This one day stands out above the rest. The Rodmell Fusiliers were in good form; they stood beside the van at Lewes in their dark glasses, their knapsacks of lunch on their backs. They never brought white sticks to the Downs. They were old but they were in good shape, apart from the eyes: each man had lived with blindness so long he had mostly forgotten how to think of it as an affliction. They touched things. They listened. They sniffed the air and made the kinds of joke and said things they knew they could only do in the company of other men.
I drove them first to Charleston. I had been talking about Bloomsbury to some of them – ‘arty-farty,’ they said – and then they decided they wanted to know what it was all about. I parked the van and gathered them at the gate to the house. ‘There’s a fine pond,’ I said, ‘and a willow at one side and a stone or flint wall edging the garden part, and a lawn that slopes down there, with formal bushes. Further up there are box hedges and it’s all well-ordered.’
‘Were they all poofs?’ said Simon Gedge.
‘More or less,’ I said.
‘They were COs and poofs,’ said Archie. ‘The women an’ all.’
‘Artist folk,’ said another.
‘Intellectuals,’ said Simon. ‘Never worked a day their lives. Should shoot the lot of them with the enemy’s bullets.’
Inside the house they occasionally stopped complaining while I told them what things looked like. ‘Doorknobs in pink and leaf-patterns over the furniture,’ I said. ‘There’s a dresser painted different kinds of green and a fish-carpet. Just under where you’re standing.’
‘Would give you a sore head,’ said Simon.
‘Do they have clocks?’ said Ronnie from the back.
‘No, Ronnie, they weren’t that fond of clocks.’
‘Were they fond of loos?’ asked Archie. ‘I’m bursting for a pee.’
Ten minutes later, in the shop, I was trying to describe a Picasso poster. ‘I can’t imagine it,’ said Ronnie.
‘Very black eyes,’ I said. ‘Iberian eyes. Like Picasso’s own eyes in fact. So many of his paintings have these very round and very Spanish black eyes.’
‘I’ll give him black eyes,’ said Simon. ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here, it’s boring.’
‘You’re an ignoramus, Gedge,’ I said. I put his hand on my shoulder and got the others to file behind. ‘Even if you weren’t blind as a bat you’d still be blind as a bat.’
‘He’s proud of it,’ said another.
‘There isn’t much to see here,’ said Simon.
We drove on to Alfriston and I parked the van in the grounds of St Andrew’s Church. Archie told us how he knew this village before the Great War. ‘I remember the look of it very well,’ he said, ‘and the Long Bridge over the Cuckmere. My sister and I once scraped our names into one of the stones there with a thrupenny bit.’ He put his fingers over the front of his dark glasses. ‘You can feel right enough it’s a warm day today,’ he said. ‘I wonder if the Cuckmere gets high like it used to. It used to get very high.’
We ate our packed lunches under the trees. I poured the tea from a flask jammed in the spare wheel at the back of the van, and Simon stuck his finger into his cup. ‘Don’t be stingy,’ he said. ‘This cup’s half empty. I know you’re giving that Ronnie more than me just because he’s arty-farty.’
‘You can’t beat Sussex for weather,’ said Jim Nelson. Jim was a Scouser; he’d come with his wife several years ago to live at the St Clare’s house at Ovingdean. His skin had seen all weathers and was shiny, ever so white, with little scrubs of red on his cheekbones where the vessels had broken. ‘You get a different smell in the air down here.’
‘You do that,’ said Simon. ‘Smell of cow’s shite.’
‘Very good, smartarse,’ said Jim. ‘It’s not that. The place smells green.’
‘No. I think it’s yellow,’ one of the others said.
‘No, Jimbo. You’re right enough. Green.’
‘I would say blue,’ said Norman Oakley. ‘Blue as the day you were born, sunshine.’ Norman was the oldest. He was ninety-one. He wasn’t married and insisted he be allowed to come on the walks. After I packed away the tin foil and cups and got the clothes pole from the van we made our way onto the Downs. Norman stood behind me, held the pole tight, and chattered.
‘Just say if you want a rest, Norman.’
‘Champion, son. Just you lead the way.’
‘We’ve a bit to go today,’ I said.
‘Step smartly.’
They all liked to talk about being blind. For each of them it was the great subject of their lives. Norman could grow breathless telling you about a mustard gas attack. ‘That’s the last thing I knew,’ he said. ‘My eyes were stinging, but not as much as my armpits and my balls. It stings so powerful you wouldn’t believe. Then the eyes went out.’
‘That’s right enough,’ said Archie.
‘The balls,’ said ‘Wobble’ Gadney. ‘I wasn’t worried about the eyes. I thought the old knackers would be off.’
Simon and the younger men tended to go quiet when the older veterans spoke like this. They didn’t know about gas, but that wasn’t why they shut up: it was to let the older men have their say and to respect their seniority. Nobody ever contradicted Norman. He was in charge of his own experience and they left it at that.
I stopped sometimes and laid the pole on the grass. Then I would try to describe the view: the slope of the hills and the sheep scattered about, the occasional butterfly disappearing behind a stone dyke. At one point we found a mound of wild parsley; I picked a bunch and told them to put out their tongues. ‘Body of Christ,’ I said, and they laughed.
‘Born Celtic supporter,’ said Simon. ‘You’re telling us this is parsley. I bet it’s shamrock.’
‘You’ll never know,’ I said.
‘Definitely parsley,’ said Ronnie. ‘Our Jeanette could whip up a great sauce for cod out of that,’
‘We’re not going to have to walk back, are we?’ said Simon.
‘Just you,’ I said.
‘Piss off. I’ll just hitch a lift back with a sexy woman,’ he said.
‘I don’t doubt it,’ I said. ‘And she’d need four eyes for your none.’
‘You tell him,’ said Norman.
‘The porter from Ovingdean is collecting us on the other side,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry your poor legs.’
‘I could walk from here to the Black Sea,’ said Ronnie.
We had a rest beside a rape field and then at Norman’s insistence we headed on. The men went on talking about football results and house prices and Ronnie sang a sentimental song about a girl from the Forest of Dean. As we climbed over the Downs the sun seemed to rise alongside us and eventually we could smell the sea. ‘Smell that,’ said Jim Nelson. ‘The Channel.’
I could feel the clothes pole stiffen and the pace was stepped up behind me. ‘Steady,’ I said. But there was a resolve now to get to the top and I started to tell them how the water looked with the sun making it glimmer for miles.
‘Are there boats?’ said Archie.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘It’s clear to the horizon.’
‘Very blue?’ said Wobble.
‘Blue,’ I said. ‘Changing blues, it’s a million wee strokes of paint out there,’
‘And you can’t see boats?’ said Simon.
‘Clear,’ I said, ‘not a single boat to be seen.’
‘At one time whole squadrons of RAF would go right over here and that was them off,’ said Archie.
We stopped and all listened together as a cricket made its noise beside us in the field. ‘Lead on, Mr Aigas,’ said Norman.
‘Officer Aigas,’ said Archie.
‘Captain Aigas,’ said Jim.
‘Herr Kommandant Aigas,’ said Simon.
‘That’s just enough of that,’ said Norman.
We were up near Beachy Head. No one else was there at that hour to see the Rodmell Fusiliers marching on the pole, and in an instant the whole scene seeme
d very dear and quiet.
‘Can we sit down for a while?’ Archie said. And in that moment I wanted to do better for them.
‘Well go closer,’ I said. ‘I want you to hear the waves.’
‘Yes,’ whispered Norman behind me, ‘take us closer.’
We went forward and the wind lifted.
‘This is a lovely day,’ said Norman.
‘Sit down here,’ I said. ‘All of you sit down,’ Touching one another’s shoulders for guidance they sat on the downland grass.
‘Right enough,’ said Jim Nelson. ‘You can hear the water coming in.’ They sat quiet for a moment and they listened for the sound of waves on the beach far below us.
‘It’s all out there,’ said Simon.
‘Michael,’ said Norman, ‘give us some of your words. This is a lovely day. We’ll just sit up here for a while. Read something.’
I stood up with my back to the Channel and looked at the old men sitting on the grass.
‘In King Lear,’ I said, ‘blind Gloucester is really at the end of his tether …’
‘Shakespeare,’ said Wobble.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and Gloucester’s son Edgar, who’s in disguise – his father doesn’t know who he is – takes him by the hand. His father is blind and he has lost interest in all his hopes and the king has gone mad.’
I paused to think.
‘Go on,’ said Norman.
‘Why is the son in disguise?’ said Archie.
‘He’s in danger,’ I said, ‘and his mind isn’t right.’
‘Go on,’ said Norman.
‘Gloucester wants to end it all,’ I said, ‘so he persuades Edgar to lead him to a cliff so’s he can fall off and die. But Edgar loves his father and only pretends to do it. He keeps him on flat ground but tricks his father into thinking he is indeed on a high cliff and is about to fall. Gloucester can’t see the truth.’
The men were quiet. They said nothing for a minute and the sea at my back was calm and almost imaginary, but you could hear the waves coming to wash the chalk cliffs from under us. Each of the veterans stood up and lifted his face to the fresh air – England behind them, eyes closed, they listened to the lapping waves and the words:
Come on, sir; here’s the place: stand still How fearful
And dizzy ‘tis, to cast one’s eye so low!
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice, and yond tall anchoring bark,
Diminish‘d to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge,
That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high: I’ll look no more;
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.
Towards the end of the summer things took a turn for the worse in the Marylebone office. Betty went berserk one afternoon, shouting so much and so loudly that Paul hopped out of his basket and sought refuge under my desk in the corner. There was no surprise at the subject of Betty’s fury – it was Jennifer, whom Betty accused of taking a pile of work off her desk, and, furthermore, of bringing lemon teas for everybody in Public Relations except her.
Wing Commander Rodney heard the kerfuffle and made a rare appearance. ‘Betty, you’re distraught,’ he said.
‘This … this bitch is stealing work from me and trying to make me look idle, Philip.’
‘You want to be careful there,’ said Jennifer, who was younger and less unhappy, more than capable of coming into her own in a crisis.
The deputy public relations officer felt his way out of his office. His eyes were on the ceiling. ‘Is something the matter?’ he said.
‘You and your wife are trying to put me out of a job!’ shouted Betty. ‘I’ve been here since 1946!’
‘Calm down, Betty,’ said the Wing Commander. ‘We’ll sort this out in a jiffy.’
‘Philip,’ said Jennifer, straightening up and looking at the boss as if her point was already clear to him, ‘we need these anniversary invitations to go out today. I know you gave the job to Betty, but we’ll miss the deadline if she goes on refusing to use the photocopier. She’s been typing the same letter for the last week and a half.’
‘Have you seen her letters?’ said Betty. ‘They are barely literate. Where’s my coat? Here, Paul.’
Philip said Betty’s name several times and as she put on her coat and blew her nose and unfurled Paul’s lead he grew surprisingly red in the face. ‘Betty,’ he said, ‘I forbid you to leave your post. We will all stay here and sort this out!’
‘Goodbye, Michael,’ she said, looking over, and with that she went home and took to her bed for a week.
‘Blast!’ said Philip.
While Betty was away we got all the anniversary stuff organised and into envelopes and continued to include her in all our plans. I have to say the office was dull without Betty; it was true, she was probably the cause of most of the problems, but she was more interesting than Jennifer and Martin, who were simply laying plans to take over the show when Philip retired.
The seventieth anniversary of St Clare’s. What a job. They had special services and parties, reunions all over the place and a thing at Buckingham Palace. ‘Have you got a hat?’ I said to Betty the day before the do, when she was back at her desk.
‘Same one as the fiftieth,’ she said. ‘I doubt the Royals’ll remember it. You should come.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘there’s too much to do at Ovingdean. You go, Betty, and have a nice time with your friends. They’ll all be there.’
‘I could give you some money if you’re skint and need to buy something.’ She was facing her antique filing system when she said this and I could see the dust descending to the back of her cardigan.
‘You’re lovely,’ I said, ‘but I’ve got to be in Ovingdean to sort out the reunion. It’s mainly the TV people. The Songs of Praise people. They’re doing a whole bit there and I’ve got to stop them all from crashing into one another. But it was really lovely of you to offer, Betty.’
‘Nothing ventured nothing gained,’ she said.
It was my main job that month. I was talking to the BBC researcher every day and on one of them he said they wanted to book a singer to do a hymn at Ovingdean. They would have St Clareites talking about their lives and some stuff down at the sports field and a bit of the reunion. Then the singer would come on and do a big number with the choir. ‘It has to be someone they would all know,’ said the researcher, ‘someone who can do it with a bit of feeling.’
‘It’s always Vera Lynn,’ I said.
‘We’ve been talking about her,’ said the researcher, ‘and we’ve had her on so many times before. We were hoping for someone younger and with a less obvious connection to these things. We thought we would try for Maria Tambini.’
I remember pausing and standing up at my desk.
‘What a good idea,’ I said. ‘Is she working?’
‘She’s trying to get back,’ he said. ‘You know she’s been ill for a while.’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s better. She’s looking to work again.’
‘Good. That’s a brilliant idea.’ We spoke for a bit about vehicle access and electricity points.
‘Let’s just hope for the weather,’ he said.
‘I used to know Maria Tambini,’ I said. ‘We grew up in the same place in Scotland. I know her.’
‘Really?’ said the guy. ‘Before she was famous on that Hughie Green thing? Before she had her own show?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘before all that. She’s just a few years younger than me. We grew up on the Isle of Bute.’
‘Amazing,’ he said.
‘She used to sing in the pubs and at local talent shows an
d all that kind of thing.’
‘Yeah?’
‘And you could tell she was good,’ I said. ‘You could tell something was going to happen to her.’
‘How amazing. Well, that’s who we want for this. I’ll keep you posted.’
After that – when everything was sorted up – I asked him for the number of her manager or whatever. I suddenly wanted to see her before the show, to talk to her again. I just wanted to see her. Her manager was called Marion something, they put me through to her. She said Maria was in Scotland. I told her who I was and that I worked for St Clare’s and just rambled a bit. The manager said she would pass on my message.
Maria Tambini. When I thought of her I saw that wee lassie with a voice that lifted the roof. She had a way of singing that stopped you right where you stood; my pals and I were full of America at that time, jazz and bebop, yet Maria Tambini was above and beyond the everyday thing in Rothesay. Even as a girl there was an atmosphere around her. Over these last years you’d always see her on television. Made for TV. I can see her racing to the camera from the middle of a group of tall dancers, this bundle of energy, or stepping up to the microphone to sing one of those great big onion ballads. She would tremble singing the song. She felt the words, you could tell that and she got more beautiful over time, before she got too thin. You’d see these articles in the paper about her being in clinics and stuff about the perils of being famous too young, and Maria was always there.
A letter came to St Clare’s. ‘Dear Michael,’ it said, ‘Marion Gaskell told me you are involved in the Songs of Praise recording next week. What a surprise after all these years. Well, not that many years, but it feels like a long time. I’ll be at the Metropole Hotel. Please come and see me, I want to hear all your news.’ And it was signed, ‘Sincerely yours, Maria Tambini.’
I folded the letter into my wallet and got on with the plans for Ovingdean, but every so often I would look up, and it wasn’t Betty I saw there, or Paul the dog, or Jennifer plotting the future of the office or the Wing Commander vanishing again, but the face of Maria Tambini and an old feeling as familiar as milk.
‘Penny for your thoughts,’ said Betty.
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