Observatory Mansions: A Novel

by Edward Carey

  Francis loves no one.

  12th December.

  On the twelfth of December, a date so close to Christmas that many people’s thoughts are only full of the forthcoming holiday, a strange incident occurred. The day began with Anna entering flat six to say: Tomorrow, Francis, is Saint Lucy’s day. Tomorrow, I’ll be able to see properly again, Francis, you’ll see.

  In the evening Anna discovered her wax head. I was out. I was licking my lower lip down in the tunnel in the cellar. Anna was with my mother but Mother had fallen asleep. Anna walked around flat six and let herself into my bedroom. She found the wax bust. She went back into the kitchen and fetched a knife. She scarred the face of the wax head. She smashed the eyes, then she went to her flat and locked the door.

  She would not let me see her, she would not even talk to me behind her door. So I decided that the next day, the anticipated December the thirteenth, I would steal the wooden eyes of Saint Lucy and place them inside the wax head.

  Saint Lucy’s day.

  It was obvious from looking out of the window on Saint Lucy’s morning that it was a day in which nothing wonderful would happen. The winter weather made it feel heavy. It was perhaps a day for going immediately back to bed and falling asleep again and not waking up until December the fourteenth. But for those who had to get up and venture out, it was another unpleasant winter day, cold and pessimistic.

  I was reminded of my plan the moment I woke and saw from my bed the vandalized wax head, with scars worked into its wax flesh, with raw holes for eyes, where I was sure sight had once been. As soon as I was dressed I walked, neither quickly nor slowly, to Tearsham Church – I was convinced of the fairness of my plan, and the fairness gave me an even, confident pace for my journey. If people had seen me on that particular morning as I moved from Observatory Mansions to Tearsham Church, I feel convinced that they would have thought of me as some kind of official, someone whose every move was backed by laws and declarations, such was my business-like gait. If people had seen me they would be sure to have stepped out of my way, certain that the path I took was far more mine than theirs and that they were trespassing. However, I cannot recall anyone on my route to the church and though it is conceivable that I did pass people, or that people even moved out of my way, they made no impression on me; my mind was too focused on the wooden eyes of Saint Lucy.

  When I stepped into the church I saw immediately that the dust had recently been disturbed. But I quickly convinced myself that it was I who had moved the dust by opening the church door. Besides, I couldn’t see anyone in the church. But once, as I stepped towards the wooden altarpiece, I thought I heard a faint hissing.

  The saints themselves stood, reassuringly enough, just as they had always stood, and I was encouraged and calmed by their dignified poses. It was an uncomplicated task that I had to perform: I must simply remove the wooden eyes from Saint Lucy’s plate and then be gone. I would disturb the church no longer than was necessary. But it must be remembered that I had a right to be there, I had a right to those eyes. My eyes, the glass eyes inside the wax head, had been destroyed – it was only fair that the wooden ones should become mine. In compensation. Surely the church could understand that.

  Saint Lucy stood in her usual position beside her fellow saints and martyrs, the Virgin and her Child. Her right hand, as was to be expected, held a wooden plate. The plate, contrary to all expectations, was empty. There were two small scars where objects had once been glued, but there was no pair of wooden eyes.

  Of course the great injustice of this should have made me scream. It perhaps should have convinced me to drag the wooden woman from the church by her golden hair and take her apart, shatter her against a wall. But scarcely had I opened my mouth to launch my frustration when I noticed, lying on one of the pews, the body of a young woman wrapped up in a blue dress and a black coat. Gently breathing Anna Tap. With her hands clenched tight at her side, surely holding my eye treasure, one eye to each hand. I quietly moved along the pew until I was beside her. I crouched down until my head was at the level of her hands. Her hands were dirty, smudged with dust. I put my father’s leather gloves over my white cotton skin, blankets of protection, and began to unpeel Anna’s right hand. She held on tight, I pulled at her fingers harder. She opened her eyes, ugly, sore eyes, spheres that shone with pain, with eyelids torn and ruddy from scratching. She had been attempting to remove her pain by scraping at it. How much did it hurt, Anna Tap? Did you cry? Did you scream?

  As I worked, stooped over her, busy about my compensation business, she continued to stare at me, but I could not at first be sure if those terrible eyes were seeing anything at all. Then she quietly spoke.

  Why won’t the wooden eyes become soft, Francis?

  I continued my work at her fingers.

  If my eyes are going hard then why won’t the wooden ones becomes soft?

  I shan’t be here long.

  They should be soft.

  Just give them to me and I’ll be gone.

  I can’t stop the hurting.

  Take a pill.

  I’ve taken one.

  Then you’ll feel better soon.

  I’ve been sick.

  Then take another pill.

  I didn’t know it would hurt so much. It made me sick.

  Take another pill.

  They’re in my pocket.

  I reached into her coat pocket, found a pill. I asked her to open up a hand so I could put the pill there, but she sat up and opened her mouth instead. I dropped it in, the pill fell from my hand into her mouth, there was no connection between my hand and her lips. She swallowed. And winced.

  The wooden eyes are mine, Anna.

  They don’t work.

  You broke my eyes, I must have these.

  They don’t work, Francis. They’re of no use.

  Please give them to me.

  Then Anna smiled, an unkind smile created to make me feel stupid and awkward. But which only made me feel angry and would even have made me rush from the church were it not for the fact that she still held on to my wooden eyes.

  Why did you have a wax head made of me, Francis?

  The eyes, please.

  Didn’t you know you can touch the real thing?

  Eyes, please.

  I would have let you.

  Eyes, now!

  Do you feel embarrassed that I found out? Poor little boy. I think I’d better go now.

  Then Anna stopped laughing and began to cry. She rubbed at her eyes with her fists, almost thumping them, and when she had calmed a little she announced, so simply and without any suggestion of doubt:

  I’m going blind.

  And then she said it again:

  I’m going blind.

  And sighed.

  And suddenly the wooden eyes weren’t important any more, and I suddenly realized that what I must do while I still had the chance was to take Anna down into the tunnel and show her the exhibition. She must see it all, she must see all of it, before she went blind, from the very beginning up until the very last object, The Object. I had never intended to show the exhibition to anyone, but in that instant I believed that I must, that it was the most important thing I would ever do. (Perhaps this was because I felt pity for Anna, suffering from her eye disease. I do not rule that out. I am not incapable of pity, and pity is perhaps not incapable of, temporarily, commanding me. That is possible. However, at the time I felt that something very different was moving me to open up my exhibition, if only for a limited period, to a limited public.)

  She agreed to come with me. At first she smiled and said – Not now. But then she stopped herself and said that of course, if I was willing she would come now, and that perhaps now was the right time after all. Keep your eyes closed, you must keep them closed or I won’t show you anything. You must see it all in the correct order, as it is supposed to be seen. If you open your eyes before it is time then we’ll have to come back up immediately. I pulled Anna’s coat up over her head. What can y
ou see, I asked. And she said – Nothing, I can’t see a thing. Good, I said, let me guide you.

  Still wearing my leather gloves, I pulled her forward by the wrist, calling out instructions. I unlocked the Orme chapel gate. I pushed aside the tomb lid, and we moved slowly down into the exhibition. Be careful to step slowly, I said, you’re not going to be sick again, are you? She said that she couldn’t see anything. That’s all right, I said, you will when we’re at the beginning, keep to the right. When we arrived at the other entrance, in the cellar of Observatory Mansions, I lit a candle.

  This is my exhibition, I said, I have never shown it to anyone before. Open up your eyes now. Please look. I gave her the exhibition book, instructing her to read my words on every object. I wanted her to see it all, even the final object, even that. She placed the wooden eyes inside her coat pocket. She took out her glasses, polished them against her dress, and began.

  Lot 1: a till receipt.

  Being the property (briefly) of either: 1 – a bus conductor; 2 – an inventor’s assistant; 3 – a pregnant housewife; 4 – a policeman; 5 – an air hostess; 6 – a rat catcher; 7 – a street cleaner; 8 – a trumpeter; 9 – a kindergarten teacher; 10 – a cloakroom attendant; 11 – a pigeon fancier; 12 – a head librarian; 13 – a jukebox maker; 14 – a boy who committed matricide.

  (All of the above have been most thoroughly considered.)

  Anna read and looked on, she had reached:

  Lot 49: a love letter.

  A badly written epistle from a house maid to a valet, originally slipped under the valet’s door but rescued before the valet knew either it or the house maid’s love for him existed.

  Anna stopped, crouched down again:

  Lot 110: a tontine salver (silver).

  Previous property of the Orme family, to signify a bet made between a long-since deceased Francis Orme and his friends. The bet being who should live the longest. Francis Orme did. Prized possession of my grandfather being proof of his family longevity. Prized possession of my father, because his father loved it so.

  Anna rubbed her eyes and cleaned her glasses, she continued.

  Lot 163: a Morocco-bound book

  (a volume of Orme History).

  Taken from Father to remind him that some Ormes are still alive.

  Anna said she wanted a break, but I begged her to read on. She smiled. She even said: Thank you for showing me this, Francis. Keep going, I said, you have to reach the end.

  Lot 238: a ballet shoe

  Belonging to the fat little daughter (and hopeful ballerina to be) of the slim parents of flat one.

  Anna cleaned her glasses again. Keep going, I said, don’t stop.

  Lot 301: a pair of walking sticks.

  Belonging to the man in George’s café who couldn’t go anywhere without them and had to get George to make a call on the café telephone and then to wait for two hours to be collected by his also decrepit wife (who arrived by use of a Zimmer frame and with two spare sticks hooked over it).

  Anna said her eyes were burning. She suggested that we stop for a while but I said that I’d rather she kept going. I gave her another pill.

  Lot 353: a pair of pearl earrings.

  Previous property of the man known as Mr Right Angle of flat seven, being proof of the life of his mother.

  Anna said to me: Francis, stop being a blur, come into the light. I said: I am in the light. She said: I can’t see you properly, what’s happening? I said: Do you want to go upstairs? She said: Not till I’ve finished.

  Lot 380: a television’s remote control.

  Claire Higg, flat sixteen, when she wasn’t looking, when she went to make me a cup of tea.

  Anna told me that she needed to rest, she couldn’t concentrate any more. We walked on to the end of the tunnel. We climbed up the steps.

  We are in the church again, I said. We walked out of the church. Anna held on to my back.

  We sat on a bench in Tearsham Park Gardens. Anna said: Is it really day? Is it really light? I said: The sky is an unhappy shade of blue. She said: I can’t see. She said: I can’t see anything at all.

  We agreed that Anna was blind.

  Anna held my arm. We went inside.

  VI

  LITTLE PEOPLE

  The philosophy of Mark Daniel Cooper.

  For days they would not let me be with Anna. Claire Higg and Mother looked after her, they dressed her, spoon fed her, brushed her hair, bathed her, read her good-night stories; two old women playing dolls with a blind girl. They preferred it if the blind girl didn’t speak, if the blind girl only smiled. But sometimes the blind girl screamed and wouldn’t stop screaming.

  Someone had stolen my wax bust of Anna. It had been taken from my room during Saint Lucy’s day. I presumed that it was Mother, who, disapproving, disposed of it. If it was her, she never mentioned it and I was too frightened of her reproaches to ask for its return. Without the bust I was forgetting Anna’s face again, or remembering it wrongly.

  Sometimes at night I would go for walks around the city, crossing the streets that surrounded Observatory Mansions, thinking of Anna, trying to remember her, smelling her in every smoker that walked by.

  On one of these nights, perhaps a little later than usual, I was walking somewhere between Tearsham Park Gardens and Tearsham Church when I became aware that someone else was with me, standing very close, hissing. I turned around, expecting to see the Porter.

  A young man with a pock-marked face wearing a dirty tracksuit was spraying the city walls with paint from a canister. The words bursting out at high pressure seemed almost to be hissing or whispering their way on to the walls. The following words:

  For the softest skin.

  The whitest teeth, the freshest breath.

  And even you can find love.

  Turn back the clocks, say goodbye to your wrinkles.

  Because you’re worth it.

  Finally, I had found the man who had been making his marks around the city, spraying the walls at night, passing on his messages, so they could be read by everyone in the morning.

  I so longed for company but it took him some time to feel relaxed with me. He spoke with a terrible stutter. He was called, as far as I could understand him, Mark Daniel Cooper and he would often spend his nights with his spray cans. The work on Observatory Mansions’ walls too, he admitted, was his own. He explained that he found it so difficult to speak to people that people preferred to leave him alone. To remedy this he at first wrote in notebooks all his feelings. But often, he told me – more with the help of gestures than words – he was so angry that his letters became angry too, and angry letters, he said, he gestured, are huge in size and he filled his notebooks too quickly. But nobody read his notebooks, once he had shut them, they just lay there, useless. One day he saw some graffiti sprayed on the walls of a school playground and he suddenly knew what he had to do. He felt so happy scrawling his innermost thoughts on the city, that all his pain and frustration had dwindled almost to nothing. He was more confident afterwards and soon he ran out of things to say but he could not give up graffitiing the city walls, it was all that made him feel alive. In time he began to write out sentences from advertisements everywhere. They were so confident, those adverts, he told me. Nothing in the world was so confident. He said the Coca-Cola signs in the city, which had been there for as long as he could remember, made us worth something. If the Coca-Cola company felt happy to be here, then it had faith in us, and that therefore we should have faith in ourselves. If the Coca-Cola signs were taken away then we would be worthless. With them here we truly belonged to the world.

  Copying the confident words from adverts down, he felt their confidence glow within him. He told me this smiling and laughing between his broken words and wrote:

  Enjoy the taste.

  He let me borrow one of his cans so that I could write this word on to bricks:

  Anna.

  But no, he said, he gestured, I had made the word far too small and he sprayed a whol
e street with large bold Annas. Anna Street, we called it.

  When he decided it was time for him to leave, he sprayed his goodbye on the wall, nervously smiled at me but without looking into my eyes and rushed off into the early morning before it became too light.

  Observing Anna.

  In time, of course, they became careless. Their love for their blind doll began to wane. Mother had a key to Anna’s flat, which occasionally she left, inadvertently, by the playing dictaphone at night, so sometimes, when everyone was asleep, I’d leave flat six and climb the stairs to Anna’s flat clutching mother’s key. I’d walk into Anna’s bedroom and watch her sleep, just look at her for a long while. I’d discover new lighter freckles that I hadn’t seen before. I’d want to touch, but I never did. Anna’s closed eyes (what was happening beneath those lids?), Anna’s nose, Anna’s little ears. I’d imagine her whole body concealed beneath the sheets. Anna’s hidden legs and arms, Anna’s hidden stomach, Anna’s hidden breasts. But I’d creep away again before she woke.

  During the days when I was not allowed to see her, when I was not even allowed to wait outside her flat door, I had to find other preoccupations. I occasionally returned to my plinth, but I was incapable of concentrating. I spent hours with my exhibition, looking at those objects that Anna had looked at, talking to that most precious of all objects, The Object, at the end of the exhibition, an object which Anna never reached, which she would never see now.

  A visit to Mr Behrens’ glove shop.

  Many people, when they are feeling a little low and need some cheering up, are often known to buy. Some buy clothes, some buy food. In those times, to console myself, I bought gloves, white cotton gloves from Mr Behrens’ glove shop. Mr Behrens was a tiny man who also wore gloves, though his were made of leather and were black. He wore his gloves to hide his hands which had been badly burnt in a war he preferred never to talk about. Mr Behrens’ glove shop catered for all types of glove wearers, he sold gloves every colour of the spectrum, he sold gloves made of wool, of leather, of rubber, cotton, fox skin, calfskin, kidskin, moleskin, wire. I was prized above all his other customers. I had been coming to him for many years and always bought several pairs of gloves whenever I came. Most of his customers, Mr Behrens said, make their gloves last for years, sometimes decades even. But among my customers, he said, are you, Francis, loyal and almost regular in your visits and always requiring, in bulk, the same traditional white cotton gloves, boxed and wrapped in tissue paper.