– Edgar isn’t here at the moment but you could wait for him? He’s with a friend.
This wasn’t what I had expected. This was no Electa, she was too old to be Mon. She offered me a drink, which I turned down and not just because I had drunk too many beers while waiting for Edgar at the pub. There was something about this house, about this supremely genteel lady, that made me not want to stay.
– Excuse me. I’m going to have to get back. Perhaps I could leave this here with you? It belongs to Edgar.
I put his envelope on a side-table that had a silver tea service on it that I wondered might be Onyataka plate.
– I’m sorry you have to rush off. I like to take people on a tour of the house.
– It’s a very pretty house, I said.
– Edgar says it’s the nicest house he’s ever seen.
– I can imagine.
And, in that moment, I could imagine much more besides.
– How long has Edgar been with you? I asked.
– Oh quite a few months now. I don’t know where I’d be without him.
Except she did know: we both did. She would be in a nursing-home, the house gone. They had an Arrangement: everything about her and the house proclaimed it, the display of silver brushes and combs in the glass and lacquer cabinet by the mantelpiece, his client’s wild, untouched hair.
Author’s note
Anyone familiar with the history of the Oneida Community, which flourished in Central New York State between the years 1848 and 1881, and its founder John Humphrey Noyes will recognize John Prindle Stone and his Onyataka Association. Some of the language might also be recognizable—I’ve drawn from letters, essays and journal entries of Noyes, Mary Cragin and George Cragin (the sources for Mary and George Pagan). However, I’ve bent events, chronology, characters and setting.
The Oneida Community was formed on 160 acres of land in Madison County that had previously been occupied by the Oneida Indians, one of the six tribes of the Iroquois League. The Community followed the charisma and energies of Noyes (1811–1886) along the path of ‘Perfectionism’ or ‘Bible Communism’. This theology decreed that there was no need to wait for Christ’s second coming, because that had already happened, in 70 AD, so it was possible to be spiritually reborn without sin, to make heaven on earth. Noyes abolished marriage and private property; he thought he would also abolish death. The Oneida Community was one of the many Christian communities that thrived in that part of New York State known as the ‘Burnt-Over District’; nearby were Mormons, Shakers, Spiritualists and Seventh Day Adventists, and many, shorter-lived, others.
Readers who would like to know more about the history of the Oneida Community could usefully start with the volume of documents compiled by George Wallingford Noyes that is published by the University of Illinois Press as Free Love in Utopia. Maren Lockwood Carden’s Oneida: Utopian Community to Modern Corporation is the definitive account of the transition from Utopia to capitalism, but, as it was published in 1969, it is happily ignorant of the decline of Oneida Ltd in recent years.
The song ‘Jeannette and Jeannot’ was written by Charles Jefferys, with music by Charles Williams Glover.
There are many people and institutions who have helped me along the way of writing this book, especially my family, Susan, Julius and Grace; my most sympathetic and patient agents, Felicity Rubinstein and Sarah Lutyens; my editor, Nicholas Pearson; Matthew Gibson; Glen-in-the-kitchen for his reading skills; the University of East Anglia for a writing fellowship that bought me valuable time; and the Authors’ Foundation for a bursary that enabled me to carry out some of the necessary research. But I would like to thank above all Nini, Lang and Joe Hatcher for their generosity and hospitality, which I’ve poorly repaid with my version of their town’s history.
Also by David Flusfeder
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Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2007 byFourth EstateAn imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers77–85 Fulham Palace RoadLondon W6 8JBwww.4thestate.co.uk
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Copyright © David Flusfeder 2007
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ePub edition September 2008 ISBN-9780007285488
‘Sittin on the Dock of the Bay’ Words & Music by Steve Copper & Otis Redding © Cotillion Music Inc. All rights on behalf of Cotillion Music Inc. administered by Werner/Chappell Music Ltd, London W6 8BS. Reproduced by permission. ‘Twist and Shout’ Lyrics by Bart Burns/Phil Medley © Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved.
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