Beacons

by Gregory Norminton

  ■

  At the Big House they were laying the two long tables for supper. The fare would be what they had rescued from the freezers when the generator gave up the ghost. Quite a feast, really. The day’s cooks had switched to gas cylinders and half a dozen camping stoves. They were pleased with themselves. There won’t be another supper here, said Beth. Barring miracles. So yours will go down in history. As it happened, two of the shift did believe in miracles. They were a couple called Elsie and Carlo Viti who, in earlier days, had walked the roads from Cuthbert’s house in Durham to the Black Madonna’s in Viggiano and back again. Bless you, said Elsie. The Lord will return us to our garden, when it is time. Carlo beamed at her and then at Beth. They carried on setting candles and now and then a silver oil lamp down the centre of the tables.

  Beth went to tell Mr James. His job was brushing and mopping the hall, and when he had done it he returned to his small room at the back of the house, to work. The time before supper was the best, in his opinion. Beth told him the news. He said nothing, only turned away and looked through the window at the orchard that year after year, till now, had never failed, month by month, even week by week, to be differently beautiful. He sat at a small pine table on which was a Liddell and Scott, a fountain pen, an HB pencil, a pencil sharpener, a rubber, an open exercise book, and Oedipus at Colonus, the Greek text, in an edition that had belonged to one Eric Johnston of Wadham College in 1912 and that now lay open at lines 669–95, which Mr James was translating. Self-taught and too late (he said), he worked very slowly. First, in pencil, he copied out the Greek, leaving a good space between each line. He loved this stage of the work, took infinite care over it, rubbed out and corrected any mistakes. Making the letters with their breathings and accents pleased him inordinately. Next, after hours of pondering and consultation of his text’s notes and glossary and of his own Liddell and Scott, he entered below each line, in ink, a very literal version of the Greek. And only then, again in ink but on the facing page, after days of struggle and staring into the orchard, did he write out a version in verse, accompanying, as he said, but not faithfully matching, Sophocles’ metres. Later still, having let it lie for a week, he did a final version in fair copy on a new page. What do you think of this? he said over his shoulder to Beth. It’s only a draft still, I’ll have to let it lie. Beth stood by him, looking into the palsied orchard. Mr James read:

  Famous for horses, there is none

  More beautiful on earth

  Than this place you have come to, stranger

  Bright Colonus where

  The many nightingales sing loud and clear

  Amid deep greenery and under the wine-dark

  Berried ivy, down

  The untrodden ways that no storms shake

  Nor fierce sun burns

  The god comes, Dionysus comes

  For revelry

  With the undying

  The ever-fostering nymphs.

  Here in the dew of heaven

  Day upon day narcissi thrive

  Whose clustering beauty

  The goddesses have always worn for crowns

  With the golden shining crocuses and never

  Do the unsleeping streams

  Of Cephissus dwindle but they roam

  For pasture and every day

  With undefiled waters

  Over the swelling land

  Give easy birth. The Muses

  Love to dance here and the golden-

  Reined Aphrodite rides…

  Beth put her hand on Mr James’s shoulder and left the room quickly.

  ■

  The casseroles and the jugs of apple juice passed down the table. The undexterous and the people sitting back in wheelchairs were served first. The mood was more gay than sorrowful, and those who, like Sammy, had not known what to make of Beth’s announcement sided now with cheerfulness, followed the banter this way and that, and the fear, the apprehension of ill, withdrew from their eyes. Before the crumble – made from last year’s plums – Beth had the lamps and candles lit, and with them came a solemnity, the face of every person present shone in a new light in a unique character, and in that lay the seriousness and poignancy, not in virtues or vices, not in good or bad looks, but in uniqueness, every person, each herself, each himself, so that Beth said aloud in her undertone, They all matter differently. What will become of them?

  ■

  Beth went to the sickroom, where Lucy Eaves was dying. The nurse, Marija, stood at the open window. The air outside was not as it should have been after sunset. Beth looked at Lucy and shook her head. Then to Marija she said, You go and eat now.

  Beth set a small table under the window, and between two candles began her letter to Tom. Only her own breath moved the candle flames at all; the air outside seemed to have lost the gift of breathing. The dying woman behind her breathed perforce, mechanically, not yet allowed to cease.

  Beth wrote: My love, I am sitting with Lucy Eaves, the woman you are sending the ambulance for tomorrow. I hope she will be able to die by then. Marija must go back in the ambulance with her. How happy I should be if you and I were leaving Frideswide together. I should hardly mind what happens if we were together. Lucy is one of the oldest people here. Nobody knows anything about her. She never said much except ‘Thank you’. She often said ‘Thank you’, and asked other people how they were getting on. In normal times perhaps we should have found some relative of hers when it came to this. As it is, nobody knows of one. I’m sitting at the open window but it makes no difference. Is fresh air a thing of the past? What a strange expression that is! I could make quite a list of things that are ‘things of the past’. Love isn’t one of them. Is wanting a baby? When I saw Barnie this morning, when he suddenly appeared in the doorway, so brave and scared, my feelings tore at their captivity again. So wanting a child is not yet a thing of the past. Marija is from Croatia. She was going to get married. She only came here for a year to make a bit of money. And now she’s stuck.

  Lucy’s breathing got louder. Beth went and sat by her, took her hand, closely regarded her face. Inhalation was hoarse and laborious, but worse to attend to was the holding of breath. It looked, each time, like an exertion of the will to die by not breathing out, the effort being grotesquely at odds with the woman’s slight frame. Her face became hectic in the pause. So long it lasted, each time so very long. It is mechanical, Beth said aloud. She is not suffering. But that was not how it looked and sounded. The release, when it came, was like something ruptured, and no sooner done with, the next heaving in began, deep, deep. So you might open a window and breathe in the breeze riding in on the sea. But the air in the sickroom was leaden, like a forbidden planet’s.

  Marija came back, Beth left her, promising to send another woman up as soon as they were done in the hall. Kingston and three of the younger men had locked what of Frideswide’s outbuildings could be locked, but Beth still had much to do before morning. She was late to bed.

  ■

  Beth woke hearing owls. She drifted there on the borders, between sleep and waking, hearing the owls. All night in dreams and in near-the-surface monologues she had laboured through an oppression and anxiety in which were compounded her duty to lock up Frideswide and Lucy Eaves’s imprisonment in breathing. But now she woke, listening to the owls. She lay wide awake in the dark and the bad feelings lapsed away from her. She remembered with relief the many gaps in Frideswide’s fences, the bed of the stream, the over-reaching trees. There were many entrances for any creatures seeking nourishment and shelter. She lay awake, watching the window and listening to the owls calling to and fro. When light became faintly certain, they ceased. Beth rose, dressed, lit a candle and went to the sickroom.

  Madge sat by Lucy’s bed. Just gone, she said, just a moment ago. Poor soul, such a struggle, but see how she looks now, so peaceful.

  Beth went back to her room, brewed coffee on a Camping Gaz and in daylight which had become sufficient she continued her letter to Tom. Dearest, she wro
te, Lucy has died. We have to be glad it wasn’t sooner or before she reaches a mortuary. She – her body – would have suffered too much heat. My love, I have to tell you a strange and beautiful thing. When I woke or half-woke this morning it was still dark and I heard owls, quite close, calling and answering, one from the old leper hospital, another, I am sure, from the dead orchard. And it was just then, Madge told me, that Lucy was at last allowed to die, just as I woke and lay listening to the owls. I felt they had conducted me to the borders of my sleep, they had piloted me in, to the very edge of daylight, and there they fell silent and withdrew, back into the darkness where, for their safety, they belong, and I was left feeling very honoured and blessed. If I close my eyes now I can still hear them calling and answering, so ghostly and real, so frail and persistent, and I am encouraged. They brought Lucy to where she had to pass over into death, and me they brought into daylight and wakefulness with the courage to leave this beloved place. I wished – how I wished – you were in my bed with me listening to the owls but at least you will learn about them in this letter that Barnie will bring to you and so you will know that I feel braver than I did and you will be encouraged too. Goodbye, my dearest, for now. Come after and find me when you can. Beth.

  PS I have decided to give Barnie my lapis lazuli.

  ■

  Everyone was waiting in the playground. The buses arrived on time; one was an open-topped tourist bus, the other was a minibus from the Sunshine Club with most of its seats taken out to accommodate the wheelchairs. The promised ambulance pulled in after them.

  Beth was watching for Barnie. She couldn’t see him, and had to supervise the embarkation. Kingston went in the ambulance to the Big House, for Lucy Eaves. At the sight of the red tourist bus many began to laugh and shout. Suddenly the departure seemed a jolly affair, like an outing to the seaside. Well this is all right, said Sammy. Eh, Bert, eh, Mrs Winters, this looks all right, wouldn’t you say? Mrs Winters lolled forward in her wheelchair, asleep, and Bert, who years ago had appointed himself her valet, stood over her, all decorum, with a parasol. The fittest, embarking, clambered upstairs and opened the big bright umbrellas provided there against the heat, which was already severe.

  Beth was in her office, seeing the files out. Everything else would stay. Still no Barnie. She locked up. The ambulance returned, depositing Kingston, picking up Marija, and leaving at once with the body of Lucy Eaves. Alfred stood facing the school, his photograph in one hand, his suitcase and a Fairtrade shopping bag on the asphalt either side of him. Kingston handed Beth the keys of the Big House. All the keys were assembling. No Barnie, she said in her undertone, Kingston being close enough to hear.

  Beth carried her case and shoulder bag to the tourist bus. The driver took them in. With all the keys and her letter to Tom in a plastic bag she rejoined Kingston. From nowhere, very fast, skidding to a halt, kingfisher-blue, Barnie arrived. Letter for you, Miss, he said, leaning forward, handing it to her. This boy’s some messenger, said Kingston. And Mr Cartwright says please to give me the keys and is there any message? Barnie said. There is, Barnie, said Beth, handing him the plastic bag. See, Miss, I got a satchel, he said. Mr Cartwright give it me. He stowed the letter and the keys safely into it. As last time, he looked awed by his importance. There’s no apple juice, said Beth. Stay here with Kingston, I’ll bring you some water.

  Alfred came over, set down his bags, and showed Barnie his photograph. My wife was at school here, he said. That’s her, that little girl. Would you believe it? And do you know, I think that’s why I came here when she passed away. Kingston picked up Alfred’s bags and led him to the bus.

  It’s not very nice water, said Beth. But drink some now and take the bottle. Even drinking, Barnie could not take his eyes off her face. And this is for you as well, she said, giving him the lapis. It was my mother’s. Wear it round your neck. It will bring you luck. Perhaps you’ll be my messenger again one day. Then he was gone. She watched him out of sight, a dwindling brightness on the dirty air.

  The buses pulled away. Beth sat with Kingston downstairs, across from Mr James who was on his own, gripping a briefcase tied up with string. In it were his writing materials, his texts and his Liddell and Scott. Upstairs and downstairs there was a good deal of hilarity. They were trying on the tourist headphones; some worked, some didn’t, you chose among fourteen languages for a commentary. Beth clutched her letter. They were passing through the outskirts that had been rich and leafy, the roadside trees were all dead, scarcely any traffic, scarcely a soul to be seen, a pack of dogs, the heat. Mr James put on a headset; it worked, he chose a language. Beth glanced at him. He was listening, he was crying. Never had she seen a person cry like that, so quietly, so helplessly, the tears drenched his face and fell onto his hands and the briefcase. For a whole tour of the city he was leaving – its churches, the dwellings of poets, the botanic garden, the museums, the art galleries, the site of a martyrdom, the ancient places of learning – Mr James listened and wept. Beth felt she must cross over and comfort him but Kingston, in an undertone, said, Mr James is all right, Elizabeth. You read your letter, I’m going to sleep.

  ‌Holiday in Iceland

  ‌Maria McCann

  Last year we visited my sister Karen in Rome. She works for an exclusive furnishing company: there’s a leather-bound booklet of two hundred fabric swatches so people can choose the sofa of their dreams. Our parents don’t know about the swatches. Karen made me swear never to tell them. How wasteful, I imagine them saying, How silly! Two hundred different sofa covers. Brown was good enough for us, during The War.

  That was the soundtrack to my childhood: our parents speaking of The War as if they’d fought it single-handed. Their peace was something of a let-down. They (the council, the government, the park-keeper, the teachers, the man who swept the platform at the station) ought to do this, or do that, or do it better, or more often. Sometimes They Wanted Their Heads Seeing To. It was disgusting: after all my parents had been through during The War! Once, in a temper, I screamed, ‘I hate The War,’ and was slapped so hard I bit my tongue.

  I must have been a trying child. Karen was the opposite, an instinctive diplomat, but we understood one another: we both knew we were waiting to leave. Karen went so far as to leave the country (‘living with Eyeties’, said Dad) but there’s more to leaving than geography. Even now, whenever we meet, it’s not long before we go into our impersonation routine, wringing our hands and complaining about The War and They.

  Despite the toxic fug of resentment in which I grew up, our adolescence wasn’t particularly dramatic. My elder sister was shrewd and conventional, storing up energy for the coming escape. As for me, I was too cowardly for the usual teenage rebellions – shoplifting, promiscuity, drugs – but I felt I had it in me to enjoy life. I just needed a start.

  Sometimes the unconscious comes to the rescue, bringing inspiration so subtle you don’t even know you’re inspired. I found my perfect rebellion, one against which my parents were powerless.

  ‘Lisa has a bubbly personality,’ the teachers said. They meant it as praise but my parents only stared. In our house, coming out Bubbly was a kind of Petty Treason, a threat to Divine Order. Looking at their dismayed faces, I felt my power, and after that I bubbled for Britain.

  Bubbly wasn’t a euphemism for airhead, not in my case. There was talk at school of my trying for university, but my father said, in so many words, that university wasn’t for the likes of us. Did he mean, not for girls? Perhaps, though I can’t picture him cheering on sons, if he’d had any. The careers mistress said, ‘You should make the most of your talents, Lisa,’ but having witnessed Karen’s vanishing act, I couldn’t wait to be independent, and never hear any more about Sacrifices and People Who Didn’t Know They Were Born.

  In fact, it wasn’t until my first job that I perfected Bubbly. If you think about it, most employees are in camouflage. It takes full camo to talk about selling plastic drinking straws and make people believe you actually care
. Bubbly was ready-made for the purpose: bubbly at my desk, bubblier still after hours. It was my bubbliness that attracted Gareth, and I took care to keep him away from my parents until we were safely engaged. Once I was married, and we escaped to London, Bubbly became my full time job. Go with the flow. Nothing that can’t be solved with a smile.

  Clemmie was born within a year of our marriage and named after Gareth’s great-aunt. Our Darling Clementine. (I couldn’t have any more kids, as it turned out, but we didn’t know that then. We thought we might stop at three.)

  Nobody can persuade me that frustration and restriction are character-forming. I know too much about them. My daughter, my only daughter, was allowed to try – and give up – ballet, riding, kayaking, painting, drama, swimming, piano, yoga, karate. We had sleepovers, treasure hunts, goodie bags, paintballing, pamper parties. Once, I hired a pink stretch limo so that Clemmie and her best friends could giggle through Holloway lolling on heart-shaped satin cushions.

  ‘Terminally tacky,’ Gareth said. But I wasn’t going to watch Clemmie standing by, second best, while other girls had fun. I’d seen all that in my own childhood and I wanted her confident and popular. And when they scrambled out of the car, as flushed and wired as if the pink lemonade had been champagne, I knew I’d done the right thing.