Lamplight in the Shadows

by Robert Jaggs-Fowler

  ‘Yes, but will you be able to get to that far-flung corner of the British Empire known as North Devonshire on the 25th December?’

  ‘No, not with the demands of the practice.’

  ‘No, of course not. Neither will I, because good old British Rail will find a reason to close down the entire network over the holiday period. Therefore, I propose that we have a family Christmas lunch in early December, whilst we can all get there. I trust that Janice will honour us with her presence or have you unravelled too much of her knitting for her to temporarily forgive you?’

  ‘Janice doesn’t knit.’

  ‘Oh, God, James, give me a break! Do you know that for somebody with a string of post-nominal letters, you really are quite dense at times! It was meant as a euphemism. I suppose you do know what one of those is or do I have to buy you a dictionary for Christmas?’

  ‘Truce. Yes, alright. It sounds a good idea. Do I assume that Mum and Dad know what you are suggesting? After all, you know what they will want to do, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, to the latter; no, to the former. Nevertheless, I am sure they will be up for it. I will ring them later when I’ve had a few more drinks. A second bottle of claret helps to make Mum’s incessant chatter easier to follow.’

  ‘That would sound dreadful if I didn’t already know what you mean!’

  ‘Makes one surprised that Father is almost teetotal, doesn’t it? Anyway, I’ll check it out with them and ring you back with the details.’

  ‘And I’ll go and see if I can pick up some of Janice’s dropped stitches.’

  ‘Good man. Speak later.’

  ‘Bye, Jules.’

  ‘Bye, Jimmy.’

  ‘Jules, I am not Jim—’

  James’ protestations were cut off in mid-sentence as he heard a click and the line went dead. He replaced the receiver and smiled to himself. His younger brother was at times irascible, frequently impetuous and often a rogue, but never unforgivable.

  Picking up the almost empty glass of gin and tonic, he drained the last drop and headed into the kitchen.

  If ever anyone needed a clue as to the occupant of this particular flat, in the sense of that person being male or female, then the kitchen would give the game away. In general, the flat was spartan in respect to its furnishings, but otherwise tidy and clean. The clues within the kitchen were to some extent the contents of the fridge – a loaf of bread, a small tub of Flora margarine, a pack of cheddar cheese, some UHT skimmed milk, a carton of orange juice, twelve small bottles of tonic and a freezer full of ice cube bags. The rest of the clues were outwith the fridge – a box of Twining’s tea bags and a large bottle of Gordon’s gin resided on the top of the fridge, whilst a few tins of soup and one of baked beans languished in a nearby cupboard. There was no other food.

  He pressed out a couple of ice cubes and dropped them into his glass. The sound of gin splashing over the top of them, with the resulting cracking noise the ice cubes made, was a sound that always gave him a sense of contentment. He smiled as he levered the top off a bottle of tonic and added it to the glass. Having small bottles of tonic was a luxury he allowed himself; Janice would be appalled if she knew. However, there were few things worse in James’ view than, when desperate for a decent drink, finding the tonic has gone flat. Making a mental note to buy some more lemons, he returned to the living room and flopped down in an armchair.

  For a moment, his gaze fell upon the telephone and he considered the proposition he had just accepted from his brother. It would be good to see his parents again and, besides, he always enjoyed the Devonshire countryside. However, he was not so sure how Janice would react to the plan. She had never before agreed to visit his parents’ home. Despite his parents’ attempts to welcome her into the family, she had never quite fitted in. There was always a degree of tension that stemmed, so he thought, from the unspoken view of his mother that Janice fell somewhat short of the wife she had once envisaged for her eldest son. Up to now, meetings had therefore always taken place on ‘neutral ground’.

  ‘Oh well,’ he said aloud as if to emphasise the point. ‘If she doesn’t want to come with me, then I will go alone.’ He took a sip of gin. After all, it is Christmas and the family has not been together for many years, he continued, finishing the thought in silence.

  On the radio, Mahler’s symphony finished and, following a few brief announcements by the presenter, was replaced by Mozart’s Piano Sonata in A Minor. Listening to the lively arpeggios and chords of the first movement, the fingers of his free hand tapped out the notes on the keyboard of an imaginary piano.

  The year has passed quickly, he thought. In fact, it had passed much too quickly, with seemingly little to show for it. It was as though, having become a partner within the practice one year previously, someone had then pressed the pause button on the rest of his life. He had failed to progress (at least to any significant extent) his plans to pursue the priesthood, the house in Barminster was yet to go on the market, and there had been no move to find a new house in Bishopsworth. In fact, Janice had rarely set foot in the practice area, showing a level of interest that bordered on indifference.

  ‘My year in limbo,’ he said aloud, reminding himself, in the process, of the title of one of Winston Churchill’s books, The Wilderness Years. The concept did not sit well with him. Time was not to be wasted but treated as a valuable commodity, each passing second being one that could not be used again.

  ‘Memo to self,’ he continued, ‘must be more diligent in 1992.’ But how, exactly, when there were obstacles such as the state of his relationship with Janice that stood in the way? It was a question he increasingly asked himself and had no ready answer. The very contemplation of the problem was enough to give him a deep feeling of unease.

  He took another sip of his drink and sat back in the chair, the glass balanced in his lap, his eyes closed. The second movement of Mozart’s piano concerto was entitled Andante cantabile con espressione. Forgetting his disturbed thoughts, he now allowed its gentle, flowing melody to waft through his ears and brain until the very music was coursing through his veins, carrying him to a plane of contentment which, so it seemed to him, existed somewhere en route to heaven. Perhaps he would leave worrying about 1992 until it arrived.

  19

  Devonshire

  December

  In the absence of an easy northeast to southwest link, the journey from Lincolnshire to Devon was long and tedious, requiring several switches from one motorway to another as the journey progressed through the Midlands of England. However, wearisome though it was, it had been blessedly uneventful. By three-thirty in the afternoon, James exited the M5 just east of Tiverton and turned north through the picturesque Exe Valley. Reaching the outskirts of Bampton, he switched to the B3227 and, ten miles later, entered the maze of unclassified roads leading down to the village of Knowstone. There, he pulled into the gateway of a large grass field and switched off the engine.

  ‘Why have we stopped here?’

  It was one of the few sentences Janice had spoken during the preceding five hours. The remainder of her conversations, if the occasional utterances could be called as much, were confined to caustic retorts to James’ attempts to open up polite discussion. She had not been particularly happy when, two weeks earlier, he had put his brother’s proposition to her. Her demeanour over the ensuing period had been, at best, caustic.

  ‘Because I wish to test a theory.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Given another ten minutes or so, I should be able to show you.’

  ‘But it will be dark by then.’

  ‘Precisely. Come on.’

  He opened the driver’s door and got out. Although he was not exceptionally tall, travelling three hundred miles behind the wheel of an MG was enough to cramp the shortest of drivers. He stretched, filled his lungs with crisp clean air and walked to the front of the car. There he leant on a wooden five-barred gate and gazed at the scene before him. Only an intermittent pinking from th
e cooling engine disturbed the otherwise pervading silence.

  The point at which he had chosen to stop was geographically higher than most of the surrounding farmland. From that vantage point, fields of pastureland stretched away into the valley below, whilst to the north was the rugged expanse of Exmoor: over two hundred square miles of uncultivated heath and moorland that had for centuries acted as a lure for writers and poets. He knew that Samuel Taylor Coleridge had been born in Devon, whilst Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Wordsworth and Robert Southey had, at various times, all drawn inspiration from Exmoor’s beauty. One of the most famous 19th-century novels from that region was Lorna Doone – A Romance of Exmoor by Richard Blackmore. All this he had discovered from his reading and the hours he had spent in exploring the area during the holidays of his teenage years. As he stood surveying the scene, he intrinsically understood the power it held for the imaginative mind.

  ‘It looks like a patchwork quilt.’

  Janice’s voice startled James out of his reverie. He watched as she lit a cigarette and casually flicked the match onto the ground. Not wishing to risk an argument so close to arriving at his parents’ house, he moved across without a word and ensured that the match had properly extinguished. Even in winter, dry moorland undergrowth made fire a constant threat; one to avoid at all costs in view of the devastation it could bring.

  ‘It’s the hedgerows that make it look like that,’ he said, picking up where Janice had stopped. ‘Apparently there are more than 33,000 miles of hedgerows in Devon, some of them being more than 800 years old.’

  ‘That’s amazing.’

  James again glanced towards his wife. Just for once, she looked as though she was genuinely impressed.

  ‘Even more remarkable is the thought that sheep have been grazing these pastures for over 3,000 years and…’ He tailed off mid-sentence and pointed down the lane. ‘Janice, look!’

  ‘Where? What?’ She followed the line of his outstretched arm and spotted a large brownish-grey bird sitting on a fence post about fifty yards away. ‘What is it?’

  ‘A buzzard. It is probably waiting for the rabbits to come out.’

  ‘And what exactly are we waiting for?’ Her tone of voice intimated that the momentary interest in her surroundings was rapidly giving way to irritation. Birdlife might make James excited, but it did little for her.

  ‘Dusk – and we are almost there.’

  He pointed down into the valley, where, in the growing gloom of the early December afternoon, pinpoints of light were beginning to show the position of various isolated farmhouses, which had earlier been lost in the landscape. Gradually, as the daylight faded, more and more lights appeared, until whole villages were apparent. Small oases of life amidst a sea of pastoral wilderness.

  ‘Ha! I knew they would!’ His shouted exclamation startled the buzzard, which abandoned its perch in a flurry of flapping wings, before smoothing out into a low swooping flight across a grass field until it was lost to view.

  ‘Knew what? I am getting a little tired of games; not to mention the fact that my feet are freezing. What are you looking at?’

  ‘Down there,’ he replied, pointing southwards.

  Janice peered into the darkened landscape, but could see nothing. ‘It’s too dark to see anything clearly anymore.’

  ‘But tell me what you do see.’

  She again peered into the darkness. ‘Just a few lights.’

  ‘What colour are they?’

  ‘White… well… white and red. Actually, I think I can see all sorts of colours.’

  ‘Precisely! When did you last see street lights like that?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Quite. That… is my parents’ place.’

  She looked again at the cluster of flickering coloured lights nestling away in the distance. The darkness gave no other sign of habitation for some expanse either side.

  ‘But you said your parents’ house was miles from the nearest village.’

  ‘It is. The village of Great Ash is about four miles from there. Those lights are not from a village. What you are looking at is Upper Ash Moor in all its seasonal glory. I can guarantee that if we follow that beacon of light, we will arrive at our intended destination.’ He turned back towards the car. ‘Except that I know the route. Come on, we have an appointment at Santa’s Grotto!’

  * * *

  Devon, bordered by Cornwall in the west, and Somerset and Dorset in the east, is unique amongst English counties insomuch as it has two separated coastlines. The name derives from that given by the Romans to the Celtic people around 50 A.D., known as the ‘Dumonii’ or ‘Deep Valley Dwellers’. The Celtic custom of building houses with walls of mud and straw had lived on for many centuries, with the result that, even into the present era, many houses of that nature survived.

  Upper Ash Moor was no exception. A centuries-old farmhouse, it stood alone amidst acres of farmland, its cob walls (cob being the old Devonshire word for mud) rendered and coated with lime wash, giving it a brilliant white appearance against the background of green hedgerows and pastureland. It had long since ceased to be a working farm and now only retained a couple of acres of land, used by James’ father as a small holding where he raised free-range ducks, chickens and geese.

  The approach to the house was down a narrow winding lane, bordered by high hedgerows of hawthorn and blackthorn, through which mature ash and oak trees occasionally erupted. Now devoid of leaves, their branches looked like giant skeletal hands reaching into the late afternoon sky.

  Just as James had predicted, there was no chance of missing his parents’ house. As they rounded a final bend, the property appeared out of the darkness in a blaze of multi-coloured lights. He swung the MG onto the gravelled driveway, killed the engine and switched off the headlights in order to savour the effect.

  The house was a vision straight from a Christmas fairytale. Ribbons of flickering bulbs ran along the edges of the eaves. Others traced the outline of every window frame and the front door. Even more lights could be seen in the rooms beyond the windows. Small lamps at ground level were set at short intervals alongside the winding path from the driveway, whilst every tree and bush was adorned with its own shimmering mantle of light: some white, others red, with the remainder multi-coloured. The effect, against the darkness of the unlit lane and surrounding countryside was mesmerising.

  ‘Tell me I’m dreaming,’ said Janice.

  James laughed. ‘No. All this is very real. You are simply witnessing the festive home of a mild eccentric.’ He quickly glanced towards Janice before adding, ‘But I promise it isn’t hereditary.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ she replied as a figure appeared at the front door. ‘It would be reasonable grounds for divorce.’

  ‘Well, perhaps just a few of the genes have passed through,’ he said, ignoring the possibility of any significance in her last statement and gazing instead at the image of Jules, who appeared to be dressed in the style of an Eastern European count. Complete with knee-high leather boots, a large fur coat, and an impossibly large brimmed hat, he sauntered down the illuminated path, armed with a glass of champagne. James opened the car door and stepped out to greet his brother.

  ‘You look every bit as though you are on a catwalk,’ he said, before taking in Jules’ carefully shaped facial hair, which ran as a thin strip connecting his sideburns with a ribbon moustache across his upper lip, whilst other narrow bands of hair outlined the jaw-line before culminating in a small goatee-beard.

  ‘Do you like it? It is my new image. By the way, welcome to Tinsel Cottage.’ Jules complemented his greeting by removing his hat and bowing in a deep, sweeping salutation. The act of doing so revealed a partially shaven head with a cropped band of hair running, Mohican-style, down the centre. However, before James could make any further comment about his brother’s change of appearance, Jules turned his attention to Janice, who, at that moment, was getting out of the car.

  ‘Ah… Janice, darling.’ Holding his champagn
e in one hand and hat in the other, he greeted her with two theatrical air kisses. ‘My dear girl, you must be exhausted by your long journey. Do come inside and have a glass of reviving champagne. Oh, I forgot, you don’t drink champagne. Never mind; more for James and me. Perhaps a cup of tea would suit you better?’

  With that, he ushered Janice onto the path and followed close behind. Glancing back towards James, he gave an exaggerated upward roll of his eyes in a gesture of exasperation. A token quickly followed by a wry grin. James smiled in return. His brother was a consummate actor who loved taking centre stage, often at the expense of some poor soul whose unwitting task was to be his stooge. It would take Janice some time before she realised what was happening. Lifting a case out of the boot, he locked the MG and followed his wife and brother up to the house.

  * * *

  ‘Well, I think he ought to divorce her before they have any children and she fleeces him for all he’s got, not to mention a share of everything in the future.’

  Jules, nursing the remains of a hangover from an excess of whisky the night before, was perched on the top of a wooden partition within the old farrowing shed. The evening before had been a low-key affair, with the usual process of catching-up that families do when there is some sort of reunion. James’ arrival had at least moved the focus of attention. Jules was never quite comfortable being quizzed by his parents. Even on the occasions when he was not manipulating the truth for their benefit, it felt as though he was. It was so exhausting keeping up with the tales he confabulated. He felt that, if he told them the truth, then half the time they would not have believed him and the other half they would have spent in a state of semi-shock.

  Outside, the sky was leaden grey, with little promise of full daylight. A cold, westerly wind was blowing, with sufficient force to curtail the walk Jules had anticipated. He had entered the farrowing shed more with the purpose of getting warm than to engage his father in conversation. The warmth was not forthcoming, as the old building was full of cracks and certainly lacked any form of heating. The topic of conversation had arisen through his cantankerous mood. Any controversial subject would have sufficed, as long as it would serve to rile his father. If anyone had asked him, he would not have been able to explain the peculiar joy he experienced out of such a game. For that matter, neither would his father be capable of such clarification. It was simply a warped game they had played for years and was one that seemed to suit their personal psyches.