White pelicans sat on the roof of the conservatory. The evening air was lit from below by the plumage of thousands of birds, and by the vivid petals of the tropical flowers that had wreathed themselves around the dead elms, together forming an immense corona like the one I had first glimpsed as I climbed from the aircraft.
‘I am the fire …’ And the earth, air and water. Of these four realms of the real world, three I had already entered. I had stepped through three doors, through the birds, the fish and the mammals. Now it only remained for me to enter the fire. But as what strange creature, born to the flame?
A hurricane lamp flared across the metal railings of the amusement pier, illuminating the thousands of fish in the river. Lamp in hand, Stark jumped from the catwalk on to the pontoon of a steel lighter he had moored against the pier. This ancient craft, which he had floated free from some forgotten creek, was fitted with dredging equipment, winch and crane. Ignoring the heavy-backed fish, the tuna and small sharks that leapt from the water around his ankles, Stark inspected the metal jib and rusty hawsers.
So he still intended to raise the Cessna, and mount it as the prize exhibit in his threadbare circus. He turned his lamp on me, and struck my face with the beam as if gently chiding me for leaving the drowned aircraft unguarded. I could see his canny expression, and that he knew we were engaged in a special kind of duel.
Leaving him, I walked up to the house. The French windows were open to the warm evening, and the lights in the drawing-room shone down over the dust-sheets that covered the settees and tables. The wicker furniture in the conservatory, the long dining-table, the chairs and sideboards had been carefully draped, lamps and telephones disconnected.
Had Miriam and her mother decided to leave, so appalled by the spell I had cast over Shepperton and by my transformation of myself into a beast that they had closed their house and made their escape while I slept in the meadow? Thinking of Miriam, and of her place in the centre of my grand design, I ran up the darkened staircase. My own room was untouched, but Miriam’s bedroom had been attacked by a demented housebreaker. Someone had hurled her doctor’s coat over the dressing-table mirror, emptied her medical case across the bed and shaken the contents on to the floor. Vials and syringes, a stethoscope and prescription pad lay in the broken glass at my feet.
Macaws fluttered shaggily through the darkness as I left the drive. Beyond the trees by the swimming-pool I could see a faint light swaying through the windows of the church. The stained-glass panelling of the east window had been removed, exposing the candle-lit vaulting of the roof.
The vestry door hung open, the display cases with their fossil remains lit by the moon. Although he had abandoned his church to me, Father Wingate had worked hard that day, assembling the primitive flying creature whose ancient bones he had found on the beach. With its out-stretched arms, its slender legs and delicate feet, bones jewelled by time, it more than ever resembled a small winged man – perhaps myself, who had lain these millions of years in the bone-bed of the Thames, sleeping there until it was time to be freed by the falling aircraft. Perhaps the Cessna had been stolen by another pilot, that spectral figure I had seen lost among the dead elms. Had I taken his identity, stepping out on to the beach from my resting-place in the river-bank?
A silver stick of candles burned on the floor of the nave, where only the previous day Father Wingate and I had wrestled the pews against the wall. Behind the cloth-draped altar a ladder rose to the east window, from which all the stained glass had been pulled down and thrown to the floor below.
Mrs St Cloud stood by the altar in her dressing-gown, gesturing uncertainly to the flickering light. Miriam sat calmly on the scuffed floor, one hand moving among the pieces of broken glass. Under the nursing sister’s cape I could see the embroidered skirt of a wedding dress which she tried to hide from me, the costume of a novitiate bride. She picked casually at the fragments of stained glass, the sections of ruby halo and disciple’s robes, cross and stigmata, the pieces of a vast jigsaw she had already begun to reassemble.
‘Blake, can you help me …?’ Mrs St Cloud took my arm, her eyes avoiding mine as if they might burn her pupils. ‘Father Wingate’s gone berserk. Miriam’s trying to put all this glass together. She’s been sitting here for hours.’ She gazed helplessly at the looted church and then turned to her daughter. ‘Miriam, come back to the house, dear. People will think you’re some kind of mad nun.’
‘It’s not cold, Mother. I’m perfectly happy.’ Miriam looked up from her jigsaw with an easy smile. She seemed calm but deliberately detaching herself from everything around her, preparing herself for whatever violent promise I held out for them all. Yet as she gazed admiringly at my grimy suit I could see that it was only by an effort of will that she suppressed her wish to attack me.
‘Miriam, there’s the clinic tomorrow … there are your patients to look after.’ Mrs St Cloud pushed me forward to the circle of broken glass. ‘Blake, she’s decided to give up the clinic.’
‘Mother, I think Blake is more than capable of looking after the patients. He has the hands of a true healer …’
I was about to step through the fragments of glass and hold her in my arms, reassure her that I wanted only to take her with me into that real world whose doors I was unlocking. Then I realized that she was sitting there, not merely to reassemble the broken window, but to protect herself from me within this mystic circle, as if I were some vampiric force to be held back by these archaic signs and symbols.
I said to Mrs St Cloud: ‘You’ve closed the house – are you leaving Shepperton?’
Confused, she hid her hands in her dressing-gown. ‘Blake, I don’t know. For some reason I’m sure that we’re all going to leave soon, perhaps within a few days. Do you feel that, Blake? Have you seen the birds? And the strange fish? Nature seems to be … Blake?’
She waited for me to speak, but I was looking at her daughter, moved by Miriam’s fear of me and by her courage, by her determination to face whatever powers I might hold over her. However, I already knew that when they left Shepperton, Miriam and her mother, Father Wingate, Stark and the three children would do so only with me.
Later, while I rested in my bedroom above the river, I thought of my third vision that afternoon, of my lordship of the deer. Although I had not eaten for three days I felt gorged and pregnant, not by some false womb in my belly, but by a true pregnancy in which every cell of my flesh, every gland and nerve in my brain, every bone and muscle, was swelling with new life. The thousands of fish crowding the dark water, the lantern-like plumage of the birds in the park also seemed gorged, as if we were all taking part in an invisible reproductive orgy. I felt that we had abandoned our genital organs and were merging together, cell to cell, in the body of the night.
I was certain now that my vision that afternoon had not been a dream but another doorway into that realm to which my unseen guardians were guiding me. I had become first a bird, then a fish and a mammal, each a partner in a greater being to be born from my present self. However barbaric I might seem, a minor pagan deity presiding over this suburban town in a shabby suit stained with semen and blood, I felt a powerful sense of discipline and duty. I knew that I should never abuse my powers, but conserve them for those goals which had yet to reveal themselves to me.
Already, like the local spirit of some modest waterfall or doorway, I could change myself from one creature to another. I knew that I had been transformed into a household god, not a cosmic being of infinite power pervading the entire universe, but a minor deity no more than a mile or so in diameter, whose sway extended over no more than this town and its inhabitants, and whose moral authority I had still to define and win. I thought of the corona of destruction I had seen hovering over the roof-tops, and my conviction that I would one day slaughter all these people. I was certain that I had no wish to harm them, but only to lead them to the safety of a higher ground somewhere above Shepperton. These paradoxes, like my frightening urge to copulate with young child
ren and old men, had been placed before me like a series of tests.
Whatever happened, I would be true to my obsessions.
No longer needing to sleep, I sat by the window. Was all sleep no more than an attempt by the infant in its cot, the bird in its nest, by old and young alike, to reach that further shore where I had run with the deer that afternoon? Below me the river flowed towards London and the sea. The hull of the drowned Cessna was lit by the White dolphins that crowded the water, turning the river into a midnight oceanarium filled from my bloodstream. Motes of light flickered from every leaf in the midnight forest, miniature beacons within the dismembered constellations of myself. Looking out at the sleeping town, I vowed to guide its inhabitants to the same happy end, assemble them into the mosaic of their one real being in the same way that Miriam St Cloud put together the pieces of stained glass, transform them into rainbows cast by my body upon every bird and flower.
CHAPTER 22
The Remaking of Shepperton
The next day I began to remake Shepperton in my own image.
Soon after dawn I stood naked on the lawn among the drowsy pelicans. I had roused myself from a deep and undisturbed rest, almost surprised to find the quiet bedroom still around me. The high-backed chair by the window, Mrs St Cloud’s desk and dressing-table, the mirror-faced wardrobes against the wall, hung faintly in the dim light as if rejoining me after a long journey. I stepped from the bed on to the carpeted floor, grateful for the soft pile, for the passive air doing as little as it could to unsettle me. I felt like a child in a holiday hotel, senses alert to the smallest blemish in the paintwork of the ceiling, to a strange vase on the mantelpiece, to all the exciting possibilities of the coming day. My skin prickled like over-sensitive camera film, already recording the hints of light that touched the pewter sky above London. Advancing quietly towards Shepperton, the early dawn picked out the mast of a yacht moored in the marina by Walton Bridge, the inclined ramp of a sand-conveyor by the gravel lakes, the lightning conductors on the galvanized roofs of the film studios.
Each of the images left its imprint on my skin, one part of the surrounding world that formed the illuminated fresco of my face and hands. Refreshed by these remote messages, the soft assurances of the day, I decided not to dress for the moment. No one else was awake, and I left the bedroom and made my way down to the hall. Everywhere the draped furniture seemed to be waiting its turn to reconstitute itself.
I let myself through the front door and walked across the damp grass towards the grey water. The river ran up to me, rubbing itself against the beach as if eager to shed its dark coat. The huge flocks of birds sat quietly in the trees, ready for me to signal them to life.
The first light moved across the water meadow. I stepped on to the beach and raised my arms to the sun. As I stood there naked I knew that I greeted the sun as an equal, a respected plenipotentiary I admitted to my domain. Turning my back to its rising disc, I walked through the cold shallows and admired the hundreds of golden carp that swarmed around my feet.
Followed by the sun, I left the grounds of the mansion and entered the deserted park, an ostler leading a large and passive work-horse out to the day’s labour. I ran naked through the trees, pretending to abandon the sun in the topmost branches of the dead elms, but it moved tolerantly through the trees at its steady pace. For the first time since my arrival, I felt confident and free, ready to make the day.
Outside the church I stopped to catch my breath. I remembered Miriam St Cloud on her knees among the stained-glass fragments, playing too calmly with her puzzle. Leaving the sun moored to the church steeple, I entered the vestry, where the ancient bones of the winged man seemed to stir in the morning light.
Naked, I stood below the altar, aware of the faint scent that hung in the air. I could smell Miriam’s body around me, her lips and breasts, her nervous hands ready to push me away. Again I wanted to embrace and reassure her. Standing in the glass circle, I held my penis in my hand. I could feel her massaging me as I woke on the wet grass after my crash …
Semen jolted into my palm. I stared at the bright fluid and remembered the river water I had held up to the light, a condensed universe of liquid dust.
Leaving the church, I threw the semen on to the cobbled pathway outside the vestry door. As I paused there, looking across the swimming-pool at the replica aircraft in the grounds of the film studios, green-fluted plants with the same milk-red blossoms sprang through the stones at my feet. I stepped among them and set off towards the town, my swollen penis in my hand. As I ran through the trees I thought of Miriam. Again I ejaculated beside the tennis courts, and hurled my semen across the flower-beds.
Immediately a luxurious tropical vegetation uncoiled itself among the staid tulips, breaking the damp soil. The pale leaves of young bamboo shivered against the metal netting. A delicate tapestry of Spanish moss unfurled itself from the branches of a dead elm, a corpse dressed for its own coronation. Strangling vines circled the slim trunks of the silver birch like eager suitors.
Excited by my own sex, I felt light-headed and generous. All sense of hunger had left me. I decided to startle the placid town with my sex, but not by copulating with these suburbanites still asleep in their bedrooms. I would mount the town itself, transform Shepperton into an instant paradise more exotic than all the television travelogues that presided over their lives.
I left the sun to find its own way across the park, stepped on to the deck of the swimming-pool and climbed to the high diving-board. Below me was the resting water, and a tiled floor decorated with tritons and amiable fish, where there were no drowned aeroplanes. The air played on my bruised chest, carrying from the church the scent of Miriam St Cloud.
At the slightest touch, semen spilled into my hand. I let the pearly string fall across the water. Jewelled medallions glimmered on the surface, an electric chemistry rippled to and fro like an invisible swimmer. Within seconds the patterns had coalesced into a series of green saucers each with a white flower at its centre. When I stepped down from the ladder the entire surface of the pool was covered with immense lilies, the playground of a water-cherub.
Leaving the swimming-pool, I set off towards the centre of Shepperton. The great arms of the banyan tree had seized the pavement outside the post office and filling-station, as if trying to pull the whole of Shepperton into the sky. I strode down the empty street, and touched the first of the lamp standards, anointing it with my semen. A fire vine circled the worn concrete and rose to the lamp above my head where it flowered into a trumpet of blossom.
Delighted by this, I marked the road-verge with orchids and sunflowers. Outside the supermarket I set up a line of mangoes in the ornamental urns, their happy fruits breaking through the debris of cigarette packs and fast-food foil. At the filling-station I ejaculated across the fuel pumps, and over the paintwork of the cars standing in front of the showroom. Mile-a-minute vine hung in deep mists over the radiators, gorged itself on the morning air and climbed the glass windows, clutching at the neon signs and roof gutters. Lilies flowered beside the fuel pumps, succulent plants trailed around the hoses, decorating themselves for the first customers.
Already Shepperton was taking on a carnival air, a processional route being prepared for a triumphal motorcade. I worked rapidly, eager to transform the town before the sleeping residents woke to discover the day. I planted groves of oleanders outside the bank and appliance stores, and threaded flowering vines along the overhead telephone wires, a charming embroidery of the morning’s messages. Their nute-shaped flowers formed chains of decorated lights. I stood on the roof of the multi-storey car-park, letting my semen drip on to the decks below. A cascade of cannas and wild strawberries fell from the concrete ledges, turning this grey labyrinth into a cheerful hanging garden.
Everywhere I went, scattering my semen on this dawn circuit of the town, I left new life clambering into the air behind me. Egged on by the rising sun, which had at last caught up with me, I moved in and out of the empty st
reets, a pagan gardener recruiting the air and the light to stock this reconditioned Eden. Everywhere a dense tropical vegetation overran the immaculate privet hedges and repressed lawns, date palms and tamarinds transformed Shepperton into a jungle suburb.
Already these changes would have been visible to anyone in the surrounding fields, to the drivers on the motorway. When I returned to the car-park soon after six o’clock I could see that I had painted the town with a vivid equatorial palette, an Amazon glaze.
Hundreds of coconut palms were rising from the gardens, the ragged parasols of their leaves swayed above the chimneys. At every street corner groves of bamboo speared through the cracked paving stones. All over Shepperton, from the roofs of the film studios, supermarket and filling-station, the tropical foliage leaked its light into the air. The sun rose over the sleeping town, a slow giant helping me in its ponderous but sure way. Thousands of birds had emerged from the dense vegetation, and kept up a cluttering chorus, macaws and cockatoos, gaudy honey eaters and birds of paradise.
I stood by the entrance to the car-park, listening proudly to this dawn din, and thinking how impressed Miriam would be when she stepped to her window and saw the way in which I had dressed the day for her. Already the first spectators had arrived to admire my handiwork. Two newspaper delivery boys sat on their bicycles under the banyan tree and stared open-mouthed at the brilliant vegetation and at the cranes and scarlet ibis looking down at them from the roof of the supermarket. Seeing me, they stepped back behind their bicycles, too frightened to move. I assumed that they were startled by my naked body and erect penis, by the semen glistening on my thighs, but then I realized that they were unaware of my nakedness, and were awed only by the huge bruises on my chest.
‘You two, move along – if you stay there you’ll be trapped.’ I walked over to them and lifted their bicycles through the roots of the banyan tree. They pedalled away, catcalling as soon as they were out of my reach. Flowers sprang from the handles of their bicycles, orchids threaded themselves through the spokes, they swerved down the empty streets in a flurry of petals.
The Unlimited Dream Company Page 11