Mr Cassini

by Lloyd Jones

  What would happen if he did find what he was looking for? What would be the consequences? Would he survive his own descent into the cave of the seven wells, in the foothills of paradise? What if his father was in there, still alive, his teeth gleaming in the subdued limestone light? Would he, Duxie, run out again, would he retreat down the mountain, shaking uncontrollably? What if his father came to the mouth of the cave and looked down at him? Would he follow Duxie, run after him? Duxie would shout up, maybe. He would say, in his shaky voice: Come on then Dad. I’ve put a very long story between you and me, a very long trail of words. Look at all the paragraphs. Look at all the sentences. Look at all the words and letters between you and me. And his father would have to step on ever single letter, as if he were crossing stones in a very wide river, before he got to him, and Duxie would be ready for him then, he would be ready to face him then.

  Would he tell her all this? Olly sitting by his side in the here and now, would she understand? Yes, sure she would. He would rush out and get some petrol, he would fire up the van and they would drive onwards, towards the prism.]

  Did you get anywhere with his memory? Was he able to recall anything?

  No, not at any stage. I asked him if he’d tried tastes and smells. He’d had a clear recollection once, with chocolate...

  Best to leave it alone. Why play with fire? The past is the past, we can never remember it properly anyway.

  How do you mean?

  The past is a hologram. Your memories aren’t neat little packages in a drawer, or video clips. They’re a collection of chemicals which merely reflect your chemical and emotional state at the time. So don’t expect the truth – just a jumbled-up version of your emotional state many years ago.

  You mean he wouldn’t be able to remember it all anyway?

  Afraid not. Look at it this way. Imagine yourself as a little girl, lying on the ground, shining a torch into the sky at night. You twirl it around, pointing your beam at the moon and the stars. In a way you’re sending out a message, a beam into the future. If you did the same tonight, if you twirled your torch around, pointed it at the moon and the stars, maybe the two beams would meet again – the beam from the little girl and the beam from you now – that would be a memory…

  I think that’s enough for today. I wouldn’t worry too much if I were you. I come across the Duxies of this world all the time. Millions have gone through the same thing. There’s nothing special about him.

  Oh no, you’re wrong there. Duxie was unique.

  In what way?

  He was different. There were things about him which were remarkable, things I’d never seen in anyone else.

  Such as?

  He could read my mind, almost.

  That’s not so rare – very common in people who’ve had a bad childhood, they learnt early on how important it was to detect their parents’ moods.

  And there was his dancing…

  He won Celebrity Come Dancing, did he?

  I thought you professionals weren’t allowed to be sarcastic?

  Very sorry. Truly. Please continue – his special abilities.

  All right. You can believe me or disbelieve me, but whenever he danced people either laughed or cried. It was a definite gift. I saw him dance three times and every single person laughed or cried, every time. Honestly.

  Give me an example.

  OK. I remember the first time, no problem. Stefano was getting ready to close up for the night. The Gimp was putting the chairs upside-down on the tables and whistling loudly to irritate us. Stefano snuffed the kitchen lights and got his coat. The atmosphere became suddenly tense. So Duxie got up and strolled over to the jukebox, selected a number. I can’t remember what it was. When the music came on – it was quite sad – Duxie started to dance in the centre aisle, moving up and down the café on the newspapers which the Gimp had put down on the floor he’d just washed. Well, you probably won’t believe this, but within minutes he had us all laughing or crying. Some were laughing at him, others were crying with laughter, and there were others who were crying over the sheer pathos of his movements. No kidding. Stefano and the Gimp stopped what they were doing and sat down to look at him too. Stefano was the happiest man I’d ever met, always a smile on his face – but by the end of that dance he was wiping away tears of pure sorrow. The Gimp, on the other hand, was in pleats of laughter. That’s the effect that Duxie had whenever he danced.

  [Duxie would offer to walk her home, when the café closed. Would she go back for a coffee? He’d want to ask her about the magic in his dreams. Dr John Dee. The Harries mob at Cwrt-y-Cadno. What was all that about? He thought he knew, but he wasn’t sure. Wasn’t childhood supposed to be magical? But the fact that his father had been an amateur magician had muddied the waters. The whole thing was very complicated.

  ‘Run it past me again,’ she’d say as they stepped out on the pavement. ‘Don’t worry if it doesn’t make complete sense. Just give me an idea.’

  They would start up the hill, walking close together.

  ‘Well,’ he’d start hesitantly, ‘it has something to do with alchemy. When you have a child it’s a bit of magic, because it’s all beyond comprehension. This thing comes out, and it’s wonderful. Unbelievable. You’ve waved your magic wand (and here she’d blush a little perhaps, and cough, but he’d continue) and you perform the only magic trick you’re ever going to perform. And then you want the best for it. The best you can manage, anyway. You want eternal life for it. You want to be seen as a magician in the child’s eyes.’

  He’d have to pause in the doorway of the gents’ barbershop because talking and walking uphill would make him breathless. ‘Understand me so far?’

  And she’d nod, lean against the shop-front and light a cigarette. He would follow the little red dot in her hand with his eyes.

  ‘But what if you get it wrong right at the beginning?’ he’d say, now that his breath had returned.

  ‘What if you start with gold but you make a mistake: you mix the wrong components together, you mess it all up and you end up with base metal. You’re not making the grade as a parent. You get frustrated, hot and bothered. Try as you might, the base metal you’ve created refuses to turn back into gold. You get into a temper. You shout at the people around you. They look at you accusingly – they gave you gold but you’re giving them base metal in return. That’s the way I see it. Frustration. That’s the main component. When a man gets it wrong and he can’t get it right again he digs a bigger and bigger hole for himself, turns himself into a demon instead of a wizard.’

  ‘I understand that completely,’ she’d say, and he’d be relieved.

  ‘It’s like that with my own father – he gets it wrong, then he gets in a mood and starts shouting. But if you take that sort of shit once you end up taking it for ever. It’s downhill all the way, Duxie.’

  It would be the first time she’d called him by his name, and he’d feel good about it.

  ‘Parents are like magicians,’ he’d said. ‘Almost all of them, 99 per cent of them are Harry Potters, but one per cent are Voldermorts. Agree?’

  And she’d say: ‘Yes of course I do, Duxie.’

  They’d stand around for a while, then she’d say:

  ‘Listen Duxie, about your father. I think we’ve got to move him from the football field. It’s not the best place for him. I’ve got an idea…’

  He’d look at her, quizzically. Would she know something he didn’t? Were they going to build houses on the football pitch?

  ‘He can still get at you down there, can’t he? In fact, he’s still getting at you, isn’t he?’

  Duxie would have to admit that he was. Wouldn’t he always – for ever?

  ‘Look,’ she’d say, staring at him with those beautiful eyes of hers.

  ‘We need to put him somewhere absolutely safe. Foolproof. And I know just the place. Somewhere in the Old World, somewhere tried and tested. Up in Snowdonia, in the hills. Trust me.’

  Trust her? Of cours
e he trusted her.

  ‘The picnic,’ she’d say with a smile. ‘You picnic in the snow. It’s a great idea. Let’s do it!’

  Duxie would be over the moon. He would see towers and steeples of uncontaminated white drifting in curtains across the ravines, snowflakes rotating in paso doble twirls; he could smell the iron in the snow as it covered the land, extinguishing the fires of the past.

  ‘I’ll make the picnic,’ he’d say. ‘My treat. OK?’

  ‘Yes, of course, that would be wonderful,’ she’d say.

  ‘Tomorrow?’ A Sunday – perfect.

  ‘And then I’ll have to return to my own world,’ she’d say, as if she was about to go down a wormhole, as if she was about to disappear for ever into another dimension.

  And Duxie would feel very sad.]

  13

  THE TIDE GOES OUT

  The interview tapes (3)

  You decided, then, to go into the hills with him.

  Yes.

  Your idea or his?

  The idea was his, but I chose the place.

  And what was his plan?

  A picnic in the snow. He’d been having dreams about it. He mentioned some famous films. Scott of the Antarctic was one of them, the one where Captain Oates walks out into the snow. He mentioned other films, too, all of them with people walking in the snow. He thought it would be fun to have a picnic in the hills when it was snowing.

  Pretty original, I have to admit. And you chose the venue. Why?

  It’s a place I’ve known for a long time. It was ideal.

  A long time? You’re only young…

  It’s a special place – a place from my childhood. It’s a place in Old Wales, which is about to disappear. I agree with Duxie on that. The lake will probably vanish too.

  You’re being fanciful now… I can see why he was drawn to you.

  Perhaps I am. But the whole universe is inside your head, remember that. It all depends on how you look at things. To me, the lake is a place where I spent a really happy day once, my birthday. To a fishing club it’s a commodity. There are ruins all around it, the remains of a small community – what did the lake mean to them?

  [Seven momentous days – and they’d reached the final leg of Duxie’s journey. He was excited, a bit edgy and nervous. They would have much to finalise. Together they would compile a list of things for him to do, in much the same way as he’d made a mental list, alone, of all the things which frightened him: mannequins, sudden noises, whistling, big men with hairy ears and large noses, magicians…

  But on the Sunday morning she didn’t turn up. Duxie was devastated. He sat forlornly in Stefano’s, nursing his wounded heart. Mr Cassini landed right in front of him on the table and went to sleep, but Duxie was so engrossed in his own thoughts he missed his big chance to win the competition. Little Michael played Tainted Love on the jukebox, over and over again, just to hurt him.

  Sometimes I feel I've got to

  Run away, I’ve got to

  Get away…

  Take my tears…

  Duxie asked everyone he saw if they’d seen Olly. No one knew anything. The ex-copper shrugged his shoulders and whistled The Teddy Bears’ Picnic quietly under his breath. Mrs Griffiths said don’t bother me, who cares anyway in a sharp little voice. After sitting in the café for the whole of the morning he scoured the town. He even went to the police station, stood waiting for ages, looking at a weird collection of seashells while nothing at all happened. The policeman shrugged his shoulders. For two days Duxie searched, and then he gave up. He was utterly miserable. His friends at the snooker hall phoned his workplace to ask where he was. Harriet knocked on his door and asked him if his microwave had broken down. And then, when he’d almost given up hope, she walked into the café late one evening, smiling at everyone and saying good evening to the copper and Little Michael, Mrs Griffiths, the Gimp, all and sundry in a breezy way as if nothing had happened. She went straight to Duxie’s table and apologised. She told him that everything was OK but she’d had to go back home to see her boyfriend. It was going to be all right. He loved her and that was all that mattered, really.

  She’d come back for the picnic; she’d come back specially with her red lips and her cornflower-blue eyes to help him complete his quest. Thank God. Time was running out. He could feel the water rising up inside him; on Sunday it had filled up his legs, then on Monday it had moved up his lower torso, streaming in through underground caves, rushing through caverns, carrying all before it. The water weighed him down now, he felt much heavier. He could feel it sloshing around within him; he could hear strange noises inside him: creaking, groaning, splashes, drips, echoes…]

  Could you describe his state of mind at this stage?

  Troubled, I’d say, but I also got the impression that something was coming to a head.

  A resolution of some sort?

  Yes. He talked about a book he’d read, something to do with water-divining. He said it was about a bloke who’d found a family of interconnected wells and traced the source of the water deep underground, inside a mountain.

  Water-Divining in the Foothills of Paradise?

  You’ve heard of it!

  Yes, a minor classic in its day. The author disappeared, if I remember correctly – hardly anyone believed his story. All that Separate Reality stuff was fading anyway. Too many doubts, too many fakers. By then the kids wanted to know which walls they should write on, which acidheads they should listen to…

  Anyway, he got interested in the water-divining man. He bought himself a set of rods, went out searching for underground water. He said it was quite exciting when the rods responded – he described it as a thrill coming from the metal, up through his hands. He said it was the first time he’d felt any sensation in his left hand. He was very excited about that. He told me that his hand was completely numb. That’s why he wore the glove – to avoid burning it accidentally. He singed the leather if he rested his hand on a hot surface, so the smell acted as a warning.

  Why wear two gloves, if only one hand was affected?

  He didn’t want to draw attention to it. Wearing just one glove looks odd.

  This business with water – what was it all about?

  I’m fairly sure it had something to do with his emotions. He described it as a force travelling up his legs and filling him slowly, as if he were hollow… as if underground water was forcing its way up his feet through a puncture and filling him up slowly.

  Did this happen often?

  No, not that often. He thought he’d detected a pattern. It happened in regular cycles, every so often.

  Did he say how often?

  He said it happened every seven years, or so it seemed to him. And then he’d have a major bout every twenty years or so. That’s the way it seemed to him.

  Which explains, possibly, his obsession with the number seven.

  I hadn’t thought of that. Yes, it could be a possibility. Again, it sounds simplistic, but you never know.

  Did he talk about it?

  A little, yes. He said there was no such thing as a personal catharsis – but he thought he could feel a sense of release every time, a sort of purge taking place.

  You make it sound like a toilet being flushed.

  That may not be such a bad analogy, actually. With the shit being left behind sometimes.

  Or always?

  No, sometimes – he saw the seven-year events as positive experiences. But the twenty-year crises were far worse, apparently. He described them as major inundations, as if he’d been swept away in a flood and was nearly drowned every time. He could cope with the seven-year cycles but he couldn’t cope with the big ones. That’s when the terror took hold of him. He was gripped by a terrible fear and he became incapable of leading a normal life. He disintegrated… dissolved. Those major inundations nearly killed him.

  He was experiencing one at that time, presumably.

  Yes, he was just coming to the end of it. He was pretty shaky. Our picnic in the
snow was meant to be a celebration. That’s why he was so excited.

  [The country was opaque: the trees were broccoli, the icy hills were mashed potatoes under clingfilm – the whole land was a dinner waiting for the sun’s hot ping.

  His first task would be to dig up his father. He would have to sneak down to the football ground in the middle of the night again, he would have to remove the turf over the centre spot, dig down, and scrabble around in the compacted soil. He would have to find that grey plastic jar, reclaim it and take it back to his council flat on the hill. Perhaps he would be interrupted during his frantic mission by a night-watchman, a lonesome black-caped whistler with a torch, the fabled PC 66 striding out from the darkness of his own imagination: a representation of society and the establishment – complicit, unwilling to act until the very last moment, when it was often too late. Nevertheless, Duxie would regain his father’s ashes, and after returning the sod (ha!) over the centre spot he would struggle back to his home, wet and muddy but happy in the knowledge that his quest was coming to a fitting end. He would divest his outer clothing by the front door and carry it surreptitiously under his arm along the fireproof corridors, anodyne and correct. He would wash his boots in the sink and then he would put everything in the washing machine, his gloves too; he would stand in the kitchen naked, trembling slightly, perhaps, with a mixture of cold and fear. He would wash and dry his little flowerbox trowel and return it carefully to the right drawer. Finally, he would wash the plastic jar and put it on a radiator to dry. Then he would take a bath. Phew! Mission accomplished. He would treat himself to a bong, since he had some very decent skunk stashed away behind the toilet cistern. My, how that skunk relaxed him. He was able to have a really good think…