The first entry finished here, so next I turned to page 186, to the entry entitled: The disappearance of Maurizio Giussani.
In the summer of 1987 Laurence Arne-Sayles rented a farmhouse called the Casale del Pino, twenty kilometres from Perugia. His most favoured students (the inner circle) went with him: Ovenden, Bannerman, Hughes, Ketterley and D’Agostino.
Tensions had begun to appear within the group. Arne-Sayles had become highly sensitive to any remark or question that showed the speaker was insufficiently committed to his ‘great experiment’. Anyone who dared to question him was subjected to a savage raking-over of all their failings, personal and academic. Consequently most of the group maintained a diplomatic silence, but Stanley Ovenden, who had a sort of tone-deafness when it came to other people’s personalities, continued to express doubts about what they were doing. When Tali Hughes defended Ovenden to Arne-Sayles she also came in for a generous share of his spleen. The atmosphere at Casale del Pino became increasingly tense and, as a result, Ovenden and Hughes began spending more and more time away from the others. They became friendly with a young man, Maurizio Giussani, a philosophy student at the University of Perugia. This new friendship seems to have seriously alarmed Arne-Sayles.
On the evening of 26 July, Arne-Sayles invited Giussani and his fiancée, Elena Marietti, to a dinner party at Casale del Pino. During dinner Arne-Sayles talked about the other world (a place where architecture and oceans were muddled together) and how it was possible to get there. Elena Marietti thought that Arne-Sayles was talking metaphorically or else that he was describing some sort of Huxleyan psychedelic experience.
Marietti had to work the following day. (Like Giussani she was a postgrad student, but during the summer she worked as a paralegal in her father’s law firm in Perugia.) At about 11 o’clock she said goodnight and got into her car and drove home and went to bed. The others were still talking. The English party had promised that one of them would drive Giussani home.
Maurizio Giussani was never seen again. Arne-Sayles claimed that he had gone to bed shortly after Marietti left and knew nothing about what had happened. The others (Ovenden, Bannerman, Hughes, Ketterley, D’Agostino) said that Giussani had refused the offer of a lift and that he had begun to walk home a little after midnight. (The night was moonlit and warm; Giussani lived about 3 kilometres away.)
Ten years later when Arne-Sayles was convicted of kidnapping another young man, the Italian police reopened the case of the missing Giussani, however …
I stopped reading and stood up, breathing hard. I had a strong urge to fling the Journal away from me. The words on the page – (in my own writing!) – looked like words, but at the same time I knew they were meaningless. It was nonsense, gibberish! What meaning could words such as ‘Birmingham’ and ‘Perugia’ possibly have? None. There is nothing in the World that corresponds to them.
The Other was right after all. I had forgotten many things! Worse still, at the very point at which the Other has declared he will kill me if I become mad, I have discovered that I am mad already! Or, if not mad now, then certainly I have been mad in the past. I was mad when I wrote those entries!
I did not fling the Journal away. I dropped it on the Pavement and walked away. I wanted to put some physical distance between Myself and these evidences of my madness. The nonsense words – Perugia, Nottingham, university – echoed in my mind. I felt a great pressure there as if a whole host of half-formed ideas were about to break through into my consciousness, bringing with them more madness or else understanding.
I walked rapidly through several Halls, not knowing or caring where I went. Suddenly I saw in front of me the Statue of the Faun, the Statue that I love above all others. There was his calm, faintly smiling face; there was his forefinger gently pressed to his lips. In the past I have always thought he meant to warn me of something with that gesture: Be careful! But today it seemed to mean something quite different: Hush! Be comforted! I climbed up on to his Plinth and flung Myself into his Arms, wrapping my arm around his Neck, intertwining my fingers with his Fingers. Safe in his embrace, I wept for my lost Sanity. Great, heaving sobs rose up, almost painfully, from my chest.
Hush! he told me. Be comforted!
I resolve to take better care of Myself
entry for the ninth day of the eighth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls
I left the Embrace of the Faun and wandered miserably through the House. I believed that I was mad – or that I had been mad – or else that I was becoming mad now. Whichever way it was, it was a terrifying prospect.
After a while I decided that this way of going on did no good at all.
I forced Myself to return to the Third Northern Hall where I ate a little fish and drank some water. Then I revisited all my favourite Statues: the Gorilla, the Young Boy playing the Cymbals, the Woman carrying a Beehive, the Elephant carrying a Castle, the Faun, the Two Kings playing Chess. Their Beauty soothed me and took me out of Myself; their noble expressions reminded me of all that is good in the World.
This morning I am able to reflect more calmly on what has happened.
I accept that I have been very ill in the past. I must have been ill when I wrote those entries in my Journal or else I would not have filled them with outlandish words such as ‘Birmingham’ and ‘Perugia’. (Even now, as I write the words, I begin to feel anxious again. A crowd of images stirs in my mind – strange, nightmarish, but at the same time oddly familiar. The word ‘Birmingham’, for example, brings with it a blare of noise, a flash of movement and colour and the fleeting image of towers and spires against a heavy grey sky. I try to catch hold of these impressions, to examine them further, but instantly they fade.)
Despite all this I believe that I was precipitate to dismiss these two entries as gibberish. Some of the words – ‘university’ is an example – do seem to possess meaning of a sort. I believe that if I set my mind to it, I could write a clear definition of ‘university’. I have given some thought as to what might be the explanation of this. I understand ‘scholar’ because scattered around the House are Statues of Scholars with books and papers in their hands. Perhaps I extrapolated the idea of a ‘university’ (a place where scholars congregate) from these? This does not seem a very satisfactory hypothesis, but it is the best I can do for the moment.
The entries also include the names of people whose existence is confirmed by other evidence. The Prophet spoke about Stanley Ovenden, so clearly this was a real person. The Prophet also tried to think of the name of the dishy young Italian but could not do so. Perhaps it was Maurizio Giussani. Lastly both entries mentioned someone called ‘Laurence Arne-Sayles’ and I found a letter from ‘Laurence’ in the First Vestibule.
In other words, mixed in with the nonsense of these entries there does seem to be actual information. In my quest to learn all I can about the people who have lived I would be wrong to ignore this important source.
It has become clear that I have forgotten many things and – it is best to face these things squarely – I now have evidence of periods of serious mental derangement. My first and most important task is to hide these defects from the Other. (While I do not think he would go so far as to kill me because of them, he would certainly regard me with even more suspicion than he already does.) Almost as important is the need to guard Myself against the return of illness. To this end I have resolved to take better care of Myself. I must not become so absorbed in my scientific work that I forget to fish and end up with nothing to eat. (The House provides much food for the active and enterprising person. There is no excuse for going hungry!) I must devote more of my energies to mending my clothes and making coverings for my feet, which are often cold. (Question: is it possible to knit socks from seaweed? Doubtful.)
I have considered the renumbering of my Journals and have concluded that I must have done it Myself. Which means that twenty Journals (twenty!) are missing – a highly alarming thought! And yet, at the same time, it makes sens
e that there are missing Journals. I am (as I have previously stated) approximately thirty-five years of age. The ten Journals I possess cover a period of five years. Where are the Journals of my earlier life? And what did I do in those years?
Yesterday I thought that I never wanted to read or look up entries in my Journals again. I pictured Myself throwing all ten Journals and the Index into a raging Tide, and I imagined how relieved I would feel to be free of them. But today I am calmer. I am less at the mercy of fear and panic. Today I can see that there are sound reasons for studying my Journals carefully, even the mad parts – perhaps especially the mad parts. First, I have always longed to know more about the people who have lived and, incomprehensible as it is, the Journals do seem to contain actual information about them, however bizarrely presented. Second, I need to learn as much as I can about my own madness, specifically what triggers it and how I can guard against it in the future.
Perhaps by studying the past in the pages of my Journal I will be able to make sense of these things. In the meantime it is important to recognise that reading the Journal is in itself a triggering activity, giving rise to many painful emotions and nightmarish thoughts. I must proceed cautiously and only read small portions at a time.
The Other and the Prophet have both stated that the House itself is a source of madness and forgetfulness. They are scientists and men of intellect. When two such impeccable authorities are in agreement then I believe I must accept their conclusions. The House is the cause of my forgetting.
Do you trust the House? I ask Myself.
Yes, I answer Myself.
And if the House has made you forget, then it has done so for good reason.
But I do not understand the reason.
It does not matter that you do not understand the reason. You are the Beloved Child of the House. Be comforted.
And I am comforted.
Sylvia D’Agostino
entry for the twentieth day of the eighth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls
I am very curious about the other people that the Prophet mentioned, so I decided to begin my study with Sylvia D’Agostino and poor James Ritter, but I did not look them up straightaway. In accordance with my plan of looking after Myself, I allowed a week and a half to elapse before I read the Journal again. I passed the intervening time in ordinary, soothing activities. I fished; I made soup; I washed clothes; I composed music on the flute that I made from the bone of a swan. Then this morning I brought my Journals and the Index to the Fifth Northern Hall. This Hall contains the Statue of the Gorilla and I thought the sight of Him would lend me Strength.
I sat down, cross-legged on the Pavement opposite the Gorilla. I turned to the letter D in my Index. There she was.
D’Agostino, Sylvia, student of Arne-Sayles: Journal no. 22, pages 6–9
I turned to page 6 of Journal no. 22 (which was my Journal no. 2).
Biography of Sylvia D’Agostino
Born 1958 in Leith, Scotland, the daughter of Eduardo D’Agostino, the poet.
Photographs show a woman of a slightly androgynous appearance, attractive, even beautiful, with thick dark brows, dark eyes, a strong nose and emphatic jawline. She had a mass of dark hair usually tied back. According to Angharad Scott, D’Agostino made no concessions to conventional ideas of femininity and only intermittently cared what she wore.
When she was a teenager D’Agostino told a friend that she wanted to go to university to study Death, Stars and Mathematics. Inexplicably the University of Manchester didn’t offer such a course, so she settled for Mathematics. At the university she quickly stumbled upon Laurence Arne-Sayles and his lectures; that encounter shaped the remainder of her life.
Arne-Sayles’s talk of communing with ancient minds and glimpses into other worlds answered all her cosmic longings – the ‘Death and Stars’ part of her. As soon as her Mathematics degree had concluded, she switched to Anthropology with Arne-Sayles as her supervisor.
Of all Arne-Sayles’s students and acolytes D’Agostino was by far the most devoted. He assigned her a room in his house in Whalley Range where she became his unpaid housekeeper and secretary. She had a car (Arne-Sayles did not drive) and part of her duties consisted of driving him wherever he wanted to go, including to Canal Street on Saturday nights to pick up young men.
In 1984 she gained her doctorate. She did not seek out academic or teaching work, but stayed at Arne-Sayles’s side, taking a string of menial jobs to support herself.
She was an only child and had always been very close to her parents, particularly her father. At some point in the mid-80s Arne-Sayles instructed her to quarrel with her parents. According to Angharad Scott, this was a test of loyalty. D’Agostino cut off all contact with her parents and they never saw her again.
Scott describes her as a poet, an artist and a film-maker and lists the magazines in which her poems were published: Arcturus, Torn Asunder and Grasshopper. (To date I haven’t been able to find any copies of these magazines.) The editor of Grasshopper – a man called Tom Titchwell – was also a friend of Eduardo D’Agostino. He (Titchwell) kept in touch with Sylvia and relayed news of her back to her parents.
Two of her films survive: Moon/Wood and The Castle. Moon/Wood is a unique and atmospheric piece of film-making admired by critics and fans outside the usual circle of Arne-Sayles conspiracy theorists. It is 25 minutes long and was filmed on moors and in woods around Manchester. It was shot on Super 8 in colour, but the feel of it is almost entirely monochrome – black woods, white snow, grey sky etc. – with occasional splashes of blood-red. In the film a hierophant of ancient times holds a small community in thrall. He dispenses cruelty to the men and abuses the women. One woman opposes him. To show his power and to punish her, the hierophant casts a spell. The woman crosses a stream. She takes a step and her foot comes down in the moon’s reflection. She is caught in the stream; she cannot move from the moon’s reflection. The hierophant comes and beats her where she stands helpless. Still she cannot move. Left alone, she asks a wood of birch trees to help her. As the hierophant passes through the wood, he becomes caught in the tangle of birch trees; they bind him and pierce him. He cannot move and eventually dies. The woman is released from the moon’s reflection. Moon/Wood contains very little speech and what there is is incomprehensible. The woman and the hierophant speak their own language which has nothing to do with ours. The true language of Moon/Wood is simple, stark imagery: moon, darkness, water, trees.
D’Agostino’s other surviving film is even odder. It is untitled, but usually referred to as The Castle. It is shot on Betamax and the quality is very poor. The camera meanders around various enormous rooms, presumably in different castles or palaces (we cannot be seeing one building; it is simply too vast). The walls are lined with statues and puddles of water crowd the floor. According to the people who believe such things, this is a record of one of Arne-Sayles’s other worlds, possibly the one described in his 2000 book, The Labyrinth. Other people have tried to establish the locations in order to prove that it is not a film of another world, but to date none of them has been conclusively identified. Notes in D’Agostino’s handwriting were found with The Castle, but these are in the same peculiar code as her last diary and remain impenetrable.
D’Agostino seems to have kept a diary most of her adult life. The early volumes (1973–1980) were kept at her parents’ house in Leith; these are written in English. Another diary, current at the time of her disappearance (spring 1990) was found in the doctor’s surgery where she worked. This diary employs a weird mixture of hieroglyphs and descriptions of images (possibly dream imagery?) in English. Angharad Scott made several attempts to decipher it but got nowhere.
In early 1990 D’Agostino was working as a receptionist in a doctor’s surgery in Whalley Range. She struck up a friendship with one of the doctors there, a man about her own age called Robert Allstead. At this point she seems to have been distinctly less enamoured of Laurence Arne-Sayles than before. She
told Allstead that her life was one of drudgery, but that she would always be grateful to Arne-Sayles because he had opened the way to a more beautiful world and she was happy there. Allstead did not know what to make of this. He later told police that he was certain she was not on drugs. If she had been, he would never have allowed her to work in the surgery.
When Arne-Sayles learnt about her friendship with Allstead he threw one of his peculiar jealous fits and demanded that she leave the job. This time D’Agostino refused.
In the first week of April she failed to turn up for work. After she had been missing for two days Dr Allstead called the police. She was never seen again.
Poor James Ritter
second entry for the twentieth day of the eighth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls
There were two entries for James Ritter both in Journal no. 21: page 46 and page 122. The first one was titled: The disgrace of Laurence Arne-Sayles.
Arne-Sayles’s career, always controversial, ended abruptly in April 1997, when a woman employed to clean his house found something: a brown liquid that seemed to ooze out from beneath a wall in one of the rooms. The room was a bedroom and, according to Arne-Sayles, not used. But the cleaner could see that it was being used, hence her cleaning it. She sponged up the liquid. Then she smelt it. Urine and faeces. A little more liquid seeped out from under the wall. She pushed the wall, it gave slightly. She put her ear to it. Then she called the police. Behind the wall – the fake wall – the police found a room in which was a young man, very ill and entirely incoherent.
Arne-Sayles’s academic career was over. Following a trial (widely reported) he was sent to prison initially for three years; however, while in prison he was convicted of inciting other inmates to violence and riots. In the end he served four and a half years and was released in 2002.
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