I turned and looked at the old man.
‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘Not pleasant, not pleasant. Not a very – select job, tattooing. I keep it a secret. I have money, you see – it makes money for me. I can gratify my passions for the beautiful things in the sale-rooms. You should see my house outside the town – beautiful, beautiful. Different from this,’ he added, sweeping his arm vaguely round the room. ‘Oh, different, much different … But it makes money, this. You haven’t an idea – the people who want it – big men: lawyers – I did a lawyer from Glasgow last week – he came up specially. Women, too. I’m busy – all the time. There’s a sort of fascination in it for some people – all sorts of strange and unexpected people …’
He went on, rubbing his hands together. It was incredible and fantastic – too much. But at the back of my mind was beginning to throb the idea that has haunted me through these years. On the table in that little room, smaller than those other charts on the walls, but like them painted in brilliant water colours and covered with size, was a design I had seen before. A serpent coiled in a curious way: three coils at the tail end, an erratic figure eight in the centre of the body, and two coils again at the head, with the long fangs pointing downwards …
* * * *
Half-past one. Almost finished. A century, since I started to write. How did it go? –
‘I heard of the death of Sir Simon Erskine some five years ago … I had known him quite well – a terrible man, moody, powerful, irascible …’
I had known him quite well … How did I dare to write that? How could I – or anyone – know him? No one in the world – no one but those half-beast forebears of his. And they, thank God, have gone out of the world – as he has. The line of the Black Erskines is ended, and forever.
I look at the quiet picture above me. Samuel van Hoogstraaten – a still man, unperturbed. His world a hillside scene in Holland: small square houses, lines on canvas. To my right, on the wall there, is the Mortlake tapestry. And what association have these things with the things Menasseh told me in that room of his behind the shop? …
David Strange, the young Negro lawyer – the descendant, he claimed, of Kings Cetewayo and Dingaan: for he had, as he showed Menasseh, the royal serpent of the Zulus needled into the dark skin of his breast. And the woman with him in the shop that day, with Menasseh copying the design on to her breast, while she flinched at every needle-prick, holding tight with her white hand to the dark hand of the Negro … The sign of blood-kinship among the Zulus, that serpent. Menasseh had been intrigued by the design of it and had made, on paper, one copy: but no other copy, at any time, on any human skin but hers …
My hand aches terribly. I sit back. I look at my fingers as I stretch them out to ease them …
I think – oh God knows what I think! Of the two skulls that were the sounding boards of those hellish drums. Of Miss Logan tramping over the moors. Of those other two – of blood-kinship – setting off that Sunday afternoon for a walk on Ben Vrackie. Of Sir Simon saying he had a headache and so being unable to accompany them. Of the neat round holes in the skulls in which were inserted the ends of the silver mounts. Of the rifles on the walls of Vrackie Hall. Of the bodies that were never found. Of the shape of the larger skull, the low brow and long cranium of the primitive – the Negro. Of the merciful hill mist that came down on the grim old mountain – red and terrible seen through the glass of that hideous house …
Yes, what do I think …
Of the two last years of the last of the Erskines, his fits of weeping, his fits of laughing, his fits of –
No. The image fades. The ghost goes out of me. I think of nothing. Except, coming over the years, the echo, terrible in this quiet room, of Miss Logan’s cheerful voice:
‘Someone’s scratched some verse on the silver – Shelley, of all strange things …’
Yes. Shelley, of all strange things.
August Heat
W. F. Harvey
PENISTONE ROAD, CLAPHAM.
August 20th, 190–.
I have had what I believe to be the most remarkable day in my life, and while the events are still fresh in my mind, I wish to put them down on paper as clearly as possible.
Let me say at the outset that my name is James Clarence Withencroft.
I am forty years old, in perfect health, never having known a day’s illness.
By profession I am an artist, not a very successful one, but I earn enough money by my black-and-white work to satisfy my necessary wants.
My only near relative, a sister, died five years ago, so that I am independent.
I breakfasted this morning at nine, and after glancing through the morning paper I lighted my pipe and proceeded to let my mind wander in the hope that I might chance upon some subject for my pencil.
The room, though door and windows were open, was oppressively hot, and I had just made up my mind that the coolest and most comfortable place in the neighbourhood would be the deep end of the public swimming bath, when the idea came.
I began to draw. So intent was I on my work that I left my lunch untouched, only stopping work when the clock of St Jude’s struck four.
The final result, for a hurried sketch, was, I felt sure, the best thing I had done.
It showed a criminal in the dock immediately after the judge had pronounced sentence. The man was fat – enormously fat. The flesh hung in rolls about his chin; it creased his huge, stumpy neck. He was clean shaven (perhaps I should say a few days before he must have been clean shaven) and almost bald. He stood in the dock, his short, clumsy fingers clasping the rail, looking straight in front of him. The feeling that his expression conveyed was not so much one of horror as of utter, absolute collapse.
There seemed nothing in the man strong enough to sustain that mountain of flesh.
I rolled up the sketch, and without quite knowing why, placed it in my pocket. Then, with the rare sense of happiness which the knowledge of a good thing well done gives, I left the house.
I believe that I set out with the idea of calling upon Trenton, for I remember walking along Lytton Street and turning to the right along Gilchrist Road at the bottom of the hill where the men were at work on the new tram lines.
From there onwards I have only the vaguest recollection of where I went. The one thing of which I was fully conscious was the awful heat, that came up from the dusty asphalt pavement as an almost palpable wave. I longed for the thunder promised by the great banks of copper-coloured cloud that hung low over the western sky.
I must have walked five or six miles, when a small boy roused me from my reverie by asking the time.
It was twenty minutes to seven.
When he left me I began to take stock of my bearings. I found myself standing before a gate that led into a yard bordered by a strip of thirsty earth, where there were flowers, purple stock and scarlet geranium. Above the entrance was a board with the inscription –
CHS. ATKINSON MONUMENTAL MASON,
WORKER IN ENGLISH AND ITALIAN MARBLES.
From the yard itself came a cheery whistle, the noise of hammer blows, and the cold sense of steel meeting stone.
A sudden impulse made me enter.
A man was sitting with his back towards me, busy at work on a slab of curiously veined marble. He turned round as he heard my steps and I stopped short.
It was the man I had been drawing, whose portrait lay in my pocket.
He sat there, huge and elephantine, the sweat pouring from his scalp, which he wiped with a red silk handkerchief. But though the face was the same, the expression was absolutely different.
He greeted me smiling, as if we were old friends, and shook my hand.
I apologized for my intrusion.
‘Everything is hot and glary outside,’ I said. ‘This seems an oasis in the wilderness.’
‘I don’t know about the oasis,’ he replied, ‘but it certainly is hot, as hot as hell. Take a seat, sir!’
He pointed to the end of the gravestone on which
he was at work, and I sat down.
‘That’s a beautiful piece of stone you’ve got hold of,’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘In a way it is,’ he answered; ‘the surface here is as fine as anything you could wish, but there’s a big flaw at the back, though I don’t expect you’d notice it. I could never really make a good job of a bit of marble like that. It would be all right in a summer like this; it wouldn’t mind the blasted heat. But wait till the winter comes. There’s nothing quite like frost to find out the weak points in stone.’
‘Then what’s it for?’ I asked.
The man burst out laughing.
‘You’d hardly believe me if I was to tell you it’s for an exhibition, but it’s the truth. Artists have exhibitions: so do grocers and butchers; we have them too. All the latest little things in headstones, you know.’
He went on to talk of marbles, which sort best withstood wind and rain, and which were easiest to work; then of his garden and a new sort of carnation he had bought. At the end of every other minute he would drop his tools, wipe his shining head, and curse the heat.
I said little, for I felt uneasy. There was something unnatural, uncanny in meeting this man.
I tried at first to persuade myself that I had seen him before, that his face, unknown to me, had found a place in some out-of-the-way corner of my memory, but I knew that I was practising little more than a plausible piece of self-deception.
Mr Atkinson finished his work, spat on the ground, and got up with a sigh of relief.
‘There! what do you think of that?’ he said, with an air of evident pride.
The inscription which I read for the first time was this –
SACRED TO THE MEMORY
OF
JAMES CLARENCE WITHENCROFT
BORN JAN. 18TH, I860.
HE PASSED AWAY VERY SUDDENLY
ON AUGUST 20TH, 190–
‘In the midst of life we are in death.’
For some time I sat in silence. Then a cold shudder ran down my spine. I asked him where he had seen the name.
‘Oh, I didn’t see it anywhere,’ replied Mr Atkinson. ‘I wanted some name, and I put down the first that came into my head. Why do you want to know?’
‘It’s a strange coincidence, but it happens to be mine.’
He gave a long, low whistle.
‘And the dates?’
‘I can only answer for one of them, and that’s correct.’
‘It’s a rum go!’ he said.
But he knew less than I did. I told him of my morning’s work. I took the sketch from my pocket and showed it to him. As he looked, the expression of his face altered until it became more and more like that of the man I had drawn.
‘And it was only the day before yesterday,’ he said, ‘that I told Maria there were no such things as ghosts!’
Neither of us had seen a ghost, but I knew what he meant.
‘You probably heard my name,’ I said.
‘And you must have seen me somewhere and have forgotten it! Were you at Clacton-on-Sea last July?’
I had never been to Clacton in my life. We were silent for some time. We were both looking at the same thing, the two dates on the gravestone, and one was right.
‘Come inside and have some supper,’ said Mr Atkinson.
His wife was a cheerful little woman, with the flaky red cheeks of the country-bred. Her husband introduced me as a friend of his who was an artist. The result was unfortunate, for after the sardines and watercress had been removed, she brought out a Doré Bible, and I had to sit and express my admiration for nearly half an hour.
I went outside, and found Atkinson sitting on the gravestone smoking.
We resumed the conversation at the point we had left off.
‘You must excuse my asking,’ I said, ‘but do you know of anything you’ve done for which you could be put on trial?’
He shook his head.
‘I’m not a bankrupt, the business is prosperous enough. Three years ago I gave turkeys to some of the guardians at Christmas, but that’s all I can think of. And they were small ones, too,’ he added as an afterthought.
He got up, fetched a can from the porch, and began to water the flowers. ‘Twice a day regular in the hot weather,’ he said, ‘and then the heat sometimes gets the better of the delicate ones. And ferns, good Lord! they could never stand it. Where do you live?’
I told him my address. It would take an hour’s quick walk to get back home.
‘It’s like this,’ he said. ‘We’ll look at the matter straight. If you go back home tonight, you take your chance of accidents. A cart may run over you, and there’s always banana skins and orange peel, to say nothing of falling ladders.’
He spoke of the improbable with an intense seriousness that would have been laughable six hours before. But I did not laugh.
‘The best thing we can do,’ he continued, ‘is for you to stay here till twelve o’clock. We’ll go upstairs and smoke; it may be cooler inside.’
To my surprise I agreed.
............
We are sitting now in a long, low room beneath the eaves. Atkinson has sent his wife to bed. He himself is busy sharpening some tools at a little oilstone, smoking one of my cigars the while.
The air seems charged with thunder. I am writing this at a shaky table before the open window. The leg is cracked, and Atkinson, who seems a handy man with his tools, is going to mend it as soon as he has finished putting an edge on his chisel.
It is after eleven now. I shall be gone in less than an hour.
But the heat is stifling.
It is enough to send a man mad.
The Bad Lands
John Metcalfe
It is now perhaps fifteen years ago that Brent Ormerod, seeking the rest and change of scene that should help him to slay the demon neurosis, arrived in Todd towards the close of a mid-October day. A decrepit fly bore him to the one hotel, where his rooms were duly engaged, and it is this vision of himself sitting in the appalling vehicle that makes him think it was October or thereabouts, for he distinctly remembers the determined settling down of the dusk that forced him to drive when he would have preferred to follow his luggage on foot.
He decided immediately that five o’clock was an unsuitable time to arrive in Todd. The atmosphere, as it were, was not receptive. There was a certain repellent quality about the frore autumn air, and something peculiarly shocking in the way in which desultory little winds would spring up in darkening streets to send the fallen leaves scurrying about in hateful, furtive whirlpools.
Dinner, too, at the hotel hardly brought the consolation he had counted on. The meal itself was unexceptionable, and the room cheerful and sufficiently well filled for that time of year, yet one trivial circumstance was enough to send him upstairs with his temper ruffled and his nerves on edge. They had put him to a table with a one-eyed man, and that night the blank eye haunted all his dreams.
But for the first eight or nine days at Todd things went fairly well with him. He took frequent cold baths and regular exercise and made a point of coming back to the hotel so physically tired that to get into bed was usually to drop immediately into sleep. He wrote back to his sister Joan, at Kensington, that his nerves were already much improved and that only another fortnight seemed needed to complete the cure. ‘Altogether a highly satisfactory week.’
Those who had been to Todd remember it as a quiet, secretive watering-place, couched watchfully in a fold of a long range of low hills along the Norfolk coast. It has been pronounced ‘restful’ by those in high authority, for time there has a way of passing dreamily as if the days, too, were being blown past like the lazy clouds on the wings of wandering breezes. At the back, the look of the land is somehow strangely forbidding, and it is wiser to keep to the shore and the more neighbouring villages. Salterton, for instance, has been found quite safe and normal.
There are long stretches of sand dunes to the west, and by their side a nine-hole golf-course. Here, at
the time of Brent’s visit, stood an old and crumbling tower, an enigmatic structure which he found interesting from its sheer futility. Behind it an inexplicable road seemed to lead with great decision most uncomfortably to nowhere.… Todd, he thought, was in many ways a nice spot, but he detected in it a tendency to grow on one unpleasantly.
He came to this conclusion at the end of the ninth day, for it was then that he became aware of a peculiar uneasiness, an indescribable malaise.
This feeling of disquiet he at first found himself quite unable to explain or analyse. His nerves he had thought greatly improved since he had left Kensington, and his general health was good. He decided, however, that perhaps yet more exercise was necessary, and so he walked along the links and the sand dunes to the queer tower and the inexplicable road that lay behind it three times a day instead of twice.
His discomfort rapidly increased. He would become conscious, as he set out for his walk, of a strange sinking at his heart and of a peculiar moral disturbance which was very difficult to describe. These sensations attained their maximum when he had reached his goal upon the dunes, and he suffered then what something seemed to tell him was very near the pangs of spiritual dissolution.
It was on the eleventh day that some faint hint of the meaning of these peculiar symptoms crossed his mind. For the first time he asked himself why it was that of all the many rambles he had taken in Todd since his arrival each one seemed inevitably to bring him to the same place – the yellow sand dunes with the mysterious looking tower in the background. Something in the bland foolishness of the structure seemed to have magnetized him, and in the unaccountable excitement which the sight of it invariably produced, he had found himself endowing it with almost human characteristics.
With its white nightcap dome and its sides of pale yellow stucco it might seem at one moment to be something extravagantly ridiculous, a figure of fun at which one should laugh and point. Then, as likely as not, its character would change a little, and it would take on the abashed and crestfallen look of a jester whose best joke has fallen deadly flat, while finally, perhaps, it would develop with startling rapidity into a jovial old gentleman laughing madly at Ormerod from the middle distance out of infinite funds of merriment.
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