Uncle Cheroot

by Alan Jansen

  In the village the next day, I visited Mrs Babbage’s wicker shop and ordered a large wicker box to be made with a wicker cover and handles. She made the box the same day. Mom and I collected the box. Well at home, I placed my best pillows and linen inside the box and then gently lifted Inky with Mom’s help and placed him inside. We placed the nylon stockings and a few toys he dearly loved inside as well.

  We buried my dear dog in a small clearing near the apple orchard the next day, after which I placed a small headstone with Inky’s name inscribed on it to mark the spot he was buried. Gobble was deeply upset over the proceedings, pacing up and down and uttering loud gobble cries on and off. Earlier on Mom and I had taken him inside the house and allowed him to say farewell to Inky. Gobble seemed to know that his bosom friend was dead, and strangely enough he made no sound at all, just staring at Inky in a glassy manner, silently mourning his loss. Gobble’s eyes, which had always been bright and burning, sort of dimmed after that day and never recovered their old lustre. Pop and Ben were present too. Pop did actually cry. He wasn’t much of an animal lover, but I guess having Inky around the farm for so many years and having daily contact with my dog did sort of touch a tender chord in Pop. Ben cried too, although Mom and I cried the most, hugging each other for comfort. Gobble sat upon Inky’s grave that whole morning and afternoon the day we buried my best friend, leaving only at dusk to the turkey pen, which he guarded with zeal from any marauder foolish enough to trespass.

  Gobble lived just a few months more and then passed away quietly in his sleep. Mom came down from London again. It might sound rather strange to my readers that Mom should come down even for a turkey’s burial, but Gobble was no ordinary bird. … We cleaned out Gobble’s feathers and washed his snood clean. We cried a lot again, for Gobble was family, and uncannily human like Inky was. We buried the bird beside Inky’s grave, in another wicker box I ordered from Mrs Babbage. As with my dear dog, I placed a headstone by the grave to mark the spot.

  I borrowed money from Mom and legally bought from a very much surprised Pop the small plot of land near our orchard where the two animals were buried. Father refused the money at first, but ultimately he agreed after I pestered and badgered him several times over. I bought the land with the intention of building a folly there with an underground cellar, which would serve as a mausoleum for the animals. A folly sounds grand, but the one I had in mind would be quite a modest one-storey circular building with an underground vault. When I had made my intentions known to Mom, she expanded on the idea and had a larger vault built that would also offer a final resting place for us bipeds. The folly, when it was completed, had a small staircase leading down into an underground cellar and had thick glass bricks mounted on one small section of the floor, letting sunlight into the tomb below so that it was never dark and gloomy. Above, on the ground floor, a marble bench would be cemented into place for visitors to sit upon and relax within the serenity of the small building. Mom was most insistent that her remains be cremated and placed inside on a mounted stone slab on the wall once she was dead and gone. She entrusted this task to me, not fully depending on Pop to carry out her instructions. I duly contacted a London architect and signed a contract with him. After the modest folly was built, I saw to it that Inky’s and Gobble’s remains were dug up and cremated, and their ashes placed in two urns mounted on slabs by a wall inside the mausoleum. I lit a candle for my beloved animals and closed the solid door of the mausoleum behind me with a heavy heart.

  Mom and I didn’t stay long at the farm after Inky’s and Gobble’s second burial in the folly. Mom rarely stayed a night on her visits, and as for me, I was far too upset to stay in my old room without Inky by my feet. We didn’t say a word to each other on the journey back to London, just holding hands inside the first-class compartment of the train, lost in our thoughts. Well at London’s Victoria Station, Mom and I took a taxi back to our respective dwellings. I dropped Mom off first and then took the same taxi to Half-Moon Street. I hadn’t cried too much at the reburials, but I couldn’t hold back the tears that night before I went to bed. I cried, and cried, and cried – buckets and buckets. The thought especially that Inky would no longer lick my feet every time we were together before going to bed caused an unbearable pang of sorrow that cut deep into my heart like a knife. Finally, unable to cry any more, my eyes all scratchy and sore, I fell asleep in the early hours of the morning just after I heard the arrival of the milk van outside on the street.

  I never again went back to the farm to live there. On and off I visited Pop, Ben, Belinda, and the girls to see how they were doing, but I could never bear to sleep in my old bedroom overnight. I just missed Inky too much. I would always cherish our close bonding at all times and his gentle licking of my feet before I dozed off at night. My visits were always for just a day, and I was careful to take the night train back to London and my little flat at Half-Moon Street. I never acquired another dog. All dogs reminded me of Inky. Although I simply loved dogs to distraction, I just couldn’t bear to have another around me – ever!

  Some months after my adorable dog’s death, and even in the years after, my thoughts always seemed to drift to Uncle Cheroot. I pondered also long and hard over Aislinn’s words about ‘special pets’ to which the ‘High One’ granted unique privileges. Aislinn also said my late pets would come to me at times when I needed them most. I had no cause to doubt Aislinn’s information, although it seemed jolly unfair that only certain pets would be allowed to share paradise with their masters and mistresses. I had always envisioned a paradise where good humans and all their pets would be reunited after death. Where did those pets that did not fit that particular whim of the ‘High One’ go to? Another part of Aislinn’s discourse also made me think deeply. He had mentioned ‘events’ in his warning, not just one event. Were Inky and Gobble’s deaths to be followed by further sad events? Alarm bells clanged away in unison inside my head after that thought entered my mind. What bad events were going to come next? In retrospect, recapping my meeting with Aislinn in our orchard before our beloved pets’ passing set me thinking of Uncle all over again. Through the years, I often thought of my dead relative ever since he left us, but right now I just couldn’t stop thinking of him almost all the while. During my association with Uncle, I had personally seen two supernatural beings: Drakenwund and Aislinn. Besides, I had read Uncle’s diary, which included many strange entries and insinuations about ‘blood exchanges’, vampires, and other strange creatures. I knew now for an absolute certainty that we humans are not alone in this world, although we selfishly think we are. Of course no one would believe me if I disclosed all of what I had seen and experienced, and I certainly intended not to discuss it all with anyone – not even with Mom, my best friend. I did not want to appear potty to anybody by revealing all that I knew. And as for Mom, I didn’t want to upset her in any way by revealing that I knew Uncle Cheroot was no ordinary being. To be honest, I didn’t know what Mom knew or didn’t know, so I decided to leave matters as they were. My family, although comatose witnesses to Drakenwund and his attack upon Uncle, had had their memories of the event conveniently erased by Uncle. As for the elf, nobody other than the vicar, Uncle, and I had actually seen him in the flesh. There was a lot to tell, but who would believe me? Whenever my thoughts drifted to these strange matters, a mental image of Uncle Cheroot’s face seemed to appear before me, floating in the air like the famous Cheshire cat of Alice through the Looking-Glass fame. Although I saw nothing with my eyes, I could not get rid of the hallucination, the illusion – call it whatever you like. I tried shutting my eyes in an attempt to get rid of it, but the image stayed firmly imprinted on my mind. Curiously, with the passing of time, I got used to it, and even welcomed the phenomenon whenever it came. It sort of comforted me in a strange way.

  Chapter 9

  Farewell, Sweet Queen

  Do not stand at my grave and weep.

  I am not there; I do not sleep.

 
; I am a thousand winds that blow,

  I am the diamond glints on snow

  Mary Elizabeth Frye

  It was in early spring of 1994 when my beloved mother went to her rest. Life had passed serenely without much incident after the deaths of Inky and Gobble. Both Mom and I visited the farm occasionally to see the family. Ben’s daughters had by now married well and moved out, although they regularly visited their parents and Pop. I was past fifty now, still looking as I did when I was eighteen, although whenever I knew I was going to meet my kin and people who mattered, I was careful to put on special make-up to make myself look older. It was a tiresome process making up my face to look old, but I just had to do it. There was no way out! With the passing years, I had become quite an expert at it all, using various creams, body paint, powders, and other stuff to pass as a middle-aged woman. Mom, Pop, Ben, and even Belinda would have gasped in surprise if I had ever revealed my true eighteen-year-old face that never aged, along with the rest of my body …

  Mom was eighty or thereabouts when she passed away. A worrying cold had turned into a chill, and by the time her doctor was sent for, it had already descended into her lungs. Of course Mom’s death created quite a stir in the press and even made headlines internationally, as one would expect, but to me personally it was a devastating loss of my beloved and closest relative. At the time of her passing, she was the doyen of contemporary still-life and landscape painters. She had critics, fans, and famous names from all classes almost eating from the palm of her hand, besides being a multimillionaire – not that she much cared for money anyway …

  I had visited Mom only a few days before she fell seriously ill, finding her in the jolliest of spirits – having just gotten news that her agent had sold four of her recent pairings for an astronomical sum. As usual, she played down the financial success of the sale, and spoke only of the fact that her paintings sold sooner than she was able to finish them. ‘The paint is barely dry on those paintings, you know, Turtle. The way that man [her agent, a Mr Reginald Black] keeps selling off my paintings, I would need to clone myself to keep up with his demands.’

  ‘Mom,’ I replied, thinking mainly of the pragmatic side of it all. ‘Mom, he’s the best agent you’ve ever had! And what enormous sums of money he keeps selling your paintings for!’

  ‘Bah! Fiddlesticks, Turtle. The fellow takes a substantial percentage, you know, but I suppose he deserves it, the way he gets things done. In any case, my dear, I’m far too wealthy to care about more and more pictures being sold or my blooming agent’s percentage. My dearest Cheroot made me stinking rich through his testament, and the money the paintings have brought in has nearly doubled that fortune. I think I will stop these sales now and start collecting a few of my more recent paintings. By my last count, I have thirty pictures left that I’ve painted the past five years, and besides them, over twenty of my older works still packed up and stored in my old room at the farm. In any event, I am past eighty now, Turtle, and my hand and eyes won’t last forever, you know.’

  ‘Nonsense, Mom! You are as healthy as a fiddle. You don’t look even fifty! Some would even put you down for forty-five!’

  ‘Always the flatterer, eh, Turtle? But I know how I look, dear. Life doesn’t last forever for some people.’ (She had a curious look on her face when she said the word ‘forever’, and the phrase ‘some people’, elongating those terms as though they meant something much deeper.) ‘I am old; I’ve got to face that fact. Only last week I saw my solicitor and made a few alterations to my will. Nothing major, but I’ve included Ben’s three girls in it too!’ (Ben’s youngest, also a daughter, was born just after the incident of Inky’s passing.) ‘Can’t leave the darlings out, you know. I really wish you had married and had children Turtle. I would have loved to see you a mother, dear. I suppose you’ve left it too late for all that now, but it’s not too late for you to get married. Do try and settle down with some chap, Turtle. You must have somebody close to you to look after you when you get as old as I’ve become.’

  Mom’s insistence that I get married, or ‘settle down’ as she put it, was a regular mantra.

  ‘There you go again, Mom. I don’t live like an eremite, you know. I have my flings, but I don’t want any man hovering around me twenty-four hours of the day. I couldn’t bear that! Besides, I have you.’

  Mom looked at me disapprovingly but said nothing. We have had many long chats about my getting a permanent partner to live with, and they all ended with my insistence that I needed no man in my life, and that I wished to live independently and alone …

  Mom’s news that she had recently seen her solicitor and altered her will didn’t bother me in the least. In a way, I am like my mother in the sense that I didn’t care much for material possessions. To be honest, I just didn’t care about money, or being wealthy, or the luxury emoluments of possessing gargantuan sums of money. As to the matter of her testament, she had told me confidentially five years prior that she had included the whole family in her declaration – including me – with provisions for a few charities she was passionate about. I already had money in my own right. After Uncle’s death was verified and we were assured that he had indeed succumbed with the other passengers and crew in that ill-fated airplane tumble in the sea, a firm of solicitors in London asked us all to come over to London, where Uncle’s testament was read out to us. Mom was cited as the sole beneficiary, while Pop, Ben, and I were to receive quite large chunks of his remaining estate. There were no provisions to charity, which surprised me very much. Uncle loved animals, including dogs, cats, cows, pigs – just about any four-footed animal. He even loved birds and some species of snakes. I would have thought that Uncle might have left something to the hundreds of animal shelters and wildlife protection organizations that had sprouted in the country in recent years, but he didn’t.

  Anyway, talking to Mom as I did right now, I turned our conversation to Ben’s three daughters to shift the talk from Mom’s will and my obstinacy about remaining a single woman.

  ‘Clara, Rose, and Rosamund are such beautiful women, Mom! I guess they have inherited your great beauty. I know that I never did!’

  ‘Whaaat! Didn’t inherit my beauty, you say? How could you say such a thing, Turtle dear? Why, every damn man on the street looks twice at you whenever you pass them by!’

  ‘I have something, Mother.’ (I dropped the ‘Mom’ for once.) ‘I know that. But it’s just an extended physical sort of thing, not real beauty. You and I know I am not really beautiful.’

  ‘Shucks, Turtle! (Mom had started to use the word ‘shucks’ quite often after she had a brief fling with an American diplomat she had met at one of her art exhibitions.) ‘You and I know you are very attractive; don’t deny that! But enough of that now. … I’ve got two dresses made for Clara and Rose, and also two woollen winter coats that are absolutely sweet. Come into my bedroom and I will show you …’

  We left the living room and sauntered over to her bedroom, where we spent a good hour admiring the dresses and talking shop, after which we ordered a cab and set off to Le Gaveroches French restaurant at Mayfair for a prolonged evening supper. Neither Mom nor I was particularly fond of French cuisine, but Mom knew the proprietor and the staff very well. They treated Mom and even me like royalty whenever we dined there.

  Mom phoned me when she fell ill. I dashed over in a cab to her large house in Kensington, a few blocks away from my modest flat at Half-Moon Street. Mom wasn’t too bad. She had been suffering from a very heavy cold the past few days, and her call to me was only intended for me to come over and keep her company, as she was utterly bored and quite tired out. Although Mom had several lovers in the past and now had a wide circle of friends and admirers, she always turned to me whenever she was under the weather or bored. I would meet up with her at these times, and we would laugh and enjoy recollecting our repertoire of experiences that had taken place on our beloved farm, often featuring Uncle Cher
oot, Inky, Gobble, or Pop and Ben. Inky’s madcap antics especially always brought both laughter and tears from both of us. Of course, Mom was never alone in the true sense of the word. She had several domestics – a maid, a cook, and a housekeeper, besides employing a full-time gardener to look after the medium-sized garden she had at the back of the house. All of Mom’s domestics were extremely subservient seeing how well she paid them. It wasn’t just the fact that she paid them handsome salaries that induced their positive feelings; it was also that they all genuinely loved her. Her cook and dogsbody especially – the chubby-faced Bunter (a sobriquet most probably) – simply adored Mom and would insist sternly that the latter eat all her meals, most importantly at the correct time, for Mom was otherwise a kind of maverick where eating times were concerned. Bunter treated Mom more like a daughter than like the octogenarian lady who employed her. There was this ‘thing’ with Mom. Everybody took an instant shine to her, not to speak of the looks of admiration – even lust – that every man I knew threw at her, especially in her younger days. Even today, despite being eighty, Mom was an attractive woman. Her face was a bit lined, and the crow’s feet under her eyes had widened, but she still had much of the great classical beauty she’d had when Uncle Cheroot had first courted her that memorable Christmas season so many decades ago …

  ‘It’s a wretched cold again, Turtle. It’s the fifth time or so this year!’ opened Mom as soon as I entered her bedroom. ‘I really don’t know why I keep catching cold like this! I never once got a cold down at the farm, you know. Not even once! I’m sorry to drag you away like this, dear, but I just couldn’t stand my own company any longer. And goofy old Bunter is driving me mad with all her damn cold cures, soups, and the like. I’m sorry to take you away from work, dear. I hope your boss won’t mind too much.’