Mr. Timothy: A Novel (9 page)

--All of you! You're all to call me Uncle, if you please.

It took some practice, getting
that
salutation and
that
name to come streaming from our mouths. Peter (always a bit of a wag) insisted on shortening it to Uncle Neezer. Even built a mnemonic chant around it--"Uncle Neezer's a frightful old sneezer"--which he illustrated with a rather elaborate pantomime that ended with his bowing his face all the way to the floor. Imagine his alarm, then, when he rose from this comical salaam one morning and saw the very object of his parody standing in the doorway. In no way outraged was our Uncle. Simply stood there, abristle with gifts, smiling like a country curate.

--What a charming boy it is. Very well, then. Uncle Neezer it shall be!

I don't recall how the name came to be shortened still further--hard usage, most likely--but very soon, we were all addressing him as Uncle N. An algebraic symbol, whose value would change quite markedly through the years.
One thing else I remember from that long-ago day: the glances my mother kept casting towards the front door. Anxiety, I now think, mingled with resignation, as though any minute the
real
guests would arrive, and the Cratchits would be sent scurrying through the scullery-- the harmony of our respective social spheres at last restored. But the minutes bled into hours, and it began to dawn on us--on me, at any rate--that we were the only guests expected, and
still
Mother kept looking at the door, waiting for the sound of that enormous, deathly knocker.

The knocker is still in place. I find that oddly reassuring: to arrive a little after eleven in the morning, to pass through this black gateway and find t his same tarnished-silver gargoyle glaring back at me, like some chivalric test. I need hardly lift it from its resting point, for I know what a reverberation it produces inside. And indeed it is only two or three seconds before the door opens to reveal yet another gargoyle, of a slightly more ancient variety. Feminine once, but now simply a fortress, with lancet eyes and a battlement nose and a mouth more unyielding than any portcullis.

--Good morning, Mrs. Pridgeon.

--And to you,
Master
Cratchit.

Well, she is old, I remind myself. Nearly as old as Uncle N. Won't remember I came into my maturity five years ago. Probably wondering where the other Cratchits are, all those wheyfaced, runny-nosed brats in their third-hand clothes, trailing mess and clamour....

--Is my uncle in, Mrs. Pridgeon?

--Would he be expecting you?

--That's a very good question. He is not expecting me today, perhaps, but he
is
expecting me. He has even demanded me.

--Very well.

The door swings open to its fullest compass, with Mrs. Pridgeon standing just off to the right, the enigma of her head tilting ever so slightly towards her shoulder.

--You'll have to wait.

Not a further word or gesture from her, and so I move to the sitting room, where I pause on the threshold, briefly nonplussed to see three other men ahead of me in the queue. Two of them are huddled by the fire: plump, bearded burghers in worn frock coats and high-buttoned waistcoats, indistinguishable from the mob of other supplicants who have been ushered into this very room almost daily for the past fifteen years. As I lower myself onto the divan by the window, I make a little game of guessing which particular charity they represent. Mission to Discharged Prisoners? Distressed Gentlefolk's Aid Society? Guild of the Brave Poor Things? One could fill scroll after scroll, drain a dozen inkwells, and still not have enumerated all the receptacles for Uncle's flying farthings.

The room is, as always, decorated for Christmas: tall, cherry-red beeswax candles on the occasional table; a wreath of rosemary and privet just above the mantel shelf; a small fir tree (look away, Mrs. Sharpe!) in a wooden tub, trimmed with golden balls and clumsy gobs of cotton wool, too large by half for the snowflakes they are meant to impersonate. A first-time visitor, however, is likely to be struck less by the decor than by the prevailing aroma, which comes not from nutmeg or cinnamon but from rotting grapes. For as long as he has occupied this suite of rooms, Uncle N has rented out the downstairs apartment to a wine merchant, and with each passing year, the exhalations of that merchant's casks have grown only more and more redolent, until the very air of the upper rooms has become a kind of advertisement for the business below.

Inhaling that air is, for me, like being whisked straight back to the past, and I find myself feeling almost sleepy from the journey. I think I would give in to it--close my eyes and let the sounds of my snoring fill the ears of those two astonished gentlemen by the fire--but for the sudden awareness of
other
eyes resting on mine.

Through my half-shut lids, I can just make him out: a tangle of savage hair and an unkempt shawl of greying beard over a still-full, still-sensitive mouth. His frame quivers with a barely contained histrionic quality: an actor, very like--Prospero and Lear on alternate nights-- seeking emergency funds to stave off his company's ruin.

But it's the eyes I keep coming back to. They pierce and retire at the same time, and they are so limitless in their sadness I can't be sure whether they are looking outwards or in.

And how odd! I have barely registered his presence until now, but already he seems more than conscious of mine. I feel myself straitened by an unguessed obligation. I rear up in my chair and give him the briefest of nods, and when I address him, I make sure to speak through my nose.

--How d'ye do?

Perhaps he smiles at me; it is hard to tell, for the only movement I can detect is a small, satisfied shake of the head. But his eyes refuse to part with mine, and so my only recourse is to look out the casement window, into the arms of a maple tree, where a few fatigued orange leaves still cling, whirling like feathers on a lady's hat.

--
Master
Cratchit, he will see you now.

Here she is with the "Master" again! My face steams with the usual shame, except that this time the shame gives way to a gush of silly pride. Barely a sixpence to his name, and young Timothy is given primacy over these honourable gentlemen? It is rich, my friends. It is very rich.

I get to my feet very slowly. Mustn't let people think this is anything out of the ordinary. My hat dangles from my left hand, and I take long, indolent strides across the rug, picturing in my mind the looks of bottled rage on either side. But when I glance back, I find the two charitable gentlemen gazing into the fire, and the only one who has even been following my triumphal march is the third man, whose eyes are awash with a strange and all-knowing pity. It exerts an almost backwards pull on me, so that leaving this room finally is like pushing through a twenty-knot headwind.

I make for the study, my uncle's usual room for welcoming visitors, until I spy, out of the corner of one eye, the gargoyle's squat and dogged figure tramping up the wide staircase.

--Has he taken to bed, then, Mrs. Pridgeon? Not a sound. Nothing but the laboured music of her lungs as she hauls each foot in turn to the next step.

--I can find my way there. You needn't trouble yourself.

But her stooped shoulders are already shrugging me off. Obediently, I start up the stairs after her, and very quickly, I have matched my pace to hers, until we are locked together in a pallbearer's stride.

Taken to his bed so early? Or never left it?

Ah, the privileges of the very old. Lie abed all day if you like, and no one to cuff you round the ears and call you a filthy beggar. I shall have to get very old very soon.

But when at last I cross the threshold into Uncle N's bedroom, I feel I am peering across an insuperable chasm, and I find I can no longer imagine being as old as the figure sitting before me, propped up in bed. A single tasselled pillow keeps him erect--that and the bedpost, which he grips like a rifle. He has thrown off his nightcap and wrapped a plain cambric gown round his nightshirt, but the gown and nightshirt have both fallen open to reveal a shrunken, hairless, chalky chest and thin, slack cords of neck, wobbling under the exertion of speech.

--Merry Christmas, Tim.

--And to you, Uncle.

Not six months ago, he had the look that belongs to men of a certain age, that querulous air of having missed too many appointments with Death.
Tiresome fellow, when will he get here
? None of that now. Uncle N has shed all superfluities of flesh, and what's left is strangely magnified: the nose more acutely angled than ever, the eyes redder, the lips bluer.

From behind me sounds a vulcanic
crack
. I whirl into a blast of heat. A large and well-tended fire rages in the bedroom grate, and as the smoke sears my nose, and as my ears tune to the crackle of the oak logs, I am transported back to Father's room, those last lingering days. Back to that other fire, which was Father's most constant companion and his last, having sprung into life only on the day he took ill and burned without lapse until he died.

--Sit you down, Tim, you must be tired.

For a visiting room, there are surprisingly few places to sit: just a cabriolet, set arbitrarily a few feet from the bed and upholstered in something that looks like moss.

--Would you...I could have something fetched for you...Mrs. Pridgeon has made some cider, I believe.

He's actually reaching for the bell rope--I have to put out a hand to stop him.

--I've just had tea, Uncle.

--Ah.

--And you have three other gentlemen eager for an audience. --The usual mendicants. I'm not clear on...not clear on
who
, exactly....

His hands fall into his lap. He draws a long, stertorous breath and then, after a suspenseful pause, releases it.

--You must...you must forgive an old man his stratagems, Tim. Short of taking up residence in the bank, I knew of no other way to find you.

--Well, you have found me, then. Not that I was ever really lost.

The slightest flash in his eyes.

--Lost to
me
, Tim. No word, no forwarding address. Not a sign of you since the funeral. What were we meant to think?

I wait a few moments, and then his voice comes back again, more softly. As I knew it would.

--I understood, of course, that you were grieving for your father.

--Of course.

--And your mother, too, no doubt.

--No doubt.

He coughs--just once, initially, to clear his throat. And then the cough takes on a life of its own, wracks his shoulders, drives his chest back. And finally releases him in an oddly chastened form.

--A hard time we have of it, Tim. A hard time on this earth, but we know that coming in, don't we? Your parents have gone to their reward, and that must be our consolation. Let us speak now of obligation. You have
other
family, Tim, you...you have people who care very deeply about your welfare. Who want to know you're in good hands.

--I'm in good hands.

He peers at me unguardedly as the hall clock ticks away the seconds.

--Your brother has been asking after you.

--Oh, yes?

--He says he hasn't run across you in months. Says he's quite keen to show you his, his
salon
.

--I've seen it.

--He says it's changed since you saw it. You'd hardly recognise it.

Peter. Peter and his damned shop. If I'm not careful, my mood will lighten.

--Well,
you
haven't changed too much, Uncle. You still look well. --Ah.

He waves me off. I believe this is the only thing that can make him cantankerous now: empty words.

--Tim...

--Yes, Uncle?

--I wanted to see you because...I thought there might be some way, you know, I could help....

I shake my head, very slowly.

--You've helped us enough for many lifetimes, Uncle.

--And still it is not enough.

--It is more, sir, than we had any right to expect.

--You had every right. What right had
I
?

--The same as any dutiful and loving benefactor. You are too hard on yourself, Uncle.

Something surprising then: a look of slyness, of almost entrepreneurial cunning.

--And yet I believe that given half the chance, Tim, you would be still harder on me.

--That is not true. I have never blamed you--how could I? If anything, I blame myself.

--For what, Tim?

--For many things. Nothing at all.

He smooths a section of bedspread just to the left of his knee.

--You know I've always tried to do well by you. By everyone.

--I know that, Uncle. And I try, too. In my fashion.

Another slow intake of breath...but this time, no apparent release. The air simply expires inside his chest, and his shoulders bow, and his head lowers, as though he were bracing for a punch.

--Tim, would you kindly fetch my little casket?

No additional instruction necessary. I glide across the room to the secretary, reach into the upper-left-hand drawer, and feel for Uncle N's miniature vault with its mother-of-pearl veneer. I take it back to the bed, as smoothly and unthinkingly as a trained pony. And then I retreat a few deferential paces, almost to the doorway.

Ward of the state.

That's how Mother once referred to me. Not to my face. She was complaining to my father about Uncle's habit of disbursing monthly remittances.

--If he cares for their welfare, Robert, if that is truly his prime consideration, why not settle a sum on them once and for all and be done with it? Why make them come begging the first of every month?

Can't recall now what Father said. Something, I'm sure.

I do remember, though, the day Peter made his break. He had me follow him over to the changing house for reinforcement, but he never needed it. Never once looked my way, never spoke for anyone but himself.

--Listen, Uncle. You mustn't think me ungrateful, because I'm not, and I could never be, but from here on out, it will have to be just me, I'm afraid. That's how Annie wants it, that's how
I
want it. It's the only way it can work.