Chatterton

by Peter Ackroyd

  ‘Who am I dying to meet?’

  ‘Oh, it’s only Sarah. I always tell her that. It makes her feel less uncomfortable with people.’

  ‘I really ought to go now. My wife…’

  ‘Oh yes, how is she?’ Harriet picked up the bag containing the Chatterton manuscripts and, with apparent absent-mindedness, began patting it with her hand. ‘Is she married?’

  Charles, slightly alarmed by her action, had not properly heard the question. ‘She’s working in a gallery for the moment. I don’t know why. Have you heard of Cumberland and Maitland?’

  ‘Ah yes, Cumberland and Maitland.’ She had put the bag onto a small ebony table in a corner of the room, and was beginning to examine its contents. ‘Cumberland and Maitland.’ She was taking out pages and scrutinising them carefully, calmly repeating the phrase as she did so. ‘Cumberland and Maitland. That’s right.’ Then she held up a batch of manuscripts. ‘Shall I keep these safe for you, dear?’

  ‘It’s very kind of you,’ Charles began to say. ‘But I really need to do more work on them –’

  The doorbell rang. ‘Fuck her,’ Harriet muttered under her breath and, as she rose to let in Sarah Tilt, Charles hastily replaced the papers in his bag, picked up the portrait, and followed her into the hall. ‘What’s the French for pilgrim?’ she suddenly asked him.

  ‘Pélérin, isn’t it?’

  ‘Ah,’ Harriet said, as she flung open the door to her friend. ‘Ma pélérine triste!’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just passing.’ Sarah sidestepped Harriet and fled from her down the hall. But she collided with Charles, who was standing back in the shadows, and she gave a little shriek.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Scream.’ Harriet was standing with her hands on her hips. ‘It’s a man.’

  Sarah muttered something about needing new glasses and, with the sheer effort of ‘making way’ for each other, she and Charles found themselves backing into Harriet’s study. In the light which filtered through some antique blinds there, Sarah could see the portrait of Chatterton which Charles was carrying. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘who is it?’ Her interest in painting was quite genuine, and she was about to take the picture in order to examine it more carefully.

  Harriet was suddenly beside them. ‘Did I introduce you? Sarah Tilt. Charles Wychwood.’ She rattled off the names, as if they did not belong to anyone in particular. ‘Charles has to go now, darling. He’s married.’ Then with a coquettish smile she took his arm and led him towards the front-door.

  ‘It’s Thomas Chatterton,’ he called out over his shoulder. ‘He’s very sorry not to have been able to talk to you longer.’

  Harriet almost pushed Charles out of the door, but she muttered to him on the threshold, ‘Are you sure that everyone does it? You know what I mean?’

  ‘Yes, everyone copies.’

  He was about to say something else but she cut him off by waving goodbye in her most agreeable manner and then, when he had gone, she slid down onto the floor of the hallway. ‘I thought,’ she said, ‘that he would never leave.’

  ‘What was all that about Chatterton?’

  ‘He’s demented, dear. He’ll say anything.’ She seemed to have spread herself between the wall and the floor, her legs splayed out in front of her. ‘Will you help Mother up, please?’ With an expression of grim determination Sarah walked towards her and, putting one hand beneath Harriet’s arm and another around her neck, attempted to haul her to her feet. This operation took longer than was strictly necessary, however, since Harriet’s right foot and part of her arm became entwined around an umbrella which had been left beside the door. ‘It keeps on poking me!’ she said. ‘Look at it!’ Eventually she managed to reach an upright position and the two old women leaned against the wall, panting. Then Harriet gave a parting kick to the umbrella before leading Sarah into the sitting room. She went straight to the bottles in the alcove.

  ‘Yes, I’ll have one too,’ Sarah said in a loud voice. ‘Charles seems very nice,’ she went on, having at last been handed a gin-and-tonic. ‘Not at all demented.’

  ‘That was just a figure of speech.’ In fact Harriet, now reassured about the effect of her plagiarisms, was thinking once more of the Chatterton discoveries: already it seemed to her absurd that such an important matter should be left to Charles, and it was with considerable indignation that she reminded herself that the manuscripts which she had seen were not the property of any one individual. In any case, the academics would be more interested in her than in some obscure young poet. But how was she to get the papers from Charles? ‘There I was,’ she said suddenly, ‘like a cross between Cleopatra and Old Mother Hubbard –’

  ‘The balance rather falling on one side?’

  ‘There I was sitting on my lovely Regency sofa.’ She pointed to a piece of mid-century provincial furniture.

  ‘The stained one.’

  ‘You would be stained, too, if you’d been sitting upright for two centuries covered in blue silk!’

  ‘Sometimes I think I have.’

  ‘When he arrived.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Charles Wychwood, of course. The so-called poet.’ Then she asked, very suddenly, ‘And how are you?’

  Sarah settled back for a lengthy discussion. ‘Well, my thighs –’

  ‘Your thighs are your cross, of course.’ Harriet did not sound particularly sympathetic. ‘Perhaps there’s something strained in the bikini area?’

  ‘I get these little shooting pains.’

  Harriet broke in again. ‘You know, I suddenly realised why Irishmen say Mother of God when they’re in trouble.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Sarah was very cool.

  ‘It’s their way of calling for Mother without appearing to.’ She sighed and looked out of the window at the turbulent sky. ‘I suppose that’s what Pascal meant by the fear of infinite spaces. Another drink?’ Harriet raised her spoon and clinked it against her empty glass.

  ‘Why not?’ Sarah seemed mollified. ‘You only live once, don’t you?’

  ‘Well, in your case, let’s hope so.’ She approached, and returned from, the alcove at remarkable speed. ‘Shall we have a look at the box?’ Without waiting for Sarah’s approval, she went over to the television set, switched it on, and settled in her wicker chair close to the screen.

  Two women, one old and one young, were sitting on a park bench. ‘Oh look,’ Harriet said, ‘they’re just like you and me when we’re depressed!’ The older woman was discussing the affairs of an absent friend. ‘Oh, she sounds exactly like you! Exhausted, somehow,’ Harriet stared eagerly at this scene as the much younger woman began to say something in reply. ‘And that’s just the way I talk, isn’t it? Don’t you think she looks like me, with her hair piled up like that?’ Harriet patted her own hair and then crowed with excitement as the two women rose and left the bench. ‘I don’t believe how close this is. Do you see the way the older one is having so much trouble with her walk? That’s you!’ The young woman was laughing. ‘Well, this is really uncanny. I always laugh like that. It’s so musical, isn’t it?’ But then, tiring of this game, she picked up her remote-control device and changed programmes. She moved quickly, glimpsing a face, an action, a phrase, an explosion as she switched from channel to channel; but the resulting combination seemed to her to be making perfect sense and, for a while, she was happy to watch the screen. Sarah was growing bored, however, and had started inspecting the contents of her handbag while at the same time muttering something under her breath.

  ‘You sound like an old tramp, dear. Talking to yourself.’ Harriet had turned off the television set and was watching her old friend with amusement. ‘You’ll end up licking the vomit off your dress,’ She could not help laughing at the image she had created.

  ‘I wasn’t talking to myself. I was talking to you.’ Sarah had become very grand. ‘I came to show you this.’ From her bag she brought out a small pamphlet. ‘Your favourite painter is up for sale.’ It was a catalogue of
recent Seymour acquisitions. ‘Just the sort of thing you like, dear.’ And she snapped her handbag shut.

  ‘So you know what I like, do you?’ Harriet took the catalogue from her, and began to leaf through it. ‘How nice. Lots of colour.’

  ‘If you say so.’ Sarah was no longer surprised or even particularly amused by the vulgarity of Harriet’s artistic judgments.

  ‘Oh no, I must have seen this one before.’ Harriet bent over the catalogue, and put her face so close to the page that she seemed to be sniffing or eating it. ‘I know this one.’ Sarah got up, and went to look over Harriet’s shoulder: she saw the reproduction of the painting in which a small child was looking out from the interior of a ruined building. Something seemed to be touching his shoulder. ‘What’s it called?’

  Sarah took the catalogue from her, and turned to the back. ‘Bristol Churchyard,’ she read out, ‘After the Lightning Flash. What a perfectly pointless title.’ She had no very high opinion of Seymour’s work.

  ‘Well, at least,’ Harriet began, and then stopped. ‘At least he knows where the bodies are buried.’

  Sarah refused to interpret this remark. ‘Why don’t you go and see it? It’s still at Cumberland and Maitland.’

  ‘Is it? Cumberland and Maitland. Now where have I heard that before?’ Of course. Harriet remembered what Charles had said about his wife working there; and she wanted to meet this little wife. ‘Why don’t we go together, Sarah dear? You know how I value your opinion.’ Vivien, that was the name, Vivien might have some influence in persuading Charles to hand over the manuscripts to a real writer. ‘Yes. You’ve twisted my arm.’ She put one arm behind her back and opened her mouth wide, as if she were about to scream. ‘We will go.’ And she sprang out of her chair.

  ‘I ought to telephone them first, you know.’

  ‘Give them a tinkle while I’m putting on my face.’ She was about to leave the room. ‘And don’t talk for too long. You know how it mounts up.’

  ‘Your face?’

  Harriet went out, stumbling over Mr Gaskell, who emitted a short howl of protest, and a few minutes later came back wearing a bright blue hat with a small budgerigar pinned to it. ‘I’m present and correct,’ she announced. ‘All done and docketed.’

  ‘I’ve warned them you were coming.’

  Harriet tipped her hat to one side, at what she considered to be a rakish angle. ‘Then we mustn’t disappoint them, must we? Come on.’ She pointed at the device on her hat. ‘Follow the bird.’

  8

  AND WHO is this, looking divine in lilac and grey? It can’t be anyone I know.’ Cumberland had heard Maitland’s familiar, nervous cough and had turned just in time to see his partner’s back disappearing into a small office. ‘Poor thing. Did you see the thinning hair?’ he asked Claire. ‘I could read a copy of Art News through it.’

  ‘But the Deputy seems happy, sir.’

  ‘A virgin’s bliss, I think. When you look like Mr Maitland, it is folly to be wise. And talking of folly –’

  He looked around at the gallery. The Polish show was coming down, and an exhibition of Art Brut was taking its place; already on the walls were drawings covered with nothing but cramped handwriting, the same words repeated over and over again; brightly coloured pictures of men and women with no eyes, and with wild crayon marks covering their limbs; maps of the world disfigured with hieroglyphics; forests of dark trees in which small human figures could only faintly be seen; and, in various corners of the gallery, sculptures made out of wood or straw with bottle-tops for eyes and string for hair. ‘Oh,’ said Claire suddenly, ‘that one looks like the Deputy Head!’ And indeed one figure made out of cardboard, cans, crumpled newspaper and pieces of broken glass did bear a faint resemblance to Mr Maitland.

  ‘Isn’t it lovely? I particularly admire the beer can, which symbolises Mr Maitland’s commitment to the male sex.’ He looked for the sculpture in the catalogue. ‘Down A Chicago Alley I Wept and Wept Again, by Grandma Joel. Well I think that says it all, don’t you?’ He read out the rest of the description. ‘Grandma Joel, known only as Grandma, was a prolific and versatile artist despite her mental instability. She thought herself condemned to death without knowing why. I sometimes feel that way, Claire, don’t you? She was interned in an asylum, where she painted and made sculptures without stopping. That must have been where she met Mr Maitland. She wanted to explain the entire material and spiritual world in terms of imitation, and kept on repeating “The blind are fathers of the blind”. She was obese and of rigid deportment. Do you think she was Mr Maitland? And at times of anger or discouragement she destroyed all her work. Well, in London,’ he said, handing the catalogue to Claire, ‘we will let the critics do that for her.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘It means absolutely nothing. Have you heard the expression, kind hearts are more than pass degrees and simple faith than aspirates?’ He gaily caressed the large wart upon his cheek, and Claire felt it necessary to look away. ‘That’s all it means. Where there is no tradition, art simply becomes primitive. Artists without any proper language can only draw like children. It’s so –’ he heard movement behind him – ‘so empty. Isn’t that right, Vivienne?’

  ‘Good morning.’ She looked exhausted, and barely returned Cumberland’s greeting before going into her office.

  ‘Someone,’ Cumberland murmured, ‘must have slept on a pea last night. Claire, why don’t you –’ He gestured towards Vivien.

  She followed Vivien through the back of the gallery. ‘You didn’t say anything about the Head’s new paintings.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t really notice them.’

  Claire sat upon Vivien’s desk, and dangled her legs against its side. ‘What’s up, head girl?’

  That morning Charles had complained of a headache, and his movements had seemed to Vivien to be particularly clumsy; now she could think of nothing else. ‘It’s nothing. I’m just tired.’

  ‘How’s Edward?’ Claire always mentioned Vivien’s son rather than her husband.

  ‘Oh, he’s fine. He just sits and watches television.’ Since Charles had become ill, Edward had withdrawn more and more into himself. She forced herself to smile at Claire. ‘And how are you today?’

  ‘I’m fine, too.’ She popped a Polo mint into her mouth. ‘But Mummy’s in a panic. She thinks she might be pregnant again.’

  ‘Doesn’t she know?’

  ‘She doesn’t know anything.’ Claire’s ‘Mummy’ was a constant item of conversation in the gallery: she was a divorced woman who, in her daughter’s unconsciously lurid accounts, resembled some rouged doll careering around London. ‘But she has a pretty good idea who the father is. She says she’s going to join the Girl Guides and set up camp on his doorstep.’

  ‘Until he marries her?’

  ‘No, until ho gives her money for the thingummy. You know, when you pay to have babies taken away.’

  ‘Adoption?’

  ‘Oh, no. I think it’s called an abortion. But she says if the worst comes to the worst she’ll pay for it herself. She’s an old softy, really, when it comes to things like that. But you know,’ she added loyally, as if to counteract this image of feminine weakness, ‘she’s the best three-day-eventer I know.’

  Vivien was not particularly interested in her horsemanship. ‘But does she know what an abortion would be like at her age?’

  ‘Oh yes, of course. She’s had some before.’ Claire tossed her hair back. ‘Mummy was always in demand, at cocktail parties and things. I think I came out of some kind of party.’ She laughed but, catching sight of Cumberland prowling uneasily at the other end of the gallery, she slid off the desk. ‘I can’t stay here chatting all day. The Head will bring out his cane.’

  Vivien went back to her work, distracted from her own problems by Claire’s account of her mother and ready to be soothed by the routine of duties which she now had to undertake. But still she found it difficult to concentrate and from time to time she heard herself sighing…
when she looked up, Maitland was in the room. He was taking a handkerchief out of his pocket. ‘I was wondering,’ he said, ‘I was wondering if you were all right?’ He mopped his forehead. ‘You seemed depressed and I didn’t…’ He stared at her, not quite knowing how to go on. ‘If there’s anything I can do to help,’ he added. But then he faltered again; he started walking backwards out of the room rolling the handkerchief around in his hands. ‘You see, I don’t understand,’ he was saying as he walked backwards into Grandma Joel’s effigy.

  ‘Famous Five to the rescue!’ Claire bounced across the gallery in order to save the sculpture just as it rocked dangerously upon its pedestal and, by some miracle of timing, she managed to catch it before it fell to the floor.

  ‘Oh dear.’ Maitland looked at her and blew his nose.

  ‘It didn’t hit the playground sir!’ Claire was delighted by her agility. ‘Do I get top marks?’

  She looked around to see if Cumberland had witnessed her triumph, and in fact he was already standing behind her; his hands were outstretched as if he had been prepared to catch her when she fell backward with the precious object. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘I feel like slapping that man. One hard slap, just enough to get someone’s blood moving.’ He was about to add something else when Vivien came out to inform him that Mr Sadleir, Seymour’s old dealer, urgently wished to speak to him.

  With a sudden display of energy Cumberland rushed into the office and lunged for the telephone. ‘Oh yes?’ he said very calmly. He listened for a moment and then the corners of his mouth turned down; for Vivien’s benefit, he mimed a look of alarm. ‘You mean?’ He raised one foot from the ground and held it there for a moment before putting it down again. ‘I see. ‘He sat upon the desk. ‘Really?’ He got up and executed a few dance steps, all the time gazing, wide-eyed, at Vivien. ‘Is that so?’ He lay down upon the carpet, with the telephone clutched to his chest. ‘Of course I reserve my position.’ He kicked his legs in the air, as Vivien looked down at him in astonishment. ‘I would like to see your proof!’ With difficulty he half-raised himself from the floor. ‘Shall we say three o’clock?’ Then, exhausted by the effort, he collapsed on the carpet again and put the telephone next to his ear. ‘Goodbye.’ He lay very still for a moment, and then he said to the ceiling, ‘Sadleir says that my Seymours are fakes.’ After a few seconds he added, ‘You can pretend, Vivienne, that I never said that.’ Then he yawned, and put his hands beneath his head. ‘You had better contact our friend, Mr Stewart Merk, and tell him to come here at three as well.’