by Lloyd Jones
orange
I LIVE in a village six miles from the sea. Good jobs are scarce, winters are long.
Our skins are yellow and our feet always wet: we float forever on a cosmic water-bed in which hydrogen and oxygen atoms copulate torridly, endlessly, in sweaty threesomes to make yet more water babies.
Our poverty is typical of western seaboards, from Galicia to Cape Wrath – where the buzzard mews and the bagpipe keens so do men get drunk, women falter and babies sicken.
Our valley is a fresh green leaf veined along the centre with a broad central river joined at various points by six smaller streams. We live under stones by the water’s edge and we spend much time sheltering, since the hills around us attract rain as old people draw memories. I need tell you nothing about myself: if you want to find me ask for the man who plays snooker with Mr Smart.
There came to live among us one day an Englishman. There was nothing very remarkable about him and he lived quietly in one of the roadside terraces which remind me, in some obscure way, of a game of Monopoly which has gone on for far too long. He formed an attachment to the many slate tips which linger around gigantic holes bored into our homeland by the mythical beasts of the past, and he spent much time clambering among them. Englishmen, as you know, fall immediately into two divisions when they come to Wales: they either caramelise their essential Englishness, stiffening slowly into withdrawal and aloofness, or they pour themselves into the communal pot and add a slightly new tang to the local broth.
This Englishman did neither, which drew our eyes towards him.
There were certain things we noticed. Although he let slip one day that he was in his seventies he had the gait of a young athlete: smooth, rhythmic, fast, and seemingly effortless. He reminded me of a messenger in an eastern fable, seen first as a dot on the horizon, moving unerringly towards me in a whorl of dust, arriving clear-eyed and resolved, his outstretched arm holding a message of fantastic truth.
His experiences had been almost too many for one human lifespan. He told us stories about Russia: Moscow grieving under the snow, samovars, journeys on a tiny ship ice-trapped in a vodka sea. The silver birches had been babushka brooms sweeping time under the vast carpet of the steppes; he had met Uncle Vanya weeping among the cherry blossoms, seen the onion domes of St Petersburg moonbeamed and mystical; he could recall furtive attempts by a Soviet naval attaché to draw him into the Lubayanka’s web.
Then there was India: the flight into paradise with Osho – cock-crow dawns in the ashram with a new name tart on his orange tongue; all the streams of his multifarious life merging in a great delta of knowledge and joy beneath the bodhi tree.
His many lovers emerged, one by one, to form a ghostly line into the past, each bearing a casket of remembrances; this one he’d wooed whilst reporting for a shipping magazine (look, there she is in the background, blinking into the camera); another had read his poems in the pallid light of a London street-lamp – they had met on Hampstead Heath, at a funfair; and still they came, young, amused, intrigued by his enduring vigour, travelling through his eyes to another dimension.
To us, the rough-hewn local boys, this dimension was fenced off, like the slate shafts dotted around us. We could never enter, not because he wanted to exclude us, but because we couldn’t unstick ourselves from the slate’s Velcro grasp; we were stuck to those purple hills as burdock burrs cling to a cow’s underbelly.
He initiated a drama company and new names rattled on our rusty tongues: Brecht, Chekhov, Foe; our young people were fired by the plays he staged in a crumbling chapel. He invited the cognoscenti to his home and they appraised him over the fine wines he drew from his cellar. Inevitably he inspired envy and his enemies sprinkled his winter lawn with frost, killing his crocuses; inexorably he made many friends, who waved to him on the streets, sea fronds caught in the warmth of his Gulf Stream current. There was a lover, too, who tuned his summer lyre.
And then he was gone.
He simply vanished. No-one saw him go (and this was a great feat, since few people can depart completely unnoticed in our realm).
After a day or two people began peeping through his windows, but there was no movement. He had taken a few possessions but his wines, paintings and books had been left behind. We decided that we’d never see him again. His threshold gathered grime and his windows dust. His plants straggled and waned, his gutters grew cluttered and his gate fell unhinged. At some point, I can’t tell you when, his lover moved away.
Months passed, a year became two. I got a job in the quarry sawmill, slicing massive slabs of slate into windowsills and lintels. I made good money and got drunk every night. I played snooker with Mr Smart and fathered a child but forgot its name.
One night, without any particular motive, I broke into the deserted house.
I’ve told you now – do what you will. I’ve forgotten why I did it. Drunk maybe, or still consumed with interest. I hadn’t been part of his circle, but I’d watched his dusty dot speed towards us from one horizon and disappear towards another. I took nothing, merely nosed around, picking up books and putting them down again, looking at his paintings; then I lay on his bed, wondering which poems he’d read by candlelight to his couchant Aphrodite.
I slept briefly on a flamed Byzantine coverlet worked with silver and gold thread; by now the cottage was tinged with abandonment and a musky smell fumed my nostrils. I got up to leave.
By the bedroom door my boot clanged against a cupboard and the door swung open. I rummaged inside but my hand hit on nothing; I was about to turn away when a gentle rolling sound came from within the locker and an object trickled to the edge. I caught it as it fell towards the floor.
At first I thought it was a goose egg, but it was heavy and clearly made of stone; when I polished it with my sleeve I saw glints and swirling striations, a weave of sparkling, brightly-coloured minerals. It was similar to the magical obsidian stones of the Aztecs and Mayans, brilliantly hued, perfectly shaped and finely polished. The temptation proved too much: I stole it.
I know – it’s true, I lied to you earlier when I said I took nothing. But it was nothing much, was it? Who cares about a bit of stone? For pity’s sake, we’re surrounded by the damned stuff, choked by it, entombed, trapped in it like a body left to rot in a cellar. No-one worries about a little bit of stone.
Fearful, however, of being caught with it in my possession I hid the stone in a gap in the wall of the sawmill by my workstation and damped some moist earth over it. Occasionally, when I was left alone, I would dig it out and polish it, watch the light catch on its glinting surface. Then I would bury it again.
We were busy. I made more money, I got drunker every night. One day, as we strove to meet a big order for gravestones, I uncovered a strange enigma as I sliced through the soft bluestone. Through the water-sprays which cooled my saw I spotted an irregularity in the slate after my spinning blade had cleaved it. My workmates gathered round, one by one, wondering why I had stopped, and watched me as I hosed down the divided slab in a shower of rainbow droplets and dust, which dimmed the light around us. I turned off the saw and others switched off their tools also. The din ebbed away and a silence of sorts fell upon us. When I’d removed the dust and debris we stepped between the slabs and looked closely at what I’d seen as the blade hummed through it: a perfectly-shaped bubble in the stone – a rarity beyond memory, probably unique. They touched this unnatural vacuum, my workmates, running their fingers around its smooth concavities.
It was then that a thought struck me and a pulse ran through me, a jab of icy pain which filleted my mind. A heavy wire net tightened around my flapping brain and held it aloft like a terrified fish waiting to be dropped into a hold; my body ran hot and cold, I gulped anxiously. The thought which came to me in the sawmill – when I saw that indentation – came to you also I’m sure, as it came to Mr Smart, instantly. But none of you can imagine the dread which filled me when I realised that a power beyond my control was now forcing me to act on that thought, a force whic
h moved my feet away from the slate slab, towards the hole in the wall by my workstation.
I knew I was making a terrible mistake, but I couldn’t help myself. The frisson was too strong; I had to find out, and I had to do so in front of everyone, because my mind had decided to gamble wildly: it had become a drunken speculator chancing all on one throw of the dice. The rewards were too high to resist, the kudos too great.
A single high-pitch buzz filled the cavern in my head... was it the Celt in me, unable to resist a chance to mythologise, en-fable myself? But if I was right, how they would laud me! What glory would be mine!
I scrabbled at the earth around my stone egg, keeping my elbows still so that no-one would realise I was burrowing; I tried to look like a priest at his altar, preparing to turn with the communion. Hurriedly I cleaned off the soil and polished the stone with my quivering fingers. Then I turned and stepped slowly, purposefully, towards the slate. The other workers watched me somnolently. There was almost perfect silence by now, except for the tic-tic-tic of my saw as it cooled, and the occasional scrape of a boot on the floor. When I reached the flaw in the slate slab I lifted up my secret stone, allowing it to glint in the half-light, and then I applied it to the empty bubble in the slab. It fitted perfectly – an eye couldn’t fit its socket better, more naturally. There wasn’t a hundredth of a millimetre between the slate cup and my stone of many colours, nestling like a lapidary baby in its Neolithic womb.
It didn’t take a genius, said Mr Smart chalking his cue that evening, to realise I’d made a monumental mistake. Whatever possessed me, he asked. Had I taken leave of my senses? The stones should never have been matched – couldn’t I see that their morganatic marriage was too dangerous a liaison?
I’d realised all this, and more, in the first few moments of my madness, as the saw blade still spun above the rent in the metamorphic mass I’d sliced in half for an hour’s beer money up there in the sawmill’s gloom.
The repercussions were many. As Mr Smart foresaw I became a legend. I was apportioned fabulous powers. The villagers showed great reverence to me wherever I went; chairmen asked me to join their societies, to talk on this, to adjudicate on that. Children asked me to mend their toys. Young girls asked me to foretell the names of their husbands. Farmers asked me to cure cows and bless infertile mares. I was invited to manage the football team, open fetes, end feuds, patch friendships, restore libidos, enlarge organs, cure damp...
The days went by, one year became two.
By then I was a joke. They scorned me, reviled me openly. I’d been unable to do anything asked of me: no dream had come true, no disaster averted.
I drank even more heavily and I lost my job. I lost my home.
I became desperate when Mr Smart found another snooker partner.
One night I broke into the house again. No-one else had been there, and nothing had been touched: the Byzantine bedspread still held the imprint of my body.
In the same way as the nearby rivers met each other, unavoidably, and in the same way as my two stones had merged, I too had reached a point of resolution, and I found myself nestling in the cupped hand of my nemesis. Change was inevitable; I could no longer continue on this lonely course towards disintegration. I took my stone egg and a few possessions, bundled them into a satchel, and disappeared into the night. Somewhere I had to deposit the cause of my troubles, that lovely, accursed stone. I also knew, instinctively, that I was a mere courier; that the stone would dictate where its next home would be.
The Englishman had talked of London. He had mentioned Edmonton more often than anywhere else. I had no money, so I hitched along an arterial motorway, floating past many tributaries, onwards in the great stream which flowed southwards.
Eventually I was flung on an alien bank, an ugly place where I found somewhere to cling to. I begged by day, putting the stone in front of me: for some strange reason it drew people towards it. I told my story to them and they gave me money. By night I slept under an archway, with others, my beautiful stone bulging inside my clothes, warm against my belly.
The days went by, one year became two.
I failed to find the Englishman. Every day as I sat with my stone I studied each face that passed, but his was not among them. I made enquiries about Osho and the sannyassins, but they had left India: I was told they had settled in a valley in Oregon. The Englishman, I felt sure, would be among them, moving as a nomad does from one spiritual tent to another.
I hit upon a plan. Every evening I combed the public houses around me, listening to accents. I wormed my way into conversations, put my stone on the table, and told my story. I listened for North American voices, and I talked to many before I found someone from Oregon. It took many encounters with Oregon people before I found the right person: he was slight, he was in his seventies, he was quick, and most importantly, he was prepared to help me. I invited myself to his hotel room, bought two bottles of the finest red wine, and told him what I wished of him. Fortunately, he was intrigued. He too had travelled through the steppes and had stood in Red Square; miraculously, he too had been among the orange people. He agreed to help me, and I told him my plan. We drank the wine and talked late into the night, then I left him.
I left the stone with him too. I returned home, but this time I followed the lesser tributaries as I moved slowly towards my motherland.
The days went by, one year became two. By now my disgrace had dimmed in everyone’s memory and I was accepted back into the fold. My journey was seen as an expiation, and since I had seen things which no-one else had seen I was accorded some dignity. I got a job in the sawmill again and fathered another child, but this time I not only remembered his name I also treasured him. I showed him to everyone I met and extolled him to all who would listen. I played snooker with Mr Smart.
For many nights, as we stooped over the green baize, we conjectured about the stone egg. Was there a meaning to it all? A message perhaps? Mr Smart thought he saw an allegory, but it faded as soon as he tried to express it in words.
I learnt to accept the events which had overtaken me.
My own life swelled and ripened. I sought out the first child I had fathered and learnt her name. Gradually I was allowed to become part of her life. I put the stone egg to the back of my mind; it paled in my memory.
And then, one day, the Englishman came back. No-one saw him arrive. My daughter, on her way to school, noticed smoke curling from his chimney.
The next week saw much activity: new curtains, a freshly-washed doorstep, a tidied garden. Within a very short time the house looked as though it had never been abandoned. Callers were amazed: the Englishman behaved as if he had never left.
He was much the same: fleet of foot, clear-eyed, sharp-witted. And although his physical movements were fast and fluid he held within him a lacuna of calm.
He had gifts for everyone he knew: toys for the children, books for the readers, baubles for the vain. Of course, I expected nothing. After all, I hardly knew him. But one day, as I passed with my two children, he waved from his front door, gestured me to stop, and disappeared inside. Soon he was back, striding towards the low wall which separated us. Standing between two radiant bursts of crocuses he smiled, stooped, and chatted with the children before handing them each a gift. Finally he stood up straight and looked at me with his clear grey eyes. He handed me a package also. He asked me to open it later, when I was alone.
There was no meaning to it, I’m sure. These coincidences do happen, I’m told.
But that night, while the children slept, the seven rivers roared, and the stars quivered under the leaf of heaven, I opened the packet and found a wooden egg, of exactly the same shape and dimensions as the stone egg I had passed on to another in a London hotel. It was beautifully polished and the grain swirled in lovely patterns. I put it on my mantelpiece, tentatively, hoping that no new calamity was approaching me.
None did.
My wooden egg still rests there, and no strange indent has appeared inviting i
t to nestle within. However, I must tell you one strange fact. Although the wood, honey yellow and serene, almost orange, is quite distinctive, it was some time before I could identify it.
Mr Smart was the one who recognised it. Bending over the snooker table one night, in a pool of light, he paused over his shot and remarked, in passing, that my wooden egg was made of Oregon pine.
black
I AM waiting for a woman.
On a chilly day in December, with a drunkard wind reeling along the alleyway, fumbling at my door.
I am tired of waiting. Dirty raindrops liver-spot the window – the panes are old and the horizon pitches up and down in grey waves beyond the glass. The tide wanders in and out in senile drifts, fractious and lost.
It’s going to be a black day, and I’m glad.
My day’s work is already done. I have been in my study since the small hours, as always. I lit a candle shortly after three and began work immediately on my manuscripts. I love silence and shadows, the naked dance of the flame. This is how the past speaks to me. I write to you from the monastery of my books, where so many words are sworn to silence. As you foretold, the day has come when I must review my own past. Time, the great despot, is about to overrun my mind; it has already subjugated my body. Never one for solitary pleasures, I want to share my experiences; this woman who comes to me every week, on Sundays, is my confidante. We share the same intimacy as lovers, without the coda; I am prepared to forgo the finale because each culmination draws us a little closer to the last. Together, we have viewed the antics of others coming and going on the great bed of life, but we have never been lovers. I am worn and depleted now; the force has left me. But it was you, I think, who told me that real love – immortal love – sometimes arrives after sensual pleasure has departed…
She is here. I walk out of the house, slowly, into the wind; it paws me insistently and tries to knock my stick away. I say nothing as I enter her black estate car, then we set off for today’s destination, the Conwy Valley. As we drive onwards the roads flood into shallow silver canals and the town becomes a temporary Venice; I glimpse a sudden flash of bright red disappearing down an alleyway. We pass a floating café with faces looming out of a vaporous mist, then we travel in silence, through the rainworld. Eventually we yaw into a side-road and hiss uphill towards the foothills of the Carneddau mountains. Our objective is the lake at Llyn Geirionydd, in summer a hellhole overrun with tourists, now a tub of freezing peat-water. We cower in a forest siding, waiting for the great sky-dog to lower his leg, to stop pissing on us. Through my window I watch shark-grey clouds swimming overhead as a wet-nosed wind pushes its cold muzzle into the day’s underskirts.