come out into the clearing. Up ahead they can see the glowing coals of Coach and Crisis’s pipes.

  “I shouldn’t mind seeing some of that money, though. It all goes to the oldies.” Fred sighs. “Then it all goes to Falconio.”

  The world is bad, says Winifred. As for the Mench, it could be worse. Lucy supposes that she might be right. And perhaps it is this that is the real unmentionable about the Terrible Unmentionables – a truth which strikes her as somehow more dreadful than doing it wrong and being teased by the others; more dreadful even than Coach complaining to Grandad. It is the suspicion that for all the awkwardness, discomfort and occasional pain it entails, the terrible Mench may not in fact be so terrible. Or to put it another way, why should this chore be terrible and her other chores not? At least once a day, for instance, she is instructed to fill a pail from the tap and attend to the most grisly excesses and spillovers in the toilet behind the Griffin, or manoeuvre cumbersome barrels onto the ramp from the cellar. Like the Mench, these jobs are dirty and nasty and she would prefer not to do them. But unlike the Mench, nobody ever looks apologetic about needing her help. Nobody says thank you or asks her afterwards whether she is all right and not hurt. No one teaches her the words of songs, or how to tell one tree from its neighbour. And that is why she reckons the job could be worse. And this is why she worries about her eternal soul and damnation and what that means she’s become. Because if there exists anything in the world that is worse than the Mench, it is surely the girl who does not view it as wrong; who subjects herself wittingly and who acquits herself well.

  Her thoughts pinwheel and her pulse is jumping. Incredibly, it turns out that there is a more nightmarish scenario than Coach visiting her grandfather to complain about her aptitude. It is the one in which Coach drops by at the Griffin to tell her grandfather that his customers could not be more delighted with the service she provides.

  She opens her legs and lets the Tin Man come in. Back arching, breath rasping, he leans the sugarloaf of his forearm against her breastbone and Lucy winces and settles and laces her hands about the nape of his neck, mindful not to disturb the knot of the ribbon which holds his features in place. He endures this for a minute before the strain overtakes him and he shudders and breaks down as though he has been struck from behind. His system is in uproar. She believes he might be weeping although she cannot say for certain. His face is as serene and contented as an effigy in a tomb.

  “It’s all right,” she tells him. “It’s all right.” And behind the man’s head she sees that all the stars have come out.

  12

  Mrs Henrietta Shaw has no great desire to receive the fellow who draws up to her door in the trap from the station, but her son is adamant; he says that the man is a marvel. Robert has become regrettably prone to wild
fancies since he relocated to London. He runs the risk of embarrassing himself by association with all manner of mountebanks. In the past few months the boy has permitted himself to be beguiled by experimental poets and whisked into a lather by leftist agitators. He has paid good money to witness the antics of a European gypsy who claimed to be able to levitate when he quite demonstrably could not, and became worryingly infatuated by the charms of a dancing negress whose pièce de résistance, so far as Mrs Shaw can gather, amounted to nothing so much as a tawdry striptease. He has been gulled and bamboozled and still seems none the wiser. The Magus, he says, is the most impressive by far.

  The Magus, I ask you. Was ever there a name more flagrantly pompous? Was ever there a title so guaranteed to inspire derision? How on earth does one even set about addressing the Magus? Should one refer to him as Mr Magus? Or if that is too formal, may she perhaps call him Gus? Goodness me: she would fall about laughing, were it not so utterly tragic.

  Robert rolls his eyes and invites her to go ahead, be his guest. She should laugh all she likes; it would do his heart good to hear it. All the same, he fears that she is fixating on the name as a deliberate distraction. She appears hell-bent on judging the man on the basis of his label as opposed to the achievements themselves, which are considerable, as she will soon see. “Frankly,” he adds, “I am a little disappointed in you. I did rather assume that you were bigger than this.”

  “But the Magus, I ask you. Oh Robert, what rot.”

  Henrietta Shaw lives in a comfortable house on the fringes of town. The house is called the Vicarage, although this surely counts as another misnomer, given that it has not catered to a vicar in three decades or more. Her husband had been a magistrate before he expired on the links and the sole reminder of his presence is the clotted and dowdy oil portrait over the drawing-room hearth (the artist made his mouth too stern and his eyes half-demented). The house is big and its needs can be clamorous. It is like an energetic Great Dane, always wanting to be walked. She has Steven drop by twice a week to prevent the garden from becoming a Congo. She has Beth in every day (and often overnight) to ensure that the floors are waxed and the clocks wound, and to open and close the curtains at intervals to prevent the sun from bleaching the upholstery. Most evenings Beth will prepare a simple meal of fish and boiled vegetables, after which the pair sit together and talk and sip more port than they ought, and often she will say, “Oh, it’s so late, why not just stay over?” If this is old age, it has much to recommend it. Privately she admits that she does not much miss Mr Shaw.