Alchemy

by Maureen Duffy

  Then there was Rosalind: ‘Men have died and worms have eaten them but not for love.’ Was she really that cynical or just expressing a typical view of the times that men were the romantics while women had their eye on the main chance? But Olivia was in love though it was only with a dream ‘poor lady’. The whole country was a merry-go-round of thwarted desires set against the social need to marry, like the ordered landscapes of Austen’s England. Illyria is Arcadia, itself a dreamscape of perpetual summer and pursuit as if we were in sunlit Greece instead of our sodden island. I was running round my own hamster wheel of unjustified recrimination and need and I didn’t know how to get off.

  Drew came over to my desk next morning and perched himself on the edge. ‘I think I ought to tell you. I’ve found a new job.’

  I’d been expecting it but I was still shaken. ‘Oh, man, what will I do without you?’

  ‘The humiliating thing is they didn’t even try to make me stay or talk me out of it. Chalmers suggested I take my full holiday even though I’m only entitled to half. They’ve even waived me working out my notice.

  ‘“I don’t think we should require that of you, Drewpad. I always think once one has made up one’s mind one should go for it.”’

  ‘The shits!’

  ‘That’s bosses for you.’

  ‘So where are you going?’

  He grinned. ‘Geneva.’

  ‘Geneva!’

  ‘I’ve got a job with an international organisation, well it’s a sort of charity really that provides cheap legal advice and assistance for musicians in Third World countries or whatever they’re called at the moment, who feel they’re being suckered by the big media boys.’

  ‘That’ll make you very popular.’

  ‘I know, it should be fun. Somehow I’ll feel I’m getting my own back over the post-colonial rip-off merchants. My only worry is my mum but she says it’s my big chance and I’ve got to take it.’

  ‘Maybe you’ll find a Swiss maid who wants somewhere to keep her cuckoo clock.’

  We had to toast his new life at the end of the week.

  I’ll keep in touch,’ Drew said as we got steadily and sentimentally pissed, but we both knew the time and place that had called up and supported our workaday friendship would fade, driven out by new faces and demands. He was excited by the chance of such a big change with all it might bring while I felt even more apprehensive and lost. James Chalmers had summoned me to appear that afternoon.

  ‘I expect you’ve heard that we’re losing Drewpad, that he’s going on to higher things. That means you’ll be in charge of that office and take over his briefs. More money of course and we’ve got an assistant for you in view. I’d like you to get them up and running as soon as possible so that you’re still here to help me out in court. Helen said she had a fantastic day out with you. She’s gone to stay with friends for a few days. I’ll go down and join her for the weekend. You seem to have given her a taste for the country.’

  I didn’t know what to make of all this. It explained Helen’s silence but why hadn’t she told me she was going away? She must have known all the time we were together. And Chalmers? Was he just laughing at me or playing some little game of his or their own? Perhaps they really were an ageing wolf couple, swapping partners and stories to turn each other on as other pairs watch porn movies together. I felt repelled and angry and yet I didn’t want to let her go, to simply walk away.

  On Tuesday I was due in court with James. ‘I’m sure you could handle this on your own but the beak and the clients like to see a man in charge. It’s different in the States, of course. Even big media corporations there are used to a woman up front but we’re still more traditional here, even in the field of media law. After all Butler-Sloss is only allowed the Family Division. A woman’s place is still in the home even on the bench. Those women who try to go beyond that get a very bad press, I’m afraid. It’ll be worse if they do away with the wig and gown and turn the court into a catwalk. We’ll start to get comments from the tabloids on what the judge was wearing instead of any attempt at serious reporting.’

  What had begun as a seeming compliment was sourly putting me in my place in the guise of a rational justification for the glass ceiling. Before I’d been jealous, envious of James Chalmers. Now I began to actively dislike him and yet I’d already seen enough to know he wasn’t alone in his way of thinking, of prejudice disguised as the very British pragmatism of let well alone, don’t rock the boat.

  We won the case and went back in a taxi together to Settle and Fixit. ‘Short and sweet,’ Chalmers said in the gloom of the cab.

  ‘Is Helen back yet?’ I tried to sound as if it was just a polite enquiry.

  ‘Yes. We drove back on Monday morning to avoid the Sunday night rush. Delightful weekend. Handsome house in Berkshire with a launch on the river, just a little runabout. The weather wasn’t bad either for once. Did you stay in town?’

  It’d been Sunday lunch in Acton again but I wasn’t going to admit it. Mam had worried that I was looking tired and Roger had joked about too many late nights and the fast pace of a city lawyer. My niece and nephew had been fractious and demanding, stealing each other’s toys and pushing each other over to get attention from the grown-ups, finally but then only briefly pacified with Dumbo on DVD. I’d felt estranged from them all, unable to take part, and the ache in the pit of my stomach and feeling of queasiness made me unable to appreciate the food that had taken Linda all morning to prepare – a summer echo of our Christmas dinner—roast chicken, new potatoes with mint from the garden, beans and carrots and a fresh fruit salad with cream to follow. We were alone at the table, the children had eaten their fish fingers, potato waffles and peas and were now watching The Jungle Book in the front room. In spite of his usual complaints about our parents’ unsophisticated food, this time Roger was making a better job of tucking in than I was while Jenny played the dutiful daughter-in-law. I could imagine the exchange that would take place in the car on the way home.

  ‘It’s free range, Jade. Do have a bit more. You’ve hardly eaten a thing. Just picking at it like when you were little. I thought you’d got over being a fussy eater.’

  ‘I’ve had a stomach bug this week, Mam,’ I lied.

  I got away as soon as I could. ‘I’ll ring you in a day or so,’ Linda said as I was leaving, ‘to know if you’re feeling better. I don’t like to think of you all on your own up there.’

  ‘Anyone would think I was in Scotland, Mam. It’s only half a dozen stops on the tube.’

  ‘It always seems like a different world to me.’

  Sometimes we would all meet for a pizza at the big openplan pizza parlour they’d taken me and Roger to as kids for a family outing but I knew they weren’t really comfortable there. As the area had been gentrified it had gone upmarket. Joel and I would go there occasionally so that he could admire the waiters, slim dark boys in bumtight black trousers and bumfreezer black waistcoats over green silk shirts. You expected them to carry a rose in their teeth or behind an ear to present to the customer, male or female, with a flourish and a flash of so perfect teeth you’d imagine they’d all been capped.

  ‘Don’t worry about me, Mam. I’m used to the big city. I can handle it.’

  But my flat seemed cold and empty without even a welcome sigh from the answering machine that someone was dying to talk to me. I couldn’t wait to get in to work on Monday morning. But without Drew my office seemed cold and empty too and no call came from Helen. Perhaps she wasn’t back. Then I passed James Chalmers on his way out to lunch. ‘See you in court tomorrow,’ he joked.

  It was meant to be a friendly reminder but it fell across me like the shadow of a sword. Well, if the way to Helen’s heart was carrying her husband’s files and finding the right place for him in ring-binder ‘X’ I would do it. And I wouldn’t call her. She would have to call me.

  Before our return to Wilton from Baynard’s Castle I determined to have my book of receipts again from Dr Adrian Gilb
ert who went almost daily to wait upon his brother Sir Walter in the Tower where had made a little garden for growing herbs and had set up a laboratory with the Wizard Earl of Northumberland where they conducted experiments together in which Dr Gilbert as he informed us also bore a part.

  Therefore when I knew that we were shortly to leave I sought him out early in that part of the castle where he was lodged. ‘Sir,’ I said, ‘it seems that we are soon to return to the country and I would have that my book of receipts again if it please you, so that I may be the readier in my lady’s service.’

  ‘It might indeed please me but I do not have your little book to hand having ordered a clerk to make copies of those of its entries that seemed to me to have possible merit though I would try them on the dog before entrusting a human to their kindness.’

  ‘My receipts are for the most part of my father’s devising sir and so of proven efficacy as many still living in Salisbury can testify.’

  ‘Country people of a coarser humour perhaps but of far different effect upon those more nobly and delicately bred.’

  These such then can be of little use to you sir. And therefore if you would be good enough to return it before we must leave I should be greatly obliged.’

  Some days passed and my book was not returned. I did not know what to do to have it again. At last I determined to speak to the countess.

  ‘My lady,’ I said, ‘there is a matter in which I must beg help of your great kindness.’

  ‘Why Amyntas, what could it be? You have asked me for nothing before in all the time of your service here.’

  ‘Madam, it is my little book of receipts which Dr Adrian Gilbert borrowed of me and now I would have again before we leave, for we may have need of them if a sudden sickness should come upon us at Wilton or Ramsbury. I have asked Dr Gilbert for its return but he is often at the Tower with his brother, Sir Walter, these last days and comes little to the laboratory here where I might have spoken with him again of it.’

  ‘You shall have your book I will send for him and say I have need of it myself.’

  The next day my lady came into the laboratory, where I was packing my case with those instruments and medicines I would take back with me. ‘Here is your little book, Amyntas, returned at my command.’

  I thanked her for her aid in the matter not thinking in that moment that I had only increased Dr Gilbert’s displeasure towards me. But when I took the book from her, I saw that it must have passed either through many hands or else careless ones for it was stained with beer and wine in places and broken-backed, so that the leaves were many of them coming loose and indeed I did not know at first glance but that some of them might be altogether missing.

  ‘As recompense for my help you shall make me a fair copy in a book which I shall give you, for your own seems in danger of dissolution through much use. It will be a fitting occupation for you in my absence and to keep me always in mind.’

  ‘My lady knows she is ever in my thoughts, sleeping or waking.’

  ‘Do you indeed see me in your dreams, Amyntas, even though I am growing old and “forty winters besiege my brow” as I read in my son’s commonplace book?’ She meant her younger son, Sir Philip, for she was still estranged from the young earl, even though she had played hostess for him for his majesty during the recent sweat, as the common people call it.

  As soon as we were installed again in Ramsbury, I began on the new copy, with more care in the writing, since it was to be put into my lady’s hands, but at the same time I took pains to restore my little book, finding indeed that some pages had been altogether removed as I remembered, which I supplied from some papers of my father’s, glad that I had not thrown them away after entering the receipts in my own book. In special I saw that a cordial water of my father’s which is good in all diseases and harmful to no one, had been lost from its place among Spirit of Mints, Treacle Water, Spirit of Saffron and of Roses. This I replaced but with a new tide in honour of my lady: Tragea Comitesse Pembrokia which the poets would often style her in their dedications as I had read among the books in the library at the great house. This cordial requires much care and the finest ingredients in its composition if it is to have that full efficacy it is capable of. You must begin with a distillation of roses, cinnamon, gilly flowers, scallions, cloves and peaches with other herbs, in which must be dissolved if it can anyways be come at, powdered horn of unicorn which merchants bring from Africa, and all combined with civet, musk and aubergines in a linen bag. The dose is a good spoonful or in great extremity two. And to these well-tried remedies I added new ones of my own devising sometimes with the help of my lady before all the comings and goings with the new court filled up her time.

  Suddenly the air was full of talk of marriage, first of my lady’s niece to a hunting companion of his majesty. The countess called me to her in her bedchamber.

  ‘My Lady Anne and I are summoned to my sister Sidney’s at Penshurst for help in preparation of her daughter’s wedding. If I have need of you I will send for you from Ramsbury.’

  So I was left alone again. Even the duenna had gone to see her old place where she had first been nurse to my lady in her uncle’s mansion of Penshurst and to make herself useful in all manner of sewing and embroidery for the bride’s chest. It seemed that my lady’s brother, Earl Robert as he now was, was hard put to it to find a sufficient dowry for his daughter or the marriage had been sooner. Before she left, the duenna told me that the young earl himself, my lady’s son, had agreed to lend a large sum to his uncle for the honour of the family and to procure so desirable a match to one high in the king’s favour and perhaps this might reconcile him and his mother. A thousand pounds she said.

  Earl Robert’s daughter gave me some cause for jealousy knowing that my lady valued her highly for that she too had learning above what was usual for her sex, and followed my lady in her delight in books and in writing herself, going under the name of Urania, though as yet she being but eighteen years, and not as I am without the protection of parents to spur her genius with necessity has only wrote some verses which nevertheless the countess highly approved. Yet whether her new husband will take kindly to a poet wife is to be seen, for many men believe that the world of books should be theirs alone and that too much learning may distract a woman from her duties. In this my lady was fortunate in that the late earl her husband was much away as President of the Council in Wales at his castles of Cardiff and Ludlow of which the administration now falls so heavily upon my lady.

  All summer I lingered alone at Ramsbury going sometimes to that garden and mansion all shut up where my lady had bathed in the fountain among the stone nymphs, and in the overgrown and desolate gardens I began to write some verses myself, the words coming into my head as I gathered those herbs and plants that I saw growing among the useless weeds and long grasses, for some I found when I parted the stems had survived their long neglect and yet others had been blown there by nature and thrived among the stones of the many winding paths and in the hedges. In special in a piece of lawn turned again to meadow I found many orchis of which those roots which are round are to be dried and ground for medicines or if bruised and applied to the place may heal the king’s evil. Some say they are of Venus and as a potion provoke to lust and they are therefore much prized by physicians who supply the wants of those whose loins are cold or who would arouse lust in others.

  As I dug for them these words came to me which I wrote down in the tablet I carry always to keep note of herbs I find, the time of their blooming and coming to seed and where they may be found again.

  The orchis with its plume of fire

  Inspires to lust which feeds desire

  Yet no philtre need I who have seen

  My lady bathe in Diane’s stream.

  Hear when she comes the birds sing out

  And all the woods return their shout,

  But when she’s absent then how drear

  The very summer flowers appear.

  The mansion itself seemed
to sink more into decay each time I visited it. The second time I found myself there again I ventured to search for the key where my lady had bid me replace it under the flagstone in the little brick cistern and finding it a little dirtier and spotted with bright rust I made to try it in the lock of the front door itself under the portico. It turned, I pushed and the door groaned open. As my lady had bidden me before, I opened a shutter to see better. Perhaps I hoped that my imagination would conjure up the shape of my absent mistress out of the gloom and she would come towards me holding out her hands and smiling as she sometimes did in dreams. But the place seemed danker and more umbrous even than before.

  Nevertheless I determined now I was inside to explore further and began to go from chamber to chamber, climbing the broad oak stair till I could look down into the hall. And now I went from bedchamber to bedchamber opening a shutter here and there the further to see and then up a narrow stair to the attics where I found many stools stacked, a broken chair, a bed beneath which little mounds of sawdust gave evidence that the worms had got in.

  In a closet at the very corner of the house I came upon a jumble of ancient clothing from which flew out a cloud of silvery moths when I stirred them with my foot. Then I saw that leaning against the back of the closet was a lance such as men use for the tilt, with a helmet as it were placed upon a head. As I drew it out into the light it struck against something in the pile of moth-eaten clothes and, on my reaching in, I came upon a cuirass that had once been of polished steel and damasecened in some precious metal but now pitted and with a bloom of mildew over it. Behind this again was a shield of which the impresa was quite lost. I brushed the dust and cobwebs from the cuirass. In size it seemed fitted for a youth rather than a fully grown man. I put it on over my tunic. Although it pressed a little over my breasts it was otherwise as if made for me. Likewise with the helmet when I put it upon my head.