Mr Cassini

by Lloyd Jones

  This white room – I’d like to know more about it… was it a real room?

  He simply described it as a small room with two doors. They could have been virtual doors because they didn’t have handles, or signs on them. One led to life, the other to death. It was a very simple image, but that was the whole point, he said – at that stage nothing else meant anything at all… the entire world had disappeared. He had sat in this room in silence – the event was like a dream, but it wasn’t – and then he’d made a very simple but fundamental decision.

  To live or to die?

  Yes, it was that simple. But it was beautiful, he said. Like being at a birth. A fundamental thing was happening, with amazing clarity.

  He wanted that to happen on the island, too?

  Yes, he was expecting it to happen. He said the seven colours of his life had all met again, and he wanted complete and absolute clarity for a few moments before he moved on.

  You make it sound like a… a climax?

  No, there was no suggestion of that. It was a feeling of supreme calm.

  [He wouldn’t be able to cry. But he would have to empty himself of water somehow, before it froze inside him, before it cracked him open. Ice was congealed water, tears were congealed emotions. He would look down at the hole he’d made in the snow with his finger and he’d see his whole life being carried away on a beetle’s back as an insect, black and busy, snowploughed its way through a tiny terrain of snow-scree and disappeared into a hole.

  He goes from place to place, he enters darkness. He falls down a steep precipice, he enters a jungle of solitude. He is pursued by karmic forces, he goes into a vast silence. He is borne away on the great ocean, he is wafted on the wind of karma. He goes where there is no certainty. He is caught in the great conflict, he is obsessed by the great affecting spirit. He is awed and terrified by the messengers of death.

  The Rainbow Messengers would sing a sad lament and they would bow their heads, they would listen to the water lapping on the banks of the lake. Olly would hand out apples to all the Rainbow Messengers.

  He’d tell them about the Yanomami shamans with rainbows in their hair, and he’d tell them about Merlin in the woods. He, too, wanted a vision of splendour again. A little death. When he came back to life the world would be brilliantly real. Extraordinary and beautiful. But first he would have to get rid of the water… he could hardly move.]

  So there were two rooms, I think that’s important, don’t you?

  No, he mentioned only the white room.

  I think you’ve forgotten something.

  What’s that?

  Well, he also mentioned a very dark room, in his dreams. Am I right?

  Yes of course – there was another room, you’re quite right. A very dark room, but it was getting lighter… gradually.

  In his dreams?

  Yes, in his dreams the room was getting lighter, he was beginning to see things inside it. He thought he was on the brink of a breakthrough of sorts.

  But he never got to see what was inside the room?

  No, not clearly. He thought there were people sitting in it… they were very quiet, they never moved. It all sounded weird, spooky.

  A nightmare?

  Close to a nightmare, yes.

  Am I getting this right, then… he was between two rooms – between a very dark room from the past and a white room which… I don’t know… took him into the future?

  Possibly.

  He was on a sort of threshold… the island was an in-between place, is that a possibility?

  Yes, but you’d have to ask him yourself.

  [In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan; earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone… the snow would be cold and beautiful. Icing on the cake. A brief and flimsy covering for the earth. An age-old metaphor for absolution, purity, wonder and forgetfulness. He was attracted to snow because it blanked out the shadows; nothing unexpected could happen, nothing nasty could creep up on him from the darkness.

  May the Mother, she-of-white-raiment be our protector. May we be placed in the state of perfect enlightenment. May the ethereal elements not rise up as enemies. May the watery elements not rise up as enemies – may we come to see the realm of the Blue Buddha. May the earthy elements not rise up as enemies – may we come to see the realm of the Yellow Buddha. May the fiery elements not rise up as enemies – may we come to see the realm of the Red Buddha. May the airy elements not rise up as enemies – may we come to see the realm of the Green Buddha. May the elements of these rainbow colours not rise up as enemies. May it come that all the radiances will be known as one’s own radiances.

  The ice would be so beautiful. Icebergs were blue. Didn’t the soul leave the mouth as a small blue light in Welsh folklore?

  He would have to take his gloves off. It would be the only way. The onion would fail.

  Olly and the seven Rainbow Messengers would fail. He would have to take his gloves off... just one more time.]

  The onion failed to make him cry. Did you really think it would?

  Perhaps not. But it was worth a try, wasn’t it? Anything was worth a try.

  Didn’t work, though.

  No, it was a great pity. I ran out of ideas then.

  You’d finished your picnic by now?

  Yes, I’d put the picnic things in my bag. There was only the rug left, a tartan thing he’d borrowed from someone. I was still sitting on it. He was still in the snow.

  What next?

  That was when he took his glove off. I heard the snap as he undid the popper and then I saw him peel the glove off.

  And?

  He had a very small hand. It was the hand of a child.

  I seem to remember that he had small arms, too.

  Yes, he had the arms of a child. They were puny and weak – not big enough for his body, really.

  And?

  I saw his right hand first.

  Yes?

  It was perfect, really, but very small. It could have belonged to a seven-year-old. Not a mark on it. It could have been made from porcelain. I could see his veins, they were small and blue like you see in kids. You could almost see through his hand.

  [He would take his gloves off in the snow. He would reach for the little black poppers which snapped as they opened… he would peel his right glove off first. The inside of the lambswool glove would be a miniature snowscene. There would be a little warmth trapped in the wool for a while, and then the glove would lose its heat. His own heat, dispelled into the radiant air. It was a hand from a Renaissance nativity scene. Very white, with a shimmer of blue around it. Again, he thought of the Tibetan Book of the Dead:

  Be not attracted towards the dull blue light of the brute-world; be not weak. If thou art attracted, thou wilt fall into the brute-world, wherein stupidity predominates, and suffer the illimitable miseries of slavery and dumbness and stupidity; and it will be a very long time ere thou canst get out. Be not attracted towards it. Put thy faith in the bright dazzling radiance, vibrating and dazzling like coloured threads, flashing and transparent, glorious and awe-inspiring…

  He would look at his right hand for a while, as he did every morning in bed. He would study its contours: the little hill below his thumb, the Mons Venus… the Plain of Mars; the long, delicate middle finger – his Saturn finger – with its tale of destiny… his fractured lifeline.]

  Had you never seen his hands before? Surely he took his gloves off in the café, to eat?

  No, never. Not to my knowledge, anyway.

  Neither of them, ever?

  No.

  Didn’t people notice? Didn’t they say anything?

  Little Michael was the only one who ever mentioned it… he had a nasty streak, Little Michael. He made snide comments, like do you wear them in bed too?

  Did Duxie ever give an explanation?

  I think he said once that his hands were always sore because he was handling parcels and stuff all day – they were his driving gloves and he’d got used to wearing th
em. Something like that.

  Were you curious, when he took his gloves off in the snow?

  Yes, sure. Those gloves were part of him so I was bound to notice, wasn’t I? It was like watching someone getting their clothes off before doing a streak.

  [Did it snow in heaven? Of course, there was another Valhalla much closer to home – the Celtic otherworld, Annwfn. Below them, underneath the snow. Should he go there first? All the people down there would be speaking in a weird accent, using words he’d never heard before – they’d be talking in an ancient type of Welsh. How many words would he recognise? He would point to the snow on his boots maybe and say eira. Perhaps they’d look daft at him. There was one problem with going to Annwfn. Only seven would return – that was the tradition, wasn’t it?

  Annwfn – a place where sickness and old age were unknown, where there was music and a continuous supply of drink. Where they kept the cauldron of rebirth. Duxie was due a rebirth, he thought he’d earned one by now. And what would it be like, passing into the otherworld? Would there be a tinny, buzzing sound in his ears, a sharp pain in his head and the taste of blood in his mouth, all those sensations he used to get when his father banged his head against a wall? Would he be very afraid when he went to the otherworld, as afraid as he felt all those years ago when he heard the key in the lock, when he heard footsteps coming down the passageway towards him along the cracked red quarry tiles, past the black and white print on the wall with its line of pensive children? No, he would feel pretty good actually as he and Olwen and the Rainbow Messengers descended into the otherworld. But was it what he wanted? He would never be able to see the world again, never be able to go down to the café and drink coffee with his mate Stefano, never be able to score the perfect 147. He would never be able to save his children from the forces of evil…]

  No, I wasn’t particularly shocked when he took his other glove off. I’d felt a sort of… I’d expected something, in a way.

  You expected something to be wrong with that hand?

  No, not exactly. But I wasn’t completely surprised either.

  Why not?

  I think something had warned me, inside my head. His little boy arms – they sort of said something to me. Part of him had never grown up. As if a part of his body had been frozen at a certain time in the past, like a car clock which had stopped during an accident. And I suppose there had been other hints too…all that guff about Mr Cassini’s book, The Dexter Propensity… his hatred of left-handed people. It’s easy to be wise afterwards, but we should have realised. Duxie was trying to tell us something all along.

  His hand – tell me about it. Did it frighten you?

  I felt nothing much, really. You get that strange sensation across your skin, don’t you, like someone dropping snow down the back of your neck. Goosepimply – you know what I mean. I moved closer to him, wiggled my bum along the tartan rug, I was going to put my arm around him but I was too slow – he’d already done it.

  [The click-counter would be still going in his head – click click click click click… everyone had one, he thought. A meter up there in the head. Every time something nice happened it went click and the number went up, every time something bad happened it went click and the number went down. He would meet his father for one last time in the otherworld and he would give him a big smile and he would hug him, hold him tight and he would be able to smell him again; that unique smell of moss, and earth, and whisky. And his father would be sober, and the click counter would go click and Duxie would read the meter in his brain, as if he were an electricity man poking around in a cupboard, and when the click-counter went click – because his father was sober – Duxie would shine his torch on the meter inside his head and it would say 1,000,000 negatives, 1,000,001 positives, and everyone would shout hurrah! They would have one hell of a party, and they would all get drunk (except his father) or spliffed out of their skulls and they would dance about in a conga, a conga that went from one end of the otherworld to the other.]

  Was it disfigured?

  Yes, quite badly. It had fingers and a thumb like a normal hand, but it had been burnt badly at some stage. Parts of it were a livid red, other parts were white or yellowish in a sort of cobweb pattern. It looked like a lump of meat, I suppose, with fatty bits. It had white ridges all over it, as if someone had held it under a candle and let the wax run all over it.

  Did he say anything?

  Yes. He held it up in the air and wiggled it at me. Then he said: ‘The last bit of magic he got wrong’.

  Is that all he said?

  That’s all he said.

  Any idea what he meant?

  I think he was talking about Mr Cassini – his father.

  Had he been burnt deliberately?

  I don’t know.

  I wish I could talk to him.

  Yes, so do I.

  [They’d be on their way down to the otherworld, and the Seven Rainbow Messengers would start singing a barbershop tune:

  We’re on our way to Annwfn,

  We shall not be moved,

  We’re on our way to Annwfn,

  We shall not be moved…

  There would be seven wells down there in the otherworld, all them interconnected. Each well would be related to an event in his life… or should he say accident? Which word should he use? After each event – accident – another hole had appeared in his skin. His holes were interconnected, like the wells of Annwfn. Seven blemishes, which looked like fake wounds painted on a volunteer in a mock disaster staged by the emergency services. Every so often his blemishes sprung a leak and water came out of him everywhere. As if by magic. He was about to have such an occurrence now. He could barely move. Why was water so heavy? If he looked into the palm of his left hand he could see the water, moving around and glimmering under the red plastic of his skin. There were another six sites on his body: looking through them was like peering through a sheet of ice on a pond, looking at the water below: if he looked through the damaged surface of his skin, if he peeked through the old burn-marks, he could see a body of cool red water pressing up, trying to break through the surface. The Rainbow Messengers would understand everything: maybe they’d hug him, one by one, and laugh a bit and say never mind, everything’s going to be all right now…

  He would thank them all for their help. Together they would watch the afternoon fade, and he would prepare to scatter his father’s ashes in Annwfn. The old bastard couldn’t get up to any more mischief down here…he would come back to life again, as usual, but maybe they’d put him in a work party and he’d have to spend the rest of his life winding the well-buckets up and down, supplying Annwfn with a constant flow of fresh water. They would give Duxie a tiny bit of his father, perhaps, a bit of bone from his right hand, the slapping hand, and he could put it inside his telescope as a memento. Duxie and Olly and the seven Rainbow Messengers would sit on a little knoll and they would admire the beauty of the landscape. All those flowers, all that grass! It would be very beautiful down there in Annwfn. No cars, no rainbow vans, no satellites, no mechanical noises at all. The air would be busy with wings. Nature would be fresh and resplendent; they would have to shield their eyes.]

  So his hand was badly disfigured. Burnt probably, or scalded.

  Yes, that’s what I thought too.

  Did you get a close look at it?

  Didn’t want to, really. Anyway, I didn’t get a chance to.

  He put his glove back on?

  No – he put his hand into the snow. Quite quickly – I hardly saw him do it.

  And…?

  He gave a sort of muffled scream. A cry of pain, but he tried to keep it in.

  It hurt him?

  A lot, I think. Then it occurred to me that he’d never felt anything in that hand before, that’s what he’d told me.

  Except for the feeling he’d got through the water-divining rods.

  Yes, he’d felt some sort of sensation at that time, but his hand had been numb still. Now, in the snow – when he pu
t his hand in the snow he felt real pain.

  Was this a surprise to him?

  No, I don’t think it was. He knew exactly what he was doing.

  So he could only feel pain when he put his hand in the snow?

  In extreme temperatures, perhaps. I think he would have felt pain if he’d put it in a fire or in boiling water too.

  What happened next?

  He held it in the snow for quite a while. A few minutes – it felt like a long time.

  Did he show any pain?

  Yes. He started to cry.

  [He would cry. Tears were fallen stars, weren’t they? He would ask Olly to look through his telescope – from both ends. Look, he’d say, Mr Cassini’s the same size whichever way you look at him now – from the past end of the telescope or the future end, he’s the same size as a fly…]

  He cried, at last?

  Yes. He cried and cried. For ages. It felt like days. I was transfixed by it, couldn’t move. There was water coming out of him everywhere. It seemed to be coming out of his clothes, from all over his body. I’ve never seen anything like it. Even the lake waters seemed to rise, he cried so much.

  Did he say anything?

  No, nothing at all. He just wept, as if he had never cried before – as if he’d been storing it up for years. He cried like a little boy. I held him for a while. I tried to console him. We’d got rid of the satellite, I said. He could choose his own future now. He was in control. His ghosts had been laid to rest. He could be at peace.

  What was his reaction?

  He said Yes Olly, but he was miles away. It all meant nothing, really. I’d thought – hoped – that the whole thing was sorted.

  [It would feel as if he had millions of gallons in there, a bottomless aquifer. How could one small human contain so much water? It was as if he were trying to recreate a primitive ocean so that he could return to it – as if he were trying to return to an amoebic state, amniotic and protective. Finally, all the holes in his skin would seal up; he would be empty again, completely drained of water. He would feel very light, as if he were on the moon. He would look back over seven days and he would take one last look at the words he had expended, littering the ground like snowflakes. When all was said and done, words were snowflakes. They came and they covered the ground, and everything seemed magical for a while, and then they became slush, melting in dirty meltpools. And the land would be back again…