Observatory Mansions (9 page)

I followed the stubs, they came every two hundred metres or thereabouts. When I found a stub I had to pursue all directions until I came across the next one. In this way I eventually found myself outside a church. On the steps of the church was the final cigarette stub, though this was more than a stub: half a cigarette, abandoned. I presumed, therefore, that the new resident was inside the church. There were two exits from the church, the first was past the porch through a large oak door, the other was to be found by shifting the stone lid off a false tomb within a private chapel. Having moved the lid aside you would find yourself descending roughly cut stairs, heading off into the darkness. You would find yourself in a tunnel, a tunnel which widened as it progressed. Along that tunnel you would discover numerous objects, nine hundred and eighty-seven to be accurate. I considered it unlikely that the new resident would take that exit, so few people
knew of it. She would surely leave via the porch, so I waited for her in the church graveyard.

I had not been in the graveyard for several years, and seeing it again that day I found a peculiarly moving experience. I knew someone who was buried there, someone who I had once loved. I took some flowers from a fresher grave and placed them at the grave of my old friend. The gravestone was simply marked, it merely said, in large bold capitals, the single word:

EMMA

For there it was that Emma was buried.

A short voyage around the memory of a woman
named Emma
.

Long before the time when Tearsham Park changed its name to Observatory Mansions, shortly before the time when I began wearing gloves, was the time known as Emma-months.

Emma, already an old woman when I knew her, was the saviour of the village of Tearsham, in which my father’s house, Tearsham Park, was by far the largest dwelling. She helped the old bachelors and old spinsters in our village. She taught children to swim. She visited the sick. She prayed for the dead. Among, I suspect, her less-remembered acts was the miracle she once performed in Tearsham Park.

Emma taught me to speak.

I was viewed as being somewhat behind as a child, though I would rather refer to my lack of speaking not as stupidity but as stubbornness. I was in no hurry to speak. I could not imagine what possible advantage words might have for me. Words usually meant company and I was always happiest on my own. Many teachers and therapists had been sent into the Park and they had all left without finding a word in me. My parents had run out of teachers, someone must have suggested Emma as a remedy for my silence, and though sceptical (but without any other options left open to them) Emma arrived the next day.

Emma’s exterior
.

Emma, never married, was never referred to as Miss something, just Emma, only Emma. That’s what I called her, that’s what everyone called her. She lived on her own in a small cottage on the edge of the village. Emma wore black. All-dressed-in-black Emma. Always black. Home-made black clothes. Black beret, black shirt, black skirt all the way down to her ankles. Thick black material, even in summer. Itchy. Emma smelt. I spent many days searching for the particular ingredient that might describe the stench. I found it in the kitchen. Emma smelt like boiled carrots. Emma had long grey hairs hanging from her face, as if she had dipped her chin in a cobweb. Emma’s skin was the worst thing. When she first came to Tearsham Park I was afraid of her. I was afraid of her beard, her clothes, her smell – but most of all it was Emma’s skin that terrified me. I often closed my eyes so I would not have to look upon her skin. Difficult to describe Emma’s skin. Ingredients for a description of Emma’s skin:

Take one orange. Peel it.

Leave it for several days in the summer sun.

The orange in the sun loses colour, turns white and develops thick, deep wrinkles. It diminishes in size. Open the orange out and, taking one of the thick, wilted and creased segments, tear it in half. Inside, at its very centre, is a tiny piece of the orange that used to be – still fleshy, still clutching to a little juice. Were I to have peeled Emma, I think that somewhere deep within her, past all that thick seemingly dead cover, I might have found a little life, a little blood.

I didn’t like Emma. Not at first. I wanted her to leave, I made a fuss, I banged things about. Later I’d pray for her to live for ever, but first I’d beg for her to die painfully during the night. And yet, through my child’s mind, I thought there was little hope for such an exit, for despite her hoary exterior
her eyes betrayed more energy, more life than could be found in my youthful body.

Liquorice hours
.

Blacked out and bearded Emma closed and locked the nursery door behind her. She did not smile at me. She regarded me briefly, but without expression. She sat down. She opened her (black) bag, took out a tin of tobacco and a wad of black liquorice rolling papers. She rolled a cigarette. She sat smoking. She took a small (black) plastic ashtray from her bag, put it on the table in front of her, and filled it with ash. When the cigarette was finished (this took some time and she smoked it almost until its dampened end burnt her fingers) she tapped her fingers on the table. She was waiting for something to happen. I sat at the other end of the table waiting for whatever it was that was meant to happen to happen. Silence. Emma took a piece of liquorice from her bag and noisily sucked it. Finally that too was gone. She sat still. I waited. Nothing. She rolled another black cigarette. She smoked on in silence.

My first Emma day was counted out with cigarettes and liquorice. She did not speak. I did not grunt, just watched. Hours of watching with just cigarette and liquorice consumption for diversion.

When the small black tips had filled the ashtray and her bag of liquorice seemed to have been emptied, Emma stood up again, she pushed the chair neatly under the table, walked to the window, opened it, emptied her ashtray, replaced it in its black home, closed the window, unlocked the door, exited and locked the door again. That was my first day with Emma.

The echo
.

For days two and three with Emma read day one. Twice more. The fourth day brought a new experience.

I was not enjoying my hours with Emma. I was restless. I was waiting for her to do or say something. I fidgeted. I swung my legs up and down under the table. I began stamping my feet. Emma looked up, she nodded. I stamped my feet harder, she began clumping her (black) clogs. We made a terrific din. We banged on. Her wooden shoes made impressive thumps on the floor. When I stopped stamping, she stopped her clumping. Silence again. She lit another cigarette. I stood up, ran to the nursery door and pummelled my fists hard against it. I groaned. I whined. I yelled. Only when I had quietened down a little did I realize that Emma was clapping and smiling even. She held out a piece of liquorice, clearly for me to eat. I took it. I threw it on the floor, I stamped on it, I flattened the damned black thing. She took another piece out, dropped it, squashed it under her clogs. I screamed. Emma screamed, just as loud and just as panicked. I graced her with an infuriating whine. She did her best to respond to it but hers lacked my resonance. I stopped screaming and whining, there was little hope in those gestures. Emma only copied my sounds and showed no fear of noise. In any case, nobody had come running to save me.

Emma spoke:

Frrrrr. Fffffrrrrr.

I looked at her offended. I understood. If I was to leave the nursery it would only be after a performance of the noise: fffrrrrrr.

I learn to talk
.

Fffff-rrrrrr, instructed Emma.

Ffffff, attempted Francis.

Rrrrrr.

Errrrr.

Rrrrr.

Rrrrr.

Fffffrrrrrr.

Ffffff.

Rrrrr. Fffrrrr.

Ffffrrr.

Aaaaaa.

Aaaaaah! (I knew this one.)

Fffrrrraaaaarrr.

Ffffaaaarrr.

Ffffrrraaaarrr.

Ffffrrraaaarrr.

Fffffrrraaarrrnnnn. Nnnn.

Nnnn.

Ffffrrrraarrrnnn.

Ffffrrraaarrrnnn.

Ssssss.

Ssssss.

Frarrrnsss.

Frarrnssss.

Iiiiiii, sssss.

Iiiiissss.

Fraarrnssiiissss.

Ffraaarrrnssiiisss.

Francis.

Frarncissss.

Francis.

Frarncisss.

Francis.

Francis.

(Pause.)

Francis. Francis. Francis. Francis. Francis.

Francis.

Francis!

And Emma pointed at me. I was that sound. I was this – Francis. Said I: Francis. And pointed to myself. Emma held out her wrinkled and cold hand. I flinched. She took my hand and placed it in hers. We shook hands. Francis and Emma shook hands.

Meeting Mother
.

Emma unlocked the nursery door. We went to visit Mother in the drawing room. Francis, I said. Mother kissed me all over my face and stroked my hair, she said to me: Mother, Mummy. Say Mummy. Francis, I said.

Skip some months, and many pieces of liquorice.

I could talk. I could deliver sentences. I could speak with anyone and comprehend their responses. I had entered, with regret, the world of communication. But I would not have remained there were it not for one thing …

The nursery days’ entertainment
.

Clump, clump, clump! The confectioner, the tobacconist, the audio-library was on her way. In she came. She shook my hand. We bade each other good morning. She sat. She rolled a cigarette – too slowly, she knew what I was waiting for, she was doing it purposefully. She took out her matches – too slowly, too slowly. The first one blew out before it had achieved its function – she had let it blow out, deliberately, I was sure of it. The second one lit the cigarette. She took a long drag. Smoke left her mouth. Silence.

What shall we do today?

That’s it. That’s what I was waiting for.

A story, a story, I cried. That’s what I wanted always forever.

Emma’s stories became more complicated and fascinating the more I learnt to speak. Emma’s stories had been passed down from generation to generation – always changing slightly from mother or grandmother to child. Emma had heard many of the stories she told from her grandmother: she learnt them by heart then embroidered them or forgot parts and replaced the missing segments with her own additions. Often I’d demand her to repeat certain tales again and again – sometimes she’d change the ending or leave it open for me to finish. How can I explain Emma’s stories? They were alive. They moved.
They lived!
They were a swirling mass of colours and smells that could never be caught. They shifted shape, swallowed themselves whole, contradicted themselves, ends chased beginnings, they leapt off at tangents or into other stories as if switching trains, hurled in strange directions, forgot themselves, remembered themselves, metamorphosed from romances to tragedies and back again by way of comedy. I heard of princes and princesses, of stepmothers, of donkeys that shat gold, of dragons, magic kingdoms, beasts, bluebeards, witches, goblins, ogres, trolls and many other phantasms.

As well as the standard fairy-tale characters, Emma added her own. And of her own tales, a certain group began, not in some imagined kingdom but in Tearsham Park. These tales would often start with – They didn’t know it up in the nursery, but down below in the library, something extraordinary had begun to happen to Mr Orme. My father, absent-minded and mysterious, who we saw so often around the house staring into nothingness or crouched with intense curiosity in front of some object or other, became with Emma’s help, the most magical of characters. Emma would tell of Father’s adventures.

When Father had been ordered out for a walk by my mother, Emma would tell me he had gone on safari into strange, distant lands where people had heads in their
stomachs; when we saw him in the parkland fascinated by molehills, Emma would send him deep beneath the earth where odd, hairy people lived; or she would summon gales to fly Father up into the sky to visit the strange weightless people who lived in the clouds. And I almost believed all these stories. Looking at Father they seemed entirely plausible.

The ending of a thousand tales
.

On a certain day Emma was late. I went down to tell Mother. She told me to wait in the nursery, Emma would come. But when she didn’t come, I went. Emma’s front door was shut but unlocked. I let myself in. Emma was sitting in front of her fireplace. The fire had exhausted itself many hours earlier. Emma’s eyes were closed. With her eyes closed, her one sector of energy was absented. She looked as if her skin was made of burnt paper and her clothes of cigarette ash. If I blew I was sure her head would sink into her chest and the two parts, connected and unreadable as Emma, would soon float down to what was once Emma’s feet, and then all Emma, old Emma, would lie tidy in a little mound waiting to be swept away. The spent fire would look like her twin sister. But I did not blow. Emma did not subside; I’m just thinking my childish thoughts.

I tugged her elbow. Emma did not look up.

The library was closed, the stories were padlocked under her stiff tongue and would come out to play no more. All the creatures from trolls to princesses, all her heroes and adventures had sunk down her throat into the abysses of her stilled organs, amongst blood that had lost the idea of action. Emma was a dead thing. The centre of her lips were burnt, she had been smoking a liquorice-papered cigarette when she had died and it had gone on living after her. It had extinguished itself in the cooling blood of her mouth, it had heated her lips while the rest was going cold. The last warm place on the
person who had taught me how to speak and to think, how to use my imagination and how to conceive histories, had been the lips and the tip of her celebrated tongue.