by Giles Milton
‘Well, I hope you’re not going to come back any later,’ she replied with a smile, ‘or I’ll begin to think you’ve got yourself a fancy woman.’
‘I have,’ said Edward with a cheery grin. ‘And she’s called Elizabeth Trencom.’
It was 6.50 a.m. when Edward stepped out of the front door. The morning was as sharp as a blade and the lawn had been bleached with hoar frost. Edward gulped at the air in order to cleanse his lungs. But as he did so, he froze with fear. The air did not have the usual chill, metallic palate of a biting winter’s morning. Instead, it carried the unmistakable aroma of Balkan tobacco. The smell was not at all strong – indeed, most mortals would not have detected its presence at all – but to Edward’s finely tuned nostrils, it had infiltrated the neutral air with as much subtlety as a clumsy-footed intruder in someone’s locked and bolted home.
He was so taken aback by the smell – and so horrified – that he involuntarily clutched at the front door porch and stared vacantly at the carved woodwork. His eyes focused themselves on a large and uncommonly plump earwig that was clambering down the drainpipe. It stopped for a moment and seemed to wave its forceps in his general direction. Then, without so much as a by-your-leave, it popped into a crack in the pipe.
Edward sniffed at the air for a second and third time. He knew that there was no hope of sighting the person who had been smoking the tobacco. From the faintness of the scent, he surmised that the man must have left more than an hour ago.
‘That means,’ thought Edward, ‘that he knows where I live. And it also means that I must have been followed home last night. And yet I could have sworn that no one was shadowing me.’
These two thoughts troubled him deeply. He asked himself if he could possibly leave Elizabeth in the house all by herself. After all, she might also be in danger. ‘What if he should come back?’ pondered Edward. ‘What if he does something to her?’
He was half-tempted to remain at home; he even thought of calling the police. But he quickly realized that neither option was practical or satisfactory. ‘The police will simply laugh at me if I tell them I’m being followed by a foreigner whose identity is a mystery. And, frankly, I wouldn’t blame them.’
He also decided against staying at home, since he would have to tell Elizabeth everything that had so far happened – something that he was not yet ready to do.
‘Best to go to work,’ he thought with a sigh. ‘Press on as normal. One should never give into these sorts of things.’
In spite of his resolution and brave words, it was an anxious and decidedly nervous Edward Trencom who made his way to work on that bitter winter morning.
He arrived at Trencoms at a little before eight o’clock and unlocked the main door of the shop. As he stepped inside, he immediately sniffed at the air in order to catch that first fusty scent, unsullied by the influx of fresh air from outside.
‘Ah, yes – lovely.’ He could most certainly smell the Burgundian epoisses over and above all the other odours and perfumes. ‘You were up to your antics again last night,’ joshed Edward with a knowing chuckle. He wagged his forefinger in the general direction of Burgundy. ‘Oh, yes, indeed. Now then – don’t tell me, don’t tell me. You’ve been out gallivanting with the soumaintrain.’
It was a busy morning in the cheese shop and there was a steady stream of people right through until lunchtime. At one point, a couple of young ladies entered the shop and asked for directions to Bister and Brown, the publishers.
‘Good gracious,’ whispered Edward to Mr George as they both peered over the counter. ‘They look like they’ve forgotten to put on their skirts.’ The two of them chuckled and Edward allowed himself the luxury of imagining Elizabeth in such an outfit.
‘Well, why ever not?’ he thought. ‘It’s the way things are going.’
Customers continued to come into the shop throughout lunchtime and Edward grew increasingly frustrated that today, of all days, was so busy. He was desperate to retire to the cellars in order to continue searching through the rest of the family papers yet he had to wait until almost 2.20 p.m. before he could finally take his break.
‘Mr George,’ he asked, ‘would you mind holding the fort for a few minutes longer today? I’ve got some paperwork I really must see to downstairs.’
‘As you wish, Mr Trencom,’ said Mr George. ‘Though I might need to call on your services if we get very busy.’
He hesitated for a moment, wondering whether he dared ask what paperwork needed to be done. It wasn’t really his business – paperwork wasn’t his department – yet there was something about Mr Trencom’s manner that had aroused his suspicions.
‘Is it your family papers, Mr Trencom? Have you found anything interesting?’
‘Oh, no, no,’ replied Edward. ‘Nothing that will change the world. And – no – this is paperwork for the shop. Order forms, invoices – you know, that sort of thing.’
‘Ah, right, right,’ responded Mr George. ‘Then in that case I’ll try not to disturb. Happy paperwork!’
When Edward at long last descended into the cellars, something happened to him that was so strange, so out of the ordinary, that we must pause for a minute to examine it in more detail. He had long been accustomed to stopping on the fourth tread from the bottom of the stepladder and allowing himself a long, deep inhalation of breath. On any normal day, the odour was enough to start him salivating. Edward’s nose would first of all detect the cheeses closest to hand – the thenays, saint benoîts and barbereys – before picking up far more subtle overtones in the stagnant air. Was that a whiff of pepato? Could he smell the malevolent Alpine robiola? Was that hint of earthenware emanating from the kareishes of Egypt?
It was with such expectations in mind that Edward Trencom descended into the cellars and sniffed at the air as he reached the fourth step from the bottom. He sniffed; he snuzzled; he inhaled; he swallowed. But here is the strange thing. There was nothing there. No scent. No perfume. No odour. Rien de rien.
‘Tum-tum,’ said Edward to himself. ‘Most disconcerting.’
He tried again, gently tapping at his nose in the manner that some elderly gentlemen tap at their watches. Still nothing.
Edward now became seriously alarmed. ‘Well, I’m blowed,’ he said. ‘What in the devil’s name is happening?’
It was as he prepared to inhale for a third time that his nose began to twitch. It tingled. It grew warm. And as Edward sucked deep on the thick air, he was relieved to discover that his sense of smell had recovered. Suddenly – like a rush of air – he could smell the sour odour of Irish taith. ‘Oh, thank heavens,’ he said. ‘Thank gracious heavens.’
Edward made his way over to the crate of family papers and lifted them onto the altar. After pausing for a moment to sniff the air once again, he cleared the limestone slab of the Auvergne chèvres that he had been tasting on the previous evening.
‘The altar will do very nicely for the records,’ he thought. ‘Very nicely indeed.’
So far, Edward had only taken a cursory glance at most of the books and papers in the box. He had removed the few items that pertained to his father, along with those that referred to his grandfather. Now, he lifted everything out of the crate and sorted the papers into neat piles, generation by generation. On top of each, wherever possible, he placed a portrait of the person concerned. ‘In that way,’ he thought, ‘I can put a name to a face.’
Each time he removed an item from the box, he felt a little tingle of excitement pulse through his body. ‘They’re all here,’ he murmured under his breath. ‘Every single one of them.’
The documents had a pleasing scent – it was reminiscent of old country churches – and Edward placed each new item under his nose and inhaled deeply. He noted that several of the records smelled strongly of incense – unquestionably myrrh – as if they had sat for a long while in a monastic chapel.
He was surprised to discover that there was a great deal more information about the earlier generations than there was about his immediat
e forebears. There were only two or three items relating to his grandfather, George, and yet there was a great file of letters and papers referring to Humphrey Trencom, who appeared to have died at some point in the late seventeenth century. Several items seemed to have no obvious connection to anyone in his family. The icon, for example. To whom had that belonged? And who had owned the books published in Greek? Edward was not aware that any of his ancestors had been linguists. The most perplexing item was a copperplate engraving of a man with cruel eyes and a forked beard. His head was wrapped in a voluminous cloth turban and he looked oriental, perhaps Turkish. The man’s nose was the most striking element in the portrait: it was long, aquiline and marked by a prominent yet perfectly formed circular bump over the bridge. Edward’s hand instinctively reached for his own nose as he studied the engraving. ‘My God,’ he whispered under his breath. ‘How odd. Whoever this is has got exactly the same nose as me.’
Edward was so surprised by the portrait that he did not hear Mr George descend into the cellars in order to ask for a hand in the shop. ‘Mr Trenc—’ he began, but stopped himself in mid-sentence. ‘Hmm – paperwork, was it?’ he said to himself. ‘Order forms and invoices.’ He shook his head in an admonishing manner and then turned in his tracks and quietly clambered back up the ladder. ‘Oh, well. I’m glad there’s one of us who’s got his head firmly screwed on.’
He turned to the growing queue and slapped his hands together as if to announce that he was ready for action. ‘Now, ladies, who was next to be served?’
Edward was a methodical chap and decided to work his way backwards in chronological order through the stack of documents. There were nine generations in total and they spanned fully three centuries. A few of the items seemed to be even older. The engraving could easily have dated from the sixteenth century, while the icon looked as if it had been painted in the Middle Ages.
He popped a whole chèvre into his mouth before reaching for the pile of documents that referred to his grandfather, George Trencom. Edward had never met George, who died long before he was born, and his name had been scarcely ever mentioned at home. Edward had clear memories of asking, when still a young boy, about his grandfather.
‘Ah, him,’ his mother had sniffed. ‘A fool – and a selfish one at that. Like all of the Trencoms.’
‘But why?’ Edward had asked.
‘Never you mind about your grandfather,’ replied Emily. ‘And never you mind about your father. In this world, you must never dwell on the past.’
And that was that. Edward, aged eleven, was none the wiser as to the character, personality, life or looks of his paternal grandfather, who he knew not as ‘Grandpa’, or as ‘Granddad George’, but only as George Trencom.
Now, at long last, he found himself holding a photograph bearing George Trencom’s autograph. It depicted a handsome young man dressed in that combination of frock coat and check trousers that was so fashionable in the London of the late 1890s. Edward smiled when he saw that his grandfather was standing in front of Trencoms – the shop’s facade was instantly recognizable – and holding what appeared to be a large crate of German weisslackerkäse. ‘Of course, of course,’ said Edward to himself. ‘That was the Prince of Wales’s favourite cheese.’ When Prince Edward had finally ascended to the throne after half a lifetime of waiting, Trencoms had supplied the weisslackerkäse for the coronation festivities.
The most pleasing element in the photograph of George Trencom was the fact that he had the very same nose as Edward himself. ‘Ah, yes, yes,’ thought Edward. ‘And his conk is every bit as fine as mine. Indeed, it’s a mirror image.’
He flipped the photograph over and saw that someone had written George Trencom’s dates on the back. Born 1869, died September 1922.’
‘Heavens – my father must have been quite young when George died,’ thought Edward. ‘Very young indeed. Strange how history repeats itself.’
He put down the photograph and flicked through the other papers and documents. There seemed to be very little information about his grandfather, yet the few items that did refer to him were most curious. Two of them were yellowing newspaper reports, one of which was written in Arabic while the other was in Greek. Edward would never have known that they pertained to his grandfather had it not been for the fact that both of the cuttings carried photographs of George Trencom. He was standing in front of a large basilica and was accompanied by what appeared to be a Greek priest. In the margin of the Greek paper, written in English, was the single word, Smyrna.
‘How very odd,’ thought Edward. ‘What on earth was he doing there?’
He looked at the date of the newspaper, which was printed in Roman script: 12 September 1922. ‘If I’m not mistaken’ – and he checked the photograph to make sure that he was not – ‘that was the very month in which he died.’
No sooner had he realized this than he felt an icy chill run all the way through his body, from his toenails to his knees and thence to his hips and his neck. His fingers turned numb. So did his arms. And he even felt a wave of goose pimples on his nose, something that had never happened to him before.
‘George Trencom,’ thought Edward, ‘Grandpa George, must have died in Smyrna, the second member of the family to have died abroad. And that is something – indeed – that I find most peculiar.’
‘Peculiar?’ said Barcley later that evening. ‘It’s not that peculiar. Lots of families have ancestors who died abroad. It’s interesting, I concede that much. But it’s not peculiar – not unless you want it to be peculiar.’
Edward emitted a weary sigh. He and Richard never did quite see eye to eye on certain things and family history was clearly going to be one of them.
‘It’s like collecting coins,’ explained Edward. ‘I’m sure you can’t understand my excitement when I acquire a coin depicting an emperor that I’ve never owned before. But, well, don’t you see how satisfying it can be? When I first bought a denarius of the Emperor Olybrius, why, it cheered me up for days on end. Olybrius reigned for just four months – four months! – and I’d been looking for one of his coins for almost a decade.
‘And, well, it’s much the same with these family papers. Every time I open up the box, I get a little shiver running up my spine.’
‘But why?’ asked Richard with a strange chortling noise. ‘I mean, you haven’t found a single answer yet. In fact, there are far more gaps in your family history than there are facts.’
‘You’ve put your finger on the button,’ said Edward. ‘It’s the gaps that I love. You’ve seen my coin collection – you’ve seen my Roman coins laid out in their trays. One slot for each emperor. Well, it’s the gaps that make it all so exciting. The missing ones. You see – the day will come when I’ll fill those gaps.’
He paused for a second, wondering if he would ever manage to convey his passion to Richard.
‘There were a hundred and five Roman emperors, if you exclude the usurpers, and ninety-one Byzantine emperors. That’s a total of one hundred and ninety-six. I’ve already got eighty-six coins of the former and sixty-two of the Byzantines. That leaves just forty-eight gaps! But those gaps, Richard. I dream of them. They follow me around, day and night!
‘The time I managed to acquire a coin depicting the Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos – I swear it was one of the happiest moments of my life. I bought it on Villiers Street in the Saturday coin market. And do you know why it made me so happy? Emperor Manuel came to London in 1400. And he spent Christmas with King Henry IV at Eltham Palace. And I, for the very modest sum of one pound and three shillings, became the proud owner of a coin depicting this very man. If that’s not history coming alive, then I don’t know what is.’
‘The pleasures of the chase,’ said Richard with a wry smile. ‘It’s like my legal cases, I suppose. Except that I get paid at the end of it, whereas you have to spend money to fill your gaps.’
‘I used to be interested only in Roman emperors,’ continued Edward, who was only half-listening to his friend. �
��Nero, Caligula, Hadrian. But these days I’m increasingly drawn to the Byzantines. And do you know why? It’s because they’re harder to find. Ever since Elizabeth left Percy’s, I’ve had problems tracking them down. And that takes us back to the gaps. The day I manage to acquire a coin of Constantine XI Palaiologos, the last Byzantine emperor, will be a very happy one indeed.’
‘Except that you will have filled the gap,’ responded Richard, quick as a flash.
‘True,’ smiled Edward. ‘A gap will have gone. But now, what with all these family papers, I’ve got plenty of other gaps to pursue. Dozens, in fact. And I fully intend to pursue them, Richard, I really do.’
‘Oh, I believe you all right,’ retorted Richard. ‘And it’s actually starting to concern me.’
9 SEPTEMBER 1922
The terrace of the Hotel Bristol is crowded with people – American sailors, Armenian merchants, Jews, Turks and British consular officials. Signor Orlando, the Italian librettist, can be seen sipping a glass of sweet black coffee. Monsieur Dupont, the piano-maker from Marseilles, is smoking his afternoon hookah. And the figure seated at the far end of the terrace – why, it is none other than George Trencom, of Trencoms cheese shop in London. What on earth is he doing in the Ottoman Levantine city of Smyrna, on a cloudless autumn day in 1922?
‘The situation is desperate,’ he whispers to his table companion, a bearded individual who is dressed in the garb of a Greek Orthodox metropolitan. ‘All is lost – all hope is gone. You do realize? It’s only a matter of time before everything implodes.’
The metropolitan nods in agreement though, in truth, he is lost in his own thoughts. ‘Kyrie eleison,’ he says after a long silence. ‘The end – the end.’ He pauses again and sips his lemon water before speaking further. ‘Yes, yes – it marks the end of your dreams, Georgios, and the end of mine as well. And I fear that we’ve reached a turning point – yes – one that spells the end of all Greece’s aspirations. Avarice and pride – these are the sins of the Greek nation.’