Nothing But the Truth

by Sam Lock

  ‘So what is my real story, I wonder? Am I, like Coriolanus, destined to become some kind of recluse? Someone who can no longer cope with wordly things, and who is forced, as he was, to enter some peculiar form of exile?

  ‘The idea of such a thing is unpleasant to me, yet that could be the truth of what I am destined to become. For days now – no, for weeks – my life has been more calm and ordered than it has been for quite some time. I have had no sudden fits of depression; have felt no need to wander the streets at night – or even to wander them during the daytime – and I have done my best to keep in touch with people. I have even made tentative arrangements for Christmas; planning to have the children here; and thinking of presents I might buy them in the immediate weeks ahead. Yet I still feel anxious. Still feel that I do not know what lies in store for me. I wish – oh, how I wish! – that I could grasp it; could gain some knowledge of it; could get just a glimpse of my direction.

  ‘I have been reading a lot – more than I ever did – and Joseph has come to spend time with me quite regularly; either here, or I have met him out at our local pub. And from time to time I have seen John and Billy as well; which means that on the surface at least, all has seemed calm and almost serene. But I know from experience that the monster that inhabits me has still not gone away: that it is still there: that it still waits, watches, still listens.

  ‘Sometimes, I think that I should attempt to confront this thing of darkness: should call its bluff, perhaps: provoke it: take actions that are dangerous and that would challenge both it and myself. Just to see. Just to test my story. But something holds me back – stops me from doing that – as if it might provoke a fight, some kind of battle, in which I would be the loser.

  ‘So I plod on; praying that with time my will will strengthen; and that if I can sustain the tension for long enough, the dangers will go away, and I shall begin to feel at least some modicum of security and achieve a point of rest.

  ‘Am I frightened? Yes, perhaps I am. Am I hiding my fright? Perhaps that too. Perhaps I’ve been pushing things under the carpet, or burying my head in sand, if either of those are suitable expressions to use. But what else can I do?

  ‘Whatever, I can say this – can write it down here – that if, as I go on, I begin to learn that a retreat from life is the only truthful way for me, then I will do my best to accept it – without grumbles, quarrels or resentments. Nothing but the truth, is what I am asking of myself. To know as much as I can, as much as I am allowed to know, of who or what I am.

  ‘Because I have learned of it from books, I know that there are faulty structures of the mind, and I have read of what is termed a psychotic state; something latent in the mind, which, when touched upon, I gather, or when activated in some way (as it can be by an excess of self-consciousness, I presume) can explode; and in a manner similar, I suspect, to when I was shouting from my window those few weeks ago, and frightening the people who live opposite; after which, I trampled upon this notebook of mine, then raced madly down the stairs, driven to do I know not what.

  ‘So perhaps a firm steeling of the nerves, and a persistent avoidance of any such murky areas of the mind, is what is best for me. Something tells me – by which I mean that this is a judgement based only upon instinct – that even if I did go to see a doctor (or an analyst, rather) I would only be told what I have just said; and it could be that this is what I have to face: to be continually watchful, guarded, cautious.

  ‘Well, whatever will be will be; and only time, I fear, will be the revealer of what it is.’

  XVI

  As everyone who lives in England knows, once November has passed and the year at last moves towards Christmas, there is a change that takes place in both the spiritual as well as the physical climate of the country. People become more cheerful – perhaps because they have come to accept the darkness of winter; its long nights; its occasional storms and heavy rain; the bitter winds that can blow. There is seldom much frost or snow: that is usually delayed until the New Year. And certainly in London, there is a sudden atmosphere of excited busyness and cheer. People think of nothing but the presents they are going to buy for the Christmas festival; of the new clothes they might indulge in; of what they might wear to this or that party; and the murky days of November are thrust aside.

  As for December’s weather – that too can be different. It can be cold – sometimes extremely so – but there can also be days that are bright and sunny – with high clouds piled up against the pale silver-blues of the sky – and that seem to speak of a springtime that will come; bursting through with such sudden force out of the dark months that lie behind it.

  It was on such a day as this that Lilian Callow chose to inspect her garden, to see that everything there was in order; noting, as she did so, that the holly trees were thick with berries (a sign, she had been told, that the winter would be severe); but which, nonetheless, pleased her, thinking as she did that she would have plenty of sparkling sprigs to bring indoors, and that would help her to cheer and liven the house and to make it welcoming for the family. For Jason, that is, who had promised to be there, and for his brother Jeremy and his wife and their two children.

  There was no wind, but the temperature was low; and Lilian was wrapped warmly in a fleece-lined sheepskin jacket. But as she stooped to lift the stem of a rose that had recently been pruned, and that had broken free of the wooden trellis upon which it had been trained to climb, she felt on her back at least a little of the sun’s warmth.

  Pausing in her task, Lilian turned to look at what she still thought of as her father’s house, and was pleased by the sight of smoke rising steadily from its chimneys; knowing this meant that Betty had made up the fires and that the house would soon be warm.

  ‘Lilian!’ her husband called out, who had come to a window to find her. ‘It’s the phone.’

  ‘The what?’ she asked, not quite hearing what he had said.

  ‘The phone, dear. It’s Jason.’

  Picking up a garden trug that she had left close to where she was working, Lilian turned to make a sign to her husband that she would come in to take the call; and wondered at the same time why Jason should have rung at such an unusual hour, which was shortly after breakfast.

  ‘But Jason, why at this time of day?’ she asked her son cheerfully. ‘It’s so early!’

  ‘Oh – no special reason,’ was Jason’s reply. ‘I just felt a need to speak to you, and to ask about presents.’

  ‘Presents, dear?’

  ‘Yes. For Christmas. What to buy father, for instance.’

  ‘Oh, my!’ exclaimed Lilian with relief; expressing how pleased she was that Jason had no more serious reason for calling. ‘I don’t know. I’ll have to think … Books? No – because he’s always so fussy and wants such particular ones. So what then? Well, a pair of braces, perhaps – good ones; with leather straps or whatever you call them, that go over the buttons.’

  ‘Well, that’s not much of a present,’ said Jason with a chuckle.

  ‘Yes, dear. I know it’s not; but it is what he wants.’

  ‘Then I’ll get both. Braces and a book; if you could just find out what kind of book he would like.’

  ‘Well, I can. Yes – I will.’

  ‘And you, Mother? What would you like?’

  ‘Me? Oh, perfume, perhaps – will that do? Not that I use it much … Something subtle.’

  ‘Shall I get the usual, then?’ said Jason, knowing his mother’s taste.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she replied, ‘that would be lovely.’

  There was then a brief pause in the conversation, before Lilian asked a little nervously if Jason was well.

  ‘Are you?’ she had added to her question.

  ‘I am – yes: quite.’

  ‘Better than you have been, I mean? Even than you were when you came here to us last?’

  ‘I think I am – yes. It comes and goes.’

  Again there was a pause, before Lilian risked saying,

  ‘
What does, Jason, dear? What comes and goes?’

  ‘Oh, my troubles.’

  ‘You’ve never really spoken about them, Jason, you know: to us: to your father and myself. We’ve seen that something has been wrong, but haven’t quite liked to ask what it might be.’

  ‘And I am glad you haven’t, Mother,’ said Jason, ‘because even now I can’t speak about it; can’t define it. I am just unwell at times – that is all I can say. Mentally, I mean. There is nothing physically wrong with me.’

  ‘Then shouldn’t you see someone about it, Jason? Being on your own can’t be good for you. Shouldn’t you see a doctor to find out what might be wrong?’

  ‘I have thought of it, Mother, and will if I feel I must. But for the moment –’

  ‘For the moment what, Jason?’

  ‘For the moment I can manage, I think, since I do feel rather better than I did: and I look better too, I am told.’

  ‘Oh, Jason! I am so glad that you rang,’ Lilian suddenly blurted out. ‘I can’t tell you, Jason, how much we are looking forward to Christmas, and to us all being here together … If only Jill and the children could have been here as well … But there it is. We’ve gone over that a thousand times. Have you bought their presents yet, Jason?’

  ‘No, Mother. I’ll do it all in one day. I loathe shopping, as you know. I’ll do it closer to the time – in a week or so … Now, before I go, could you please give Betty a message?’

  ‘Well, you can speak to her if you like.’

  ‘No. Just tell her this,’ said Jason with a quick laugh, ‘that I’m going to write a book like Wuthering Heights – or I’m going to try to, at least.’

  Jason’s mother laughed at this in return; then added ‘As if you would want to, Jason’: and then with many exchanges of love and affection, their conversation came to an end.

  If Hampshire was bright and sunny that day, Cumbria and its Lake District were the opposite; for there it was grey and gloomy, and with a steady drizzle of rain sprinkling down from out of the skies; and which made a fire burning in an open grate all the more cheerful, seen through the windows of Gillian’s mother’s house, where the curtains had not been drawn, and where the fierce blaze of its flames lit up the deep recess of a fireplace; before which Gillian and her mother were seated as they were inclined to do, once the children had gone to bed – and which, in spite of the differences between them, they enjoyed.

  ‘So, the children are going to London,’ stated Gillian’s mother.

  ‘Yes, they are,’ answered Gillian, ‘between Christmas and the New Year.’

  ‘Oh, it’s definite is it? I thought –’

  ‘Well, it’s as definite as I can expect it to be, Mother. When I’ve spoken to Jason, I can hear that he would like it to happen, but there is always the sense of a question in his mind, as if he can be sure of nothing.’

  ‘Perhaps he doesn’t really want to have them,’ her mother answered. ‘Perhaps it is all a pretence … Men can be like that, Gillian. You know that. Say one thing and mean another.’

  ‘And so can women,’ answered Gillian sharply. ‘It’s not only true of men, Mother. Women can be like that as well.’

  ‘Not in my experience, Gillian,’ answered her mother, with a stern expression on her face.

  ‘Are you speaking of Father, Mother?’

  ‘I am – yes. He wasn’t reliable, as you know. Always full of fancy ideas that couldn’t be realised.’

  ‘But that was what was delightful about him, Mother: why everyone loved him. How can you criticise him for that?’

  ‘You weren’t married to him, Gillian,’ was all her mother could voice in reply; as if to imply that she didn’t wish to discuss the subject further, and as she fiddled with her beads and looked at the darting flames of the fire, that were reflected in her eyes, and that allowed Gillian to retreat into herself, and to reflect upon what the true cause of her mother’s bitterness might be.

  ‘Shall I make us a drink?’ Gillian asked.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Well, it’s getting on for eleven,’ said Gillian, looking at a tall grandfather clock that was ticking away in the background.

  ‘Oh, well – then, yes. A drink would be nice. Horlicks for me, I think. I had cocoa last night, and it didn’t agree with me.’

  Gillian rose from her seat and went to leave the room, pausing as she did so to look at the gloomy, rain-filled sky beyond its windows.

  ‘We forgot to draw the curtains, Mother,’ she said crossing towards the windows to close them.

  ‘I wasn’t aware of it,’ said her mother, in an abstract manner, as if she hadn’t heard what her daughter had said, and with her mind preoccupied by secret thoughts, in which she spent so much of her time.

  ‘Horlicks, you said, Mother?’ asked Gillian.

  ‘Yes, dear,’ her mother replied. ‘I prefer it. It makes me sleep better.’

  XVII

  One week later Jason was unwell again, and had still not bought his Christmas presents: and John and Billy, who had done no more as yet than to draw up a list, were quarrelling over theirs.

  ‘Well, do we buy Mr Callow something or not?’ asked John.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Billy. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I was asking you what you thought, Billy. Do you want us to, or not?’

  ‘Yes. Perhaps.’

  ‘Well, what then? You can’t decide about your own present, so what about his?’

  ‘Well, it looks as if he could do with a scarf. That frayed old thing he wears is disgusting.’

  ‘Right, then – a scarf,’ said John, tersely, adding Jason’s name and present to their list.

  ‘And when do we do it?’ asked Billy.

  ‘Do what? Buy it?’

  ‘Yes – when?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ said John decisively. ‘We buy everything tomorrow. We get it done. It’s Saturday. We’ll get everything. Have it all finished … Why is it that we always get in such a bloody big mix-up over Christmas?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Billy, ‘but we do.’

  ‘And are we going out to eat tonight, or not?’ asked John.

  ‘By the look of the weather, we might as well stay in,’ said Billy. ‘There’s fog everywhere. You can’t even see across the street.’

  ‘That’s settled it then,’ said John. ‘We stay in, and we buy Mr Callow a scarf tomorrow; and we get all the other presents as well.’

  ‘To show Mr Callow that we like him,’ said Billy.

  ‘To show him that we like him,’ repeated John.

  Billy went into the kitchen to arrange something for supper: then called out, ‘Do you know who I saw today, John?’

  ‘Father Christmas.’

  ‘I wish I had. No, it was Darren Fawcett.’

  ‘Oh, him. What did he have to say?’

  ‘I bumped into him in Sloane Square. He was just coming out of the tube. Going to the Royal Court, he said, to pick up some tickets.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For what’s playing there, I suppose. The revue we went to. He’s been away – in “rep”. In Guildford, I think he said. Playing bit-parts. Making some money for once.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘You don’t like Darren, do you, John?’ said Billy.

  ‘No. He’s too bloody creepy – slippery’s more the word. I’d never trust him over anything.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Billy, teasingly, ‘how severe you are.’

  ‘I feel a need to be, with him. I don’t think you should be seeing him.’

  ‘I’m not … or not very often’, was Billy’s reply.

  ‘Or think of him as a friend.’

  ‘He’s just another actor,’ said Billy.

  Billy went on with his preparations for supper, and John went into the bathroom to tighten a screw that had become loose beneath one of the bathroom shelves.

  ‘Did you really mean what you said?’ asked Billy, coming to join him and to watch what he was doing.

>   ‘About what?’ asked John.

  ‘About Darren. That he’s no good.’

  ‘I did,’ said John, firmly. ‘I’ve said it before, and I won’t say it again.’

  ‘O.K,’ said Billy, accepting his friend’s judgement, ‘I won’t see him.’ And with that, he went back to the kitchen.

  The fog that had descended upon the city was especially dense that night – partly because of a reliance upon coal-fires for heating in so many of London’s houses; and which made the cityscape at that time such a different one from what it is today; with smoke rising from countless chimneys, and with the persistent smell of it in the air.

  But unlike John and Billy, Jason had been undaunted by the weather, and had wrapped himself up warmly and gone out. He hadn’t quite gone back to his previous habit of wearing two overcoats as well as a scarf and a pair of mittens; but he had put on a particularly heavy, winter coat, that had a large, generous collar, which he had turned up in order to protect his face and his ears. For in those days, the fog could almost sting, and could cause the skin to tingle – which, combined with the cold, could make one feel uncomfortable in the extreme.

  Joseph had said that he might meet Jason for a drink at their local pub; but for once hadn’t shown up; and Jason had gone on to one of the small restaurants that he frequented in the area, and had indulged in a heavy meal and a decent bottle of wine. But although he felt comforted by this – comforted, that is, from a physical point of view – his mind was troubled. For days now, he had again felt that pull that he would experience at times, and that drew him away from the surface of life: that peculiar form of listlessness from which he suffered, and that made him so passively inactive and so incapable of asserting himself: not wanting to wash himself or to bathe; not caring about the fact that his body began to smell, and that this transferred itself onto his clothing; particularly onto his underclothes; which he didn’t change and in which he slept; and that would almost begin to reek.