Chorus Endings

by David Warwick

  ‘A great hit with the “birds of pray”, though. “Think what you might achieve” they told him’ – another of her impromptu impressions – ‘“away from unwelcome distractions” – meaning yours truly. “Build on your natural talent”, they said. “Give it greater focus, more direction. You should be grateful for the chance we’re giving you.”’

  This, he discovered, was Pendarrell House, a college far away in North Wales, which fitted their purpose precisely.

  ‘Poor lad.’ There was genuine sadness in her voice. ‘His sole notion of childhood was what the orphanage had to offer. Till the Sunday School gave him a glimpse of something different. His pupils returning “home” once their lessons were over. To “families”, something he’d only read about in books, or seen on the movies shown of a Saturday night at the convent. Children of his age or younger speaking of their “mothers”, their sisters even, with genuine warmth. Pendarrell offered him means of escape into the world beyond the convent.’

  One that Derek had seized with both hands, leaving Veronica nursing a broken heart.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Different Drummer

  Geraldine’s long-term memory turned out to be as sharp as she’d claimed; the events of those days as clear now, in 1985, as when she’d first heard them over half a century ago. It had taken her some time to discover just what had happened to Derek at Pendarrell House; wheedling it out of him, piece by piece over the years; uncertain even now that she knew all there was to know, nor fully understanding everything she’d been told. But for us it was an opportunity too good to be missed. The University vacation had several weeks to run, Helen dreamt up some excuse explaining her extended leave; a ‘phone call was all that it took to put our trip to Bereden temporarily on hold. Far more important, the opening up of a part of his life Jimmy always kept hidden; a chance – together with our subsequent discoveries, a touch of extrapolation from what we already knew – to discover the dark side of his moon.

  * * *

  Beginning with Pendarrell House as it had been in the mid-twenties. Named after the twelfth-century owner of the land, so Geraldine told us; selected now for its isolation, with no expense spared on the conversion. What remained of the farm buildings had been demolished, to be replaced with an office block and refectory; the milking-parlour becoming dormitories, silos refurbished with state-of-the-art equipment as the community’s central meeting hall; a cowshed sanctified as their chapel.

  A strict regime, Derek had been warned, but they seemed docile enough. About a dozen of them altogether, the ‘brothers’, mostly in their thirties, some considerably older, each of them adopting the name of a British river. The better to accommodate the individual needs of the noviciate, he later discovered, a reminder also as to the dangers of excess. Brother Derwent, for example: as thrusting and forward-looking in his thinking as that particular stretch of water, but having always to curb the wilder, more reckless aspects of his nature. Brother Arun: quiet, reflective, gently carrying the scholars with him, yet with a tendency to procrastination. And Brother Ouse: bringing together a multitude of minor detail into a single flowing argument, just as his namesake gathered tributaries, but somewhat bombastic when doing so. Unity of purpose was stressed by their mode of dress. Grey roll-neck sweaters, PH in green silk lettering above the chest, dark slacks, tightly-buckled belt and white canvas shoes laced according to house style – specifically designed, so the rumour went, for soundless access into any part of the building. Above them, the elusive yet omnipresent figure of their benefactor.

  Little was known about Soroyan other than what could be seen or heard. Wheelchair-bound, with a shock of snowy hair, he lived in a luxury apartment somewhere on site, but had the run of the place. American, according to those who had heard him speak; fabulously rich and an art-lover, if the rumours were true; deferred to in all things, that much was obvious. Occasionally he’d be seen trundling to-and-fro between buildings, yet seldom witnessed in his comings and goings. He’d appear without warning or invitation at their discussions, always interested in what was said yet never taking part; one minute he’d be there, attentive at the back of the room, and the next he’d disappeared. Or there he was in the pew specially prepared for him at the back of the chapel, head bowed in prayer, but when they next looked he’d be gone. The one constant was his Monday meetings – ten o’clock sharp, with senior members of the staff, but Heaven help any one of them if they were late. No doubt about that.

  The discipline might have been rigorous; mild, though, in comparison with what Derek had come to expect; the programme – lectures, prayer, group seminars, solitary afternoons set aside for ‘individual inventories’ or ‘encellments’ – tedious yet tolerable. Worse was the ‘public confession’ when each novice was expected to reveal how they’d found their way to God, or vice versa. And nothing had quite prepared him for Pendarrell’s handling of Biblical studies. The same tales he’d told a hundred times at Sunday School but recounted with infinitely less verve, each part of every verse being analysed in minute detail. They stood for different aspects of God’s graciousness, so the brothers assured him, and only when decoded could the message be fully understood.

  He’d accepted this at first, understanding little of it, but was content to give them the benefit of the doubt. There came a time, though, when Brother Arun – not many years his senior – chose the story of Daniel in the Lion’s Den, then handled it with less competence than the most unimaginative of the teachers from his previous school. No stress on the personality of each of the characters, no background detail; no feeling for the storyline, gripping incident following incident leading up to the grand finale. No dramatic pauses, no aping of King Darius’ villainy, feigned distress at Daniel’s plight; his companions showing no dismay at being eaten, nor the lions smacking their lips in anticipation. Brother Arun’s sole concern, it seemed, was to label each with some obtuse allegorical meaning or other, so that the inevitable inquisition might begin.

  Derek’s protest was greeted with an indulgence more infuriating than had they shouted him down, beaten him even. The truth, the brethren insisted, turning to one another for confirmation, had been revealed to them. It was there in the Scriptures for those that had eyes to see. So perhaps he should retire to his cell for a few days’ contemplation and, whilst he was no longer among them, they would pray for his enlightenment.

  He was well familiar with the room by now. It measured no more than a few footsteps across in either direction, stripped of all furniture save for a single table and chair, pine and scrubbed clean to match; its floor uncarpeted, the walls uniformly bare. On the table lay a leather-bound Bible, beside it an oil lamp, the only other illumination coming from a small window set way out of reach. With little else to occupy the mind and keen to verify the accuracy of his position, he turned at once to the Bible. Only to find that it had been doctored. The story was there right enough, precisely as he had remembered it. So, too, were a series of numbers or symbols placed alongside most of the verses, directing his attention to notes at the foot of the page where the Pendarrell version of the Scriptures was expanded upon.

  Little help then, nor anywhere else within the cell. The brothers had seen to that, insulating him from every trace of normal existence, or what, for them, passed as normal. All save the sounds of everyday life reaching him from the world outside. This was the room that had been his for daily prayer, as well as the fairly regular periods of encellment, and it had not taken him long to distinguish each one of the brothers by their footsteps alone: the solemnity of Brother Wye’s measured tread, Brother Eden striding energetically about someone else’s business, Brother Trent in unhurried contemplation, young Avon’s somewhat mincing gait. And so the experiment that was to engage him over the months had begun.

  He’d realised quite early that there were other sounds out there that the brothers had failed to eliminate. The birdsong that awoke him each morning,
for instance. He’d never paid much heed to it before but now he came to recognise variations within the pitch and combination of notes, wondering whether individual wrens, thrushes, blackbirds, etc. recognised one another this way, or if there was a single song common to all their species. Not that he’d be able to tell them one from the other in the first place. Just as previously he’d always considered the sun as no more than a source of heat and light, depicted in picture books as a standard yellow orb in a blue sky. Now, with little else to occupy his mind, he came to appreciate the subtle changes as its beams slanting in from the window inched their way, brick by brick, across the cell. Differences in the quality almost of the light; each of its tinctures – cerise, silver, crimson, orange, gold, copper and a multiple of variations in between – during the course of a single day. Changes in the wind and rain as well: the smattering of hail on that same window, the buffeting it received from autumnal gales; times when daylight was almost obliterated by snow, others from falling leaves – each took on added significance during these periods of encellment, enforced or otherwise.

  As did the relationship between all such factors: how creatures, heard yet never seen, modified their conversations, adjusted their tone at the first sign of danger, in advance of climatic change even; warning one to the other, or anyone who chose to hear. Which became the nub of his experimentation. The cells had been constructed to facilitate personal ‘inventories’, so why not put them to the test? Not the Pendarrell model of introspective soul-searching; something far more direct and practical, involving what could be heard only, experienced without his actual presence. How much more might be learnt in this way? Just what would be lost? The investigation had been in progress for several months now, at prayer time and during punitive encellments, but there was yet more to discover. Moving the table across the room and lifting the chair onto it, he clambered up, placing the Bible on the narrow sill to act as an arm rest, and adopted his usual stance: peering out through the window.

  The stretch of grass between the building and the perimeter wall had been familiar to him from the outset, as was the pathway that crossed it to a doorway, kept locked at all times. He found himself looking out onto a hundred yards or so of open countryside; bleak, mossy and untended, a dozen or more sheep grazing contentedly upon it. This sloped gradually upwards, past a fringe of wild brambles, before giving way to a stretch of coppice, then open woodland that reached out as far as the eye could see to where distant hills fringed the horizon. A thin column of smoke rose from among the trees – neither wind nor breeze then – overhead birds wheeling cloud-like about the sky before plummeting suddenly downwards.

  As he watched there was a disturbance in the foreground, sheep scattering in all directions as a large horse was led across the pasture dragging the trunk of a recently felled tree behind it. Could he hear, or did he imagine, the clink of the chains, the cries of the woodsmen? Later, another group of men emerged from the woodland, chatting – it appeared – among themselves. After which the sheep made their leisurely way to what he presumed was their night-time shelter. By now the sun was setting and the faintest of mists carpeted the meadow. The sound of church bells reached him, melodious from a far distance. Closer to hand the clanking of the chapel bell reminded him of evensong within the chapel. He climbed down from what had become his daily perch, watching the world go by unnoticed and unhindered, all part of a regular routine, unknowing one of the other, yet each of them interdependent. Far more satisfying than the brotherhood’s wearisome certainty.

  This had been going on for several weeks when the binoculars appeared – powerful ones, if size and weight were anything to go by. Now the smallest of leaves on the furthest of trees swam instantly into view, the minimum of practice combined with his customary patience soon enabled him to identify individual markings on each of the sheep and match these up with their owners; to recognise patterns of behaviour among birds and animals previously heard but not seen. The source of his new window on the world remained a mystery, though. It was not as if they’d been left there by accident. They were meant to be discovered, and discovered by him. Nor was he in any doubt that he was using them in the manner for which they’d been intended. Divine intervention, as the brothers would doubtless claim. He thought not, although this might be a hoax to persuade him such was the case. He carried out a roll-call of their individual characteristics, eliminating each of them in turn. Nor could they have come from anyone beyond the walls. If he had been unable to make his escape, then certainly no one could break in. And, after all his subterfuge, who could know of his secret obsession?

  Then, a week or so later the book appeared: Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, with a series of bookmarks slipped between the pages, telling, so he discovered, of another man’s obsession with the world of nature surrounding him. An American, this Thoreau, who’d delighted in a voluntary solitude that was his for the taking. His decamping to the woodlands of Concord, Massachusetts, was interesting enough, so too descriptions of the wildlife and vegetation. The philosophy, though, was hard to take. Garrulous, home spun, countless allusions to writers who seemed to have little to offer beyond what Henry David himself had to say. But the passages marked for his attention were another matter entirely:

  One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living. Practically, the old have no very important advice to give to the young; their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe, and it may be that they have some faith left which belies that experience, and they are only less young than they were. I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me anything to the purpose. Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me, but it does not avail me that they have tried it. If I have any experience which I think valuable, I am sure to reflect that this my mentors said nothing about.

  and:

  If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new universal, and more liberal, laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favour in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, poverty not poverty, nor weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

  Finally:

  If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.

  Ideas half-formed in his own mind, expressed in a way he’d never considered possible. But who at Pendarrell House would think this way? Anathema to all of them, surely. The same person who’d provided the binoculars, obviously, who knew of his secret. But what was the purpose of these gifts?

  I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors; different drummers; stepping to the music: he resolved to put it to the test. Summoned back into the community a few days after the Daniel incident, he was questioned once more about his interpretation of the story. During his absence the brothers had prayed that the truth might be revealed to him and were eager to hear confirmation of the fact. Indeed, he informed them, assuming the benign expression appropriate for such occasions, no further arguments would be necessary. He, too, had prayed, in precisely the way they’d taught him, and such intercessions had been answered, just as they’d promised. Never again would he doubt the benefits of encellment. The brothers turned to one another, praising themselves on
the efficacy of their treatment. Only to be silenced as their pupil proceeded to a reaffirmation of the views he’d previously held. But pride, he continued, was among the greatest of sins. Had not those more worthy interceded also on his behalf? Credit should be theirs also. What a mighty volume of prayerfulness they must have raised – he and the brothers together – enabling him to arrive finally at the truth.

  A hushed silence fell over the hall but, from the back, came a burst of deep-throated laughter. All eyes swivelled to catch Soroyan, head thrown back in a paroxysm of mirth, trundling his way from the building.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Embracing the Emptiness

  He was still laughing half an hour later, as he had been all the way from the hall.

  ‘Strikes me, son, you ain’t never been housetrained!’ The abruptness of the introduction, directness of the idiom, took Derek completely by surprise. He’d seen Soroyan often enough around the college, heard the rumours, but never confronted him face-to-face. Nor any American, come to that.

  ‘Like I sez, seems to me as no one’s gotta round ter telling yew when to keep yer God-damned mouth shut.’

  It helped to concentrate as much on the way the man spoke as to what he actually said; the tone of his voice, the slow rhythm occasionally broken by clipped emphasis on certain words or phrases; the wheelchair responding to the slightest of his touches.

  ‘When, damn it, all as required is learnin’ from tha Good Lord’s own example.’ The relaxed southern drawl was accompanied with a benign smile. ‘Bin a pestering Him these five years a more now, them brothers. But that don’t bother Him. Not one mite. Might learn a little from tha Good Lord’s patience, don’t yer think?’