The Glass Book - A London Love Story

by Christian Hayes

  At that time Henry Rose was living in a large top-floor apartment in one of London’s most expensive districts. A shrine to wealthy excess, it contained large marble pillars that bookended its entrance. With no architectural value, these pillars were merely for show, but as one continued further into the apartment, one found wealthy grotesquery of all kinds: gold bath taps, antique weaponry bolted to the wall, artless paintings in elaborate frames and an over-stocked liquor cabinet. Peppered around the room were antique objects of all kinds: vases, statues, crockery, and musical instruments that he could not play. These were just the details. At the centre of its respective rooms was a large red leather sofa, a four-poster bed with a mirror attached, and a gold-plated bath. His fridge, too, was always stocked to the brim. As a result, Henry Rose used to hide an expanding waistline beneath his tailored suits, but due to his endless starvation, that had now disappeared completely. This empty palace was where Henry Rose had resided alone.

  When he next walked into his favourite tailor’s, he chose everything differently. Instead of choosing pinstripe, he chose plain, and instead of a black suit, he chose grey. He had his hair cut differently. Instead of brushing it back, he parted it to one side. When he looked at himself in the mirror, he was not markedly different to how he looked before, but there was certainly a difference in how he held himself, in the way he stood and the way he moved. A look up from the mirror and his eyes fell upon a cane attached to the wall which he immediately took down and held beside him. He no longer looked like one of the many suits that trundled in and out of London’s business districts, but instead a gentleman, somehow sharper, somehow younger, than he usually looked.

  As he followed Edward, as he devised his approach, there was one thing he had forgotten: a name. It was only once he was in The Ritz with Edward that the issue arose. It came to him as quite a surprise, a question that had not crossed his mind. It was only then that a name came out of his mouth, a name out of nowhere: Frederick Wolf. So in the space of one breath, Henry Rose was now Frederick Wolf. But soon he felt himself growing restless of this new identity and so changed his name yet again. The changing of his name did not happen in any real way. He did not meet Edward many times in person, but he still did watch him from afar, sending him notes and letters to keep him updated with the technicalities of his financial support. It was here that his name changed: on the page, and it did so on each and every note to Edward. Although this did not affect Henry Rose in any immediately noticeable way, it did serve to affect his mind. He found the freedom and the sense of anonymity it gave him to be addictive. This eventually led to the writing of page after page of names in a notebook, a stock-pile for later use. However, by this point, he was no longer in correspondence with Edward. And with every name after name he wrote, with every new identity he took on, the further removed he became from the man he had once been: Henry Rose.

  With the falling and the crash, his life began to crumble from around him. An accident led to the annihilation of his life, to a draining away of his money and the draining away of Henry Rose. A simple humpty-dumpty accident, a brainless mistake. Perhaps Henry Rose shouldn’t have climbed so high in the first place, but nevertheless, it could have happened to anyone. A ladder rising high at the back of the building. High enough: a ledge. The first floor. One storey. Rose climbs. From there, from the stone ledge there, Henry Rose can see the city. More specifically, he can see a certain part of the city. Even more specifically, Henry Rose used binoculars. A pair of eyes to look right in through the third floor window, to look right into the life of Edward Rose. That night, as Henry Rose had observed many nights before, Edward was again sitting at his desk. He noted this down in his book. Then, in an attempt to descend the ladder, a journey he had already made over and over again, both the untimeliness of rain and a single damaged section of an otherwise fully functioning drainpipe had made a certain area of the stone ledge slippery. This happened to be the very area that Henry Rose’s foot pressed down upon as he attempted to rise to his feet. In less time than he had to understand that he was falling, he was already in the air. Even though it was not a particularly far fall, much damage had been done. His right ankle was twisted and his left leg pretty much shattered; he had fallen on it at such an angle as to break it in many places at once. Only later, when reviewing his wounds, did he notice how lucky he was that it had not been his head, his back or his neck.

  On returning from hospital, he was left to fend for himself inside his apartment. The steps and levels there did not allow easy access for the wheelchair he sat in for most of the day. He would watch television for hours on end, numbed by the tirade of flashing lights and emptiness that poured into the room. Being prisoner at home meant that he could no longer go into work. His phone rang, but after a while he did not answer it. When it continued to ring, he pulled the cord out of the wall. When his doorbell rang, he did not move. Soon, it stopped ringing. He was still being paid a salary: the numbers were still rising inside of his bank account, but what happened inside that apartment would eventually change all that. With only a television to stare at and a window to look out of, Henry Rose became intensely frustrated. But as he felt his legs healing, this frustration shifted from his disability and fell upon his day to day life. Gradually, he began to dread his reintroduction into working life. The mundanity of it all: the endless commutes back and forth, the late evenings and early mornings, the repulsive people who surrounded him, the suffocating office air, the numbers and the sums, the deals, the endless streams of money. That night he wrote out a long list of names, as many as he could think of. The list went right down the page and half way down another. When he tired, he looked over them: Robert Fysh, Bruno Graves, Malcolm Mason, Barry Ives. His pen hovered above the page. When he found the one he was most attracted to, the nib hit the page and circled it. It had fallen upon Sidney Falcoln. A page was turned. He began to write about this person, about where they were born, who their parents were, what their school days were like, all the way down to what kind of clothes they wear and how they drink their tea. He did not sleep that night. He stared at himself in the mirror, questioned whether he looked anything like Sidney Falcoln, moved his hair around from side to side, questioned whether Sidney Falcoln would grow a beard or not.

  Apart from jumping out of his window, there was not much he could do to delay the inevitable recovery of his legs. The sprain in his right ankle cleared up in no time at all, and when he could finally put pressure on it he was able to abandon his wheelchair and walk around his apartment with a pair of crutches. It wasn’t long before he ventured out onto the street. Every step was laboured, every swing on his crutches caused the rest of his body to ache further, but he would force himself onwards, walking for hours on end, sometimes until night. He would map challenging walks out for himself, taking busy streets, crossing main roads, negotiating steep flights of stairs. He counted each fall as a step further away from Henry Rose. He knew that Sidney Falcoln would not give up, that Sidney Falcoln was not one to let a few measly falls-down-stairs get in his way. He turned the name over in his mind, so much so that it was firmly in his head as he made his way to the hospital the next day. He had to correct himself when he told the receptionist that his name was Falcoln, not Rose. But when the nurse removed the cast, when she sliced the blade down its side, it was certainly not Henry Rose’s leg that lay underneath. Henry Rose’s leg used to be strong, firm. What he was confronted with was a pasty, withered limb. He knew immediately that it was no good, that it would not get him anywhere fast. But he also knew that it was not his own leg. He had finally begun the process. This leg did not belong to him, but to Sidney Falcoln. This was evidence of that transformation. It had already taken hold of him.

  When he returned home, he did not call his office. It did not occur to him that he would have to return, that his absence was causing problems in the workplace: frantic phone calls, house visits, urgent questions from other departments. Sidney Falcoln was too busy getting accustomed to
his new legs: at the moment businessmen with questions were knocking at his door, Sidney Falcoln was already far away, travelling along the London pavements, one step at a time. His walks immediately became ambitious, for the very first walk he took led him deep into the city and deep into the night. He would then spend day after day leaving early and returning late, walking hour after hour, taking whatever road pleased him. Sometimes he would just circle the same streets over and over again, walking for movement’s sake.

  Then one night came when he did not return to his apartment. He walked until it became dark, and instead of turning around, instead of winding his way home, he kept on, step-after-step-after-step, until he felt as though he had come out the other end of the earth, or at least until the light began to rise. He returned to his apartment, to wash, to eat, to sleep. The next day he ventured out again. It never occurred to him to buy a map, to pinpoint a destination. As he walked, he continued to think of himself as Sidney Falcoln, but this identity soon began to tire and after a while he came up with a new name. He changed his clothes, his appearance, and continued on as this new person. When he grew restless of his new identity, he would merely go onto the next one, until he was stepping into the shoes of many men. On this journey, he came across a man who did not own an apartment, a man who lived for the street. This man would depend on the streets themselves, would be exhilarated by what he saw there: fallen pine needles from trees along the cracks of pavements, moss growth on the mortar of brick walls, the green discoloration of dilapidated buildings. So much so that he found no choice but to live there, to eat and sleep on these streets, to spend his time wandering the pavement that he so depended upon. He became this man.

  He never did return to his job. His colleagues reported him as missing and then forgot about him. His apartment lay dormant. He had forgotten that he was still paying for it, that his bank would pay the rent every month: the numbers in his account were slowly descending. It was only later that he would remember Edward. He had to forget about his son to remember him again. And when he remembered, he found Edward in hospital. A frantic search: a walk to Edward’s apartment: the same perilous journey up the ladder and onto the ledge. He saw Edward writing for a few nights on-end, and then the flashing blue lights, the siren, and a woman he had never seen before standing out on the pavement watching the ambulance drive into the distance. A pocketbook full of names soon became a log of Edward’s progress, of his location, his actions, his appearance. That was a long while ago now. Till now: the following of Edward, every street, every corner. If only Edward had turned around, he would have seen this old man everywhere he went. And the endless circles festered restlessness inside of him; he wanted to return to who he once was. He found himself sitting at Edward’s table, staring at an empty bowl. He had decided to strip away Frederick Wolf, Sidney Falcoln, and every other name he had sheltered under. He had decided to begin the process of returning to who he once was: Henry Rose.

  When Catherine saw the old man with the scraggly beard and tattered clothes, being helped by Edward, walking through the door, she recognised him immediately; her body went cold, her voice struck silent.

  ‘Edward, what are you-’ she asked, her voice light and broken. As soon as she realised Edward was leading this man over to the sofa, she immediately jumped up. The man fell into her seat with a lifeless groan and seemed to sit crouched there as a corpse. Catherine thought that Edward had hurried to the kitchen too fast to realise that the man had just died, but when he returned with a glass of water, there were signs of movement. ‘Edward, what is he doing here?’ Edward did not answer her, he was too busy helping the man take sips. ‘Get him out. I don’t want him here.’ She did not know that the man could hear every word she was saying and was listening intently. ‘Edward!’

  ‘He’s not leaving!’ snapped Edward, shouting fiercely. She was stunned by the outburst: in fact it reminded her of the very outburst that this old man had directed towards her in the pub. She recalled how terrified she had been, how she was so relieved when he disappeared out of sight. She never imagined that he would ever set eyes on her again, but due to a series of events she had no awareness of, he was now sitting on her sofa.

  ‘I want to talk to you... in the bedroom,’ said Catherine, solemnly, before walking steadily towards the room and shutting the door behind her. Edward did not seem to have noticed: he did not react, merely continuing to tend to the old man.

  As Catherine stared out of the bedroom window, Edward was heating up a can of soup for the stranger. She watched the cars go by, the people walking down below. For a moment she fashioned her own escape, a breathtaking chase from the shackles of these rooms, Catherine Glass crashing to the ground, shattering, as Catherine Lucia ran across the road. On the other hand, the quietest of escapes: a stroll in disguise, a walk to the corner shop and never returning. This was the most plausible of escapes, the closest to any kind of reality. When she realised that she had been daydreaming, she noticed the room she was in, and when she turned, she was given a start to find Edward standing there. His face was fierce, impenetrable. She began.

  ‘I can’t believe you!’ she yelled.

  ‘I don’t want to hear it! I just don’t want to hear it!’ shouted Edward as he paced the room.

  ‘Well you have to hear it, because I’m not going to put up with this! Can you please explain-what the hell is he doing in our house?’ she screamed. He stopped pacing and stared Catherine right in the eye.

  ‘Do you know who that man is? Do you?’

  ‘No, I don’t, I don’t...’

  ‘That man is Frederick Wolf-Frederick Wolf!’ What he actually meant to say was Henry Rose, he just did not know it yet.

  ‘So his name’s Frederick Wolf, big deal? That man almost attacked me.’

  ‘He saved my life, Catherine! He saved my life!’ Catherine’s voice softened.

  ‘What are you talking about? How could that man have saved your life?’

  ‘That man was the one who took me off the street, he, he gave me food, he gave me shelter. He paid for this place. For what is now your house he paid for.’

  ‘Why would he do that? Why would he help you for no reason?’

  ‘I do not know, but he did, and if he hadn’t, I would be dead now, Catherine. Dead.’

  ‘You would not be dead.’

  ‘I swear, I would be dead. You would never have met me.’

  ‘And, what, he’s just going to live here now, with us?’

  ‘He gave me everything-I owe him, so if that means him staying with us for a little bit, then so be it.’

  ‘And what about me? What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘This is not about you. When I found him, I thought he was dead.’ Edward threw open the wardrobe doors. He started pulling out clothes: shirts, trousers, even Catherine’s skirts, T-shirts, spilling onto the floor.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she shouted. She frantically crouched down and started gathering her clothes up.

  ‘I’m looking for clothes for him.’ Under his breath, though loud enough for Catherine to hear, he said, ‘But of course, you wouldn’t care.’ On hearing this, Catherine picked up most of her clothes, held them tight in her arms and stood back a little. From there, she could again have a view from the window.

  ‘Where are your keys?’ Edward seemed to have finished causing a mess: their wardrobe was now inside-out.

  ‘What keys?’

  ‘For your old apartment, give them to me.’ Edward had his hand out as though he expected Catherine to pull them out of her pocket.

  ‘It’s not my apartment anymore. I have no right to go in there.’ Edward did not have any patience for rationalising.

  ‘I know where you keep them.’ He stormed over to her bedside table, pulled out her drawer, and ran his hand through all her personal things. Without even acknowledging that he had found the keys, he left the room, practically slamming the door behind him. Catherine stood silently for a moment. Out of her mouth fell: ‘I saved your
life too, you know.’

  Frederick Wolf lay in their bath. Edward waited outside in the living room; Catherine had not yet emerged from the bedroom. He had had to help lower Frederick Wolf’s bony body into the bath. Edward was nervously shaking his leg as problems and solutions circled around his skull. He almost didn’t notice the light from the windows grow dim. When he returned to the bathroom, the water had cooled and Frederick Wolf was shivering. He helped Frederick Wolf out of the bath and into Edward’s clothes. He noticed Wolf staring at himself in the mirror; indeed, he had not given his face much thought, had never spent much time in front of his reflection. His beard was thick, his eyes dim. He ran his hands through his lengthy hair, pushed it back over his head, flattened it down, ran his fingers over his beard. ‘Razor,’ he said. Edward was surprised to hear any word come from him. He fetched a disposable razor, some shaving foam, and a small pair of scissors. He ran the water hot. Wolf reached for the razorblade, peered at its thin blade. He replaced it, picked up the scissors and proceeded to snip away at his grizzly beard. Edward left him to it, shutting the door behind him.

  When he quietly entered the bedroom, Catherine was lying on the bed, fully clothed, her back turned towards him.

  ‘Honey,’ he said. She did not reply. He walked around the bed, and as her face was revealed to him, he saw that she was awake. Her eyes were glazed, her cheeks reddened: she had been crying. ‘What’s wrong?’ he whispered, sitting on the bed beside her, putting a hand upon her side. He immediately felt stupid: he knew exactly what was wrong. ‘Sorry,’ he murmured; there was nothing else to be said. Her eyes flickered slightly, before glancing at him, then turning away. ‘What else can I say?’ He wished he could keep his mouth shut: he sounded pathetic. He ran his hand along her side. ‘I feel bad about before. I didn’t mean to upset you, I just couldn’t think straight.’ He did not know whether these words were having any effect. Catherine was motionless. ‘Why don’t you rest here and I’ll come see how you are in a little while? Bring you some food.’ Edward began to get up.