‘—keep to modern history,’ chipped in Oblong, remembering the advertisement.
‘In class and in life,’ said Snorkel, before embarking on a series of staccato questions: ‘Dependants?’
‘None.’
‘Hobbies?’
‘I write poetry.’
‘Not historical poetry?’
Oblong shook his head.
‘Published?’
‘Not yet.’
Snorkel nodded. Oblong’s literary failure to date was apparently a good thing.
‘It consumes all your spare time?’
Again Oblong nodded.
‘You realise you teach modern history and no other history whatsoever?’
‘Keep to the subject, I understand.’
‘Any questions for us?’ asked Smith politely.
‘Questions?’ echoed Snorkel, but impatiently, as though his mind were made up, despite the absence of any enquiry about Oblong’s gifts as a historian or a teacher (being, of course, two very different things).
Oblong asked about lodgings – rooms to himself, rent-free, with a cleaner thrown in. He asked about food – breakfast and lunch, also free. He asked about pay – generous, albeit in Rotherweird currency. He asked about dates.
Snorkel answered this question, as he had all the others. ‘Term starts in ten days – arrive four days early to settle in. You’ll be Form Master to Form IV and modern historian to all.’ Snorkel stood up. ‘He’ll do,’ he said, adding in Mr Oblong’s general direction, ‘Good evening – I’ve important guests for dinner.’
Miss Trimble entered, helped the Mayor into an immaculate camelhair overcoat and they both departed.
Rhombus Smith closed the door. ‘You can say “no”, but I’d rather you didn’t. Mr Snorkel is so very hard to please.’
‘I’ve not been interviewed by a mayor before.’
‘The price we pay for avoiding those idiots in Westminster.’
‘He interviews everyone?’
‘Oh, no. The modern historian is a political appointment.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Curiosity about the past is your game, but we’re forbidden to study old history – by law.’
‘Why?’
‘Ha, ha, that’s a good one – I’d have to study old history to find out, wouldn’t I! So just remember to keep it modern. 1800 and after is the rule, and never Rotherweird history, which incidentally you shouldn’t know anyway. Now, my boy, is it a yes – or do you need another five minutes to think about it?’
Oblong had no hint of a prospect anywhere else, and he firmly believed in the old adage that a good headmaster never runs a bad school. He accepted.
‘Splendido!’ exclaimed Rhombus Smith, shaking his hand warmly. ‘My motto is, scientists teach while we in the arts civilise. Isn’t that right?’
Oblong nodded weakly as the Headmaster hunted through various pieces of furniture before retrieving two pewter tankards and a large bottle labelled Old Ferdy’s Feisty Peculiar. ‘Ghastly job, manning the Gatehouse. This keeps them sane.’
The beer was indeed memorable: earthy, the taste layered. Rhombus Smith raised his tankard by way of a toast. ‘To your happy future at Rotherweird School.’
‘My . . . happy . . . future,’ parroted Oblong without conviction.
The Headmaster opened a window and peered out. Through his fertile mind, courtesy of an eccentric but photographic memory, flashed several obscure literary passages descriptive of fog. ‘Who’s your favourite weather author?’ he asked, closing the window.
‘Shakespeare.’
‘Myself, I go for Conrad. Men of the sea get the weather. Favourite weather line?’
Oblong floundered.
‘How about Mark Twain – climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.’
So it went on, literary small talk, during which Oblong warmed to Rhombus Smith’s passion for the nineteenth-century English novel. Between quotes, the Headmaster provided other details. Oblong was joining a day school, which took children only from the town and the surrounding countryside. ‘Probably more talent than you’re used to . . . you’ll be kept on your toes,’ he added.
*
Oblong found Boris and the charabanc where he had left them.
‘You got it then.’
‘How did you know?’
‘The hesitant spring in your step.’
Going uphill, Boris pedalled less furiously and the pistons moved more languidly, leading to a less fraught journey, until the near-accident happened. As the charabanc eased round a hairpin bend near the Twelve-Mile post, a large black saloon car loomed into view, headlights on full. Boris swerved and pulled on the brake; the charabanc slewed sideways, ending up across the middle of the road. The black car screeched to a halt.
‘What the hell’s that?’ exclaimed Boris.
‘A Roller,’ stammered Oblong.
‘I don’t care if it’s Elijah’s flaming chariot, you don’t drive down the Rotherweird Road like that.’
Boris marched towards the car, which disgorged a tall elderly figure who moved towards Boris with surprising grace.
‘You – what do you think your horn’s for?’ The man spoke without emotion. His clothes exuded the same aura of wealth as the car. ‘Get off the road – or I’ll drive you off.’
‘Drive me off—?’
The man returned to his car, which started to roll forward. Boris barely had time to realise the threat was real, flick a gear and reverse into a meadow before the Rolls Royce accelerated away.
In place of the more usual flying silver lady Oblong glimpsed a gilded weasel atop the radiator.
‘Never known it, never—’
‘I don’t care if it’s Elijah’s flaming chariot, you don’t drive down
the Rotherweird Road like that.’
Normality returned. The bus to Hoy was waiting, with the same charmless driver. Mr Oblong waved farewell to Boris Polk. Further exploration of Rotherweird would have to wait.
*
Rodney Slickstone slouched on the back seat between his adopted parents. The countryside had no appeal, still less the thought of dinner with a mayor, but the car changed everything – the touch and smell of leather, the dappled surfaces, the running board and the predatory purr of the engine. Driving a ridiculous vehicle off the road confirmed Sir Veronal as a man worth following.
The actress’s thoughts were different. She could not discern why her employer had such a fanatical interest in Rotherweird. Everyone knew the place was an anachronism, and the inhabitants irrationally hostile to the outside world. She disliked the boy and disapproved of playing Sir Veronal’s wife to secure his adoption, the purpose of which was equally obscure. Yet she did like playing live drama, whose future scenes, like the town below, remained shrouded from view.
*
Boris Polk parked the charabanc in one of the sheds of The Polk Land & Water Company and hurried across the courtyard to his rooms, a troubled man. Outsiders very rarely came to Rotherweird, and when they did, they came nervously and with respect. The driver of the Rolls Royce, by contrast, had exuded an arrogant sense of entitlement. Only one explanation came to mind: he had just met the Manor’s new owner, although he could not fathom this outsider’s motivation for such a lavish investment in a place where he knew nobody. The re-opening of the Manor troubled him.
The townsfolk knew nothing of Rotherweird’s past, but in the valley’s rural community, secrets appeared to pass down the generations. He had particularly in mind the secretive neighbour of his friend, the brewer Bill Ferdy, who was known only as Ferensen. In the loft Boris kept his singular (in both senses) carrier pigeon, Panjan – Snorkel’s henchmen intercepted all communications between town and country, the inhabitants of the latter being regarded with deep suspicion by the Town Hall.
He wrote a short note addressed to Ferdy:
Ferdy, Tell Ferensen I think I've met the Manor’s new owner – a disturbing experience – Boris
He rolled the message into a tiny canister, which he attached to a harness on Panjan’s chest. The bird’s scruffy appearance belied a sharp intelligence. A whisper of Ferdy’s name sufficed. The note contained no request for advice and no suggestion of what to do. Nor did he expect a reply. The countrysiders revered Ferensen, but he never came to town and few there even knew of his existence. Nonetheless Boris went to bed, more at ease for having shared his experience.
4
A Sale
Behind the front window of Baubles & Relics on the Golden Mean, Rotherweird’s only antique shop, a bewildering array of objects jostled for the attention of passers-by. A hippopotamus head peered down at an elephant’s foot; a Victorian microscope stood between two turbans; assegais hung from the webbing of snowshoes, and a giant marionette of Father Time rode a rocking horse, arms and scythe suspended from the ceiling with fishing line. Mrs Banter owned the shop, but her niece, Orelia Roc, ran it, gathering stock from junk shops and house sales in the outside world. The visual wit in the display was entirely Orelia’s.
On the night of Mr Oblong’s interview, aunt and niece sat beside the small fire at the rear of the shop, balancing sales and acquisitions, as ever a fractious exercise.
‘That,’ shrilled Mrs Banter, pointing at the hippopotamus head, ‘is a disaster.’
‘It’s a talking point.’
‘How many times—? This is a selling shop, not a talking shop. And remember, I only stoop to trade to give you work.’ The familiar lecture was interrupted by a knock on the door. ‘Tell them we’re closed. Can’t people read?’
There was something of the gypsy about Orelia Roc, alluring and intimidating at the same time. Her hair was dark, long and curly; her eyes mischievous and a deep hazel. Men admired from a distance, but to her disappointment few attempted to get to know her. She wore brass bangles, a worn pair of jeans, a T-shirt and a frayed woollen scarf. By contrast, Mrs Banter’s jersey was cashmere; her shoes glossy patent leather. She lived in a prestigious tower-house in the north of town. Such was the imbalance in their rewards from the business.
Orelia had been much closer to her late uncle, Bartholomew Banter, than his wife. He was her mother’s brother, an architect with a genius for inserting arresting new structures into Rotherweird’s tangle of houses, towers and walkways.
In widowhood Mrs Banter gave her social ambitions full rein, working her way into Snorkel soirées and onto the board of the Rotherweird Riparians, a town charity where the well-heeled preached more philanthropy than they practised. Keen to open a luxury store, Mrs Banter invested in a vacant property on the Golden Mean, only to baulk at the capital outlay and the cost of staff. When her orphaned niece returned to Rotherweird and offered the compromise of an antique shop, which she would run for modest pay and rooms above the premises, Mrs Banter agreed to a two-year probation period. Antiques, after all, traditionally attracted the well-to-do. Although in the event Orelia’s choice of merchandise veered more to the eccentric than the antique, the shop quickly moved from barely washing its face into profit and Orelia stayed on, despite the cultural gulf between her and her aunt, who had a gift for materialising when the grander customers called, but not otherwise.
Nearer thirty than twenty and in need of adventure, Orelia had no intention of allowing their mystery visitor to escape. Through the spy-hole in the front door, the man outside appeared and disappeared disconcertingly, but the wide-brimmed hat and the laced leather boots were familiar.
‘It’s Hayman.’
‘You mean the tramp?’ said Mrs Banter, knowing full well who it was.
‘Hayman Salt.’
Orelia opened the door. ‘Hey man,’ she said, her traditional welcome to the curmudgeon, with whom she had a good rapport.
Salt, head of Rotherweird’s municipal gardens department and its chief plantsman, manoeuvred his bulk through the doorway. In the warmth of the room he steamed like a kettle. The unflattering title bestowed by Mrs Banter had been applied by others, but he was no tramp, having both a respectable home and employment, but in several respects the description fitted: a face ruddied by weather wore the tramp’s ambiguity of expression, flitting from careworn to carefree; his shaving lacked skill; and his mane of greying hair was unkempt. A darker reason lurked behind the jibe: Salt would periodically disappear into the countryside for what he called ‘field trips’. Town rumour suggested that he even fraternised with countrysiders, and visited their homes.
However, there could be no disputing his quality as a plantsman. The town’s formal beds and the less manicured Grove Gardens boasted a range of hybrids unique in England, each immodestly marked with a metal nameplate ranging from Hayman’s Arum to Hayman’s Zinnia. Yet humour leavened his vanity; when the Mayor complained about the lack of a tribute to him, Snorkel’s Petunia appeared, the petals a hideous mix of orange, yellow and green and the scent putrid. In Rotherweird, where scientific prowess was commonplace, nobody thought to ask how Hayman Salt could be so prolific a creator.
His visits to Baubles & Relics had a common purpose – the sale of archaeological finds from Roman military buckles to coins of modest value, unearthed during his excavation work. He would come in his lunch hour, declare his goods, haggle with Mrs Banter and seal the deal with a glass of her sickly sherry.
‘You’re dripping!’ shrieked Mrs Banter.
He tossed his hat and coat to Orelia, who felt a hard object bounce off her hip – a trowel. She checked the other pocket as Salt squeezed into the middle chair by the fire: a sheaf of polythene bags – but hardly the weather or time for planting or lifting?
Without his usual small talk Salt produced from his jacket pocket four coloured stones in red, blue, brown and white, the colouring faintly mottled, but rich, each perfectly round and matched in size. Orelia noted tension in Salt’s shoulders, as if he wanted both to keep the stones and be rid of them.
The two women peered at the merchandise. Mrs Banter saw profit. Orelia felt an intangible presence.
‘Where’d you find them?’ asked Mrs Banter.
‘Ten guineas each, take it or leave it.’
Orelia saw the stones as elemental – fire, water, earth and air –
and her reaction to them triggered an instinctive insight: they were not decorative, they did something.
Mrs Banter misread Salt’s brusque response as a new negotiating technique. ‘Beads are two a penny. Still, I’ll allow they’re pretty – three guineas each and a guinea for thinking of us.’
‘They’re beautiful,’ added Orelia, taking issue with her aunt’s meanness.
‘Two guineas for thinking of us,’ added Mrs Banter with a grimace.
‘Ten guineas each,’ repeated Salt with an edge to his voice.
Mrs Banter, pale with irritation, conceded.
Salt’s old self resurfaced as Orelia poured the drinks. ‘Trick or treat!’ he exclaimed, giving Orelia a handful of bulbs from his other pocket. ‘Hayman’s Croci!’
With a greenish tinge to the roots and blue blotches on the papery outer skin, the bulbs held promise of unique blooms to come.
Mrs Banter declined to offer the ‘tramp’ a second glass. As Orelia showed him out, he whispered, ‘Odd things, those stones. Get rid of ’em far away if I were you.’
Mrs Banter, whose haughty exterior concealed a mind like an abacus, turned on her niece as the door closed. ‘That show of sentiment cost me twenty-six guineas.’
‘He knows when to hold a price.’
‘They’re very probably stolen.’
‘Aunt, really.’
‘You don’t know where he goes at night.’ Mrs Banter sprinkled her conversation with references to her customers’ more secretive movements, especially after dark. ‘Knowledge is influence,’ she had once declared obliquely to Orelia when challenged about the habit. As Orelia bemoaned the loss of her uncle’s restraining influence, Deirdre Banter moved on to practical matters. ‘The label will say Ancient Rotherweird comfort stones.’
‘Be
ing what exactly?’
‘Mediaeval worry-beads.’
‘Right.’
‘Price on application. You have to be above trade to understand trade – if only your mother had taught you that.’ With this swipe at her late sister-in-law, Mrs Banter pocketed a fistful of notes from petty cash and joined her waiting rickshaw taxi.
Orelia labelled the stones as instructed and chose an inconspicuous place, hoping to buy time for further investigation. She chose well. Nobody showed any interest and with much else to occupy her, she thought less and less about them.
Salt’s discomfort did not ease. Suppression of the truth could be as bad as a lie. He did not know what the stones did, but he did know where he had found them and that was disturbing enough. He prayed that they would end up in someone’s jewellery box, unloved and unused.
5
Oblong Tries to Learn the Form
Oblong’s attempts at reconnaissance were not productive. Maps confirmed the valley’s secluded position and its one access road but were otherwise stripped of detail. The town itself did not even appear. The Rother too seemed shy of the outside world, emerging from the base of the northern hills, only to plunge underground once more near Rotherweird’s southern boundary.
Guidebooks described Rotherweird’s community as ‘secretive and hostile; visitors should expect to be turned away or ejected at dusk without transport’. A unique plant, the Rotherweird eglantine, grew haphazardly under the oaks of the Island Field, a large meadow south of the town surrounded by a tributary of the Rother, but outsider botanists were barred access. The run-down camper van, the surly driver and the portcullis were no doubt part of the same deterrent strategy.
A detailed list of instructions headed Outsiders and Countrysiders promptly arrived in the post. ‘Outsiders’ covered anyone from the outside world and ‘countrysiders’ anyone from the Rotherweird Valley who did not live in town. Neither outsiders nor country-
siders were permitted to stay overnight, imported teaching staff being the one exception, but the rules still denied Oblong lodgings on the Golden Mean or Market Square. According to a footnote he did qualify for the town’s special festivals, of which only two were mentioned: The Great Equinox Race and Vulcan’s
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