The Clay Dreaming

by Ed Hillyer

  There, good as new.

  She propped the shoes up to dry, and went to heat water for a bath.

  ‘“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”’

  As Sarah gathered together a breakfast tray, she heard the rich bell tones ring out from overhead. Mounting the stair, she gave thanks that her father’s speaking voice should sound so fiery, so strong. Invoking awe of heaven as surely as threat of hellfire, it still had the capacity to scare her a little – delightfully so.

  ‘“The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”’

  As she entered his room, knowing how it would please him, Sarah supplied the rejoinder.

  ‘“In him was life, and the life was the light of men,”’ she said. ‘You look well this morning, and sound better!’

  Lambert Larkin sat up in bed, as craggy and grey as a mountain. His open mouth widened into a rare smile.

  ‘Amen,’ he said. ‘And all the better for seeing you, my dear.’

  Sarah placed the tray and the morning’s papers at her father’s bedside, needing first to move a few of the large books piled there: various volumes of Thomas Carlyle’s monumental Works, and Lambert’s beloved Kingsley. Down with the lamb and up with the lark; plainly, he had been busy for some hours already.

  Eyes askance, Lambert watched her as she worked. He pulled another quote.

  ‘“All the seeds of yesteryear”,’ he said, ‘“are today, flowers.”’

  ‘Or weeds,’ Sarah said. She curtsied.

  The shadow of doubt crossed the old man’s face. Almost immediately he noticed the change in her. His smile died a little.

  She noted the candle, burnt completely out, and feared he had not slept the night at all.

  ‘Here,’ said Sarah. ‘I brought you some lighter reading.’ She presented fresh copies of the Daily Telegraph and The Times, the journals he best favoured.

  ‘You will be going to the library today?’ he asked – flatly, as if it were a matter of course.

  ‘I shall,’ she said.

  But not for his sake, not today – rather, on King Cole’s behalf, perhaps even her own.

  ‘Stay a little,’ he said, ‘and read with me, daughter.’

  It was not framed as a request. She hesitated.

  ‘If you would be so kind,’ Lambert added.

  His voice warbled a little. Faltering, he concluded with a pathetic little cough.

  ‘A little while, then,’ she conceded.

  They sat in silence. In perusal of the morning papers, he ate the breakfast she had prepared for him. Lambert reached over to turn a page. Below the sleeve, rolled up so as not to trail across his plate, the snow-white cap of his elbow appeared cracked and flaking, the inside of his forearm almost translucent, blue tracks and exposed sinew working within. In between the ferrying of mouthfuls he laid down his fork, and rasped together the tips of his thumb and index finger. Lightly pressed, the powder-dry digits circled first one way, then the other – a habitual, ruminant action. The persistent scrape could infuriate if she let it.

  Unable to finish, he broke his leftovers into pieces.

  ‘Scatter these crumbs on the sill for me,’ he directed.

  Watchful not to dislodge the windowbox, Sarah did as she was told. She noticed that some of the plant stems carried dead leaves, and crisply removed them.

  ‘“To cultivate a garden”,’ he said from the bed, ‘“is to walk with God.”’

  Sarah smiled to herself: that was the voice of her father, all right. As a church minister he liked to keep abreast of every topical debate, but his choicest philosophy embodied all of the theory sufficient to a sundial.

  Lambert looked suddenly morose.

  ‘I miss having a garden,’ he said.

  In Greenwich Royal Park, at the tip of a slope not far from the Eastern Gate, towers an ancient oak. No other tree in London is so huge.

  In the final stages of its decline, age has hollowed out the great giant. From the upper reaches of that wooden crater where he has spent the night, King Cole emerges. Face creased with sleep, he looks down from his perch into the unexpected interior. His expression distorts with a mounting horror. The morning skies are cloudy yet luminous. By their spectral light he is witness to acts of desecration.

  Instead of standing tall, the grandfather tree staggers. Out of his side a doorway has been carved. Rough innards worn smooth, the earth below is tiled over, and there is a table, placed at the centre of the dying tree.

  Appalled, King Cole descends and quits the scene.

  ‘I’m so bored with the Abyssinian Expedition!’

  Lambert Larkin snatched across the pages of his newspaper. He held it rudely, like a screen, entirely obscuring Sarah’s view of him.

  How typical – demanding of her company only to ignore her.

  ‘Who, to entice me, with more ease

  To cross the room and reach his knees

  Held plums in sight, his child to please?

  MY FATHER.’

  Recalling verses from William Cole’s The Parent’s Poetical Present, Sarah recognised little in them concerning her own upbringing. The threat of punishment had always been much more Lambert’s style. ‘Do not rush, child. It is sufficient to proceed at a walking pace.’ That, an admonition occasioned by the breaking of an ornament, had been about his only direct address of her in childhood.

  Always there had been a hardness of shell between them, quite impossible to penetrate, she never certain it was not her fault. Neither their temperaments nor intellects matched. Beyond the texts she was obliged to transcribe for him, they did not even read the same books.

  Her mother’s death had been so abrupt, so unexpected. One evening she was alive, the next morning, dead. Ever since that evil hour, Lambert’s very gradual decline made his own passing an eventuality that no longer seemed quite real. Over time, they had established separate routines whereby he, at least, could affect self-sufficiency. Sarah counted her blessings, even on the one hand: without the Museum library so close by, she would have been entombed in that house.

  Their single shared enthusiasm was for The Illustrated London News. Saturday mornings would normally be spent à deux, poring over the latest issue and supplying a running commentary. Only after noon – weekend opening hours at the Museum – could she resume her duties following a morning ‘off ’. A thin patch of common ground, to be sure, but sometimes it could be made to last out the week.

  With this in mind, perhaps, or as some perverse show of favour, Lambert had retrieved the last weekend’s edition from the bottom of the pile. He no doubt saw entirely different virtues within its pages, but without the evidence of the newspaper’s many engravings Sarah might have doubted the larger world existed at all. She could read there about the galas and gatherings, the theatre shows, gallery openings and lectures, and stare long and hard at picture representations of faraway lands…places and events she would never see for herself.

  Sarah studied the ornamental logo on the front page as it was presented to her, almost as if truly seeing it for the very first time. A part of the design depicted the annual Oxford and Cambridge boat race along the River Thames. The shining dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, transcendent, speared the heading with splendour. A block of waterfront buildings marked out the foreground: warehouses in deep contrasting shadow, likely under a cloud.

  Lambert stabbed a finger at the open page, startling Sarah from her reverie. She took it up.

  ‘You want this?’ she asked. ‘Nocturne for Piano, “A Dream of Enchantment”?’ He had pointed to a list of adverts under the heading ‘New Music’.

  ‘Nooo,’ he scowled.

  Sarah stared at the page. ‘Which?’

  Impatiently, he snatched the paper back.

  ‘Just tell me,’ she pleaded.

  ‘The book they are advertising, by a Dr Doran,’ he said, scribbling out a note. ‘I want you
to fetch me a copy.’ Waving it a second or two in the air to dry, he thrust the inked scrap into her hand. ‘Vain fantasy,’ he muttered.

  Sarah looked down at an unsteady scrawl that few could hope to decipher. The book she wanted to search out was another entirely, yet this presented the perfect excuse for her to leave.

  ‘Abyssinians,’ Lambert rattled on. ‘Pchah! Sinners from the abyss! Sin the very fulcrum to their name!’ He wrestled the oversized pages about. ‘First the Indians,’ he said, ‘then the Negroes and Jamaicans…abysmal beasts, all of them. They deserve what’s coming!’

  His eyes, having clouded over a little, just as suddenly cleared. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Sarah.’ He looked at her, seated by his bedside, as if unsure of time or space. ‘My dearest lily! Forgive me…I’m tired. I think I shall take a nap.’

  Despite his outburst, Sarah was more annoyed at herself. She had lost yet another chance to assert herself, by leaving of her own accord.

  She was always free to go; it remained within his power alone to release her.

  Quitting the house, Sarah half-expected to find King Cole waiting on her doorstep. She was disappointed to find that he wasn’t.

  The sky was low, the cloud dense, the air thick. Just a day like any other. She turned and walked the short distance down the street to the British Museum. Passing into the entrance hall, she headed directly towards the Reading-room, fumbling in her purse to find the small pink card that was her means of entry.

  NOT TRANSFERABLE.

  THIS TICKET ADMITS

  Sarah Larkin

  TO THE READING ROOM OF THE

  BRITISH MUSEUM,

  FOR THE TERM OF SIX MONTHS

  From the 26th day of March 18 68

  Appended on the reverse were a few rules and regulations she knew by heart.

  The Ordinary Reading-ticket, once a cumbersome and inconvenient full-sheet affair, had been much reduced in size. Sarah was presented her first on turning 21, as if it were the keys to the kingdom. Little did she realise, then, how the lock would be turned behind her.

  Looking at her card, noting her name down in the register, the attendant allowed her to pass. Sarah left her coat in the ladies’ cloak-room and her brolly in the umbrella-room, making use of the water-closet before proceeding into the main Salon.

  The distinctive odour of the Reading-room greeted her at once – leather and cork-carpet. The floor covering, chosen for its sound-absorbing properties, was kamptulicon, that peculiar compound of rubber, cork and gutta-percha, a greyish rubber-like substance obtained from the sap of various Malayan trees. The elastic composition made it exceedingly pleasant to walk on.

  Thirty-five tables – nineteen long, and sixteen short – converged towards the centre of the Reading-room, all covered with splendid black-japanned leather. Two on the near inside, designated A and T, were exclusively reserved for the use of lady-readers: hassocks, cushions for kneeling as found in church pews, being provided to accommodate the voluminous skirts à la mode. Sarah exercised the feminine privilege of taking a seat wherever she pleased. She selected a suitable vacancy, one located an agreeable distance from her nearest neighbour, made a mental note of it, and went to consult the New General Catalogue of printed books. This was stored amongst the semi-circular desks that made up the centrepiece to the room, a diminishing ring of three concentric circles.

  The smallest, innermost stand, its floor raised, enclosed a space apportioned to the superintendent of the room, and his immediate staff. The attachment of a glass-enclosed avenue, up and down which the attendant clerks ran their errands, widened as it extended from this mid-point. Seen from above, the arrangement might suggest a giant keyhole, the readers’ tables radiating outwards like a spider’s web.

  A pair of novice members, newly constituted, stood adhered to the spot. They seemed at a loss, bewildered by the complexity of the arrangement, the great arcs and galleries of books that lined the expansive and airy dome.

  Sarah, shy and concentrated, was inclined to keep her head down. She walked around the outermost of the central bars, renewing acquaintance with its banks of red and blue catalogues, their several titles arranged under general headings – Academies – Bible – England – Shakspere (sic).

  Handwritten slips, pasted-down, filled the pages of these bound volumes. Sarah soon found various entries under ‘Bruce’ or ‘Greenwich Pensioner’ that promised much. She followed a cross-reference leading to a garland, chasing it down in that forest of dark-green binding housing the Music catalogue. Satisfied, she at last proceeded to the very centre of the room, where she filled out a pre-printed form for each item, before depositing them with one of the clerks at their raised desk.

  ‘A-5?’

  ‘E-3.’

  The clerk looked up. ‘Fancied a change today, did you?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sarah. ‘Thank you, Mr Baynes.’

  The junior assistant retreated up the avenue behind the glass screens and disappeared through one of the two small doors at the north end of the Reading-room. These led to the old libraries of the Museum, quite closed to the public, where most of the request materials were stored.

  With time to kill, Sarah turned her attention to the open presses that lined the Reading-room walls. Divided into sixteen distinct classes – Law, Philosophy, Fine Arts, and so on – these could be accessed by readers ad libitum, without the trouble of writing out requests. She concentrated her efforts on Biography, and then Geography, Voyages, & Travels, but without significant result. Having made reference to ordinary or standard works, she rambled freely for a bit. Often, one simply fell across the very thing, even when unsure what it might exactly be. No such luck this time.

  There was little else she could do except wait.

  The horizon always hangs too close. One after another, bloated shapes crawl over it – enormous monsters made of metal or wood, crushing stone giants bearing relentlessly down on him. Soot-caked, they are indistinguishable one from the next.

  King Cole’s frustration mounts. The city, vast and timeless, is unremitting, beyond reason. It has no end and no beginning. Unless he forever remains atop One Tree Hill, he fears he will never again see more than a few hundred paces ahead.

  Without the Guardian tripping along beside in her formidable female armour, he is no longer obliged to moderate his pace. Cole strides out.

  About 45 minutes following her submission, the first of the requested materials was delivered to Sarah’s desk.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Tate,’ she said. Sarah made a point of remembering everyone’s names, and using them; the favour was not often returned.

  She turned the small octavo booklet over in her hand. A disappointingly familiar object, it was a compilation of religious tracts. The paper quality was poor – coarse, chipped with flecks of wood pulp, and frail to the touch. The original publications, taken individually, would have been short pamphlets: cheaply printed, mass-distributed, designed to be given out on the street – an antidote to the proliferation of penny-bloods. Copies might be left atop inn tables to instruct travellers strayed from the path, or to catch dissolute drinkers in an impressionable frame, and remind them of the error of their ways. For ‘wide is the gate, and broad the way, which leadeth unto destruction’, and ‘strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life’ (Matthew 7: 12–15).

  This looked to be a set of twelve chapbooks written by Robert Hawker, the famous pulpit orator, and grandfather to Robert Stephen Hawker, the poetvicar of Morwenstow popularly known as ‘the Sailor’s Friend’. The publication date given was 1806. In intervening years, the method and means of wayside proselytising had changed very little.

  As she flicked back and forth through its pages, a portion of the book’s brittle back broke away. Sarah felt frustrated. This was not the book she sought, merely a general commentary of some sort, unconnected to George Bruce. Still, she located the frontispiece to the second entry, and began to read.

  No.XX. The GREENWICH PENSIONER:<
br />
  Being An Earnest and an Affectionate Address,

  Proposed to the Serious Consideration of many of

  That Brave Body of Seamen Which Belong to the

  ROYAL HOSPITAL at GREENWICH.

  The title page featured a simple engraving, such as one might find in a children’s storybook, of a sailor-Pensioner, resplendent in tricorne hat and greatcoat. A singular fellow – one-armed, one-legged, one-eyed – he tottered unsteadily, walking stick clutched in his remaining hand. Sketchily indicated behind, evoking Greenwich Hospital, were the twin domes Sarah had admired the day before.

  The document might have some bearing after all. She read on.

  Prefatory remarks sang the praises of both the Royal Navy and its ‘noble Institution’, sentiments that conjured the charmless face of the clerk, Dilkes Loveless. Reading through, she could almost hear them expressed in that whining voice of his.

  Then, before her eyes, the address transformed into something else, an accusation of drunkenness against the ‘Greenwich Pensioner’ of the title: ‘the prosecution of a path so evil’ that the author ventured to present an extract from The Sailor Pilgrim, a small work, lately fallen in his way, on the subject of intemperance. But of course, Robert Hawker was not about to address the worthy Pensioners other than to berate them for their sins. She had seen and heard more than enough sermons on the evils of the demon drink in her time, and from far less estimable sources. Sarah lent the remainder but a cursory glance.

  She thought it a shame King Cole could not see for himself the engraving of the wobble-legged Pensioner – his instability, as she now understood it, attributable to more than the sum of his missing parts. Whilst rambling the colonnades, the Aborigine had described just such a person, mimicked him even, right down to the antiquated mode of dress; a level of detail he couldn’t possibly have witnessed first-hand.

  As to the character of their mystery man George Bruce, she entertained no ideas. He might well have been the kind of drunken sailor who could fall intemperate, and in Robert Hawker’s way. This particular ‘Greenwich Pensioner’, however, probably held little significance for her Aboriginal friend.