All Souls (10 page)

On the morning of one of those Sundays exiled from the infinite, I was working in my distinctly uncosy pyramid of a house and, as was my custom on that particular day of the week, kept looking up from time to time to gaze out of the window at the pleasant young gypsy flowerseller in her high boots, jeans and leather jacket, who on Sundays and bank holidays - come rain or snow - used to set up her stall on the pavement opposite. Sometimes, in the midst of my exile, I would go out and buy a bunch of flowers from her simply to exchange a few words with another living soul. Looking up for the nth time in only a brief period, I saw the man and the dog coming down St Giles', the former clearly exhibiting his handicap and the latter his conspicuous lack. They were walking along the opposite pavement and I watched for some time as they hobbled up to the flower stall. I thought: "So the man goes out on Sundays too, even when all the bookshops are closed." I saw him take off his hat to buy something or just to chat to the girl and went back to my boring university tasks. Some seconds later the doorbell rang and I thought it was probably the flowerseller come to ask me for a glass of water, as she did sometimes, receiving instead a Coca-cola or a beer, but when I looked up before going downstairs, I saw that she was still there on the other side of the road. I went down and opened the door and the man who owned the dog with the missing leg stood smiling timidly up at me from the bottom of the front steps, holding his brown hat pressed against his chest.

"Good morning," he said. "My name's Alan Marriott. I should have phoned first. But I haven't got your number. Just your address. And anyway I'm not on the phone. I'd like to talk to you for a moment. If you're not too busy. I waited until Sunday, that's when people tend to be freer. Generally speaking, that is. May we come in?" He spoke as if punctuating each phrase, rarely using conjunctions, as if his speech too were lame. Although he wasn't wearing a tie he looked as if he was, perhaps the effect of the hat, perhaps because he wore his dark blue shirt buttoned to the neck. He could never have been mistaken for a university man, but neither did he look like someone indigent or unemployed. He wore two rings - he lacked taste - on the hand clasping his hat. There was something mean and unfinished about him, though that may just have been the impression left by his lameness.

"Would you mind telling me what this is about? If it's anything to do with religion, I've no time."

"Oh, no. It's nothing to do with religion at all. Unless you consider literature to be a religion. I don't. It's about a literary matter."

"What happened to your dog?"

"He was in a fight."

"OK. Come upstairs and tell me about it."

I ushered them in and led them towards the spiral staircase, but before going up, as if he knew or could imagine the house, the lame man took a step towards the kitchen and asked politely: "Shall I leave the dog in the kitchen?"

I looked down at the poor three-legged beast, so obedient and peaceable. "No, bring him up, he deserves our respect, and he'll be better off upstairs with us."

On the next floor up, the second floor, in the room that served me as both living room and study, the man could not resist an immediate glance at the few books I kept in Oxford (every so often I despatched bulky packages to Madrid containing the books I'd already collected) and which barely occupied two shelves. With the Latin hospitality I never managed to rid myself of, I asked if he wanted anything to drink, to which he said no, more because he was taken aback by the offer than because of any genuine disinclination to have a drink. He obviously felt he was intruding. I sat down on the chair I normally worked in and left the sofa to him. He didn't take off his raincoat when he sat down, it was already extremely creased. The dog lay down at his feet.

"What happened to him?"

"Some hooligans at Didcot station. They started having a go at me. The dog came to my defence. He bit one of them. He hurt the fellow. Badly. Between them, they caught him and put him on the railway line of the train we were waiting for. Somewhere beyond the platforms. They held me down too. They covered my mouth. It was late at night. They intended the train to cut him in half. Lengthways. But when the train came they weren't brave enough to hold him there right till the end, with their hands so near the line. The train didn't look as if it was going to slow down. In fact it didn't stop. It wasn't our train. He managed to roll over and so only lost his leg. You can't imagine the amount of blood he lost. The hooligans took
fright and ran off across the fields. I got off lightly with just a few blows with a stick. My own lameness is due to polio. I contracted it as a child."

"
I had no idea Didcot station was so dangerous."

"Only on match days. Well, it was when Oxford United got into the First Division. Not something that's likely to happen very often."

I couldn't resist giving the dog a few pats on the back. It received them with total indifference.

"Was he a hunter?"

"Yes, but not any more."

"A hunter of books, perhaps," I said, uncertain as to whether or not I should mention it.

The man smiled slightly. He had a friendly face and very large, pale blue eyes with a slight squint. When you looked at them it was difficult to determine exactly the direction of their gaze.

"Yes. I'm sorry about that. Mrs Alabaster told me about you. She gave me your address."

"Mrs Alabaster? Ah, yes, I gave it to her so that she could let me know if she managed to find some books I'm interested in. I'm not sure she should have given it to you."

"Yes, I know. Don't be cross with her. You must forgive her. She knows me well. She told me about you and I wanted to meet you. I did rather insist. I've spent the last few days following you around the bookshops. I didn't want to approach you in the street. You probably realised."

"Following me? But why?"

"To see what you bought and how you went about it. How much time you spent perusing the shelves and how much you spent. What you spent it on. You're Spanish, aren't you?"

"Yes, from Madrid."

"Do people there know Arthur Machen?"

"A few things by him have been translated. Borges wrote about him and spoke very highly of him."

"I don't know who Borges is. You must give me the reference. It's Machen I've come to see you about actually. Mrs Alabaster told me you were looking for some books by him."

'That's right. Can you get hold of any for me? I haven't found many up till now. You're a bookseller, are you?"

"No. I was for a few years. It's not easy finding anything by Machen these days. I've got nearly everything by him. Well, not everything. But if you find some title you're not interested in or that you've already got, buy it for me anyway. If it isn't too expensive. I'll always find a buyer for it. I've never found
Bridles and Spurs.
That's a book of essays. It was published in America." Alan Marriott fell silent and, when I said nothing, he seemed suddenly embarrassed. He began turning his hat round and round in his hands. He looked down at the floor, then over at the window. I wondered if he could see the flowerseller from where he was sitting. He couldn't. He loosened his raincoat. The dog yawned. At last Marriott said:

"Have you heard of the Machen Company?"

'No, what is it?"

"I can't tell you yet. I just wanted to know if you'd heard of it. Before I tell you about it, I would have to know if you'd be interested in joining. We haven't got anyone in Spain. Or Latin America. You'll be going back to Spain, I take it."

"Yes, in a year or so, not at the end of this year, but the next."

"There's no hurry."

"I go back every now and then, in the holidays. I teach at the university here. But, listen, it's a bit difficult to know if I want to join something without knowing what it's about."

"Yes, I understand that. But that's the way it is. What matters is the name. How you react to the name. People always react to names. They tell you a lot."

"Can you at least tell me what I would have to do?"

"Oh, to start with, you'd just have to pay a modest subscription, ten pounds a quarter. Then you'd be on the list. There are
nearly five hundred of us in England. More in Wales. We have some very eminent people as members."

"Five hundred Machenians? And what do they get out of it?"

"That depends. It varies each year. For the moment you'd receive bulletins. Publications too. Not regularly. Some you pay for separately. But they don't cost much, there's a discount and you can elect to receive them or not. I've been a member for twelve years now."

"Congratulations. And nothing's happened since then, apart from what happened to your dog in Didcot. Just a bit of a beating, eh?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, nothing else bad has happened to you."

"Oh, no, nothing. You wouldn't be running any risks, if that's what you mean. It won't affect your life in any way. There are eminent people involved."

"What, no horror, no terror? It is, after all, the Machen Company."

Marriott burst out laughing.

"Do you know, I wouldn't mind a beer now, if it's not too much trouble."

His teeth were set very wide apart; they cried out, retrospectively, for braces. He pulled out a Kleenex from his jacket pocket and dried the tears which, strangely, that one burst of laughter had brought to his pale eyes. I brought him up a glass of foaming beer, which he downed almost in one. Then he spoke more fluently: "Machen's horrors are very subtle. They depend in large part on the association of ideas. On the conjunction of ideas. On a capacity for bringing them together. You might never see the horror implicit in associating two ideas, the horror implicit in each of those ideas, and thus never in your whole life recognise the horror they contain. But you could live immersed in that horror if you were unfortunate enough always to make the right associations. For example, that girl opposite your
house who sells flowers. There's nothing terrifying about her, in herself she doesn't inspire horror. On the contrary. She's very attractive. She's nice and friendly. She stroked the dog. I bought these carnations from her." And saying that he produced two bent, rather crushed carnations from his raincoat pocket, as if he'd only bought them as a pretext to speak to the flowerseller. "But she could inspire horror. The idea of that girl in association with another idea could. Don't you think so? We don't yet know the nature of that missing idea, of the idea required to inspire us with horror. We don't yet know her horrifying other half. But it must exist. It does. It's simply a question of it appearing. It may also never appear. Who knows, it could turn out to be my dog. The girl and my dog. The girl with her long, chestnut hair, her high boots and her long, firm legs and my dog with his one leg missing." Marriott looked down at the dog, which was dozing; he looked at the dog's stump of a leg. He touched it lightly. "The fact that my dog goes everywhere with me is normal. It's necessary. It's odd if you like. I mean the two of us going around together. But there's nothing horrific about it. But if she went around with my dog. That might be horrific. The dog is missing a leg. If it had been hers, it would certainly never have lost its leg in a stupid argument after a football match. That's an accident. An occupational hazard for a dog with a lame master. But if it had been her dog, perhaps it would have lost its leg some other way. The dog is still missing a leg. There must be some other reason, then. Something far worse. Not just an accident. You could hardly imagine that girl getting involved in a fight. Perhaps the dog would have lost its leg
because
of her. Perhaps the only explanation of why this dog should have lost its leg if it were her dog would be that she had cut it off. How else could a dog that was so well looked after, cared for and loved by that nice, attractive girl who sells flowers have lost its leg? It's a horrible idea, that girl cutting off my dog's leg; seeing it with her own eyes; being a witness to it."

Alan Marriott's final words sounded slightly indignant, as if he were indignant with the flowerseller. He broke off. He seemed to have frightened himself. "Let's drop the subject."

"No, go on, you were on the point of inventing a story."

"No, forget it. It's a poor example."

"As you wish."

Marriott put his hands in his raincoat pockets, as if announcing with that gesture that he was about to get up.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Would you be interested in joining?"

I stroked a finger up and down between my nose and my upper lip, as I do when I'm unsure about something. I said: "I might be. Look, here's what we'll do, if it's all right with you that is. I'll give you the ten pounds for the first quarter and that way I'll be on the list along with the eminent people. Later on, I'll tell you if I'm interested in continuing."

"But when? And the members aren't
all
eminent people, you know."

"Soon. Let's say after the three months covered by my first subscription."

Marriott looked hard at the two five-pound notes I'd taken out of a drawer and placed on the low table as I said this. At least I think he did, his transparent eyes were very deceptive.

"It's not our usual way of doing things. But since you're a foreigner. And we haven't got anyone in Spain. Or in Latin America. I'm going to give you my address. Just in case you find anything by Machen that you've already got. Or
Bridles and Spurs.
Or his introduction to John Gawsworth's 
Above
the River.
It's very difficult to find his complete works. I'll write it all down. I'll pay you for them. If they're not too expensive. Up to twenty-five pounds. First editions. I don't live far away." He scribbled rapidly on a piece of crumpled paper, gave it to me, picked up the two five-pound notes and put them in his raincoat
pocket. He took the opportunity of returning his hands to his pockets in order to lean into them and get to his feet. "Would you like a receipt for the membership subscription?"

"No, I don't think that's necessary. I'm on the list now, am I?"