Metronome

by Oliver Langmead

  ‘Hullo Aggie,’ I say, and she moves her breathing apparatus out of the way for me.

  Aggie smiles her scarred smile at us both.

  When we are seated, Valentine sorts my plate out for me; he gets both of our soups, and I get his portion of mashed potato. Then, he helps me get my fingers arranged around my fork, before settling down and tucking his napkin into his dressing gown, as if he has arrived at a formal dinner wearing the clothes he sleeps in.

  The arthritis in both my hands means that I should really have someone feeding me, but I will be damned if I am going to suffer the indignity. I will take my time with my meal, and avoid messy foods, and even endure the discomfort in my hands. I will be the last man in the dining room, when everyone else has finished. But I refuse to be fed.

  ‘About my dream,’ I say to Valentine, continuing our conversation.

  The old soldier seems to consider what I have told him as he slurps at his soup.

  ‘I think you need to remember the name of that tobacco,’ he says. ‘Sounds grand.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  Glancing at Aggie, who is frowning at our conversation, Valentine sighs. ‘Manderlay here,’ he says, ‘has a head full of nightmares. And if you ask me, he rather needs to stop yammering on about them. They’re just something you ate, you silly old codger. A bit of indigestion.’ He rotates his spoon around, so that it makes a circle in the air, as if he is making a circumference of the planet. ‘Everybody gets bad dreams every now and then.’

  ‘It was so vivid, though.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ grumbles Valentine. ‘You and I, we get vivid dreams every night. It just so happens that you remember yours, that’s all. Dreams are just…’ He sips at another spoonful of soup. ‘Dreams are just bits of memories, muddled up with bits of imagination. And if you ask me, which you have, you’ve just been watching too many movies. Filled your head up with all manner of ghouls. Remember that gory film we watched last week? About the shark monsters? I’m surprised you’re not going on about sharks.’

  I smile. ‘You fell asleep before it started.’

  ‘And it’s a good job I did. From what you told me, it was rubbish.’

  There is a comfortable quiet between us, filled with the clinking of plates being emptied by the elderly, and the gentle wheezing of Aggie, who looks to be deep in thought.

  ‘What do you dream about?’ I ask Valentine.

  This question seems to sober the old soldier, and I immediately regret asking.

  ‘Guns, mostly,’ he mumbles. ‘But not the look of them. Every other sense. The feel of the metal, and the wood. The force of the kick. The taste in the air. And the sound. The noise, like fireworks gone to hell. Pop pop pop.’ Valentine lowers his eye, to watch his soup.

  I feel something on my hand, and notice that it is Aggie’s hand. She has reached across the table, and is looking me in the eye. Every one of Aggie’s breaths is precious, and when she speaks, it sounds like a parody of speech, full of phlegm and pain. But still she speaks. ‘Fight ’em,’ she says. ‘Put up your fists and give ’em what for, ’til there’s no nightmares left.’ Then, she squeezes my hand, smiles at me, and goes back to her food.

  As foretold, I am the last man to leave the dining room.

  In defiance of my age, I skirt the queue for the chair-lift and take the stairs.

  Up in my flat, I take the cheque I received this morning, and place it beside the picture of Samantha, just as promised. My whole little mantelpiece is covered in memorabilia, with the most important objects being the closest to my daughter’s photograph, so it is quite the honour for that little slip of paper.

  As an afterthought, I head across to the trunk in the corner of the room, and open that beaten old trove with the edges of my hands.

  Inside, there is a heap of junk from my old house. It takes me a small while to find what I am looking for, but when I do, I take it out – held between my wrists – and close the trunk, heading across to settle into my armchair. I have never used the bed in my humble flat, and nor do I think I ever will. This chair is the place that I sleep, and one day, when the time comes, I hope to die in it.

  By the light of the lamp, I open my old notebook.

  The album I sold – probably found at the bottom of a bargain bin somewhere – was called Solomon’s Eye, and it was the most peculiar album I ever released. Mostly, when I used to compose, it would be a slow thing. I would start with the seed of an idea, and let it grow as I played, letting it gradually come to life through my violin.

  Solomon’s Eye was different.

  It is not easy for me flip through my notebook. My fingers keep getting muddled. I skip leaves of pages covered in bars and filled with notes, scrawled in my old neat handwriting. But then, halfway through, I come to the place where I wrote Solomon’s Eye. Instead of tidy, the notes across these bars are wild, and hastily scrawled. I flip further on, seeing their mad dance across the page. Because I wrote this whole album in one day.

  I was very ill indeed, when I was 72. In fact, I nearly died. But I held on, through my terrible fever, and survived. I can remember very little of those two long feverish days, except for the madness that took me: the bizarre hallucinations, the fever dream.

  They had me in a small hospital room by myself. And at the height of my delirium, I thought that my wife was with me, her delicate hand in mine, our wedding bands clinking together. And though I could not see her face, I could hear her gentle laughter, and I could smell her perfume - all the things I knew so well of her before she passed away.

  Lily spoke to me, in those fevered hours. ‘William,’ she said, and she tugged at my hand, as if she wanted to lead me somewhere. ‘Follow me. Come with me to Solomon’s Eye.’

  And I remember, at the worst moment, the way the television in the corner, all mad static and hissing, suddenly became very clear. It showed a long black road, going on forever, dividing mountains and crossing seas, like a line drawn around the world. And as the image on the screen followed that road, on and on, as if I was a bird flying above it, Lily sang to me. She held my hand tightly, and sang songs so brilliant and wonderful and strange that they fixed themselves in my head, and I wanted that fever dream to never end. I wanted to watch the black road roll along forever, and hear the strange songs my wife sang to me.

  And when I emerged from my hallucinations at last, I still had those songs in my head. Samantha was so worried about me those days that at first she refused to fetch my notebook. But eventually, at my insistence, she did, and I spent the next day recovering and scribbling down all of Lily’s songs as quickly as I could, before they vanished from my thoughts. A whole album was born from terrible illness.

  I close the notepad, because I can feel my eyelids drooping.

  There is a blanket beside my chair, and I pull it over my knees. My memories of writing Solomon’s Eye have awakened a pang of regret: I have not seen my daughter for so long now. Why should it take the threat of my death to reunite us? But then, as I start to drift away, to sleep, to new dreams, my thoughts return to my strange dream of last night. My head is full of nightmarish lepers. And as I close my eyes, and leave the room, I have Aggie’s words echoing around in my thoughts to comfort me instead.

  ‘Fight ’em,’ she said. ‘Put up your fists and give ’em what for.’

  *

  I dream of the lighthouse.

  In my late teens, I found my rebellion in riding my motorbike as far north as I could, in some attempt at escaping what I imagined to be the humdrum ordinariness of home threatening to make me boring. And it was on one of those trips that I stumbled across a forgotten cove at the edge of the Highlands, just beyond a set of crumbling low walls that must have been a kind of farming village at some point.

  I am back on the pebble beach of that cove.

  Behind me looms the set of jagged cliffs that hide this place from everyone, a torn array that look as if some giant has ripped a chunk out of the edge of the land. Before me is the froth
ing silver sea, washing across the pebbles.

  I am wearing my leather jacket, and a nearly-new pair of jeans which are already ripped in one knee. I draw my sleeve back, but the heart tattoo dedicated to Lily is not there yet because this is before I met her. And it would be so easy for me to forget that I am an old man dreaming myself young, were it not for the notebook I am holding, the same notebook I fell asleep reading, filled with songs; a relic from the waking world.

  I place the notebook into a jacket pocket and try to forget about it.

  The abandoned lighthouse where I used to camp out is further along, but I do not go there yet. Instead, I clamber across pebbles towards where there is a jumbled shape beneath a worn tarpaulin, which I haul back.

  Here lies the object that brought me back here every weekend for almost a year. By some convergence of currents, the North Sea brings a lot of detritus to this cove, all manner of driftwood, floating fishing gear and rubbish. Back then, I saw potential in that rubbish. So, I built a boat out of it.

  The boat is just about big enough to fit one person, and it looks like it is made of patchwork. In its current state, it is little more than a collection of bits of beaten tin and twists of driftwood, held together with bleached fishing line. The shape is unmistakable though. In the months to come after this moment, I will bring tools and treatments through from Edinburgh, and even some materials to make sails out of. And by the end of my year here, my little patchwork boat will have a mast, and I will sail her out to disaster, to where she will sink roughly half a mile out from shore. It will be my first short voyage, and inspire a great many more.

  I run my hands, so unaffected by age and disease, across the rough driftwood of my boat.

  Then, I turn and run to the sea, flinging my jacket aside and wading in, feeling the cold water cling to my jeans. I walk out until the water reaches my waist and I can feel the chill of it invigorating my fingers. I take a deep breath of sea air, feeling my lungs shudder, tasting the salt of it.

  It was here, in this cove, where I first met Lily. A girl from the nearest village, a few miles down the coast, who grew curious about the lights glowing in the abandoned lighthouse. I first saw her as a silhouette at the top of the cliffs, and then in person, wearing a white dress and a slanted smile as she asked me who I was and what I was doing here.

  Of course I fell in love with her. Anyone would have. She was rare and wild, and though not as infected with wanderlust as I was, she still yearned for adventure. Eventually, she would bring more blankets, pillows and even an old mattress down from her village, and set them up in the top room of the ruined lighthouse, which would become our place together. She would share in the magic of my secret cove. I would bring my violin through from Edinburgh, and play songs for her deep into the nights, when her eyes would become wide and dark and her slanted smile would soften and become something sweeter.

  ‘Will,’ she would say, ‘play me another.’

  I learned so many songs for her. And though I knew I had some talent for the violin already, my love for Lily improved my art so much that I would eventually not only audition for the London Philharmonic but get offered a job there. And it was in that way that my year at the cove would come to an end: with the sinking of my patchwork boat and a great bonfire at the top of the lighthouse, where Lily wept all night long at the sight of our hidden nest burning.

  I wade back up to the beach and sit, letting myself dry off.

  It is cold, so I pull my leather jacket back on. Perhaps now would be a good time to go and explore the ruined lighthouse and find some shelter. I grab a pebble before I go, and skim it across the waves, wondering whether it would be such a bad thing were I to never wake again. I would not mind dreaming of this place forever.

  At the end of the pebble beach, out on a ring of concrete, stands the empty shell of the old lighthouse. Perhaps it was once painted white and red, but it has been so worn by the years that it is a stony grey finger, pointing at the heavens, and pock-marked with holes which whistle when the winds are strong.

  There is something horribly wrong with the lighthouse. I stop short.

  Clinging onto the side of it is a monstrous shape. It has a body the size of a yacht and eight spindly legs the thickness of masts dug into the stone. From what I can make out, the texture of its limbs, and its bulbous body, are the same as if it has been carved from the trunk of a tremendous tree. The way the light plays across it lends its many eyes a terrible gleam, and I am sure that it is watching me. Right now, it is perfectly still, clutching hold of the very top of the lighthouse, where its eight legs keep it at a terrible angle, defying gravity.

  There is a giant wooden spider at the top of my lighthouse.

  I take a deep breath, and raise my skinny fists.

  March

  A moment of stillness before the spider moves.

  Pebbles scatter as it lands on the beach and scuttles quickly towards me, rushing with a terrible eight-legged locomotion. I run for the cliffs. The giant wooden spider is more than twice my height and I do not think my fists will have much of an effect.

  The path is thin and winding – made mostly of mud – and in places I have to crawl up the side of the cliff. All the while I can hear the spider as it approaches, every leg causing a rocky landslide as it skitters from its lighthouse perch. At the top of the path I turn and see it raise its front legs up at me, mandibles like wooden stakes feeling the air, and I see myself reflected in its many eyes, small and fleeting.

  My bike is on the other side of the ruined village and I run like a sprinter through tumbled-down buildings towards it. The ground is uneven, as if it is a piece of paper that someone has crumpled and tried to flatten out again, and I have to take care across the thick purple heather coating everything. I leap across a fallen wall and through the empty shell of a farmhouse, which is now no more than a rocky perimeter.

  I catch sight of my bike in the near distance, a thundering old thing that cost me far too much to buy and far too much to maintain. Still, it gleams, a green and silver machine that might mean my salvation. But before I can reach it, I make the mistake of looking back, watching in horror as the spider’s front legs emerge at the edge of the cliff behind me.

  Too large to use the path, it has navigated the sheer concave cliff-face.

  Tripping on a patch of heather, I right myself and pull myself forward using the edge of a wall. Two more ruined houses along, I finally emerge onto the dirt track: a more even surface, where I can run without care. I bound the distance between me and the bike, fumbling through the pockets of my leather jacket for the keys, and finding them beneath my old notepad. Keys in hand, I rush the last few yards, ready to hop on and ride away.

  With an almighty crash the spider lands on the building behind me.

  I am thrown forward by the force of its landing, among dust and pieces of rock. Ancient bricks clatter and whole walls tear away as the spider rips the ruined farmhouse into pieces with its tree-trunk legs. I spend a few long moments on the ground, dazed by the dexterity of the terrible spider and by the distance it must have leapt to intercept me.

  The spider pulls itself free of rubble, and begins to advance on me again, mandibles raised.

  Rolling myself around, I leap to my feet and dive for my bike.

  Keys in the ignition. Foot on the pedal. The bulky old machine starts first time.

  Almost blind with adrenaline, I put my bike into gear and speed away, whirling dirt in my wake. The spider attempts to follow, stake-end legs thumping into the ground, but it is too slow. I see it as I go, waving its legs at the fly that got away. And as I speed beyond the lighthouse, and the ruined village, and the giant wooden spider, I feel the rumbling of the machine beneath me as it roars. I kiss the metal between the handlebars.

  ‘You marvellous beast!’ I cry.

  My laughter is lost on the wind.

  *

  I pull my goggles on to protect my eyes from the wind and dust.

  The old track wind
s on through scrubby, windswept woods, all trees at an angle as if they are bowing towards the sun. There is a spray of dust and moisture in my wake. And though I might be mistaken, I believe that I see the movement of even more malevolent creatures among the trees around me, watching me go.

  Where the track forks – one path leading on to the local village, and the other leading up the hill to where an overgrown church overlooks the sea – there is a man standing at the divide. My initial reaction is to speed up, to carry on riding my bike and spend my whole dream running the roads of Britain. But this man does not look like another terrible nightmare. Instead, as I approach, he raises his hand, in the manner of a policeman flagging down a car.

  I slow to a halt beside him.

  He seems out of place here because he is from the wrong era. The soldiers of this time wore plain green, metal helmets and had rifles that were little more than glorified slingshots. But this man, this boy, has broken-glass greens and sandy browns across his fatigues, and he wears fingerless marksman’s gloves, and the helmet hanging at his side looks like some tremendous bowl for the gathering of bullets. He has a complex-looking black rifle slung across his shoulder, and he looks as if he is from one of those modern war movies that Valentine loves so much.

  He is crunching on an apple. ‘Bitter,’ he comments, screwing up his face. He is young, almost too young, for the uniform that he is wearing. Most of all I am struck by the fact that his hair is the colour of fire, with a natural wave to it that only enhances the effect.

  ‘You should get off the road,’ I warn him. ‘The woods are full of monsters.’

  This does not seem to surprise the strange soldier. ‘That’s why I’m here,’ he says.

  I turn the engine off, pulling my goggles up to survey the soldier better. Judging by the mud on his boots, it looks as if he has come down the track from the church. He finishes his apple, spits out some seeds and throws the core into a thicket. ‘We should head up,’ he tells me, swinging his rifle around. ‘Better view from the hill.’