He sighed (as if greatly moved by the thought of his own impetuosity). ‘Perhaps I didn’t get him down quite right, perhaps it’s a German thing…’
Elen lunged for this straw. ‘Dory can seem a little abrupt sometimes…’
Harvey acknowledged this declaration with a slight (almost indifferent) shrug of his shoulder.
‘…a little…a little abrasive, even…’
She stalled, then drew a deep breath. ‘…But Abacus were definitely our first choice. Dory was dead-set on it. In fact he had to convice me. He thought you were an amazing find. He even said that. He said, “Harvey’s an amazing find.” He really did.’
‘Bullshit.’
Harvey was implacable. ‘Dory wanted Garry Spivey. He wanted A Priori.’
A Priori?
Elen blinked.
‘No. No, I don’t remember that at all…’
‘First in the book, he said.’
Elen blinked again –
Which book?
Harvey’s voice suddenly grew strident. ‘I mean to actually say that, Helen – to me of all people. First in the bloody book!’
‘A Priori?’ Elen frowned, trying desperately to catch up. ‘First? Are you sure?’
‘Sure? Am I sure?’ Harvey inadvertently spat out his mouthful of biscuit across the table-top. ‘Of course I’m bloody sure! Of course I am! Garry Spivey is a cancer, Helen! He’s a disgrace, a shit-heel, a bird-turd. I mean you don’t know the half of it. You couldn’t. The man is pure vermin. He has single-handedly dragged the East Kent building industry through the bloody sewers. He’s a thorn in our side, Helen. A blight, a pest. He’s a total fuckin’ liability…’
During the second half of Harvey’s impassioned declaration, Lester drifted past the open doorway. He was holding a small dog under his right arm – a dopey-looking spaniel. Elen had absolutely no idea where it had come from or what he was doing with it. Lester paused for a moment at the sound of Harvey’s raised voice, half-smiling (seeming to effortlessly gauge the complex, emotional scene as it unfolded before him), then he shook his head, pityingly, and wandered off.
‘The thing is, what your husband doesn’t know,’ Harvey was speaking again, and with great intensity (having taken a few quiet seconds to gather himself together), ‘is that Garry Spivey and me go way back. We have what you might call “history”. I had AAA in the yellow pages for twelve years. He was Alisdair Spivey and Sons. Worked with his dad – also, coincidentally, a tragic, fuckin’ arse-wipe – an’ everythin’ was hunky-dory. But then, when his dad finally passes – lung cancer, may he rest in peace – he gets all up himself. He changes the company name. An’ he bribes the twat who compiles the local Pages to give him first dibs. A Priori. Two words. Just out of spite. Sheer spite. And that’s exactly the kind of grubby, petty, stupid little twat…’
Elen pulled out a chair and sat down.
‘Maybe I’m being a little slow here,’ she murmured, ‘but AAA would come before A Priori, surely?’
Harvey sprang up (as if perched on the other end of a time-delayed see-saw). ‘That’s what I say. That’s my whole point, Helen. Of course it bloody does!’
‘So it’s just…’ Elen gradually worked it all out, ‘it’s just…just wrong, then?’
‘It is wrong,’ Harvey bellowed, ‘it’s bloody wrong!’
‘Well…’ Elen frowned, trying desperately to keep a lid on things, ‘have you perhaps spoken to them about it?’
Harvey took a step back, blinking rapidly, as if in total astonishment at the naivety of this question. ‘Have I…? Have I spoken? Who the hell do you think I am?! I’m Harvey fuckin’ Broad, woman! I have two bloody restrainin’ orders out on me!’
‘Oh…’
Elen tried not to appear even remotely alarmed by this information…‘I see.’
‘I mean this is my livelihood, Helen. It’s my life. My reputation. My passion.’
He gazed at her, panting slightly. Elen carefully knitted her hands together. ‘So…so what they’re saying, effectively, is that a single “a” comes before everything else?’
Harvey nodded. ‘But the killer punch is the Latin. The Latin’s the key. Latin always comes first, they say.’
‘It does?’
Elen frowned.
Harvey sat down again. ‘In the Oxford English, yes, okay, I can accept that. In the old version. Fair enough. But these are modern times, Helen. In the Collins I got at home they don’t even mention any of that Latin stuff. In the Collins, AAA gets its own listin’: Amateur Athletics Association. It comes straight after AA: Alcoholics Anonymous. An’ this ain’t just no piece of old shite. This is the Collins Modern Dictionary of the English Language.’
Elen nodded. ‘I do believe it’s a very…a very respectable dictionary.’
Harvey suddenly leaned across the table, conspiratorially. ‘I mean you’re a doctor, aren’t you?’
She flinched, somewhat taken aback by his unexpected change of tack. ‘Well, uh…no, not…’
‘But you’re familiar with all that Latin shit?’
Elen paused. ‘Well, yes. I know a little. But I’m just a podiatrist, Harvey.
I’m a foot doctor. It isn’t quite…’
‘Exactly!’ Harvey slapped his large, clean palm down hard on to the table-top. ‘Podiatrist! That’s Latin, right there!’
Elen tried to dissuade him. ‘It’s actually Ancient Greek. Podiatry is an American term. In Britain we tend to call ourselves chiropodists, but strictly speaking, Cheir means hand and Pod means…’
Harvey flapped a dismissive paw at her. ‘Greeks, Latins, same fuckin’ difference, mate. The point is this: it don’t matter what kind of a doctor you are. You’re a doctor. You’re educated. You’re professional…’
Elen flinched slightly.
‘I mean don’t get me wrong,’ Harvey continued, ‘we Broads have been in the buildin’ trade for years – generations. We’ve been knockin’ things up an’ pullin’ ‘em down again for so long that it’s like a profession to us. Point of fact, my great-great…’ he flapped his hand impatiently, ‘etcetera grandad once wrote a very famous book about the most healthy way to build a house. This same man was a surgeon, too. A physician, and to royalty, no less. Also wrote what they call a “pamphlet” about astrology…’
‘That’s amazing,’ Elen said.
‘Yeah,’ Harvey agreed.
‘So we ain’t stupid by any means. But when it comes to this whole A Priori issue I’m what you might call an “interested party”. Nobody’ll take me seriously. But you…’
Harvey appraised her, tenderly. ‘You’re just a member of the public. A professional female. An intellectual. So if you just happened to write them a letter…I dunno, sayin’, for example, how you’re educated and speak Ancient Greek, and when you went to the phone book you was disappointed…no, no…shocked to see A Priori in the wrong place…’
Elen allowed this all to sink in for a second. As it sank, Harvey continued to gaze at her, determinedly.
‘Just a short letter,’ he re-emphasised, ‘stating how you’re a doctor.’ Elen carefully cleared her throat. ‘So you really…you actually want me to do that?’
Harvey leaned back, sniffed, inspected his nails. ‘Well it’s up to you, obviously…’
He glanced down at his buddy, at his neat line of phones, then up again, pointedly.
Elen blinked. ‘You actually want me to do that now?’
Harvey shrugged, as if he couldn’t care less.
Elen slowly stood up and began looking around her – numbly – for a piece of paper. When she’d finally located a scrap, Harvey kindly loaned her his pen. It was a Parker.
ISIDORE
Isidore was not German. He was English. But being German seemed to work for him, so he stuck with it, he cultivated it. In fact he’d honed it to such a pitch now that he rarely even thought about it. It just fitted him, somehow, was comfortable, like a well-cut jacket (the maker’s mark – the discreet tag – neatly
located on the inside flap, but then gently scratched out –
A thumb-nail?
A flattened blade?
– until the embroidery had snagged and become unreadable).
Both of his parents had been teachers. His father, Laurie (second-generation London Irish – a lapsed Catholic, whose ancestors hailed from County Waterford, originally), was a huge, flame-haired, pale-skinned man – sandblasted in freckles – who specialised in the sciences. His mother, Clare (darker, much smaller; her grandparents, on her mother’s side, exiled Jews, from Czechoslovakia), specialised in languages (Ancient Greek, Latin, French and German). They were enthusiastic travellers, and had toured extensively – throughout Europe, the Far East and Australia – during the early years of their marriage.
Laurie had suffered – man and boy – from both asthma and eczema, and had gradually evolved – through trial and error – into a keen proponent of alternative methods of healthcare. His favourite quote was by Father Sebastian Kneipp, founder of The Wellness Movement, who said, ‘Those who do not find some time every day for health must sacrifice a lot of time one day for illness.’
He quoted it often, but always – like Pfarrer Kneipp himself – in a gently accented Bavarian-German (it was just too bad if the person he was quoting at was unfamiliar with this particular idiom).
Teaching could not hold them. In 1976, when Isidore was still quite young, they’d emigrated to Germany, intent upon establishing a Wellness School, or ‘Kurhaus’ – aimed principally at attracting English holiday-makers during the summer season; an evangelical establishment, brimming with health, good sense and cheerful discipline.
They spent two years in ‘Kneipptown’ (Bad Worishofen), learning the business of Wellness in all its configurations, then toured for a further six months, finally electing upon Bad Munstereifel – in the Northern Rhine Westphalia region – as the place to settle. It had much to recommend it: was a picturesque medieval spa-town (already steeped in the Wellness Tradition), full of neat, timber-framed houses, surrounded by an infinity of rolling, densely forested hills, clear streams and small mountains.
For ‘Wellness’, location was everything. The Kneipp Kur System was established upon The Five Pillars of Kneipp. These were Hydro (water therapy), Phyto (plant therapy), Kinesi (exercise), Dietetic (less meat, more cereal) and Regulative (early to bed, early to rise).
They bought – and renovated – an oldish (but not ancient) timber mill on the outskirts of town. It was big, but never – to Laurie’s mind – big enough (which structure could be? His ambitions knew no bounds).
Only a small portion of the whole was to be their home. The rest, a labyrinth of tiny ‘cells’ (bed, sink, cupboard) and treatment rooms (pine-panelled, stone-floored, white-tiled).
The entire structure was circumscribed by an endless proliferation of copper piping, which fed into a seeming infinity of deep, ceramic baths, huge showers and wide basins (with gulping-hungry plugholes and giant, brass shower-heads, which hung from the ceilings – bent and top-heavy – like sinister, metal sunflowers).
And then, but of course: the Refectory (the busy clatter of cutlery at those endless lines of rough-hewn wooden tables, punctuated, every so often, by the odd, shrill squeal of the ecclesiastical-style benches as some foolish hot-head tried to stand up too suddenly), the awe-filled hush of the Consultation Room, the efficient, aromatic clink of the Dispensary (with its beautiful, white marble pestle and mortar, its tiny spoons and its delicate tweezers, its old-fashioned, brass scales – which were polished, every week, without fail, by a dutiful Isidore – and the shelves, and shelves, and shelves of fascinating, antique, green-tinted glass bottles, crammed with herbs and salts and tinctures and unguents).
All this space, and yet Isidore had no room of his own. Retreat – at home – was never really an option. His father was everywhere, inhabiting every corner. Isidore was only master of a small, cramped ‘cubby’, a slightly raised niche (or recess), moulded into the thick, old, stone wall of their living-room (by all accounts – his mother would opine proudly – an ‘original feature’), where he’d carefully wedge himself – like a coin in a slot machine – to sleep each evening.
‘Your playroom,’ his father would tell him, chin up, gesticulating grandly, ‘is the pine forest, the sweet meadow and the running stream. The whole world is your kingdom, Isidore. Was ever a child as blessed as you are?’
He knew that he was lucky.
Yet even in the midst of this apparent idyll – this lush, green Utopia – a shadow seemed to hang over the boy. Nothing too dramatic (at least, not to begin with); a slight veil – a film, almost – like an eye with a speck of grease in it, which blinks, then blinks again, and the grease spreads, and it thins, and the obfuscation is so slight, so minor, that it barely even impinges on the consciousness of the sufferer.
Its origins were – at least in part – linguistic. From the moment they’d arrived in Germany, Isidore was only ever permitted to communicate in German. Laurie’s commitment to their new culture was absolute, and he needed his son’s to be. If Dory dared to speak in English then he was not only ignored, but chastised (nothing too severe – a sharp word, a quick slap to the back of the knee – but these punishments seemed terrible to such a mild and timid boy).
As luck would have it, Dory picked up his new tongue rapidly; even growing (over time) to admire its merciless precision, its bite and cut, its fearless accuracy. But the transition hadn’t been seamless (few transitions ever are). There’d been trauma suffered – at some level, however slight – and a tiny lesion had formed – a cut, a snag, a tear – between Dory’s fragile sense of ‘past’ and his avowed – his dedicated – future.
This lesion didn’t heal. It stubbornly persisted. And with time – and wear – it gradually abraded.
Words were at the heart of it; as if Dory’s entire character was not only ‘articulated’ by Anglo-Saxon (in some obscure way – ie the rhythm of the diction, the complexity of the grammar, the elegance of the styling) so much as totally defined by it.
He’d sometimes complain of feeling ‘a kind of niggling’ deep inside of him – like a hunger, almost a pining – as if the old tongue still existed somewhere, still chattered away, uninhibitedly, like an underground stream, tirelessly searching for a fault at the surface – a crack, a furrow, a weakness – anything – to allow it to flood through and overwhelm him.
He was rightly fearful of this babbling (it groaned and chuckled, in stops and starts, like the cranky Kurhaus plumbing), and yet in some strange way, this subterranean conflict also served to buffer him. It was a secret – a flow; a Dionysian current – which couldn’t be dammed, either by his own dogged conformity or his father’s proselytising.
He had no proper name for it, but even if he had, he wouldn’t’ve dared speak it. And there was actually no need (when all was finally said and done), because it spoke itself, constantly, creeping up on him – when he least expected it (while he was eating, sitting innocently in class, or out in the hills, walking) and blowing a sudden, icy blast of cold air on to the back of his neck; making him start and gasp, making the delicate hairs there stand stiff and erect.
Sometimes it would nudge him, furtively, whispering confidingly (grown-up things, secret things, things he couldn’t – or didn’t want to – understand). And sometimes it would just pester him, persistently – like a bad boy in class – elbowing him, nudging him, sideswiping and jostling him.
But it thrived – most of all – on ornate ambushes; lying low for hours – days, even – until he’d almost forgotten about it, then jabbing him, savagely, between the ribs, or shoving him, violently, from the back; sending him hurtling – hands out, eyes starting – terrifying him; making him roll up tight, into a ball, his arms over his head, his chin on his chest, his knees drawn in (like a spent fighter, receiving a kicking) until it finally emerged – powerful, victorious – from between his own lips, in the form of something which sounded suspiciously like…
>
But what?
A curse?
No…
A bellow?
No…
A cackle?
Well…
A laugh…?
Uh…
Sometimes more of a…a roar, and sometimes just a titter. Sometimes a yuk-yuk-yuk or a hoarse guffaw or a tee-hee-hee, or a single, sharp Ha! (It was nothing if not variable).
Dory never really saw the joke, somehow.
In fact he’d swallow it back if he could – bite it back. The effort this took (the sheer force of will) made his eyes stream and his lips turn purple. It stropped his throat. It made him burp.
His deeply bemused father began prescribing chalk.
‘Mein Gott. But how unbelievably tedious…’ – the ten-year-old Isidore sometimes thought – ‘to be the stranger everywhere…’: at school, where the other boys still mocked his accent and the girls found him ‘cute’ (because he was small for his age) and treated him like a plaything. Then at home, where there were always visitors, cheerfully – confidently – appropriating the vista (in that immediate way, that English way), the children especially, who arrived, choc-full of vicious territorial bravura.
And as much as he might yearn to, he could not –
Just can’t
– bring himself to speak with them (‘Not in German. Like a stranger? Never! But not in English, either. What if Father should hear?’), and so they quickly grew tired of him. They called him ‘dumb’ and ‘stupid’; ‘weird’, even. Sometimes they’d gang up on him (pelt him with pine cones in the forest, dunk him in the river), or – more often – they’d simply ignore him (like he was invisible, as if his ‘difference’, his ‘foreignness’, rendered him so).
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