Joynson jumped out of his chair and scurried across to the door, throwing it open to reveal Pat standing behind it; he was carrying a pair of old plimsolls in one hand and, startled by his discovery, had put his other hand up to his heart. He jumped back and stared at Joynson. ‘I wasn’t stopping, I wasn’t listening, I wasn’t interested!’
Joynson mimicked his voice. ‘I wasn’t accusing you, I wasn’t accusing you, I wasn’t accusing you!’ Then he slammed the door and, with a wink at Philip, went back to his chair. ‘Miss Health and Beauty of 1929, she is. Last night she had yogurt all over her face and cucumber slices on her eyes. I could have cut off her head and sold it as a health food. Now where were we? Yes. So. Chatterton’s suicide was a great success. Not immediately, of course. This was no overnight sensation. Shall we say twenty or thirty years? Oh, go on, let’s say it. Twenty or thirty years. Then he became a phenomenon, glorious boy, bird thou never wert, the very houses seem asleep, and so on. So Joynson found that Chatterton’s poems were in demand again. He published a collected edition. He began selling all the old manuscripts he had kept, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he discovered a few new ones. Do you see? Kick me if I’m going too fast for you, kick me quite hard. Kick me till I scream for mercy and have to be taken to Bristol General by three big men in an ambulance.’ Philip demurred, with a polite smile. ‘But then my ancestor got a little bit of a shock. Some of Chatterton’s letters were published, by a rival bookseller, and Joynson’s name came up again and again. Thief. Scoundrel. Leech. Miser. Chatterton had accused him of buying up his work, and then of abandoning him. And these were the letters written just before his suicide.’
Joynson paused and Philip, eager for the rest of the history, said quickly, ‘And so he ’
‘Yes. Exactly. Precisely. You can read my mind and we should start an act together at the Alhambra, me in ballet shoes with a gag over my mouth and you with a whip. Precisely. Joynson decided to fight back. He had the evidence that Chatterton invented those medieval poems, so what could be easier than to prove he had faked everything else, including his own death? And what better weapon to use against a forger than another forgery? He decided to out-trick the trickster, do you see? So he began writing the manuscript which was given to your friend. By a piece of old slag!’ He had screamed out the last words, in the general direction of the door, and Philip rose briefly from his chair in alarm; he was surprised that so much noise could come from such a small person. ‘I don’t think he intended to publish it,’ Joynson resumed in his normal voice. ‘He just wanted to leave it behind, to blacken Chatterton’s name. It was a sort of joke. Just touch my funny bone, will you, and I’ll be helpless on the Axminster carpet. Go on. I’ll be putty in your hands, I promise.’ But Philip was hardly listening to this latest offer: so that was it, after all, a joke. The memoirs had been forged by a bookseller who wanted to repay him in kind, to fake the work of a faker and so confuse for ever the memory of Chatterton; he would no longer be the poet who died young and glorious, but a middle-aged hack who continued a sordid trade with his partner. This was the document which Charles Wychwood had carried back with him.
There was a crash outside and Pat entered the room, wrestling with a vacuum cleaner as if it were about to strangle and devour him; smiling grimly to himself, he threw it upon the floor and began cleaning the carpet by Joynson’s feet. ‘I didn’t have one!’ Joynson bellowed at him. ‘Look! Feast your eyes!’ And he brought out the empty cigarette-holder.
‘She can open her big mouth, she can rustle her big tits, she can scream blue murder.’ Pat seemed to be talking to Philip. ‘And what do I do? I smile, I give a delicate shrug, I behave like a lady.’
Joynson leaned across to Philip. ‘She’s more to be pitied than condemned, don’t you think?’
Philip rose from his chair, eager to leave the company of these two elderly gentlemen. ‘I’ll get them back,’ he said, raising his voice over the sound of the vacuum cleaner. ‘I’ll make sure that all the papers are returned to you very soon.’
Joynson smiled and, delicately stepping around Pat, accompanied him into the hallway. ‘And don’t forget the painting,’ he said, ‘which a certain old cow took up to London.’
‘Was that your ancestor’s, too?’
‘Oh, his son painted that. It was part of the joke, you see. Tickle me and see me roar. Go on. It’s your last chance. You’ll be able to do anything with me.’ But Philip had already opened the door, and was walking towards the iron gate. ‘Don’t forget,’ Joynson told him. ‘I want them back. They’re my family heirlooms. My mementoes.’
‘Yes, I know.’ Philip turned back to wave and, as he stepped out into the street, he saw Pat at the window; he was pointing towards the sign on the railings, and giggling. Now it read: ‘Let’s Fantasise Together. Strict Bondage or Golden Showers. Enquire Within.’ With a quick step Philip crossed the road, and walked into the shadow of St Mary Redcliffe.
15
CHATTERTON ENTERS his garret room and locks the door behind him; then he leans against it, laughing and wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his coat. All well. I am safe from the powdered Angell. He has just crept by her room, shoes in hand, and heard her snoring. I am safe here in my aerial abode. I am on top of the world. He goes over to the bed and drags from beneath it a wooden chest: he unlocks it, and takes out a bottle of Spanish brandy. Better here than in the Tothill Gardens, and cheaper too: I toast Dan Hanway, the first witness of my genius and first prophet of my fame. He opens the bottle, and puts it to his lips. I toast Mrs Angell, for ridding me of a shameful virginity. Another draught. He goes over to the small oak table at the foot of his bed, and pours the brandy into a dirty glass he has left there. I toast the posture master, for showing me an emblem of the world.
Here are the pen and pencil left from this morning’s labours; swaying slightly, he takes the pencil and tries to write with it as he bends over the table. Posterity. Antiquity. He cannot recall the words of the song he has been composing as he walked home. I have lost the melody and, without the melody, there is no true meaning. Gone. Gone for ever. Returned whence they came. Ah, the empyrean. Now I am truly drunk. He draws a profile of himself upon the paper and, pressing down hard upon the pencil, traces lines of light from his eyes and from his hair; underneath he writes, in capital letters, APOLLO REDIVIVUS. Then he tears it up and scatters the pieces on the wooden floor.
The rain is blowing in through the half-open attic window, and he leans across the bed to close it: but he loses his balance, falls onto the bed, and lies there laughing. Then he yawns, brushing the spray of the rain from his face. He remembers. I must take my physic. He opens his eyes wide. Kill or cure. With difficulty he rises from the bed and drinks another glass of brandy before reaching up to the high shelf, where he has concealed the linen bag of arsenic and the phial of laudanum. Ah, the bag and the bottle, as it is in the fairy story. He takes them down, and balances one in each hand as if weighing them. Am I the prince or the pauper? He jumps down from the chair, crashing upon the floor. Hush, hush, I must not wake the giant. He carries the antidote to the table, carefully takes off his greatcoat, and sits down. He loosens the bag and sniffs inside, savouring the slight aroma of garlic which rises from the arsenic grains. Then he uncorks the stopper from the phial, moistening the rim with his little finger. I see in front of me St Elmo’s Fire and a Sahara, a rainbow and a fever, a crystal and a… now, what were the proportions Dan gave me? The phial is inscribed with measures on its side, and he sees that it holds two fluid ounces. Was it one grain of arsenic for each ounce of laudanum? Or four grains? Or two ounces? A little more brandy will aid the memory, and he pours some into his glass. Then he empties the linen bag onto the table and piles up the grains, rolling one of them beneath his finger. One for fame. He drops it into the glass. One for genius. He puts in another. And one for youth. He picks up a third grain, and adds it to the brandy. I can cure myself of all diseases, for we may rise above our natural state if the soul guides us. T
hen, on a sudden instinct, he pours most of the laudanum into the same glass: he holds back his head and swallows the whole draught.
Here is a strong blow. Oh. Very strong. But I will utterly defeat the clap, and rise in the morning purified. For a moment the bile waters his mouth, but he swallows it down. Yes. Yes. I feel it purging me. The cure begins at once. He rises unsteadily from his chair and falls upon the bed. I must remember the idiot boy. Tomorrow. He stretches out upon the bed, lying with his arm across his forehead. Hydrocephalus. He tries to sleep but something is touching him. He sits up, and the first thing he notices is the racing of his pulse. He looks down and, in this strange light, his hands seem to belong to someone else.
‘Do you think that people could learn to call me Nelly Dean? I am a steady, reasonable little body, after all.’ After his visit to Bristol, Philip had arranged to call on Harriet Scrope; now they were sitting together, with Mr Gaskell between them. ‘My friends once knew me as Mistress Quickly,’ she went on. ‘But that was for entirely different reasons.’
‘Oh. I see.’ Philip, not sure how to begin, was chewing on the corner of his beard. He could feel himself sliding back into his old silence and embarrassed insufficiency, but he must stop, he must begin again: he was here for the sake of Charles and Vivien, he was their protector.
‘You know, Philip, you look just like a renaissance knight with that little beard. Do you ever ride out to battle?’
He seemed to Harriet to be fighting for breath. ‘No,’ he said at last. Then he looked at her directly. ‘No. I don’t think I do.’
She put up her hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘It was only a figure of speech, dear. I thought librarians were used to them. Would you care for a tiny drink?’
‘No, I…’
‘Don’t tell me. You’re driving. You’re driving a hard bargain.’ She laughed at her own joke as she went over to the alcove, and came back with a glass of gin. This reminds me of the lovely evening we had in the Indian restaurant. Wasn’t it fun?’ She seemed to have forgotten its conclusion but then she added, ‘I think Charles enjoyed it, too, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I suppose…’
‘Although it was unfortunate that his last meal on earth should be a chicken vindaloo. I want to go after some nice roast beef and potatoes.’
Philip sat up in his chair. ‘Harriet, I really wanted to talk to you about the Chatterton manuscripts.’
‘Do you?’ She sipped some gin from her spoon. ‘I expect Vivien wants them back, does she?’ She had already guessed the purpose of Philip’s visit, and was not unhappy about it. After her journey to Brooke Street, she had decided that she could do nothing with the papers now that she had lost interest in Chatterton, not even the prospect of astonishing the academic world could revive it. As far as she was concerned it was a dead subject; and she wanted to stay with the living for as long as possible.
‘Not Vivien,’ Philip was saying. ‘Their owner. Their owner needs them.’ These were the lines which Philip had rehearsed to himself. ‘The manuscripts belong to someone else, you see. They’re a family heirloom.’
Harriet laughed. ‘Whenever I hear the word heirloom,’ she said, ‘for some reason I think of crumpets.’ She rolled her tongue around her mouth. ‘Did Charles steal them?’
‘No, of course not!’
She did not seem to have heard this. ‘Do you think it was his cry for help, as the newspapers say?’
‘He didn’t steal anything. They were given to him.’
‘I see.’ Harriet was beginning to enjoy this conversation. ‘So some kind of mistake was made?’
‘I don’t…’ Philip did not want to admit that the papers were forgeries, and so betray Charles. ‘I don’t, you know…’
‘What don’t you know, Philip?’
‘It wasn’t a mistake exactly, just ’
Harriet watched with fascination as he tugged violently at his beard. ‘Be careful you don’t pull yourself down onto the carpet,’ she said, very sweetly. ‘You might frighten Mr Gaskell.’
‘They were real,’ Philip was saying, ‘but they were not real…’
She put up her hand. ‘Well, never mind. I really don’t want to know.’ She got up from her chair, smiling to herself, and was about to leave the room when she turned around to face him. ‘If you want the painting back, too, you’ll have to get it from that gallery. I never thought much of it, anyway.’ She was gone only a few moments, returning with the pile of manuscripts which she deposited on Philip’s lap.
But he did not want this meeting to end so abruptly.,’I suppose,’ he said, choosing his words very carefully, ‘that it was difficult to make sense of all this?’ He flicked through the papers, surreptitiously checking that they were all there.
‘Oh no. It wasn’t difficult at all. It was all too easy.’
‘I don’t quite see ’
‘I didn’t quite see. That was the problem. None of it seemed very real, but I suppose that’s the trouble with history. It’s the one thing we have to make up for ourselves.’ She could see his embarrassment. ‘Of course I could still write it all down. I could tell the story much better than poor Charles.’
Philip had feared this.,’You can’t do that,’ he said, angrily. ‘That would be a terrible thing to do!’
Harriet watched him with interest. ‘For Vivien’s sake,’ she said at last, ‘I agree with you.’
Philip was blushing now. ‘It was all a mistake,’ he said. He hesitated. ‘But there’s no point in going over the past.’
‘You mean, over Chatterton?’
‘No, over Charles. Now that he’s ’
‘Dead, dear. Let’s not mince words.’
‘Now that he’s dead.’
‘So the hand of time should turn the page?’ She cocked her head on one side. ‘What a pretty image.’ She kissed her own hand. ‘Thank you, Harriet Scrope, for that lovely sweet thought. By the way,’ she added in a brisker tone, ‘you’ll find Charles’s poems in there too.’ She pointed at the papers on Philip’s lap. ‘I don’t think I can do anything with them, after all.’ Philip looked at her, disconcerted by her evident lack of interest, and she stepped back, defiantly putting one hand upon her hip. ‘You think I’m grotesque, don’t you? But I’m not. I’m all too real. I might even bite.’ She opened her mouth wide and, to Philip’s astonishment, let her false teeth protrude for an instant before sucking them back in.
At this point the telephone rang. Philip, already in a somewhat nervous state, jumped at the sudden sound and scattered the manuscripts over the carpet. Harriet scurried out of the room, rubbing her hands together and grinning. It was Cumberland, sounding very grim. ‘Miss Scrope, if you have a hat hold onto it.’
‘Will a cat do?’ She beckoned to Mr Gaskell.
‘Do you recall the painting you wanted me to to authenticate?’
‘I remember it well.’
‘Well, something rather ghastly has happened.’
The saliva fills Chatterton’s mouth, a river overflowing its precious banks. There is a pain in his belly like the colic but burning so, my liver and spleen might roast in the heat. What is happening to me? He tries to rise from his bed, but the agony throws him down again and he rolls in terror to stare at the wall. Oh God the arsenic. He vomits over the bed, and in that same spasm the shit runs across his thin buttocks how hot it is and trickles down his thighs, the smell of it mixing with the rank odour of the sweat pouring out of his body. Everything is fleeing from me. I am the house on fire. Oh god the poison. I am being melted down.
Stewart Merk had cleaned the painting with a cloth soaked in hot water, starting in the upper right-hand corner and the dim inscription Pinxit George Stead .1802. And he could see now that his original diagnosis had been correct: the flesh tints of the face were too bright, the residue of clumsy over-painting. The candle, which flickered beside the four volumes and shed an uncertain light on the side of the sitter’s face, was also a later addition. And the hands were wro
ng: the left hand, gripping the manuscript, had been badly drawn and the other was too stiffly poised above the four leather-bound volumes. Yet the eyes were right. The eyes would have to be preserved. Merk picked up his camera from a low shelf, and began taking pictures of the canvas from every angle each photograph would, in turn, help him to reconstruct the painting until it attained its final, authentic form. The sudden brilliant illuminations of his flash struck against the canvas like sheet lightning, altering its colours and sending so many deep shadows across its surface that it seemed to him to be moving. Merk put down his camera and sighed.
The cracks were not as deep as he had first suspected, since most of them occurred in the varnish rather than in the paint itself. So he mixed pure alcohol and water in order to remove this faded exterior and, as slowly he rubbed the dissolvent across the canvas, the newly-exposed paint seemed for a moment to glow in the unaccustomed light and air. With the varnish gone, the successive layers of paint became visible, and Merk could see the outline of some other object glimmering faintly behind the candle and the books. Inside the face of the sitter, too, another face could just barely be discerned; it was a younger face and, as it seemed to Merk, one that expressed suffering.
And then he cried out, in panic. The dissolvent was reacting with the freshly exposed paint. Small bubbles and creases were forming on the surface of the picture, and the image of the sitter seemed to shudder before beginning to shrivel, to bend, to drop away in flakes of paint which floated down from the canvas onto the tiled floor of Merk’s studio. And as he watched in horror the dissolution acquired its own momentum: the top surface was being stripped away, and the various underpaintings were now crackling and bubbling. The face of the sitter dissolved, becoming two faces, one old and one young; as the paint decayed before Merk’s eyes, the flakes becoming clots of colour which dropped onto the floor, these two faces recurred in a series of smaller and smaller images until after a few moments they had entirely disappeared.
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