by Susan Hill
But, although I found some solace and company in books, I was at heart an outdoor boy, living a life in the open air for as much of the time as I could manage, running half-wild, taking in all the sights and sounds and glories of that most liberating and beautiful country.
From Kenya, after some years, we went to India, and thence to Ceylon, where it was proposed that I learn the tea trade. But I found the idea of travelling further, to remote and romantic places, more to my taste than the prospect of settling down to any sort of career, and secretly, I began to plan for myself the life of a nomad, full of exploration and adventure. I had read in particular about the journeys and work of a man I came to regard as one of the greatest of all pioneering travellers. His name was Conrad Vane. I began to pore over piles of maps, books and charts, in the evenings, planning my own future journeys.
When I was seventeen years old, my Guardian was taken very suddenly ill, and, as is the way with many a man who contracts one of the dreadful fevers and agues that strike without warning in those countries, went from robust health to the point of death, in barely twenty-four hours.
I could not pretend to have loved him deeply. But, although he was a reserved, somewhat sombre man, for ten years he had been the nearest to a father I had had. I respected him, liked him, though we were never especially close, and I had never confided to him any of the secrets of my innermost heart and mind.
But to stand at his bedside in the close, steamy air of the bungalow and see his face a dreadful, waxen colour, gleaming with sweat, the flesh already somehow shrunk back, to outline more clearly the skull beneath, shocked and distressed me greatly. I was trying to frame some words of affection but the sentences would not form, and when I next looked down at him, his eyes were staring up at me blankly. He was dead.
For the next twenty years I had travelled, in India and all over Africa, to Burma, Singapore, Malaya, and finally in the remotest areas of China. At first, my travelling had been more or less without purpose, but soon, I had begun to fulfil my ambition of following in the footsteps of Conrad Vane. As I journeyed, I educated myself, by talking to any man I encountered, by living native, and by keeping my eyes and ears open. I also read whatever I could in the history and literature, lore and legends of those countries, and I picked up enough of several languages to serve me reasonably well. I belonged everywhere and nowhere, I was a nomad, and I was always, in the truest sense, alone. It was a strange, exciting, satisfying life. But it came to an abrupt end when I contracted a debilitating illness in Penang and, during the course of many long, weary weeks, had come to realise that I was finally done with travelling from place to place, I was a middle-aged man and had seen everything I had ever planned to see, and above all, had undertaken virtually every journey Vane himself had made. Indeed, so carefully and closely had I followed in his footsteps, some twenty-odd years after his death, that at times I identified with him, felt myself almost to be Vane.
In those two score years, I had occasionally met people from England, and had listened intently to their talk about it. Now, I conceived a longing to go back there (for I knew, what my Guardian had briefly told me, that I was an Englishman born and that had been my early home). I did not formulate any definite plans, had no idea where I might settle when I arrived. I had money, held in trust for me by my Guardian and passed to me on his death, along with such funds and belongings as he himself had had, and I had lived frugally, these past years; there was more than enough to pay for my passage, and bring me in a modest income. Above all, I wanted to discover more about the early life of Conrad Vane, before he had embarked on his travels and begun to write about them – for he, too, had been an exiled Englishman – and I had some idea of paying my eventual tribute to him in a book. I felt that he and his work had been neglected, and was now in danger of being entirely forgotten.
When I was strong enough, therefore, I sold most of my possessions, packed up the rest – there was precious little to show for the past twenty years – and booked my passage.
And now, here I was, alone in the London rain, on that drear and melancholy night.
The bulk of my belongings were to be stored at the dock, and I carried only an old canvas grip containing enough to see me through a day or so. I planned to find rooms as quickly as I could, so that I might lodge in London until I had my bearings, and could see my way ahead more clearly. For now, I obtained from the shipping company offices a couple of addresses of inns at which I might put up. At first, they had assumed that I would want to stay in one of the smarter areas of the city, but I had indicated that I would feel more comfortable in some plain, workaday place close by the river. I was not accustomed to fancy furniture and feather beds. After discussion between themselves, the clerks had decided on names, and warned me against picking out any other places for myself, en route. I rejected all suggestions of a porter to accompany me, and, armed with my bag and the slip of paper, walked out from the warehouses and sheds, through some great gates, and found myself at once in a warren of narrow streets.
It was early afternoon but already the light was fading and darkness drawing in. A chill wind sneaked down alleyways and passages off the river. The houses were grimy, shiny and black-roofed with rain, mean and poor and ugly, and regularly interspersed with more, looming, sheds. The air was filled with the hooting of tugs and a plaintive siren, and there was the constant thump of boxes onto the wharves.
Few were about, though here and there, in half-open doorways and up dark snickets, I glimpsed a solitary figure, or a huddle of ragged children. Once or twice only, a cab went by, but at a great rate, as if anxious to be clear of these particular streets.
But although it was grim enough and cold and damp too, I had begun to feel immensely cheerful, and unworried. I had been alone in far shadier backstreets than these, in the cities of the east, and besides, the very act of walking freely after the weeks of being confined on board ship was a pleasure enough.
A couple of times I passed rough-looking public houses and a glance inside revealed to me the sort of places the shipping company clerks had warned me away from, but at this time of day, there were few drinkers, and the rooms looked uninviting enough in the sour light.
After taking some wrong turnings and having to retrace my steps, I came upon Keypack Hythe Street and, almost by accident, the door of the Cross Keys. By now, the rain had eased to a light drizzle, and there was a sudden parting in the clouds to let through a last few watery rays of sun, which flared briefly onto the narrow windows. I stopped and set down my bag. Ahead of me, under the painted inn sign, was a heavy wooden door, with a latch, reached down half a dozen worn steps from the street.
I turned, and looked about me. To the east, where the sky was dark, the black lines of the warehouses were almost blotted out. To the west, at my back, the blood-red streaks of cloud and the setting sun. I felt inquisitive, keyed up with the interest and excitement that foreign surroundings always induced in me, and in a sense I felt at home too, for although this was a new, colder air than I was used to, there is something familiar about any port to a seasoned traveller – the sights, smells, activities, even the sprawl of streets and wharves that surround and owe their existence and livelihood to it. I was merely used to a closer, steamier air, and to the stink of the east.
As I stood, getting my bearings, studying the houses about me, my eye was caught by some slight movement at the corner, and I glimpsed a figure. It seemed to be that of a boy, some twelve or thirteen years old, thin, with a pale face above a dirty, collarless shirt. For a second, no more, I saw him look full at me, and then past me quickly, as if anxious or afraid to meet my eye. But then I saw that the sun, having flared up again suddenly against the windows, was the next second extinguished, snuffed out like a candle, as it set behind streaked storm clouds. When I looked back, the boy was gone, I supposed disappeared up the slit between the houses, and the narrow street was in darkness.
CHAPTER TWO
I turned and descended the flig
ht of shallow, worn stone steps, and, pushing open a heavy oak door which had been left ajar, entered the Cross Keys Inn.
For a few seconds, until my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, I could see nothing. The hallway was cold and had a dank, below-ground smell, mingled with the fumes of smoke and ale, which must have permeated those walls over scores, perhaps hundreds, of years, for this was clearly an immensely old house.
I stood still, expecting to hear voices, or have someone appear. There was nothing. All was dark and silent, save for, somewhere within, the heavy ticking of a grandfather clock.
And then, without warning, there came a sudden terrible cry – a screech or scream, like the cackle of a crone, or the caterwaul of some creature in its death throes. It came once, ripping into the quiet building, and then twice more, a dreadful noise that made me start forward, and set my heart racing, as I looked wildly about me. A great fear rose from somewhere deep inside me. The noise had awakened terrors, and dim formless memories, though I neither recognised nor recalled the sound.
And then, there was silence again, and only the awful recollection of it was left hanging upon the air.
As I was now a little used to the gloom of the hallway, I saw that another door, also ajar, stood to my left. It took me, down a single step, into a small, dim bar parlour, with a long mahogany counter and a few benches and stools set about. The windows were small and let in scarcely any light. The room was quite empty and I was about to reach for the small brass bell that stood on the bar top, when, glancing upwards, I saw, swinging in a great oval brass cage, the source of those appalling cries. A parrot, with dull green, mouldy-looking feathers and a dreadful hook of a beak, sat there, perched on one leg on its rail. Its eye glittered and it stared steadily, malevolently, straight at me.
I felt my blood run cold. I had encountered plenty of weirder, more exotic and, indeed, more hideous and threatening birds – and, for that matter, beasts too – in my travels. There was nothing especially sinister about what I could see quite well was a perfectly ordinary parrot. And yet I recoiled from it, averted my eyes and stepped involuntarily back. I feared it. Something within me had arisen like a wave of horrible sickness at the sight of it. And far, far at the back of my mind was some forgotten memory, I supposed from remotest childhood, fluttering about like a moth, pattering at the door of consciousness. What was it? Where had I seen such a bird, heard such a cry, and why did it so terrify me? I did not know, could not tell. I only stood there, my hand frozen above the bell, the sweat now sliding down inside my collar, aware only of the black, shining eye and the gently swaying perch of that evil bird.
I was rescued by the entrance of a man, who appeared, ducking low beneath the doorway that led to the regions behind the bar, a hook-nosed, heavy-jowled fellow, wearing a baize apron. But he was civil enough and readily agreed to give me a room and supper for a couple of nights – longer, should I require it.
‘Though you’ll be moving on,’ he said, ‘soon enough.’
‘My plans are not yet certain. I want to get the measure of London. I have been in foreign countries for very many years.’
He only nodded, having, apparently, little interest in me or my history, and then led me back through the hall, up two flights of steep narrow stairs and down a passage, to the back of the house, volunteering no remark on the way save a terse warning to mind my head.
The room he showed me into was small and dark, in keeping with the rest of the place, but clean and decently furnished, with a bed, and oak table, and chair. Its window appeared to look down into some inner yard and ahead, over rooftops and chimney pots, scarcely visible now that the last light was filtering out of the sky in a thin livid line to the west.
I unpacked my few clothes and belongings and then I was overcome, all within a few moments, by an exhaustion so profound that my head swam, and my limbs felt heavy and began to ache, and, lying fully clothed upon the bed, I fell at once into as deep a sleep as I think I have ever known. The change of air, the new sights and sounds, relief at having completed the voyage and finally reached my home shores, and perhaps most of all, the intense emotions that had chased one another through me in the past few hours, all had combined to drain me completely of any energy. I was unconscious to myself and to the world for upwards of four hours, and only awakened by a knocking that brought me first through the black lower depths of sleep and up to where strange forms and figures, tattered fragments of dreams, floated about in a greenish twilight, and thence abruptly to the surface.
The room was in total darkness and I lay for several seconds, confused, uncertain where I was or what day or time it might be, my head as heavy as if I had been drugged.
The banging came again and then I located it and myself too, and got up to open the door.
A young woman stood in the narrow passageway outside and, in the wavering light behind her, I glimpsed a second figure, and took a step back to let them in. But when the girl stepped into the room, carrying a jug of hot water and a basin, and went with a slow, lumbering deliberation to place it on the chest, I glanced back and saw that I had been mistaken, and that the passage was empty.
‘If you’ll want supper, you must go down. We don’t serve the rooms.’
She had a plump, bovine face, expressionless save for a film of weariness or boredom overlaying it, and a slow manner of speaking. But as she reached the door, on her way out, she looked briefly at me and the faintest flicker of interest or curiosity passed across her dull eyes, prompting me to ask if there were any other visitors staying in the house that night.
She stopped. ‘We only have two rooms. Not many come.’
‘Yes. It seems very quiet.’
‘Mostly. The rowdy ones go elsewhere.’
‘You mean the seamen?’
‘We keep a respectable house.’
‘Then you live here?’
‘With father.’
As she turned into the passage, I said, scarcely knowing why, ‘And the boy?’
For I was suddenly sure mat there had been someone behind her as she entered, and that it had been a boy, possibly the one I had glimpsed in the street, on my arrival – though why he interested me, I could not have told.
‘There ain’t no boy here.’
‘I thought you might have a brother – or the pot boy? I saw one in the street as I came.’
‘Oh, out there.’ She sounded almost scornful. ‘There’d be anyone out there. Boys or the like. Anyone.’
When she had gone, I went to the window. The rain had stopped. But I could see nothing at all save the feeble light from some room below that scarcely penetrated the gloomy area of the yard. The place seemed to belong to another time and a past far beyond that in which I had been living. Here, I was inhabiting a city of the books and stories I had read as a boy, a place of the imagination rawer than any reality, and one which had remained scarcely changed for centuries. For the time being, until I had my bearings, that suited me well. I thought that I would make the transition from my own past and very different life, to whatever future I was to have, quite gradually. Here, in this quiet, dark little inn hard by the river, I had an odd sense of being suspended in a limbo, of belonging to no real time or place.
My room was small and close, and comfortable enough, but there was nothing in it to which I could become attached nor would the people I had so far seen make any claims upon me or, in all probability, impress themselves greatly upon my consciousness at all. I had never yet made any ties or set down roots. In the whole of my adult life I had belonged to no one person or place, since the death of my Guardian so many years before – and of the time before that, of course, I knew nothing.
Whether I would ever do so, I had no idea. But I knew that I had come to the end of travelling, and I was very conscious of my approaching middle years, and aware that, sooner or later, I would have to settle, to make some commitment to a place, and to particular people, or else I should end my life at last, as an isolated, peculiar, unhappy old m
an.
I washed, and made my way along the dim passages and down the stairs to the bar, where I was served a plain, decent supper in a corner, away from the few drinkers who had begun to drift in and talk together. I would have been content and unperturbed – I was still heavy and a little dazed after my sleep – were I not made to feel thoroughly uneasy and distracted by the steady, malevolent gaze of the parrot, which sat hunched in its brass cage, staring in my direction, and never once turning its head but only half closing its eyelids from time to time, to veil the gleam for a moment, before it glared at me again.
I took a single glass of brandy, still alone at the small table, and then returned to my room. My going attracted as little interest as my presence had done.
In spite of the afternoon’s rest, I felt exhausted again, and although I had one of Conrad Vane’s travel diaries, of a journey to the Antipodes, and intended to begin re-reading it, the print soon swam before my eyes, and I turned down the lamp and went to sleep.
But, this time, I did not dive so deep into unconsciousness and, when I awoke, I knew at once both who and where I was and, moreover, sensed that only an hour or so had passed. And indeed, when I turned up the lamp, my watch showed that it was not yet midnight. I was now so wide awake, and full of a sudden restless energy, a desire for fresh air and movement, that I dressed and went back downstairs.
The bar was empty and the dreadful parrot cage covered over with a maroon shawl, but the landlord was still about, clearing pots, and he agreed curtly to leave the front door unlatched – I was to shoot the bolts and bar it on my return.
I suppose I intended to walk for perhaps half an hour. I re-traced the route by which I had come here earlier in the day and before long, by cutting down this and that alleyway between the high buildings, came to the River Thames.