Isabel's Skin

by Peter Benson

  Sometimes my work as a book valuer was like a bag over my head, blinding and suffocating me with an endless parade of half-remembered truths, stories and lies. As the evening failed and the night crept over the hills and touched the windows, I put the tiepin in my pocket and left Belmont for Professor Hunt’s house. I told Miss Watson I would be back for supper, but did not tell her where I was going. She said she was serving cold cuts and cheese, so I did not have to worry about anything spoiling.

  The light shifted from milky-to steel-blue, and birds chattered before settling down for the night. Between the shifting, loaded clouds, the moon appeared. It was creeping towards full, like a bucket holding water, tipping towards me and the path, pouring its light down.

  As I headed across the fields to the woods, I heard a scurrying and watched a pair of rabbits scamper ahead of me, but when I reached the trees, a half-silence came down like a blanket, and all I could hear was the sound of the burbling stream, my shoes squelching in the ground, and my breathing.

  I felt uneasy as I walked, but did not feel I was watched or my steps were counted, and when I reached the crest of the hill, I did not stop. Candles were burning in Hunt’s house, the chimney was smoking, and as I headed down the other side of the hill I heard a piano. Someone was playing Bach, a transcription from St Matthew’s Passion. I stopped to listen and was reminded of home, for when I lived with my father, he hummed the oratorio endlessly. He disliked many types of music – he thought opera could sap the will to live and that music-hall performers were more dangerous than Catholics – but he loved Bach. He believed the man’s harmonic explorations proved – if proof was required by the faithless – the existence of God.

  “Bach recognized his gift as divine,” he would say, “so if we listen closely, we can hear Christ’s voice in his.”

  Before Father took this theory any further, I would go for a walk if I could.

  Bach was a great walker. With his wig thrown back and his breeches flapping, he found consolation in long walks.

  A digression. Towards the end of my time as a book valuer, I was asked to travel to Germany. It was a long trip, but the music department was short-staffed, so I was given a background briefing to the history of German music and sent to the town of Arnstadt to look at some manuscript scores that had surfaced in the collection of a dead organist. Many were based on work by Goethe, and included an autograph sketch from Wagner’s Faust Overture. I also found manuscripts by Liszt, Mendelssohn, Spohr and Zelter, and when I had completed an outline valuation I visited the church where Bach had worked as organist. A guide explained that the man had had a light schedule in Arnstadt, and one day had set out to walk 250 miles to visit a colleague in Lübeck. The journey took him ten days, and when it was time for him to return, he stayed for an extra three months.

  I remember lying on my hotel bed, nursing my mouth, thinking about Bach’s feet soaking in a bowl of warm salt water. Earlier in the day, I had been stung on the tongue by a wasp that had found its way onto my plate of veal and cabbage, and although I was no longer in pain I was still feeling sorry for myself, so far from home and alone on a strange bed in a dim room with faded prints on the wall.

  Hunt’s garden was more overgrown than it looked from a distance, and the gate was stuck. I had to lift it off its hinges to get in, then put it back and stumbled through a mass of weeds and grasses, rambling roses and honeysuckle to the front step. There was no knocker, so I banged on the door with my fist and took a step back.

  I waited for a moment. There was no answer, so I knocked again. The Bach stopped suddenly, like the man himself had simply fallen down a hole in the middle of the road, wig off, breeches ripped. There was movement inside the house. I heard what sounded like a piece of wood being scraped across gravel and then it stopped, and a moment later a bolt was drawn back, keys jangled, a lock turned and the door opened a crack. A voice said, “Yes?”

  “Professor Hunt?”

  “Who is this?”

  “David. David Morris. We met this afternoon. I’m working at Belmont.”

  “Ah, Mr Morris. The cataloguer. How are you today?”

  “I’m well.”

  “Excellent,” he said, and he opened the door wide. As he did, a strange, thick smell drifted out. At first I thought it was burning almonds, then I thought it was roses and then I could not decide what it was. It was sweet and stale, clung to the inside of my nostrils and would not let go. My eyes began to run, and then I was hit by a blast of heat – mad, boiling heat. I took a step back and, as I did, my eyes adjusted to the hallway that stretched out in front of me. There were no pictures on its walls or carpets on the floor, and I was overwhelmed by the feeling that this house was unloved and unholy. Hunt was wearing a white coat and wiping his hands on a towel. “I apologize,” he said. “I would ask you in, but I’m in the middle of something and…”

  “No,” I said, “I didn’t mean to interrupt you, but…” The smell suddenly caught in my throat. I stopped talking and gagged.

  “But?”

  “But,” I said, “I found this, and, well, assumed it was yours.” I took the tiepin out of my pocket and placed it in the palm of my hand. “I think you may have dropped it.” It winked at me, once.

  His eyes changed quickly when he saw the pin, and he smiled as he reached out and took it from me. He turned it over and squinted at the inscription, then polished it on his sleeve. “Oh, thank you,” he said. “Thank you so much. I was going quite mad with worry. I tried to remember where I had been, who I had seen, but you know how it is. It’s so easy to forget, and this is so precious to me.”

  “I thought it would be,” I said.

  “It is.”

  “Well…”

  “It was presented by my colleagues when I left Cambridge.” His eyes swivelled away from me and then, suddenly, I sensed he was telling a lie.

  “You worked in Cambridge?”

  “Yes,” said Hunt. “You know the place?”

  “I’ve visited.”

  “Quite the most beautiful city in the country,” he said.

  “Yes, it is lovely,” I said, but I was not really thinking about it. Sweat was pouring down my back, and now all I wanted to do was to get back into the fields and woods. The smell of almonds or roses was growing more powerful, and I did not wait to be offered anything, so I turned and stepped back. I took one step, then another, and as I took a third I heard a whimper, a long, low wheeze of pain that started quietly and then disappeared.

  At first I thought it came from a cat or a dog, an animal locked in a cupboard, and while I waited to hear claws scratching down the back of a door, I heard a pair of quick, short gasps and then a woman’s scream, a scream of such pain that every hair on my body stood on end and the blood flushed from my face. She was upstairs, directly above me. I heard the scrape of her feet and the bang of her head or something against the wall. The scream reached a pitch that threatened to shatter the windows, and then it faded back to the whimper. “Good Lord!” I said. “Who’s that?”

  “Who’s what?”

  “That!” I said. “Who’s screaming?”

  “Oh,” he shook his head, lowered his voice and took a step towards me, “that… that is my sister.”

  “Your sister?”

  “Yes. I’m afraid so.”

  “Is she… she…”

  “She’s unwell.”

  “She sounds in pain.”

  “That’s because she is,” he said.

  The whimper came again.

  “What’s… what’s her illness?”

  He shook his head, and a grim cloud drifted into his eyes. “She recently returned from India. She contracted malaria in Calcutta, and it has fallen upon me to nurse her – hopefully – back to health.”

  “Hopefully?”

  “She has been close to death.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I. She is so dear to me.” He held up the pin, said “Thank you so much for this�
� and started to close the door.

  “If I can be of any assistance,” I said.

  He held the door half open. “That’s kind of you, but I think I have all I need. However, if I do need to call on you, maybe I could leave word with Miss Watson.”

  “Of course.”

  “But for now I must ask you to let me get back to her,” and with that, he closed the door, and I was alone in the garden again.

  I started to walk, but was no farther than the gate before I heard the scream again, fainter now but just as desperate and sad. I turned and stopped, and scanned the upstairs windows.

  Light was escaping through the cracks in one of the curtained windows, and I saw a shadow move against it. It stopped, it stayed and then it was gone and the light was gone. I went through the gate and into the fields and found myself half-running in a panic, up the hill and into the woods, under the trees and splashing through the stream and down the other side, and I could hear my mother’s calm voice in my head, telling stories about branches that grab and cling, houses of sugar and goblins waiting with copper pots, and I heard her voice ringing in my head until I could see Belmont’s lights shining at me. Miss Watson’s cats were at the back door, crying around my feet as I stumbled into the house, clattered through the kitchen and climbed the stairs to my room.

  I had a bad, frightening night. I lay awake for an hour and wondered: was Hunt too convincing? A convincing nurse or a convincing liar? Could a malarial woman sit up, let alone have the strength to scream? And what was that smell? And who made the ghostly shadow against the half-lit curtains? And as my questions and thoughts swept one way and the other, the lonely scream echoed in my head. It would not leave me, and as it grew, I stared at the moon as she failed through the dark. Her colours twisted and swirled from cream to blue and milk and white, and when clouds crossed her face she winced. She winced and maybe I heard her sigh. I do not know, but when I fell asleep, my dreams were filled with darker sighs and screams, and the music of a deep, endless loss. A woman was there, locked in a cage. She was holding the bars, looking at me, mouthing words and making signs with her hands. Dogs were there too, chained to walls, snarling and rearing on their back legs. They were barking at me, and as I tried to work my way around them, Hunt appeared and started shouting at me. He yelled about respect and intelligence and how people like me were worms, and when I looked at the ground it was crawling with maggots. They were making a low, slithering noise, and some of them started to climb my legs. I tried to brush them off, but they would not go away, and the more I brushed the more they climbed. I opened my mouth to yell, but my voice stuck and nothing came out. The dogs did not stop barking, the woman did not stop mouthing and moving her hands. I tried to take a step towards her, but I was stuck, the worms were climbing higher, I felt one work its way inside my collar and climb down my spine. I opened my mouth again and as I did I started awake.

  Sweat was pouring down my face, the heat was overwhelming and my body was paralysed. My sheets, blankets and pillows were scattered across the floor. I tried to move, but could not. My arms and legs felt as though they were bolted to the bed, and my eyes were frozen open. I stared at the ceiling and tried to speak, but my tongue would not move and my lips were broken. This state lasted for another hour, and then I was asleep again and in a different dream. The same woman was there, but now she had a voice and she was wailing at me, pleading and waiting. “Help!” she called. “Please, help me…” I listened, but there was nothing I could do.

  When the morning came, I joined Miss Watson for breakfast, but I was exhausted and could not eat. She was angry and said “What time did you get in?” with a snap to her voice that made me sit up and wince.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I’ve no idea.”

  “It was late.”

  “I know. I had a…”

  “A what?”

  “A…” I said, but I could not explain. The words stuck in my throat like little bones.

  She wagged a finger and said, “His Lordship was an extremely hospitable gentleman, but he would not have approved. Stumbling back in the middle of the night, crashing and banging on the stairs. I never heard anything like it. The cats were beside themselves, and as for me… I don’t like to say what I thought. Burglars, anyone…”

  “It won’t happen again,” I said.

  She sipped some tea. “I should hope not.”

  “But I was out.”

  “So you were saying…”

  “I went to visit Professor Hunt and had a very strange…”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I saw Professor Hunt again. I found his tiepin.”

  “You found his tiepin?”

  “Yes. He dropped it yesterday. I was returning it.”

  Miss Watson stood up from the table and went to the cooker. She said, “I knew you were up to no good. I knew it. I should have told you.”

  “Told me what?”

  “Not to go over there.”

  “And why would you have told me that?”

  “Because… because he is not to be trusted,” she said, and she slammed a frying pan on the stove and crossed her arms. “Not after what he did.”

  “And what was that?” Now I raised my voice. “Last night, while I was over there, I heard someone screaming. A woman. Upstairs in the house. She sounded in pain.”

  “A woman?”

  “Yes. He said she was his sister. And he said she was malarial, suffering…”

  “Malarial? What is that?”

  “Malaria is a tropical disease. He said she caught it in India.”

  She huffed and said, “I’ve no idea about India and no idea what goes on over there, no idea at all. Maybe the Professor has a sister, maybe not. But I do know His Lordship leant him some books, and that was something he never did. He would have sooner leant money than one of his books; God knows how Hunt persuaded him. And that was the last His Lordship ever saw of them. Of course, he was too much of a gentleman to ask for their return. I believe he wrote letters, but they did no good. No good at all. Hunt!” Miss Watson spat the name. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he did have a sick sister over there. Nothing would surprise me about him. Nothing…” And when I opened my mouth to ask another question she shook her head before I could speak, and I was left to blink at the day, and I wished the floor would open up and a bed would appear and I could be laid down by gentle hands. I did think this, but the floor remained solid, so I left the kitchen and Miss Watson, and went to the library.

  I worked for an hour but could not concentrate. The books blurred and the birds sang outside the window. The latch was padlocked. Once or twice I left the library, went outside and stood in the drive. I considered my choices. If I ordered a gig, I could be at Taunton station in time for the last train, and home before nightfall. Ah, home. Comfort, peace. I was thinking about the pleasures of familiarity when I heard the sound of an approaching carriage. I stood and watched as it came into view, turned and stopped in front of the house. The driver climbed down and opened the door for a top-hatted man in an immaculate black suit. I took him for an undertaker, but he introduced himself as Mr Prior-Stewart, the lawyer charged with the business of Lord Malcolm’s probate. As we were shaking hands, Miss Watson appeared at the front door. She made a pretence of ignoring me, and as she showed the gentleman in, I caught his eye and he pursed his lips and gave me the faintest of smiles, as if he understood me very well and I was not to feel slighted. Slighted? I did not feel slighted, but I was left with the thought that I did not wish to return to my work.

  I walked to Ashbrittle, sat in the graveyard and listened to the sound of the wind rustling through the yew. I saw the red-haired man I had seen before, but he did not stop to talk. He was digging and whistling as he worked, and two birds were sitting on the wall behind him, waiting for the likely worm or beetle, flying away and then back again, and calling between themselves. There was a vague, hazy feeling in the damp air, warm but with a cold edge, like red turning to white.
Or something. I could not put my finger on it, but I tried to. I tried very hard, like a child tries to thread a needle, or a dog tries to catch a cat in a tree. Although I was there I felt parted from the scene, as if I was looking at a picture, not a reality. Or, again, something.

  I had planned to go back to Belmont, but I changed my mind again, went through the village and down the hill, and the sky and hedges led me on. I reached a bridge over a river. I stood and watched the water, listened to the breeze in the trees and thought about London. I had a day’s work left to do and then I could return without worrying about whether I had abandoned the work. I looked at my watch. It was half-past twelve, so I carried on walking, past a straggle of poor, ruined houses to the crossroads at Appley. I was trying to decide whether I should chance a drink at the public house or turn round and return to Ashbrittle, when I heard a carriage. I stood on the verge to let it pass. The driver slowed, the window opened and Mr Prior-Stewart put his head out and said, “Can I offer you a lift?”

  “Thank you,” I said, “but no. I was just taking the air.”

  “Are you quite sure? I was considering some refreshment. Apparently Mrs Beck draws a fine cider.”

  “Mrs Beck?”

  “At Appley.”

  “Well,” I said, “I am tempted. Lord Malcolm’s library does induce a fair thirst.”

  “Then climb in,” he said.

  Mrs Beck and her dog remembered me, and as I waited for our drinks, she asked if Miss Watson had packed her bags. When I asked why Miss Watson would have packed, I was told that now the new Lord Buff-Orpington was moving to Belmont, the place would be changing and she would no longer be needed. The house would be transformed, the old times and ways would be swept away, and nothing would be the same again. The orchard would be lawned, and tennis courts would be built. Mr Prior-Stewart smiled and shook his head but did not say anything, and the other customers – two florid labourers – looked us up and down and wiped their mouths with the backs of their hands. We took our drinks outside and sat at a table in a shaded corner of the garden, and I said, “Tennis courts?”