Mr. Rosenblum's List: Or Friendly Guidance for the Aspiring Englishman

by Natasha Solomons

  ‘Do stay and dine. My wife would be simply delighted,’ said Sir William.

  Jack glanced over to Lady Waegbert – it pained him to refuse such an elegant and thoughtful woman but he had promised Sadie that they would return home before the start of the Sabbath. He knew Sadie was terrified that she would be made to eat pig and, while he was not sure how anyone could be made to eat anything, he had promised. So it was with genuine regret that he politely declined Sir William’s invitation.

  They made their farewells and left the party on the lawn. Jack felt easier than he had all summer; he was tired of being the Jew and the Yid – it was lonely and dangerous. He had tried again and again to impress the need for assimilation upon Sadie. ‘We need to become part of them. If they come back – whom do you think they will give up first? Us! Us! You and me! Only if we become like them, can we hide amongst them. We must not be poppies in the wheat field.’

  He felt almost happy as he and Sadie walked back across the lawn towards the house. This, he thought, is the beginning. Dusk was drawing in and gnats hovered above them.

  ‘I need the lavatory,’ announced Sadie.

  ‘Can’t you wait?’ Jack was irritated; he did not like to ask if his wife could use the toilet.

  ‘No.’

  He frowned. ‘You ask. I’ll wait here.’

  Sadie scowled, and he knew that the tentative truce of the evening was over. He watched as slowly she went up the front steps and disappeared into the murk of the house. The light was fading; a family of house martins flew to their nest in the eaves and he could just make out the North Star appearing in the evening sky.

  Ten minutes later she had not reappeared and, growing restless, he ventured into the manor. It was still, except for the wafts of laughter coming from the terrace where Sir William and his guests were now being served supper. Jack stood in a large, oak-panelled hallway hung with a dozen or more portraits; austere men and women glared at him from their frames, their hands resting on the heads of supercilious-looking dogs. Hanging beside them was a mounted certificate with the red mayoral seal of Dorset; he squinted to read the ornate calligraphy.

  Sir William Waegbert of Piddle Hall,

  Mayor of Dorsetshire, 1945 AD

  Jack was impressed – so his new friend had been mayor as well and hadn’t even mentioned it – he admired this British modesty. A minute later he began to fidget; where on earth was his wife? A door was ajar and he pushed it open to reveal a large, panelled room with a vaulted ceiling stained black with smoke and age. The flagstone floor was covered with an ancient rug that once must have been handsome but was now foot-worn and thin. Dangling from one wall was a tapestry of a hunting scene; silken men rode on horseback, their thread hair flying out behind them, accompanied by a pack of woven hounds all chasing an animal into a forest. In the background there stood a purple castle and a lake brimming with writhing sea monsters.

  On the opposite wall was a massive stone fireplace, the mantelpiece hewn from a single slab of rock and supported by two elaborately carved sidepieces teeming with magical creatures. There was a unicorn, a ho-ho bird, a pair of griffins whose clawed feet made the bottom of the pillars, and a wyvern – a winged reptile whose red eyes were shining jewels set into the stone. Beneath the mantelpiece was engraved a forest of twisting branches, some in leaf, others in bud, while yet more had burst into sandstone flowers. Peeking from between two branches Jack noticed another beast. It had the head of a pig and carved tusks that entwined the magnificent horns sprouting from its skull. On its back grew a woolly fleece which, even chiselled in stone, appeared to him soft and white.

  ‘It’s a Dorset woolly-pig’ said a voice behind him.

  Jack turned to see the elderly servant standing in the doorway. It must have been a trick of the light, but the old man’s eyes were a startling shade of green.

  ‘He is a myth of this county,’ explained Symonds. ‘The older people in these parts still believe in him.’

  ‘Do you?’

  Symonds only smiled. ‘There he is again.’ He pointed to the tapestry and Jack realised that the poor creature pursued by the hunters was none other than the woolly-pig. In the medieval work the brute was as large as the horses the men rode and its eyes were woven with crimson fury.

  ‘Why would you harm such a magnificent beast?’

  The servant gave a sad smile. ‘They were said to be plentiful during ancient times and could grant the pure-hearted their true wish. But then the knights hunted them for sport and the woolly-pigs grew angry and refused to grant any more wishes, pure of heart or not. They hid in the depths of the oldest forests and gored any who tried to find them. As the trees were hacked down and the woodlands became smaller and smaller, they died of sorrow. A few are said still to wander the forests bleating of their sadness.’

  Jack thought of his wife, filled with nothing but sorrow, wandering the earth remembering the dead and happier times.

  Later that night, Jack surveyed the wreckage of the opening hole and wished it really were the woolly-pig who was to blame. Post-war Europe was a drab place, tired and devoid of wonder, and a mysterious creature surviving from antiquity to create a little havoc in the modern world was an appealing thought. A wild pig destroys hedges and golf courses out of rage that they are in his way – Jack couldn’t imagine that a pig gave a fig whether the land belonged to a Yid, a Kraut or the Queen of England. For the first time in months, he thought of Berlin. He saw the city with a towering barbed wire fence splitting it in two and imagined a woolly-pig crashing through the night, tearing up the wire as if it was a bramble hedge. Yes, the world would be much improved with a dash of magic.

  He sighed and loosened the knot in his tie. The night was black and starless, and he felt that he was walking with his eyes closed, as he stumbled over the broken ground and jutting earth. Above there was a whooping cry and a flash of white. ‘Must be an owl. Out hunting,’ he muttered quietly, to reassure himself. The clouds cleared for a moment around the moon, and there was a beat of wings, and then he felt cool air rush against his arm. The glow caught the barn owl’s plumage, bright as bone in the dark. Then the sky clouded over again and the bird was gone.

  With a vast yawn that made his jaw crack, Jack slumped upon the heap of molehills. His eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness, and he watched the tiny undulations on the surface of the pond; it was never still and never the same. The water was covered with tiny white flowers that appeared like miniature stars on the black plane. A frog sat on a lily pad, took one look at him and dived into the cool water. He had never seen a spring before – he had only read about them to Elizabeth in fairy stories when she was a little girl. There was something remarkable about the way the water trickled out of the ground that seemed as mystical as any seam of gold or imagined mine filled with precious gems. Gnats swirled, landing on his cheeks as he tried to swot them away with his hat. He bent down and washed his hands in the cold, fresh water. Then, he made a cup with his palms and took a long drink – the water tasted pure and was as clear as Sadie’s wedding diamond. He took off his shoes and dangled his swollen feet in the water, feeling the current tickle his toes.

  On the banks of the stream, he noticed several prints in the mud. He studied them carefully. Several looked like rabbit – he knew those well from the tracks in Sadie’s kitchen garden – and he recognised a bigger set that he guessed were deer. Then he saw something else. Embedded in the earth were two neat trotter prints. They were ten times the size of an average pig and could only belong to a giant boar.

  The adrenalin surged in Jack’s veins and then, half a second later, it vanished. Of course there are prints, he reasoned. They wanted to blame the mess on a woolly-pig so they would place the evidence; they must consider him a simpleton to think he would believe such childish stories. There were no boot prints that he could make out in the darkness but he supposed Basset and the rest must have waded up the stream to disguise their tracks. ‘I wish I could catch the sneaky bastards,’
he muttered, and that gave him an idea. Traps. They were pretending that it was the woolly-pig, and he was pretending to believe them. So, he must go a stage further and lay traps all over his land, purportedly to catch the beast. He would place them everywhere as he rebuilt the course and then, if they tried to destroy it again, the traps would imprison the real culprits! He imagined Jack Basset and his friends caught in a massive bear pit, all of them pleading for mercy. He would be generous and decline to report them to the police and then, in return, he might earn a little respect. Under the whispering leaves, he flopped onto his back and lay spreadeagled on the cool ground, listening to the earthworms churning beneath the soil and pondered Basset’s fate.

  The following afternoon it rained; it hadn’t for a fortnight but now it poured and Bulbarrow Hill disappeared into a filmy mist while bullets of rain battered Sadie’s rose bush. A gossamer strand of spider web was suspended between two buds like a silken trapeze and raindrops hung there, glistening like jewels on a necklace. Driven indoors for the first time in a month, Jack sat in his office and studied the topography of Bulbarrow. He laid maps carefully across the floor and wondered what kind of traps would be best – the notion of bear pits was very tempting; they could be disguised with branches and grass and, if he dug them deep enough, they would hold a man. They would need to be ten or twelve foot deep with straight, slippery sides but unfortunately, after weeks of endless shovelling, he was reluctant to mine any more holes.

  Jack lit one of his rare cigarettes and sat back in his battered armchair for a good think. Catching the perpetrator would be satisfying, but was not absolutely necessary; the most important thing was to protect the course. Time was ticking away and to have any hope of a match on Coronation Day, he needed to make progress and he simply did not have the time to dig mantraps. What was required was a deterrent. Basset and the others needed to believe he had traps: vicious, sinister contraptions capable of snapping a man’s leg in two – that surely must put them off. Then, he could quietly restore his poor butchered fairway in peace.

  At nine o’clock Jack decided to go to the pub. He had not seen Sadie all day, only heard her singing to herself, and slipped out so as not to disturb her. The rain stopped; the evening turned warm and close, and he walked alone through the fields. One was never alone in the city; one could be lonely or ignored but there was always the buzzing of other people – even in the house one could hear them outside in their cars or jabbering in the street. Here there were only the swallows. Flying so high in the sky, they were like scribbles of birds in a child’s drawing as they chased the insects, surfing waves of high pressure after the rain. He flicked away a biting fly and saw his arms had turned a deep shade of brown and the little hairs were all bleached white. Under his hat even his bald pate was tanned. He felt that he had ripened, just like the blackberries that were slowly turning from red to deep purple on the bramble bushes.

  The doors of The Crown were thrown open and people spilled into the garden. Jack Basset perched on a wooden bar stool like a great heron on a pebble, the rickety seat creaking ominously under his hefty frame. He drank his pint with ardent concentration and, on seeing the other Jack, greeted him like an old friend.

  ‘Evenin’ Mister Rose-in-Bloom. Found any woolly-pigs yet?’

  Jack shook his head. ‘Not yet. But I will.’

  The men looked up in surprise. Jack was pleased. Good, he thought to himself, let them all believe I am a crazy Jew-Bastard. He cleared his throat and met Basset’s cornflower blue eyes. ‘I am going to capture the woolly-pig.’

  There were suppressed muffles of laughter and a small gaggle of men gathered around Jack.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Traps, Mr Basset.’

  ‘Wot sort, mind?’

  ‘I have a few designs … what would you recommend?’

  Basset liked to be consulted. He took a drink. ‘He’s too big for a badger trap. ’Ee’d break it with his tusks. What d’you use for bait?’

  ‘A pit and leaves. Tis only way. Mush Rooms are best for bait. Nothin’ but Mush Rooms.’ Curtis piped up, elbowing his way to the front of the group. He seemed about to speak again, then changed his mind and sulked in silence.

  Jack reached into a pocket and pulled out his hand-drawn map of Bulbarrow, marked with a series of red crosses that looked a little like grave markers. ‘These denote the position of the traps,’ he explained, waving the map in front of them quickly and then hiding it from view – he didn’t want them to get too close a look, just in case it encouraged them to go searching for a trap that wasn’t really there. ‘I believe I shall stick with my own designs. They are more dastardly.’

  He slid a hand into his jacket and produced another sheet, decorated with a diagram of the supposed contraption to catch the beast. A large cage was concealed in the earth and just beneath the ground were a set of vicious serrated jaws, ready to snap if the wire was touched. He pointed proudly, ‘It’s a hair trigger. A mere snuffle from the creature and wham!’ He clapped his hands shut and surveyed the curious faces, wondering if he had pushed it too far. ‘I don’t mean it any harm. I only want to catch one. Put Pursebury on the map.’

  Basset snatched Jack’s plans of Bulbarrow. ‘Tis already on the map, Mr Rose-in-Bloom.’

  Jack knew they were laughing at him – all of them except Curtis, who was staring at him with an odd expression. The old man was the smallest grown person he had ever seen; he was the size of a child but wizened and thin. He’d tipped a pint of cider down his trousers, which now clung to his stick-like legs making him look, if possible, even more frail. He was standing right up close to Jack, so close that he could smell the sweet scent of apples and sweat.

  Curtis had entered into that part of old age where it becomes impossible to fathom the precise number of years. Even Curtis wasn’t sure. The baptismal records for the last century had been removed to the county office and he had no other way of checking; he guessed that he was somewhere between eighty-five and one hundred and thirteen. His face was creased with more lines than usual because he was worried.

  ‘Yer really want to see the beast?’ He spoke quietly, almost in a whisper.

  ‘Yes,’ answered Jack. The word came out before he was aware that he had spoken and, at that very moment, it was true – he did want to see a woolly-pig. It would mean that the men in the village had not ruined his hopes and had not lied, and that the world was not such a grey place, devoid of the ancient and unknown.

  Curtis shook his head, ‘Traps. Huh. Won’t find ’im like that. Won’t even catch a glimpse of his tail. Yer believe in ’im. That summat but that’s not t’ whole apple cake.’

  The other farmers ignored Curtis. He gave them a little sly smile, while they continued to stare at Jack.

  ‘Mister Rose-in-Bloom?’

  Jack turned to the gnarled face that was as crinkled as the bark of an ancient oak tree.

  ‘Come.’ Curtis beckoned with a stubby finger and pointed to the door of the pub and beyond into the darkling light.

  In a minute they were on the road outside the pub. The old man raced along on his short legs so that soon Jack was panting to keep up. Long shadows barred the road and branches were all thin hands waving in the stillness. Jack wasn’t sure if it would be rude to puncture the atmosphere; perhaps silence was necessary to hunting the woolly-pig. He chanced a whisper.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Your house. Pick up t’car,’ Curtis said loudly. ‘I’m a bit deaf. Don’t talk quiet.’

  Jack looked around and realised they were in fact at the end of his own driveway; somehow he hadn’t noticed in the dark.

  ‘Why do we need the car?’

  ‘We is goin’ to Hambledon. It’s three miles and I ent walkin’.’

  They reached the Jaguar, which stood gleaming, reflections of clouds moving across the bonnet. Curtis ran a hand lovingly along the shining paintwork. ‘Ent she a beauty.’

  Jack tiptoed inside to get the keys, wondering if the ex
pedition was actually a ruse so that Curtis could go for a drive in the car. Not that he minded – he would have quite happily taken him, although probably not at half-past eleven at night for a trip up an ancient hill fort. He tried to be quiet to avoid waking Sadie, and opened the front door as smoothly as he could. Silence. Holding his breath, he took the car key and pulled the door shut.

  He started the engine and peeled back the hood so that the car was open to the night sky. Curtis climbed onto the rear and perched upon the curved boot, his feet resting on the front seat.

  ‘Are you sure that you’re quite comfortable?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Yup. I likes to feel the wind in my ears.’

  They drove along the roads without seeing another soul. The headlights caught the bright stripes of a badger running at full pelt along the verge, and soon the windscreen was spattered with moths. At the foot of Hambledon Jack paused when Curtis gestured for him to park.

  ‘Stop ’ere.’ Curtis nimbly hopped out. ‘We is goin’ up there.’

  He pointed to a narrow, tree-lined track that fell away into the darkness and led the way at his usual rapid pace. Jack kept tripping over tree roots as he struggled to keep up. Trees grew on either side of the pathway, their canopies spreading and meeting in the middle like the fingertips of two hands touching. The green-tinged tunnel was sunk ten feet below the trees.

  ‘Why is the track in a ditch?’

  The old farmer gave a snort.

  ‘Ent no ditch. This path is two thousand years old. These is the wearin’s and tearin’s of all those feet an’ carts an’ soldiers an’ head-hunters.’

  ‘Head-hunters?’ Jack wasn’t sure that he had heard correctly and trotted a few yards to catch up.

  ‘Aye. Head-hunters. They dug up round here afor t’ Great War an’ found skulls with ’oles in. They ’ad been worn by the weather an’ had ’oles in ’em for where they’d bin put on spikes, like.’