by Jo Mazelis
I rubbed my hair and found that the rain had brought out both the natural wave and a new glossy sheen. If I had ever wished for such a transformation or attempted one I never, in my wildest dreams, could have imagined the creature who now stood before me. I was (and perhaps it was the dim but electrified light that crept through the shutters, the antique glass in the mirror, the curious and transformative strangeness of the day’s events) quite beautiful.
I gathered my wet things from the floor and went back into the room where the stove was. There was no sign of either Thomas or the old woman, so I busied myself by hanging my clothes on the rack, then when that was done I began to look with interest at the room itself and all it contained. Like many of the houses near the chateau this one was of a great age and the room was low ceilinged with roughly hewn smoke-darkened beams that here and there showed the wooden pegs used to drive them together and the marks of the tools that had made them. A great cauldron hung on a chain near the fire and the rafters were here and there festooned with bunches of drying herbs: bay and rosemary and lavender. In one corner a brownish side of bacon hung from a sharp hook and nearby some other object, black and crusted with age, also hung, though whether it was a truffle or dead mouse I could not tell. I only hoped that we would not be invited to eat it.
On the table next to my camera, there was a cracked earthenware bowl containing three hens’ eggs. Beside it on a newspaper were six yellow tomatoes and a small cucumber with a skin as warty as a toad’s. Then there was a bread board, a long knife with a striated bone handle and the heel of a baguette.
The floor was tiled in deep red and dipped in shallow troughs where many generations of feet had worn it down.
It seemed that time had stood still in this house for three perhaps four centuries. I looked ruefully at my camera and willed it not to be broken, then as there was still no sign of either Thomas or the old woman, I drew up one of the chairs, sat at the table and took the camera out of its case. I tried the lever to advance the film once more but it would not budge, then rather regretting the waste of unexposed film I pressed the button under the camera which released the locking mechanism and began to rewind the film onto the spool in the canister. If I was quick I could reload more film and get a few shots of this unique interior and, if I was allowed, a number of pictures of our ancient host too.
As a rule once the button is pressed the film winds easily and quickly back into the metal casing, but as I turned the knob I met with more and more resistance until I found I could not move it in either direction at all. Opening the back of the camera would mean ruining some or all of the frames I had taken that day. So unless I could find a darkroom, I would be without the camera for the rest of the trip. If it hadn’t been for the frames I had taken of the chateau with the storm clouds behind and the circling crows and that last one when Thomas had stepped into the frame, I would have sacrificed the one roll of film for the sake of the many I planned to take.
I was agonising over my dilemma when I heard a step and then another on the stair. Slowly and irregularly at first, then they seemed to gather pace and gained the steady rhythm of one step after another, each the perfect echo of the one before and far too spritely, I thought, for either the old woman or Thomas.
The rain had begun to lose its intensity and now it stopped abruptly, making me as acutely aware of the swelling silence as if my ears had popped.
‘Dodo?’
I turned and there was Thomas dressed more or less in the sort of clothes he usually wore, a white shirt, dark trousers, a jacket, but there was something distinctly different about them. The trousers were fuller and had pleats and turn ups, the jacket was far broader and also padded in the shoulder exaggerating his masculine form. His hair like mine seemed altered; it was combed back from the brow and shone as if he had dressed it with hair oil. But strangest of all was that he was standing up straight with his weight evenly distributed on both legs. He still held his cane but in such a way that it seemed a mere affectation, an accessory with no function besides its elegant silver tip and ivory handle.
‘Where’s the old dear?’
I shrugged.
‘And what are you wearing? You look like a…’
I never discovered what I looked like to him at that moment, as the woman suddenly reappeared from the back room carrying a tray.
She fussed silently with three deep bowls, each of them cracked and stained, putting them on the table and laying beside them mismatched soup spoons. From the oven she brought a small crock pot. It was glazed white and crudely painted in blue with rustic scenes that by the costumes of the shepherd and his maid must have been 18th century.
She beckoned us to the table and we sat, catching each other’s eye as if to see if it was okay, if we should obey our host and eat with her. Thomas would have been all too aware of my American scruples in regard to hygiene. I tried to avoid looking too closely at the many chips and fissures in the crockery and did not let my mind dwell on the centuries of grime and fragments of food and germs they must contain.
She lifted the lid from the pot and inside we saw a thin yellowish broth, the steam carried to our nostrils a sweet garlicky smell. With a ladle she filled each of our bowls in turn. Thin strands of vermicelli slopped like white worms into the bowls and tiny green flecks floated on the oily surface.
‘Bon appetite!’ cried Thomas, all false conviviality, then he raised his spoon to his open mouth, clacking the metal against his teeth. The old woman picked up her bowl in both hands and held it by her gnarled fingertips as a diamond is held by the ring’s claws.
‘Goddamnit,’ I thought, narrowing my eyes at my husband. ‘I’ll show you,’ and I picked up my bowl, turning it in my fingers so that my lips should not come into direct contact with any of the cracks and I drank. Oh yes, I drank noisily and heartily and the old woman nodded at me in encouragement and ladled more soup into my bowl. I tipped my head back and let the fine threads of pasta slither into my mouth.
You can keep your Nathan’s Hot Dogs. Your New York Strip, your Southern Chowder, I thought, I will eat only this. In this simple kitchen. Cooked by Mama.
I looked up and saw that Thomas was staring at me. He had stopped eating and laid aside his spoon. Defiantly I drank the last dregs, put down my bowl and, aware that a film of grease coated my mouth and chin, I drew the back of my hand over it, wiping it clean.
The light in the room suddenly changed, a warm golden glow spreading from the windows and across the floor, making the old woman’s face lose its dull grey pallor. Her cheeks seemed fuller, pinker and though still lined by age, she seemed to shed many weary years. She smiled indulgently at me and I melted under her benevolent gaze, held fixedly in her twinkling grey-blue eyes.
Thomas stood up abruptly and began removing his clothes from the drying rack. His cane, I noticed, was abandoned, hooked over the back of his chair. I wondered why he had ever bothered with it; his injured leg had healed long ago.
‘They’re just about dry,’ he said. ‘And the sun’s come out!’
He made two roughly folded piles of clothing and brought mine to me at the table. I shook my head and barely glanced at them. Angrily he put them on the table, the plain white cotton undergarments uppermost. They were like something a child would wear and I was no longer a child.
‘Dodo,’ he said. ‘It’s time we left!’
I looked up at him; he’d run his hand through his hair so that it no longer lay flat and glossy but fell in a short dry-looking fringe over his forehead. He looks like a foreigner, I thought, like one of those tommy boys from England or worse, those doughboy Yanks.
He rolled his eyes then gathered up his clothes and stomped up the stairs. I listened to the creak of the floorboards overhead, the sounds were interspersed with other noises, the regular tick, tick, tick of the mantle clock, the muted crack and whispered collapse of the coals shifting in the fire.
I sighed and smiled happily at Mama. It was good to be home. She went to the cupbo
ard in the wall by the stove and brought out two small glasses and the bottle of eaux-de-vie. She filled the glasses to the brim and we each dipped our heads to take the first sip before the drink was lifted to the lips.
I gave a little shudder at the first swallow as I had always done as a young girl. I closed my eyes and sat back in the chair, running my tongue over my lips savouring the fiery sweetness of the digestif. It was pleasantly warm in the room and peaceful. I dozed off for a couple of minutes, no more, and dreamt that I was a bird. I didn’t know what sort of bird I was, but I was soaring on a thermal with my wings outstretched, my feathers stirring and fluttering in the wind. I seemed to have no weight, it was effortless and it was happiness such as I had never known before.
I did not ever wish to leave that dream, but a hand was shaking me awake and there was Thomas, dressed in his own clothes again.
The old woman had moved to an armchair by the fire where she slept, her mouth hanging open slightly, her chin sagging on her chest.
Thomas led me to the door, tugging gently at my hand as I gazed at the old woman and hung back like a recalcitrant child. Then we were outside on the street once more and Thomas slammed the door behind us decisively.
‘You look ridiculous, you know,’ he said in a hiss. ‘Here are your things.’ He pushed a brown paper parcel into my arms. ‘It goes without saying that you have shocked me. How could you drink that dishwater she served us? I thought you’d have the good sense to pretend like I did. And as for that liquor! My god, you’re quite drunk, aren’t you?’
He set off up the steep hill towards the entrance to the chateau. He was carrying his cane tucked under one arm and striding ahead. I ran a few paces to catch up with him, but my head was reeling, and the shoes I wore might have done justice to walking, but running uphill half drunk in the blazing heat and light of mid-afternoon?
A small truck came rattling round the bend and I saw the driver’s eye follow me, turning his head to pucker his lips as he let out a shrill whistle of approval.
Thomas had rounded the bend and by the time I caught up he was entering the carved archway that led into the chateau. I followed and found myself at the foot of a broad spiral staircase. I paused a moment listening to distant echoing steps going up, further and further away from me. I must have gone up forty or so steps, when I stopped, opened the package, retrieved my walking shoes and slipped them on. My head was clearing; I felt energised and so I began to move faster. The dress brushed against my legs and the rubber-soled shoes gave grace and accuracy to my fast-moving feet. Up and up I went, stopping once to gaze out of a narrow window down at the cobbled courtyard far below, where other visitors milled about in pairs and groups. One man stood just below me, a camera aimed upwards, obscuring his face. Where was my camera? Thomas had dragged me away so suddenly I had not even thought of it. I threw myself at the stairs again, running, taking two, then three steps at a time. Surely he would have picked the camera up for me. It had been there on the table near his elbow. He knew what it meant to me!
I reached the top of the stairs. They ended in a circular well in which there was only one door. A wooden door that was banded with black iron and scarred all over from bottom to top with carved signatures, many of which were dated. I saw the year 1668 swing away from my gaze as I pushed the door open. A clear fresh wind hit me, tossing my hair and rippling through my dress. Ahead of me was a narrow walkway that led from one tower to the next. On one side was a crenellated wall, on the other side nothing but a sheer drop. Thomas stood halfway, he had the camera in his hands and was leaning forward slightly from the waist aiming the lens at the courtyard. I watched him for a moment with relief, thankful that he had remembered the camera. Then I realised that any shots he took would ruin my pictures by producing double exposures.
‘Thomas!’ I called. ‘Don’t!’
He turned sharply at the sound of my voice and his walking stick, which he had tucked under his arm, clattered onto the walkway, then half rolled, half bounced off the path. He lunged sideways, his hand clawing helplessly for the cane, then his injured leg buckled and, both arms flailing, he pitched forward over the edge.
There was nothing slow or magnificent about his descent, it was nothing like flying. When he landed there was a noise that I will never forget. A woman screamed, but it seemed very far away. I don’t think it was me.
I stood there blinking for a moment, hardly believing what had happened. I could not take it in. I stared at the place where he had stood as if willing what I saw to develop fully just as I watched images appear in the developing fluid in the darkroom. Then my eyes went to the ground where his feet had been. There was my camera, the case half open, the neck strap making a looped whorl. It had landed on its back, the delicate glass lens uppermost. Unbroken.
MRS DUNDRIDGE
Mrs Dundridge was extravagant with boiling water. She bathed every day.
Her neighbours often commented on it. They saw her from their windows lugging the heavy tin bath up the steps to her back garden and tipping the milky water onto the lawn. The water from their own tin baths was grey, almost black sometimes.
And the things she hung on her washing line? Scraps of flesh-coloured satin, pale blue chemises, white leg-shaped stockings kicking about like girls in a burlesque show. She’d catch her death dressing like that. Where were the sensible white lisle vests, the fleecy liberty bodices, the voluminous bloomers, the knitted wool stockings?
She’d not got an ounce of spare flesh on her either, and that couldn’t be good.
The neighbours all knew her story, how her young husband, a miner, had joined the Royal Engineers at the first call. He was one of those who marched away cheerfully while the brass band played.
Mind you, he’d been at that pit that had a fall in 1920, so chances were he’d be done for either way. Though if he’d stayed perhaps he’d have given her some babies, then she wouldn’t be so alone, would she?
Ah, poor thing.
She was universally pitied for the tragedy of her life, as much as she was scorned. She lacked good sense.
You’d think she’d go back to her people. Someone said she had a sister in England. Bristol wasn’t it? A place called Coalpit Heath. Must have been mines there too. But not such a limitless coal stream as the one hidden under the hills and valleys of South Wales. Black gold.
Poor dab. Some people say she’s waiting for him to come back, that’s why she won’t leave.
Mr Clements paid her court. Think of that. With all his money and that nice house on the hill. Everyone knows Mr Clements as he does his rounds once a week collecting money for the funeral plan. In the window of his shop he’s got a clock and a little sign that says ‘It’s never too soon’. The clock keeps good time though, but you can barely look at it without remembering that death is waiting for each of us. Well, not everyone would want to marry an undertaker. Not her, anyway, not for all the tea in China.
Hardly anyone’s been in that house of hers. She keeps you on the doorstep. Locks her doors, back and front, even when she’s at home.
Oh, she must get lonely, though.
Mrs Davies the dressmaker knew her best. But Mrs Dundridge always went to her, not the other way round. Always paid up front. Never a quibble about the price. Took Mrs Davies pictures torn from fancy magazines, said, ‘I’d like this one made up in violet crepe, but with three-quarter sleeves and no bow at the front.’
But Mrs Dundridge was good to her. Mrs Davies’ husband was gone too. Lost at sea with the merchant navy. And her with six boys and no war pension. As soon as the eldest, Gerald, could, Mrs Dundridge had given him little jobs around the house; you’d see him carrying sacks of spuds, or up a ladder fishing leaves out of the guttering. Good as gold that boy was. And handsome!
Oh you’d think he was Valentino. And clever too, went to the Grammar School. Could have gone to University, but wouldn’t leave his mother. Works in the bank now. Oh you should see his hands, lovely they are, clean nails and everything.
If it hadn’t been for Mrs Dundridge and her fancy Paris fashions that boy would’ve gone down the pit. Or off to sea like his father.
But there was something odd about her though. Something not right.
Poor dab.
Mrs Dundridge put the big pan of water on the copper and while she waited for it to boil, she turned the pages of her Ladies Home Journal. There was an article about the joys of modern indoor plumbing, accompanied by photos of a gleaming white bath with hot and cold taps, and crisp black and white checkerboard tiles on the walls, and marble-effect lino on the floor. The height of luxury. But the article, when it got down to the nitty gritty, was full of assumptions about the reader; namely that the lady of the house lived in London – or its sprawling suburbs at the very least. At the end of the article the lady was furnished with details of recommended suppliers; Harrods was listed first, then others in Fulham, Ealing, Hampstead, Windsor, Hove, Reading, Guildford, Chelsea and so on. The only one mentioned outside the closed circle of the Home Counties was in Edinburgh.
A proper indoor bathroom would be nice. There’s no harm in dreaming. But it was warm by the fire in the back parlour, and she’s careful about splashes, and put the oilskin cloth under the bath before she filled it. Why, she even had music to listen to while she soaked, timing her baths to coincide with the broadcast from the Wigmore Hall on the BBC. Three drops of lavender oil to soften and scent the water, a towel warming on the fireguard. She luxuriated. It couldn’t be such a sin, could it? Cleanliness was next to Godliness after all. Mrs Dundridge had her own ideas about God, too.
She believed in God, but not a vengeful god. Her God, were He to look inside her heart, would see that there was not a shred of anything bad within. Nothing evil anyway. But other people would see her differently. Especially if they knew about Gerald Davies.
The pan was boiling, so she extinguished the flame under the copper, and using a cloth to grip the hot handle and another to heft and steady the base of the pot, she carefully poured the water into the tin bath and added the lavender oil. Moist scented air filled the room pleasantly. She had already pulled the curtains shut. They only looked out onto a path by the side of the house and the neighbour’s high brick wall, but one had to be careful.