Observatory Mansions (36 page)

Mother
.

My mother is still alive but I no longer live with her. Mother lives in a large white building on the other side of the city. This building is one of several, specifically organized to look after old people. When the crowd began to disperse after the demolition, Mother was forced along with it. And the crowd,
moving far quicker than her old body could easily endure, spat her out, pushed her aside and rammed her against a wall. Mother collapsed. When the last people were drifting away someone found her and called for help. She was carried away on a stretcher, into an ambulance, and disappeared into the city. It took us a week to find her again. We telephoned all the hospitals but none had admitted her, had never even heard of her. Finally, someone suggested we call the large nursing home. The ambulance drivers had taken her there immediately, to the tiny hospital adjacent to it, where so many old people have been seen to, which nobody thinks of as being a hospital but only a sanatorium within the nursing home grounds. Mother had broken her hip. They gave her a new one but told her that she would never be able to walk without sticks or a frame ever again.

The nursing home has a staff of eighteen nurses and three doctors, but is otherwise filled with old people. The old people are packed tightly together, and there they talk about old things and other old people and old objects that can’t be bought in the shops any more and old food which everyone has forgotten the recipes to. Mother is furious at the old people, she screams at the nurses and asks them why she is being housed with drooling idiots who constantly wet themselves and don’t know who they are any more. She says she is not like the other old people; she is still aware. The nurses smile at Mother and give her some pills. Mother hides the pills. She has begun a great collection, which she keeps in a little plastic bag immersed in one of the nursing home’s lavatory tanks. I am very proud of her, there is no doubting that we are related.

The nurses do not allow her to play the tape of my father’s teeth and she complains that she gets no sleep. Mother has her hair brushed every day.

Anna Tap
.

Anna Tap has chosen to look after me. After Observatory Mansions collapsed she said I became quite helpless. We spent our days on long walks around the city. For a long time these walks took us to the place where Observatory Mansions used to be. The rubble had been taken away, skip by skip, and on those walks we would often go into Tearsham Park Gardens. The bathroom scalesman was still there and he said, each time we met him, that Anna was putting on weight. Indeed, she became quite fat. Her stomach showed through her dress. Soon she had to buy new dresses made of a stretchy material, large enough to keep her and her growing belly inside. For a while she even gave up cigarettes. Now, though, she has become thin again, not dangerously thin as she was before, but as thin as she was when she first came to Observatory Mansions.

Certain changes have been made to her eyes. The glass ones arrived at the eye hospital but not before another pair had been made and Anna wears those eyes and never the hospital ones. The eyes she wears are partly constructed of glass and partly of wood. Ottila, the eye maker at the waxworks, assembled them. It was William who organized this for us.

So, in the end, Anna did get to wear Saint Lucy’s eyes, the surface of which has been carefully glued on to glass balls and fit Anna’s skull wonderfully well. And she looks beautiful with them. They make her happy too. (Sometimes when Anna keeps still with her eyelids open, showing her wooden eyes, I think that Anna has become an object. But then she talks, and I am reminded that she is the real Anna Tap, made of flesh.)

City Heights
.

Anna and I live together in a building just opposite Tearsham Park Gardens. We have been living here for a few weeks now. It is a modern building but it suits us well enough. Our new home is built on exactly the same spot as Observatory Mansions, as Tearsham Park, it is called City Heights and it has twenty floors, all of which are identical.

They have built a tunnel out from City Heights stretching towards Tearsham Park Gardens, a concrete subway so that all the new residents can walk beneath the traffic of the roundabout and have no fear of it. This tunnel has yellow strip lighting which makes it feel claustrophobic and hostile. There is some graffiti there too, the work, I believe, of Mark Daniel Cooper.

But even though Observatory Mansions has gone and City Heights has taken its place, it is possible, if you’re really quiet, to hear the old building. Sometimes I can hear Miss Higg’s television set or Twenty barking, and occasionally I think I can smell the one hundred smells of Peter Bugg. If you’re really still, so still that your heart almost stops, you can just pick up Tearsham Park sound, you can just hear the dog Hope scratching or my father talking to the stars or even Emma telling a story. And perhaps, if you’re as proficient at outer and inner stillness as I am, you might hear, might, and then only barely, the troubled breathing of my brother, of that other Francis Orme.

Francis Orme
.

I wore white gloves. I lived with my mother and father. I had a swollen lower lip. I no longer wear white gloves. I live with Miss Anna Tap. My lips are not swollen.

I no longer work on the plinth in the centre of the city. I was offered employment by the company who own City
Heights. I accepted their offer. They have given me a wonderful blue uniform with golden epaulettes and they have given Anna and me a wonderful two-bedroom flat in the basement. Anna says I make a fine porter. I know everyone who lives in the building.

Anna and I spend most of our time together around a new object. This new object has absolutely no understanding of either inner or outer stillness and keeps moving all the time and makes loud, loud noises that keep us awake at night. The new object is alive. It is a female new object and we have called her Frances.

When I first saw our baby daughter I cried because she had such tiny hands. Now they are larger. Now they grip and won’t let go.

I have been painting our new home white. Sometimes I dip my entire hands into the pot of paint. On those occasions I walk to the mirror and look at myself with white hands, and then I feel sad.

APPENDIX
FRANCIS ORME’S
EXHIBITION OF LOVE

(Lot Numbers 1–996)

    1. A till receipt.

    2. A used envelope (white).

    3. A used envelope (blue).

    4. A white plastic bag.

    5. An empty wine bottle.

    6. A pencil stub.

    7. An empty can of plum tomatoes.

    8. A red plastic bag.

    9. An empty vinegar bottle.

  10. An empty can of pineapple chunks.

  11. An empty cardboard box (white).

  12. A rusted and bent nail.

  13. A brown paper bag.

  14. A quantity of pencil shavings.

  15. A goose’s feathers.

  16. A light bulb (blown).

  17. An old mop head.

  18. An empty cardboard box (brown).

  19. A number of fish bones.

  20. An out-of-date calendar.

  21. A collection of toenail clippings.

  22. A quantity of various dogs’ faeces in a glass jar (sealed).

  23. A cotton handkerchief (unclean).

  24. A sealed jar containing used bathwater.

  25. A collection of ash from a fireplace.

  26. A bent hairclip.

  
27. A quantity of potato peelings.

  28. A newspaper.

  29. A snapped metal coathanger.

  30. An apple core.

  31. A china teacup missing its handle.

  32. A used disposable razor.

  33. A fuse (blown).

  34. A cork (from a wine bottle).

  35. A cigar butt.

  36. A bent staple.

  37. A sock with three holes.

  38. A teddy bear (small).

  39. A tin soldier (infantry).

  40. A clockwork robot.

  41. A stuffed fox.

  42. A plastic frog.

  43. A collection of shattered glass.

  44. A tin of tobacco.

  45. A wad of black cigarette papers.

  46. A miniature ivory elephant.

  47. A marriage casket (tortoiseshell and metal marquetry).

  48. A dinner gong (copper and tin).

  49. A love letter.

  50. The eighth volume of an encyclopedia.

  51. A pair of brass doorknobs.

  52. A mahogany ruler.

  53. A large bottle of black writing ink.

  54. A hairnet.

  55. A pair of wooden doorknobs.

  56. A soup ladle.

  57. Four curtain pulls.

  58. A photograph of a shooting party.

  59. A photograph of a hunt.

  60. An oriental wooden cockerel.

  61. A globe (terrestrial).

  
62. A leg from an old ice chest.

  63. A piano stool.

  64. A book on the science of physiognomy.

  65. A gold signet ring.

  66. Various parts from four scarecrows.

  67. A punch bowl (silver and tortoiseshell).

  68. A two-handed sword (steel).

  69. A pine draining board.

  70. A riding crop.

  71. An ivory shoehorn.

  72. A family tree (on parchment paper).

  73. A carving knife.

  74. A pair of nail scissors (silver).

  75. A miniature steam engine.

  76. A corner of a tapestry (wool and silk).

  77. A pestle.

  78. A photograph of a woman with a number of porcelain dolls.

  79. A clothes brush.

  80. A brown leather shoe (gentleman’s, right foot).

  81. A black leather shoe (gentleman’s, right foot).

  82. A pepper pot.

  83. A porcelain swan.

  84. A gilded beechwood candlestick.

  85. A brown trilby.

  86. A soup tureen (porcelain).

  87. A wooden croquet ball (red).

  88. Two crystals of glass from a chandelier.

  89. Twelve cash books.

  90. A silver-gilt ewer.

  91. A marble bust of a bald gentleman.

  92. A chair leg (pine).

  93. The bit from a bridle.

  94. A snuffbox (ivory).

  95. A book entitled
The Eucharist
(black goatskin binding).

  
96. A tiara (gold, silver, emeralds).

  97. An ash pan.

  98. An illustrated book of moths and butterflies.

  99. A salmon fly-fishing rod.

100. A pair of silver and diamond earrings.

101. A book of maps of modern cities of the world.

102. A small sculpture of a classical figure (boxwood).

103. A straw doll.

104. A wheel-lock musket.

105. A large terracotta flowerpot.

106. A stained-glass window of a family crest.

107. A silver letter knife.

108. Two eggs made of malachite.

109. A charcoal drawing of a large house.

110. A tontine salver (silver).

111. A parasol.

112. Three silver napkin rings.

113. A newspaper rod.

114. An apron.

115. A copper kettle lid.

116. A gate latch.

117. A screw from a microscope.

118. A toboggan.

119. Two china teacups.

120. A wooden lavatory seat.

121. A bottle-corking machine.

122. A watering can.

123. A pair of cricket bails.

124. An illuminated manuscript.

125. A cushion with an embroidered cover.

126. A pin box.

127. A cooking thermometer.

128. A book containing botanical drawings.

129. A pair of prints, of fighting cocks.

130. A book of anatomical drawings.

131. A metal bolt.

132. A gardening glove.

133. A watercolour of a beautiful woman, two centuries dead.

134. An hourglass.

135. A bottle of old port wine (unopened).

136. A silver-gilt and glass salt cellar.

137. A weathervane.

138. A quantity of bookplates (with heraldic design).

139. A fountain pump.

140. A pair of dice (ivory).

141. Two wooden pieces taken from a game of backgammon.

142. A castle from a chess set (ivory).

143. A castle from a chess set (wood).

144. A stick for cleaning shotguns.

145. A pair of oven gloves.

146. Seven drying-up cloths.

147. The winding key to a grandfather clock.

148. The winding key to a grandfather clock.

149. The winding key to a grandmother clock.

150. The winding key to a carriage clock.

151. The winding key to a table clock.

152. A magnifying glass.

153. An amount of turmeric.

154. An amount of garlic salt.

155. Two bay leaves.

156. A cut-glass decanter containing malt whisky.

157. A silver sugar bowl.

158. A naval cutlass.

159. A pair of bellows.

160. A fire poker.

161. A porcelain vase.

162. A psalter.

163. A morocco-bound book (a volume of Orme history).

164. A photograph of a boy with a teddy bear (black and white).

165. A wading stick.

166. A silver-gilt and glass pepper pot.

167. A wrought-iron fireguard.

168. A coal scuttle.

169. Twelve book dust-wrappers.

170. An iron mantrap.

171. A fish kettle.

172. A black leather riding boot.

173. A glass-crystal fruit bowl.

174. A teddy bear without a mouth.

175. A wooden spinning top.

176. A wooden yo-yo.

177. A cricket bat.

178. A puppet (of a boy with a long nose).

179. A tricycle.

180. A birth certificate.

181. A death certificate.

182. The remains of a mouse nailed to a board (labelled).

183. The remains of a mouse nailed to a board (labelled).

184. A light switch.

185. A shooting stick.