Mr. Timothy

by Louis Bayard

  —Have you ever been in a studio, Philomela? No? Well, it’s quite simple, really, but you must keep very still. And there’s this very alarming sort of tongs thing we fasten round your head to make sure it doesn’t move. Oh, it’s awful, but it’s only for a minute or two. Can you stand it?

  —Why, yes, I can.

  —Of course, if we don’t get a good likeness the first time out, we’ll just keep at it, shall we? There’s loads of time. Oh, and you mustn’t mind the smell too much, that’s just the chemicals in the darkroom. Now, you’re not to go in there just yet, it’s far too dangerous. Mind you, Peter said the same thing to me, but you know, he’s quite hopeless at mixing things, so it’s…and I seem to recall some rumour about you being an artist?

  —Yes.

  —Well, that’s just the ticket. We’re always needing new backdrops, aren’t we, Peter? And it’s so tiresome engaging other people to do it when there’s someone on the premises. And besides, I think that sort of thing is woman’s work, don’t you?

  —Woman.

  I stand there, watching, in a daze of admiration. And in case I needed any further sign, there is this: a red ribbon, appearing mysteriously in the vicinity of Annie’s palm and travelling straight to the crown of Philomela’s head.

  It takes only a few seconds of gazing at that ribbon…wrapping her fingers round it and undertaking the near-religious labour of putting it in its proper place…and the symptoms of bereavement begin to slough off Philomela’s face. So engrossed is she in girding herself for the camera’s scrutiny—so absorbed are they all—that it becomes the easiest thing in the world to leave them to one another and slip out the door. The bell rings as I go, but when I glance through the window, no eyes are turned my way.

  Indeed, my privacy has rushed back to me with a vengeance. The old beggar on the corner refuses to stir. Three oblivious young boys dash past me, cuffing one another and dragging sleds after them.

  And the two backgammon players on the opposite side of the street simply carry on as before. The only thing that has changed is their appearance. One of the men has traded in his scarf for a rather jaunty cravat. He has even traded in his features. Acquired a pair of round, wide-set eyes…a half smile and a dimpled chin…oh, yes, Philomela drew an excellent likeness.

  The other man has his back to me, but of course, I would know that back anywhere. Just as I would know every feature of that long, wizened body: the pipestem legs, the elbows pointing in the wrong directions…the hectored attentiveness…all unmistakable.

  Well, I’ve said it before. Ghosts must pass the time quite as much as the next fellow. Why not a quick round of backgammon?

  The only remaining mystery is this: when did Father learn to play?

  —Merry Christmas, gentlemen!

  But they have ears only for each other. And so I forge down Oxford Street without another word, and it’s not until I reach the corner that I think to call back after them.

  —And a Happy New Year!

  And this time, I don’t wait for a response. This time, I keep walking.

  16 February 1861

  Somewhere west of Saint Jago

  Dear Father,

  It is three days since we quitted Porto Prayo, but the islands of the Cape de Verd archipelago seem loath to quit us. At sunset, the hazy envelope that surrounds them bursts open, and the barren plains of lava flash once more onto our eyes: the conical hills, the jagged peaks—everything, right down to the smallest grove of cocoa-nut trees, standing naked as a newborn.

  And all through the day, a fine brown dust rains down on us, like manna—so fine, indeed, that you scarcely notice it at first, and then after a short while, you notice nothing else, and your eyes sting so mightily you have no choice but to go belowdecks. I had assumed the dust was a farewell benediction of sorts from Porto Prayo, but Professor Bramthwaite informs me it is composed largely of minute organisms called infusoria, many of which have blown all the way from Africa on the harmattan.

  How, you might ask, did the son of a clerk wangle passage on a three-masted bark bound for New Zealand?

  Well, it is all Gully’s doing.

  The day after Christmas, I communicated the news of his death to his one known acquaintance: a naval outfitter in Radcliffe. From this gentleman I learned that an unexpected berth had opened up on the Perseverant, an ancient ten-gun brig refitted for more peaceable uses.

  The position was assistant to the ship’s naturalist. An unexalted title, but was I qualified for anything better? I was not. I signed on at once, and here you find me.

  The work is not, in itself, inspiring—cataloguing specimens, taking down Professor Bramthwaite’s dictation, carrying his gear from one outpost to the next—and it does not begin in earnest until we round Cape Horn. Until then, the professor is, for the most part, good company, even if he does talk in rather extravagant circles. I have also made fast friends with the ship’s hydrographer and with Mr. Keeling, the surgeon, who possesses a surprisingly vast collection of erotic drawings (to which I donated my one).

  My best company, however, comes to me in dreams. Just the other night, I had Mother over for a visit. Such a long time it had been! You won’t be surprised to learn that she came armed at all points with instruction: Put your cabin tidy, Tim, every night and every morning. Refrain from spitting whilst on deck. Take care to sit at the captain’s right, never the left. And above all else, do not fraternise with the common seaman.

  With this last exhortation, she was, I’m afraid, too late. Several nights back, stupefied by boredom, I wandered out by the forecastle and found a ring of sailors, playing all-fours and passing round a jug of skilly. One of these fellows was wearing a scrimshaw necklace, which prompted me—mostly out of desperation—to introduce Gully’s name into the conversation. And would you credit it, Father? Two of the riggers knew Gully, too!

  We all had a delightful chat about him and then toasted his health in the checkered moonlight. It was like drinking him straight into our system.

  We stop at Majorca on the way home. Did I mention?

  The last thing Uncle N said to me before I left was:

  —Your father would be so proud, Tim.

  Given that I haven’t actually seen you since Christmas Day, it is a difficult statement to corroborate. I can only conclude, as Uncle himself once said, that you have gone to your rest. At last. I hope my thoughts do not pester you too much.

  And if they do, then indulge me with one final memory….

  It was several months after your first fit of apoplexy, and a week or so before the second. A late Sunday afternoon, just spilling into twilight, and I was bringing up a pot of weak tea, and everything about this act—the creaking of the stair, the squeaking of my shoes, the tea’s dun pallor—resonated with dreariness.

  Imagine my surprise, then, to open your door and find you sitting straight up in bed, still in your nightshirt, with an expression of unhinged joy. I asked you what had happened, and this is what you said:

  —It’s coming! Any minute now. The coach to Hertford.

  This coach, apparently, was to take you to your uncle Geoffrey, a dairy farmer who’d been dead some twenty years. Not knowing exactly how to reply, I asked you if you wouldn’t rather take the railway. You looked at me then with such a profound lack of comprehension that I realised you had gone back to a time before the railway. I daresay you were all of five or six at the moment, and here you were, going on a journey! What better thing to contemplate?

  And so, upon further reflection, I decided there was nothing for it but to sit with you and wait for the coach to Hertford. The surprise lay in how much I enjoyed it. There you were, prattling on about how long it had been since your last trip—a year, I think—and how lovely the grass smelt there and good Uncle Geoffrey and good Aunt Hilda, always letting you milk your favourite cow (Yancy), and no children of their own, perhaps they might leave the farm to you someday, wouldn’t that be just…

  And there I was, saying the sorts of
things I imagine a parent would say:

  —Yes, won’t it? Oh, that should be quite the treat!

  Yet our positions were not exactly reversed. If anything, a kind of equality had settled over us. We were both free of duty, free of regret. Nothing to contemplate but this journey. An eternally arrested moment of anticipation: you were never happier.

  In my heart, Father, there are many other memories—to be carried down to my grave—but I can never forget how you looked that day. The years blown away. The griefs numbed into silence…indeed, not yet experienced. Your fingers fluttered, and your face tilted irrepressibly towards the sky of your bedroom ceiling, and you were a gift that would never have to be returned. I shall always have that. Dear Father.

  P.S. Insights, Interviews & More…

  About the author

  Author Biography

  An Interview with Louis Bayard

  About the book

  A Christmas Carol Quiz

  Know Your Dickens?

  Read on

  Fun Facts About A Christmas Carol

  An Excerpt from Louis Bayard’s Pale Blue Eye

  For Further Reading: A Victorian-Era Bibliography

  About the author

  Author Biography

  LOUIS BAYARD is a novelist, reviewer, and journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Nerve.com, Salon.com, and Ms.Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Bayard grew up in Springfield, Virginia. He received his B.A. in English literature from Princeton University, where he studied under Joyce Carol Oates, and his M.S.J. in journalism from Northwestern University.

  He has worked as a Congressional press secretary, a communications director, and a speechwriter. His Washington Post Magazine article “Two Men and a Baby” was nominated for “Outstanding Newspaper Article” by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Bayard’s other novels are Fool’s Errand and Endangered Species (Alyson). He contributed to the humor anthology 101 Damnations (St.Martin’s), and he is one of the essayists in the upcoming Salon.com anthology To Breed or Not to Breed (HarperCollins).

  He lives in Washington, D.C., with his partner and his son.

  An Interview with

  Louis Bayard

  When and where did you get the first spark of the idea for this book?

  I’d always been intrigued by the idea of revisiting a famous author or work, having seen it done very successfully by people like Michael Cunningham and Gregory Maguire and Sena Jeter Naslund (and Henry Fielding, centuries ago). It just sounded like fun to take a really well-known literary artifact and put a new spin on it—and maybe, in the process, find a new register in my own voice.

  What appealed to you about revisiting a well-known book and character like A Christmas Carol’s Tiny Tim?

  It was Dickens who drew me there. He’s the author I loved most as a child (along with Mark Twain) and I think he’s been the biggest influence in my own writing. So it just seemed natural to make him my co-conspirator. And I picked Tiny Tim because, when I thought about the whole gallery of Dickens characters, he was the one who satisfied me the least. Even as a child, I never really believed in Tiny Tim, and I began to wonder if there wasn’t something that Dickens didn’t tell us about him. And then I thought: Wouldn’t it be interesting to turn this character inside out? Scrape away all the layers of sentiment and familiarity and see what was left? And out of that impulse came this rather dark story.

  I should say it was never my intention to write a sequel to A Christmas Carol. more interested in using characters from that story to explore themes of loss and family and belonging. But I found, as I was writing it, that it was following a redemptive arc similar to the original story. And that’s I think what ultimately makes it a Christmas story, because it has that hopeful trajectory.

  *

  “I picked Tiny Tim because, when I thought about the whole gallery of Dickens characters, he was the one who satisfied me the least.”

  *

  Was it daunting following in Charles Dickens’s footsteps?

  No, it was a real kick, because I was very clear in my mind from the very beginning that I wasn’t going to be Charles Dickens or write like him. Because no one can—Dickens is Dickens. My object, really, was to work against the grain of the original story while, at the same time, looking for patches of common ground. So, in the end, it felt more like a collaboration than anything else, and what better collaborator could a guy find than Dickens?

  *

  “I was very clear in my mind from the very beginning that I wasn’t going to be Charles Dickens or write like him. Because no one can.”

  *

  What did you read or re-read while you were working on this book?

  The first thing I did was to re-read A Christmas Carol. Which is an eye-opening experience, because even if you think you “know” the story, you don’t. You see, for instance, how dark the story is compared to some of its later incarnations. Dickens was passionately concerned with the suffering that was going on around him, particularly the suffering of children. You also find that the Cratchit family is sketched fairly lightly—two of the Cratchit children are not even named. And Tiny Tim, for all his symbolic weight, occupies a relatively small portion of the narrative, and we never actually see him meeting Scrooge. So I found I had a lot of space for embroidering and inventing.

  And I now had a wonderful excuse to read more of Dickens’s work—books I’d always wanted to read, like Dombey and Son and Little Dorrit. And I read a lot of Wilkie Collins, who was a good friend of Dickens’s and a wonderful novelist in his own right. One of my big finds was Henry Mayhew, another contemporary of Dickens. He was this fascinating combination of journalist and social scientist who just prowled the streets of mid-nineteenth-century London and produced one of the most remarkable urban compendia I’ve ever seen. It has everything from statistics on the amount of manure in the streets to man-on-the-street interviews with crossing sweeps and rat catchers and river dredgers like Captain Gully. I’m guessing a lot of writers have been drawing on him over the years.

  *

  “I think we’re all haunted to some extent by our past.”

  *

  Mr. Timothy’s father is a powerful presence in the book. You became a father yourself fairly recently. Did the experience of having a child impact the writing of this book? What about your own father, and your relationship with him—any influences there?

  Well, my father is still very much alive, so he hasn’t been haunting me in the streets. But I think we’re all haunted to some extent by our past. And it’s true, there’s nothing like becoming a parent to put the past in a new light. When you experience what it takes to get one child through one day, you get a little dazzled realizing you were the beneficiary of that, too—this long chain of giving and receiving.

  *

  “So his [Dickens’s] books are really hybrids, with a little bit of everything: thrills and laughs and pathos and satire and social commentary and just a lot of life. And that’s a great model for any writer.”

  *

  When I was writing the book, one of the images I kept coming back to was Bob Cratchit carrying Tiny Tim on his shoulders through the streets of London. Well, I’ll tell you, I have a pretty light three-year-old, and after seven or eight blocks of carrying him on my shoulders, I’m needing some relief. So I wanted Tim to come to the same realization—to see that his father was acting as his “legs” and acting at great physical sacrifice. Unfortunately, his father has to be dead before Tim can see him that way. That does seem to be the way of things.

  This book has been described as a “literary thriller”—do you think that’s accurate? Is it the kind of book you set out to write? Was it difficult to weave together these two elements?

  I didn’t necessarily set out to write a thriller or a mystery, although I love both those genres (as did Dickens). But it soon became clear to me that if I wanted Tim to experience this fairly profound transformation—to become, as David
Copperfield says, the hero of his own story—I would have to pound him pretty hard. And the thriller element really came out of that. I needed to put him in extremis. And, of course, I wanted the book to be entertaining in the same way that all of Dickens’s stuff is entertaining. Dickens was a serialized novelist, so he was willing to give readers what they liked because he knew he had to keep them coming back. So his books are really hybrids, with a little bit of everything: thrills and laughs and pathos and satire and social commentary and just a lot of life. And that’s a great model for any writer.

  What are you working on now?

  I’m looking at another well-known nineteenth-century author: Edgar Allan Poe. Since Poe was, among other things, the creator of the detective story, I thought it would be fun to put him at the center of a mystery. The book is called The Pale Blue Eye, and it will feature a younger Poe than we’re used to seeing. We pick him up when he’s still in his early twenties—a cadet at West Point. He’s going to be thrown in with an older man, himself a detective, and their relationship will really form the heart of the book. And this being Poe, there will be more traffic with dead folk. Once you start hanging out with ghosts, it’s tough to leave them behind.

  I have to admit, I had some trepidation about taking on Poe, because his sensibility is so Gothic and extreme, and I just wasn’t sure I could get there. But then I reread portions of Mr. Timothy, and I thought: No, you’re gruesome enough. You’re there already.

  About the book

  A Christmas Carol Quiz

  Keep in mind, this quiz is based on Dickens’s Christmas Carol, not on any movie or television series that has been made from the book.

  1. Marley’s first name was ______.

  a: Phillip

  b: Geoff

  c: Jacob

  2. ______ is the name of Scrooge’s nephew.

  a: John

  b: Fred

  c: George

  3. ______ and Scrooge were apprentices for Fezziwig.