Link Arms with Toads! (2 page)

Out on the pavements, weaving their own destiny, there are others like me. They are colleagues, rivals. I see them trailing their worn instruments in the dirt behind them. Our paths frequently cross. Over all the cities of the land, the suburbs, we are engaged in absorbing the fantasies of a million wives. Our travels are netting the happy hamlets, the conurbia of mock-Tudor ideals, the security of the scrubbed, the pools of quiet desperation with their shallow bathers. We are gouging the conduits of a freer life, evolving a whole nervous system down which emotions can flow like honeyed wine.

But it is not all certainty, this game of ours. The control can be lost easily enough. In the park, in winter, I often serenade the trees; an aubade to a false dawn. Hunched, cold, I neither welcome nor mock the sun. My fingers are like the highest twigs themselves, covered in sleet. The power slips between. Sometimes I meet my match, or more than my match. They are out there. No one who takes this profession seriously can be deceived for long. Many of them, innumerable.

I fear them. I fear their strength and their mystery. There is Madeleine, who likes to bounce me on her knee while I play. There is Yvette, who speaks not a word and hides behind widow’s weeds though her husband is very much alive, propped up in an old armchair, drooling, facing us as we trill. There is Arabella, who furnishes her house all in black and has set a worm-gnawed Grandfather clock in every room. There is Rebecca, who does not care for my silver strings. There is Melissa, who keeps a collection of love letters in a coffin in her attic. Her house is full of a delicate mist, cobwebs. There is Leonora, who I am at a loss to describe because she stays always behind me, always, no matter how fast I turn.

Helena is the one who disturbs me the most. I would like to break off our arrangement, I would like to depart from her and never return. But there is a hold, a morbid influence that she exerts on me. Her house is full of jars. I ask her what she keeps in them. She taps her nose and winks. Dreams, she replies; the dreams of all her past lovers. She collects the residue from her own generous thighs after she has toyed with them. I have not succumbed. I feel drained with Helena, enervated, sucked dry. It is only a matter of time.

Something else is happening. There have been developments. Hazel, who has been separated from her husband for nearly a year, persuades me to pay him a visit. His house lies on the other side of town. I find that he wants to pay for lessons as well. So I am able to listen to his side of the story. He knows all about my experiments with Hazel. It has reawakened his feelings, anger and deep love. They are reunited because of me. Then they break off contact. Music was the food of love, but now they are full. They are devoted. Who am I to protest?

This is happening to my colleagues and rivals, I hear. Many of them now have more male pupils than female. What can this mean? Will we be forced to work for money alone? Will they all abandon me, one by one? Barbara, Candida, Deborah, Eulalia, Fiona, Faustina, Gwyneth? What will happen to my soul, my essential nature? Will Rosa no longer want to play duets in the dusky twilight? Will Alice learn to tune her instrument without me? Will Clara and Gabrielle succeed in their quest for a fuller sound?

A crisis meeting is called between all members of our fraternity. We gather in a crumbling café in the metropolis, an establishment that has served our kind for generations. We fill the place to bursting. There are more players in this tarnished age of ours than listeners. There is talk of returning to the piano. But I do not want to lose my hair, my patience. I do not want to have to wear tiny round spectacles. Are there really no alternatives? There is talk of finding a use for men, of somehow fitting them into our worldview. But what use can I find for men? I am lonely, lonely. I am so lonely.

While we argue, debate, cajole, the waiter serves us all supper. We need to fortify ourselves for the tribulations ahead. But we must not be defiled. We are minstrels, the lyric poets of the garden cities. Music alone is the reason for our being, we require no other sustenance. In this particular café our needs are understood. Do not fret. We shall rebuild Carcassonne, we shall. Solemnly, in the sinister light that emanates from the charcoal ovens, we dine on manuscript stew and violin steaks and pick splinters from between our broken teeth.

(1994)

Number 13½

Among the Isles of Scilly, Tresco justifiably holds a high place. Not that any of the members of the archipelago should really be described as high, for at no point do they rise much above 100ft. Yet they are alluring enough to tempt the curio hunter, the seeker of solitude or the college refugee. Tresco in particular has nets enough to snare the incautious tourist – once the private estate of a priory, it retains a cloistered air; a privileged atmosphere that owes partly to its impressive ruins and partly to its absence of budget accommodation.

Travellers to the islands have a choice of braving the stormy seas between Penzance and the largest of the group, St. Mary’s, or of taking to the air for the brief flight to the small airport outside Hugh Town. There are few direct flights to Tresco and only one hotel to be found, the Island Hotel – expensive but all that can be desired. It is now run by a Swede, Wilhelm Magnus, who was shipwrecked on one of the beaches during an attempt to sail single-handed around the globe in a coracle. His account of the affair,
Journal of a Scilly Billy
, is a fair specimen of the class of books to which I have not yet alluded.

In the spring of 1997, two mainlanders arrived at this isolated place, in an attempt to assuage a peculiar kind of brain fever. They were both Birmingham men, academics from that greatly regarded bastion of learning, the Moseley College of Further Education. They were (it is certain) physicists currently engaged on certain researches into the nature of subatomic particles. We shall dignify their experiences by naming them Baring-Gould and Purnell. The former was much interested in the behaviour of photons; the latter detested photons and had time only for neutrinos. Yet they contrived somehow to remain good friends, even taking with good grace the insults each hurled on the other’s favourite elements, hydrogen and argon respectively.

One thing they did share and that was a fear of flying. Thus it was that on April 13
^th
they braved the stormy seas beyond Land’s End in a leaky ferry, the
Mezzotint
, whose Italian Captain, Giovanni Paoli, had left his heart in England as a small boy. Baring-Gould sought relief from the buffeting waves on the highest deck; Purnell was of a like stomach. Together they turned green and clutched to the rails for dear life. Captain Paoli solemnly announced over the tannoy that he had never witnessed a storm quite like it. As the huge black waves broke over the physicists, one of them turned to the other and hissed through trembling lips, “There are thirteen passengers aboard!”

It seemed an augur of evil. The previous night, while still in Penzance, Baring-Gould had sworn he heard the main church clock strike thirteen instead of twelve; and Purnell had eaten no less than that number of pieces of toast for breakfast. But though the vessel pitched and yawed ominously, it came to no grief. The
Mezzotint
docked safely in Hugh Town; the only concession to the fury of nature being that the three-hour journey had lasted seven and that the figurehead of the ferry had been consigned to the furnace when Captain Paoli had seen how low on fuel they had run. We shall discuss the number 13 and the importance of figureheads later. (There is a ghost in this story but it shall not be revealed until the very end.)

The travellers spent the rest of the day on St. Mary’s, recovering from their frightful experience. The following morning, the weather being more clement for such a venture, they took another boat to Tresco, landing at the southernmost point of Carn Near, a ten-minute walk from the entrance to the delightful Abbey Gardens. Here, amid the tumbled remains of the priory, are the impressive subtropical gardens, first laid out in 1834. Though many of the seeds hail from no further afield than Kew Gardens, some have their origins in Africa, South America and the Antipodes. You really should try to visit these gardens sometime, it may do you good. But I am not writing a guidebook.

Baring-Gould and Purnell, two fellows of a prosaic turn of mind, ignored the Abbey and made their way straight to the Island Hotel. It was a great redbrick house with a stone-pillared porch; the windows of the house were not many (thirteen to be precise) but they were tall and narrow, with small panes and thick white woodwork. A pediment, pierced with a hexagonal window, crowned the front. Our travellers desired no more than complete peace and solitude; their wishes were explained to the landlord; and, after a certain amount of thought, Wilhelm Magnus suggested that it might be best for the gentlemen to look at one or two of the quieter rooms and pick one for themselves.

It seemed a good idea. The bottom and middle floors were rejected as being already occupied by a group of amateur geologists. Similarly, the top floor had two of its three rooms presently engaged; there was, indeed, a limited choice of only one room – number thirteen. But there was no time for unfounded superstition now; this was the only available room on the entire island and, as such, suited admirably.

There was no fireplace in the room – a handsome stove stood in lieu of more civilised heating apparatus. Something of the character of an oratory was imparted to the room by a broken mast that stood like a crucifix and almost reached the ceiling on one side. Under this stood a sea chest of some age and solidity which, when thrown open, revealed an interior full of brightly coloured shells and seaweed. Baring-Gould was at once much disturbed by the room – the en-suite bathroom contained an old lead-lined bath affixed to the wall. But Purnell pointed out they were far from home and had to make do. They tossed a coin to determine which side of the grand double bed was to belong to whom and then made their way back down the stairs to lunch.

The
salle à manger
was almost full when they reached it. Purnell counted thirteen guests, including themselves. They sat down and awaited the attentions of Wilhelm Magnus. The menu was a curious mix of Swedish and English cuisine; beside each dish was a number. The wine list was composed with similar numerological bent. Feeling determined to loose the grip of superstition from his rational collar and muffle the chill breath of the unknown on his nape, Baring-Gould ordered no.13 on both lists: the smörgåsbord with mushy peas and gravy, washed down with a rare, and not altogether unfruity, Lincolnshire rosé.

Swedes are habitually slow, perhaps, in answering, or perhaps this castaway landlord was an exception. He spent at least a minute looking at his guests before saying anything. Then he came up close to the pair and said, “My friends, I can only say that I understand you; I too was washed up on these shores during an unnatural storm. But here you have made a very good choice; do not expect things to ever be the same. Why have I remained, do you think? Personally I yearn for Uppsala, my home. But I may never return there; I am an exile.”

So cryptic was this outburst that both Baring-Gould and Purnell instantly decided to ignore it. Purnell followed his friend’s choice and they tucked into the meal. Afterwards, back in their room, they debated the matter endlessly. Finally, no closer to a solution and rather tired of the enigma, they took a walk out across the island in the direction of Appletree Bay. It was a glorious late afternoon; the sun slanted low in the west. Baring-Gould felt ready to dance through the fields of flowers that stood on either side of the road; Purnell reminded him that it was probably illegal to do so. Before long they had reached Valhalla, one of the strangest of Tresco’s institutions. This is in reality a sort of museum, whose exhibits consist of the remains of local shipwrecks – chiefly figureheads and the like. They were admitted into the confines of Valhalla just before closing time, but were there long enough to tease their curiosities all the more.

Once inside the museum, the ticket collector or curator (I prefer the latter appellation, inaccurate as it may be) took it upon himself to guide them through the dark chambers of shattered exhibits. He was a hunched sort of man; he was perpetually half-glancing behind him. He recognised the academics at once for what they were and told them, in a low nasally voice, that he too had once been involved in college life. Certainly his accent had less of the Scilly in it than might be expected of a crouching figure that smelt of fish. He looked like an islander; but he utilised words lengthy enough to confirm his previous standing as a lecturer from no mean institution.

“
I was a professor of Archaeology,” he said; “and came to Tresco to explore traces of early human settlement; but my dinghy was washed onto the rocks in rough seas, and all my equipment lost overboard. Lucky to escape with my life, I thought it best not to tempt fate by attempting a return journey. I have been here ever since.” He then went on to discuss the few studies he had since been able to make without his instruments. It was here that he used the lengthy words. Though, as I have already said, I am not writing a guidebook, a little of his speech (omitting the lengthy words) must be alluded to here:

In the annals of folklore, the Scillies are the peaks of the lost land of Lyonesse, a fertile plain that extended west from Penwith before the ocean broke in, drowning all but one of the inhabitants. There was some evidence that Lyonesse had, in fact, existed; that its populace were a thriving merchant people who specialised in brewing seaweed beer and carving dragons out of blocks of salt. This evidence (the curator tapped his nose at this point) was in his sole possession; one day soon he would publish his results. Besides, he had also discovered the tooth of Pytheas of Massalia, the first documented visitor to Britain, who arrived in Salakee, the islands of tin, circa 308 BC. Besides, even if this also proved to be false, Tresco was still a very nice place to live: there were some excellent beaches on the eastern side, many of them looking out to a submarine-shaped rock offshore.