The Blue Tent

by Richard Gwyn

  Let me do that, I say, and pour her a cup. She drinks thirstily.

  I’m starving, she says.

  The smell of soup wafting in from the kitchen reminds me I had been cooking before going out to the garden and into the tent. Perhaps that is what woke her, the smell of food.

  There’s soup, I say. I’ll bring you some if you want.

  Thanks, but I’ll get up first. I need a bath. Then maybe we can have some soup.

  She edges off the sofa, and I extend an arm to help her stand. She leans awkwardly for a moment and then, facing me, puts both arms around my neck. Her breath is hot and gives off the pungent, slightly sour odour that fever brings.

  Where did you go, Alice?

  She pauses, resting her hand on my shoulder.

  Somewhere not so good. I’ll tell you about it, but not now. What I need now is to be here. She gestures emphatically around her, with both arms, in a manner that suggests my inclusion within the defined space; then, blanket draped over her shoulders, she sets off, barefoot, up the stairs to the bathroom.

  My relief at seeing Alice in this improved – if still somewhat disoriented – state sets my mind at peace a little. I make myself busy in the kitchen, and am preparing a fruit salad to follow the soup, when I hear footsteps outside, crunching on the gravel. I cross to the back door, but whoever is outside gets there first, and hammers on it with three loud raps. Not a shy knock, I think.

  Wary, and conscious that my house is not on the way to anywhere and does not, as a rule, attract visitors, I open the door a fraction, and peer out.

  A man is standing there. He is unshaven, of middle years, with a tanned, lived-in face. He wears well-serviced hiking boots, dusty corduroy trousers, a check woollen shirt, and his countenance is one of cheerful dishevelment. His eyes betray an inquisitive intelligence, and when he speaks he confirms the impression – despite his apparent material poverty – of an easy worldliness, and I am not surprised that his voice is deep and sonorous, suggestive of a westerly Celtic provenance.

  Could I trouble you for a bottle of water? he asks. I foolishly neglected to fill a second bottle, and now have none to cook with.

  His question raises a host of subsidiary ones, but I do not wish to appear unfriendly, so I put my doubts on hold and take from him the empty plastic flagon that he is waving in my direction. I gesture to him to step inside, and he follows me over to the sink, where I set about filling his container.

  Are you camping hereabouts? I ask, as I can think of nothing else to say.

  Yes, he says. I hope you don’t mind. I won’t be any trouble. But I picked a spot quite close to your house, in the field.

  That shouldn’t be a problem, I say. The field actually belongs to my neighbour, a farmer by the name of Morgan, but he has no objection to campers. So long, I add in afterthought, as you don’t have a dog. It’s the lambing season, you see.

  Morgan had very few sheep, and they would, in any case, be on the upper pastures by now, not down here in the valley, but there is no harm in saying.

  No, I don’t have a dog, the stranger says.

  A man such as yourself, I say (following a train of thought from some half-remembered conversation) ought to have a dog.

  I don’t much care for dogs, he says.

  A dog would be good company, I say.

  I manage just fine, he says, exactly as I am.

  I screw the top back on to his water container.

  Where exactly have you pitched your tent? I ask. I had been outside not fifteen minutes before, and there had been no sign of any other campers. If, that is, I add, you have a tent.

  Oh I have a tent, says the man. It’s right at the end of your garden, in the field. I’ll show you, if you like.

  I follow him outside. It is a perfect late spring evening, the sun casting long shadows across the lawn. We start down the path, past the cherry tree, and before we get to the little gate, he stops, pointing across the low fence to where the blue tent stands.

  There, he says, not without a hint of pride, that’s my tent.

  14

  My first reaction was outrage. Did this tramp take me for an idiot? Was it not reasonable to assume that I might be familiar with the existence of a tent, pitched as it has been, these three days past, at the end of my garden? His face betrays nothing at all, until he notices my disbelieving expression, and he then adopts a mode of unctuous concern.

  Is anything the matter? You seem troubled, sir. Is there a problem with me camping so close to your house?

  So this was his tack: he was going to play the innocent victim of my presumed intolerance. He was going to address me as sir, despite his not inconsiderable seniority of age.

  Not at all, I say, in answer, summoning a smile. You are quite welcome to camp here.

  I keep up my benevolent rictus for longer than strictly necessary, until the muscles in my cheeks begin to ache. Wandering over to the tent, I pretend to inspect it for the first time.

  That’s a fine looking tent you have.

  It does the job, he says. Keeps the rain off and that.

  Had it for long?

  As a matter of fact I have, he says. It was a gift from a dear friend, now sadly passed away.

  Indeed? I say. A generous bequest. And, let me see, in this light it is hard to make out, but it is blue, is it not? A most striking blue, if I am not mistaken.

  Aye, says the man. It is that. As blue as the midsummer sky.

  Do you intend staying long? I ask.

  What, tired of me already? He grins, in the fashion of a man accustomed to charming the susceptible.

  Ha ha ha, not at all. As I said, the field belongs to my neighbour, Mister Morgan. If you wander over to the farmhouse of a morning, just over the next field there, and up the lane, you may have milk for breakfast, fresh from the cow.

  I have made that up, of course. It was a long time since milk had ceased to be Morgan’s beverage of choice. And if he walked over to Morgan’s farm of a morning, and found the old bastard sober, it would be a miracle indeed if he escaped without the seat of his pants being ripped to shreds by one of Morgan’s dogs.

  Is that so? Well, it’ll be like a friggin’ Famous Five adventure for me here then, so it will.

  There is something sinister in the way he says that.

  Quite so, I reply, and, realising this is the moment at which I am probably expected to take my leave, whereupon the stranger would go about the business of cooking his meal – I can see he has a primus stove set up, a tin of beans, a sliced loaf, a flagon of cider, an enamel plate and mug – I swiftly settle on a course of action. I will expose this vagrant’s ridiculous fantasy and have done with it, pointing out that the tent is not his, that he is not welcome, and that he must pack up at once, failing which I will call the police.

  But just then I hear Alice’s voice behind me, bright as birdsong. I turn around. She has washed her hair, and is wearing a summer dress and a cashmere cardigan, rather than her usual jeans, T-shirt and man’s pullover. At her open neck she wears the scarab pendant. All signs of the mystery illness have vanished from her face. Her glossy auburn hair is brushed back, her cheeks are glowing and the black rings below her eyes have gone. She is wearing lipstick, a deep red that complements her hair colour. Her presence exudes a kind of demure sophistication, which has been entirely absent until now. It is as though she has been transformed into a woman of style and accomplishment.

  Is everything all right? Alice asks.

  I am caught between astonishment at the change that has come over her, and irritation that she has appeared at all, disrupting my plan of action, which I was intending to carry out without involving her in a dispute that might turn ugly.

  I see we have a visitor, she continues. Aren’t you going to introduce us?

  This completely throws me. I would have expected Alice to express alarm or anger at seeing this stranger make free with her tent, especially considering the emotional attachment I know it holds for her. But instead
I struggle to say anything at all, mumble my apologies and confess that I do not know the stranger’s name.

  O’Hallaran, he says, and if he had been wearing a hat he would have doffed it. Charming evening, is it not?

  I stand there, piggy in the middle, not knowing which way to turn. Alice seems oblivious to any wrongdoing on the part of this O’Hallaran with regard to the tent. Perhaps, despite her transformation from boho chic to Vogue model, she is still a bit funny in the head following her fever.

  But Alice, I object, your tent.

  She looks at me curiously and, I think, rather too tenderly, as if it were I who had been unwell – or suffered from some mental ailment – and not she.

  This chap – I continue, quite unnecessarily – says it’s his. He says he’s just arrived. With your tent. I am becoming quite animated.

  Oh now, that’s impossible. He must have a blue tent also, she says, as though it were dim of me not to have reached this conclusion myself.

  But it’s the same tent, I insist, my frustration mounting. It’s the same blue tent my Aunt Megan made for you, Alice, thesame fucking tent!

  I am pointing at it, my index finger quivering, my voice hoarse.

  The same tent? She looks it over, summarily. Perhaps it is. I doubt it somehow. And anyway, does it matter? I do think you are getting a little over-excited. Why don’t we go inside and have some of that soup you’ve been making? We could invite Mister O’Hallaran to share some with us, don’t you think?

  Before I have a chance to reply, the vagabond does so for me, expressing his acceptance of the offer, with a simpering gratitude: most kind, much obliged … I will be along shortly.

  He makes me want to spit.

  But Alice has taken my arm, again as though I, not she, were the invalid, and is beginning to lead me across the garden, back to the house. I stop after a few paces. O’Hallaran is behind us, rummaging in the tent.

  Look, I say, speaking fast but keeping my voice low, I need to clear something up, otherwise I’ll be worried that I’m going off my trolley. That blue tent, over there – that one – and again I point at it, as though there were a plurality of tents to choose amongst – is your tent. You arrived here with that tent on Monday night. You told me that my aunt made you the tent: she sewed it herself, with materials she had dyed blue, extremely blue. And now this O’Hallaran fellow emerges from the very same tent and claims it’s his. And you say nothing to contradict him. First you say the tent is not the same one – it’s impossible, you say – then you suggest that it might be the same but you cannot be sure. But neither way does it seem to matter much to you. What is going on?

  Alice turns aside to make sure O’Hallaran is still out of earshot and – with her hand on my arm – says: there are a few things I don’t quite understand about the blue tent. This may be one of them. It sometimes … how should I put this … coughs up a few surprises. But on such occasions it’s best just to go with the flow, do you see?

  I don’t see. I can’t see and I don’t want to see. But I start back to the house with her anyway.

  15

  O’Hallaran turns out to be a civil enough dinner guest; at least he is familiar with the use of cutlery, and I don’t know whether it’s due to Alice’s benign influence, but the slight sense of menace I discerned in him earlier – when I teased him about early morning milk from Morgan’s farm – does not re-surface during the course of the meal.

  I am, more than anything else, impressed by Alice’s marvellous recuperation. When I left her to take her bath she had seemed extremely fragile, and I imagined she would need several days to convalesce, but now she is refreshed, radiant even, and not remotely perturbed by the unexpected appearance of O’Hallaran.

  I, on the contrary, am exceedingly perturbed. Put out and confounded. I suspect that O’Hallaran is a scoundrel, and that his intentions are of the worst kind. I decide to test him further.

  How did you settle on this neck of the woods, I ask him, for a camping holiday?

  Camping holiday? He repeats the words slowly, as though the very notion amused him. I am not on a camping holiday.

  Really? I say. So this is a lifestyle choice? You are a gentleman of the road, a vagabond? I did not know there were still such things. I thought they had disappeared around the same time as black and white televisions and popcorn ceilings. I know about the urban homeless poor and have encountered them in droves around the planet. I am also familiar with the sight of so-called travellers in vans, New Age or otherwise, cluttering up our country lanes, but the solitary foot-slogging rural tramp? The wild rover, striding forth from the lyrics of a Dubliners song? You impress me, Mister O’Hallaran, with your fine sense of anachronism.

  A glance from Alice suggests I have gone too far with this outburst.

  I apologise, I say hastily. I am very tired and have forgotten my manners. I have lived abroad for many years, I add, though I have no idea how or why that should make any difference, nor why I have said it.

  Is that so? says O’Hallaran, helping himself to a thick slab of my bread and buttering it generously. And where, he says, were you living, whilst abroad?

  He enunciates the word as though it were a place of my own invention.

  Oh, here and there, I reply. Burkina Faso, Sumatra, Belize. How about yourself? Is your vagabondage limited to these islands, or do you take yourself off to sunnier climes from time to time?

  O’Hallaran stares at me as he chews. Unlike many of his vagrant brethren he has a full set of teeth. He pauses before answering, as if evaluating the measure of my insincerity. I have travelled a fair bit across the continent, he says. And beyond.

  Ah, I repeat: thecontinent. And how, if I may ask, does one make ends meet, while engaged in a lifestyle such as yours?

  I make ends meet, says O’Hallaran, slowly. I make things …

  Really? I interrupt him. You make things? Trinkets? Jewellery? You peddle artefacts for sale to unsuspecting tourists and their offspring at the seaside?

  No, I was going to say: I make things grow. I work the fields. I am an itinerant agricultural labourer.

  No thieving or beggary then?

  Now, to be fair, I am quite surprised at myself over the attitude I have struck towards O’Hallaran. For all I know he is harmless, and has wandered into Morgan’s field quite by chance, without any dishonest intentions, but the truth is I have not yet overcome my utter confusion over the tent. To my mind, the tent either belongs to Alice, or it belongs to O’Hallaran; and as far as I am concerned it belongs to Alice, and O’Hallaran is an interloper. But Alice, for reasons I am not yet able to fathom, seems to find it feasible, even quite reasonable, that the tent belongs as much to O’Hallaran as it does to her. Therefore I must be missing something. I can see no harm in pursuing the topic further.

  Look, O’Hallaran, I say. I realise we haven’t made a very good start. But, you see, I’m a bit confused about your tent. A bit muddled up, shall we say. You said it was a gift from someone who passed away. Might I ask who that person was?

  O’Hallaran stops chewing. Why, of course, he says. It was a gift from the lady who used to live in this house. Miss Megan. And now, if you’ll forgive me, I need to get my head down. It has been a long and tiring day. Thank you for the supper. It was most kind of you to invite me into your kitchen.

  He stands, returns his chair to its place at the table, strides to the door, and steps out into the night.

  16

  Once again, I contrive to sleep in the green armchair. I want to feel swathed in Megan’s protective aura. I try to make sense of all that has happened today but instead plunge into further confusion. From the moment of my return to Llys Rhosyn, to find Alice standing like a ghost in the drive, everything has the taste and semblance of a dream. (I say this to myself, that my current life feels like a dream, but this doesn’t help, since my insomnia casts almost everything into doubt anyhow – waking life is like a dream.) I wonder again whether I should pay another visit to Dr Homfray.
He was very kind when I first went six months ago. As I have said, he prescribed sleeping pills, along with some others for what he termed my ‘anxiety disorder’. I took them but they didn’t work. He prescribed another kind of drug, a stronger sort, and so on. Nothing worked, and I still have boxes of them left. I tried exercise, herbal remedies, deep breathing, meditation, masturbation, relaxing CDs. (A complete misnomer; there is nothing remotely relaxing about these recordings of waves breaking gently on the shore, birdsong, the music of the spheres. I might as well have listened to the sound of farm animals greeting the day, or horses breaking wind.) Where my insomnia was concerned, nothing worked. Nothing works.

  I read recently of a man, a celebrated insomniac, who claimed that long periods without sleep amount to a tyranny of consciousness; that normal people, who sleep the prescribed number of hours, awake each day as though starting out on a new life, but that for the insomniac no such renewal can occur. Instead, the sleepless live in a continuum of consciousness, and while everyone else rushes toward the future, we insomniacs remain outside. We don’t have a future to look forward to, because there is none, only the persistence of an intolerable present. The unconscious replenishes: it is, as an American novelist once remarked, ‘a machine for operating an animal’.

  Once the machine is broken, what becomes of the animal?

  I stand up, walk over to a bookshelf and pick, almost (but not quite) at random, the Pretiosa Margarita Novella or ‘The New Pearl of Great Price’ by Petrus Bonus, a fourteenth-century treatise that complains about the elusiveness and impenetrability of alchemical jargon. By choosing such a book in this exhausted state, I convince myself I am opening up to the forces of entropy, allowing a place for the random to settle and nurture seedlings. However, my secret purpose is more effective, and whatever the pearls contained in Petrus’ work, within minutes I am asleep, head slumped forward, reading glasses fallen from my nose onto the pages of the open book.