Year of the Beast

by Steven Carroll

  The staff were sent back to their quarters; his lordship and the caretaker disentangled the couple. With some difficulty, for death had made their grip on each other strong. They were laid down, side by side, in the shade of a garden shed until the police arrived and spoke at length to his lordship and the caretaker.

  Maryanne puts the newspaper down on the kitchen table. Just how the caretaker’s story reached the paper is never said. But she can imagine the situation. Or thinks she can. A reporter on police rounds snoops about, hears this and that, and, through a long night, eventually puts the strands of a story together. Or makes it up. Who knows?

  Images of the lake come back to her, seen from the high iron gate at the front of the estate. Did they enter the water from the lake’s edge or leap off a landing and from there swim to the depths, never intending to come back, or did things take on a life of their own, the persuasive cold currents of the water taking hold? The newspaper article is all the more disturbing to Maryanne for having seen the place. For she was the go-between, was she not? And did she not bring this about, with the best of intentions? Did she not pass the note to the lady, see the lady’s smile drop from her lips and hear the child ask: ‘What’s that, Mummy?’ And did she not walk to the bus stop with heavy steps, vaguely aware that she had set something in motion?

  And so the Angel of Death feels near, and, for a moment, she even wonders if the dark angel hovered over her then: Maryanne, the go-between who handed the note over that set the whole story in motion. Was she death’s agent?

  She knows that’s not true. From the moment the lady came forward, something was going to happen, and whether she handed the note over or somebody else did, things were set to unravel. But the God of Fear and Guilt dies hard. These impulses, Maryanne sighs, linger on, and before we know it, we’re consumed with guilt and imagining the breath of the dark angel upon us, when, all the time, it’s us; we bring these things upon ourselves.

  It is late morning. The baby cries and she rises from the table and walks to the bedroom. Did they, Milhaus and the lady, in the end, succumb to that something final that the times craved? That the whole city craved? Did they all linger at the festival of the beast too long?

  Maryanne picks up the baby and carries him to the kitchen, watching his eager hands reach for her breast, and feels the bliss of his lips attaching themselves to her nipple. She could swear the child is grinning, saying: Mine! All mine! And the sadness of the news mingles with the joy of the baby’s cry.

  At the same time, while the child is feeding, and the milk passes from her to him, a ghostly chorus of ‘What’s that, Mummy?’ comes back to her. And the tower of the house that she imagined to be the tower of a house from a ghost story now has three children standing in it, peering down onto the estate grounds, where the spirits of Milhaus and the lady haunt the lake.

  22.

  It is March. Mellow days. The baby is three months old, and lies on a mat on the kitchen floor. There is a rattle, a cloth doll and a bear beside him. Katherine has sent them, along with money and books.

  Victor’s presents, the cloth and the baby clothes, turned out to be parting gifts, prompted by a mixture of guilt and genuine care, Maryanne has concluded. For Victor has disappeared from her life. Not slowly, but quickly. All their communications since the session at the photographer’s and the tea-house afterwards have been letters, the last of which she now holds in her hands. She and Victor and the baby will never be together again.

  His first, censored, letter simply told her that they’d been posted ‘somewhere’ in the New South Wales countryside and had a vague reference to what he was doing. All very boring and routine; not much different from the shop. It was good, he added, to be all together that once, at least. And they will always have the photographs. Even if the shots of him aren’t all that good, and don’t really look like him. And he enclosed one of them taken in the city studio in the January heatwave. He hoped that the child will appreciate his mittens and jumpers, and that she would make something fine with the cloth. Guilt and care. There was that much.

  In his second letter he told her that he had been shifted back to Victoria. An army base down by the coast. Not far. Same job. Again, not much different from the shop. He would see the war out there. At least he wouldn’t be going off anywhere and killing or being killed, Maryanne thought. There was that to be thankful for. And he sent money. Not much, but enough – along with money from Katherine – to help make ends meet. And she told him in reply that he was free to visit, that the child was growing every day. But he never did.

  And now, this third letter. She’s just finished rereading it. He is married. To the woman in the mineral-water town he was engaged to all that time: the woman he was engaged to whenever they met through their brief period together. And once again, she sees Victor in the gardens above the town: the look in his eyes telling her she’s a crafty bitch, telling her of his commitments and responsibilities, then wheeling away from her on the sandy path and disappearing into the trees and down the hill into town, where his commitments and responsibilities were waiting for him.

  So, they are finally married. One of those marriages, she can’t help but feel, that come after two people meet, are happy enough but crave something more, then separate, go looking for that something more, and, not finding it, eventually get back together because, well, there was nothing better on offer. They probably deserve each other. And she can’t help but think that it tells her all sorts of things about Victor. A certain lack of imagination, ordinariness, or is it just laziness? The action of someone who is frightened of ending up alone and who settles for the bird in the hand.

  Is she being unfair? Probably, because what Maryanne doesn’t admit to herself is that she is a bit put out by the news. It is one thing for her to pack him off, it was another for him to go off and get married. For some reason she hadn’t thought of that. If she didn’t want him, surely no one would. But someone did. Or, rather, someone has settled for him. So be it. And she can’t help but feel that there’ll be times over the coming years when he will find himself back in that room behind the school house, pulling up his braces, forgetting himself for a moment and pronouncing her beautiful. A dangerous thought for a man with commitments and responsibilities. An imaginative moment for a man with no great imagination, except for dressing shop windows. But, all the same, perhaps the only moment in his life when he will feel he was at the heart of something immense, a fleeting moment of grace that he will never experience again. A tantalising, recurring hint of another life. A memory he will never shrug off, nor, perhaps, ever want to.

  And is she any different, she wonders. Will she too not hark back to the moment of that impulsive pronouncement. Schöne Frau. And will that be Victor’s finest moment? When the imagination he never realised he had was set free and he saw things he’d never seen before? Will it not be their finest moment? One to be kept in mind, to balance the anger of the gardens when he flung her miracle back in her face.

  It is odd to be thinking and feeling these things. And Maryanne is surprised at herself. But, she tells herself, she shouldn’t be. For isn’t this always the case when somebody we assume will be there in some form or another suddenly isn’t? Isn’t it always then that they look their best?

  She folds the letter up and places it back in the envelope. The last of Victor, for she knows there will be no more letters.

  What she doesn’t know is that when the child is older, and she takes him into the city to view the marvellous display windows of the largest and most famous department store in the country, it will be Victor’s display windows that she and the child will be entranced by. That his flair for display windows, which she first noticed in that spa-water town, will bring him to the city. The owner of the emporium will notice his windows on holiday one summer and entice him to the city with the offer of the largest windows, the grandest canvasses, in the country. And Victor will follow, with, by then, a family. And live in a sprawling house north of the rive
r, not far from the famous football ground known to the locals as Windy Hill, where Jack Milhaus, the god who fell, soared across distant Saturday-afternoon skies. And while Maryanne will think of Milhaus and the days of the beast from time to time, and always with a pang in the heart, for there are few things sadder than a broken god, she will never know that the display windows she and the child will thrill to see are the work of the boy’s father.

  Her time with him was not long, but long enough to change everything. And all that would remain of Victor are a few letters and one photograph, stored inside an envelope in one of Maryanne’s drawers: Victor, staff in hand, ridiculously formal in that oversize uniform.

  And the child, currently shaking his rattle and staring back at her from the kitchen floor, will know only the photograph in her drawer. Not the father. And, one day, she will have to explain: what happened and how it happened. Once upon a time, in a country mansion far away where she worked, she met the young lord of the house, and the baby Vic grew out of their meeting. But they could not stay together because they came from different worlds and were thrown apart. He went back to his world, and she went back to hers. Once upon a time …

  Part Four

  The Beast Withdraws

  Melbourne, November 12th, 1918

  23.

  The same crowds that cheered for war, that sang and rejoiced, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour; the same crowds that hung from windows and balconies, climbed lampposts and stood atop motor cars and carriages, waving flags, now cheer for peace.

  The same crowds that called for the blood of Milhaus have forgotten all about him. He served his purpose and is no longer required. The same crowds that turned upon the lady – who stained and destroyed the fairytale they all looked up to – and bayed for justice, branding her Madame X, now think little of her, if at all.

  The same crowds that summoned up the beast within, and surrendered to it, that submitted to the dark conjurers of hate and death, hearts bursting with inexplicable joy, Let us sing in gladness, and that all made up that frenzied festival of death and war, all craving that something final, the very worst of humanity on display, now cheer for peace. And the beast? The beast, its scales shining in the sun, turns for one last look upon the cheering crowds, before slouching off towards the swamp from which it came, where it will lie down and brood and wait for its time to rise again, in twenty years, in a hundred, a thousand, a million years, conjured up by the magicians of darkness.

  It is a public holiday. Maryanne and the child move easily through the crowd, which parts for a lady with a pram. The Town Hall clock strikes the eleventh hour, a day after the armistice. The city heard the night before, and, no doubt, many of the revellers are still here from the previous evening. Somewhere they are singing the Marseillaise. The crowd erupts. Peace, glorious peace. God be thanked … The great war for civilisation is concluded. The Town Hall clock rings out the hour. Hats are flung into the air, boaters hoisted and twirled on walking sticks, flags raised.

  And those not waving flags or hats join hands and form circles, and, on no command in particular, begin dancing. One, two, three steps in, hands raised aloft in hooray, and one, two, three steps back. The simple three-step, quite possibly invented on the spot, is repeated, over and over again. Soon more circles are formed, and they each revolve as if moving round some invisible maypole. Circles within circles within circles; hats, flags and hoorays filling the air. A dummy of the Kaiser hanging from a tree, the beast’s parting gift.

  The dancing continues as Maryanne pushes her pram through the crowd, gradually leaving the intersection behind: the same intersection at which the beast once rejoiced and bellowed in ecstasy. And it is as she is leaving the scene, the child alert and transfixed by the spectacle, that she hears a voice calling through the crowd. And at first she is only conscious of a voice calling out something through the hoorays and war-time songs. Then, slowly, she realises it is her name being called. And with that, she turns.

  Face shining, eyes alight, cheeks with the morning still on them, but night in her eyes if you look hard enough, Vera comes towards her.

  ‘At last!’ she cries, her voice a mixture of relief and joy. ‘I never thought it would come. Never thought the war would ever end. Peace,’ she sighs, ‘isn’t it the most wonderful word?’

  ‘Yes,’ Maryanne says, ‘yes, it is.’ And, of course, it is. Never mind the same crowds … the moment is infectious.

  ‘Peace!’ Vera sighs again, her face in sunshine and shadow, eyes bright but distant, surveying the crowd, every one of them with a ghost at their side. Then she looks at Maryanne, with a resolute air that is way beyond her years. ‘We must make sure no one ever forgets. We must never let them. So no one will ever want to go through this again.’

  She turns, waving to a group of women Maryanne remembers from the offices she visited so often, a haven when one was needed.

  ‘I must go,’ Vera cries. ‘Come and visit; we miss you.’

  Then she is gone and Maryanne, like Vera, running from group to group, has the desire to share the smiles, tears and excitement of the moment. She thinks of Katherine, wonders where she is. Last word, and money – big sister always – was from a farm in New England. And she may still be there, raising a mug of strong tea to the news. And, in the absence of Katherine, Maryanne leans forward, looking down into the pram, smiles and produces a sweet biscuit.

  ‘A biscuit for my little biscuit.’

  And the child’s eyes light up as he grasps the treat and begins sucking and chewing on it with his new teeth. And, together, they look about them, soaking up the scene. You won’t remember this, my little one, Maryanne silently intones. You’re too young. But one day Mama will remind you and tell you that you were here, and that we listened as the clock struck the hour of peace and everybody danced.

  Walking up the hill to the parliament she is free of the crowds. The child finishes his biscuit in the pram. He is a good child, doesn’t cry much and listens when she speaks. She has started work, not far from home. Cleaning nearby guesthouses and the large terraces that face the Exhibition Gardens, where the dome of the main building looks like something out of Florence. Large terraces, where once a gentleman and his family would have lived, but four or five people now do in separate apartments. The work is good enough; she doesn’t mind it. She can take the child with her. He sits on the floor while she changes beds and dusts the furniture, playing with his toys or the large, jangling sets of keys she’s entrusted with, or the books left lying around. Occasionally calling out Mama, and holding up one of his toys. And when he’s tired, she pulls out a drawer from a chest of drawers and he sleeps there. No, she doesn’t mind the work. It’s pleasant enough, the days pass and the money comes in. And just as well, because Father Geoghan was as true as his word. For when she asked for work at her old school, the walls went up and nobody wanted to speak to her or know her.

  She turns at the parliament and walks through the gardens beside the treasury, the same gardens where Vera, megaphone in hand, spoke in the days of the beast. And from which the march left. NO MORE WAR, NO MORE WAR, they chanted. Now, they have their wish. But these days will not go quietly. Or quickly. And even when they feel like history, removed and distant, they will not be gone. Not these days. For the effects of these days will go on and on, ever expanding, rippling through the years and lapping up against the lives of those who never knew them. A black wave, ever-expanding, like night rolling back the light of day or a drop of black ink on a sheet of white blotting paper.

  She wheels the pram out of the gardens along a sandy path that runs beside the lake, the swans composed and calm on the still waters. And as she passes, she eyes them, wondering which one is hers. She can do this thing, she has done this thing. She will continue to do this thing. And out of these days, from the days of the beast, she has produced this child. With eyes that can smile and laugh, but which also bear the imprint of a back room behind a school where he was conceived. Eyes that bear
the imprint of the times. And these days. How else can it be?

  But, in their way, they have come through. And the routine of the predictable life she seemed destined to live is gone forever. Her life changed in such a way that it will never be the same again. And isn’t that what she wanted all along? The egg is hatched. A story begins …

  Epilogue

  Paris, December, 1977

  The silver jet that carried Michael from one side of the world to the other landed a couple of hours earlier, and now, after his breakfast in a street cafe, he is entering the Gare Montparnasse. Platform One. Where the grand lines are. His train, which will take him to a small, windmill town in Brittany, is already there. A silver train, an arrow pointed at the future. And he will ride time’s arrow into it, simultaneously taking the past with him. Maryanne is part of the travelling world he takes with him, always there: past, present and future riding together simultaneously in the air-conditioned comfort of a TGV.

  Her belly was the egg, and when it hatched so too did a family story. Everything starts with her, and everything that flows from those days when they all lingered too long at the festival of the beast flows from her. But Michael doesn’t really know who she was and never will. It was too long ago. And the more distant the time, the more distant the inhabitants of that time, and the more difficult they are to know. And Michael, after long and restless bouts of sleeping and waking on the plane, has come to the only conclusion he can: that he won’t even try to answer the question of who she really was. In her innermost self.