by Tim Parks
The walk back was very beautiful. It seemed the mountain landscape had been waiting for this. The snow suffocated all sound but the snuffling here and there of the dog, the quiet squeak of Cleaver’s tread. What I should have suggested to Loach, Cleaver thought, was that actually there is nothing society enjoys more than to savour the struggle of the individual against society. Cleaver propped his poles against a rock and tried to adjust his collar. Angela had met the guy at some provincial concert where everyone was drunk or high and any conversation impossible thanks to the deafening volume of the music. Nothing new about that. Nevertheless she was in love. Please Paps, she had begged on the phone to Limerick. Cleaver’s daughter was far from mute. Logorrhoeic rather. She took after her dad. Please! Craig lived in Glasgow, he couldn’t afford to come to London without somewhere to stay and since he worked during the week he could only come at the weekend, this weekend, she said. Please, Paps, I’m in love.
The younger children, as Cleaver recalled, had been spending half-term with their Scottish grandparents. Cleaver’s elder son could not promise, as he had put it, to be in that night, because he had a party on. First he had promised he would be around, to see that all was okay, to offer a reassuring presence for his sister, but then he had said actually he couldn’t promise. Just tell her she can’t invite the bloke, Amanda insisted. She wanted Cleaver to leave her and Larry alone for a couple of days, but not in order to indulge Angela. Nobody ever lets me do what I want, just because I’m a girl, Angela wailed. Why can’t I have a friend over? You should be glad I bothered to tell you.
They had reached that point in the documentary where they needed to go through the footage they had and see where they were up to. I’ll go back to London for the weekend, Cleaver said, while Larry takes stock. It’s his film. That way Angela can have her friend over and there’ll be no danger. I’ll be around.
Amanda was furious. You spoil her, she raged. You always let her have her way. Imagine we say no, Cleaver was adamant, and she invites him anyway, since she knows we’re not there to check. Then when they’re alone in the house he won’t take no for an answer and rapes her. As far as they knew their daughter still hadn’t had sex. So what do we do then: say we told you you shouldn’t have invited him?
It had been marvellous, Cleaver remembered, watching Larry’s growing embarrassment during that long argument. How the man was diminished by not having children of his own to argue about and be responsible for! But why did Amanda and I take such pleasure in tormenting, in playing those games? Catching himself by surprise, Cleaver suddenly sat down on the path.
How silent it was. He turned his face to the sky and let the icy flakes fall on his closed eyes. Why did we do that? Such light, soft touches. Then, surprising himself again, he actually lay back and stretched out in the snow. Perhaps the cold ground would be an antidote to all this feverish thinking. Unexpectedly, he felt quite comfortable. Perhaps the snow is my element, he thought. For a moment he imagined himself buried in whiteness. The steady flakes would sift down filling the wrinkles of jacket and trousers, slowly smoothing over the great mound of flesh that was Harold Cleaver. The idea seemed oddly luxurious.
Cleaver must have lain there for four or five minutes. The dog came snuffling round him. Shoo! Leave me in peace! The creature wanted to lick the snow from his beard. Tickled, Cleaver sat up. But for some reason he was reminded now of his son’s last comment on No-Mad: My father made astonishingly sensitive documentaries, his elder son had pontificated, on behalf of those like the Romanies who were getting a raw deal in life. In this case, his use of the snow as a metaphor of human coldness was extraordinary. But in private he despised the rhetoric of charity, perhaps because he was such an uncharitable old miser himself. Certainly I never saw him give a copper to a beggar, whereas his credit card was always available for champagne and nouvelle cuisine.
On his haunches in the snow, Cleaver burst into laughter. He grabbed icy handfuls and tossed them in the air. What had the boy been reading! If ever I go back, he resolved, I’ll write directly to the TLS to protest about the Booker people shortlisting scribblers who write clichés like a copper to a beggar. He struggled to his feet. It had been an excellent idea, he told himself, to buy these Norwegian walking sticks.
Perhaps five minutes later he rounded the bend and Rosenkranzhof came into view. A deer stood motionless right by the door. Its proud antlers seemed the perfect ornament to what was now a fairy-tale cottage. How beautiful, Cleaver thought. He looked across the clearing. Snow lined every window ledge. How lucky I am to have this refuge. The proud animal held its nose raised, eyes alert. Then Uli arrived and dashed at the beast. The ugly dog slithered and slipped. Spirit-like, the deer was gone.
XIII
IT HAD ALWAYS fascinated Cleaver that a cleaver was something that chopped things in two, meat usually, while to cleave might also mean to cling to someone, to become part of them. A man shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh. One meat. He had never bothered looking into the etymology of this. But then he had never married either. Can you really become part of someone else? On the other hand, could I ever properly separate myself from Amanda? You have separated yourself, for Christ’s sake, Cleaver protested.
He was sitting on the armchair before the fire. The dog was on the hearthrug. Outside the snow fell steadily into the gorge. More separate than this you cannot get. Perhaps Rock Of Ages, it occurred to him as he warmed his hands, combined both meanings. Rock of ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in thee. Cleaver picked up the accordion and began to play. How gloomy. His fingers were stiff and swollen. He had often crooned the hymn to the twins as a lullaby. When I soar through tracts unknown, See Thee on Thy judgement throne. It had a soporific effect. Closing his eyes, Cleaver imagined expanses of gleaming snow stretching up into the peaks. Cleaver Cleft might have been the better title for his son’s book. Footprints would lead upwards across the ice to a dark cave, a narrow fissure in the rock. Let me hide myself. He understood that emotion. Abruptly, Cleaver stopped playing.
Tired as he was, he had worked hard on returning to Rosenkranzhof. My ankle is just a sprain, he decided, and this first snow will thaw at once. It’s not December. He felt he had an insurance policy now the dog was here. The Stolbergs wouldn’t abandon their dog. Still, he brought in as much wood as possible, stacking it carefully against every bare section of wall. You must keep warm. Despite the protection of the eaves, the snow was already lying heavily on the tarpaulin that covered the stack outside. Cleaver hopped back and forth with a basket, carrying four or five logs at a time. Then he wasted half an hour trying to get a splinter out from under a nail. He hoped he had got it all out. Perhaps there was something still in there. The light was so grey and his eyes are so poor. The finger hurt if you pressed. It was sore. He sucked it. I’ll have no lamp when night falls, he realised. Just the fire. And my torch. He felt excited.
Going out again to check the weather, Cleaver discovered that he could put the heel of his foot down now, but still not the flat. There was a sharp pain. Should I try to clear a path to the loo? He looked in the cubbyhole under the stairs. Unlatching the door, the air was damp and chill. He had to hobble back to the kitchen for the torch. The beam found a pair of snowshoes hanging on the rough wall. You didn’t see those before. He shivered. There were bundles of wire for snares and a pair of clippers. Nothing useful. Carrying out the shovel, he tried to get going on a path to the loo. Otherwise I’ll be shitting by my own front door. But already there was a twilight feel to the day. He was sweating. This is back-breaking work. The snow sifted down effortlessly, as if the very act of falling were voluptuous. What he’d cleared was instantly covered. Suddenly, Cleaver was exhausted. How on earth had the old Nazi managed? he wondered. Der Winter ist sehr schwer da oben, Frau Schleiermacher had said. No doubt Seffa brought down his food from Trennerhof. And he set traps of course. Cleaver still hadn’t eaten today. Eat one solid meal, he decided.
The tap wasn’t even dribb
ling. The stream has frozen. Cleaver filled a pan with snow from the area to the left of the front door. Worst comes to worst you can shit and piss on the other side. There was still a tin of ragout. Towards three he was at last sitting in front of a blazing fire with a plate on his knees. Uli whined. Don’t you ask for any, he told the troll. Olga’s too nice to you by half. You expected Angela’s man to be a troll, Cleaver remembered of that occasion when he had flown back from Dublin. Perhaps because she had insisted on referring to him as a man rather than a boy. At seventeen, Angela had a track record of finding men ten or twelve years older than herself, invariably of the lowest social extraction, school dropouts playing in second-rate rock bands. Cleaver’s elder son had refused point blank to miss his party and play babysitter when the man arrived. Just tell her no, he insisted on the phone to Ireland. I don’t ask people I’ve barely seen before to stay over while you’re away. Why can’t you be hard on her, Dad?
The calls to London had been made on the gypsy documentary’s expense account. They hadn’t had mobiles in those days. Larry began to complain of the tightness of their budget. Was there some alliance, Cleaver had wondered, between Amanda and their son against his twin sister’s impatient sexuality? Angela didn’t disguise the fact that losing her virginity was now an absolute priority. Paps, I do know how to say no if I want to, she protested. Don’t you think I’ve been asked a million times? All I do is say no. Still, she seemed to appreciate her father’s decision to be around at the weekend. I won’t interfere, Cleaver had promised. I mean, in the end, I can’t stop you doing whatever you want to do. In the end, he repeated. I’ll just be around the house, in case … In case what? she teased. Remember, Cleaver had told Larry, that if you invite me to be away from home for a month you can hardly deny me ordinary contact with my family.
Putting down his plate for Uli to lick, Cleaver picked up the accordion and played Rock Of Ages. These maudlin tunes were drummed into me when I was a kid in church, he thought, and the older I get the more I regress. Nothing in my hands I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling. I know you don’t give a damn, he broke off to tell the troll, but it does seem to me that this hymn betrays a desire for oblivion, a desire for the merciful earth to open up and swallow the singer whole, once and for all.
Cleaver sat awhile gazing into his fire. He sucked his sore finger. The flames in the grate had the same voluptuous constancy of movement as the steadily falling snow, the same power to mesmerise, to annul the mind. Fire and snow. The body burned, the body frozen. You didn’t really plan to change your life when you came here, Cleaver realised now. There were dozens of noble, charitable and even sensible ways of doing that. You planned to end it.
Uli still licked obsessively at the plate. Cleaver smiled. The dog was eating her own saliva now. She was hungry. Getting to his feet he pulled a log from the pile against the wall and thrust it in the fire. Spark and fizz, you bastard. He laughed. I’ll have to get the finger looked at, he thought. The splinter was deep. What was the point, he wondered, of having an accordion if you couldn’t play anything you would ever want to listen to, just melancholy hymns that confused paradise and oblivion, desire for auld acquaintance and desire to have done with all acquaintance? Thatcher had told people like Ken Loach, Cleaver suddenly remembered, that there was no such thing as society. Did she really say that in so many words? It was curious how you thought you had finished a discussion to your absolute satisfaction only for it to rear its ugly head again an hour, or even five hours, or fifteen years later. For all her unpopularity in media circles, Cleaver had tended to agree with the Iron Lady. He knew what she meant. Society is an imagined thing. But were there such things as individuals either? Could you call a man an individual when he couldn’t stop humming all the maudlin tunes drummed into his head before age ten, when the thing he appeared to desire most was to lose his voice forever and dissolve into the landscape? That’s why I came here. To catch an everlasting cold. It was extraordinary how his son hadn’t appreciated that this was the shadow yearning behind every exhibitionism. Only an exhibitionist, Cleaver decided, can really yearn for oblivion, can perhaps actually want to be shot by the jealous husband behind the bedroom door. Only a name-dropper of the magnitude that you were. That was the truth behind the stupid story that closed Under His Shadow. I wanted the man to shoot me.
Would you like to eat with us, Dad? Angela had asked. I behaved atrociously that evening, Cleaver remembered. I name-dropped unforgivably. He had been planning to eat with Priya. He had imagined the kids would stay out till late. I didn’t come back from Ireland for Priya, Cleaver had told himself, but now that I am back I might as well see her. Angela had mentioned a concert, a pub somewhere. She always went out Saturday evenings. She knew every small concert venue in London. Instead they stayed in. To Cleaver’s considerable surprise, Craig was black. He was tall, but stooped. The face was handsome, but lopsided. One ear stuck out. He was Negro.
We want you to eat with us, Angela insisted. They were already cooking. It was something rather elaborate. Nah, Craig explained, it’s that the group Angie wanted to see are crap. He reached out and took Angela’s hand across the table. She was wearing one of her satanic bracelets, spikes and skulls. In Cleaver’s regard, the young man seemed respectful, but independent. Better to stay in and play ourselves, he said matter-of-factly. He had brought his guitar with him, from Glasgow. His fingers, Cleaver noticed, were the fingers of a smoker and a guitarist. Priya took it badly when he cancelled. It’s as if I had two wives now, Cleaver told himself as the voice complained that he never found space in his life for her. Without marrying once. But Priya complained in a soft, elegiac way, quite unlike Amanda.
At the dinner table Cleaver had been extravagantly jovial, opening an expensive bottle, telling anecdote after anecdote about famous names he’d worked with. Craig smiled quietly and said, Right, yeah. He exchanged glances with Angela. Dad, we do know you work in TV, she interrupted. But Cleaver pressed on regardless. His mind was buzzing. The conversation with Priya had unsettled him. I sleep with an Indian woman and am disturbed about my daughter having a relationship with a black. My father, his elder son had written, only asked people about their lives because whatever story they might tell him he was sure to top it with a better story of his own. Cleaver hadn’t asked Craig anything about his life that evening. Only later did he discover that the boy had grown up in an orphanage, worked as a welder and played in a rock band.
Towards four, Cleaver went out to relieve himself in the snow. Memory equals mortification, he said out loud. Already there was more than a foot of it. He cleared a path of about three yards so as to establish a little distance should he need to shit. Uli came floundering out and wanted to piss by the wood stack under the eaves. Cleaver chased him off. The flakes still fell thickly. The landscape was unimaginable now behind the opaque air. Since we’ve done the cooking, Angela had wound up the meal, can you take Ivan out, Paps? The big dog was waiting at the door. It was always me taking the dog out, Cleaver remembered. Ivan was far more handsome than you, he told Uli. Angela looked wonderful with cropped hair, he remembered. Perhaps the real masterpiece, he suddenly told himself, would be to cut oneself off entirely, inside the head as well as out. To go mute inside the head, that was the real challenge. Was the girl mute inside her head as well? he should have asked Loach. Had she stopped talking even to herself? Perhaps she wasn’t unhappy at all.
Cleaver went back into the house, picked up the troll by the brim of his wooden hat and, using the thing as a walking frame, carried it out of the house. Time to get a little fresh air, old chap. He planted the wooden statue in the snow. The troll has his axe raised. No. Cleaver pushed him over. Lie down, face down in the snow. It seemed impossible to abandon the thing without thinking in these terms. Uli barked at the prone figure. The axe was buried now. You too, Cleaver told Olga. Your time’s up, love. He carried the doll in his arms and stood her with her face to the wall under the eaves beyond the wood stack. Good. The Stolbergs w
ould come for Uli around dusk, he thought, or shortly before. Not long to wait now.
Cleaver hopped uneasily about the house. He checked and rechecked his store of food: one full bottle of whisky and one a quarter full, one decent bottle of Chianti, one spare set of batteries for the torch. For perhaps half an hour he stared out of the upstairs bedroom window down into the gorge. There was nothing to see but the white tops of trees and the flakes swirling slowly in the void. They didn’t even seem to be falling now. They hung there. It’s so soothing, Cleaver thought. He had an image of icy dampness cooling open sores. Uli followed him up the stairs and began to fret. Her claws scratched on the floorboards. Cleaver ignored the animal. Once, he thought he glimpsed the tall crags on the further side of the valley. For a moment the landscape had depth and shape. Then it was gone again.
Lying on the bed with the quarter bottle of whisky, Cleaver waited to hear the Stolbergs’ call, though they would surely realise that the snow was too deep now for the dog to climb back alone. They would come with a sled perhaps. He had definitely seen a sled at Trennerhof, propped against the wall beside the chicken coops. What if they see I’ve put the troll and Olga out in the snow? They’ll think I’m mad. Cleaver didn’t care. Verrückt, Jürgen had said standing in front of the photograph of his father, wiping the spit from the glass. Mad. Cleaver presumed the old Nazi was his father. Tatte was the word he used. Verrückt, Jürgen had said of his mother when she walked down to the ledge, shouting after Seffa. He pronounced the word very carefully so that I could understand. Mad. Sie isch mei Tochto. Jürgen had said. My daughter. Madness was obviously an unremarkable condition in these parts, Cleaver thought. Jürgen himself was hardly a paragon of sanity, dancing with Olga and accusing the troll of jealousy. Cleaver definitely felt better now that he had dumped the two of them outside. We’ll get on better when you’ve left home, he had told his son. There’ll be less friction. Not to mention offering schnapps to his cows. Had Ulrike been mad that night she fell from the ledge? But how do you know that it happened at night?
