Henry, Henry

by Brian Willems

  “He helps around the house,” said Meredith, smoothing her skirt. Martino set the tray down. “Tea will be right out,” said Meredith, “won’t it?” Martino winced slightly. Meredith had learned where his buttons lay since discovering his penchant for cleaning. At least she thought so. Lucy cut Meredith’s smile short.

  “So, no one knows who Paul’s killer was, but I’d guess, and this is what I came here today to tell you, that it was an old neighbour. They were all quite upset by the whole ordeal. Or perhaps it was even Martha, his wife. Tracked him down eventually. They argued, and then, confronted with such a beast, what else could you do? Paul was a bastard.”

  Meredith sat speechless. Martino was frozen in the door frame.

  Lucy let out a light giggle, pleased with the response her story received. “It doesn’t matter now, anyway,” she said, turning quiet and shifting her body back to the sandwiches, indicating the absence of tea with a refusal to put any food on her plate.

  BY THE TIME of the Christmas concert there was such a fuss over Henry’s absence that Evelyn had to release him from confinement. The fuss was due to the excitement surrounding Henry’s debut as both composer and organist. And because of his new ability to grow a moustache. He had made his role in most of the performance rather minimal so that his solo during the final scene would lose no import. What Henry did not expect, once he had the chance to look about him, was to find Evelyn sitting right in front of him, occupying the chair usually reserved for the second of two houtbois chairs.

  “What are you doing here?” Henry leaned in and over to whisper.

  “Did you not know I play?” Evelyn answered.

  “Did I not know you play?”

  “An instrument. The hautbois. I thought you knew about music. My uncle was quite an accomplished player at the cloister. But, as the poet says, he was a flower blooming in the desert.”

  “He was a what?”

  “A player. I really can play. I’ll show you right now,” she said, wetting the reed.

  “Are you insane?” Henry asked, leaning in even more and pulling the hautbois down out of her mouth. “You’ll get us both killed.”

  “I didn’t think anyone would notice. The text my husband wrote is really so barbaric, I assumed it would just steal the show.”

  “You read the libretto? I couldn’t even make it through it all, and I composed the music for it. I quote,” Henry said, rustling a pretend score. Then he glanced up out of the orchestra box and, seeing no one observing him, said “ ‘His absence was Autumn, his presence is Spring / That ever new life and new pleasure does bring / Then all that have voices, let ‘em cheerfully sing / And those that have none may rise: ‘God save the King!’ ” Henry put the sheet down. “What rubbish.”

  Evelyn put the instrument down and walked off the stage. “Well, his rubbish will make you famous,” she said.

  “HE’S LEAVING!”

  “What?”

  “I said, he’s leaving!”

  “I heard you the first time, Martino.”

  Meredith sat down on a floral-print love seat below a window looking onto the main road, which was dusted with dry leaves waiting to catch fire.

  Martino continued dusting the picture frames on the wall, starting from the top of each frame, just at the end of feather-duster reach, and worked his way down.

  “Now, please, who’s going where?” asked Meredith, holding an about-to-be-lit cigarette in front of her mouth while speaking.

  “Henry, to America, to look for his father.”

  Meredith looked up at Martino. Then she looked down at the cigarette, lit it, and looked back up. “His father?”

  “He said he worked on the atom bomb. He said he wants to meet him and work with him. To do some research, he said.”

  Meredith stood up and turned away from Martino. “He’s leaving us for the bomb? If he is really making the trip, then he’ll have to go to Nevada.”

  Martino stopped dusting. “Nevada?”

  “Or Utah. The radio at the Purcells. It’s always talking about such things. That is where they have all the big facilities. The USA. It’s quite a long journey. He’ll need to bring plenty of underwear.”

  “Nevada,” repeated Martino. “Utah. That’s pretty far away. I think Henry was thinking about going back to London or somewhere near there.”

  “I’m pretty sure it was Nevada,” said Meredith, lighting her cigarette. “Or Utah. I’ll ask around.”

  MEREDITH WENT TO HER BEDROOM, pulled the suitcase out from under her bed, opened it up and shook all its contents out onto the floor. If Henry is going somewhere, Meredith thought, then he’ll need a properly packed suitcase. Spread across the floor was a barely started biography of composer Henry Purcell, fragments of unfinished poems, and lots of other papers. Papers slipped under the bed, as if too scared to be out. Papers floated softly and landed on Meredith’s bright-yellow open-toed slippers. Papers got stuck in the hinges of the suitcase, refusing to leave unripped. Meredith sighed at the mess. And then there were the postcards. A whole stack, spread out. The first visible card was the one of the woman on the horse. It was then that Meredith realized that when she thought of the postcard she had caught Henry holding she only imagined the horse, no rider. The next card was of two women, one on top of the other, one in black heels and the other in white. You could only make out one of the faces, that of the woman on bottom. She was swooning. Meredith put the two postcards back in the stack and straightened them so all their corners were even. Then she put them in her lower right drawer, under some sweaters.

  Meredith set the suitcase back on top of her bed and took out the rest of the papers, setting them as neatly as possible on the mess on the floor, knowing she would take care of it all later. She took a pack of cigarettes out of her floral-print bathrobe and lit one using a book of matches from the dresser. She took a shallow drag and put her arms to her hips. Then she put the cigarette out and started to fill the suitcase with clothes for Henry. Most of the clothes were simply the smallest and most boyish things she owned, but the others she bought on her few trips into town.

  The first items she packed were two pairs of white cotton shorts. She remembered the time at the lake with Mr Austen. As she folded the four pairs she wondered about how her life would have been different if Henry had controlled himself better that afternoon, and if she had not got so close to Mr Austen. Then she packed an apron, which was white, and was one of the items Martino used when he came over. Meredith sprayed it with a touch of her perfume, and then looked around to check if anyone had seen her. All of the clothes were packed very well. Meredith knew that not only was packing important when traveling, but there was also maintaining one’s wardrobe once one arrived. So she put, on the top of all the piles in the suitcase, one slightly chipped wooden hanger.

  Then she started gathering the stray papers on the floor, on and under the bed and under the dresser. She put them all in a single pile. She did not worry about face-up or face-down, right-side-up or upside-down, age of paper or color of pen, typed or printed, English or Latin, holy or profane. That kind of organization would come later, and Meredith could hardly wait.

  “HE’S NOT GOING ANYWHERE,” Mrs Purcell said. “Now please, have some tea.” She released her hands from holding the counter top behind her back, pulled out a chair at the kitchen table, and sat down, giving Meredith a wink as she did so. Meredith sat. “Utah, it’s just too far away. And his father, what he has done in the war, maybe it was humane in some twisted sense, but to me it was just dishonorable, so let’s just leave it at that.”

  “Are you sure it’s not Nevada? I believe the bomb was being worked on in Nevada.”

  “I don’t care if it is happening in France, he’s not going.”

  “There is uranium mining in France, actually,” said Meredith. “They have opened up a new mine in a small town called Eles. It was on your radio last weekend.”

  “Don’t insult me,” said Mrs Purcell, taking some sugar, “Yo
u and the late Mr Austen have done all you can to turn my Henry away from me with your books and such.”

  Meredith took some sugar too. Then she heard a sound, a kind of slow moaning. As soon as it reached her consciousness she realized she had been hearing it ever since she had sat down. She quickly stirred her tea and put the spoon down on her saucer and took a tiny sip. “It’s destiny. You can’t do anything about it, Mrs Purcell. I’m sorry. I packed a suitcase for him last night, just so he’s prepared, since I didn’t think you would be able to face the facts of his leaving.”

  “Do you hear him moaning?” asked Mrs Purcell. Meredith nodded. “He is in pain because of your encouragement. He wants to go to America, to find his father. Do you understand how embarrassing that is? His father, that lout? Why is this happening to me? So near the end of my days?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “And that boy, Martino. What has become of him?”

  “I’ve been trying my best.”

  “Yes I’ve heard. That is a young man you have there, cleaning. I don’t like it. I have had my differences with the boy, but now, after you, how will he be fit?” Mrs Purcell took a biscuit from the tin. Meredith sighed, picked up the suitcase and left. Then she went around to the back of the house, to the window behind which, curtains drawn, Henry seemed to be locked. Meredith tapped on the window. Henry stopped moaning and lifted a curtain. Meredith held up the suitcase, shook it a little, and then placed it below the window. Henry’s eyebrows said thank you and Meredith went back to her house to work on finishing Mr Austen’s manuscript.

  “DO YOU WANT TO DIE in the stars, or in the sands?”

  Henry could not have answered if he had wanted to, for he had been gagged with a black georgette scarf with golden tassels. It was balled at its base and its tentacles fluttered, some of which were stuck in Henry’s nose.

  Henry’s eyes widened at the question. He had been jumped backstage while putting away the new jackets before meeting Cathleen outside.

  “Two choices,” more pressure on Henry’s chest, someone sitting on his chest cavity. With a pair of bare feet tickling his sides. A slight bouncing up and down made Henry’s eyes close and his mouth open. “Two choices Henry: the stars…” waiting for a nod, a squeeze of the legs, a shudder. But Henry was frozen by the pain, “or the sand…” Again nothing from Henry. His chin needed a shave, it was so dry that skin was starting to peel. Breathing down on Henry’s eyes, breath full of dates and wine boiled with cardamom seeped under Henry’s eyelids. “Let me explain it to you then. Are you listening?” Henry’s eyes relaxed, his mouth bit again on the gag, which now seemed cold and stale. Henry was listening. “If I send you to the stars, it means you will become so light that you will float off the floor and never return. You will feel this lightness because your insides will be removed and placed beside you, handful by handful, starting deep down here,” laughter. Tightly pinching the skin covering Henry’s stomach, as if trying to break into it, deep inside, “and then we move up, slowly, scoop by scoop, and you float, float up humbly to the stars. I do not pretend it will not be painful for you, Henry, and I would not really want it to be painless, not if I’m honest. You’ve really have had your fun, I have to say, with that slut of a whore.”

  Henry felt the cold stones underneath his back, buttocks and thighs. Two naked feet, previously only playing with his flanks, dug in with their toes extended, hard, rigid and probing for the mush inside Henry’s guts. “Or you can choose the sands, Henry. That is your second choice. There was a beach, if you did not know, a beach of sand brought here to lay these stones upon. And it is to this beach I will send you, through the cracks of this floor until there is nothing left. I will do this by placing a great weight upon you, which, over a number of years, although again I do not kid myself into thinking that you will be around for all of them, but over a number of years this great weight will push your dissolving self down into the inland beach. And there you will be kept, under the stones, perhaps to come out and haunt my ancestors? Who knows? They can go to hell for all I care. But you, my dear Henry, you will be sent down below. A trip I will not make quick, for I will use, as the initial weight, a large wine vat. I will roll this vat over you with the greatest of care so that each bubble of your blood will be able to burst, to pop, to crowd upward toward your brain. So which is it, Henry, the sand or the stars? I want to know, please. Or else I can make the decision for you, which would be easy, for, if you cannot tell already, I would choose the sand. It just sounds so much more… intricate,” at which a woman came up behind Captain Cooke and divested his head from his neck with a guard’s sabre. The Captain’s body fell off of Henry. Henry automatically started breathing deeply again. He had not yet understood what had happened when the woman began kissing Henry on the forehead, hands and heart. In that order, repeatedly.

  MEREDITH’S FIRST TASK that afternoon was to see which of Mr Austen’s papers she would look through first. She started to leaf through the pages which seemed like they were covered in poetry. Each page had one or two short bursts of inspiration and each had a title. They seemed to be a bunch of hymns, or songs, covering a wide range of topics: cosmology, myths, and history ancient and modern. Some of the titles were: ‘Revolt of the Titans’, ‘The Virgin Mary’, ‘Clocks’, ‘Discovery of America’, ‘Luther’, ‘Shakespeare’, ‘Chiron’, ‘Uranium’, ‘Empedocles’, ‘Picasso’, ‘Battle of Hastings’ and ‘Hitler’. There were over a hundred poems because many of the sheets had more than one poem on them, and some of the poems were only two lines long. The whole project, whatever it was, sounded a bit grand to Meredith. But then again, she was not versed in poetry like Mr Austen. Meredith set the blue-poetry pile down and moved onto what was to become her first project, the pages in prose.

  These pages seemed to make up a biography, the biography Meredith had hoped to find. Due to meeting the Purcells in France, Mr Austen started working on a biography of 17th-century composer Henry Purcell. About 30 manuscript pages had been written.

  Meredith put all the other papers away in the lower right drawer of her dresser, the drawer containing postcards and sweaters. Then she sat down on the floor, to the right of the bed, facing the headboard, and laid the prose before her. She started reading through the first page, which started with a scene with the young Henry being led to some sort of cell. When she turned the page, because the papers had gotten all shuffled out of order when she dumped them out of the suitcase, she found that the story was more than a bit jumbled. So, smiling to herself, Meredith took a notebook from the kitchen drawer, padded back to the bedroom in her bare feet, sat down and inserted one blank page in between each page of Mr Austen’s original text. “Now all I have to do is connect the dots,” she thought. She took a pencil and began to do so, to write scenes connecting each scene written by Mr Austen. In this way she completed the biography of Henry Purcell.

  MRS PURCELL ADJUSTED HER BLOUSE while sitting down. Her legs never crossed and the rough cotton of her skirt seemed to prick holes in Meredith’s couch. Meredith really did not have time for this. For tea. She really was not in the mood.

  Mrs Purcell had interrupted Meredith in the middle of her writing. Martino being absent, Meredith served tea herself.

  “Oh, thank you dear,” said Mrs Purcell.

  “Yes, well. There you are.”

  “I just had to tell you.”

  “Yes,” said Meredith, coming out of herself for a moment, “you do look distressed. Whatever is it?”

  “It’s Henry. He’s been captured.”

  “Captured!”

  “Detained.”

  “Detained?”

  “On the seaside, Calais. Boat to America from there. Hasn’t even left France yet.”

  “But it’s been months.”

  “Yes, you’re right, it has. And I have you to thank for it. You and that Mr Austen. I wished we had never met the likes of you. Filling Henry’s mind with such crazy thoughts. I never. I just wish that Henry and I had
remained alone. And that I had never got ill. And most importantly that you would have kept your hussy self at home.” At this Mrs Purcell stood up and left the room, her tea untested.

  “EVELYN IS DEAD. Before attacking you, the Captain threw her into the river. But she didn’t die right away. She dragged herself up onto the riverbank, just to die from the cold.”

  Cathleen sat down on the stone floor, next to where Henry was catching his breath.

  “You… killed the Captain?” asked Henry, opening his eyes for the first time after passing out after the attack.

  Cathleen smoothed her skirt out along the ground and stared at Henry. He looked at her in silence, but did not turn away. Then she put a finger under her nose in imitation of Henry’s moustache. Henry, no matter how hard he tried, could not remain unstirred.

  HENRY WAS STILL TRAPPED in Calais. Martino has received a letter, but it did not say much. Just that he was in need of clean linen. Martino brought the letter over to Meredith’s for her to read. She tried reading the letter but was crying too much to make it out. Martino adjusted his shirt collar so that both tips sat flat underneath his sweater. He sat straight up in Meredith’s plaid pillowed wicker chair on the other side of the coffee table. He was just about to touch his tea with his pinkie to see if it was yet drinkable. Meredith wiped her eyes and crossed her legs, twisting her whole body in Martino’s direction.

  Martino looked both at home and completely strange at the same time. He was back where he had been many times before, in the chair, sitting across from Meredith, about to have his tea, as if he had just finished the cleaning. But now things were different. He hadn’t been in her house in months, and now this letter had brought him there again. Meredith was writing the Purcell biography, and Henry was in trouble in Calais.

  “Disgusting,” said Martino.

  “Disgusting that they still have our Henry?” asked Meredith.

  “Disgusting that they took him in the first place, that they are keeping him locked up in some dark cell. Disgusting that he’s in trouble. It’s all disgusting.” Martino looked at his pinkie, nodded slightly to himself, and brought the cup up to his lips.