Pieces of Light

by Adam Thorpe

  Of course I don’t have them on me. Only the odd phrase has stuck.

  But here’s the gist.

  It’s March, 1978. Ray is out walking. He meets Muck (‘Frank PETTY’) trimming a dogwood hedge in Gumbledon Acres, tying up the branches to dry for kindling. Because Ray is heading for Wot Tor, Muck recites those lines Jeremiah taught me sixty years ago. I’ll give you Jeremiah’s version, only slightly different from the one recorded by Ray:

  Thee be lookin a bit shart o’ breath, Richut.

  I hev a-bin tearin up Wot Tor, Willum.

  I dunno, Richut – thee tells I what tor ’twere.

  Why, I telled thee straight – Wot Tor ‘twere I were tearin up.

  Then I deddent catch ut, Richut: thee’ll have to be a-tearin up ut agin.

  Ray gives Muck a tip and then Muck delivers the filthier version. This is something that has stuck, Mother. Oh yes.

  Thee be lookin a bit shart o’ breath, Rachel.

  Why, I hev a-bin tearin up Wat Taylor’s willum.

  Muck doesn’t say if Wat Taylor or Rachel were ever real people. But he receives another tip.

  Ray notes that the name ‘Rachel’ is a kind of leit-motif in these sorts of verses, but not Wat. He then lists all the possible village Wats (a certain Wat TAYLOR was killed at Ypres in 1918), and all the possible Rachels, including Rachael Arnold. Now comes the interesting bit, if you’re interested in horrible things. He has found out that Mrs Rachael Arnold’s nickname was ‘Rampant’ – and, in one really obscene cluster of jokes, ‘Randy’ (he doesn’t repeat the jokes). Against this startling fact is another cross-reference, to a page in the Magpie for 1982–3. Much research by Ray in the ‘taproom’ of the Green Man has established that this nickname is not due to marital infidelities, Mother, but to a certain incident dating from around 1940, several years before the said Rachael was Edward Arnold’s wife.

  I paraphrase, as briskly as possible.

  In 1940, a young poacher by the name of Jack Wall, in the woodland attached to the Arnold property up Crab-Apple Lane, was up a tree when he spotted a couple of naked youths coupling ‘like Adam’n Eve’. He says the girl was Ransoms Rachael, though he didn’t know her at the time. The boy remained obscured by her, though various names are put forward (not recorded). Ray notes that Randy probably derives from Rampant which probably derives from Ransoms. Why Ransoms? Jack Wall takes him to the spot in question. The damp hollow is full of wild garlic – or ramsons! Ransoms is a corruption of ramsons. Ray sounds very pleased with himself for unearthing the original nickname, as well as its provenance. One can see him displaying it in a glass cabinet, a nasty little lump, a relic. The toffee found in the murdered child’s mouth, that sort of thing. The recording angel has passed, and we are full of grace.

  There, that’s better. It’s amazing what can be done when one puts one’s mind to it. That’s been the philosophy of my whole life.

  I’m going to have to fill you in, Mother. I haven’t filled in anyone else about this. About Rachael, I mean. (Not Aunt Rachael, not Mrs Rachael ARNOLD. That’s where Ray DUCKETT went wrong.) It’s top-secret. It always has been. At least, that’s what I thought. Top-hole secret! So I sit on Ray’s sofa in the cottage feeling rather low and confused. There’s this old forgotten theatre character called the Changeling. He has drooping hands and a stupid expression, a bit of a simpleton wearing a dunce’s cap, in whiteface. I sit on the sofa as the Changeling, the notebook slides from my hands, the clock chimes midnight.

  I do allow myself a little chuckle, when I think of the name Jack WALL. The first Shakespeare play I ever saw. The play in the play on a midsummer’s night. That vile Wall which did these lovers sunder . . .

  Pure coincidence. An old Ulverton name. You must remember the Walls. Jack Wall’s son is John Wall.

  That’s all for now. Isn’t life busy when you put it down? One thing after another! Hope you’re keeping busy.

  Your ever loving,

  Hugh

  A few days later. April showers. A few flowers on the spiraea outside. Don’t they call it Bridal Wreath?

  Dear Mother,

  I’m doing rather well.

  Then I switch the light off: the clock has just chimed midnight. It’s ugly, with plaster foxgloves around it. This is the first of my bad nights. Jack WALL is at the chink. I wake up, disturbed by the feel of his eyeball and a soft laugh, but it’s only the clock pinging. I wonder where I am for a moment, as I do sometimes here – it’s quite normal. I’m cramped and chilly on the sofa. After ages being awake, I drop off and dream I’m stuck in bottomless chalk. There’s a bog, with Ray having his throat cut on the edge of it. Spots of his bright blood spatter the black bog and turn into Jackie Collins, who is the goddess. And I never knew! I try to keep her as Jackie Collins but she’s also Mrs Wall. As long as she’s not Rachael, I think. I’m dressed in a dinner-jacket, but the others are in anoraks or skins. They grunt and heave Ray into the bog, holding him down with a stick. Then I’m the one being held down with a stick. The goddess is sitting on my chest. She’s almost you, Mother, but with a black, wrinkled face. The goddess turns into a swan, then a wise man in white muff. The man is saying ‘Sir’ and trying to throttle me. Another man in white stands near me in a living-room I do not recognise. I try to sit up, but am pressed back on to the cushions by my executioner.

  ‘Just relax, Mr Duckett, while we check you out. We’re the ambulance.’

  I’m not Hugh Arkwright. That was all a dream of a few minutes. I’m really Ray Duckett. Then I wake up properly.

  ‘Sorry, I’m not Ray Duckett,’ I say, my voice rather hoarse.

  The man has hairy wrists and chilly fingers. There’s a smell of something like Brut. He blinks stupidly for a few seconds. I sit up, his strong hand sliding from my jugular. The other one looks about sixteen, with bright ginger hair curving into unfashionable sideburns.

  ‘Come on, Mr Duckett,’ the first one shouts, as if I’m a long way off. ‘Easy does it.’

  ‘I’m not Mr Duckett, I’m Hugh Arkwright. Mr Duckett has only one leg. I’ve got two. He has two eyes, I’ve got one.’

  My eye-patch is hanging from the chair next to the sofa. I get up and strap it on.

  ‘There.’

  Brut asks Ginger if those specifications were given. Ginger shakes his head and says something quietly as I’m slipping on my shoes. My ears have always made up for my missing eye and I catch the words not altogether there.

  ‘I’ll show you who Mr Duckett is, right now,’ I growl.

  I push past them and run up the stairs, slipping on the loose runner and banging my knee. The men must have been sent by the Home. No trust in this world.

  I knock on Ray’s door and open it. The tufts of white hair have gone. Mother – imagine coming into my bedroom in Bamakum early in the morning and not finding me gurgling in my cot. You were always afraid of some beast snatching me off, so Mosea said. Ray’s bed is horribly neat, as if it’s never been slept in at all. Ray’s shoe is missing from where I placed it under the chair, and his coat and the crutches have disappeared, along with the Jefferies book. And the teeth. I think of suicides who, before they throw themselves under a train, remove their coat, fold it neatly on the platform seat, and adjust their tie. Then I think of what Tim said. Last meals. Pips. Shards of bran bread. I’m sure Ray knows all about bog bodies.

  ‘Oh, fuck.’

  The other two poke their heads in and look around as if checking for spare seats in a pub.

  ‘Looks as if your one-legged chappie’s done a bunk,’ says Brut.

  ‘Hopped it,’ says Ginger.

  They disguise chortles by coughing.

  ‘Come on, Mr Duckett,’ Brut says.

  I feel a hand on my forearm. A walkie-talkie in Ginger’s top pocket crackles. I snatch my forearm away as if it’s been scalded, but I know it’s hopeless: I’ll be taken to the Home and the awful Mrs Stanton-Crewe, while Ray is dying on some grassy hummock. Perhaps even Mrs Stanton-Crewe will say, ‘H
ello, Ray.’ I’ll be like Lady Glyde arriving at the Asylum in your favourite novel, Mother. I’ll look at the label on my shirt and see Ray’s name stitched in. I’ll be the Man in White. It would take so little to disperse Hugh Arkwright on the wind, as dreams are dispersed by daylight. As you would be dispersed without me.

  I shake my head free of this rubbish and think again of the underlined passage about grass and what it means: Ray has wandered off on to the open downs to become as unconscious as grass, to sink into the waves of turf for ever. It’ll all be my fault, of course: headlines in the local papers, phone ringing, my age asked for twenty times and still printed wrong. Arkwright spelt Arkright or even Awkward. Food for my enemies!

  I nod and agree to come along. I think, I think I then find some excuse to go into the kitchen – to lock the back door, that’s it.

  ‘Want your night things?’ Ginger’s pointing into the bedroom.

  ‘Thank you,’ I reply.

  I leave them both folding up my, I mean Ray’s pyjamas and go down into the kitchen. There’s an empty milk-lined glass on the table and the back door is not quite on the latch. Ray sneaked out this way: there’d have been no need to pass me. So I follow him.

  Cold morning air in my throat.

  A wobbly gate at the end of the little overgrown garden; it leads straight on to the sunken footpath that runs the length of Bew’s Lane from the school to finish somewhere high on the open downs. I’m sure we walked it together. On the other side of the hedge lies Gumbledon Acres, nibbled into these days by bungalows crouched behind thick blue hedges. We used to picnic there in the meadow and gather its flowers for pressing, Mother. Once or twice at least.

  I aim for the downs, the limber supple sea of the open downs. The path is churned up but stiff with cold, and sunk between its banks. Crisp packets caught in the dogwood hedge, that arches over and stops the frost from falling out of the air. So no footprints, no nicks of crutches.

  Perhaps he never existed, not outside my body. What a silly thought. Perhaps I’m following myself.

  The notebook. This drops on to my head, as it were. How can Hugh Arkwright dissolve so easily? Muck, I think. Frank PETTY. When I think about him and Duckett talking together all those years back, somewhere up this path, I feel Hugh Arkwright very solidly in my veins. The gristly muck-faced goblin cutting the blood-red twigs for fardels. Ray burrowing again, snooping, poking his nose in.

  ‘Randy’ is horrible. Absolutely horrible. Randy Rachael. It won’t leave my head. Ransoms Rachael is not too bad. But Randy is horrible.

  And Jack WALL’S eyeball huge and bloodshot at the chink, watching, looking down through the branches, poaching that most private and secret moment and hanging it up like a skin for all to snigger at. I might as well have no clothes on, jogging up the path. Flayed, that’s how I feel.

  I’ll tell you all about it when I’m ready, Mother. It’s a bit of an off-day, today. We all have them. But I’m doing well, on the whole.

  A woman with a dog. The dog hurtles forward and treats me as the prodigal son. It’s a big white thing like a vulgar rug, to go with vulgar furnishings and a giant television, and has clawed paws heavy enough to hurt. The owner evolves into Mrs Pratt.

  ‘Hallo, Mr Arkwright, what a lovely morning,’ she pants. ‘Rollo! Off now! He so loves people, he’s quite daft.’

  I ask her if she’s seen anyone on her walk this morning. Only the Stiff girl with her paper-round, taking a short-cut. Most inadvisable these days. Once one could walk anywhere, without fear. Now children are kept at home, and even home isn’t safe. You’ve been jogging, Mr Arkwright!

  Said as if it’s something astonishing, with a prod of the finger.

  ‘If you see Ray Duckett on your travels, tell him there’s an ambulance waiting for him, Mrs Pratt.’

  I shoot off again. The hedge’s troupe of greenfinch bursts out twittering in front of me, like an ambush. I’m already short of breath. He can’t have got this far, surely! Swinging like a monkey!

  I hit the top of the path. Through the gate is the field I remember as the turnip field. Now it’s spread to harsh stubble. With determination one can go miles swinging on a pair of crutches, even dying. He’s fled to the downs. The downs aren’t what they were, Mother – the broad grassy sward’s more than a bit moth-eaten these days, more than a bit torn up – but there are still a few rough-enough spots to lie in, to become turf in.

  As I cross the old turnip field, I start to shout his name.

  ‘Ray! Ra-ay!’

  But I’m rather out of breath. I should have stopped and walked back. Then the absurd thing about to happen wouldn’t have happened. I wonder if I should stop here? I mean, stop at the stubble and turn back? As I stopped my memoir for Dr Wolff at the very bad news about you?

  Cowardice. I’ve got both legs, after all.

  There’s a bare field beyond, I can see it from here, from halfway across the stubble, my ankles pricked through my socks. The far field is bare to its light drills. To its winter grass and its dragon’s teeth. But these must stay put for a while. Oh, I wish I was in Africa now. I’m planning to take a trip out there, to our old haunts, Mother. To Bamakum, if there’s anything left of it. Father’s road. Odoomi. The crater lake. Charlotte’s Lake. You’ll come with me, of course. Just the moment that I’m completely on my proverbial feet again, up and running again, I’ll be out there. The minute I’m one hundred per cent.

  I’m going to do something rather fun, rather pleasant. I’m going to take us out there now. Buea, you always liked Buea. Let’s book in to the Mountain Hotel. Pleasant climate, when it’s not misty or raining. Once ensconced there, I can fill you in on some missing years. Otherwise nothing after the stubble can possibly be understood as it ought to be. Least of all to myself.

  So here we are.

  The mountain is clear today, and one can imagine snow on its peak. I would like to climb it, or at least a part of it, in this rare sunlight. Instead I will sit on the veranda and write to you slowly and gracefully, while you visit people. Mr Tall, for instance. The Allinsons. The jungliness of a life requires such discipline, such stamina, as Father used to say, staring at his road – the rope-bridge dangling into the torrent, the smashed sleepers, the liquid mud shining between the trees. Such discipline, such stamina. And then Time grows over it so quickly, doesn’t it? What a pleasant climate. It’s the altitude. Soon we can go on to Bamakum, when we’re adjusted.

  That’s all for now. Let us enjoy Africa.

  Your ever-loving son,

  Hugh

  Weather clearing. Cool breezes but sun hot. Mr Tall and the Allinsons and the others are all dead. Peak hidden.

  Dear Mother,

  I’m glad you found my childhood memoir intriguing, and that parts of it made you cry. Blow your nose now and I’ll carry on.

  War broke out when I was seventeen. I had a place at Oxford, rather young, but I lied about my age and entered the Forces. I did this mainly because Uncle Edward was a pacifist, even though he wanted the end of civilisation. I was getting on badly with him at this time. Up to now, my years here had been divided between school and a house I had the right to shelter in. It wasn’t home. Home was Bamakum. I travelled there in my head, reliving certain days while my fetish packet crumbled and its contents were lost one by one between dormitory boards or under lonely hedges.

  My mark remained, more like a big bruise than a tattoo: you didn’t have to worry so much about it! I was teased for this at Randle, but I invented more tales about my time as a boy sailor (I knew Treasure Island and a lot of Coral Island by heart). Randle wasn’t my favourite period. I won’t go into details, Mother. I wrote you quite a few letters, even knowing you wouldn’t get them for the moment. I never let myself think that you wouldn’t get them at all, not ever. I never posted them, though, because Father would have been upset to have seen your name.

  I spent the holidays mostly on my own, reading or cycling around the countryside or walking up on the downs. No friends
came to the house, and I was hardly ever invited out: Nuncle couldn’t be bothered with this sort of thing, he was too deep in pan-Celtic mysteries and numerology and what we call these days the ‘para-psychological’. The house had no neighbours. Nuncle and I might as well have been separate tenants in the same house. My mature reading had started with Stevenson and Kipling, Ballantyne, Buchan, the sea-tales of Conrad, then proceeded through all of Spenser, Milton, Scott, Dickens and so on, to the French of Balzac and Hugo, and of course the Latin and Greek of the ancient poets. (I took after Father, you see.) Through the quiet of afternoons in the beechwood or sometimes in my room on rainy days, I continued to act on my own and out loud every single play by Shakespeare. I also read new writers like Lawrence and Forster and Woolf and all the English Romantics, and had a pocket Housman I took with me on walks. I tried to write myself, of course: poetry after Keats or Drinkwater, prose after Henry James. I still saw the countryside – the wood, the pool, the meadows and pastures and the free, open downs – as inhabited by spirits. But they were getting more and more literary, I suppose. And Nuncle was becoming more and more interested in African beliefs, in animism and fetishes and ancestors, the survival of the dead. He poisoned these things for me, so I let them fade away.

  I was thought of as wilfully shy or even cold by his friends – they kept suggesting that I be sent to somewhere like Summerhill or Forest School, to run about naked on lawns with overweight adults and learn from flowers and trees or sit on long-haired poets’ laps – be forced to, that is, as I refused to do this at the house. But Nuncle wasn’t bothered enough to change my school.

  His crowd overlapped the minor members of the Bloomsbury set, whom I dreaded. They shouted ‘penis’ at odd moments and asked me what I thought of the fusing of the body and the soul or of homosexual love. ‘Not very much,’ I would say, and run off. On the fringe of this set stood a Jewish painter called Ernest Katzen. Almost all his paintings were stored in a warehouse in the war, and the warehouse received a direct hit. So he’s completely forgotten now. Please don’t think you should have heard of him, Mother.