The Printer's Devil

by Chico Kidd

  After several rings, a woman’s voice answered with elderly precision: ‘Warminster 8699210.’

  ‘Hello, could I speak to Mr Joseph Baker, please?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the voice in an oddly strained way, ‘he’s been dead five years.’

  ‘Oh Lord, I’m sorry. Is that Mrs Baker?’ 29

  ‘Yes. Can I help?’

  ‘I was wanting to get in touch with the tower captain at Market Peverell.’

  ‘That’s Will Osborn now. I’ll give you his number.’

  ‘Pen,’ Alan mouthed at Kim, who passed him one.

  Will Osborn, when Alan managed to get hold of him, proved to be one of those relentlessly chatty people whose conversation resembles the famed Chinese water torture in that it never ceases. Alan explained about wanting to see, and possibly photograph, the bells; he did not say why.

  ‘I’m really fond of those bells, you know, Mr Bellman. That’s a good name for a ringer, isn’t it? I expect you’re fed up being told that, aren’t you? They go like a dream, it’s partly due to yours truly (I tell you without false modesty), I have to tell you, I spend hours in the belfry cosseting them, and they’re truly sweet now. Well, as to inscriptions, the top five all have some Latin or something written on ’ em, but I never was a classical scholar so I never took no note of it. You’ll find it a bit cramped in the belfry, I dunno whether you could take pictures, maybe if you had a special camera or something. Anyway we’re ringing a quarter this evening, like to get one of our youngsters through his first, so we left the bells up this morning; but you’re welcome to come and see them after the quarter. You won’t disturb the congregation if you come in through the vestry, I’ll get someone to let you in, ’cause we’ll be going to Evensong as usual. Service is at six, but of course you could come along before and have a gander at the church, or even a grab if you’d like; I don’t know whether you’re interested in church architecture at all but it’s a pretty little church, and some of the stained glass is a treat. Escaped old Cromwell and his vandals, you know. We’ve got a mediaeval rose window, even - every bit as good as York Minster, though it’s smaller of course. As you’re interested in history you might want to look at the peal-boards as well, there’s a couple of eighteenth-century ones in the ringing-chamber. Well now I mustn’t keep you, Mr Bellman. I’ll say goodbye, and hope to see you this evening.’

  ‘’Bye,’ responded Alan meekly to the dead phone line, not a little overwhelmed. ‘Vaccinated by a gramophone needle, as Groucho would say,’ he said to Kim. He relayed a portion of Will Osborn’s speech to her.

  ‘Wide-angle lens,’ she said succinctly. ‘I’ll take the sixteen mil’.’

  It was just beginning to rain as the two of them scrambled into Kim’s car. The drapery of moisture dulled the spirits as surely as it drenched the landscape. Even Trovatore on the stereo failed to lift their spirits. Alan had a vague sense of disquiet, like a gentle squeezing in the hollow of his stomach, as if something irrevocable were about to happen.

  He hoped it was just indigestion.

  Some five miles from their destination, the rain stopped and the sky began to clear, fugitive rags of cloud fleeing on the upper air. Wan at first and watery, then gaining in strength, the sun reappeared as the travellers rounded a sharp and sudden bend and passed, on their left, a sign reading ‘Market Peverell - Twinned with St Bertrand de Comminges’.

  With a clatter which drowned out even Manrico’s call to arms from the speakers, ‘All’armi!’ a crowd of birds rose into the air from the trees on their right. For an instant the sky was blacker with their wings than it had been with clouds, and then Alan and Kim were in the village.

  Slowing almost to a stop, Kim turned in her seat and stared out of the back window in astonishment.

  ‘Look! Ravens,’ she said. ‘Never seen so many.’ 30

  ‘Probably crows,’ objected Alan. ‘Or rooks.’

  ‘Too big. I’m sure they were too big.’

  ‘Birds of ill omen,’ Alan intoned. ‘Huginn and Muninn.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Odin’s ravens. Mind and Memory.’

  ‘I thought they were called Thought and Memory.’

  ‘Same thing.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘There’s the church.’

  Two men and a woman stood outside the church tower in the unmistakable limbo of people waiting for the rest of a band to turn up to ring a peal or quarter-peal. As such gatherings usually exclude outsiders, Alan and Kim hovered uncertainly near the church door.

  One of the ringers, however, a wiry young man with a mop of unruly straw-coloured hair and a bushy beard, detached himself from the group and approached them.

  ‘Would you be Mr Bellman?’

  Alan nodded.

  The other man stuck out a large hairy paw-like hand. ‘Will Osborn.’

  ‘Hi,’ replied Alan, shaking it. ‘This is Kim Sotheran.’

  ‘Photographer,’ said Kim, somewhat unnecessarily as she was festooned with camera gear, and extended her own hand. ‘Nice to meet you.’

  ‘You brought your own photographer, did you? That’s efficient. I’m impressed.’

  ‘No need to be,’ said Kim. ‘We’re married.’

  ‘Ah! Well! Look, I found this—’ he thrust a book into Alan’s hands ‘- might be useful to you; now we’ll be up the tower in a tick for this quarter, that is if the others turn up (oh, that looks like two of ’em now). Would you like a quick grab before we start? Won’t take a sec. Come on up.’ He unlocked the door. ‘It’s a shame, but we have to keep it locked now. Hooligans, you know. Anyway, when we’ve rung down I’ll take you up myself. Don’t mind missing the service for once - I should do some work on the bells today anyway. Have you got some kind of special camera for confined spaces?’

  ‘I’ve brought an ultra-wide-angle lens,’ replied Kim. ‘Should cope with most things.’

  Still chattering, Will Osborn led them up the narrow stone spiral stairs. St Cross, like many towers, had recycled its old bell-ropes in lieu of banisters. In the ringing-chamber, he supervised the ringing of rounds to let his guests have their grab, and then chivvied them out with a cheerful ‘See you later.’

  In the church, Alan and Kim looked at each other. Kim grinned, and Alan let loose a chuckle. ‘Might as well look at this book, then,’ he said, turning his attention to it.

  ‘We’re spending all our time delving into musty books,’ complained Kim, looking at its dusty cobwebby binding with distaste. ‘I wonder how long this one’s been in someone’s attic?’

  ‘Sitting in a cupboard in the ringing chamber, more likely,’ said Alan, ‘along with forty years’ worth of The Ringing World. ’ He put the book down on the font and opened it carefully. The spine made a cracking noise. ‘“The Church of Saint Cross, Market Peverell, in the County of Wiltshire. By the Reverend Wilfred Hall,

  B.A., Rector. 1856. With numerous illustrations.” What a pity it’s in such a state.’

  ‘Is there a contents page?’

  ‘Here we are. The Bells andBell-tower, page 32.’

  He turned the yellow pages, thick like blotting-paper, with care, pausing en route to inspect the odd engraving; then, as the bells above them began their rounds, Alan and Kim began the next stage of their quest.

  ‘In the fourteenth-century tower hang six bells of pleasing tone, the Tenor, or heaviest, being a new acquisition, cast by the Whitechapel Bellfoundry in 1850 to augment the five which have hung in St Cross since the early 18th Century. These bear interesting inscriptions, which will be set out later.

  Details of the six bells are as follows:-Treble. 2 - 8 - 9 2nd. 3 - 2 - 2

  3rd. 5 - 1 - 8 ) Thomas Chandler 1658 4th. 6 - 2 - O 5th. 8 - O - 1 )

  Tenor. 10 cwt in F Whitechapel 1850

  The inscriptions on the bells read as follows:-

  Treble. EMMANUEL OMNIPOTENS ORA ET BENEDICE EIS

  All-powerful Emmanuel pray and bless them

  2nd. ECCE GABRIEL WHERE
IN IS FOUND REST

  3rd. KYRIE ELEISON + RAPHAEL NOCTU IGNIS OFFERE

  Lord, have pity + Raphael bring fire by night

  4th SUM ROSA CIRCULI TENEBRIS NEBULAE NUNTIA

  I am the messenger, the Rose of the circle of dark clouds [it is thought that ‘Rose’ is here used in its secret sense]

  5th. THOMAS SUM + OS ORPHEI + DIRUS IURATOR I am Thomas, Mouth of Orpheus, Dread Judge Tenor. VICTORIA REGINA 1850

  The curious inscriptions on the front five have never been satisfactorily explained; they appear inexplicable, unless they form part of some larger text. As the reader will observe they were not composed by a classical scholar.’

  Kim stuck her hands in her pockets and flopped down in a pew. ‘Can I swear in church?’

  ‘Course not, the angels will strike you down.’

  ‘Botheration, then. What the blazes does all that mean?’

  At that moment the sun shattered in coloured fragments the stained glass on the western side of the church with one of those sudden effulgences which bring their figures to glowing life.

  ‘The glass is nice,’ Alan said; and above them, the bells stepped their measure, six in their stately pavane, the treble’s silver thread treading an orderly path, the tenor’s note mellow as the beat of a tuned tympanum keeping the rhythm. In and out, dodging to and fro, dancing their arcane pattern, the other bells rang the method, a pastime ancient and melodious, a calling-on song for the congregation which echoed down the ages. Alan had never before thought that ringing could be subtle, but these bells sang so sweetly they beguiled him. Their sound sank into his heart, and made its home there.

  5 : Renowned be thy Grave

  ‘My heart is suddenly in Italy.

  Suddenly in that piercingly catching light Caught, as by a thorn: images snag my mind,

  The Italy of my mind, the sun Clear as it is not here (or not with the same clarity) pouring Vernaccia into the gold... ’

  M M Thomas, Towers

  The irrepressible Will Osborn led Alan and Kim up the stairs to the belfry, and opened the door to show them the bells in their oaken frame. The back five had been rung down, and pointed mutely to the dusty floor, silent and motionless and merely a potential for sweet music. The treble remained upright, like a chalice waiting to be filled. Through the louvres bright sunlight struck in stripes, pierced with dust, picking out details: a rope laid round a wheel, the treble’s blue clapper.

  Kim noted, as she became progressively hotter and sweatier tucked in to that confined space taking photographs, that the inscriptions on the five Fenstanton bells were stacked:

  KYRIE SUM THOMAS

  EMMANVEL ECCE OMNIPOTENS GABRIEL ORA WHEREIN ET IS

  BENEDICE FOUND EIS REST ELEISON ROSA SUM CIRCULI

  RAPHAEL TENEBRIS OS

  NOCTV NEBULAE ORPHEI IGNIS NUNTIA

  OFFERE DIRUS IVRATOR

  Intent on her work, she did not attach any significance to the layout of the words; but it was working like sugar and yeast in Alan’s mind - perhaps because his brain had got into the habit of puzzles - and when they eventually got home he did the same thing with the treble, solving the acrostic (to Kim’s relief) quickly.

  ‘You take the initial letter of each inscription and read across. That’s why three’s in English, to get the W, and four’s got “kyrie eleison" - the rest is just filling-in with Latin. That’s why it didn’t make sense to the Rev Hill.’

  ‘So what does it say?’ said Kim, peering at what Alan had written.

  SUM EMANUEL ECCE KYRIE SUM THOMAS

  ROSA OMNIPOTENS GABRIEL ELEISON ROSA SUM PULSATA ORA WHEREIN RAPHAEL CIRCULI OS MONDI ET IS NOCTU TENEBRIS ORPHEI

  MARIA BENEDICE FOUND IGNIS NEBULA DIRUS

  VOCATA EIS REST OFFERE NUNTIA IURATOR

  ‘“SEEKSTROGERS POWR COME IN TOMB FIND VERONI”. What?’

  ‘Verony,’ said Alan smugly, placing a book, which she recognised as his dictionary of archaic words, in front of Kim. She followed his finger and read:

  ‘VERONY. The cloth or napkin on which the face of Christ was depicted, that which was given by Veronica before his crucifixion to wipe his face, and received a striking impression of his countenance upon it.

  “Like his modir was that childe,

  With faire visage and mode ful mylde;

  Sene hit is bi the verony,

  And bi the ymage of that lady."

  Cursor Mundi, MS. Coll Trin. Cantab. f.ll5.’

  ‘Like the Turin shroud?’ she asked.

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘This means there’s some cloth somewhere with the imprint of a face?

  Roger Southwell’s face?’

  “‘COME IN TOMB”.’

  ‘It’s directing us back to where we started?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘As you say.’

  ‘I don’t suppose there was anything saying PRESS HERE on the tomb, was there?’

  ‘Not that I noticed. I’ll have to go back to Fenstanton.’

  ‘And do what? Dig him up?’

  ‘Hardly,’ said Alan, grimacing. ‘I reckon if I could shift the lid, I might find something.’

  ‘Shift the lid? Are you barmy? Who do you think you are, Burke and Hare? Even supposing you could move it.’

  ‘I don’t expect to find a body in there. That’s just the marker, the monument.’

  ‘You are barmy.’

  ‘Coming with me?’

  ‘I’ve got the Summers & Benson catalogue to shoot this week.’

  ‘Can’t you-’

  “No, I can’t,’ said Kim, a little irritably. ‘You know it’s important, and it’s going to take till at least Thursday. Fenstanton will have to wait till the weekend.’

  Alan had his own commitments, not least of them being deadlines. On Monday he had to travel into town to see a client - who insisted on calling his new range of cooking pots for the EEC market, on which Alan was currently working, the ‘pan-European’ catalogue: an expression which sent Alan into barely controlled hysterics whenever Stephen uttered it.

  It was rarely that Alan used the Tube, living, as Kim and he did, at the far end of John Betjeman’s beloved

  Metropolitan line. Most of his clients were based out of London and he would chug gently to their offices in his ancient Beetle, being overtaken by Metros, Golfs, and even the occasional milk-float. He didn’t mind. When he had left - or, to be honest, been sacked from - from his last job four years before, he had shed the habit and the trappings of speed; had relinquished a shiny new BMW with hardly a qualm, and still counted himself extraordinarily lucky to be doing what he did, which - apart from the routine side of it - was basically getting paid for having fun.

  For the first half of his journey the train swayed past fields and trees, a tamed and domesticated landscape and exciting no poetry in a present-day author, but a landscape nevertheless. The Times crossword had, unusually, defeated him, so he stared out of the window at the litter-strewn track.

  Gradually the train filled up, enabling him to play ‘what do they do for a living’ until the game palled -which was only about ten minutes, because he had no way of finding out whether he was right or not, and was coming up with the answer ‘tart’ rather too often to be likely.

  ‘What newspaper do they read’ was better: he could still spot a Guardian at ten paces, even though many had defected to the Independent, but he quickly became depressed at the preponderance of tabloids.

  He was staring past the right ear (which had no fewer than seven earrings in it) of the girl opposite him -blonde, pasty make-up, short skirt, and reading an unidentifiable tabloid - when he was struck by a very odd thought, one which was quite unlike the occasional whimsy which made its home in Alan Bellman’s head.

  It’s no wonder women get attacked, he thought. Don’t they all look like victims? Who was it called them frails? Was it Mickey Spillane? Look at them, with their silly vacant little faces and their wide vulnerable eyes and their pou
ty little mouths. Look at their fat little hands that couldn’t even lift their own typewriters. Look at the clothes they wear and their tottery spindly spiky shoes. Above all, look! Look at the absolutely dumb vacuous expressions on their faces. It’s all saying: I’m weak and vulnerable, I need to be protected. But they go out into the world giving off signals like a wounded antelope to a lion, and then they bleat when they get attacked. And it’s all due to an attitude. They walk like victims, even sit like victims with their knees clamped together, cringing into their seats.

  This was such an alien thought to Alan that he was past wonder at its invasion of his mind, although even in its grip he was aware of exceptions, Kim for one. Nobody could have called Kim frail, though she was slight and not tall: She stood and walked as though she were the hero in her story. If anyone had attacked Kim, Alan would have laid odds on him ending up with broken bones. She exuded a competence which was greater than Alan’s own.

  Feeling at once vaguely guilty and vaguely offended, Alan put his papers away and extracted a book from his briefcase just as the train marked its arrival at the perimeter of the metropolis by plunging abruptly into a tunnel. Its lights flickered on and off briefly as it changed tracks, then steadied, like Alan’s thoughts.

  There was a lot of work to do, and a return trip to Fenstanton began to look increasingly unlikely; to cap it all, Kim came home that evening with an odd expression (half-scowl, half-grin) on her face and the news that she had to fly to Rome at the end of the week. Ruins flipped into Alan’s mind, and October sun mellow on them, the Castell Sant’Angelo, Tosca, the heights of St Peter’s; and the crowds, the traffic and the fumes.

  ‘I’m sorry it’s happened now, but it could lead to more work for this client. I wish it was anywhere but Rome, I hate Rome.’ 36

  Alan looked at the nastily produced Italian literature which Kim’s client had given her. ‘It’s like pseudoRoman stuff, isn’t it? You might be able to get to Tivoli, or Hadrian’s villa, or somewhere nicer than the middle of Rome.’