The Apple-Tree Throne

by Premee Mohamed

  Now, with old Coombs and his nostalgia, I am allowed to stay from sundown till sunrise, a cut-price Dracula nursing a few pints of porter rather than blood, and frequently joined by fellow veterans who nod to me only, and do not speak, and look down into their pints the same way as me, seeking answers that cannot be found in the bottom of a tankard. I will not be discovered here; the Wickersleys, on the few occasions when their rowdier members choose not to drink at Lindow House, prefer the Raven and Dagger several blocks over, a much more fashionable establishment.

  I am invisible here, pleasantly so; and the porter dulls the pain in my leg. But I feel shameful, and shabby, when I walk back to the the house at dawn. I do not know what the Wickersleys must think of a man who keeps such hours and returns reeking of alcohol.

  I cannot do that tonight, of course; the Wickersleys are having a dinner-party, and that must begin after dusk. I shave finely, comb my hair back, and reluctantly avail myself of the smallest dab of the pomade that I have been given— I ascertained long ago that the smell bothered me because it was what Wickersley used in the field, and so bears the smell of his death. I don the clean dress uniform and clip on the silly cape, and stand looking at myself in the mirror for a moment. A cold foreboding surrounds me, as if the ghost were here, trying to pull me back from leaving.

  “Are you there?” I ask softly, but no reply is forthcoming.

  I make sure the fire is well-banked, then walk up to the house. All the lights are on, and it glows in the coming darkness like a small town seen from afar. It is getting properly cold now; Mr. Greene is pleased, for he says a few hard frosts are needed for good apples — to make them taste like apples, he says, and not a ball of barley-sugar. He might get one tonight. The cold sets my leg twinging as I walk, but I am so used to the pain now that I can ignore it, and I stride up the main steps with my cloak swinging rakishly behind me.

  As I enter, I see more guests than I had been expecting — the Wickersleys, and Cliff and his family, of course; and Miss Meyers, who often dines with us; but also Miss Meyers’ maiden aunt, whom I have not yet met, and a dozen or so others. We proceed through the necessary introductions, but in moments I cannot keep track of whom is related to whom, except that they are all of the Wickersley side. Their magpie-black hair shimmers in the golden light.

  It all goes wrong as our pudding is presented, a magnificent concoction of cream, cherries, and nuts frozen into an impossible sphere in a small portable cold-box, wheeled into the room with much panache and a crash of cymbals from the phonograph. We are required to applaud before we are served our portion, as if we have been presented with a head of state.

  My first mouthful sticks in my throat as Mr. Wickersley stands, and taps his knife upon his bowl for our attention, till his wife nudges him to stop. They turn and look radiantly upon the table, haloed like the saints in Renaissance paintings, and I know somehow, without a word yet spoken, that my doom is upon me.

  “Friends! Friends and guests,” Mr. Wickersley says, staring straight at the middle of the table, where the frozen globe is collapsing away in its enormous silver bowl. “We have an important announcement to make. Now, as you know, Miss Meyers has been a friend of the family for many years — why, since before she was born, if we are being mathematical about it.”

  “In which year one cannot comment, since one is speaking of a lady,” Mrs. Wickersley interrupts him, and exchanges a glance with Miss Meyers — warm, but edged and bright as a blade.

  It is too late to flee. I sit numb and smiling, the spoon trembling at my chin, as Mr. Wickersley describes our ‘tender, but proper’ courtship, bonding over our dead friend; my quiet proposal; how I had secretly approached the maiden aunt for permission — and Miss Meyers in turn shyly approaching the Wickersleys, since her father and mother — just like mine! — had passed away when she was a small child, and as her proxy, he was honoured to be able to give his fond and fulsome permission for her to wed.

  The applause is thunderous. The two soldiers on either side of me clap me on the back, and my spoon falls to the table, unheard. Miss Meyers’ eyes meet mine, dark and clear, absolutely innocent. A promise-ring glints upon her finger, and it is indeed like something I would have bought — thin and silver, with a small heart motif. A cold wave of doubt washes over my rage — dear Lord, did I in fact propose to her? Did I simply forget, in my sleepless and overwrought state? Is this all happening as it’s meant to?

  Did she do the same to Wickersley?

  “Speech! Speech!” someone cries, and I stand carefully, balancing on the table with my fingertips. They are not less white than the snowy cloth upon it, or than Miss Meyers’ hand next to my plate, or Mrs. Wickersley’s. Beautiful white hands, with chalked-on veins. Villainesses, I wish to say. Preys to your vanity! I have been betrayed, I wish to say. Or hocussed in some way — perhaps my dessert? And you, moreover, have betrayed the memory of your son — have you not?

  Instead, I nod at the assembled guests, and turn, and leave. They are unable to follow me, for they are hobbled by their manners, which leave me free to abscond. They are welcome to keep my cloak, hung up the front hall; and whatever else I have left there, perhaps some hair or eye-lashes. But no more of me shall they have. And no more of them is mine to claim.

  I walk back to the house, my knee crying out at the slope. Inside, I swiftly bundle my few possessions into my duffel-bag — my army razor, uniforms, my few civvy clothes, boots, papers. The room looks very much the same when I am done. It is as if I were never here at all. They will be relieved at that, I think.

  I leave a note for Miss Meyers, thanking her for her kind attention since my return from war, but breaking it off, in no uncertain terms. Or I believe them to be no uncertain terms, at any rate. I say nothing of her betrayal, and nothing of Wickersley, or of his parents, or the ring. But no one is here to help me with the language, as when I was a boy and little Victoria Patel helped me with my sums and letters. Perhaps it is simply a mass of gibberish. I am ashamed of my hand, the way it sprawls and smears on the Wickersleys’ monogrammed notepaper.

  Braddock? I say, are you all right?

  I laugh shortly, hearing it emerge as a wheeze, smelling faintly of cherries and cream. “Oh, quite all right, sir. I am just leaving, as you have been requesting for some time now. What a success! How persuasive you have become!”

  You’ve had one too many, I think, Lieutenant.

  The voice drifts closer, through window and wall, and in a moment he is before me, balancing gingerly on the floorboards next to the desk. His face is a mask of tragedy, the dark hair with its feathery iridescence, just as it did in life.

  “And you will be pleased to know that I will no longer be seeing anything of Miss Meyers,” I blurt as I quarter the room for anything else. Oh, my harlequin muffler, hung over the back of the chair. I stuff it into the bag and turn back to the baffled ghost. “As you also wished! You therefore have defeated me, and I am making my retreat — you’ll be glad to see the back of me, I am sure, as you were in Burantai Pass!”

  I have paid for my crime! the ghost shouts, and we reel back from one another at the volume of it; I hope if anyone is approaching the house they cannot hear it. Do you not believe that I did? Do you not believe that death was sufficient to cover that cost? Why then do you continue to bring it up, to add to my torment in this lifeless plane of existence?

  “Because you almost got me killed!” I shout. “Because you succeeded in killing almost a thousand men! And I know why! Do you believe you are still innocent? I saw you with the intelligence paper not an hour before you ordered that retreat — what did it say?”

  Braddock, I —

  “Tell me what it said! You have no reason to lie now! Did it say that we were not flanked? That there was a clear route to escape?”

  He falls silent, and though he cannot blench, he becomes slightly more transparent, as if he has lost control of those faculties that keep him together; blood begins to drip f
rom the long-healed wound on his throat. His piebald uniform wavers, becomes translucent.

  “Tell me!”

  No. That is not what it said.

  “I knew you had lied, I knew it! I saw the paper and I said nothing at the hearings, they interrogated me a dozen times, the sound of the type-writer drove me half mad. And I said nothing! Someone told you that we were surrounded, and you did not believe them, and their death sealed it forever!”

  There were…there were errors in the code. I therefore thought it false intelligence, that the enemy was trying to keep us trapped in that small pocket in the valley.

  “So you ordered the retreat, and sent us straight into their bullets and blades,” I cry. “You punish yourself now, Wickersley, as well as me — it is none of my doing that you choose to stay here. I survived because of luck, and because our enemy accepted your death as payment for the crime. I certainly do not.”

  You suggest that you are being punished in a measure equal to mine! That is certainly not true. How dare you say such a thing — how dare you. You speak of suffering and life as if they were lines in an accounting-book, as if you could place a value on such things. You, of all people.

  “Then let us say that we are both being punished equally and never speak again,” I hiss. “Let us say that the accounts have been squared — I am leaving, and you must therefore leave.”

  I…do not know how. I am not sure I can. They have not taught me to use the secret ways.

  “I fail to see how that is my concern. Leave or stay, I no longer care.” Two novels next to the bed — I stuff them into the bulging bag, and sling it over my shoulder. Anything else? “Your ‘Roz’ is a liar as well, which I am sure I do not need to tell you; what a prize pair you would have made! She told everyone at dinner tonight that I had proposed to her, knowing full well I had not. Is that where you learned it from, your childhood friend? Or was it your elders? Your mother is a liar, Wickersley. Your father is a liar. And I know how your brother got out of the draft — and the whole pack of you should be just as ashamed of buying his way out as of lying about it for years!”

  Rosalyn lies because she wants to be loved, and because her house was once rich, and she is afraid of being poor and alone, Wickersley says, holding his hand out to stop me as I tug at the bed-linens. I feel something — not quite a human touch, but a feather of warmth, as if a match has passed too close to my hand. And you must not be too hard on my parents, who grieve…who grieve the loss of…

  He is weeping, but he does not realize that my heart has been so hardened tonight, and will not be softened by his play-acting. My heart is in a coldbox of its own, I suppose. And I wonder again, briefly, what it said on his pocketwatch: that damnatur. Perhaps something about how liars are forever damned. Well, good. A prophecy all unknowing that came true. I cannot ask him now.

  My leg collapses on the threshold of the back door, as if the ghost is taking one last act of revenge, and this time I do not hold it in and I scream as if I am being pursued by all the devils in Hell. No one comes. I find myself pleased by this, and I hope I have frightened off anyone who may have been in pursuit — perhaps they will go around now telling everyone I simply went mad tonight, and I will be properly shunned. How dare they go around inviting Dracula for dinner, and feeding him ice-cream, and giving him pomade. No, he should be shunned. Invisible and ravenous and alone.

  Tears of pain stream down my face as I limp to a steam station, drop my coins in the slot and find a seat. I am shivering uncontrollably, though the wood-lined tram is warm, even hot where the waste steam-lines run under it. I press my hands to the wall and huddle close. The respectably dressed couple across from me trains their gaze firmly on the floor rather than pretend I exist; and the two giggling mollies a few seats down glance at me and shake their heads. They must think I am a booze-fiend or under the influence of some darker vice, or any way not worth the trouble tonight. Outside the smeared windows the town passes in silence, glowing windows, rubbish-fires, a whiff of smoke from the foundries that run all night.

  Clark’s house is silent, of course; as I creep up the steps, a distant churchbell strikes eleven. I pound on the knocker, and am unsurprised when it opens to reveal a gunbarrel pointed at my face. Its darkness is a familiar darkness, and if it goes off, then it will be deserved.

  “Oh, Ben, for God’s sake!” someone cries, and everything goes dark.

  I awaken moments later, in the dimly gas-lit kitchen; Vic is wrapping her shawl around me, and Clark, in his drawers, is carefully unloading his gun a bullet at a time.

  “You’re as cold as ice, my lad,” Clark says, his tone light though his face is drawn and haggard. “Did you walk all the way here then? In those shoes?”

  “Took…took a tram,” I whisper.

  “So you’ve finally absconded from that horrible place,” Vic says. “Let me get you a brandy.”

  “Well, some retreats must be made, or the war is lost,” Clark says. “I shan’t ask about it, since you’re in no condition, I see, to tell stories tonight; but if I’m to be your alley with the Wickersleys, you’ll need to tell me tomorrow.”

  I nod, and they put me back in the spare-room, and I lie awake till dawn. I should have taken the laudanum with me, at least. That was a gift.

  ***

  As Clark and I look for a new flat the next day, I tell him such parts of the story as I deem reasonable — leaving out the ghost, of course, but leaving in whatever I can to indicate that I am of sound mind, and have simply gone a bit mad from lack of sleep.

  “I’m glad you’ve left them, Braddock,” he says reflectively, as we stand at last in the flat that I have chosen — modest, and modestly priced, and in a neighbourhood where even were the Wickersleys to locate me, they would never wish to be seen. That gives me a measure of protection that we agree is worth whatever inconveniences the flat may result in. “I’m sworn to silence if they contact me looking for you. Unless they want to give you money, of course.”

  “I don’t want their money, Clarkie.”

  “I shall keep it then. I’ll buy myself a nice new waist-coat, and some new shoes to replace these ones you’ve ruined, and a solid gold comb for my luscious tresses, and…”

  I laugh, though it seems to take more strength than I have. We lean upon the window-sill of the new flat, and look out at the river, low and still in the autumn sun, like a sheet of metal. On the far side of its bend are a few manufactories, their noise audible from here, a grumbling roar punctuated by hammer-strikes as small and clear as bells.

  The rooms we have chosen are clean and dry, though they thrum somewhat from local industry. When my papers come, I could probably get a job over there, just across the river. Or perhaps a position at the calculatory nearby, that little set of glass pyramids, though they usually have a maths examination as part of the process. Or perhaps, now that I have been drafted and released, I could re-apply to the army as a noncombatant — instructor, mechanic, something like that, where my quiet madness will not be an issue. The future stretches ahead of me, full of possibilities, quiet, and alone. With a position secured, and my current savings, I will be comfortable rather than respectable; but after what I have seen, I do not want to be respectable anyway.

  “I do not know what I have done to deserve a friend like you, Clarkie,” I tell him, as he turns away and goes about the place testing for loose floorboards or uneven cabinetry.

  “Well, nor do I, old man,” he says, coming back to clap me on the back. “I suppose you think I’ve been keeping it all written in some little black book — you know, Wednesday, September seventeen, the new boy gave me a bit of bread with treacle, Lor’ what a treat! I shall remember it forever.”

  “You know, I thought you had forgotten that.”

  “I never do forget a good turn,” he allows, “but if it’s records you’re thinking of, then no. You’re my friend because you’re a good man, Ben. And because keeping company with you makes me want to be a
good man myself. It’s not an easy thing. I think we’ve known many who will never get the knack of it; and there’s many who are no longer here who would have made better men than we. But we cannot think of the past. Time only moves one way.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  Vic joins us later, and we celebrate my new flat with a purchased luncheon and brown glass bottles of stout, and a bag of roast chestnuts from a cart that trundles effortfully up my street. When they are gone I take a turn around my new neighbourhood, Garricombe Court. It is gray and seems dispirited, and there are no trees, only weeds that grow unchecked between the houses, though the cobbles keep them out of the street. Even the clothes that flap from the wash-lines lack colour - grey, white, pink, blue, as if they were once much brighter but have lost their hues over time to the relentless drain of the quiet streets.

  There is a light persistent rain of grit, not ash but some kind of very small hard globule like sand, of a mixed black and transparent hue — I suppose it is from one of the stacks I can see rising above the big charred boxes of the ‘factories. I take note of the few shops, nothing as many as near The Heights, where one could buy anything one wanted for most hours of the day. Here, I will have to look lively to keep myself provisioned.

  But I am free, and that is worth any amount of bad meat or stale bread.

  I return as dusk begins to fall, and stoke up a fire and make a cup of tea, and read till my eyelids become heavy. A man of leisure, nothing to do but read and think, just like the gentry!

  I am woken by a faint knocking, and rush to the window with my candle held high, but the street outside is dark and silent, not even a stray cat below. The sound comes again and I realize it is coming from the buildings across the river, the same metallic pounding or tapping I heard earlier. I draw the curtains shut, climb into bed, and sleep deeply until long past dawn.