Ladies From Hell (24 page)

I no longer live in England. There’s no place in it now, in the State Jimmy Hebden built, for people like me. I moved to a city, and a country, I’d never expected to see; and if for a time I lived in fear, that fear has mostly ebbed. This is my adopted place, and I think its people mean me no harm. Still, to an extent, I feel a stranger in a strange land; but I have at least the bleak consolation that it’s not so strange as my own land has become.

My conviction, illogical but strong, is still that the leys themselves lent Sarah Trevelyan her strength; and the leys took part of her away before its time. The real part, that will stay forever now locked and hidden. Certainly the pain I felt, the grief perhaps, prevented me for several years from setting this account down; but last week something happened to change my mind.

I had a letter, and instantly recognised the hand. I tore the package open, began to read. It contained an invitation, from Boulter and from one Sammy Farnham, expatriates like myself, to spend a weekend a few miles from my home town, in Connaught. There was something else too. A large scale map, marked with a network of crossing red lines. I’d known, of course, that the Government had been deeply interested in wind-powered rigs at the time of the Coombe Hasset disaster, and that money had been voted for an experimental chain; but not where they intended to set up the first turbines. “
Project this ley
,” writes Boulter, “
and you’ll find it passes through the holiest place in Ireland
…” So once more, I’m packing my things. Because I’d like to hear, if their notes are accessible to human
senses, the Harps of the Old Kings; and on one of them, who knows. Perhaps the Shade of Sarah will be content to play.

The Earthquake is not satisfied at once
…

Wordsworth

S
HE WONDERED HOW
the coffin would be made to move, on
what rails or tracks, and likewise if that movement would be silent, as silent as the rest of this now-quiet building. Move it must, and the square plain doors behind it part, and surely there would be light. She fumbled with a memory from farthest childhood, of a neighbour standing nodding and smiling, dry-eyed and funeral-dressed, it was like he was going into the sun.

She held her gloves crushed in her hand, she had no memory of taking them off, they were plain gloves, black and soft. She lowered her head, seeing with arbitrary clearness how the dark fabric reflected back a bluish sheen. The light from the tall windows, summer light, the trees outside were green, yet seemed diffused. It lay flat across the bare cream walls, a silent light she decided, silent as the building that took the priest’s words, soaked them into its fabric so that though he stood scarce ten feet from her he was not audible. Her mind made for itself in contrast the light of a cathedral window, some great tall place of glass, rich, silent, Omega and Alpha he, let the organ thunder. She sat cross-legged then, singing with the other children, and the globes were alight in the big Hall, old-fashioned globes that reminded her in forgotten summers of fossil moons. And we are sure, yes, we are positive, she has a definite Talent.

Though silence itself could thunder, as this place of cream walls and blue drapes had roared at her with a deadly, caressing quiet, its voice a hidden gramophone. The mouselike notes appalled though she had not broken her step, a mawkish, aggravating tune,
To a Wild Rose;
and some joke momentarily
obsessed her so that Jack had touched her arm, turned her into the pew where she must stand. She wondered if he might grasp now the other silence that had assaulted her, the enormity of the Tavener Whale, an old piece, outmoded, maybe disgraced, a battered record picked up on a Portobello stall. At first its banalities had failed to grip then the old dreams had come of crushing forces, rocks that moved with immeasurable stealth, and she understood how a storm might be so vast it could only be tinkled on sanctus bells, tapped out by a little drum. Sound, the sensation of sound, could be reversed, as now perhaps, a telly screen flicking to its own negative. Though Jack had remained unconvinced, he grinned at her and pushed back the little sweep of hair and said it’s more like half a pilchard.

A shelf before her held slim booklets, cream-bound, bland as the place itself, to pick one up and open, part now merely of a group, seemed strange. And there again was the coffin, the casket she supposed it should be called, glimpsed briefly during the slow drive, reappeared like a bulky conjuring trick under the tall arch before the plain grey doors. She was startled by it, and startled too by her unpreparedness for what was after all a performance. She wondered for the first time, why had they not mentioned it, they seemed not wholly efficient, if it was fitting to cover the hair in a place such as this. She put a hand half up, there were women in the congregation, her mind had registered them but not retained, she wondered if they were bareheaded too and could not turn to see.

The priest, was he a priest, had all but finished now, we know the sacrifices he made, happy to have given to his daughter, and to us, so short when he had sat for an hour, she felt it must have been an hour, on the sofa in what had been her father’s flat, the sofa with its floral grease-marked cover, behind it radio gear stacked and dusty, grey facias looped with frayed wire, two years now since licences had been withdrawn, she wondered why the transmitters had not been taken away. It had been the final blow of course, what had been the others, they had all known what had killed him, losing his last interest. The young man, the
priest, seemed ill at ease; apologetic, nail-examining. Yes of course he knew of her career, he must have been very proud; though he himself had never in fact, there was so little time, so very little time, now if you could give me, a few details, the little things, it all helped. To, say something, make something up, just a few words, a very simple service. While she wondered, part-bemused, how he could be so fitted to his station, thin face and thinning sandy hair, old tweed jacket leather-bound, his cloth dusty and a little frayed. No music, the old man had ordered, no music, we will remove him now, Miss Welles, to a Chapel of Rest, sexton beetles in anxious scurrying black.

And there was to be no sunset glow, no movement, the curtains had closed, behind them Michael Douglas Welles, full of the stiff pomposity of death, was being bundled toward his last indignity. Obscurely she felt cheated; she had been taken by surprise, it was as if some final act—word, gesture, lingering glance—remained to be committed, would be for ever uncompleted now. She took a half step forward, irresolute, and once more felt Jack’s hand on her arm. As always the Korean touched, when he must touch, delicately, nearly apologetically, like a flower she thought and surprised herself with the thought, a wiry brown flower.

The celebrant had passed her; must have passed, because he stood now by the door. He was waiting as the other folk were waiting, eyes averted, expressionless, uncomfortable in their little wooden stalls. She had fluffed her entrance now she was spoiling her exit, her mind laughed, inward, at how Paul would have raged then she wiped at her face, the streak of water that had made itself there. She thought how hard it would be to explain that the tear was not for
him
, for the tawdry box behind her, but for another; then that the tear was not a tear but water merely, a secretion of the body embarrassingly made public. Her mother’s death so many years ago was a pain she had not retained so once more she was a tyro, a beginner. She thought how strange it was not to have understood before it was thrust on her the salient fact of death, its absurdity. Death was pinstripe trousers and green carbon forms, florid faces professionally composed, the pudgy white powerful hands; and next-door
shufflings, hissed instructions, the stealthy thumps with which they bore the distorted departed away. Then the sun was hot on her face, trees like green shocks of light, tulips beside the porch growing from asphalt wounds; and a last thought came, disconnected, that if the place behind her was indeed a Whale, full of cavernous, consuming quiet, then it had cast her up, a woman Jonah, on to desert sand.

Paul was too much with her still, closer than she would have desired. The last time she had ridden in a private car had been with him; his image still seemed strongly imprinted on her mind, silver waving hair, young-old face harsh lit, the white silk scarf,
comme d’ habitude
, impeccable overcoat. No engine sound from behind the glass then bushes slid past, they were circling a little roundabout, she hadn’t understood that that would happen. And she was passing the place again, the smokestained walls, Car Park for West Chapel, tower under the May-fresh trees. Absence and presence like death and life seemed invested with arbitrariness, a mere perversity of space and time; so that it seemed her father must step forward now and flag to be taken home. Jack smiled at her and she half-turned to squeeze his wrist. Her purse lay on the seat; she opened it, took out a two inch square of tissue. The car turned left, away from the trees; she wiped her eyes and the sides of her nose, feeling the lemony tang, flicked at her hair, nape length since the police had started carrying scissors again, makeup would have been a mercy and a blessing.

Jack said, “I don’t think I ever told you how I got to Britain first time.” She didn’t answer and he carried on regardless. “Dad was a tutor at Seoul University,” he said. “We’d got a pretty good life. Then when the takeover came, my mother was half European. Dad got us on a banana boat. All the best people arrive by banana boat.”

The Finchley Road looked deserted, the shopping precinct on the left with the big Abbey National sign, all yellow-stained by the vehicle’s tinted glass. She thought, ‘This is what Paul would have done.’ She said, “Your mother went back though,
didn’t she?”

He grinned and nodded. “Yes,” he said, “when I was sixteen. She couldn’t stand my practising any more.”

It was a long standing joke of course. He’d always promised one day he’d take up the birdcage and toasting fork. She said, “What happened to her?”

He shook his head. “Nothing much. Dad knew it was safe, things had quietened down a lot. It had been six years of course, most of the Embassies were open again.”

The windows of John Barnes were boarded over; and the paint can people had been active again. PSYCHEDELIC WARLORDS sprawled in yard-high letters; beyond, inscrutably, were the words ST MICHAEL and a slender, well-drawn cross. She said, “Do you ever hear from them?” and Jack said, “I got a card at Christmas. They don’t write all that much.”

He’d said nothing really, of course. Nothing of the napalm bombing, the maimed refugee ships, the corpse-choked sea. And there would have been screaming; she heard the screams, silent as the chapel. She said, “Jack, what would you do? If …” She let the question hang in air, unwilling to finish the thought.

He clouded momentarily, then smiled again. Not a flower she thought a bird, a gentle, flashing bird. He said, “Oh, you can’t keep a good accompanist down. We always crop up somewhere.” But she had seen the worry at the back of the dark eyes. She thought as she had thought before, ‘How can they be like this? They teach us to be human.’

Despite all, London was still a city of trees. They lined the great swoop into Maida Vale, hazy, vibrant-green against vistas of red brick, bright cream stone. Jack said, “We had relations here of course. My granny married an Englishman. That was after the first war, the big one. He was in the Gloucesters. He kept me going till I got a start. He was pretty good to me.”

They had skirted Little Venice, passed beneath the gaunt sweep of the Westway. Toward Notting Hill the streets were busier, she saw folk turn and stare. As they had stared an hour ago, or was it two, at the little
cortège;
and an old man, white-haired, had doffed his cap at sight of the hearse, stood uncovered
at the kerbside till a militiaman jostled him, shoved him back with the butt of his automatic. She felt the tears sting again at that, tears for the stranger, and shook her head, half-angry. She said, “What’s your granny like?”

Jack considered. “She makes saki,” he said. “She’s very ugly.” He grinned again. “All Korean grannies are very ugly.”

She said, “She sounds great.”

Jack said, “When I first got here, my English was pretty ropey. The first time I met Tony I called him ‘honourable grandfather.’ He didn’t get over it for months.”

Save the official Army and Government limousines there were few cars in London now; or anywhere else for that matter. There were of course buses in plenty, grey-painted; she had mourned with others the passing of the old gay red. They rattled and shook, overloaded, wheezing clouds of diesel. The drabness was universal; she saw more shop windows boarded over, others half empty of goods. The commonest article of dress now was a boilersuit-like unisex garment of blue denim, even office workers had succumbed to it; while Mao sandals were the thing among the younger set. You cut them from car tyres, when they could be found, threaded them with cord to keep them on. She had been told they were very comfortable. She stared at the crowds jostling along the Bayswater Road, disinterested. A holdup at an unattended roadworks, streamers flapping forlornly from their ropes, a hand-scrawled message BEWARE DEFECTIVE LIGHTS; and the car began to wind through the wilderness that had been North Kensington.

Jack had fallen silent, frowning slightly, touching his lip, staring ahead at the driver; his stiff back and unresponsive neck. Despite herself her thoughts drifted to the morning a week ago, to the sudden pounding on the downstairs door; her alarmed descent, the pang as she saw through the spyhole the grey of the People’s Militia. The message had been curt, stilted; she found herself nodding, thanking the man even, wanting nothing but that he go away, leave her alone with the new thought. She closed the door of the flat, stood leaning on it, hands behind her on the knob. Her lips moved; but assimilation, it seemed, was not immediately possible. She became confused;
so that plans for the clothes she must wear, the appointments she must cancel and the letters she must write ran together in a bright jumble from which she could make no sense. Then as now she had needed Paul, her thoughts had run to him, but Paul was … not available. Instead she put on a coat and took her purse and sat on a bus, noisy and stinking and as ever slow, and stared out at the bright, strange world, the world that for the first time didn’t contain her father. Then there was the remembered street, children and a dog watching as she climbed the tenement steps, rapped the door. She was admitted; and there were the stairs, dark as ever and fusty-smelling, graffiti hacked and savage against brown paint, red aerosol smear on the landing wall; and policemen and a doctor and faces of neighbours, some prurient, some hostile, the tired, watchful beetles of the Burial Service. And it had all been arranged, the instructions had been clear, a model if we may say Miss Welles of prudence and foresight, the money had been paid, a simple service, no music, he could have known very little, a cardio-vascular accident, we will be removing him now Miss Welles to a Chapel of Rest. And if she would take the card, we have marked the viewing times, see, just here, we would ask you to observe them, a certain strictness, unfortunate but … a very crowded schedule, we were sure you would understand. Then she was left holding the card, wondering that they thought she might anger him by further visiting, the old grey man in his box, hearing the roars as Spurs played at home, unable to understand, to make his clay feet move. A confusion between death and life while she opened cupboards, laid papers and bric-a-brac in stacks and moved the stacks, why had he stored so many bars of soap, wrapped between yellowed underclothes, where could they go now the Salvation Army was closed, found bread coupons and his ration book, his pension hadn’t been drawn, an army passbook and out-of-date coins, there were tins with jagged edges in the kitchen alcove, she found a plastic bucket, its side had been burned, she took them to the dustbin in the area but it was overflowing and a woman was watching
from a window with grubby muslin curtains so she brought the bucket back upstairs, no music, there was the Requiem Aeternam and the Kyrie, Dies Irae and the Domine Jesu Christe, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, Lux Aeterna, Libera me, then the door opened, she had left it on the latch, it seemed to open apologetically, Jack stood looking round saying Jesus what a dump. She started crying then, an Englishman would have looked alarmed or taken her in his arms maybe, the Korean did neither, stood fingers touching her shoulder, bird-light, a shadow as the day began to fade. The sobs were hard and racking, bringing no relief, sobs not for death but for squalor and disorder and inadequacy, Pamina torn from her world of snakes and stars.