The House in Norham Gardens

by Penelope Lively

  The bear, its toilet completed, reared suddenly on to its hind legs, turning its snout up to them.

  ‘You feel you ought to give it something,’ said Clare.

  ‘He looks extremely well fed to me. Can we find somewhere warm? This is a very cold place.’

  The Reptile House was pleasantly warm – quiet, too, and unsmelly. The snakes, in glass tanks set in the wall and lit from within so that they shone in the darkness, individual glowing cases, slithered in their own silent world, tongues flickering like dry flame, or hung in coils around sculptural branches.

  ‘We have those at home,’ said John, pointing. A bright, patterned snake lay against the glass, basking in the sun of a sixty-watt bulb.

  They moved to the next tank. ‘Chameleon,’ Clare read, ‘Northern Africa and the Middle East.’ The chameleon was at the top of a small dead tree, motionless, holding up a limb that ended in a two-fingered foot, like some heraldic creature frozen in mid-movement. With infinite slowness it placed the foot upon a twig, inched forward, hauled up another leg. It seemed, behind its glass, to be living at a different rate, another dimension of time, its hands and feet clenching and unclenching with slow deliberation, its eye swivelling to observe the twig, the floor, the watchers. Did people, to it, seem like the background of a speeded-up film, dashing hither and thither in a frenetic state of near collision? Clare, leaning forward to examine it more closely, saw that its eyes, in fact, swivelled independently so that it stared at the same moment up and down, in front and behind. Its world must be a globe, a bubble of light and colour where nothing was concealed, where there were no beginnings and no ends, no before and no after. It seemed, like the orang, to be of great antiquity, crouched there on its twig with tilted profile and tail curled in a delicate spiral; antique, bloodless and quite remote.

  ‘You seem very fond of this creature,’ said John.

  ‘Not really. It’s just the odd way it can see in all directions at once.’

  ‘Must be interesting.’

  ‘No,’ said Clare. ‘Awful. Let’s go.’

  The elephants, by comparison, were endearing. They were inside, well away from the cold in a building that displayed them like actors in a lavish production. They swayed and shuffled against backgrounds as cunningly lit and structured as a stage set. Even so, it was possible to establish some kind of relationship with them: their trunks groped towards the audience as though seeking not food but reassurance of some kind. Here, people gazed more than they laughed.

  ‘I like elephants,’ said Clare.

  ‘Most people do.’

  ‘They look a million years old, too.’

  ‘No,’ said John, reading a label. ‘ “Samantha, female African elephant, born at London Zoo 20.1.61”.’

  ‘So she’s never even been to Africa.’

  ‘No. She’s an immigrant, born here.’

  ‘Goodbye, Samantha,’ said Clare. ‘We’ve got to catch our train.’

  It was twilight when they got to Paddington, and night when they reached Oxford again, black winter night spiked with the flat light from street lamps, shop windows and cars. The train had rushed them through a darkness so dense that, pressed up against the window with no prick of light to define distance, it might have ended a yard or two away, or reached back beyond the train forever. Travelling in space must be like that, Clare had said to John, and this had led on to other things. How people could ever have thought the world was flat. How they could ever have arrived at the idea of infinity. (‘It’s frightening,’ said Clare, ‘it’s the most frightening thing in the world. Beyond the world, I mean. There, that’s why.’) What they thought the sky was.

  ‘It would be much more obvious,’ said Clare, ‘to think of it as solid. A kind of upside-down bowl. And the sun moving. Like the Greeks thinking it drove across the sky in a chariot.’

  ‘There are tribes in South America who believe you can catch the sun in a net. Or that you must relight it with burning arrows after an eclipse.’

  ‘Like whistling for a wind.’

  ‘Primitive tribes,’ said John, ‘can’t bear the idea that things are uncontrollable. Fate and time and disaster. Magic has to counteract magic.’

  ‘But it doesn’t. You can’t ever stop things happening if they’re going to.’

  ‘Ah,’ said John, ‘you know that. People have been telling you about history for years.’

  ‘Does being told about history help?’

  ‘Knowing about time does. Being able to remember.’

  Back at Norham Gardens, they drank hot soup in the kitchen, and thanked each other for the day. It had, Clare thought, been one of the best days for ages, but now that it was over she felt tired, and a silence had grown up between them. John read the newspaper, frowning at something, withdrawn into a world of other, adult, preoccupations. Clare thought of homework she had not done. Presently they said goodnight and parted.

  Clare went to see the aunts in the library.

  ‘Well – there you are! Did you have a good journey?’ said Aunt Susan. ‘On these nice clean new trains?’

  ‘Didn’t you like steam trains?’ said Clare, with an obscure sense of disappointment.

  ‘Not particularly. Smuts got in your eyes, and dirt permeated everything. One’s clothes were filthy by the end of a journey. I hear Oxford station is much improved, too.’

  ‘They keep the people who sell tickets behind glass, like snakes in the Reptile House.’

  ‘Indeed?’ said Aunt Susan. ‘I should rather like to see that. And did you enjoy yourselves?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. It was a lovely day.’

  In bed, she turned the light off and left the curtains open. She had always liked to watch the light from passing cars roam across the walls and ceiling. There was a vague satisfaction in listening for the hustle of tyres on the road, the swelling whisper of sound, and predicting the exact moment at which the yellow beam would slide through the window, creep up and across, and vanish again. She lay, half asleep, and saw it happen, once, twice. The third time it was not the headlights of a car at all, but sunshine. The sunshine gradually filled the room and she knew that somehow the winter must have passed, without her realizing it, and spring have come, or even summer. She got up and dressed, putting on some clothes that were lying across the end of the bed. They must, she thought, have belonged to one of the aunts, because as soon as she had them on, and examined herself in the mirror, she realized that she looked very like the photograph in the drawing room, where they stood together on a lawn. There was a blouse with a high tight neck and elaborate sleeves ending in neat buttoning at the wrist, a full, heavy skirt, clamped firmly at the waist with a heavy belt, and rather uncomfortable shoes. Standing in front of the mirror, she knew that she must put up her hair, and did so, finding to her surprise that it was quite easy, with thick, long hairpins that were lying about on her dressing table. This done, she went to the window. The street was very quiet and empty except for a cat sprawled in the shadow of the wall opposite. She could hear some children playing in a garden, and from the Parks, the wooden click of a bat hitting a ball. This made her want to be out of doors, in the sunshine, and she went quickly downstairs. The house had a feeling of activity. She saw no one, but there was an impression that behind the closed doors there were people doing things. Going out of the front drive, she looked back and saw a window opened, and a feather duster vigorously shaken. There were clatterings in the kitchen.

  She walked along Norham Gardens and round the corner to the Parks. The new buildings in Parks Road had all gone, and in their place were houses like her own. One, indeed, was still being built. Workmen in cloth caps were bricklaying and trundling wheelbarrows along wooden ramps. Walking past them, she said, ‘Good morning.’ The one nearest her looked up and said, ‘Morning, miss.’ There were no cars. A milk cart, drawn by a brown pony, came past Keble and went round the corner into Museum Road, clinking and spraying a cloud of dust from the untarmacked road. Indeed, everything was very dusty
– the leaves on the young trees and the newly planted hedges that edged the gardens. The place had a feeling of incompletion, as though it were waiting for things to happen to it, which was strengthened by the noise the workmen were making, and the scaffolding that stuck up beyond the trees in Banbury Road.

  The Parks, on the other hand, were drowsy with heat and summer. The long grass brushed her skirt and she would have liked to take off the heavy shoes but for an obscure feeling that to do so would draw attention to herself. There were quite a lot of people about – women wearing clothes like her own, and men in blazers and flannel trousers. Two of these, passing her, smiled briefly and raised their hats to her. Flat, straw hats. Clare, confused, looked away and walked on towards the river. The game of cricket that she had heard from the house was being played on the pitch at the centre of the Parks, watched by a small crowd of people sitting on deckchairs, or lying about on the grass. As she passed, the batsman hit a four and there was a flutter of applause. A man shouted, ‘Well played!’

  The river was dappled with sunlight. The willows poured down into it, the water snatched gently at the bank here and there, ducks cruised, upended, and surfaced again, tails twitching. There was a blue haze between the water and the trees, a misty light in which clouds of midges hung motionless, like smoke. A punt, poled by a tall man with drooping moustache, came downstream, carrying two young women who lay on cushions talking and laughing. On the far bank, brown cows grazed in the water meadows, their tails swishing the meadowsweet and buttercups.

  And beyond the cows there was a disturbance of some kind. There were people there, moving to and fro, half-seen behind a line of stunted trees. They were dark shadows at the edge of the green, at the edge of this tranquil world, and Clare, standing on the river bank and staring over the glassy surface of the water, knew that it was her they wanted. And as soon as she knew this, she was filled with a sense of great urgency. She must get to them before it was too late. Before they went, or before they were unable to tell her what was wrong. She looked round for some way to cross the river. The little arched bridge that she remembered was not there, but further along there was a raft-like object, a flat wooden platform with a punt pole laid across it. She jumped on to this, though it lurched disconcertingly, and managed to push it across the river.

  As soon as she reached the other side she began to run through the water meadow, stumbling through the tangles of flowers and long grass, towards the brown people, who were going away all the time, retreating behind the willows and alders. She opened her mouth to call them, but no sound would come. They were watching her and slipping away from tree to tree, bush to bush, and then stopping to crouch down and watch. Once, her foot caught under the edge of something in the grass, and she nearly fell – looking down she saw that the portrait of Great-grandfather from the dining room was lying there, the glass cracked, and wondered who could have been so careless as to leave it out here. She wanted to pick it up, but there was no time. Already the people were slipping away into the next field. And then, all of a sudden, it came to her that what they wanted was the thing from the attic. The shield. She stopped abruptly, angry with herself for having been so stupid. ‘Wait!’ she called, and this time her voice came out quite clearly, very loud in the quiet field. ‘Wait! I’m going to get it. I’ll bring it here to you.’

  They stopped going away. She could see them, shadowy beyond a brown ridge of docks, and feel them watching her, and she turned and began to run back, across the field, and over the river again on the raft, and through the Parks. It seemed to take no time at all – she was running, breathless, and there was grass, and trees, and then suddenly she was opening the door at Norham Gardens, and going into the hall.

  And the shield was lying in the middle of the hall. Smashed in pieces. Splintered, broken. And she began to cry.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The old men and women of the tribe tell stories to their children and to their grandchildren: stories of spirits and gods and of how the world began. One day, they tell them, the ancestors will come to us, bringing gifts. The tribe listen, and dig their gardens, and attend to the pigs. In the next valley, there are bulldozers clearing the forest. A road is being built, and a mining company is exploring the soil for minerals. The tribe, who have never climbed the mountain because there are bad spirits up there, see and hear nothing.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Maureen. ‘Rattling around in that attic at this hour of the morning.’ She stood outside the lavatory door, yawning, her hair in curlers.

  ‘Nothing. I just wanted to see something was all right.’

  ‘Have a good day yesterday?’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Brocade, we got in the end. A courtelle mixture with a raised motif. Eight yards. She’s having the train coming right down from the shoulder yoke.’

  ‘Lovely,’ said Clare.

  And the portrait was in the dining room, of course, not in the long grass of the water meadows on the other side of the Cherwell. Clare, standing in front of it, saw for the first time that the title of the book Great-grandfather held open on his knee was decipherable – The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. A tricky bit of painting, that must have been. It was a very precise portrait, though, each whisker indicated, as much attention devoted to buttonholes and lapels as to eye and nose. Great-grandmother, on the other hand, had been allowed a certain lack of definition – beyond her, the background disintegrated into swirls of colour, the lace that edged her dress was a drift of smoke.

  ‘Clare!’

  ‘Coming.’

  Aunt Anne was feeling better. She had come down to breakfast, which was eaten in the breakfast room, with the table pulled up close to the gas fire. The fire made a loud hissing noise, like a stream, or trees in a wind, and the flames were blue, gushing around the columns of grey stuff that became an incandescent red. The toaster, which trapped slices of bread and burned them unless closely supervised, creaked and throbbed. The aunts looked out of the window and told each other it would snow again.

  ‘You’re very silent, child. Don’t you like the prospect of more snow? It does improve the look of the place, one must admit.’

  ‘No,’ said Clare. The aunts looked at her with gentle surprise.

  ‘I hate this winter. I feel as though time had stuck. Last night I dreamed it was summer.’

  ‘One usually does,’ said Aunt Anne. ‘Odd. Or not so odd, really, I suppose. Like in dreams one is always young.’

  ‘True,’ said Aunt Susan. ‘A curious piece of self-deception, when you come to think about it. But it is perfectly true, one does.’

  Clare said, ‘You mean you dream about the past? Yourself in the old days?’

  ‘Not necessarily. The time can be now – one’s body has been readjusted, that is all.’ Aunt Susan took a piece of toast and put butter and marmalade on it with slow movements.

  ‘I don’t,’ said Clare. ‘I dream I’m older, often. I did last night.’

  ‘And was that interesting?’

  ‘I don’t know, really.’ She went over to the window and stared out. The aunts were right: it was snowing already. The trees and houses were shuttered off: the air whirled and thickened as she watched.

  The house was locked in its own silence all day. The aunts stayed in the library. Maureen had gone by train to visit her parents. John left after breakfast with some friends, small, bespectacled, courteous men, and was not seen again. Clare roamed up and down the stairs, going into rooms and coming out again, purposelessly. She stood in the drawing room, staring at the hunched, unused chairs and sofas as though she had never seen them before. Once, Aunt Susan, climbing the stairs, found her standing in front of the grandfather clock.

  ‘What is the matter, my dear? You look quite panic-stricken.’

  ‘It’s stopped.’

  ‘So it has. We forgot to wind it.’

  ‘You never have before.’

  ‘Haven’t I? Well, it’s soon put right. There …’

&
nbsp; And the snow fell. Indiscriminately, blotting out grass and pavements and road alike so that by evening the houses stood in a strange, undefined landscape neither town nor country. Cars were silenced and slowed, creeping past with diffidence, as though perhaps they had no business here. With darkness came a deep silence. Clare, lying in bed, awake in dark reaches of the night, strained for sounds and heard nothing. She could have been deaf, enclosed within her own mind and body. She had to get up and open the window to reassure herself. Somewhere, a car door banged and people shouted to one another. She went back to bed again.

  The telephone rang while she was having breakfast alone. Far away, on a line that seemed to fight through gales or under seas, Mrs Hedges’ distorted voice was saying that she wouldn’t be coming this morning. Something about Headington Hill, and Linda going down with ’flu.

  ‘What?’

  The telephone crackled, clicked, and Mrs Hedges wasn’t there any more. Clare put the receiver down and went back into the kitchen. She washed her cup and plate, dried them, and put them away. She told the aunts about Mrs Hedges and took the bus to school, walking the last part among children who whooped in the snow and threw snowballs at each other. Their voices seemed unnaturally loud, as though trapped by the cold. She went past them, and into school.

  Art. Up in the high, light, glassy Art Room, which, today, reflected the white glow from outside so that to look up from the paper was almost painful, Clare drew intently, hunched over the table. Somewhere outside her Mrs Elliott was talking, striding among the tables, her long, rather dirty skirt brushing from time to time against people’s ankles. ‘You want to get a sort of textural feel,’ she was saying, ‘if you see what I mean. A sort of depth. You must bring things together in a kind of focus, do you see?’ Nobody spoke, or, apparently, listened: pencils scratched on paper, brushes clinked on the sides of jam jars. Mrs Elliott waved her cigarette in emphasis of texture, or foci, and paused behind a chair. ‘Quite nice, Susan. Good planes. I’d like to see a bit more colour contrast.’ She moved on and leaned over Clare’s shoulder.