by Ashly Graham
‘When…’
‘…en route to evanescence, one talks out of the side of one’s mouth in a voice halfway between drawling and articulation. Such manner of speech contributes greatly to reducing oneself in others’ sensory imaging range, which assists in diffusing and reducing one’s outline and cognitive impact. The vocabulary is confined to simple and vague, unallusive, terms such as “I doubt it”, “Possibly”, and “If you like”; to conditional expressions, subordinate clauses, and subjunctive phrases.
‘Answering a question with a question is a ploy to deflect inquisitiveness and make the interrogator self-conscious instead of nosey. Or one imagines oneself catching and firing those arrows of enquiry back at one’s verbal assailants, so that they become defensive rather than aggressive. By using bland language instead of colourful images and definitive terms, and mumbling, one conveys that whatever one is saying is unimportant. A person should be able to murmur the secret to eternal life and be ignored. Sorry, bad example.’
‘I would say that…’
‘…a profound understanding of both physical attitude and “mental placement” is required, and the point at which they merge. One has to tap into one’s latent ability to hang anywhere except in the present tense, and to prowl between the dimensions. Breathing comes into it, and posture. Deflation of ego and absence of thought are essential, because brain activity sends out signals that may be picked up by others.
‘It is only when the gears of other people’s cognition are disengaged that their perception of one’s physical molecular structure can be dissolved without their noticing. When transparency is the goal, in order to cancel the positivity of presence one has to still the vibrations that a body gives off; to avoid the hypodermic needles of others’ senses that seek to penetrate and draw out one’s essences and send them off for analysis. One must behave in so common-or-garden a manner as to make a nematode look lively, a sphinx seem talkative.’
‘Having said which…’
‘…the paramount consideration, as one gradually masters the art of invisibility, is to remain alert and adaptable, and able to make smooth transitions and adjustments in the field as circumstances dictate. The position of the enemy—as one comes to think of other people as—is constantly changing and conditions are never the same. However, once one has established an optimal path or position, one must proceed with confidence and stick to it without allowing oneself to be diverted. To falter is to fail…’
‘…and…’
‘…different environments call for different methods. The little brown weasel of a man who hugs the wainscot in his brothel-creepers may be unobtrusive and unrecognizable when there is a crowd in the room; but if people are sparse he will stand out like an archbishop at an orgy. Whereas in a flock of pink flamingos no individual is distinguishable, one would not fail to notice a singleton of the species on a tidal flat. Similarly, a dun colour will stand out amongst a sea of colour.’
‘People…’
‘…automatically shun those who are ostentatious and in-your-face offensive. One therefore practises the art of disguise in appearance and manner: loud clothing and voice, lack of concern for others’ personal space, poor personal hygiene, excessive untidiness, ugliness, deformity, disability, nervous tics, begging or playing a musical instrument in a subway for loose change, wearing tartan plus-fours at the opera, garlic breath—all are effective agents of distraction and deterrents to observation. People literally want you to disappear.’
‘Another…’
‘…part of my self-administered training was to feed the birds at my window and try, not to tame them, but to convince them that I wasn’t a threat. Perhaps, I thought, if I were to devote enough time to them I might succeed in understanding their speech, and being able to talk to them in some Esperanto of the wild. That might seem a strange method of advancing one’s self-effacing skills, but becoming one with nature is an important part of the discipline.’
‘Also…’
‘…in that diet is so important in defining one’s body image, I allowed myself no red meat, only fish and vegetables, both of which I ate raw. I gradually decreased the amount, in order to shrink my stomach enough so that I didn’t feel hungry; and I drank only water.’
‘Eventually…’
‘…I came to believe that I could have strolled out of the Louvre with the Mona Lisa under my arm, or been a third in a Roman Catholic confessional. I surmised that my permeable body might be capable of quitting the present altogether and floating backwards in time—I have no interest in the future—into a historical scene of my conscious or subconscious choosing, where I would be separated from the people and action by only a thin temporal membrane.’
‘You…’
‘…seem to have done exactly that, which, in addition to your having inspired a certain voluble confidence in me, might explain why I’ve felt comfortable enough to speak more words at once than at any time in my life.’
‘What…’
‘…none of this addresses is why I am in a business where I stand out like that one red flamingo in a mangrove swamp.’
Carew, whose expression throughout this had turned from attentive to amused at the idea of Lloyd’s as a mangrove swamp, and Arbella in it, held up both hands, and waited for her to signal by her silence that she was finished. ‘In addition to increasing your awareness of the past, has your self-education convinced you of anything in particular? A response of a few shortish sentences should serve to enlighten me.’
‘Yes.’
‘…Yes?’
‘The transcendental power of love.’
‘Ah.’
‘I believe that two people who are in love with each other can remain close in spirit and in full communication irrespective of the separations that Fate and Fortune may bring between them not only during their lives but forever thereafter in that what existed between them for however fleeting a moment endures undiminished in intensity and indelibly in Time throughout eternity.’
‘I see.’
‘Now it’s my turn, Mr Carew. I wonder whether you might tell me a little more about your brother Wat. He died when he was the same age as I am, didn’t he?—twenty-two.’
Carew gave Arbella a piercing look. ‘Wat, as I mentioned, was Father’s favourite son, named after himself over the objections of my mother, who wanted to call him Fabian. He was a part of my father’s expedition to Guiana searching for the mythical El Dorado, and took a dozen Spanish lances in the chest through his corselet, as he was leading his pikemen in a foolhardy attempt to capture San Thomé.
‘Wat’s men, who were devoted to him, refused to go on. We found out later that the Spanish had been tipped off by King James. You can imagine how Papa felt about James after that. We were not at war with Spain at the time, and James fawned on the Spanish king; even though until as late as sixteen twenty-one Parliament wanted him to open hostilities, he wouldn’t hear of it. Though James called himself Rex Pacificus, he was in truth the weakest and most indecisive of monarchs.
‘Things got worse yet. After Wat was killed, Father took his grief and anger out on Lawrence Kemys, his trusted captain and Wat’s closest friend, whom he groundlessly blamed for the failure of the attack and the loss of his son. Lawrence was so devastated by Wat’s loss and my father’s reaction that he committed suicide. First he shot himself and then plunged a dagger into his heart.’
‘Such an indescribable waste!’
‘Deep down my father knew he was responsible for both deaths. He should have refused Wat permission to accompany him, or at least not allowed him into harm’s way. And that was the end of any possibility that Papa might patch things up with my mother.
‘Papa suffered another loss: that of young Henry, Prince of Wales. Henry was a valued friend despite Father’s hatred of the King, and the considerable age difference between them. Henry was very fond of him too, and they used to spend long hours talking together in the Tower. The Prince shared my father’s interests in ex
ploration, and literature, and couldn’t hear enough about his travels and exploits.
‘As disappointed as he was in me, Papa came to regard Henry as the son he could now never have, a talented and charming boy who would one day be King and make him proud.
‘The Prince was poisoned. Although it was never proven we suspected the Earl of Somerset, Robert Carr, the King’s catamite and a political intriguer of the worst sort, of arranging it after he fell out of favour. Father dosed Henry with the Cordial, hoping that the herbs might overcome whatever noxious substance was in his blood, but he died in agony, poor lad.
‘My father’s venom towards the King thereafter was increased still further, and he neglected his History of the World to immerse himself again in alchemy. It was as if he sought to alleviate his pain by formulating some potent anodyne, which, had it been discovered in time, might have saved the three people he cared about most in the world. But in science he was still all at sea, and he soon gave up.
‘My father has never recovered from the treble loss of Wat, Lawrence Kemys, and Henry; and to this day he bears me a grudge for being the one who survived, venting his frustration on me as formerly he did on Captain Kemys. He berates himself for not being able to save Wat, struck down in his prime, for whose life he would willingly have forfeited his own.
‘In Wat he saw himself at the same age, brave to the point of recklessness; whereas I to his shame did nothing but mooch about the Sherborne estate and talk to the manager, farmers, and labourers about agriculture and livestock and forestry. While I was a practical sort, Wat had the most romantic of dispositions. His poetic gifts, though raw and immature, promised to exceed those of my father, and Papa was generous enough to acknowledge this and even boast about them to his friends.
‘It was Wat’s death, which I also took very hard, that motivated me finally to see what I might make of myself. Although I had no desire to go to sea, it was in my blood, which was what prompted me to enter the shipping business.’
‘I’m so sorry about Wat, and the others.’
‘It was a long time ago; not that you would think so from the effect it continues to have on my father. His bitterness is compounded by the paradox of the situation whereby he, who long ago lost the will to live, was unable to die despite the best intentions of King James to inflict the sharpest penalty upon him. Wat and Lawrence and Hal were the three people Papa had pinned his hopes on, to help him bring to fruition the ventures he’d for so many years been restrained from pursuing himself.
‘Had James had died sooner, Prince Henry, upon ascending the throne, would surely have released and pardoned him, and provided him with the authority and wherewithal to outfit a final expedition to Guiana, one that had a very different ending. He and Wat and Lawrence would discover El Dorado, thrash the Spanish, and bring their ships home laden with booty to much acclaim.
‘Instead, languishing in the Tower, Father was racked by a pain of remorse greater than that any instrument of torture could have caused in him; and when James revoked his reprieve he went most willingly to his execution. You will recall his wit and cheerfulness at the block, which was caused by his belief that he was about to join his son, his captain, and his surrogate son, in eternity instead of spending it here and alone.’
‘Might you tell me in more detail about what happened after the execution?’
‘Percy and I and Grammaticus wrapped Papa’s head and body in a rug and bore “the bits”, as he referred to them afterwards, back to the Bloody tower, which we’d been allowed to retain access to for a few days to sort out father’s effects. We laid him out preparatory to winding him in his burial sheet later, I spoke a few prayers, and we observed some moments of quiet over the body.
‘After we retired to the drawing-room, Grammaticus answered the door to a messenger with a lawyer’s letter to the effect that my mother, Bess, had applied for and been granted permission by King James to remove my father’s furniture, tapestries, and belongings from the apartment. Having endured so many years of her husband’s profligacy with her inheritance, my mother wanted everything back, and was putting us on notice that she would be coming round the next day with a bunch of her girlfriends to make an inventory before sending in the removal men.
‘In the meantime nothing was to be touched. I imagined my mother ordering in mutton pies for her helpers and crew, instead of pizza as the tradition now is when people move house.
‘Oddly enough I wasn’t surprised when Papa walked in, as it were, capitally restored—there wasn’t even a scar—and demanded a linctus for his throat. Since Grammaticus had fainted on the couch, I went to pour him a glass of Rhenish wine. When Henry Percy returned from gulping air at the window he announced that my mother was arriving, we presumed to gloat over the corpse, because he said she was holding the red leather bag that she had told everyone she would be carrying her husband’s head around in.
‘The Wiz further said it was clear that Bess and her female entourage were rampaging drunk: my mother was rarely to be seen without a large neat Hollands Geneva—that’s modern-day gin—in one hand, and a cigarrito in the other.
‘Because we were concerned that, upon discovering Sir Walter miraculously back in the land of the living, they would do their best to finish him off for good by chopping him into many smaller pieces, we locked the door top and bottom against them. Also, that Sir Walter Ralegh had survived his execution had to be kept from becoming public knowledge. King James was terrified of sorcery and magic, and would have created an awful stink if he’d found out and in all likelihood persecute me and anyone who had been part of my father’s circle.
‘It didn’t take long for the Earl to conclude it was the Balsam of Guiana, the Great Cordial, that was responsible, and that in all likelihood the five of us—Papa, Bess, the Earl, Grammaticus, and I—would live on and on irrespective of whatever afflictions or accidents should assail or befall us.
‘The Wiz, who to his everlasting professional annoyance had no hand in concocting the Cordial, has made it his personal mission to discover its secret, pursuing mathematical rather than chemical methods, and die in the successful attempt…by which I mean that he has dedicated himself to finding a means of purging the bane, if poison it is, of our existences from our systems--though that would be for each of us to decide on an elective basis person by person.
‘All Papa wants from life now is to die his long-overdue death. Like his incomplete History of the World he feels unfinished, and that an open-ended fate is punishment for a lifetime of selfishness and failure. As often as I assure him that his person and achievements have remained famous throughout the ages, he continues to be traumatized and rebuffs every attempt I make to console him. Ironically he quotes his own words from the History:
‘
“O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, though hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised: thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two words, Hic jacet. [Here lies.]”
’
Carew paused. ‘You haven’t asked about Wat and Arbella Stuart, and the relationship between them.’ Carew gave Arbella another insightful look. ‘It was very real, you know.’
Arbella discovered that she was capable of blushing. ‘No. I don’t know, it seems, even centuries later, a very private matter. I think also that I’m a little afraid to know the truth. Isn’t that silly?, as if it could have anything to do with me.’ She gave a nervous giggle, which was another novelty, and wondered at how it was possible to betray an emotion that she hardly knew was within her.
Carew appeared not to notice her discomfort. ‘It was the realization that he couldn’t compete for her against the likes of the privileged and educated William Seymour, that made Wat throw himself into adventuring with my father, and to take so little heed for his safety. Wat was miserable that h
e had been too shy to articulate his love, before Arbella became the focus of so much attention at Court and it seemed that there were only the two of them in the world. They had danced together and been physically close only once, Wat confided in me, before the world cut in and separated them for ever.’
Arbella bit her lip and kept her expression as neutral as she could. ‘Of course, that story,’ she said, keeping her voice as clinical as possible, ‘about Arbella Stuart giving herself up in Calais Roads when she was being pursued, just as she was about to land in France, was a fabrication. It was put about that, when she was told her husband-to-be had been arrested and would not be able to follow her into exile, she aborted her plans in favour of returning to England. The conspirators against the King, who were using Arbella Stuart as a figurehead for their cause, made that version up to emphasize her commitment to the Catholic cause and her loyalty to her country.
‘The truth was that she was still on the ship and unable to receive any news.’
Carew nodded. ‘Although Lady Arbella knew that there was no future for her in France, she was pining for the simple life that she used to lead, and wanted to disappear and resume a normal existence. She mourned Wat and missed him as much as my father did.
‘She was a brave lass, and it was very sad that she ended her days in the Tower. Her husband went on to be pardoned by James and achieve great preferment, being showered with titles during the remaining fifty years of his life.
‘You shall be interested to know that the Lieutenant of the Tower allowed my father and Arbella to meet in private, at night after the Ceremony of the Keys. In doing so the Lieutenant was taking a great risk, for if one of the Yeomen Warders had sneaked and the information came to the ears of someone at Court, the Lieutenant would have found himself an inmate of the Tower, and a very short-term one.