by Sarah Perry
‘No,’ I said. ‘No, she isn’t here.’ And then, because for my own sake I wanted to hear my name spoken I said, ‘It’s John Cole.’
But the other man couldn’t hear me, or wasn’t listening, only went on shouting against the passing cars: ‘Hello? Is anybody there? Hester – is that you?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid she isn’t here.’ My voice when I heard it was brisk and impatient as I imagine a secretary’s might be. Then he swore and said, ‘Well, take a message can’t you?’ I said that I would, of course, and he said: ‘Tell her it’s Jon Coules here, Jonathan Coules, and I’m delayed – I’ll be a week at least –’ The line broke, and when it returned it was clear he’d given some explanation I only caught at the end: ‘– couldn’t be helped… have you got that – have you got it? A week, and I’ll be with you.’
While I write this I imagine I have a reader, one who doesn’t know me, who doesn’t believe a word I’ve written here, or – and would this be worse? – believes me, but finds me too dull, my handwriting too cramped, to read any further. Well – if you’re there, holding this page nearer the light to see more clearly, wishing I’d told you more, hoping I might do better on the next page, or the next – I want to make you understand that what I did next wasn’t a plan. I didn’t do it out of malice or mischief. Do you believe me? Can you believe it could have been an impulse that was nothing to do with me, that I didn’t know was coming, or I would have done everything I could do prevent it?
When I looked up from where I sat, Hester was standing in front of me. Her dark blue dress was black and damp under the arms and in an irregular patch at the base of her throat; her hair had come loose in greasy coils that seemed to have an animation all of their own; and her broad ugly face was oily with sweat. But in the dark hall her dark eyes glowed, and she stooped and put her hand on the crown of my head where the hair is thin, and her palm felt hot and gentle against my skin. Then she said, ‘You must be tired.’ She said it so kindly, and so certainly, that I realised at once how many years it had been since anyone had noticed whether I was tired or not. Then she said, ‘Go up now, go on. Go up before the others come in. Sleep as long as you can. Nothing will happen here tonight or tomorrow, nothing ever does.’ Then she glanced down at the telephone and said, ‘Did I hear that earlier? Did you answer it, my dear? How rude of me – you didn’t come here to be my secretary, after all!’ She laughed, and so did I. Then she said, ‘Was there any message?’ and began wearily pinning back her hair.
How many times have I read of those moments when minutes accommodate years, and lives are recalled in the pouring of a drink? I’ve never believed a word of it, but in the space it took me to draw a breath the day replayed itself: I saw the branches of the pines closing over my head, the narrow path and the dying lawn, the face of the girl with the amber hair, wonderfully made and stooping over me as I sat at the table. And all the while I remembered also the last I’d seen of my flat, with its empty windows on the empty street, and the shop’s clock ticking slower than any other clock I’ve known.
Then I heard myself say, as if it was someone else’s voice in another room: ‘Oh, nothing, it was nothing – there was nobody there.’
II
‘Nothing,’ John said, and had the grace to meet the woman’s eye – though, certain she’d see a little of his lie, he’d quickly turned away and leant his head against the wall. Nothing will come of nothing, he thought, and didn’t believe a word of it. Hester took his sigh for weariness, and smiling said: ‘Then go up, and sleep without dreaming.’ She seemed almost to thrust him ahead of her up the stairs, though she remained there at the foot of them watching him go until he turned the corner and must have gone from view. He’d lingered awhile in the corridor – someone called up Oh, John don’t forget to say your prayers, and laughing went away – then fumbled at the nearest door. The first was locked; the second shrieked on its hinges; the third, already open, showed a room so heaped with clothes the furniture was lost. When he came to the fourth it seemed already familiar, with a particular mark on the wood; pushing it open, he saw again the narrow bed and the child’s desk where now – with a gesture of shame and distaste – he pushed the notebook away.
A kind of painful clarity came over him: dishonest to blame confusion or drink, or claim it was a kindness to the girl who’d welcomed him in; making an account of his own deceit made it necessary to admit that no-one had forced his hand. Appalled, he said: ‘What have I done – what have I done?’ and might have returned to the notebook and made a kind of confession if he had not heard a violent knocking on the door.
The sound tugged him from his seat; he knocked over the lamp in his haste and the bulb broke against the bare boards. Flushing violently, feeling again the weight of Hester’s kindness, he thought: They must have known all along – we have all been lying! He patted at his disordered clothes, preparing to meet what must surely be a furious delegation, fumbling for a means to excuse himself. But the knocking subsided to a patient tap, and the door opened, too slowly for anger, to reveal the young man who’d joined their table late. He’d combed his auburn hair into a side parting and put on a grey T-shirt on which were printed a large and unblinking pair of eyes.
‘Game of cards, John, unless it’s an early night you’re after? Come and join us: Walker’s been trying to corrupt Elijah all week – drinking last week; gambling this – and we could use another player.’
And so he was helpless again, as the boy took his arm, just as if he’d done so a dozen times or more, while on his chest the blind eyes closed and opened. Speechless with reprieve John let himself be led down the ill-lit hall, and said, ‘Trouble is I haven’t played poker since college. Always folded early – I’m a terrible liar, you see.’
‘It won’t matter, you won’t be any worse than Elijah – you haven’t spoken to him yet, have you? You haven’t spoken to him here, I mean…’ Alex paused, and his arm in John’s tightened and withdrew. He seemed uncertain whether he’d spoken too soon, or too much, and looked quickly at John as though testing the air. Then seeming satisfied he said, ‘Well – he’s a good man. A bit odd’ – he tapped his forehead, in a kind of self-mocking gesture – ‘but I like him – always did you know, even then.’
The dim hall led away from the head of the stairs, the floor-boards pockmarked and pale with dust by the skirting boards. John could smell cigarette smoke, and behind that the sweet scent of damp and dust that only ever signals a roomful of books.
The thin cat woke from its dark corner and tried to trip John, who gave it a furtive kick, and said: ‘No, we’ve never spoken – though I watched him tonight, standing there at the window and not coming out, as though he’s afraid of the dark – what is it? What bothers him?’
Alex, pausing at the threshold, said: ‘If you ask him he’ll say, “It’s trouble with my heart.” And if you ask him what trouble, he’ll say, “It’s heavy.” There’s not much wrong with him really,’ he went on, turning the door handle. Then, as if he’d heard what John had barely thought, he grinned and with a careless affectionate blow to the shoulder said, ‘At least, not much more than the rest of us. Now then’ – the door swung open, and revealed Elijah sitting with Walker at a bare plywood table – ‘Hit me!’
‘Too late for all that.’ Walker, his shirt unbuttoned a little too far, deftly shuffled a pack of cards and knocked them on his knee. ‘Turns out the Preacher’s not a natural gambler. That old face is too truthful – we might as well be using glass cards. How much did you lose?’
‘One hundred and seventy-three pence.’ The older man tugged, regretful, at his beard. ‘You didn’t tell me it was all about lying. I’m no good at that.’
‘So I see. Sit down, won’t you?’ said Walker to John. ‘You’re always so keen on standing about.’
John, obedient, sat at the table. It was stained and burned in places, and scattered with piles of copper coins and a discarded deck of cards too dog-eared for use. On one of the playing ca
rds someone had printed EADWACER in cramped capitals, and John drew them towards him and began a slow careful shuffle. Beside him Elijah tapped out a slow beat on the table, and accompanied it with a low humming that seemed to resonate and shiver in the wood. The melody had an insistent familiar lilt, and John could almost have ended its phrases himself.
A tin of Drum tobacco and several torn cigarette papers lay on the table, and there were two empty teacups that smelt strongly of whisky. Aside from the table, the room was the same as his own: there again was the narrow bed with its painted metal frame, and the same shabby shelves, though John saw enviously that these bowed under the weight of cloth- and leather-bound books.
Behind him the uncurtained windows overlooked the lawn and showed a sickle moon. ‘Close the door,’ said Alex, ‘or Hester will hear, and I’ve had enough of her today.’ He rolled his eyes affectionately, and Walker reached out with his foot to shut the door. Its swing set up a faint rustle from somewhere behind John; wondering what caused it he turned to see that where the walls were bare of shelves they were covered, from roof to floor, in sheets of thin white paper printed with columns of black type. Each sheet was pinned at the upper corners and left free at its lower edge, so that they lifted in the wake of the door. John would have liked to reach forward and tug one from the wall to read it, but felt Walker’s pale eyes on him and affected not to have noticed.
‘What do you think?’ said Elijah, pointing over John’s shoulder. ‘It’s my patented storm prediction system.’
‘I see,’ said John, who saw nothing. ‘And does it work?’
‘Well, I don’t know yet, do I? But it’s a simple matter of wind direction.’ He surveyed the wall, clasping his hands across his stomach and tipping his head to one side. ‘Or, indeed, of there being any wind at all… Listen.’ He stood, then flapped his hands at the wall as if shooing it away. The paper shuffled noisily then settled in its regiments. ‘Imagine how loudly that’ll sound when the storm comes! I don’t want to miss it if I’m asleep.’ Alex caught his eye, and again made that faint tapping gesture on his forehead. Stifling a smile, John bent to read the nearest sheets of paper, and at once recognised them as pages torn from a Bible large enough to have rested on a pulpit lectern. Some had been cut neatly with a razor, and others were carelessly torn, bringing with them fragments of the white thread that had stitched them to the spine. On every sheet the phrase be not afraid appeared, the verse circled in uneven loops of red ink.
‘Are you a drinker?’ said Walker. He withdrew a bottle of whisky from underneath the table, and pulled out the stopper. In the close air of the room, the smell of peat and alcohol stung John’s eyes.
‘Not much of one,’ he said apologetically, turning back from the table. ‘I don’t mind the taste but it makes me dream when I’d rather not.’
Walker’s eyes glinted gunmetal grey. ‘Don’t drink,’ he said. ‘Don’t smoke. What do you do?’ John blushed; he was conscious of having made an opening that could be probed wider if anyone cared to try. He opened the Drum tin, and picked at the shreds of tobacco on the table. ‘Alex tells me you’re being corrupted,’ he said to Elijah, polite as a remark on the weather. The older man nodded gravely and began again the distracted humming; then he sighed, and said: ‘Walker’s doing his best, and of course I’m grateful for his efforts; but I’m not taking to it as easily as I feared.’
‘We’ve done drink,’ said Walker, picking up a box of matches and sliding the drawer in and out of its case, ‘But not with much success. He’s far too big a man – look at him: size of an ox. Smoking makes him feel sick – he turns green before the match goes out. Gambling’s a waste of time; it’s like playing with a child. I’m running out of vices, although there’s always women and song…’ Alex set a penny spinning on its edge; the fabric of his T-shirt moved in folds and the painted eyes shifted anxiously to the door.
‘And do you mind my asking,’ said John, feeling his way through the conversation with outstretched hands, ‘why you’re doing all this?’ The penny rattled to a halt.
‘He had a wasted youth,’ said Walker, striking a match and idly watching the flame flare down to his fingertips.
John looked at Elijah’s grave unsmiling face, and his forearms solid as oak, and could not imagine him either a youth or a wastrel.
‘Wasted it on God,’ said Alex, with his habit of answering unasked questions. He rolled the coin across the table with his thumb. ‘On God, and on doing good.’ At a loss, John decided he’d wait patiently for someone to say something sensible, and began neatly stacking coins. Elijah, taking pity, leant back in his chair, folded his hands across his dark-shirted stomach, and said gently: ‘You ought not to mock our visitor.’ His voice, though rather quieter than that of the other men, was deep and grave, as though it came to them from a pulpit. Walker and Alex both looked a little ashamed of themselves, and Elijah, content with his reproof, turned to John. ‘I wasn’t always like this, you know. I was a pastor, I was respected…’ He thought about this, and then said, as if it had just occurred to him: ‘Admired, actually, and I believe I was loved – but lives change, even at my age – suddenly – quite without warning…’ He paused again, and John thought he saw the man’s heavily lidded eyes brighten with moisture. ‘How can I explain? It was as if I were coming home after a long day, tired and hungry and with aching feet. And there at the end of the road was my house and all the lights were on. And there was the front door I painted and beside it the bay tree I planted the day my daughter was born. But when I tried my keys they wouldn’t turn in the lock, and there were faces at the window but they were strangers and they all turned away…’
Elijah drew the whisky towards him and surveyed the label. It showed a watercolour picture of a distillery set on an outcrop of reddish rock. The rainstorm gathering above the rocks looked to John like an impossible miracle he’d never see again. ‘I think I’ll have another, if you don’t mind,’ said Elijah. When Walker had passed him a half-filled teacup, he went on, ‘No, I’m telling it wrong – it wasn’t like that at all. Look – if I drop this cup, what will happen?’
‘It will fall and break,’ said John, glad for once to be certain of things.
‘Of course. You know that to be true, because you’ve dropped things many times before. Things fall and break – those are the rules. But what if I let go and it simply hung there, or fell slowly, or began to rise up? Would you believe it? Not the first time, you wouldn’t – you know the rules, after all. You wouldn’t believe your eyes – you’d think yourself mad, or unwell – you’d do it again and again, until you really believed the rules had changed. And then you’d think: what else has changed? If that rule can be broken, what about all the others? And maybe you’d want to put your hand in a fire, and see if it came out wet.’ He drained the cup. ‘It was like that. All my life I’d lived by a set of rules as fixed and constant as the sun setting in the west. They made sense of everything in the past, and nothing in the future frightened me. It was a rock under my feet. I’m talking about God,’ he said anxiously, leaning forward a little, as though he wanted to be very certain John understood. ‘You realise that?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘Good.’ He reached for the bottle, thought better of it, and instead ran a finger around the lip of the teacup, and sucked thoughtfully at it. ‘You see, I believed – no, I knew – that my life had been ordered since before time. I knew that events would follow each other in their proper order, and always for my good. There’d be storms of course, but sunshine not long after. Illness, but then good health. Disappointments – more of those than I like to remember – but always cause for hope. And I never once thought, This simply is the way of life. I thanked God that he was the overseer – that he was holding up the sky, if you like. And I became a pastor, because nothing mattered more to me than making others see that they too were in the hands of God. And then one morning’ – John thought for a moment the older man was going to make the teacup disappear up hi
s sleeve – ‘he was gone. Just like that. I woke up and he wasn’t there… or was it like that? I must try to be truthful…’ He rolled the cup between his palms and John flinched, certain it would break. ‘Maybe it happened more slowly, like waking alone in your bed with no head on the pillow next to yours, and mourning awhile before realising you’ve always been alone, and the footsteps you’d heard out in the hall were only echoes of your own. I expect it happens every day – children grow up and grow out of their faith, or life makes the case against God. But in my case, of course, everyone noticed, because they all went to church one Sunday morning and there was no-one in the pulpit.’
Walker coughed discreetly, and lit a cigarette. In the unmoving air the ribbon of smoke lifted to the ceiling where it spread and thinned. ‘They waited almost a quarter of an hour, didn’t they? Sang the same hymn three times.’