The Realities of Aldous U

by Michael Lawrence

  Day Six / 6

  When Withern Rise was built in the first half of the 1880s the kitchen was intended solely for the use of the cook, the housekeeper, and a general skivvy called Rosie, all of whom entered by a separate door from the garden. This door was also used by Bernard, the gardener and handyman, ever-partial to a spot of slap and tickle with Cook. There’d been no servants at Withern for over seventy years, the garden door to the kitchen had been filled in during the 1940s, and these days, at Naia’s version of the house at least, the cook, housekeeper, skivvy and gardener (and more often than not the handyman) took the single form of Alex Underwood. Alex’s kitchen had recently been fitted with new cupboards built by a local cabinet maker, and the old range had been replaced by a large gas cooker. Alex cooked because she enjoyed it much of the time, and she was quite enjoying it this morning while wondering why Naia continually drifted in and out and stared at her. How could she even dream that her daughter had been given an insight into an alternative family life which did not include her?

  ‘Have I grown a second head overnight?’ she asked. ‘Can’t seem to take your eyes off me today.’

  ‘Flour on your nose,’ Naia said, and left.

  She drifted upstairs. About to enter her room, she noticed that the box room door was slightly ajar. When she was small she used to push back this door with a quickening pulse. To her then, this small room was a place of shadow and mystery. The mysteries were contained in the accretion of boxes, old trunks, cases and bags that virtually filled it. She used occasionally to open or dip in to these, and be fascinated by many of the things she found – medals from wars she knew nothing about, gas masks that smelt of age and rubber, rusty camping equipment, and a lot of ancient family stuff her parents had no use for but lacked the heart to chuck.

  Entering the box room today she thought that nothing much had changed since she last looked six months ago, and was about to close the door on it when the suitcase caught her eye. She’d seen it before: her mother had hauled it out of the attic a while back and gone through it looking for old documents, letters and suchlike, hoping to find more names and dates for the Underwood family tree she was compiling. Naia laid the old brown case down and flipped the catches. She raised the lid and a bygone fusion of camphor, sandalwood and lavender wafted out, plus the tiniest whiff of those small multi-colored sweets that her great-grandmother had called cashews and carried at all times in her handbag.

  The contents of the suitcase were much as expected: small sepia and black-and-white photos, a stamp album, a wooden whistle with a pea in it (she tried it; it still worked), and papers of various kinds. There was also a very old magazine, The County Journal, from which, when she flipped it open, a slim cutting of discolored newspaper – an obituary – fluttered. She opened the magazine at the article the cutting had marked and found a folded drawing there. She studied the obituary, the article, and the drawing.

  THE STONE GAZETTE

  June 27th, 1905

  OBITUARY

  The death has been announced of Aldous Lyman Underwood, former bishop of Eynesford and Stone. Mr. Underwood was still respectfully referred to as The Bishop by former parishioners at the time of his death, even though his last nine years were passed in retirement. He is survived by his wife Elvira and their son Eldon. The Bishop is to be interred in the garden of his home, Withern Rise, beside the Great Ouse. Mrs. Underwood has announced her intention of planting an oak sapling over the body of her husband, in commemoration of his life and good works.

  The article in The County Journal contained two photos, one of Bishop Aldous, haughty and unsmiling but with the hint of a twinkle in his eye, the other of Withern Rise, barely twenty years old, rather grand-looking.

  THE COUNTY JOURNAL

  August 1922

  PHILANDERING BISHOP

  BURIED IN “GROUNDS”

  Characters from our county’s past

  Number 14

  Aldous Underwood, Bishop of Stone and Eynesford, had a reputation as a “ladies man” – a well-deserved one if the stories are to be believed. For Bishop Underwood is said to have bedded a fair proportion of the comeliest women of his diocese, unmarried or married, and sired several children who at baptism received surnames other than his.

  According to press reports of the time, the Bishop (as he was known until his death in 1905) orchestrated his own fall from grace by making advances to one Joan Longridge while her husband, a wealthy grain merchant, was away on business. When Mr. Frank Longridge discovered that he had been cuckolded in his absence, and by a churchman for whom he had small regard at the best of times, he went to the Bishop’s Palace with the intention of horsewhipping him round the grounds. Fortunately for the Bishop servants came to his rescue, but Mr. Longridge wasn’t to be so easily thwarted. He reported the transgressor to his Archbishop, who, himself having little fondness for the flamboyant Underwood, was pleased to suspend him pending investigation. Investigation proved unnecessary, however, for by this time others in the community had come out against the Bishop, and he resigned his office rather than have his entire catalogue of misdemeanors exposed to public scrutiny.

  Some years previously, in the early eighteen eighties, the Bishop had acquired a substantial swathe of willowland on a tranquil bank of the Great Ouse by Eynesford village, cleared most of the ground, and built a fine house for himself, his wife and his only legitimately-begotten son. He called the house Withern, which is believed to be Old English for “house in a willow wood”, but two years after the building’s completion the river rose dramatically and flooded the garden and the ground floor of the house, whereupon he renamed it Withern Rise. The Bishop appears to have been too attached to his home to abandon it in his disgrace, and it was here that he spent his final years. It can’t have been an altogether easy retirement, for his erstwhile flock, freed of the obligation to show him respect, mockingly referred to his much-reduced diocese – his own property – as The Underwood See.

  Upon his death at the age of 69, Underwood’s wife Elvira (having turned a surprisingly blind eye to his adulteries) had him interred in the grounds of his beloved house. She planted a young oak tree over him, which she called Aldous’s Oak. The Bishop’s son Eldon, a widower, lives at Withern Rise to this day, with his own son (another was killed in the Great War) and two daughters. When asked about his father’s reputation Mr. Underwood said, “I’d rather not dredge all that up again, if you don’t mind.”

  But he smiled fondly as he said it.

  The pen-and-ink drawing that accompanied the obituary and the article was signed ‘Elvira’. It was a map of sorts, shaded and embellished by someone with artistic pretensions but little ability, showing the spot in the south garden where she had laid her husband to rest and planted the oak sapling. This sapling, Naia realized, was now the oak that today was known as the Family Tree.

  Day Six / 7

  It was Liney’s idea. ‘Let’s walk along the river. I’ve never been here when everything’s been under snow before.’ He immediately thought of half a dozen things he’d rather be doing, and people he’d rather be doing them with, but found excuses elusive, and before he knew it he was putting his coat and boots on alongside her at the hallstand. He just hoped none of his mates saw him. Walkies with aunty? He’d never live it down. In hope of avoiding this horror of horrors, he suggested that they go to Withy Meadows. It was so open there that if anyone he knew strayed that way he stood a chance of spotting them before they got too close and making a break for it.

  It was snowing harder than ever when they set out. Liney wore floral Wellingtons, a cerise headscarf and big blue mittens. While her embarrassed nephew kept his head down, well inside the hood of his parka, she reveled in the snow powdering her nose and cheeks, and even sang – badly, of course – as they trudged out of the gate at the end of the drive and along the path to the longbow-shaped pedestrian bridge. Reaching the bridge, Liney stalked up its long easy slope like an ungainly three year old. At the half way poin
t she stopped, planted her elbows on the snow-thickened rail, and gazed back toward the house, the only dwelling to be seen from there before the river curved behind the trees and bushes of the white western bank.

  ‘Isn’t it gorgeous?’ she said as Alaric caught up with her. ‘Isn’t it blooming bloody marvelous?’

  He grunted and plodded down the farther slope.

  Withy Meadows, the vast landscaped area on the other side of the bridge, was punctuated by numerous reedy channels and ponds dotted with small tousled islands populated by wildlife of various kinds and species. There were also a number of walkways, so laid out that there was little risk of bumping into anyone else if that was your wish. Alaric had been a more frequent visitor to the Meadows these past two years than at any time before his mother’s death. On solitary walks, his extended grief had occasionally found a degree of solace there, his imagination had drifted, he’d forgotten to scowl and slouch and feel sorry for himself; but then he would snap back to the reality he knew all too well and chastise himself for forgetting how crap life had become. Today he wanted to be alone for a different reason. He had a lot to think about, and he couldn’t begin to –

  A thump between the shoulder blades.

  ‘Gotcha!’

  He span round. Liney squatted at the foot of the bridge packing snow with her enormous mittens.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he said.

  ‘What do you think? Prepare to die, youth!’

  Her arm rose. He backed away, hands stretched before him – ‘Whoa! No!’ – but a second missile hurtled toward him. He ducked just in time, protesting that he didn’t want to play with snowballs.

  ‘Tough titty,’ Liney said, packing more snow.

  Snowball number three lacked the accuracy of the first two, but it certainly connected. He buckled. A snowball in the balls.

  ‘Oops!’ Liney said. ‘Sorry. Will they survive?’

  ‘Listen…’ he said feebly, straightening up.

  ‘This is not the time for idle chatter,’ Liney said, shaping another mittenful.

  He glanced around. They were alone in that boundless Arctic waste. Snowball number four whizzed past his ear.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘You asked for it.’

  He stooped, impacted snow into a hard ball, and stomped toward her while perfecting it. Liney looked up. ‘Hang on, not ready,’ she said. ‘Nor was I,’ he replied, lobbing the snowball. It glanced off her arm, but Liney, an inveterate over-reactor, shrieked as if he’d thrown a bucket of icy water over her. Then she said: ‘So!’

  And that was it. All hell broke loose.

  Day Six / 8

  Naia had made up her mind. She would go to Alaric’s. There were things they needed to discuss. Important things. But she also wanted to let him know that she understood what it must be like for him without his mother. She couldn’t just phone to say she was on her way, though, or go over there and ring the doorbell like the might another acquaintance or friend. No, there was only one way to reach him. If it worked both ways. She stood before the Folly, wondering what you had to do. What had he done? The one time she’d witnessed his departure, his hands had been around the dome, but there must be more to it than that. Had to be. She placed both palms on the glass anyway, closed her eyes, and waited. She gave it almost a minute before squinting around. Nothing had changed. She closed the squinting eye again and said, ‘Take me there, take me there,’ over and over again.

  Nothing continued to happen.

  After more attempts and more failures she began to get annoyed. Why wouldn’t it work? He’d made it work, so why couldn’t she? She wasn’t doing this entirely for herself, after all. Part of her mission was to show sympathy for another. That was a good thing, wasn’t it? A considerate act? Her hands were still spread around the dome when she said, with some passion: ‘I have to see him!’

  The tingle in her palms startled her, but she managed to leave them in place, imagining that Alaric had experienced just such a sensation when visiting and leaving her. She was on the verge of feeling rather pleased that something was happening after all when a pain like no pain she’d ever known leapt up her arms and exploded in her chest. She sagged but managed to maintain her grip on the dome, though the agony closed her eyes for her so that she missed the changes taking place. She also failed to feel the first icy pellets of snow on her skin. Only when the pain began to ease did she notice the drop in temperature, open her eyes, and see that she was in the garden, under the oak. There was no sign of the Folly.

  She stared about her, breathing raggedly as the last of the pain subsided. The garden? Twice Alaric had visited her and he’d said nothing about stopping off here on the way – or, come to that, the terrible agony. She might have guessed the garden part from the snow on his slippers, but she hadn’t. Amazingly, she hadn’t. A thought occurred. She imagined this was her garden, but if his house was identical to hers, his garden must be too. Hadn’t he said that he’d known the view from her window all his life? Well then. What if this wasn’t her garden, but his – and his Withern Rise across the lawn? But if all this belonged to Alaric’s family rather than hers there would have to be some differences. They might be very minor ones, but she should be able to pick them out. She was right. Once suspected, the differences simply flew at her: the painted doors, the rubbish in the porch, the state of the grounds. Her mother had recently acquired a part-time gardener, Mr. Knight, after he rang the doorbell one day last month and offered his services. Between them, Mr. Knight and Mum had tidied the most unruly parts of the garden. No part of the garden in which Naia stood had been tidied. The thickening blanket of snow that covered so much could not conceal the fact that it hadn’t received the slightest attention for several seasons.

  But even if she had failed to spot some of the differences, there was one she could not have missed. The ivy that scrambled across the walls of her house was kept in reasonable order. Her mother usually let it go a bit in the autumn – ‘Little treat for it,’ she would say – but cut it back in late November. The ivy on the walls before her bulged around the drainpipes, plumped the window ledges, hung from the guttering in thick green and white drapes. She saw, too, that one of the chimneys was slightly twisted. They’d had a chimney like that until last summer when her parents had called in a builder to take a look at it. The builder had pronounced it unsafe and rebuilt it. He had also advised them to have the slates checked because a few were loose, and he’d seen to them as well. No builder had worked on a chimney here, or the snow-covered roof, probably.

  All this she saw from the shelter of the Family Tree – Alaric’s Family Tree, the enormous span and spread of whose leafless boughs afforded little protection from the cold. She wrapped her arms about her and wondered how to get into the house. How had Alaric got into hers? He’d done it twice, so it couldn’t be that hard. Annoyed with herself for not being able to guess how to accomplish this, she sprinted across the open lawn to the front door. On the step beside the tower of boxes and bulging plastic bags, she bent down, lifted the brass letter flap, and shouted through. ‘Hello? Hello!’ No reply. She tried again. ‘Hi in there, it’s me, Naia! Let me in, it’s freezing out here!’

  She listened. Nothing. No sound, no movement, no hint of life. She thumbed the old brass bellpush – the same bellpush that they had on their front door, though this one was dull, unpolished. The familiar, slightly discordant arrangement of notes echoed through the interior, in vain. Well, that was it. He wasn’t in. She turned from the door, wondering what to do now, and noticed that apart from her own footprints there were three other pairs heading away from the porch, and one approaching. The approaching pair and one of the departing pairs probably belonged to the milkman or the postman, but she could only account for one of the other departers, whom she assumed to be Alaric. There was no telling when he’d be back, so shouldn’t she find somewhere to shelter till then? All right, but where? The most sheltered place she could think of was the porch on the river side of the house, b
ut if she tucked herself in there she wouldn’t see or hear him return. The garage then? At home, when the car was out, the garage doors were often left unlocked. Maybe here too. She leant out to look toward the garage and accidentally jogged the teetering tower of boxes. The tower swayed. The top box toppled. It contained nothing of substance but she jumped when it hit her and lashed out, inadvertently jogging the rest so that the pile collapsed about her. Then some of the bags toppled. The porch was even more of a mess now. But she didn’t care. It wasn’t her porch. The only thing she was sorry about was that among all the boxes there wasn’t one big enough to crawl into.

  Shivering badly and too despondent to go and check out the garage, she set her back against the door and slithered down to squat on the step, drawing her knees into her chest, enclosing them with her arms. The tumbling snow slanted into the porch, clung to the boxes, the bags, her, and time began to pass. She envisaged the scene. When Alaric returned he would find this big white lump surrounded by rubbish. Clearing away the snow he would discover her, frozen solid, blue-skinned, eyes staring sightlessly. He would have to report her death, but wouldn’t be able to say that he knew her, and she would be such a pathetic pinch-faced object that the likeness they shared would almost certainly go unnoticed. She would be disposed of as an unknown person, a stray asylum seeker or something, in an unmarked grave or anonymous urn. But even that wasn’t the worst of it. Back home, around teatime, her mother would start to worry. She would call the police. There would be a nationwide search for her, bad school photos would be shown on the news, but she wouldn’t be found and her parents would spend the rest of their lives shuffling about in sorrow, certain their darling daughter had been abducted, raped, strangled, dumped in some quarry, ditch or swamp. And to cap it all her nose was running. She wiped it on her sleeve, turned to the tatty front door, and beseeched it with all her heart to let her in, let her in, let her in!