A Shock

by Keith Ridgway

  — Go on then.

  — But of course the locals were well ahead of them anyway because to their way of thinking there wasn’t a multitude of these Hearts of Jesus — what would that be?

  She touched her phone a little.

  — Los corazones. De Jesus.

  — That’s lovely. Well to their way of thinking there was only one. Only one corazone. And the many dead birds were just the same dead bird, stuck. Stuck in a loop. Doing the same thing again and again. Never learning its lesson. Up it flies for the sun, and it falls down dead and off it goes again. Like that other Greek boy

  — Sisyphus. Are we still preambling?

  — And there was something about the way these people, very specifically indigenous, very specific to that area — he told me the name but I can’t remember, but these are not your Mayans, who were just up the way a little, or your Incas, Anna, or any of the more famous, the Aztecs, the more famous civilisations of those parts, these are a different band of people, gathered around this mountain with the dead birds at the top.

  He took a sip of his beer.

  — And this now is the story.

  — Well thank god Yves, mon dieu.

  He laughed at her.

  — Very good. Now this mountain that they were living around and at the foot of, and a little bit up the sides of et cetera, the Spanish asked them the name of it, according to them. And every time they asked they got a different answer. Or probably what it was was that each time a different one of them asked they got a different answer, and it was only when they compared notes as it were, when they met at the end of the day and one would say to the other, well now, the locals showed me up The Ear today, and another would ask what The Ear was, and he would realise that it was the mountain that he had been told, by the very same locals, was known as The Storm, and a third would pipe up saying that the locals had told him that it was called The Bulldog, and another The Impossible and another The Burp of the Sheep, and another God’s Thumb, and so on and so on.

  — The Burp of the Sheep.

  — And of course these Spanish, these terrible colonialists, these awful men, were furious, thinking that they’d been lied to left right and centre, and they went into the villages and raised a terror demanding to know what the locals called this mountain.

  — Did they kill?

  — Over this? No I don’t think so. The man just said they were furious. You know the way violent men are constantly furious. Out of shame. That sort of thing. Assuming deceit. They probably knocked people about a bit. The Met on Rye Lane on a Sunday morning. Bloody, boisterous. You know. Seeing lies left right and centre. They kicked up an awful fuss anyway.

  — You need to work on this bit.

  — I do. In any case, it emerged of course that no one was lying to them. That they had been told the truth each time they’d asked.

  He pauses, and regards Anna. She purses her lips. She sits on the barstool with her legs crossed, her hands lying loosely in her lap. She wears a soft black leather jacket over a thinly striped top, dark red trousers, sandals. A full looking bag lies crumpled at her feet as if fallen from a great height. Her hair is tied back in a loose ponytail, strands of it falling over her face, which is very lightly made up.

  — I think it’s obvious, she says.

  — Is it?

  — The mountain has many names. She eyed him almost nervously, and smiled then.

  — You are disappointed.

  — No, no, it’s obvious of course. If they’re not lying . . . well then.

  He looks around the bar. Has a sip of his drink.

  — Go on then.

  — No it’s all right.

  — Oh for god’s sake Yves, tell me how it ends.

  — The mountain had all those names. All of them. And more. Hundreds of different names. It had a different name depending on where you were when you saw it. A matter of perspective Anna. In one village it looked a little like a bulldog. In another it looked like an ear. If you were climbing it from this angle it might be Boulder Mountain. From that angle it might be Goat Mountain. If you’re coming down it on this path it’s Rushing Mountain. On that path it’s Pigtail Mountain. Et cetera.

  — That’s good.

  — He told it much better.

  — Your Colombian?

  Yves drinks the last of his beer, his eyes on Anna over the rim of the glass. She looks into the silence he has left and finds his eyes and laughs. And he finishes his drink and laughs too.

  — One bird, many mountains, says Anna.

  Harry comes with a new pint for Yves and stands by them for a while and they talk in low voices about the socialists.

  — Are they Labour?

  — I asked. Labour adjacent, one said.

  — What’s that?

  — At the scene of the crime.

  — Anti-Corbyn?

  — No, no, pro-Corbyn.

  — Are you a socialist Anna?

  — I am, very much so. You are too Yves.

  — I’m a fascist, says Harry.

  — You are a gentleman Harry.

  — I hate everyone.

  — No you don’t. You know everyone. It’s not the same thing.

  — Should we join their group? Yves asks.

  — I’m not a joiner, says Anna.

  — You won’t join me for another drink then?

  And they all laugh, though Yves is so delighted with his joke that he goes for a walk around the bar telling people about it.

  — What are you working on Anna?

  — The murder of Camus.

  — KGB?

  — Probably not.

  — Novel?

  — Probably not.

  Harry fills her glass from a bottle he brings up from under the counter and puts back there.

  — I have one for you.

  — Go on.

  — Writer

  — What sort of writer?

  — French writer. Goes to Mexico. For some reason. No, he goes to do a profile of a drug baron. You know, a commission.

  — A journalist then?

  — And novelist.

  — All right.

  — And he goes to do this profile for a big magazine. And he gets, much to his surprise, to meet this drug baron. And the two of them hit it off. They like each other. The drug baron is a charmer. Not at all intimidating, not to the writer anyway. But he has this immense power. Which the writer envies. And the writer has no power. But he has no responsibilities either, and he writes. And the drug baron envies that.

  — Oh Harry.

  — What?

  — This is a movie.

  — No.

  — They will make the journalist a woman. They will make it a comedy.

  — No. Well, it could be a movie. But it’s not. It’s about the violence, and about the sort of violence they end up doing to each other, and about ideas of masculinity and so forth. Sexuality. Gender.

  She looks at him. He stares at the counter top. Aligns a couple of beer mats.

  — They become lovers?

  — Sure.

  He won’t look at her.

  — That could be interesting.

  — Yeah.

  He scratches his head.

  — Think about it some more, said Anna.

  — Ok, says Harry, and moves away.

  Anna watches him.

  Yves comes back.

  — I have hurt his feelings.

  — Harry’s? Why?

  — What is the wretched woman?

  He looks at her.

  — A woman in a wall.

  He stares.

  — Yves . . .

  — Oh! Yes! Yes! This actually happened near here Anna. On that big estate that nearly fell down. The
big towers. Near the Old Kent Road. A woman. Let me get this right now. I’ll get it wrong.

  — You told the story of the mountain very beautifully Yves.

  — I know. But this has facts in it.

  Yves stares at the floor for a moment, getting the facts straight. Anna looks at Harry. He is laughing with John about the golf. John loves golf. Harry catches her eye, comes over.

  — I have been reading a great book Anna. Do you know it? By that woman.

  — Spark?

  — What? No. Not Spark.

  — I keep on telling you Harry. Rename the pub. Put her picture up. Create a cocktail called The Abbess of Crewe.

  — I know. I know.

  — She lived five minutes from here.

  — There are probably legal issues.

  — You could relabel the toilets. The Bachelors, and The Girls of Slender Means. There’s nothing about her around here. She’s been forgotten, and it’s a great injustice that you could remedy Harry.

  He stood leaning on the bar scowling at the little pile of beer mats.

  — She’d hate it of course. I’m sorry Harry. What’s the book?

  — Oh I don’t know. Spanish writer, or South American maybe, I can’t recall the name. But she was on the radio. And it’s this peculiar thing about a woman who moves into a small house in a great big forest. And it’s just her in the forest. In this house. And she has this mad idea that she can make, she can open up a bar in the sort of barn that is attached to the house. There’s no one around for miles. It’s the middle of nowhere. But she gets it into her head that if she puts up a nice neon sign over the barn, people will come. That they’ll see it or something, or feel it, and they’ll come, and she’ll make them drinks and play her favourite music. And it’s like a fantasy she has. But at the same time, she goes to the city and makes enquiries about having a neon sign done, and she designs it, and orders it and everything. And then has it installed. Mad. This is mad. She doesn’t even have any stock. No beer, no spirits. No license or anything. Just this big neon sign. And then Anna, listen, then the book starts talking. The book you’re reading. It starts speaking. It’s hard to describe. It’s like the book speaks up.

  — What does it say?

  — No, it’s not that. It’s more that. You become aware that you’re reading a book. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s terrifying.

  — What does the sign say I meant.

  — Oh. Something stupid, what is it, something communist. She’s a communist. Used to be a guerilla fighter. I can’t remember.

  — Sounds great. Show it to me.

  — It’s upstairs. I’ll go and get it later. Yes sir what can I do for you?

  Yves looks up and gently touches Anna’s elbow.

  — So the council have been making a mess of this estate over there and I can’t remember the name of it. So let’s say it’s the Salter Estate. The Salter Estate off the Old Kent Road. And the problems are legion Anna. There are problems with the heating. With the windows. With the walls. So it’s the middle of summer and it’s sweltering hot and in this one tower in the middle of the estate they can’t turn the heat off. One of those systems that does the whole building. There are so many problems with those. Whoever designed them should be shot.

  — Shot?

  — If we demand shooting they might get a slap on the wrist Anna. That’s how it works. Demand the stars, you might get the moon.

  — Clever.

  — The heating is on full blast. And it’s nearly 30 degrees outside. And they can’t turn it off. And the hot water is practically boiling. And a lot of the windows are rusted up and can’t be opened. And not all of these flats have balconies. These conditions are preposterous Anna. They are inhuman. And the council has people on site, and contractors on site, and they’re all down there with their vans and their hard hats and their yellow things that

  — Gilets.

  — Well they’re all there in their jillys with their clipboards arguing about who is responsible for what, and people are going berserk. And there is one woman, near the top, and she is so desperate that she poked a hole in her flimsy wall, these ridiculous flimsy walls they have, and these big empty gaps between them, the places built as if by children, these walls that were supposed to be filled but never were, with insulation or something like that Anna, I’ll work on that.

  — You’ll fill it in.

  — Yes. I will. And she is after coolness that’s all it is. Just looking for some cool air. And the plaster comes away and there’s a cooler space there, and it looks like she might fit. And she squeezes herself into the wall cavity and gets stuck. And the poor woman is there for hours. Hours. Sweating now with the anxiety of it as well as the heat, and she isn’t discovered until her husband, who is a porter in King’s, he comes home and his wife isn’t there, she’s not there Anna, his wife is nothing now but a screaming in the wall and he can’t even find her, whatever way she’s managed to do it, he can’t even find her for a while, and then he had to get the fire brigade out because he can’t pull her out, the poor woman, stuck in the wall like that. God.

  He trails off, troubled, unhappy.

  — What happened Yves?

  — Ah they got her out eventually. Bloody council.

  — It’s all right. She got out. Don’t worry.

  — Still though Anna.

  — Facts.

  — I know. I know. I should know better.

  — They used to put women in walls all the time.

  — Who did?

  — Men. Usually priests bricking up nuns.

  — Why?

  — I don’t know. Pregnancies. Talking. Embarrassing someone. Brick her up!

  Anna jabs her finger at the air.

  — Disgrace! Brick her up!

  — That’s terrible.

  — Many ghost stories of course. About bricked-up nuns. Think of the anger, Yves. A death like that, well you’re just asking for trouble.

  — It’s murder.

  — It’s worse than murder.

  — It must have been awful. Screaming. Trying to get out.

  — Bloody fingers, yes, those ghosts, a lot of bloody fingers in those stories, nails torn off, broken fingers. Days of waiting.

  — Days?

  — At least. Weeks maybe. They’d have to starve to death.

  — Oh my god.

  — And there were monks, kings, oh I don’t know.

  — There was that boy from Camberwell in the roof.

  — What boy?

  — In the attic. You know Roy. Not Roy. Ron. You know Ron the plumber?

  — No.

  Harry walks by.

  — I know Ronnie, he said,

  — He’s a plumber isn’t he?

  — Depends what you need doing, says Harry, and disappears into the back bar.

  — Ron is a handyman then, and his son. Or his cousin or nephew or something like that Anna, was trapped in a roof, in an attic, for days.

  — How did that happen?

  — They were working on a house somewhere in Hampstead or somewhere. Some old mansion in the rich places, in the rich west Anna. Out west. Notting Hill or some such. Putting in a new kitchen or something like that. And it was a Friday I think. And Ron finished a bit early and completely forgot about the boy. And the boy had left his phone somewhere, and couldn’t get out of the house and he hid in the attic. And the family came home and he stayed there out of embarrassment for the whole weekend.

  — Embarrassment?

  — I’ll ask Harry.

  Anna smiles into her wine. She uncrosses her legs and then crosses them the other way.

  — Men brick themselves up out of embarrassment, she says.

  — I’d kill myself, said Yves. If I was bricked up.

  — But how Yves?


  — I’d stop breathing.

  — I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I really wouldn’t.

  — What would you wish on them instead?

  — My grandfather used to wish

  — The sailor?

  — The sailor. He used to wish people a quick death. A sudden death. May your death come as a shock to you, he’d say.

  — Not very friendly.

  She laughs.

  — Yes. People often thought that, and he’d have to explain. But some people know immediately what you mean. No lingering. No pain. No suffering. A shot to the back of the head on a sunny day. Something snapping in your brain. A happy death.

  — Would you not want to say goodbye?

  — To who?

  — Loved ones. Friends. To have a last drink with me here.

  — I will have a last drink with you here Yves. And this might be it. So live it

  She raises her hands and smiles widely.

  — Live it and enjoy it and savour it and fill it with magic. Because who knows?

  People are looking.

  — Who knows? she asks loudly, when death will come to claim us.

  Yves seems embarrassed. His eyes dart around the room and he slouches. Anna brings her arms down and grins at him.

  — What would we say, Yves? To each other? If we knew that I was to be hit by a bus in the morning? We would be maudlin, dense. We would suffocate each other. Much better that we have a lovely evening and go our separate ways in full expectation of the same time same place, and then I get hit by my bus.

  — I will be very sad.

  — You are very kind.

  — I will organise some sort of commemoration.

  — Please don’t.

  — We will have free drinks and we will talk about your life.

  — Harry won’t allow it.

  — Won’t allow what?

  This is Harry, pausing with two pints in his hands.