by Adam Thorpe
The both of yous close their eyes. The maid squeezes hers really tight because she musn’t look surprised never ever and do what you’re told be it ever so queer. Agatha kind of tries to keep her dignity so she turns her head and just sort of lets the eyelids take a rest. She hears some fiddling around with the pack of cards which aren’t really, they’re the set of pictures like a trick pack all joined up, like those fancy postcard sets you can buy in places like Florence and stuff, only these have slots in so they can slot in around the inside of the drum. Hey, this is getting really technical again. The maid’s respectable distance is disrespected by the uncle’s hand on her shoulder. Her eyelids let some light in but only a flash because she hasn’t been told to yet. She’s propelled forward step by step. He presses harder, so her back gives up and bends. Have the honour, the uncle is saying. She reckons that’s the order to open. She opens her eyes. There’s black in front of her. She’s been blinded with an ever so queer. It’s a black cloth. The thingy in front of her has a black cloth over it. The uncle is a conjurer, oh.
The black cloth, you’re thinking, wasn’t on there before. Too right, you’re on the ball, have another Bourbon & Coke but make sure it’s Bourbon. And keep alert. You don’t want to miss this. The bar is over there just so you don’t, OK?
The maid’s shiny-new feeling has already been spoilt. She feels a stain on her shoulder. She’s no longer spotless. She bends so her face is at the cloth. Her apron strings are biting into her trapezius muscles. No, that’s an exaggeration: they feel a bit tight as she bends. She has some wind. She keeps it in. Never ever ever. In front of. Eating. Especially at dinner unless soundless and with strong gravy to hide it. The black cloth smells of mothballs. It’s whipped away. There isn’t a rabbit, a drum-roll, her sister gasping probably because Dan has put his thumb into her thigh in the darkness (we’re talking music hall here, not TV in the lounge, OK?) – there’s a slit, moving away slightly. Another slit. Maybe it’s the same slit come round fast. Nay, it can’t be, ’cos there’s another. And another, faster, passing now and another and another and something beyond, something flickering, something alive, and not a rabbit, not a rabbit, but a gent, a gent flickering and walking, how can he be walking in a box, he’s naked, he en’t got nowt on, there en’t a leaf on his privates, the legs pass and he’s gone and there’s another gent, it’s the same one, walking past wi’out a stitch to his name, ever so queer, walking and gone flick and then there’s another, the same, Zelda says we’ve got the idea but I’m enjoying myself, it’s a riff, it’s cedunking time and she’s never ever seed a pair o’ privates afore and he’s really walking quickly now and back and past and out and back and past and out it must be knackering nipping back like that and striding past quicker and quicker with his hands swinging and his legs and his feet and his privates that she never thought’d look so big oh I’ve forgot ter breathe and she breathes and comes up as if for air and the room whirls and it’s ever so queer and she maun’t look surprised at a thing so she looks blank.
Well? cries Uncle Kenneth. He lets go of the handle and wipes his palm on his jacket. He’s a little peeved because he was hoping for a giggle or a snort but instead she’s come up looking blank.
Still Five: maid looking blank in front of big house. She’s the one on the right, the small one, dark hair, even blanker-looking than the other one, on the left. They were shuffled into place between beating the rugs and doing the fiddly bits of silver. The light popping made Milly want to look surprised but she managed not to. She blinked, though. And the funny man with the hair on his cheeks had told them not to. They weren’t to move a muscle, he said. They didn’t, basically, except for Lily’s left hand, which gave a big twitch off its own bat. It was the popping. It was cold. There’s the back door behind, with the ivy leaves over it. There are the blades of grass with dead leaves caught in them. There’s the shoe-scraper that’s still there now meaning now but rusty and no one scrapes their shoes these days, there’s no mud, no horse droppings, there’s no need – there’s only bubble gum and dog shit and gobs. Go take a look. At the still, I mean. Not your fucking shoes.
THE PHONE RINGS. I mean, the wall telephone on the central battery system mounted next to the hall mirror, the thing which you thought was a brass candlestick stuck out of a kind of fancy walnut shelf, rings. The two little brass bells like tits just under the shelf are getting it. It sounds like a herd of Alpine cows speeded up. It bounces off the lozenge tiles in the hall, it echoes, it’s awful. It drowns the click of the door opening. My great-aunt’s hand unhooks the receiver on the side and there are just echoes and her mouth gets close to the candle-holder. The receiver’s at her ear, horizontal, you’ve seen it in a hundred lousy adaptations, it’s rent-a-vintage-telephone time, there’s some guy or lady cranking something somewhere and way off down the other end of the line there’s Boulter’s mouth. His transmitter stinks, the receiver has dandruff. It’s white, he draws it even nearer, it looks like a lamp, he hates using it. Is that, er, good morning, he says. He’s nervous. His rum bottles are still rolling. He pities for once the fellows who have arithmetic with Holloway-Purse first thing. Good morning, he says again. There’s a soft buzz as usual then there’s a woman’s voice. It might be the maid’s, but it’s too posh, it might be the little bugger’s mother. A great nervousness grips him, he wants to go to the lavatory, underneath he’s a little man who should never have got to be in this position of awesome responsibility. He clears his throat. A great sound of surf washes down the line and Agatha takes the receiver away an inch from her ear. Hallo? she says. Who is it? She’s thinking of the maid looking blank in the living-room, not knowing where to put herself. Someone’s eating crisps close up. That’s not what she thinks, because I don’t reckon crisps were invented then, what she thinks is oh blast, this awful line. Something about am I talking to? Miss Trevelyan, she says. Uncle Kenneth’s rumble rumbles in the living-room. What on earth is he saying? Boulter swallows and says it. Your son has been expelled, Mrs Trevelyan. Agatha thinks this is queer, there’s a madman using the line, it’s happened once before, an invader from Mars, it might have been Giles playing the silly fool or something. Not William. William is the responsible type. My son? she repeats. An instant after she has said this, you know how it is, she burns up, her face catches fire, her mouth goes dry, because an outlying region has been attacked by the truth first while the centre takes baths and paints watercolours and embroiders. Boulter remembers there are two just at the same time as he remembers he hasn’t introduced himself. He’s never been so deucedly nervous in years. Expelled, the younger one (he can’t say his name, it won’t come out, it has to stay Trevelyan), for what one can only call, Mrs Trevelyan, I’m sorry to say – before the most difficult moment of all can be thrashed the voice at his ear says, who are you, please? It says it in a pressing and frankly off-putting way. Boulter blinks and grips the stem. An obscene thought bubbles up into his mind. His ear itches, it always itches when he uses the telephone. Everyone’s shouting at him this morning. This is the Master of Randle College, he announces. Mr Algernon Boulter. I regret to announce – he pauses, expecting to be shrieked at, but no, nothing but a soft buzz, and crackles, and clicks. He takes a breath. He might be talking into the sea. He might drown. The salty sea swirling through his teeth. He lets go of the stem of the telephone because, oh God, it’s the same grip. He pushes Jesus on to the stage of his mind, the obscenity withers, he opens his mouth, Jesus is raising his arms, He has a broom and bucket, He’s a billposter pasting up BUGGERY all over Boulter’s mind, Boulter flounders on regardless. I regret to announce, Mrs Trevelyan, that your younger boy (better, Boulter, better) has been cast from our midst, and has been put on the five past ten Great Western from Basingstoke, Mrs Trevelyan. A picture of the linden avenue stretches out in his head, the boy stumbling, damn Philips, the whole business, nasty business, but must set an example, never again, never again, Mr Wilde’s in town, Mr Wilde and Mr Swinburne, all that troop, like ghosts, reari
ng again and at Randle. The five past ten from Basingstoke sounds common. He blinks, he wants to say something more. A post-chaise would have been better. Galloped out of our midst. Change of horses at Staines. Somewhere. Foaming at the mouth. Vires acquirit eundo. Zelda is sighing. She likes Bashō better than she likes Virgil. Boulter has Virgil like he has dandruff, greasy skin, nits in his pubic tuft. It’s part of his make-up. The lady is saying something. James Joyce, she’s saying. You’re getting like James Joyce. James Joyce, I say, is about to start the greatest work of the twentieth century. Next year. Hit that significance, baby. 1914. Now shush, honeybunch. I’m in the telephone exchange, I’m keeping the connection going, I’m in between the two, there’s a cat’s-cradle of wires on my roof, there’s ten tons of scaffolding and wires, it was complicated in those days, my earphones are heavy, the air is full of wires and starlings and the world is growing uglier by the minute. Boulter says, hallo, hallo? He taps his receiver. My great-aunt is steadying herself. Uncle Kenneth is laughing and rumbling the other side of the door. Ha ha haa. The peacock feathers in the big brass jar are staring at her. The nice framed photograph of her as a little girl with Willo’s next to it would be staring at her also if the light from the hall window wasn’t flaring on it badly. She looks at Willo’s flare and the gilded ribbon uniting them perpetually without really noticing, her eyeballs kind of follow the bow of the ribbon like one of Zelda’s inner-eye exercises, don’t you think, honey?
No?
OK, she’s turning her head towards the stairs now. The stairs with the stuffed lemur on the half-landing are waiting for her, she ought to be running up them holding her dress just free of the William Morris runner like Deirdre used to do so well when sober. Mother will be back any minute. She swallows. She’s so close in she’s practically eating the transmitter, she can taste the Silvo on the nickel plate, it’s unhygienic, Father would say so, but she has to keep her voice down.
Please, she hisses, would you tell me why?
The voice in her ear has no shape. It’s a kind of mist. She’s staring at the twiddly bit of carving on the top of the wall set. Depravity, it says. Depravity, she echoes inside her. The mist fills her head with depravities: vaguely Roman, togas and things, Nero fiddling, rough faces scowling out of the darkness of back alley-ways, whores relieving themselves in Piccadilly, right in front of her, next to the boot-black boy who swears, and further things that are hidden behind red plush, that she might never know of. Not quite the usual depravities, Mrs Trevelyan. I hope he has the spunk to tell you. A letter shall be following forthwith. I do not wish, Mrs Trevelyan, to sully your ears at this difficult, indeed perhaps exceedingly distressful, moment. Boulter nods to himself, in the swing, really in the swing now. He has been, I might add, punished in a way quite fitting, quite fitting, and probably sufficient, though you might yourself decide otherwise. The five past ten from Basingstoke. He may need meeting. He has his trunk and other articles with him. Clearing of throat.
My head-set really hurts. They must have had strong neck muscles or something. My great-aunt is just eighteen. This is the most incredible thing that’s ever happened to her in her life, even worse and much more incredible than Evelyn’s death because Evelyn was sick for ages before. Her eyes are opened very wide indeed. Her mouth is tight shut. She’s blanked out. She wants to say I am not my mother, my mother is out, you wish to speak to my mother, don’t you? – but she’s blanked out, she can’t, she just thinks of the king in her chess-set and how Willo always beats her hollow. I hear a rustle. It’s Boulter sitting back. I’m so tense my back hurts, the phone exchange has lousy chairs, they swivel, even in 1913 they swivel, there’s all this chattering around me, it’s starlings, it’s wires, it’s work. Done, thinks Boulter. It just remains for me to say, Mrs Trevelyan, how deeply sorry I am at this unfortunate, er, outcome. He was a promising boy. Thank you, comes a faint voice, so faintly into his ear he cocks his head to the right as if he might tip out some more. A most promising boy, and not, I am quite sure, beyond redemption. The receiver tuts. The buzz becomes a hum. He has a momentary fear that he has done something terrible, that she’s going to scream and run out and throw herself under an omnibus or something. He crouches over the telephone, as if to coax the voice back. But it’s run out, away, and I’m not in the exchange any more. I’m watching my great-aunt and she’s not in a good way but she’s not about to run out and get flattened by an omnibus. Agatha isn’t like that. The living-room door opens. It’s Uncle Kenneth. He’s dabbing his lips with a handerchief that’s well past its allotted span of twelve nose-blows. He’s dabbing his lips because he always spittles at the corners when he laughs. Wouldn’t you like to know why he’d been laughing? Has blank-face Milly got a comic turn or something? Does she juggle, does she do a great Sarah Bernhardt limp? Hey, I can’t tell you everything. Uncle Kenneth laughs a lot. He laughs after he’s said something that’s not even particularly funny. It’s a kind of nerves thing. Here’s the maid. Watch her face. It’ll have clues in it. It’s blank. The more the ever so queer the blanker it goes ’cos never ever. She bobs at Agatha and crosses the hallway. Click clickety-click go her heels. She’s wearing boots. The tiles are chess-board black and white. The dining-room swallows her up. Cold air and yesterday’s soup waft out as usual. Uncle Kenneth frowns, thrusts his handkerchief back into his top pocket, thrusts it deeper, it looks really terrible and the mucus stains are showing their true colours but I can’t change it, live with it.
Bad news, my dear?
Agatha is sitting. I forgot to say that. She’s sitting in the big carved oak chair that takes up too much room. She’s trembling. It’s not really visible, but she is, all over. She thinks it must look frightful. Something’s seizing her and shaking her. Willo has committed a depravity. He is on the 10.5 GWR from Basingstoke. Pleasant little country town. She opens her mouth. You’d think she’d say something like, it’s Willo, he’s done something awful. You’d think that only because you’ve watched too many lousy adaptations and your mind’s a photocopier. She doesn’t say that. She doesn’t even want to say that. Instead she says, what’s the time?
Because my great-aunt Agatha was amazingly practical.
I need a break. Circulate for a minute without me. Dive after those roast fore-quarters of lambs unless you’re vegetarian in which case stick with the mashed turnips, it’s worth it, heaven’s probably a nice place when you get there.
YOU KNOW WHY I think I have wasted my life?
You do? You agree that I have wasted my life?
Thanks a lot.
These fragments, says Zelda, I have shored against my ruin. She’s reading my notes again. Scat, I say. You’re overdue on the overdue books. I want to know what happens, she says. Agatha’s in a fix, I say. I want to know how you unfix her, she says. I don’t unfix her, I say. I don’t do anything but let it roll. Then let it roll, cutesy, murmurs Zelda, or I’ll bar you. Half past the hour, says Uncle Kenneth, consulting his fob. Eleven-thirty? Eleven thirty indeed, says Uncle Kenneth. He puts away his fob and sniffs and tucks his hands behind his back. The various clocks ding or ting or bong right on cue. Just one ting or ding or bong each. Agatha feels a great lethargy, sitting in her chair. You know how it is, before an exam or something? You want to sit there forever, you don’t want to get up and gather your pencils and mascots and things and go into the exam room. You don’t even want to think about doing this, you’re so tired. Then you wake up. You took this exam twenty-two years ago and you passed. That’s nice. You roll over and sleep some more, snucking into the pillow. That’s nice.
My great-aunt Agatha doesn’t have that option. She’s not asleep. She’s awake and its 1913 and really amazing things are going on in the cultural milieu, everyone’s really modern, they’re all being modern like crazy and Joseph Conrad is bicycling over to Henry James’s place and Virginia Woolf is asking D. H. Lawrence to pass the sugar and these incredible magazines are coming out with way-out typography and FUCK OFF THE EMPIRE practically all ove
r them and the Post-Impressionists are blowing the socks off Ezra and the suffragettes are screaming the place down and basically if all we think about when we think of now meaning then is a big hat and The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady and maybe Walter de la Mare having a picnic we’ve got our arse up a gum-tree in a very bad place because (a) this is not the Edwardian period and (b) these really amazing avant-garde things were going on that make us a lifetime later look like a coach-party of Rotarians broken down on the North Circular Road or something. But the reason I brought all this up is that my great-aunt is stuck in this chair in the hallway in 1913 with a really big problem on her hands and the problem is that none of this amazing modern stuff is inside this house. This house is ticking away really quietly and its chairs are stuffed and it smells of beeswax and it’s got twenty-eight crates of valuable china disposed around every place your elbow might be if you were to start getting really modern and jig around to Stravinsky or something and basically sex is not mentioned and nobody jigs around and there are these faces staring at you off every wall which are the faces of your forefathers and foremothers to whom the word bum would’ve blown their beards off and here’s my great-aunt faced with the fact that her sweet little brother is depraved and has been kicked out of his school because he’s depraved and the 10.5 non-stop Great Western from Basingstoke is bringing this depraved kid home and no one else knows it.
