by R. A Humphry
Henry shook his head. “I’m not sure how to go about telling him. It might make things awkward with Killynghall as well.”
“Yes, I can see that. What about her? The mother?”
“Watkins could dig up very little about her. It seems she was some sort of prodigy amongst the practitioners down under. They kept her very secret until James turned up. There are rumours of immense power and some sort of destiny but really, with our sort, that applies to almost everyone. The story that I heard is that she defeated Killynghall in some sort of duel on the South Island which shocked everyone back here. Then she and James got married and have spent the rest of their lives dashing about in Africa putting out fires.”
“And raising Manu,” Heather added.
“Yes, that too.”
#
They stepped into a grassy lane that ran next to a wheat-field. In front of them was a stone windmill with wide, white painted blades unmoving in the early afternoon sunlight. Heather glanced at it and tapped her nose in thought. “Wind, I take it?”
“Got it in one.”
“But you don’t want me to turn it into a helicopter I am guessing?”
“If at all possible.”
“Henry?” she asked as she glanced at the windmill.
“Yes?”
“How would you manage a tornado?”
“Run away.”
“You are less witty than you imagine. Indulge me. Sean and Kim were watching some documentary about America and it got me thinking. Is it even possible to stop one using magic?”
“Yes, you could do it, if you used a strong enough base spell. What would you use?”
“Erichtho,” Heather replied without hesitation.
“Good choice, if a little creepy. Necromancy and control of demons? I didn’t think it was in you.”
“What could be more powerful? Dante and Goethe both invoked her.”
“You frighten me.”
“And you? Who would you choose?”
“Taliesin of the radiant brow. He is subtle where Erichtho is blunt. But for you… I would say both. You have the raw power of an Erichtho but you also have the cleverness of a Taliesin. In any major spell-work I would tell you to combine them. That way, if you did it right, you could do anything. You could do great works and commit terrible sins.”
“And what if I am a sinner?” Heather asked with a coy smile.
“I’d bend you over my knee and spank you. But I’m not that worried. Since you can’t even manage a pathetic gust of wind, Taliesin and Erichtho are safe.”
Chapter Eighteen: Crazy Jack
Manu watched as Mr. Uscliff wrote out the quotation in red pen on the white board in big, bold letters. He was very fond of conducting his lessons in this way, Mr. Uscliff. He liked a dramatic quote and a lively debate to start things off. He was a little younger than most of the Darkwells masters and fancied himself as something of an eccentric. He was, at least in Manu’s humble opinion, a brilliant teacher and taught in a way that was different to anything Manu had experienced before. Mr. Uscliff was obsessed with his students understanding. He said that learning facts and dates and sources from the textbooks was pointless donkey work if they didn’t understand. He was unconcerned about exams and essays and coursework. “I will not churn out worker bee drones whose only talent is regurgitating the clap-trap that I’ve spoon-fed them and happens to be fashionable at the time,” Mr. Uscliff had declared, in the first few weeks of term. This alarmed a great number of Manu’s fellow students whose only goal in life was to exit their various lessons with an early letter in the alphabet regardless of whether or not they remembered anything of the subject ten minutes from the exam hall.
Mr. Uscliff finished his quotation then stepped aside with a flourish and Manu ran his eyes across it, trying to read the untidy scrawl.
The lesson of history is rarely learned by the actors themselves. ~James A. Garfield
There was a chorus of scratching pens as the class dutifully scribbled down the important quotation.
Mr. Uscliff, observing this, frowned. Manu was still trying to puzzle out what it meant. “Does anyone wish to venture a guess as to why I have written this?” Uscliff asked, pacing down the line of desks. There was a familiar silence. “Mr. Wardgrave? How about you? I see you are not supping from the proffered spoon. It appears you are thinking rather than just copying down everything that I write or say.” The scratching pens continued on.
“I think it means that we get almost all History second hand,” Manu offered.
“Yes, Mr. Wardgrave, well done. And what is the problem with this?”
“The lies get worse?”
“Perfect, Mr. Wardgrave - I’ll add a credit to Dukes. Yes. The problem with history is that it is, like Oscar Wilde observed, merely gossip. Like gossip, it gets worse the further from the original source you get. You must understand this. If you can truly grasp that, as George Santayana once said, ‘History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there.’ Then you might have a chance of doing something in this subject.”
Manu finally put pen to paper and copied down the quote from George Santayana, smiling to himself. He loved Mr. Uscliff’s lessons.
Manu looked up as a thick workbook flopped onto his desk. Mr Uscliff was handing them out to the rest of the class as well. Once done he moved up to the front of the class. “To ensure you truly understand this, you are all doing an extended project. I want you to go out and find some local history, from primary sources. I don’t want the ramblings of others. I want witnesses. I want you to understand what the difficulties are. Only once you do it can you write about it with any authority. I don’t care what you do it on, but it has to be history, it has to be local.”
#
Henry was no help to Manu whatsoever. “I could give you one of my wall tapestries?” He had suggested. “Maybe the one with my family tree?”
Manu gave his thanks and then tried Heather, who told him that she was also pretty hopeless with local history. “You might want to try Sean, though. His family have been in this area for several generations. My mother has always said what a bunch of gossips Sean’s family are so they’ll love to have someone new to tell their stories to,” she had suggested.
Sean turned out to be more than happy to help. He talked to his parents and everything was arranged for Manu to go over and interview the family at their flat on the estate in North Camland on a Sunday afternoon.
#
The estate was a place of hard concrete edges and flaking paint. Refuse accumulated in the corners of the stairwells and dead-eyed youths glared at Manu as they lounged in packs on shiny trick-bikes. Graffiti lined the walls with course swear words and mysterious tags. As Manu turned the corner to ascend to the fourth floor he noticed a work of art done with spray and care amongst the more mindless offerings. It was of a baby curled in a dirty corner with the words Tabula rasa written over its head like a halo. Sean, Manu thought and he took the steps two at a time.
The door was scratched and faded and Manu knocked three times before Sean appeared and welcomed him in. The place was cramped and dim but very neat and had the indescribable feel of a home. Sean introduced his mother, a small bird-like woman called Shannon who wore a long flowery apron and who bustled and fussed over Sean’s guest. Sean’s father, a powerfully built old man, who wore in a signet shirt despite the chilly weather, gripped Manu’s hand like a vice and insisted on being called Robbo. A mug of tea was produced and Sean moved everyone down into the worn but comfortable old settee.
“What’s the lad after again, Sean?” Robbo asked.
“He wants to know some of the old stories of the place Dad, you know. From the family and the like.”
“Yes, Sir. Thank you so much for taking the time. I’ll try to be quick.”
“Ah, right, right. Well. The Griffyth family have been in these parts a good long while. We used to be farm folk. Then we had some crofters and then we worked in the Cl
ark’s factory before they all closed and now we are still here, even if we got no jobs eh?”
“My Dad was a postman, before he did his back,” Sean supplied.
“So, lad. What sort of time period are you interested in?”
Manu considered for a second. The stories of the Griffyth family were about the area. They were history, but were they from the actors themselves? He didn’t think so.“I was wondering if you had any good stories that you were involved in? Something in the local area that happened that you saw firsthand?”
“Not the scraps outside the Bear, Dad, before you start,” Sean said, getting up.
Robbo sat and considered, scratching at the rough white stubble on his chin. Shannon appeared out of the kitchen with a try of biscuits and topped up everyone’s tea. The television droned in the background, ignored.
“Could tell him about the fire,” Shannon suggested as she moved around from person to person. “About Crazy Jack.”
Robbo broke into a wide, crooked-tooth smile. “Good idea, love, good idea. People love that one.” Sean groaned and slipped on his heavy headphones. “Now, to understand this story lad, you need to know more about Crazy Jack.”
Manu nodded, scribbling Crazy Jack on his notepad. “Go on,” he said.
“A good few years ago now, before you were born, we used to have a yearly gala in North Camland. Back then it was a big thing you know. We didn’t have all the modern toys we’ve got these days so folk used to look forward to the gala. It would have all the usual things - Ferris wheels, bumper cars, donkey rides, clown shows and the like. Since you’re a young buck and foreign to boot, I’ll guess you don’t know that where you have galas and fairs like that, you get gypsies. I used to love watching them roll in their colourful wagons with their furry little horses, didn’t I love?”
“You did dear,” Shannon replied. “At least when you were a boy.”
“Now, people are always pretty harsh about the gypsies. They’re always calling them thieves and vagrants and what-not but really they liked it that way. It made the gala more exciting, didn’t it? More mysterious and romantic, I think.”
“That’s not what you said when you had your wallet nicked,” Shannon observed from the kitchen.
“Well, there’s not smoke without fire, is there? Some of the Gypos were real rough bastards, make no mistake. Roughest of them all was a young bloke called Jack. Jack Swann his full name was, but people just ended up calling him Crazy Jack. He got barred from every single pub in North Camland one year for fighting. When he kicked off in a pub the rozzers had to come down in riot gear, I tell you. He was a one man wrecking-ball when tanked up, I’ve seen it myself. Now, I’m no saint and I’ve been in a fair few old ding dongs in pubs but I was never stupid enough to go up against Crazy Jack. You would just sort of neck your beer and quietly move on if you saw him and his crew walk in. I did that even once I got to know him.”
“He was very charming,” Shannon said as she settled into the couch beside her grizzled husband, “when he wanted to be.”
“Oh yes. That’s what made him such a puzzle. He had such a quick wit and was just one of those blokes that you want to be around at the start of a night. Life and soul of the place.”
“Until he had one too many,” Shannon said, shaking her head.
“Yes, then you had to leg it in case he turned on you. No one was sure where Jack came from, not even the other gypsies. He lived the life to the full and loved the roaming nomad ways you see. He would come here every year for the galas but in-between he might be anywhere. We heard that he’d been all over Europe and America and even India, which was impressive back then.”
“The fire, love, the lad wants to hear about that.”
“I was just getting to it woman. Anyway, you get the picture of Jack, right? Good. Now, have you seen Greenacres? The old folks home that is next to the railway station? Well, when our Sean was about one or two me old man was staying there. Someone dropped a candle or something and the whole place went up in flames. You have to remember that this is back before we had such strict fire rules and such. So anyway, my old man rings me at home and is coughing and spluttering and saying that there is a fire. So I get up and dash down there to help as were only a short way away back then. It was horrible when I got there. The roof was properly ablaze and none of the old folk could get out. It was chaos. I didn’t know what to do, I tell you. I was scared out of my wits. Thought they were all going to die.
“That’s when I saw Crazy Jack stumble out of the nearest pub. He looked up at the burning building, saw the trapped old folk and just bloody sprinted in. You’ve never seen anything like it. He ran into an inferno and came out carrying terrified old people. Five times Jack went in there and came out again, once carrying my Dad. Bravest thing I ever saw.”
“That’s amazing,” Manu said with genuine awe.
“Oh yes. Then when the coppers turned up he ended up smacking one of them and having to hide for the next few months. That was Crazy Jack.”
“What happened to him? After that?”
“Oh, he met a girl from around here. One of Shannon’s mates, wasn’t it?”
“I warned her,” Shannon commented, shaking her head again.
“They went off together travelling. It was quite a scandal. She was such a prim and proper girl before Jack got hold of her. She was the daughter of a couple of Darkwells teachers, in actual fact. So Jack fulfils his final role as the bad’un Gypo by stealing away one of our women.”
“They were happy, for a while.”
“If you say so. He was typical Jack. He took her on the gypsy trail across Europe on the canals. He showed her a world that was more exciting than our boring work-a-day one and, young as she was, it was what she thought she wanted from life.”
“They had a beautiful child together,” Shannon added. “He at least gave her that.”
“Yes, he did, but it’s not like he stuck around, is it? No. Crazy Jack is no-one’s idea of a hero. No man that beats on his woman when he’s in his cups can be considered a hero, can they lad?”
“No,” Manu said. “Yet he saved all those people.”
“That’s right. Isn’t that history for you? It’s a complicated mess.”
“What was her name?” Manu asked, his pen poised over the paper.
Robbo looked over to Shannon who looked at Sean who pulled the headphones off. He sighed then nodded his head at his parents. “You must promise not to tell her any of this, OK? She doesn’t have a clue about it and her mother deserves to be the one who tells her.” Manu nodded, confused. “The woman’s name is Molly Evynstone.”
Chapter Nineteen: Ewitan
Manu was forced to listen to Henry’s grumbling all morning about the necessity of having Watkins drive all the way down from Hawksworth Hall and for them to sit in the Phantom all the way back again, just for the sake of appearances. “…and the worst thing is we can’t even use the hedge because of the bloody paparazzi so we have to drive on the,” Henry shuddered, “motorway. I struggle to see the point. It is not like any of the self absorbed morons here would even notice if we just left via the portal. I could conjure a parade of elephants to take us back like maharajahs and they wouldn’t see a thing.”
“Could you?” Manu asked.
“Could I what?”
“Conjure elephants?”
Henry thought about it for a second. “Tricky.” He started his haphazard packing again. Henry had packed up at least twice as much stuff to take back as Manu owned.
“Are you upset about taking the car because you are embarrassed about having a butler?” Manu asked. When he saw Henry’s look of outrage he put up his hands, “It’s only because so many of the people here seem ashamed of it, that’s all.”
“Oh, no. It’s not that. Watkins is not a butler, good gracious Manu, this isn’t the nineteenth century,” Henry replied. “He is our man of business.”
“Your what?”
“You know, our steward. He
writes letters and what not. Runs Hawksworth and the farms when my step-father is away. That sort of thing.”
“I see,” Manu replied although he had no idea what Henry was talking about.
“He used to be in the army, you know. Met my father during the Falklands war, followed him all through the troubles in Ireland.” Henry picked up a pile of dirty laundry and flung it through the open portal back to Hawksworth. “He was with him in Africa when he died. Spent the whole time in hospital with malaria, poor chap while my father pushed on into the bush. I’d imagine it is why he sticks with us.”
“Is that why he is also the butler?” Manu persisted, refusing to accept otherwise.
“We used to have a real one,” Henry conceded. “But my mother once managed to summon the Phoenix in the lake and once he saw that he handed in his notice. Oh, speak of the devil! Come on Watkins; let’s get this tiresome farce over with.”
#
One of the few things Manu had found to recommend England over his home was the undeniable wonder of snow. It was the most amazing thing he had ever seen. For a boy from the tan dry savannas of the rift, the spectacle of the landscape donning the shimmering dress of a heavy winter snowfall was beyond miraculous. As he approached Hawksworth Hall in the Phantom with a light fall gliding down from the sky, Manu felt like he had stepped into one of the illustrations in his boyhood books.
“It looks like a fairytale,” he observed to Henry.
“Oh god, don’t say that. The builders have only just boarded up the front of the section that Heather smashed. Come on, we better get to the Billiard Room before Matron gets you.”
It was a good time. His days were taken up exploring the extensive grounds. He made friends with the soft spoken gamekeeper who proved an excellent guide, teaching him things about the animals and the trees and the countryside around the estate.
Henry was often asleep during these morning rambles, refusing to waste what he saw as sacred rest-time. Manu would join him for a good lunch followed by games of snooker, where Henry would thrash him, or darts, where Henry would sulk when he lost. As the afternoons wore on Henry would begin research into some spell or other and Manu would set off again, hiking up the tourist paths and soaking in the magnificent views and the rolling stark hills of the long curving lakes. His heart would be full to bursting as he bounded up the rocky crags to discover some new and wondrous stretch of water and he felt a daring explorer to uncharted lands.