by Adam Thorpe
Breakfast alone in the big back room full of gaunt cupboards: six fish fingers along with fried eggs, cereal, toast, served by the pimply youth who helps Ted behind the bar now and again. Can Ted keep this up? He appeared at one point and I expressed my admiration. The table is all by itself in the middle of the room, the pool table pushed to the side, and I feel like Louis XIV. Pimply Adrian, bleary-eyed and not very bright, clicks across the floor for ages before he gets to me. Or so it seems.
Mrs Pratt sidled up to me in the street this morning and suggested I’d upset Malcolm, apparently by not leaping up and down with admiration at the mummers’ rehearsal. Then I bumped into Malcolm himself in the shop (no sign of Gracie) and he did seem morose. He said he had tracked down a copy of I, Nubat through a specialist friend. What was I supposed to reply? He asked me how I reckoned drama had actually started and I replied that since there is a blurred line between drama per se and metaphoric gesture, one could trace it at one extreme back to the casting of petals on to the Neanderthal graves and at the other to the strutting about of the shamans. Between the loo rolls, Persil packets, hot-water bottles and crummy greens, the discussion felt ludicrous, and since we were both holding wire baskets I also felt obscurely effeminate. Asked me to tea again tomorrow and I said yes, scarcely believing it’s a whole week since the last time. Caught a glimpse of us both looking short and swollen in the huge fish-eye mirror above the door and had a stupid thought: this is how the dead see us.
Went to the house armed with a screwdriver but of course it was the wrong size for the trunk’s screws and I fouled one of the heads. On trying to lever the left lock away from the wood the cheap tool actually snapped in two. I measured the screws with a bit of paper and then, on hearing John Wall’s strimmer or bush-cutter starting up, retired from the fray. I don’t want him coming up here again and anyway I had a spat of breathlessness like last month – it’s nerves and over-exertion and irritation.
Looked in on Mother’s room again.
Wednesday, 6 October
Completely ridiculous but on arriving in Netherford at the hardware shop I couldn’t find the bit of paper I’d marked the screw size on. Bought an expensive complete set and, on the advice of the helpful owner, a fierce-looking sort of jemmy with a claw at one end. Then to the library where I gazed on microfiched pages of the local paper for 1930 to 1935 and found some interesting stuff on Edward Arnold in the Ulverton column, written mostly by his acolytes. The Thule Society visit in 1933 is mentioned, along with the midwinter ritual.
Copied it and also confirmed the weather for late December 1933: basically, there was snow and a lot of it. On a sudden whim I checked when the Manor’s carol-singing jaunt had taken place: it was on December 23rd in very fine crisp weather followed by a high tea. Gracie must then have seen Mother on December 23rd at about 7 o’clock in the evening – if she left no later than anyone else. Perhaps if the stamp on the label, showing George V’s smudged head over the date, was not of the Victoria port authorities but of Liverpool’s, then Mother, with her trunk buckled in the hold, arrived on the Elder Dempster steamer two days before. Anonymously. In disguise, perhaps.
It fits. Her son was very ill. It fits. Her son wasn’t very ill when she set out, but maybe I have the dates of my illness completely out. Maybe I was ill in November. Maybe that particular Thule Society visit, after which I collapsed, was another year’. Memory is a patchwork of unreliability, after all. Why otherwise would she have left Africa in such a hurry?
And what on earth happened to her once she was here? Because – I have to remind myself – she disappeared and for ever.
Working backwards, then: Father’s bush tours were generally three weeks or longer in duration, so it’s quite possible that she vanished or made off around December 1st and the servants were lying, all of them, on her instructions. I know they loved my mother and my father had already started drinking too much. Anyway, not much baksheesh would have sealed their lips or persuaded them to fib.
I’ve been reading what I copied out in the library and one article in particular troubles me.
It dates from December 14th, 1931, and is only initialled. The opening is harmless enough: justifying ritual as a sharing in the ‘daily miracle of existence’ via references to Wordsworth’s ‘motion’ and ‘spirit’ rolling through all things, and the native belief that ‘everything partakes of the same essential mystic reality’. No quarrel with that, though its dark side is nowhere evident: trees with designs on you, spirits behind every bush, ancestors waiting to enter your head. I was about ten when I first started reading Shakespeare and reckoned that the tragic vision might have something to offer over animism (not even Nuncle’s cod sort). It explained my loneliness. Morris says I should write my Life and put all this in but I’m still shy about it, still nervous of being watched or overheard through the trees.
Anyway, the piece then advertises Edward Arnold’s own ‘ancient ritual’, one of those winter solstice things to encourage the sap back up: the mention of the ‘resuscitation’ dance performed by the village mummers around a bonfire, ‘in which a young lady, dressed all in red (the symbol of life), is ritually “killed” and “revived” (all volunteers welcome, skull guaranteed unbroken!)’, brought it all back, of course. No recollection of this specific one – they’ve mostly rolled into a muddy mass flitted over by long white gowns and flames and leering faces. But that mass is vivid enough and of course there again is a red lady. A Red Lady. Nearest and dearest. Oh God.
Well, what would he have stopped at for the sake of that blasted wildwood? Absolutely nothing, probably. Absolutely nothing. Agamemnon killed his own daughter for a fair wind. Abraham and Isaac. His only begotten Son, all that. Something so precious it can’t be counted. If the stakes are high enough. Oh dear God. One great rustling greenwood on the back of it. ‘I’d have to please the gods an awful lot, wouldn’t I, Hugh?’ Yes, they’d have been pleased all right, Nuncle.
But the wildwood hasn’t budged an inch!
Stop this. Leave it.
Have organised my visit to Ray Duckett’s ‘rest home’ for tomorrow morning. Cliff’s Taxis will take me there and back. I won’t tax him, I told Jessica. Just as long as he can still talk.
Tea with Malcolm a tense affair since I was in no mood to lavish lying praise on his efforts. He said he felt a complete failure and started to needle me about my method, finding it restrictive, anticreative, anti-political and so on. I didn’t feel like fencing and just answered by rote, head whirling like a dervish with other thoughts. His coup de grace was to accuse me of being antiquarian, so I said, ‘Well, I’ve always hated quarians.’ He just blinked. I don’t think he has much sense of humour. Then seeing the sun beaming through the window, we went out for a walk. Caught up short by the sight of the leopard skin hanging on John Wall’s washing-line.
Malcolm’s mouth fell open and so did mine. The thing was very striking against the dull bricks of the cottage – as shiny as silk and the spots inked so clearly the Ethiopian had clearly just pressed his fingers to it. The head dangled morosely but the teeth were shining and the glass eyes flashed in the sun – they’d been filmed with dust and filth before. It was very much a crucifixion. I told Malcolm the story of David’s little girl in Umbria, who pointed to a roadside rood and asked why they’d hung that man up to dry – but he didn’t laugh like everyone else does, he was too overcome by the sight of the skin. It was like a gift from the gods, he said, it was uncanny, he’d been wondering how to get hold of a leopard skin just that morning. When I pointed out that it was the same one as in the Arnold photograph (mentioned over dinner), he made a sort of strangled noise. Had to explain how it had ended up on John Wall’s washing-line and then fibbed: ‘I’d intended it to be a surprise, of course.’
He turned instantly happy, like a little boy given a new bicycle.
Thursday, 7 October
Horrible. Absolutely horrible.
[No further entries]
4
; Dear Mother,
So here we are.
I’m doing jolly fine, on the whole.
I’ve had a spot of bother but it’s passing. The people here suggested I write about what happened, since I can’t talk about it.
Dr Wolff suggested the same years and years ago, when I was feeling a bit down. But it’s my idea to write to you like I used to write to you from school, telling you about the week, what I’ve been up to.
They’re very pleasant and helpful, here. You would get on with them. The funny thing is, this place is how I always pictured your sanny in Hampshire, where you met Father. I think back to those days, often. There’s a big lawn and many trees. I have a very well-appointed room looking out on the car park, but I can see a bit of the lawn if I squash my face against the glass. The window only opens at the top. That’s the way it’s made.
When I take a stroll, I’m always thinking you’re about to appear down a corridor or from out of the trees on the lawn, pushing Father.
I’ll tell you what happened, in order. How am I getting on? they say. Quite well, I signal.
I prefer not to talk.
You’re listening to me now, but I’m not sure you’re absolutely hooked. There are a lot of coughs. I’m still sweeping the stage, but I’m not a clown.
Since I saw you last, I’ve been very busy. I can’t tell you about all that, not now.
I used to keep a diary. Then I stopped it.
I think I’ll start where I stopped it. This was about a year ago, now. During this year I’ve also stopped talking. I’m worried that if I open my mouth to use my vocal chords, quite another sound will come out. This is the effect of shock. There’s a word for all this. They use this word here, instead of the other word.
Dysfunctional. That’s it.
I think it was a Thursday. I think it was. I’m getting stuck already.
Your ever-loving son,
Hugh
Rain.
Dear Mother,
So here we are again, again.
As you write, things will come back to you, they tell me. Exactly as Dr Wolff said. Exactly as when one writes one’s diary. I hope nothing comes back that I don’t want.
I have to write in the present tense. This helps, they say. It’s like watching a play. You don’t perform plays in the past tense, do you?
It is a Thursday, yes. Early October.
I’m in this big blue car.
A Rover, with leather seats. I’m being driven to an old people’s home the other side of Netherford. I’m feeling carsick, as usual. It’s all these mini-roundabouts. I ordered the taxi, and the taxi driver’s called Cliff. He has stubble instead of hair and keeps an eye on me in his rear-view mirror. He tells me he has not always done this, he used to be a mechanic on oil tankers. He misses the sea.
How much do I put in? They say the details are important, but I might go on too long. I might lose you before the very bad thing.
We’re inching down the High Street. You’d recognise Netherford High Street, except for the Victorian lamp standards; they’re new. Most of the old shops have gone. There’s no one to carry your provender in brown paper bags to the boot of your motor car or the back of the cart. You will not see a single horse or donkey or sheep or cow. No smell of farms on market day.
Oh no, there’s John Wall! I mention him in my diary, which I’ve left out on the table for you to read, along with the bundle. Don’t look in the bundle yet. That’s for afterwards. Read my diary now, while I’m having my lunch brought in. Food is quite good here, but it’s not to my taste. There are too many vegetables.
Had a look at it? Good. Back to John Wall. He’s waiting to cross the road, he’s just next to my window but it’s not wound down. I look the other way, then he starts to limp across. Everyone looks stronger than him, here in the town.
Hazeldell Rest Home No Exit. It’s red brick, maybe twenties, with a fat boiler-flue giving off smells of boiled cloth and bake. Just like school. Through a window I see rows of melamine tables set to nothing but sugar-dispensers. Inside, in the hall, there’s a table with dried flowers in a vase and a strip of cardboard asking for old or laddered tights to stuff draught excluders with – it takes hundreds to make a crocodile, apparently. That’s all I can recall at the moment. This awful woman bustles up, with a navy jacket and a pan-scourer perm. She’s the chief, she’s, she’s Mrs Stanton-Crewe, that’s it. She treats me as if I’m a client, just about ready for this place. I tell her I’m here to visit Ray Duckett, who I haven’t seen for ages. (A lie, I haven’t seen him ever.) I musn’t be shocked by the change, she says, especially if his teeth aren’t in.
‘Don’t teeth make a difference, Mr –’
‘Arkwright. Hugh Arkwright. I’ve always found teeth very useful, yes.’
Ray’s room is stuffy. What big teeth he’s got, too big and white for his withered face! Mrs Stanton-Crewe whispers to me that I shouldn’t sit too close. Will he eat me? She wrinkles her nose and taps it, then leaves.
‘Don’t know you from Adam,’ says Ray, from his huge easy chair. I wave my copy of Ulverton and Her Ghosts and he smiles. I sit on a stool by the window and explain why I’m here. The Red Lady business. His sick face lights up even more and he finds me in the book: almost a footnote. He spits into a spittoon and says that his saliva tastes like shampoo and he’s not supposed to swallow it. Then he goes on about my uncle, what an honour it is to meet Edward Arnold’s nephew. Don’t be too surprised, Mother: Ray Duckett is an expert on old folk-customs, local myths, standing stones. These are the people who think a lot of Uncle Edward and his books. I suddenly realise that only one leg is emerging from Ray’s dressing gown. Its slipper has Detroit Fever stitched into it in bright yellow.
His eyelids are closed, stretched like chewing-gum. He’s about my age. He does smell as if he’s rotting away. Yes, we’re a slosh of stagnating juices and our hearts are made of fire, a little flame that death blows out one day. There’s a picture of kittens playing with a balloon above the melamine chest-of-drawers. It’ll end in tears, as Aunt Joy used to say.
Bony elbows on bony knees, the sick old man looks all nobbly, like a bat. He opens his eyes again and I ask him about the Red Lady.
Yes, Gracie Hobbs and Muck are the only two living witnesses of this particular ghost. Yes, Gracie’s sighting must have been around 1933, in the bad snow, but he didn’t know that it was the night of the carol-singing round. Call me Ray. Are you sure no one else is likely to have seen it, Ray? No one still living, no, sorry. Not to my knowledge. It’s not surprising you want to check, Mr Arkwright, given the ghost is the ghost of your aunt.
Hugh, please. If the ghost is of anyone, it’s of my mother. But your aunt was the one who died out in darkest Africa at the time of the sighting, Mr Arkwright! No, it was Edward Arnold’s sister and she didn’t die, she just went missing. Her married name was Arkwright. Who was my mother!
He covers his face. He’s trembling.
‘That’s bloody awful,’ he says. ‘I’m known as the recording angel.’
I was often taken for my uncle’s son, I say. I was his ward from the age of seven. Someone must have misinformed him. When did your aunt die? 1930. (The footsteps in the snow, curving off towards the wildwood. I saw these from my window, not long after she died. I don’t think I ever told you, Mother.) Did she ever wear a red coat, Mr Arkwright? No, and her hair was bobbed, short and grey.
He’s talking of ghosts, of course. I don’t tell him that I don’t believe in ghosts.
‘I’ll have to check in my notebooks. Oh deary me.’
Notebooks?
Some wicked goblin sits on my tongue and makes me show an interest in the notebooks. My head is in a muddle. You and Aunt Joy are becoming, horribly, one person, and somehow running around as Aunt Rachael. (Not Rachael, no, she’s safe!) The notebooks are back in Ray’s cottage, Bew’s Lane. ‘I can show you where to find them,’ he says. ‘If you give me a lift.’
‘Am I allowed to?’
&
nbsp; He shrugs.
Then he gets dressed. That is to say, I do as a nurse does and help him get dressed, breathing through my mouth. He has a sweat-shirt under his dressing gown with the word Venom on it, and a lunging snake’s head. He taps it and says, ‘My son in California. Don. Backing musician. He’s done very well.’ He growls when he breathes. It reminds me of Ted Dart. You saved Ted Dart’s life, Mother. Remember? How many lives did you save, in the end? Quite a few, I imagine. Better to save lives than take them away, in most people’s books. Don’t ask me about my record.
‘Sick of this place,’ says Ray. ‘Depressing.’
I express a doubt that he’s up to an outing. From his smile I have the awful feeling that it’s more than an outing, that outing is not the right word at all. I should have stopped then, of course. I should have walked away and headed straight for Italy, not stopping at Go. There are some things one really shouldn’t know. And no one would have died. I’m sure they wouldn’t have died and in that horrible way. The leopard head bouncing
Fresh sheet. I’ve had a low two days. Better, now. Get on.
Downstairs, I tell the nurse that I’m taking Ray out for a drive. You see all these little lies, Mother? But I want to see the notebooks. I’m on the scent, even in the middle of all that carbolic and decay. Cliff sweeps us both away and the nurse in the porch waves to us from behind the wheelchair until the hedge hides her. Ray gives a throaty cheer. Then there’s the shock of something cold and dry against my knuckles.
‘I’m glad it’s Cliff,’ whispers Ray. ‘Cliff understands us oldies on the edge of life.’
Sorry – can’t remember anything else about the journey. Except Ilythia suddenly appearing behind her Scotch pines, then vanishing.
The cottage is old and pretty, a brick path up through foxgloves and love-in-a-mist to a crooked oaken door with big old nails in it. Probably the place you and I visited once, Mother, to have tea and scones with Mrs Stump’s sister smiling in a woollen crossover, the room packed with dark furniture. Now it’s lighter and full of books. You’d like it.
