The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times

by Xan Brooks

  Climbing the long slope to the east, Winifred turns to take her bearings and spies two match-stalk figures edging up the path from the garden. She says, “Who’s that in the wheelchair? It’s not Toto, is it?”

  “No,” Lucy says. “It’s the old man. The earl.”

  “Oh yes, so it is. Look at him, the poor bugger. He’s not long for this world.”

  They forge on up the hill, calling out to the camel to play with them awhile. But the animal does not care for company. It throws a contemptuous glance over one bony shoulder and shows them its hindquarters again.

  The pursuit has become hopeless. Fred loses patience. She picks up a stone and hurls it at the camel. When the first stone drops short she casts about for another.

  “Stop it, Fred, you’re being cruel.”

  “Bloody hell, call me Ferdie. Everyone else calls me Ferdie.”

  “I’m not calling you Ferdie. What’s wrong with you today?”

  “Oh my stars. Ask me that one more time and I shall throw a stone at you too.”

  Twice that morning the girl has asked how Fred is feeling. The previous night was so strange, she wants to be certain that her friend is unhurt. Both times Fred has replied in shrill tones that of course she is fine, why shouldn’t she be? She cannot for the life of her imagine why Lucy is acting so gloomy. Fred points out that last night was the night she made herself thirty bob. Lucy does not appear to have done so badly herself. She walked away with a priceless old necklace; it must be worth almost as much as the Pick-Arsehole painting. If that’s being hurt, they should get hurt more often.

  “Fair enough,” Lucy says. “Have it your way.”

  By this point, however, the camel has fled. It maintains its course up the hill. Assuming Edith has the wherewithal to stick with this line, she will presently ascend clear out of the valley and cross into woodland. Beyond the woodland, Lucy has heard, sits the village of Brent, which contains a grocer’s, a post office, a Saxon church and a pub. She thrills to the prospect of the camel escaping Grantwood and continuing her ill-tempered progress through the home counties of England. What might people make of the sight, if Edith wound up walking right up Brent high street? They would think that the woods had sprung monsters, or that some prophecy had come true.

  When they turn to go back, the house fills their vision. The morning sun slaps its sandstone sides and turns its windows into smelted silver oblongs. Smoke streams sideways from the chimneys; the coloured pennants are flapping. It is a fabulous place, a storybook house. It is a fairytale palace; it can make all dreams come true.

  Fred says, “And when the old fellow has croaked, it will all go to Rupert. I mean,” she adds breathlessly, “it will be sad when that happens, but come on, own up, won’t it be wonderful too?”

  The sad truth, however, is that this precious kingdom is in decline. The agricultural crisis bites deep, land values have collapsed and the Grantwood estate is tens of thousands in debt. The house and its grounds have both seen better days; there used to be double the staff to keep the wheels smoothly turning. Now the ones that remain come scurrying through the faded rooms, their hands made raw from scouring powder and their necks and elbows damp with the patchouli oil they use to mask the smell of old sweat. When the groom of the chambers is found lying dead on the stairs, the servants are informed that he will not be replaced. This inevitably means that they must all work harder still.

  It breaks Lord Hertford’s heart to have the west wing shut up. It feels like an amputation, a permanent break with the past. Now the whole place is haunted by apparitions in dust sheets. The faces of long-dead relations sit in gilt frames on the walls. Bars of weak sunlight pierce the gaps in the shutters and provide enough illumination for an intrepid explorer to pick his way through the ruin, although he would be advised to tread carefully; there are various hazards to hand.

  Hastening across an upstairs salon, Arthur Elms catches his pocket on the exposed arm of a chair and in twisting to free himself succeeds only in tearing his trousers clean across the seat. His thoughts are unsound and his trousers are useless. Prompted by some residual sense of decorum, he removes them entirely and proceeds on bare legs. On and on he walks, past portrait after portrait. Avert your eyes, ghosts, if the half-naked guest causes offence. At least the voices don’t mind. They are keening and buzzing. He believes they have never been this loud in the past.

  It dawns on him that he has finally found his way to the very heart of the house. All that time he spent searching for an exit when what he really should have been doing was directing himself not outward but inward. Here in the shuttered west wing resides the source of all power – the wellspring of history and its burial site, too. Nothing dies in the wing. It is merely put under sheets, awaiting someone to unveil it.

  Up ahead, another door. It is the door he has been searching for. He prises it open and enters a long narrow chamber that is empty except for a bronze bust draped in white linen. He peels back the dust sheet and underneath is Uriah.

  “Hello Uriah. I haven’t seen you in ages.”

  The bronze head has large ears, a full beard and a furrowed brow. Its eyes are deep-set and suggestive of sadness and yet there is a rueful set to its mouth which makes it plain that it regards the world with as much amusement as sorrow. The bronze head is not that of Uriah Smith, who made no great impression and passed away quite unnoticed. And yet nonetheless the resemblance is striking. In the half-light of the west wing, one dilapidated old man looks very much like another.

  “Uriah,” he weeps. “I’m sorry I killed you.”

  And how might Uriah respond if the bust were Uriah? The magician decides that his former friend would be kind. He might say, “Oh my dear boy, think no more about it. As you can see, I have been returned to full health.”

  “I’m glad, Uriah. I have missed you so much.”

  And Uriah would say, “But just look at you now. The guest of nobility. It makes my heart swell to see it.”

  “Thank you, that’s kind. I wish that you had come too.”

  “But where is my amulet? What, pray tell, have you done with the Eye?”

  By this point his tears are flowing freely. He reaches out to stroke the man’s weathered cheek. He says, “I’m sorry I hit you. I’m sorry I took Queenie and your amulet. I don’t have it anymore, I gave it to a whore. I don’t have anything anymore. Even my magic has gone.”

  Except that this would only make Uriah laugh. “Nonsense,” he would say. “You have mislaid it, that’s all. Don’t forget what you are – you are God’s ultimate imp. The magic is there. You need to think hard and find it.”

  He nods his head in a frenzy. “Thank you,” he says. “For believing in me.”

  “The magic is real. But it is inside, not out. Reach down inside yourself and you shall find wonders.”

  Bare-legged he kneels and puts his thumb to his forefinger. And now at long last he thinks Uriah may be right and that some force still remains, knotted and trapped, like the water behind a kinked garden hose, or a hornets’ nest inside a cavity. The daylight has now faded. The room is entirely dark. He rubs his fingers together and whispers, “God’s ultimate imp.”

  “What’s that, my boy?”

  He says, “That’s what I am. God’s ultimate imp.”

  It is Fortnum-Hyde’s custom to limit his cocaine use during daylight hours so as to reward himself more fully when the evening rolls in. Typically he will ration himself to a morning tonic on waking, a few lines over lunch and a pick-me-up ahead of his afternoon tea. But today the viscount has broken with form – the early morning tonic is merely an aperitif. Once that has gone in, he unleashes the hounds; he treats himself to both barrels. By mid-afternoon he is what the Long Boys would describe as comprehensively baked.

  His house guests are not baked and this is vastly annoying. In the velvet-draped chamber he demands they catch up and has the
platters sent out. He laments the fact that it always falls to him to lead and the rest to follow. Such is the nature of the world and of natural selection, but it remains a trial all the same. He sits in his armchair with beads of sweat on his brow and his temples twanging like a double bass and orders his guests to pick up the pace and step up to his level. He is up on the mountaintop and he is waving them in. He outright refuses to be the only baked goods in the room.

  When the footmen reload the platters with cocaine and cognac, he drags his gaze left to right and makes a mental note of the absentees. Clarissa, it seems, is still upstairs with Old Stick, while that skunk Arthur Elms has yet to make an appearance. But this makes no difference. His sister’s an irritant and Elms is a crook; Mrs Cleaver has advised they check his luggage when he leaves. He orders that the others drink deep and sniff at the powder for all they are worth. The two pleasure dolls should join in if they like. He decrees that tonight shall be a time of fun and games. There has been too much chatter and indolence for his taste. Too much lounging about. Too much jawing about nothing. The hour has come for a little action instead.

  Hauling himself from the chair, Fortnum-Hyde decides that now might be a good moment to lay out his credentials – to remind his guests exactly what kind of man walks among them. Then, brandishing the poker, he demonstrates the drop-shot which forced the great Arthur Gore to collide with the post. Adopting a pugilist’s stance he revisits the blow that sent a prize fighter to the mat. He throws back his head and says, “Look at me now, I’ve reached the mountain, my friends. Climb up to the top and I shall show you the promised land.”

  The night unfolds in a merry blur. First Fortnum-Hyde arm-wrestles Skinny Boy Floyd into grinning submission. Then he directs hulking Truman-Jones to get down on all fours so he might ride him like a horse. On a whim he dispatches Raine to fetch the crippled soldiers from the cottage. He explains that what he has in mind is a monster hunt.

  “What’s a monster hunt?” says Winifred.

  “She asks what I mean. Then I shall tell you, my child. A monster hunt is like riding to hounds but with the monsters as foxes and the baked goods in pursuit.”

  Skinny Boy asks, “Where’s the Elmsy-man at?”

  Fortnum-Hyde throws him a distracted look. “Who cares? All I wish to discuss is this monster hunt.”

  Before long Raine returns with the crippled soldiers in tow. They look reduced and forlorn amid the room’s finery. Fortnum-Hyde freshens himself with a further rail of white powder and explains that they are all about to play a game and that he requires three volunteers to brave the chill and run into the grounds. The rest of the group will count to one hundred and then chase them down.

  “It’s a monster hunt,” says York Conway. “We have all been getting very excited about it.”

  But it seems his enthusiasm is not shared by the cripples. From his wheelchair, Toto laughingly points out that running might be difficult. He very much fears that those days are behind him.

  The Tin Woodman raises his hooks and addresses the girls. “Oh Lucy and Fred,” he says, “I thought you were our friends.”

  Finally it is the Scarecrow’s turn. He says, “If it’s all the same to you, I think we’ll sit this game out.”

  “Nonsense,” rejoins Fortnum-Hyde with a scowl.

  Winifred says, “It’s going to be ever so much fun. It will be like when we all played hide-and-seek in the woods.”

  York Conway cocks his head. “I should remind you that the only reason you’re here is due to his lordship’s largesse. If he decides he wants to play a game, you ought to count yourselves lucky that he has seen fit to include you. It certainly isn’t your place to whine and complain.”

  Truman-Jones claps his immense hands. He cries, “Monster hunt. Monster hunt.”

  Out in the hall, they line up for the game. Fortnum-Hyde beats the Long Boys’ drum kit to keep count, setting out at a leisurely pace and then quickening the tempo so that the final fifty beats roll out in a thunder.

  Gallant Toto has pulled himself from his chair to proceed on his hips with his gondolier’s waddle. He moves as fast as he is able but the stone steps to the loggia prove to be his undoing. The dwarf has to tackle them one riser at a time and is barely at the bottom before the count is complete. Fortnum-Hyde and Conway overtake him at the gate to the garden. They kick away his supporting arm and jubilantly roll him along the ground. The hunters are intoxicated, on the outer edge of control, and the capture of the dwarf sparks loud celebrations.

  “Monster hunt! Monster hunt!” By now even Lucy is joining in with the chant.

  “Don’t hurt him!” shouts Julius Boswell. “He has no legs, for fuck’s sake.”

  Fortnum-Hyde leaves off his kicking to seize the dwarf by the collar. “Toto, that was pathetic. Make some effort at least.”

  “Oh Toto,” cries Lucy. “I hope you’re not hurt.”

  “Monster hunt!” roars Truman-Jones and jostles her so forcibly she almost loses her footing.

  “I’m fine. Never better.” But it is obvious the adventure has made Toto dizzy. When his collar is released, he tumbles onto his back.

  “Ridiculous,” Fortnum-Hyde tells the group. “I’m sure we agree it was a dismal show from the dwarf.”

  Attention now turns to the remaining two targets. The hunters fan out through the gardens, trailing lunar shadows across the plaster gods. Running at the rear, Lucy spies York Conway and Fred take the stone steps at the side and quickens her pace, meaning to catch them both up.

  Fred is shouting, “Monsters, watch out! We are coming to get you!”

  They dash up the steps out onto the lawns. Up ahead, in the gloom, sits the sagging summer marquee; nobody has seen fit to dismantle the thing. Lucy calls out to the others but they are some distance ahead and she suspects they can’t hear. She hesitates for an instant and then alters her course.

  The marquee, like the house, has fallen on hard times. It feels very different from the last time she visited. The autumn wind has unpicked several guy ropes. Its tropical chintz is plastered with dead leaves. The girl pulls back the fold and inhales the cold scent of mildew. The interior is so dark that she collides with the table.

  “Monster hunt!” she shouts. She more senses than sees the figure standing inside.

  “Well done,” says the Scarecrow. “How brave and resourceful you are.”

  Something in his tone dampens her excitement. She says, “Don’t be in a grump. It’s only a bit of fun.”

  “The careless fun of the idle rich. But congratulations all the same. You’ve caught your monster.”

  “I thought you liked fun. Isn’t that how this all started? You wanting some fun?”

  The Scarecrow snorts. “You can walk me back now. I’ll tell them how you caught me.”

  Only the Tin Man is at large, although he does not remain so for long. The hunters run him down at the front of the house. When he turns to surrender he is instantly knocked over. George Washington expresses a desire to see whether he does have a nose and so Fortnum-Hyde decrees that his mask be removed. But the Tin Man is reluctant and scrambles onto his front. “Mercy, like an eel,” exclaims Sweetpea Long and now they are all clutching at the Tin Man, pulling him this way and that. Truman-Jones plants his feet on the flagstones and, following shouted orders from Fortnum-Hyde, is able to lower his square buttocks upon the cripple’s chest so as to better hold him in place.

  “Mercy me, like an eel,” says Sweetpea again.

  The laughter is infectious; the game has reached its crescendo. Skinny Boy is able to remove one of the hooks while Conway takes the other and together they use them to prod and hit the Tin Man – and sometimes Truman-Jones for good measure, not entirely by accident. And now there is blood on the hooks and on the flagstones at their knees and on the collars of their coats and spotting their faces as well. The Tin Man bucks and wriggles so violen
tly that it is close to convulsions. The hunters press in, Truman-Jones shouts “Hurrah!” and the monster hunt winds up in a state of joyous disarray.

  Lucy and the Scarecrow pick their way across the darkened lawn – the girl out in front and the airman trailing. Neither says a word; they are no longer friends. They said all they needed to say on their night in the copse. Lucy has decided that if she never speaks to him again that would probably be for the best. Her life has moved on and it has left him behind. All she wants is to shake him loose and get indoors, in the warm.

  The draw up to the house, the huntress and her trophy, and she realises with elation that a welcoming party awaits her. It is out on the lawn beside the abandoned west wing and it hoots and applauds when it sees what she has brought. Winifred is sat astride Truman-Jones’s shoulders. “Monster hunt! Monster hunt!” Skinny Boy is shouting.

  And there at the centre is the Tin Woodman himself, returned to full strength, merrily conducting the cheers. When he steps forward to greet her, he moves with an easy grace – his copper face smiling, his greatcoat billowing. He says, “Rub-a-dub-dub. Little Lucy, our hero”. Then, when he is almost at her side, his right hook detaches and drops to the earth with a thump and at the cuff of his sleeve she sees his unblemished brown hand.

  “Oh Tinny,” she says. The shock is terrific. But at her back, very loudly, the Scarecrow shouts an oath.

  “Tinny?” she says.

  In a rich, full voice, he says, “My child, behold a miracle. A spot of rough and tumble has worked a wonder on me.”

  The Tin Man takes a further step up and this time his spectacles unfasten and his copper mask comes loose – and behind it is the grinning, scowling face of Rupert Fortnum-Hyde. He says, “Lulu, have courage. It is only I.”

  Winifred is beside herself. “You should see yourself, Lu. I thought you were going to have a heart attack then.”

  The Scarecrow says, “You fucking idiots. What have you done with him?”