The Hopkins Conundrum

by Simon Edge

He was sick to death of the pain and was open to anything, and it might help his standing in the household if he showed willing.

  “Can you assure me it won’t hurt?” he pressed.

  The old man’s blue eyes laughed at him.

  “Of course not. But tell me – do the chilblains hurt?”

  “Certainly they do. Which is no reason to subject myself to additional pain.”

  “It would be, if the extra pain is a means to eliminating the original pain.”

  “Well, obviously. But you haven’t established that.”

  “That’s what you should have asked about, then. You need to know if it will work, not if it will hurt.”

  “And will it?”

  They had made their way out of the dining room and were at the sitting room door now.

  “We won’t know until we try it, will we?” Mallac winked.

  Hopkins had decided to come into the sitting room too. Volunteering for the treatment was a way of pulling down the wall he had erected between himself and the rest of them, and joining them after the meal was the natural next step. Because it felt so natural to him, it did not occur to Hopkins that it might not be so obvious to everyone else. There was no malice in Mallac as he opened the door for himself, without standing aside for Hopkins to go first or holding it for him to follow. He doubtless intended no rebuff when he said: “I’ll let you know when I’ve got the battery working and the tincture arrives. For now, my brave friend, good night.”

  The old man could have little idea how much it hurt when he closed the door behind him, still chuckling, leaving Hopkins with no choice but to continue his lonely climb to his own room.

  As he opened his own door, the sight of the piles of papers on his desk filled him with desolation. There were his notes for an essay on the Dorian measure that would never be published; the start of another on Homeric study, ditto; a letter to Bridges that he had been working on for a fortnight; a few pages of music where he had been trying to work up a melody that had come to him on a walk... It all seemed so pointless. Somewhere at the bottom of one of those piles was the manuscript of his poem about those poor wrecked nuns. Nothing had ever become of it, and he had given up trying to get an answer out of Coleridge. Where was the point of any of it? He couldn’t see any use continuing with any of these doomed, lonely projects. None of them would ever see the light of day.

  He sat on his hard wooden chair, frowned for a moment at the picture of Dolben on the carte de visite that the boy had sent all those years ago, then took a sheet of foolscap from the drawer and dipped his pen. He had the opening words of a sonnet, at least.

  “No worst, there is none…” he began to write.

  North Wales, the present

  Tim helps fetch his American guest’s luggage from his hire car, a colossal black-windowed Lexus that looks like it could be armour-plated, and leads the way upstairs to the better of the two rooms, in that it has a view of the valley rather than the car park. It has its own wash-basin, in a primrose shade that seems horribly dated to Tim, but Chloe has managed to make a feature of it by finding bedding and towels in various beiges and browns to set it off. Because having guests is all so new, Tim is flustered anyway, trying to remember all the things he ought to be saying about where the bathroom is, how to work the shower, what would his visitor like for his breakfast, and so on. And all the while his mind is racing though the implications of what is happening. He wonders if he should acknowledge it, come straight out and ask if the guy is Finbar Brook as in Barry Brook, the world-famous writer. Is it odd that he isn’t doing so, like he’s deliberately avoiding mentioning it? But since the guy hasn’t said he’s called Barry, mightn’t that be even more suspicious, as if Tim has particular reason to be thinking about Barry Brook?

  “I’ll leave you to, erm, settle in,” is all he says, leaving his guest to admire his uncle’s ancient oak desk and a car-boot sale watercolour of Rhuddlan Castle, and backing out like an anxious flunky. At least Brook won’t notice anything too odd about that last part: he probably thinks it’s completely normal for the British serving-classes to be feudally polite.

  He wonders if there is any point at all in entertaining the flimsy hope that Finbar Brook may not actually be Barry Brook. He is in a mood to clutch at any straw he can find. But Alun Gwynne shatters that possibility when Tim gets back downstairs by saying yes, he recognises the guy from what he remembers of his author picture. And Brook himself banishes any remaining doubt when he reappears in the bar ten minutes later.

  “Could either of you good gentlemen point me in the direction of Saint… now I don’t think I can pronounce this, but I have it written down…” he says, producing a Post-It note on which the name of St Vowelless’s is printed in neat capitals.

  It’s all getting to Tim now, and he is sure the beads of sweat on his forehead must be visible. But Alun Gwynne seems more than happy to play the role of quaint, garrulous local, telling their guest the way and asking if he has business at the college. He has to repeat himself a lot, and Tim is momentarily diverted to see that Brook is struggling with the old boy’s Welsh accent. But eventually Alun makes himself understood.

  “No, no,” says Brook. “I’m interested in the poet who used to live there, is all. Do you know his work? I guess everyone in these parts is real proud of him.”

  “I’ve barely read any of it,” says Tim. In his mind the phrase No worst there is none is playing on loop.

  “Me neither,” says Alun Gwynne. “For me he’s just another English incomer. No offence, landlord.”

  “None taken, Alun,” says Tim with a frozen smile.

  “But some people round here might be real experts, right? I mean, they could have all kinds of, like, theories about his work?”

  “Oh, not really,” says Tim. “That’s to say, I’ve never heard anyone talk about him. Certainly not in here. Have you, Alun?”

  “Not a soul, landlord.”

  Even Macca seems to shake his head in solidarity. If Tim gets out of this mess intact, the mutt can have a bag of pork scratchings on the house every day. Well, maybe every week.

  “Okay,” shrugs Brook. “I just wish I could find the son of a bitch who lured me here to tell me all about him, and has now disappeared into thin air.”

  Tim and Alun Gwynne tut sympathetically, but then Tim has to turn away because he can feel a muscle below his left eye begin to flutter uncontrollably. He bends behind the bar as if he’s attending to a beer keg.

  “Well, thank you gentlemen, I’ll make my way over to Saint … how do you pronounce that actually?” says Brook, and Alun Gwynne demonstrates. The American tries it himself a few times. His version is probably execrable, but Tim is in no position to cast the first stone.

  Halfway to the door, Brook turns back. “Just one other thing. You guys both know the landscape around here real well, right? Is there any particular hill that looks to you like a forehead?”

  Tim, who is emptying an overflowing drip tray into the sink, spills most of it down his jeans.

  He has offered his visitor a full Welsh breakfast, assuring him that everything will be free-range and locally sourced. Brook says he always likes an early-morning stroll before eating, which gives Tim the chance to nip down to Morrisons. There he locally sources a dozen eggs for one pound thirty-two, sausages and bacon on buy-one-get-one-free, and sell-by-date mushrooms from the discount counter. With a nice grind of rock salt and black pepper, a sprinkle of dried herbs and some fancy bread, the guy will never know the difference. He grabs some wild flowers out of a hedgerow on the way back and it all looks authentically rustic by the time it all gets to the table.

  Brook seems appreciative enough. He doesn’t volunteer whether or not he has found St Vowelless’s the previous evening and Tim doesn’t ask. He does ask if his visitor knows how long he’ll be staying, but the answer is vague.

  “I’m doing some
research in the area and I don’t know how long it’s going to take me,” says Brook.

  Perhaps that’s meant to be a cue for Tim to ask what kind of research – oh you’re a writer, hey wait, Finbar Brook, you’re not actually the… in my pub! well I’ll be…! But if it is, he ignores it and his guest is in no mood to chat. In fact the American doesn’t appear particularly relaxed around Tim and seems to be much more comfortable talking to Alun Gwynne. Tim decides that’s a sign of insecurity: he’s happy patronising the rude Welsh mechanical but can’t cope with an equal.

  After breakfast, Brook makes himself scarce, and Tim imagines him driving along the valley, sizing up each outcrop from every possible angle to see if it looks like a human brow. For a wistful moment, he allows himself to consider what a result this would have been in any other circumstances: one of the world’s most famous writers wandering around the lanes of North Wales researching a new book entirely at Tim’s behest. It is a case of sod’s law: if Tim was still desperate for Brook to come, and Chloe was not in the equation, he could be sure his guest would still be in America now, refusing all blandishments. But there is no point thinking like that, because Chloe is in the equation and that’s a good thing. Instead, he should thank his lucky stars that she isn’t coming this weekend. Having her around would make life seriously difficult.

  At about lunchtime he gets a text, although he is out at the back when it arrives, so he doesn’t notice it till mid-afternoon.

  Hey handsome, good news! I managed to move things around so I can come down this weekend!! The weather’s meant to be awesome so I couldn’t resist :) Hope that’s okay, let me know if it isn’t, otherwise I’ll get going as soon as I’ve grabbed what I need from home. Can’t wait to see you Cxxx

  As a wise man once said: Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck.

  Tim rules out the most obvious excuses. He’s got a lot of work on. He’s skint. He’s organising a stag do for his best/second-best/not-so-close-that-you’ve-ever-heard-of-him mate. Any of those would be bad, and putting Chloe off will do more harm than allowing her to come – especially since she leaves work early on Fridays, and is almost certainly on her way by the time he sees the message. So it’s a case of damage limitation. He needs to convince her he has no idea that Finbar Brook is actually Barry Brook, and somehow he also needs to ensure that she doesn’t inflict violence, physical or verbal, on his first paying guest. With both those ends in mind, his immediate priority is to make sure that Brook and Chloe are never alone together. This can’t be too difficult, and he resolves to stress the importance of it to Alun Gwynne as soon as he appears. It will give the old bastard a chance to make himself useful. But the main thing is to be vigilant himself. Given that he has little else to do but stand behind an empty bar, that can’t be too difficult either.

  There’s no sign of his guest for the rest of the day, and Tim begins to fantasise that the American has done a runner. The more he thinks about it, the more attractive this prospect seems, and he even lets himself into Brook’s room to see if the guy has secretly removed his luggage. Sadly, he hasn’t. All his bags are still there, and alongside the crisply folded shirt and neat rolls of socks there is a pile of books on the oak desk, including an American edition of the Complete Works and a biography of the poet, his portrait peering sadly off the cover. Tim has never seen a picture of him before. He looks like a boy of fifteen with droopy eyelids and a straggly beard.

  There is also no sign of Alun Gwynne all afternoon. This is unusual, and Tim is wondering where the old boy has got to when his phone rings.

  He doesn’t recognise the number.

  “Is it Red Lion?”

  “Yes, this is the Red Lion.”

  The accent is East European and the tone is peevish.

  “What the hell this language everywhere? I lost, I take wrong road, I get stuck. You come help now?”

  He has forgotten that he is due a brewery delivery. One advantage of not selling much beer is that he doesn’t have to deal with deliveries very often; the disadvantage is that there isn’t a regular driver and the irregular ones persist in following sat nav routes that turn out to be unsuitable for heavy vehicles, rather than the perfectly serviceable road signs. The present one is now jammed under a low railway bridge up near the coast road. It doesn’t sound like he’s coping well with the stress, and the Welsh language signage seems to have added to his bad temper, even though the signs are all in English too.

  Tim tries to calm the driver down, but it’s difficult with the language barrier, and it’s clear that he is going to have to go and help. Fortunately it’s fairly obvious where the guy is – that bridge is a notorious trap – otherwise just working out his location over the phone would be a nightmare.

  Sure enough, finding the lorry isn’t hard. But extracting it turns out to be complicated. With one lane of the road completely blocked, there is traffic backing up in both directions and Tim can see why the guy, who turns out to be Latvian, needs another body just to make the angry queue behind him keep its distance, and then give him the space to reverse and turn round. The logistics are tricky, but once it’s clear what is needed, a couple of car drivers help out too. Eventually the truck is free and pointing in the direction it has come, so Tim can escort the guy back along the route he should have taken if he had bothered to read the signs. Instead of being grateful, the driver seems to think the whole mess is Tim’s fault, and is complaining that he is way behind schedule. It’s a relief when Tim gets back in his car to lead the way: at least he doesn’t have to listen to the moaning.

  He notices that Barry Brook’s Lexus is back, but with the delivery driver still stressing about his schedule, Tim has to go straight round the side of the building to open the cellar hatch. It’s only when they have finally got all the barrels unloaded and the driver is pulling out of the car park that he sees Chloe’s yellow Fiat. It must have arrived when he was down below. Heart pounding, he races inside, clinging to the hope that Alun Gwynne will have turned up and fended her off, or that Brook will be up in his room.

  No chance of that. The first thing he sees as he steps inside is his guest and his girlfriend sitting side by side on stools at the bar. They seem to be sipping gin and tonic.

  Even then, not all hope is lost. Maybe, just maybe, she won’t have worked out who he is.

  “Hey, handsome,” says Chloe, turning on her stool with a broad smile. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a famous writer staying with you?”

  So much for hope.

  Tim does an elaborate double-take, praying his facial twitch or his sweaty forehead won’t start up again to give him away.

  “Because I didn’t know,” he says.

  He looks from Chloe to his guest, as if inviting one of them to enlighten him.

  “This is Barry Brook!” she says. “You know, who wrote The Poussin Conundrum. He’s only, like, one of the best-selling authors on the planet and he’s staying in your best bedroom!”

  “No way!” says Tim, willing it to sound natural, but without any great faith that he’s succeeding. “I mean, I saw ‘Finbar’ and I didn’t make the connection. I never knew the name Barry was short for anything.”

  He is rambling.

  But Brook chuckles: “People don’t.”

  Chloe has really put him at his ease. But that’s what Tim is having trouble fathoming. She hates the guy’s books and everything they stand for, and a couple of weeks ago she would have done anything possible to prevent him setting foot in the valley. So what is she up to now?

  “I didn’t know you were such a fan,” he says to her.

  “How could I not be? It’s Barry Brook. Like, the Barry Brook!”

  A mad fantasy briefly crosses Tim’s mind that she is so star-struck to meet the guy in the flesh that there may be hope for the Grail Trail scheme after all. But the way she says it, emitting a little squeak that he can’t remember her ever making be
fore, and giving the American a playful punch on the arm, puts paid to that. She is acting a role, that much is clear, and it makes him very nervous, because he has no idea how much she knows and where all this is going. Meanwhile Brook himself is lapping it up. To Tim’s distaste, the guy actually blushes at the arm-punch.

  He is wondering at what stage he needs to start asserting himself. It’s important not to get up Chloe’s nose and make her think he is being proprietorial. But Brook also needs to know she is off limits. Tim lifts the flap of the bar so that he can get behind it and try to position himself between them. Unfortunately, Chloe seems to have other ideas.

  “Babe, can you do me a huge, huge favour and get my bag out of the car?”

  She holds out her keys and gives him an icky little pretty-please smile that, again, he could swear he has never seen before. Tim calculates that he is in no position to refuse. He continues to run frantically over the possibilities as he goes out to the Fiat. She doesn’t appear to be mad at him, which she certainly would be if she thought he knew he had Brook staying with him, and that he had tried to keep it from her. So maybe she does believe Tim when he says he didn’t know who the guy was. But then the mystery remains: why is she determined to be left alone with a man she has always said she despises? Any doubt that this is her intention is dispelled when Tim comes back inside with her bag and finds them both on their feet, with their jackets on.

  “Babe, Barry hasn’t seen the 800-year-old yew tree yet, so I’m just going to pop out and show him,” she says.

  She hasn’t quite got her arm through Brook’s as they walk out of the door, but it’s pretty close.

  Tim is shaking so badly that he has to sit down. Christ on a bike, what the hell is going on?

  Dublin, 1889

  Not for the first time, Hopkins wondered how the very old endured it. Here he was, still in middle life, plagued by bodily woes that he could never have imagined as a young man. Sore eyes, aching back, screaming feet; agony passing solids; shaking at the knees going up or downstairs; and now this attack of rheumatic fever that made sleep all but impossible. If the ailments piled on at the same rate, he would be a wretched sack of pain by the time he was sixty, let alone seventy or eighty. The elderly grumbled, for sure. But they made nothing like the fuss they ought to make if they were suffering at twice or thrice the rate he was, which was perfectly likely. Maybe you got used to it, and you forgot that there was ever a time when you expected to go about the world in ache-free working order from head to toe. In that case, perhaps this middle period of life really was the worst one, when you could still remember being able to do that and you weren’t ready to stop. He was not sure that was much consolation.