Observatory Mansions (19 page)

I did not reply. Peter Bugg knocked a few more times, begged a little more (let him beg, that unforgiven Bugg) and then, weeping and smelling and sweating too, he went back to Alexander Mead.

The altarpiece of Tearsham Church
.

The next day I was not visited. I spent the morning recovering a few more of my abused gloves. During the afternoon I heard the Porter and Anna Tap descend the stairs and listened to the following part of a conversation:

To the eye hospital?

No, to the church.

I ran down to my exhibition, all the way to the narrowest end of that tunnel and out again the other side. I pushed the stone cover of the false tomb away, wearing Father’s old leather gloves over my white ones. I replaced the cover and stood up, a little out of breath, in Tearsham Church, in the private chapel of the Orme family, separated from the rest of the church by tall bars with spikes on their ends and by a lock, which only I and the priest had keys for.

The church had become increasingly neglected for some time. Few people visited it now, I myself had not visited it for some months. The priest had four other churches to look after and considered the parish that was once called Tearsham his most insignificant. Services had not been held there for several years and the church had begun its slow deterioration. Some of the stained-glass windows had been smashed and were boarded up, but pigeons still managed to get in, through the bell tower perhaps, and once in, defecating everywhere, they were unable to find their way out. They died in corners, their corpses encouraging rats. Rubbish from the city had
found its way inside: sweet wrappers, rusting cans, yellowing newspapers. All the, once numerous, church paintings and tapestries from the various side chapels, together with the altar, candlesticks, chalice and even the church bells, had been removed long ago. Now all that was left behind were the dust-covered pews, the broken, ancient pump organ and the church’s bulky and decayed, ugly altarpiece.

The altarpiece consisted of eight slightly larger-than-life-size wooden figures. One Madonna. One Child. Six saints. The Madonna sat on a throne with the Christ Child in her lap and three saints either side of her. These wooden people had been dressed like dolls, they were wearing clothes: real clothes that were now in a state of advanced disintegration, moth-eaten and faded, and which had in places fallen off the bodies and collected in strange ugly piles beneath them on the church’s stone floor. The wooden arms, hands and faces of these heroes of old were once painted in flesh tints. Much of the paint, though, had begun to peel off, giving the impression that the martyrs were being martyred again, flayed alive in their various poses of beatitude. Many of the saints once had real human hair attached to their skulls, though much of it had been lost over time and the Virgin Mary looked among them particularly bald. The saints from right to left were as follows: Saint Catherine with a wheel, the instrument of her martyrdom; Saint Thomas Aquinas, clutching a book, the
Summa theologicae
; Saint Stephen Protomartyr, who had been stoned to death, holding large sharp stones; Saint Peter in the pope’s triple crowned mitre, holding a pair of keys; Francis, that wooden Francis, not me, had his hands clasped together and looked towards the sky, probably hallucinating some sparrow or chaffinch. Saint Francis had no objects, he despised possessions. This malnourished man had great blisters in the centre of his hands and feet – his stigmata (whenever I visited the church, after my glove days had begun, I longed to place a pair of white gloves over Francis’s
scarred hands). And finally there was Saint Lucy who held a wooden plate on which were glued a pair of wooden eyes. Only Lucy among this group was in remotely good condition. She alone had a full head of hair running down her back; she alone had convincing, uncracked flesh; she alone was fully dressed and her clothes, extraordinarily, had retained their colours and even appeared clean and new. Anyone unfamiliar with the church, entering it for the first time, might initially assume that Lucy was a real person dressed in some bizarre costume. But when she didn’t move they would become suspicious, they would walk up to her and then they would see her neighbours. Her rotten, disfigured neighbours, with such severe woodworm that it resembled leprosy and with all their faded and filthy clothes, would look like monochromatic ghosts.

The altarpiece was brought by my great-grandfather, a very different Francis Orme. He came across the wooden altarpiece (so runs the story in a volume of the
History of the Ormes
) when he was about his travels. With a considerable amount of difficulty, and an even more considerable amount of funds, he managed to purchase it on condition that it always be situated on Holy ground. My great-grandfather gave it to Tearsham Church. The Virgin, not bald then I presume, held, it is believed, an extraordinary resemblance to his dead wife. He used to sit, not, I imagine, thinking heavenly thoughts, in front of the wooden mother of God, confusing her with the mother of his son, yet another Francis Orme. One day my ancestor was found sitting naked on the Virgin Mother, and the Virgin Mother’s son was found on the floor of Tearsham Church, having been forcibly removed: my ancestor was attempting to make love to the wooden Virgin. He ended his days in a cell in a hospital.

In time the Porter and Anna Tap arrived. Hidden behind the tomb of some dead Orme, I heard all.

Sacred Monologue
.

What do you see?

Wooden people. Who’s the one with the keys?

Saint Peter, the gatekeeper of Heaven.

Another porter?

The Holy porter. Describe to me the last saint on the left.

It is a young woman, Miss Tap.

It is Saint Lucy. What is she holding?

A plate.

What is on the plate?

A pair of eyes.

I come here for those eyes. I have been looking after Saint Lucy for several months now. When I first saw her she was like the others, she was so ill and frayed, her paint was peeling everywhere, there were cracks and stains all over her. I was supposed to conserve the clothes and hair of all of them. It was a commission from the city council, to preserve our churches and the objects inside them, but before I had a chance it was announced that this church would cease being used and the funds were withdrawn. It was too late for me, though, I had already started to become fascinated by Saint Lucy. I dreamt of her sad face at night; I believed she was calling me. I went to the library and looked up her history; I discovered all I could about her.

The disease in my eyes had already been troubling me for many years and I had been sent from optometrist to eye surgeon all around the city. They’d blown air in my eyes, squirted dye into them, injected them and even operated on them but my sight did not improve. My eyes, they predicted, would become hard, would become solid and cease to work. So it seemed to me that Saint Lucy had come to me for a reason. She is the patron saint of diseases of the eyes. She has two sets, one on the plate, one in her head, I thought she might lend me one. In her story an infidel fell in love with
Lucy’s eyes, and begged her to marry him. Lucy refused and the man had her eyes pulled out, but miraculously another pair immediately grew in their place.

I decided that I must repair Saint Lucy, return her to her former state, and so for months, after work had finished for the day, I remained in the workshop treating her clothes, buying new material when necessary. Her hair was so frail that it had to be removed entirely. I placed a small advert in the paper: DO YOU HAVE LONG FAIR HAIR? Would you be willing to sell it? Please contact … Many people responded, most of them inappropriate, but among them there was a girl with such long, beautiful, golden hair that I believed her almost the living Lucy, she was even wearing a small gold cross on a chain around her neck. I paid her well, she had her hair cut short. I collected it and sewed it, strand by strand, into Lucy’s scalp. I paid a painting conserver from the museum to make her eyes and skin live again, and then a letter came informing me that Lucy was the property of the church and that I must return her within four days or appropriate action would be taken. I ignored the letter and five days later the police came to the museum and took her away. Who wanted her, I screamed at the police, who else cared for her but me? That wasn’t the point, they said, it belonged to Tearsham Church.
It!
Her then, if it makes you feel better. And so I started coming here regularly, visiting her four or five times a week, praying to her always for my eyes. But soon that wasn’t enough, I had to see her more often, so I moved my home. She looks so beautiful next to the others, doesn’t she?

Look at them all in their straight line. They don’t look at each other, they don’t communicate. The art always used to be like that, but then it changed, later the saints were painted speaking with each other and with the Virgin and Child. They even called that type of altarpiece
sacra conversazione
, holy conversation. And those pictures often included the altarpiece’s
donor, its commissioner, kneeling down. So sometimes I think of these wooden saints talking to each other, not living in isolation, and then I think of myself as a kind of donor, with Lucy blessing me, and I am suddenly part of the altarpiece too. Saint Lucy’s day is the thirteenth of December, a day which used to be celebrated as the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, the longest night. The blindest date in the calendar. Each thirteenth of December since I met Lucy I’ve laid candles in front of her and begged for her to return my sight, each year, more and more, I feel the light by its heat rather than by seeing it. She hasn’t helped me yet. But she will, she must. And it’ll be this year, this thirteenth of December, that she saves my eyes, because if it isn’t then it’ll be too late, I’ll be blind and my eyes will grow hard. Take me to her now, Porter, so I can touch her.

She stayed with Lucy for a little over an hour and then the Porter took her back to Observatory Mansions. I left the company of Virgin and Child with six saints and went back to my exhibition.

The borrower
.

Leaving the tunnel locked behind me, a few hours later, I climbed the stairs to flat six where I found Anna Tap outside the door, waiting for me.

Francis? Francis, is that you?

Why don’t you leave me alone?

I’ve been knocking and knocking.

No one answers the door but me and I’ve been out.

Francis, I want my glasses back.

Then you’d better find them.

I think I know where they are.

Well go and fetch them then.

Are they in the cellar, Francis? Is that where you’ve hidden
them? Is that why you were so keen to get me away from the cellar steps when I first met you? What else do you keep down there?

It’s just the Porter’s flat and the boiler room—

I could get the Porter to have a proper look.

I shouldn’t do that—

I knew they were there!

—not if you want your glasses back.

Fetch them for me.

I can’t do that.

Francis, we’ll make a deal, you give me back my glasses now and when I see properly again you can keep them.

But what if you go blind?

I won’t go blind.

But if you do, can I still keep them?

Please, Francis.

If you promise.

I can’t see without them.

It’s not usual. I have never lent an exhibit out from the exhibition before. I don’t know whether such behaviour is permissible. Do you promise to return the spectacles once you’re blind?

Yes. Anything.

Well, let’s see. How long do you think it will be before you actually go blind?

I DON’T KNOW!

Roughly?

Months, but I won’t.

Months, is it? A loan for an undisclosed number of months. Well, I would consider this a deal now … but there was that instance when you called me backward. I didn’t like that.

I didn’t mean it.

That’s better. But is that enough?

I could call the Porter.

It’s a deal. I’ll give you the spectacles. You’ll return them once you’re blind, in a matter of months. There’s no need to involve the Porter.

And what about the dog collar, Claire’s photograph, Peter’s ruler?

No, they can’t have those. I’ve destroyed them.

I don’t believe you.

I could also destroy your glasses.

No, Francis. I’m sorry.

I went to the exhibition and borrowed an exhibit. To be returned, it was understood, in an undisclosed number of months.

Back on ground level, in the entrance hall, I heard screams coming from the second floor. Claire Higg, the Porter, Twenty and Anna Tap were in flat ten (Peter Bugg was too).

The end of the Time of Memories, the departure
of Peter Bugg, retired schoolmaster, retired
personal tutor, etc
.

Mr Peter Bugg, no longer sweating, no longer crying but still smelling of a hundred different smells, was at home. Mr Peter Bugg was wearing a school tie. Navy blue, with red stripes. He was wearing it the wrong way round. The knot was at the back of his neck. The tie was really wearing Peter Bugg. Peter Bugg, cold now and silent, possessing no thoughts for Alexander Mead or for his father or for his father’s ruler, was in a vertical position some two feet from the ground. Suspended. He was not, however, flying.

Hung.

Strangled.

Dead.

The Porter cut him down and laid him on his bed. On his desk, where he had continued not finishing his book, were
five envelopes addressed: the Porter of Observatory Mansions, the resident of flat twenty, Miss Anna Tap, Francis Orme (minor), Claire. These letters were the last writings of Peter Bugg, though even in their small quantity they exceeded the length of that other, never to be finished, opus.

We opened the envelopes.

To the Porter of Observatory Mansions
.