by Edward Carey
The borrower.
Leaving the tunnel locked behind me, a few hours later, I climbed the stairs to flat six where I found Anna Tap outside the door, waiting for me.
Francis? Francis, is that you?
Why don’t you leave me alone?
I’ve been knocking and knocking.
No one answers the door but me and I’ve been out.
Francis, I want my glasses back.
Then you’d better find them.
I think I know where they are.
Well go and fetch them then.
Are they in the cellar, Francis? Is that where you’ve hidden them? Is that why you were so keen to get me away from the cellar steps when I first met you? What else do you keep down there?
It’s just the Porter’s flat and the boiler room—
I could get the Porter to have a proper look.
I shouldn’t do that—
I knew they were there!
—not if you want your glasses back.
Fetch them for me.
I can’t do that.
Francis, we’ll make a deal, you give me back my glasses now and when I see properly again you can keep them.
But what if you go blind?
I won’t go blind.
But if you do, can I still keep them?
Please, Francis.
If you promise.
I can’t see without them.
It’s not usual. I have never lent an exhibit out from the exhibition before. I don’t know whether such behaviour is permissible. Do you promise to return the spectacles once you’re blind?
Yes. Anything.
Well, let’s see. How long do you think it will be before you actually go blind?
I DON’T KNOW!
Roughly?
Months, but I won’t.
Months, is it? A loan for an undisclosed number of months. Well, I would consider this a deal now … but there was that instance when you called me backward. I didn’t like that.
I didn’t mean it.
That’s better. But is that enough?
I could call the Porter.
It’s a deal. I’ll give you the spectacles. You’ll return them once you’re blind, in a matter of months. There’s no need to involve the Porter.
And what about the dog collar, Claire’s photograph, Peter’s ruler?
No, they can’t have those. I’ve destroyed them.
I don’t believe you.
I could also destroy your glasses.
No, Francis. I’m sorry.
I went to the exhibition and borrowed an exhibit. To be returned, it was understood, in an undisclosed number of months.
Back on ground level, in the entrance hall, I heard screams coming from the second floor. Claire Higg, the Porter, Twenty and Anna Tap were in flat ten (Peter Bugg was too).
The end of the Time of Memories, the departure
of Peter Bugg, retired schoolmaster, retired
personal tutor, etc.
Mr Peter Bugg, no longer sweating, no longer crying but still smelling of a hundred different smells, was at home. Mr Peter Bugg was wearing a school tie. Navy blue, with red stripes. He was wearing it the wrong way round. The knot was at the back of his neck. The tie was really wearing Peter Bugg. Peter Bugg, cold now and silent, possessing no thoughts for Alexander Mead or for his father or for his father’s ruler, was in a vertical position some two feet from the ground. Suspended. He was not, however, flying.
Hung.
Strangled.
Dead.
The Porter cut him down and laid him on his bed. On his desk, where he had continued not finishing his book, were five envelopes addressed: the Porter of Observatory Mansions, the resident of flat twenty, Miss Anna Tap, Francis Orme (minor), Claire. These letters were the last writings of Peter Bugg, though even in their small quantity they exceeded the length of that other, never to be finished, opus.
We opened the envelopes.
To the Porter of Observatory Mansions.
My dear Porter,
I am sorry not to be referring to you in a more personal manner, but I discovered as I sat down to write this note that I never learnt your name. Forgive me.
I am exceedingly sorry for all the mess, personal effects, clothes, etc., that I have left for you to clear up. I fear it shall be you who performs this task. I enclose a banknote for your pains. Forgive me.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Bugg
To the resident of flat twenty.
Dear friend,
Alas you have no name yet, but I have great confidence that you will remember it soon. I enclose a limited, but I think helpful, bilingual dictionary for you. I leave a list of phone numbers of police stations in your land. When you call these numbers I am sure that you will be aided in your pursuit. I have no doubt that you will soon be yourself again.
With my warmest regards and best wishes,
Peter Bugg
(This letter was later translated by Anna Tap, word by word, using Peter Bugg’s old dictionary.)
To Miss Anna Tap.
Dear Miss Tap,
I am afraid you will be very disappointed with me. Forgive?
I have to ask a favour of you. During my days in Observatory Mansions I have, over the last few years, committed myself to various little chores. These chores involve shopping (food mainly and occasionally some rather more unusual items) for Miss Higg and, this is the more taxing task, looking after Mr Francis Orme during the day, while his son is out. Would you mind? I apologize for this, but I have every confidence in your abilities.
Though I have known you for such a little time, you find me, yours ever,
Peter Bugg
To Francis Orme (minor).
My dear boy,
You must on no account blame yourself for not speaking to me last night. I would have gone some night or other. I have been haunted for many years by a certain memory which has, as I realized recently, caused me to sweat out of nervousness and to cry out of remorse. It is possible that you had not noticed this in your former tutor, or that you were good enough not to comment upon it. The boy’s name was Alexander Mead. We were friends. He was my most intelligent pupil. But beyond that, when classes were over, we played draughts together, we were tiddlywinks partners and we rolled marbles. He was the truest friend I ever made in my life. He called me Peter out of class hours. We were so close. I wanted him to grow up. He wanted me to become a child. But somehow we managed to communicate so profoundly across the barrier of our years. One day in class he was so engrossed in the subject I was teaching that he called me Peter instead of sir. The class grew silent and waited for me to react. What could I do? I couldn’t let it go. I had to do something and the class was baying for blood. Alexander looked so frightened, so feeble. I took out Chiron and beat him solidly for five minutes, on the knuckles, on his head, across his ribs. I had to, it was a matter of survival; a teacher can’t be called by his Christian name by a pupil in front of a class. It is disrespectful. He had to be reprimanded. If I hadn’t hit him, and hit him hard, and hit him repeatedly, then I would have become the victim. The class would see a germ of weakness inside me, and thus exposed I would lose my authority; the pupils would begin to disobey and ridicule me. I had to beat him and with each strike our friendship faded a little bit more. After five minutes of beating our friendship was dead. After class I tried to speak to him but his bedroom door was locked and he was silent behind it. The next morning when he didn’t come to class I sent someone to find him. The door was still locked. It was forced open. The boy had hanged himself with a school tie. For weeks after his death I kept finding many school ties around my boxroom tied into nooses, hidden in large books, in cupboards, in drawers, in my bath and even, on one occasion, in my food. I did not ever see which of my other pupils were busying themselves with such an unpleasant task but I realized that it must have been several of them. It seemed obvious to me that they implicated me in the boy’s death. I could not teach under suc
h sorrow and quit the school, though I have to admit the headmaster was not sorry to see me go.
I am afraid to say that it was the remembrance of these ties that inspired my misuse of your glove collection yesterday.
I leave you, the only pupil that has stood by me, my book collection. You will find it somewhat depleted since our days of study at Tearsham Park; I had to sell many of them for a more bodily consumption. Among them are the various books written by my father. As regards my father’s photograph, please be so good as to place it in my grave.
Concerning the tie, which may have been cut by the time you read this, knowing that you hold a great collectability for certain possessions which are precious to people, I leave it, once I am done with it, to your keeping. It was indeed a precious neck to me that first used it.
Please, if your father should ever shake himself from his illness, send him my heart-felt gratitude for the pension he so kindly granted me for so many years.
I have gone to Alexander Mead to apologize, but remain, in life as in death, your tutor,
Peter Bugg
PS. Do you know where Chiron is?
To Claire.
My dear Claire,
I do hope you will not mind my addressing you in such a familiar way, but you have been the closest I have ever come to a woman. I have to confess, and I hope this will not upset you too greatly (and try to forgive me if it does), that I have, for several years – I do not know exactly how long, these matters do not always, I believe, begin at definite moments – been in love with you. I did not for one moment believe that my feelings were reciprocated and so kept quiet on the matter. It was enough for me to be by you every day. I was deeply jealous of your former boyfriends, both real and fictional, and hope you will not mind the impertinence of my enclosing a small photograph of myself, in former happier days, when I had hair. If you do not wish to keep it, well and good. If you do, however, you could do worse than place it in your sitting room, over that spot on the wall where Mr Magnitt was once to be found. I thought of this last night when we were returning up the stairs to your home and you mentioned how useful it would be if the lift was working. That comment reminded you, I am afraid, of Mr Magnitt’s unfortunate end. If my photograph can in any way help you to make up for the loss of that other photograph which, I fear, you are never likely to see again, please do keep it.
With my fondest love,
Peter
So ended the Time of Memories.
IV
OBSERVATORY MANSIONS
AND TEARSHAM PARK
Peter Bugg remembered.
Twenty, Anna Tap and I were there as witnesses. Peter Bugg was taken in a cheap box made of barely disguised chipboard to the city crematorium. The chapel we were ushered into had chairs laid out for forty or more, but we only needed three. We felt so strange being the chief mourners that we sat in the second row, as if we were somehow expecting other people to arrive. The priest ran up the aisle chivvying the pall-bearers along and looking nervously at his watch. He had a skin disease, there were great yellow scaly infections on his cheeks. When the coffin was positioned, I placed the photograph of Peter Bugg Senior on top of it, the priest gave me a look of disapproval but did not take it away. With a photocopy of Peter Bugg’s birth certificate in his hands he began to say meaningless words about someone called Ronald Peter Bugg, and I would have started giggling if it hadn’t been so sad. We sang one hymn, and during the third verse the man who played on an electric keyboard – were we supposed to think it was an organ? – turned the volume up slightly so that we should all know that now was the time to look at Peter Bugg for the last time. As soon as the hymn was finished we were pushed out, through a different door to the one we came in, other people with another coffin were using that door, being rushed forwards by a different priest. We went home.
Claire Higg had decided to stay in flat sixteen. The journey to the crematorium was too long, she said, for her. I do not know whether she placed the photograph of Peter Bugg in the position he had suggested. I was no longer allowed to enter her flat. Ever again, she said. And, indeed, I never saw it again. Miss Higg, contrary to her promise, returned the pet television’s plug to its socket and continued her former entertainment, though, I gather, with less enthusiasm. When the power cuts came she was for a while taken out for her little walks, but on those occasions she was supported by two entirely different companions: Anna Tap and the Porter. The Porter, too, was absent from Peter Bugg’s leave-taking, he had a skip placed beneath Bugg’s window and threw all the former resident’s possessions, those that were not left to anyone, out of the window into the skip. Those few, pathetically few, pages of Bugg’s never-to-be-finished book among them. The residue of Bugg’s life did not fill the skip. The half-full skip was taken away.
I considered how many skip loads each resident of Observatory Mansions would fill. My life would require many skip loads. Mother too would certainly require more than one skip. Claire Higg would require a single skip. Miss Tap would require one quarter of a skip. The Porter with his single box of unseen possessions and his uniforms, etc. would require an eighth of a skip. And Twenty, now even without her dog collar, would require no skip at all. For her a single dustbin bag would be sufficient. How much does the average person accumulate in his life?
We were seven again, as we had been before the new resident came to us.
The departure of Twenty.
Twenty called up the police officers in her country and after a week of silence her files were found. She was told that her name was not Twenty, was not Dog Woman, that her name was Anca. That she had married Stefan, and that Stefan and Anca had no children. She had been twenty-six when she was lost, she was thirty-nine when she was found. But by the time she was found, by the time she had found herself, everyone had stopped looking for her. In her absence her father and mother had died, her father by suicide, her mother by failing health. This was told to her by her sister. She had not remembered having a sister. She asked her sister whether they had been happy together. The sister said, No they had not, they had hated each other; they had fallen for the same man and that man had married Anca not her sister.
Where is he now?
Don’t you know?
No, Anca did not know, but she had remembered him, she remembered his moustache, she remembered him standing by the door of that other flat twenty. But he, she was told by her sister, had forgotten her.
He married again, Anca.
You?
No, he was never interested in me.
Didn’t he wait for me, couldn’t he have waited?
Anca, it wasn’t a happy marriage.
Oh, I didn’t know.
He hit you.
I didn’t know.
You bought a dog to protect yourself, the biggest dog you could find, Max, you called him. I don’t suppose you remember Max, a big softy. Such a huge dog in such a tiny flat. The dog didn’t help you though. Then suddenly after what your neighbours said was a particularly gruesome fight, you disappeared. You and the dog. They suspected your husband of murder. Took him to court. But there was not enough proof to put him away for any longer than ten years.
Ten years!
He only served six of them, then he came out and married someone else. If I were you I’d keep yourself very quiet, I don’t suppose Stefan would like to know he spent six years in hell for nothing. Everyone thought he’d killed you. Me too. By the end I think even he thought he’d done it, he just couldn’t remember how.
I hit my head, I walked and walked.
Everyone was looking for you.
Can we two be friends?
I’m not sure, we used to hate each other so much.
You’re my sister. I haven’t got anyone else. Can we try?
If you like.
Thank you, thank you.
I’ve room in my flat. You can stay with me, but not for ever, you understand, just until you find a job.
Anca told Anna Tap these bits of her h
istory very slowly, word by word, flicking through the dictionary that Peter Bugg had given her.
So, Anca, Twenty, Dog Woman, left us too. The Porter and I saw her to the bus, Anna Tap took her to the station. She laughed as she got on the bus, she laughed as she waved through the bus window at us. She laughed as the bus moved away, but there were tears in her eyes. Now we were six. We had, or rather Anna Tap had, a postcard from Anca, months later, written in our own language with many mistakes. Anca wrote that the moment she saw her sister she remembered that she hated her and they found it impossible to live together. She found a job at a canning factory, canning dog food, and now, with all her old possessions, she lived in her own flat. She had a pet cat, she wrote, named Anna. She also wrote that she had grown frightened of dogs and could not bear to be near them. Poor Anca, she still didn’t really know who she was, but she was studying her old possessions to find out. She took up her old life without questioning its worth. Anna Tap said she didn’t realize that she had other choices.
We never heard from her again.
The Porter cleared up Twenty’s flat. It was damp from holes in the ceiling where the rain came through and it was also putrid; there were morsels of food rescued from bins decaying all over the floor, there were bones and dogs’ hairs, dried blood, urine and shit. Poor Porter, he scrubbed it clean.
The Time of Silence.
Shortly after the Time of Memories had expired, taking Peter Bugg and Twenty with it, we entered the Time of Silence. Eventually even memories run out, even they have an end. No memory goes on for ever, to do so it would have to be connected with the present. And no one can remember the present. The present is the killer of memories. Father lived there, in the present, in that no-memory place. After so many memories had been related a feeling of dissatisfaction invaded us. We looked at each other, at those fellow residents who had told us their memories, and we thought – Is that all? Is that all that you are? Is that you? Ah, well if that’s you, if that’s all there is to you, then you’re not so remarkable any more. I know your story now, there’s nothing else for me to know and quite suddenly I don’t know what to say to you. In truth, I find you a little dull, you shouldn’t have told me everything, you should have kept something back to keep my interest alive. But now that I know everything about you I suddenly find myself unable to talk to you any more. I prefer to keep silent.
