‘Why would someone send us his shoes?’ Aldous said.
‘There’s a note here,’ said Colette. It was from the station authorities advising that these items were unclaimed from locker number 342 at Paddington Station.
Colette lifted up a small, thick book. The Schirmer edition of the Bach B Minor Mass. Then a pewter tankard. The only other thing was an old crumbling box file stuffed with documents.
The box was wooden covered with a ripped veneer in imitation of seasoned leather. She recognized it vaguely as an object that had hung around the house in different rooms for years, never attracting much attention, one of those objects that becomes invisible with over-familiarity.
Inside the lid there was a small grey illustration depicting Christ holding open a Decalogue that was only numbers.
The box contained assorted documents. There were all the letters from Bill gathered together with a thick rubber band. Their scrolled italics and decoration made them seem like a wad of medieval charters. She didn’t read the letters. They were almost impossible to decipher, the writing either so ornate or so clumsily written as to be illegible.
‘We don’t have to go through it all,’ said Aldous, rather feebly, because he was as inexorably drawn to the matter in the box as she was, sitting down at the table next to his wife and picking through all the papers with her. The documents were so randomly assembled, old school reports mixed in with old wage slips, letters, official documents, photos, memos, that every layer contained a new and baffling surprise.
There was a copy of a booklet entitled ‘Notes on Sickness or Industrial Injury Benefit’. A letter from Humphrey Burton, presenter of Aquarius on BBC2, telling him his contribution to their programme on Paganini wouldn’t be needed. A school report book over which Janus had scribbled his own comments and amendments. An envelope addressed to the Senior Chief Supervisor (male) International exchange, Wren House, 15/23 Carter Lane, London EC4. A certificate of full-time education or part-time training. A till receipt from WG Peters (off-license) for fifty-two pence (7th May 1971). A negative of Janus and James standing on a grey dune before a black sea. A letter with dying lilies on it. A letter demanding £33.50 on settlement of a hire purchase agreement on a Vincent HRD motorbike. There were some drawings by Janus, on Basildon Bond notepaper, one of a corduroy jacket. A postcard of Moelfre on the back of which was written the names for organ stops
Choir
Swell
Cong
Diap
Congra
Octave
Wald
Fluto
Priest’s Note
Dulcima
A sheet of blank notepaper on which was written the words
ICH BIEN DIE
A slate from the off-license A letter written in pencil in clumsy handwriting
A letter written in pencil in clumsy handwriting
Dear Mr Jones
It may have slipped your memory but just before you resigned you borrowed a pound from me. This may not be a large amount but I would be grateful for its return.
Yours sincerely
Terry
There was a list of dialling codes
01
Advise Duration
02
Advise Duration and Charge
03
Try Again – answering machine
04
Attended call office
05
Coin box cancelled
06
Circuit cut off
07
Collect
08
Connect
09
Charge to Distant
010
Defer until
011
Delay
012
Deposit paid
013
Directory enquiry
014
Engaged
015
Engaged, do not interrupt
016
Engaged, refused call
017
Enquiry
018
Extension
019
Full rate
020
Fresh call booked
021
Further delay
022
Fixed time
023
Generals
024
How long holding?
025
Hasten report
026
Heard to finish
027
Incoming international subscriber dialling
028
Local
029
Local will advise
030
Looking for required person
031
Minutes
032
No lines
033
No reply
034
No tone
035
No trace of number
036
No trace of person
A Short History of the Parish Church of St Thomas of Canterbury at Northaw, Herts (illustrated).
A pocket diary that petered out after April.
A list of names in biro
Seamus
Percy
Wally
Ron H
Ron S
Gordon
Harold
Jack
Bert
Fred
(Sam)
Martin
George
Harry
Geoff
Stan
A vet’s business card.
An advisory booklet on Enfield smoke control area.
A ticket to a recital by Paul Tortelier and Eric Heidsieck at The Queen Elizabeth Hall.
A list of books
Idle Days in Patagonia
The Way of All Flesh
The Poets’ Pilgrimage, WH Davies
Don Quixote
Nietzsche, the Case of Richard Wagner
Chopin, Man and Musician
Chopin, The Man and his Music
Chopin
A list of books overdue from Windhover Hill library
Tank Engine Thomas
2/6
Loxton, Railways
12/6
Crompton, William the Rebel
5/-
Kipling, Captain Courageous
10/6
Blyton, Five go Adventuring Again
10/6
Virgil, Works
10/6
Burton, True Book about Deserts
5/-
Awdry, Henry the Green Engine
5/-
Your clock number has been changed to 1909
A ten pound fine from Tottenham magistrates court (Drunk and Disorderly).
A postcard of the Wolsey closet, Hampton Court Palace.
‘A Day In Wales’, by William Arthur Poucher
And the cherub stands before God.
All who can call at least one
Soul, Theirs join in our
Song of Praise; but any
Who cannot must creep
Tearfully away from our circle.
All creatures drink of
Joy at Nature’s Breast
Just and Unjust alike
Taste of her
She gave us kisses and gifts
The fruit of the vine
A tried friend of the end
Even the worm can feel
Can feel contentment
J’aime les oeuvres de beaucup de compositeurs en effet de tous Les compositeurs mais l’un qui est Mon favouri s’apelle F. Chopin. Lependant a vrai dire, Je n’ai pas un compositeur favori, mais J’aime les ouvres do Chopin parce qu’ill composa de la musique pour le piano et le joue au piano.
Le premiere raison plus importante pourqoi Je M’amuse de jouer les ouevres de ce compositeur est parce qu’il est un compoisteur romantique, comme Robert Schuman et Francoise Liszt, et donc ses oeuvres satisfient mes sentiments romantiques.
Le piano est le moins sensitif de tous les intruments, mais ce fait aile seulemnt a clarifier le brilliance de Chopin, pour il pouvait fair chanter le piano et faire chuchoter cet instrument insensitif.
Cependant il ne avait pas ecrir de la musique pour l’otchestre et ce foublesse et le seul de Chopin. Combien de compositeurs on ecris des oeuvres commes les vingt-sept etudes de chopin. Les etudes son tres beauc et musiceaux et en mem temps ils sont tres utiles a un pianiste qui veut developer son technique
My Justices will Allow you Until the Eleventhof January 1974 to pay your outstandingfine in full. If not paid by that dateenforcement action will be taken.
Clerk to the Justices
L.A.C. Fish LLB (Lond)
Dearest Scipio
I congratulate you on having attained your fourthbirthday. I have not, as yet, arranged to purchase a birthday gift for you, but I would like to point out thatXXXXXXXX I have not yet, asyet, decided on the kind of gift I will get for you.
Love from your owner
Also in the box, near the bottom, almost the last thing they found, was a photograph of Colette taken perhaps twenty or more years before, a small black and white photograph of her sitting on the beach at Llanygwynfa, perhaps that first holiday they’d spent there, back in 1955. She was laughing in the picture, sunburnt and happy. Colette could see that there was something written on the back of this photograph, the writing had embossed itself in reverse on the picture. She turned it over. There was a poem on the back
Ode to Colette (Eau de Colette)
Bless her, Whom I (Janus)
Love above all other people,
Things, Rocks, Mountains, Music,
The Blue Sky, drink, animals,
Life itself.
She is the sweetest thing
I have ever seen, felt,
Spoken to.
But she is not all that I could wish for.
But I love her with all my being.
A lovely creature.
27
‘Drive me somewhere,’ said Colette, after reading the poem. ‘Drive me somewhere out of this city. Anywhere.’
So they got in the car and drove. They drove the usual way, a long, twisty crawl through suburban streets and shopping centres, until gradually the buildings depleted and green fields emerged. It was a pleasant spring day, a warm, low sun, a yellow sky.
Colette fell asleep in the car, so it was up to Aldous where they went. They ended up at Little Wessingham, the village they had visited many times the previous summer. Aldous parked in the small car park by the pub, two ponies staring at him over the fence, and beyond them the view across the meres to Welwyn Garden City and the Shredded Wheat factory.
Colette woke up shortly after Aldous switched the engine off. She looked around her, laughed at the ponies, then said ‘Why don’t we have a picnic? It’s a beautiful day.’
Aldous hadn’t expected his wife to be so full of energy, but she was soon out of the car and making her way towards the little village butcher’s and the grocer’s next door. There they bought food. There was a chicken pie in the butcher’s, the last pie in the shop. When Colette asked for it she heard a mournful voice behind her say ‘Well goodbye pie.’
They bought a bottle of wine in the grocer’s, and some rolls, and a small fruitcake and some cheese.
Aldous assumed they were going to have the picnic in the car, but Colette wanted to walk into the woods. There was a footpath that began at a stile beside the pub. They crossed this and walked across a field of pasture, made muddy at the start by the trampling of cattle, who were by now lying down in the opposite corner of the field.
Colette walked purposefully, as though to an urgent appointment. Aldous had to rush to keep up.
It was a walk they’d done many times before. They crossed a stile on the other side of the field and followed a winding path through a wood that was vivid with bluebells. The footpath slowly descended, and eventually came out on a bank above a river. Primroses littered the slopes.
They sat on the grassy bank. The river was a thick, swiftly flowing current lush with watercress and trailing green plant life. The view beyond was of the fields rising on the other side of the valley, topped by another wood. In the nearby mulberry bush were several mossy Corrida wine bottles, left as memorials to previous picnics. It was a place they’d begun to think of as their own.
‘Nothing has changed,’ Aldous said, though secretly he was worried about the way the old wine bottles looked so old. In less than a year they had nearly vanished beneath dead leaves and plant stalks.
They talked about the food. They commented on how delicious the pie was, the rolls, the cheese. Interspersed with this would be comments on the beauty of their surroundings, the sprouting mallows and pennyworts by the river. Now and then Colette would suddenly say ‘Look, a kingfisher!’ or ‘A water rat!’ and point to an area of the riverbank. Aldous, however, would only catch the retreating tail disappearing into a hole, or a telltale ripple in the water. But for most of the time they were thoughtfully silent. Until Colette brought the photograph out of her pocket. Aldous was surprised to see it. He’d thought she’d left it in the box. She looked at the picture of her younger self and smiled. Then she turned it over and read again the poem on the back.
‘He could have written it anytime.’
‘Let me have another look,’ said Aldous, reaching out a hand. Colette passed it to him.
‘He could have written it years ago,’ Colette went on, ‘or he could have written it the day before he died.’
‘We were so young then,’ said Aldous. Then, ‘I bet the farm’s still the same. I bet nothing has changed. I bet Mr and Mrs Evans are still there, don’t you think? The National Park authorities would never have given them permission to turn it into a caravan park . . .’
Colette ignored these remarks, which had been prompted by the location of the photograph – the beach at Llanygwynfa.
‘It has his recent voice,’ she said, ‘there’s something fresh about it.’
‘Yes,’ said Aldous, ‘that’s a good word. Fresh.’
After another period of silence, during which Colette continued to reread the poem, she gave a deep sigh and said, ‘Shall we kill ourselves?’
Aldous thought carefully.
‘How?’
‘The river. Do you think I would make a good Ophelia?’
‘Very,’ said Aldous.
‘We’d need something to weight our pockets with,’ said Colette.
Husband and wife looked at each other. Colette was the first to weaken. She began sobbing.
‘It has changed,’ she sobbed, ‘it’s not pretty any more.’ She folded her face into her arms, brought her knees up. ‘It’s not . . .’
‘We’ll find somewhere else,’ said Aldous.
Colette dried her eyes, gasped a little, then took another swig of wine from the bottle.
Then she lay down.
‘I’m going to sleep,’ she said.
The sun was as high as it was ever going to be that April day. Colette went to sleep very quickly. Aldous remained awake, listening to the river, wishing he had a book with him, or something to sketch with. Looking at his wife as she reclined on the grassy bank, her long, painted hair trailing out towards the mulberries, he thought that it would make a very good subject for a drawing. The awkwardness of her pose, the way the thorny strands of the bush seemed to be reaching out for her, as if to consume her. He thought about the painting he would do. Then he lay down and tried to sleep.
But he couldn’t. He didn’t feel tired. He lay as if asleep, however, for perhaps an hour.
Then he felt hungry, and sat up to cut another slice of pie with his penknife. He shooed two flies off the fruitcake, then noticed that a wasp was drowning in the wine. He let it drown. They probably wouldn’t drink any more wine that day.
Colette was in the same position. Aldous looked carefully to see if she was still breathing. There was a faintly discernible rise and fall
to her breast. He looked at his watch. It was two o’clock. They still had most of the afternoon. Aldous ate his piece of pie, and watched some rabbits in the opposite field.
After another hour Aldous was beginning to feel uncomfortable on the grass. His back was beginning to ache. He stood up and walked around, peed beside a tree, then continued walking in and out of the trees. He clambered down to the river itself, tried to see if he could see any fish or frogs. He couldn’t.
After another half an hour of this he really felt like going back to the car, but it seemed such a shame to wake Colette, she was sleeping so deeply, so peacefully. He decided to give her another half an hour. At four o’clock, if she hadn’t already woken, he would wake her.
So, at ten past four, he began talking to his wife to rouse her. But talking wasn’t enough. He had to shake her, gently at first, then more forcefully.
‘Come on,’ he said, repeatedly, ‘come on. Wake up.’
She opened her eyes, smiled at him, then closed them again.
Aldous thought that his wife must have had more to drink that morning than he realized. She was blotto. Out cold. Dead to the world. It was odd, though. She’d had no more than her usual couple of tumblers of White Horse that morning, then a few swigs of wine, perhaps half a bottle. When further rousing proved useless, Aldous wondered if they should resign themselves to spending the whole afternoon on the riverbank, to allow Colette time to sleep it off.
I’ll Go To Bed At Noon Page 45
