Ghost MacIndoe

by Jonathan Buckley

  ‘I couldn’t tell you, madam, I am ashamed to say. But I think I would be right in saying that Bishop Berkeley is buried here too.’

  ‘Who he?’ asked the woman’s husband, bemused by the way the tour was proceeding.

  ‘A philosopher. Denied the existence of matter, as I understand it. The world is nothing but a collection of ideas that exist by the will of God, or something to that effect.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the woman.

  ‘I may have misunderstood,’ admitted Roderick.

  ‘The graveyard,’ Alexander intervened, ‘was over there, where King’s College now stands.’

  ‘Samuel Johnson’s not here?’ asked the husband.

  ‘No, I’m afraid not.’

  ‘So what’s the statue about?’

  ‘It’s here because Dr Johnson used to worship here, but he’s not buried here.’ Observing that Roderick was creeping towards the door, Alexander raised a hand. ‘As I was saying, St Clement is today an air force memorial, yet one civilian is commemorated inside.’ He looked at Roderick, whose blinking now became even more rapid. ‘Sir Archibald Hector Mclndoe, third President of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons, Vice-Chairman of the Royal College of Surgeons from 1957 to 1959, died 12th of April 1960. His skill in the treatment of burns earned the gratitude of the hundreds of airmen on whom he operated. Which is why there’s a memorial to him here.’

  ‘A relation of yours, Mr MacIndoe?’ a woman with a satin headscarf slyly asked.

  ‘Not as far as I’m aware. Sir Archibald Mclndoe was a New Zealander by birth. Whereas I am a semi-Scottish Englishman.’ Alexander stood aside to wave the group into the church. ‘You’ll find his name on the back of a chair, at the end of the right aisle. That’s his memorial. On the same side there’s a list of the rectors of St Clement. Look for the year 1843 and you’ll come across the name of William Webb-Ellis, who is said to have picked up the ball and run with it during a soccer game at Rugby school, thereby creating the game that bears the school’s name.’ With Roderick beside him, Alexander followed the rest of the group through the outer doorway. ‘And one last curiosity: on certain days the bells of this church play the tune of “Oranges and Lemons”, as in the nursery rhyme: “Oranges and Lemons, say the bells of St Clement’s.’”

  ‘Though this isn’t the same St Clement’s,’ Roderick intervened.

  ‘As I was about to say,’ said Alexander.

  ‘That’s St Clement Eastcheap.’

  ‘Quite. Where fruit from the Mediterranean was unloaded. Thus the rhyme.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Roderick, and he winked at Alexander as he took out his notebook, as though the two of them had concluded a routine they had devised for the amusement of the others.

  At St Mary-le-Strand it was not until Alexander had finished his introduction that Roderick spoke. ‘You know about the column?’ he asked. The woman with the headscarf looked disapprovingly at Roderick; an effort to suppress his disillusionment with Alexander was evident in the expression of the husband of the woman in the trenchcoat.

  ‘I do not know about the column,’ Alexander replied flatly.

  ‘There was meant to be a huge great column here,’ said Roderick, whisking his stick in the air as if to conjure the structure into being. ‘With Queen Anne on the top. But she died, so they got a spire instead.’

  Alexander was permitted to complete his speech about Somerset House without interruption. ‘This is where the great architect Inigo Jones died, in 1652, and six years later Cromwell lay in state here, to the fury of many Londoners, who pelted the gate with rubbish that night,’ he closed.

  ‘First house in England to have parquet flooring,’ appended Roderick, and he nodded at Alexander to indicate that he had finished his contribution. He remained quiet all the way down the Strand, except when they passed number 101, which he pointed out as the location of Ackermann’s, the first London shop to be fully lit by gas, and at the Strand Palace Hotel, where, Roderick informed his companions, Edward Cross had displayed his celebrated menagerie, featuring a hippopotamus that had made a strong impression on Byron, who remarked on the creature’s striking resemblance to the prime minister. By Charing Cross station he took out his notebook to paraphrase, it seemed, Alexander’s aside on the subject of Coutts Bank, which Roderick trumped with an account of James Graham’s Temple of Health, ‘where clients could, on payment of a considerable fee, avail themselves of the “celestial bed”, an item of furniture on which they were guaranteed, so Mr Graham claimed, to conceive a child without imperfection.’ He gave a short, high-pitched, incredulous laugh, to which nobody responded.

  The tour ended at the foot of Cleopatra’s Needle. ‘A peculiar assortment of objects was buried in the foundations of the obelisk,’ Alexander told them, raising his voice against the traffic and the train that was crossing Hungerford Bridge. ‘Newspapers, coins and a razor were placed in the foundations, as well as four Bibles and a guide to the railway services of Britain.’ He paused to allow Roderick his intervention, but none was made. ‘Also interred, in honour of the Egyptian queen whose beauty had conquered both Caesar and Antony, were photographs of a dozen Englishwomen who were held to be the loveliest in the country.’

  Roderick made an addition to his book, holding it so close to his face that there was barely room for his pen between the page and his chin.

  ‘And on that note,’ Alexander concluded, as he always did, ‘I must take my leave of you. Thank you for your company and your interest. I hope that you found the last two hours both instructive and pleasurable, and that those of you who are here on holiday continue to enjoy your stay in London. Should anyone wish to ask me any further questions, I’ll gladly answer them as best I can.’

  The group dispersed, having asked nothing more. Alexander watched one couple cross the road to the Underground station; the American woman and her husband and three others walked on towards Waterloo Bridge. The lightbulbs slung on poles along the riverbank were coming on; the river was the colour of roofing slates, and seemed motionless. Alexander looked for the moon, and noticed that Roderick, who had strolled off on his own in the Westminster direction, was coming back towards him.

  With a gyration of his upraised stick Roderick hailed him. ‘I wouldn’t want you to think I lacked manners, Mr MacIndoe,’ he shouted, and he removed his hat, uncovering a mat of margarine-coloured hair. ‘Wanted to be sure that they’d gone. I fear I wasn’t a hit with your clients, but dullards bring out the worst in me. My sincere apologies if I was ranklesome. Thank you,’ he said, and he offered Alexander a perfectly white hand of fat, long and immaculately manicured fingers.

  ‘Not at all,’ Alexander replied.

  Roderick replaced his hat as if to signify his satisfaction with the accord they had achieved.

  ‘Pardon my asking,’ Alexander resumed, seeing that Roderick did not intend to leave immediately, ‘but why did you sign up for my tour?’

  ‘Same as everyone else,’ said Roderick, smiling benignly. ‘Thought I might learn something.’ He planted his stick in the angle of the pavement and the wall and leaned on it, in anticipation of another pleasing question.

  ‘But you know more than I do, evidently.’

  ‘I didn’t know that beforehand, did I?’

  ‘No, but you must have had a good idea.’

  ‘And I did learn something. That you can’t have a beard if you work at Coutts. Didn’t know that.’

  ‘Not much of a yield for two hours.’

  ‘Better than most. Are you going that way?’ Roderick enquired, pointing his stick at Northumberland Avenue, and Alexander, having no plan other than to return home, said that he was. ‘So am I,’ said Roderick. ‘Do you mind if I walk with you?’

  ‘No, of course,’ Alexander replied. Lightly he took hold of Roderick’s arm to steer him away from a mash of food in the gutter.

  ‘I go on all of them, and I usually learn something. The thing about the Epstein figures, though. That wasn’t quite right,’
Roderick told him, like a friendly critic passing comment on an actor’s performance. ‘I read a letter in The Times, about ten years back. It wasn’t because they were offended that they cut the willies off. It was because water and frost was collecting in the crevices, so the bits that stuck out were eroding away. Someone nearly got brained by a falling member. They had to be lopped off before they all fell off,’ he stated seriously, and then, having glanced at Alexander as though to gauge whether a laugh were permissible, he chuckled into his scarf. ‘You can use that next time,’ he added.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Alexander.

  Twenty yards on, Roderick put a hand on Alexander’s sleeve to slow him down. ‘May I offer you a piece of advice, Mr MacIndoe?’ he enquired, and the tone of his question made Alexander look at the smooth white-skinned face and wonder what age Roderick was. He could have been thirty, or less, or forty, or older.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘You’re not making the most of your resources, in my opinion. Your tour could be made a lot better.’

  ‘Always room for improvement,’ Alexander concurred. ‘What might these resources be?’

  ‘Oh come on, Mr MacIndoe,’ Roderick chided. ‘The voice is good, the delivery is good. Vivid, with an elegiac nuance. And of course you have a presence, an attractive manner. You’re a very personable person.’

  ‘Kind of you to say so.’

  ‘But at the moment the medium is stronger than the message, if I can put it like that. With better material you could make quite an impact.’

  ‘Mr Walton, I’m just a tour guide, that’s all. I don’t want to make quite an impact.’

  ‘People are predisposed to like you, Mr MacIndoe. I saw that at once. They warm to you. There’s a sort of rapport, immediately. You should make the most of that. Give them more human interest. Give them some stories.’

  ‘I thought I did give them some stories.’

  ‘Bits and pieces, Mr MacIndoe. Bits and pieces to fatten up the facts.’

  ‘But the facts are what you like, no?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m a special case. I’m an archivist,’ said Roderick, as though confessing to a vice. ‘Facts are meat and drink to me, but you need to lighten the diet for the general public. At the moment what you’re giving them is a lecture, more or less. You should make it more intimate. Like you’re taking them into your confidence. Give them stories. Funny stories, strange stories. Creepy stories.’

  ‘Creepy?’

  ‘Nothing succeeds like creepy. You’d be perfect at it. More than a passing resemblance to Christopher Lee, as I’m sure you’ve been told.’

  ‘And I get these stories from where?’

  ‘Well, you could go to libraries. Do some real research. Or—’

  ‘Yes?’ prompted Alexander, and now Roderick positioned himself in his path to stop him.

  ‘Or from me.’ He waved an arm like an impresario boasting of the magnificence of his theatre. ‘I know a tale for every street of this city. Where we were a minute ago, for example. I can tell you a good one. You have a minute?’ Roderick put a hand on Alexander’s back and turned him so that they both faced the river. ‘During the war, this was, soon after the new Waterloo Bridge had gone up. A policeman on the beat, crossing from the south side. Thick fog, naturally. A real pea-souper. He hears footsteps, running, then out of the fog comes this girl, very upset. He asks her what’s up. “There’s a girl down on the Embankment,” she tells him. “Going to throw herself in.” She grabs his arm, distraught. “Hurry. Please hurry.” The constable follows her, down the steps, along the road. He sees this shadow in the fog, right by Cleopatra’s Needle. He runs ahead, gets there in the nick of time. He pulls the girl off the wall. She falls into his arms. Her face is the face of the girl he followed from the bridge. He looks around. There’s no one else there. Good, don’t you think?’

  ‘You believe stories like that?’ asked Alexander.

  ‘Good God, no. Would you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But that doesn’t matter. Think of it as a folk tale. The soul of the city in wartime, that’s what it’s about. Despair and salvation, something like that. It’s a good one, isn’t it?’

  ‘You made it up?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ Roderick denied blusteringly, in simulated indignation. He turned back to face Trafalgar Square, and tugged Alexander into motion again. ‘Now, imagine what the story could be like if you told it. Nice voice, lugubrious face, but not too lugubrious. Dress you in black, that kind of image. Do the tours at night, goes without saying. What do you think?’ Roderick asked him jauntily. ‘You see what I’m proposing?’

  ‘I’m not sure I do.’

  ‘Yes you do,’ Roderick encouraged. ‘A sort of joint enterprise. I have hundreds and hundreds of stories up here,’ he said, patting his forehead. ‘Waterloo Bridge, for instance. I know dozens of stories about Waterloo Bridge alone. Do you know about the unfortunate death of the celebrated American diver, Mr Samuel Scott? Accidentally strangled himself on the old bridge, in front of a crowd of hundreds. Do you know that one?’

  ‘A name unknown to me.’

  ‘There you are. All these stories, and no audience. But with you—’

  ‘So what’s the plan? You write the script, and I deliver the lines?’

  ‘Exactly,’ replied Roderick, as if commending Alexander for an elegant formulation of a complex proposition. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It’s something to think about,’ said Alexander.

  ‘I love to ferret around in libraries, Mr MacIndoe. And I love to write. To compose little stories, vignettes, anecdotes. At home I have notebooks, dozens of them, full of scribblings, and it would be extremely rewarding for me to have a means of sharing my hoard. To have my notebooks brought to life, as it were. This arrangement would be mutually beneficial.’

  Alexander looked towards Waterloo Bridge and considered what Roderick had proposed. ‘I don’t see why you need me, Mr Walton. Why not just do what I do?’

  ‘Because, Mr MacIndoe, I am conscious, acutely conscious, that my physical aspect is not the most prepossessing, and that, furthermore, I have a manner that many find unattractive. I have tried to suppress my propensity for bumptiousness, but I am unable to do so. I am unable to diet and I am unable to ingratiate. I wish this were not so, because – may I be honest with you, Mr MacIndoe?’ asked Roderick, straightening his back as if for inspection.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I thought so. You have a face that invites honesty. The fact is, I have few friends, Mr MacIndoe. Very few indeed. There. Vanity and a lack of company. My motives.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Remuneration wouldn’t be an issue. A small percentage of the revenue, say, or something along those lines. A nominal fee. Or no fee at all. Perhaps I could come along, make changes, improvements.’

  ‘I’ll need some time to think it over.’

  ‘Of course. There’s no hurry at all. Now, you mustn’t think me rude but I must run. I have a film to attend. Italian horror film, title escapes me,’ he gabbled. ‘Very strong, I’m told.’ Resting his foot on the frame of a shop window, he scribbled on a page and tore it out. ‘They know no moderation, the Italians. Mediterranean gore not your sort of thing, I suppose?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Roderick quickly. ‘This is my phone number.’ He handed the page to Alexander and presented his notebook like an autograph album. ‘If you’d be so good as to write your address, and I could send you a few pieces. No obligation. If I don’t hear from you, that’s the end of it,’ he promised, striking his stick on a strip of brass cladding, as though to ratify his oath. Backing away, he plucked the cap from his head again, as Alexander would remember, and his hair stuck up like comic horns.

  47. The firemen’s band

  Something had happened at the end of the road and a queue of cars was forming. The small window above the central window of the bay was open, and a breeze made the net curt
ain sway, bringing exhaust fumes into the room, and the sound of laurel leaves in tremulous motion. A car horn blared two discordant notes at once. Someone swore. A bass beat became audible in the noise of the engines, and grew so loud that it made Alexander think of the din of the ack-ack guns on the Heath. A door was slammed.

  Alexander’s mother set her knife and fork on the rim of her plate, sighed, formed her fingers into a bridge, and turned her head to regard the traffic. Her eyelids sank, as though she were looking at the aftermath of a tiresome prank. ‘This used to be a quiet street,’ she remarked.

  ‘It still is,’ he replied. ‘Relatively.’

  ‘It’s terrible,’ said his mother.

  ‘No, Mother. This isn’t bad. It’s quiet, normally.’

  ‘Too many cars. Everybody owns a car nowadays.’

  ‘Including me.’

  ‘And nobody has any consideration for others. Listen to that.’

  ‘It’s bad,’ Alexander agreed.

  ‘He must be deaf,’ said his mother. The top of a head appeared above the hedge of the neighbour’s front garden, then a second head, and an exchange of shouts erupted. ‘These people,’ she murmured.

  ‘We shouldn’t have put the table here,’ said Alexander.

  ‘You’d still hear it,’ said his mother.

  ‘Yes, but,’ Alexander began, but he did not continue.

  ‘Have you done?’ his mother asked, when the queue of cars had gone. Since the interruption she had not touched her meal.

  ‘I’ll take them through,’ said Alexander.

  ‘No, I’ll do it.’

  ‘Let me,’ he insisted, and she released her plate. ‘Shall I make you some tea?’

  She pulled the curtain aside to look up and down the street, then let it fall back. She shook her head. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That would be nice.’

  Alexander stacked the plates, taking care not to clash them, and carried them to the kitchen, past the door of the dining room, in which they no longer ate. He washed the dishes and pots, and filled the kettle, and went up to the bathroom, past the smallest bedroom, which now was empty. At the end of the landing the door was closed on the room that still contained his father’s desk and books and journals. Half of his mother’s house was dead, he told himself.