Observatory Mansions (18 page)

I found the cigarette ends unattractive.

Lots 988 and 989
.

We were by then far into the Time of Memories and had even started on the Time of the Four Objects. I was deeply concerned, as I have suggested, for my fellow occupants of Observatory Mansions, though they in their turn seemed not to be thinking of me at all.

In an attempt to end that Time of Memories, and longing for the time before Anna Tap arrived, feeling a little left out
and disturbed by forming the collection of cigarette ends, I went to work that night.

Still were the inhabitants of Observatory Mansions, tossed only by their deep three-in-the-morning sleep. But someone was out of his place, leaving his bedroom all alone. This someone, named Francis Orme, tiptoed in the blackness to the outside night and leant the ladder against the window of flat eighteen. I climbed up to flat eighteen and entered its cigarette smelling confines. I tiptoed into the bedroom and found a woman, late twenties to mid-thirties, fast asleep, dreaming of orphanages and museums and the minuscule strands of textile fibres. Beside her bed was a spectacles case and in the spectacles case a pair of spectacles. Round frames. Steel. Containing thick lenses (lot 988).

Then I ventured up beyond the always-open door of flat twenty and found Twenty there snoring and barking in her sleep. Clasped in one of her paws was the dog collar with the name tag inscribed MAX. By sniffing around her head and hands – not a pleasant thing to do – in the fashion of a dog, I noted to my satisfaction, that Twenty let go of the dog collar to rest her hands on my shoulders and lick my face, whining happily. And when Twenty had licked enough, I took the collar (lot 989).

Through the eyes of Anna Tap
.

After placing Twenty’s former dog collar neatly within a transparent polythene bag and having catalogued the object, I turned my attention to the pair of spectacles. With one of the cigarette ends in my mouth and the pair of spectacles on my nose, I attempted to discover how it felt to be Anna Tap. I saw a blur. A thick blur. Blurred colours, blurred division between light and darkness. This, I thought, must be something similar to what she saw when she wasn’t wearing her glasses. In this way I imitated Anna Tap, sucking her already
smoked cigarettes and looking through her spectacles, for half an hour, just to be sure of my feelings for her. And I concluded that William had somehow been mistaken. I looked through them and smoked on for another ten minutes, just to be sure. Nothing.

Then I catalogued the spectacles, placed them inside a polythene bag, went upstairs to bed and fell into a happy sleep.

The next morning I was at work a little earlier than usual, and was out of the Mansions before any of the others had left their beds. I considered what a kind thing I had done for them all, for all that is except Anna Tap. Twenty had been happy as the Dog Woman of Tearsham Park Gardens, now she was reported to be sad, now she had no idea who she was. Claire Higg had been happily watching her television set until the presence of Anna Tap turned it off and reminded her of Alec Magnitt. Peter Bugg, too, had been tolerably content with his life until he had been reminded of his father, of his father’s ruler and of school terms long since broken up. By removing the dog collar I had hoped to take away all evidence of Twenty’s dead dog which had sparked off all her other memories, and so return Twenty to her former dog days. By returning Claire to her television and Bugg to his life filled with sweat and tears but not of worry, I had hoped to break up the Time of Memories in flat sixteen. By stealing Anna Tap’s spectacles I had hoped to show her that she was still unwelcome in Observatory Mansions. If Twenty went back to the park, if Claire went back to her television, if Bugg stopped worrying, then Anna Tap would realize, only too clearly, that she was not needed here. She could sit in her bedroom, blind as a mole, and think about it. Then she could go elsewhere.

These were my happy thoughts as I stood, some time before the public arrived, on my plinth in the centre of the city. Waiting for a coin to drop.

Hand Armageddon
.

On my way back from work I did not find Anna Tap coming out of the church, nor did I find her inside. She had been there though, or I presumed she had. Cigarette ends, Lucky Strikes with teeth marks, dotted the route back to Observatory Mansions. I gathered them but soon stopped: impaled on top of one of the spikes of Tearsham Park Gardens’ fencing was a single white glove, my brand. My glove. I picked it up. Yes, mine! A little further on, lying this time on the dirty pavement, was another glove, not its pair. A left hand again. Further still, across the road, a pair of gloves were to be found nailed on to the Observatory Mansions sign. Spacious apartments of quality design:

OBSERVATORY MANSIONS
Spacious
(Glove)
Apartments of Quality
(Glove)
Design

My gloves, mine! Pierced in the palms, like Christ had been before me!
My gloves. I pulled them down. My gloves ripped. My gloves dirty. On the ground floor a glove had been covered in dirt and was more black than white in colour – had the Porter used it as a duster? Up the stairs of Observatory Mansions, past the Porter’s desk and all the way to the first floor were hands (some, I noted to my horror, had even been trodden on). The gloves on the stairs, looking like unhappy anaemic insects, seemed to be attempting to crawl their way back to their home.
My home!
Then I saw it:
the door of flat six! A new lock had been fitted!
The empty fingers
of a white glove were peeping out from under the door, but flat six was locked from me. I screamed repeatedly. I sat on the stairs, gloves on hands, different gloves in my lap, trembling. Then with the help of that white, that cotton, I calmed myself enough to realize that the new lock was in fact the same new lock that I had purchased on behalf of Anna Tap and that I had the second key in my pocket. I let myself in. I wish I had not, for the sight before my eyes that cruel evening was not a thing that delicate Francises should ever be subjected to.

White gloves, a sea of white gloves, white gloves covered every bit of the floor of flat six of Observatory Mansions. I began to carefully pick the gloves up, petrified that I might step on one. I placed the gloves on surfaces higher than the floor, poor servants, poor skins. In Mother’s bedroom the night light’s rabbit was sheathed by a white glove. Mother’s head lay on a pillow stuffed with white gloves, on Mother’s chair sat a pair of Y-fronts filled with white gloves. In the bathroom there were white gloves taking a bath, there were discharged gloves in the lavatory bowl. Gloves had been tied on to the hot and cold taps of both the bath and the basin and were full of water; bloated hands, looking more like cows’ dugs than sensitive touchers. In the kitchen part of the largest room of flat six there were cold gloves in the refrigerator, there were frozen gloves in the deepfreeze, there were gloves boiling in water on the top of the cooker, there were burnt gloves inside the cooker. In the dining room section of the largest room of flat six, the dining table had been laid and on a plate in the centre of the table was an evil salad consisting only of white gloves sprinkled with olive oil, under the lid of a tureen there was white-glove soup, under the lid of a silver salver was a brace of white gloves with whole onions stuffed inside them.

In the sitting room section of the largest room of flat sat Father: Father with gloves on his ears and fingerless gloves
six on his hands and with fingers, that formerly belonged to the white gloves on his hands, placed on the toes of his feet. In my bedroom there were three empty glove diary boxes. On my desk there was a single glove. The glove was positioned with a pen in such a way that it looked as if the glove had been writing. At the tip of the pen was a piece of paper. On the paper was written the following:

PLEASE RETURN:

1. A mahogany ruler, known as Chiron.

2. A passport photograph of Alec Magnitt, with declarations of love written on its reverse.

3. A dog collar, with a name tag inscribed MAX.

4. A pair of round, steel-rimmed glasses, containing powerful lenses.

THANK YOU.

We were deep within the Time of the Four Objects.

On late night visitors
.

I had rescued my gloves, some were already back in the glove diary boxes, others were drying in the bathroom. I was busy at work sewing the fingers back on to the white gloves that my father had been wearing on his hands and toes, when the door to flat six was opened. The door was not knocked on, there was no
please can I come in
. It was unlocked and opened and people came into flat six without the word please being used once. And they didn’t stop there, they came straight into my bedroom.

My room had never been so populated before. There stood Higg, Bugg, Twenty, and behind them the Porter holding the elbow of Anna Tap. How tiny Anna Tap’s eyes looked without glasses. Higg, I noted to my disgust, was wearing some of my white cotton gloves on her person. She had put
on a bra and had stuffed the bra with gloves, compensating by use of my white cotton friends for her tiny breasts. There were fingertips poking out from the cups of her bra.
My gloves were feeling Miss Higg’s breasts
.

The Porter spoke first:

I have no cause for real complaint myself. I am here as Miss Tap’s guide, she cannot see.

Get out.

They want various items which they believe you have borrowed, Francis Orme.

No. You’ve searched my home already and you haven’t found them. Doesn’t that make it obvious that I don’t have them, that I am entirely innocent and therefore completely wronged?

You won’t return the items then?

If I had them, I would not.

You don’t have them?

Who moved my gloves? Why don’t you ask that? It’ll take me weeks to re-catalogue the glove diary. And even then it’ll be incomplete. It’s a far more serious crime. Who was it? Who?

Bugg giggled.

Higg giggled.

The Porter hissed (a giggle-like hiss).

Claire Higg began to moan something about milk bottles, Twenty began to bark, Peter Bugg to remember, aloud this time, his father, and Anna Tap to rub her, blind, eyes.

You will tell us, you will. Yes, you will.

It was the Porter who said those words, then he instructed Bugg, crying and sweating and smelling of a hundred smells, to hold me down in my chair, while he took one of my white gloved hands and, grasping it by the wrist, held it palm
upwards. Claire Higg revealed a fountain pen, recognized as belonging to Peter Bugg, and holding the nib a millimetre from the perfect white cotton of my trapped hand, uttered the monosyllable:

Speak.

I would, in fact, have spoken freely, perhaps even betrayed my exhibition at that moment had it not been for Twenty, who by causing me terrible pain actually saved me. Twenty followed Higg’s
speak
with a sharp doggish howl, which so shocked Miss Higg that her hand jogged, causing ink to spill on my white cotton hand.

What a loss!
What a loss! Far superior to the loss of a thousand, thousand rulers or spectacles or passport photographs or dog collars. I felt more pain than any cut could give: there was ink on my gloves!

I showed Claire Higg and Peter Bugg, the Porter, Anna Tap and Twenty too.

Look what you’ve done. This is bad, this is bad! This is so, so bad!

I sat cross-legged on the floor with my hands resting, trembling on my knees. They were quivering as if they had been hideously burnt. I repeatedly closed my eyes and then opened them hoping, in vain, that in a magical second when I was not looking the ink would mysteriously vanish and my glove would return to its former beauty.

For some time I sat there, rocking slightly backwards and forwards, nodding my head a little, humming quietly, comforting myself, whilst they limply, the murderers, stood, without a cent of pride, profoundly ashamed of themselves around me.

I felt ill.

My heart shrieked inside me, each time I closed my eyes I
was sure I was going to faint. And my heart kept bashing against my ribcage, desperate to get out.

I feel sick. I can’t calm down.

I tried listing the sacred paper entitled the Law of White Gloves, but I couldn’t concentrate. I stood up.
I had to keep moving
. I walked around Twenty, around Claire Higg and Peter Bugg, around the Porter and Anna Tap. I couldn’t keep still and all the while my heart thrashed inside me, begging to be free.

My heart wouldn’t slow down.

I can’t slow down. I can’t slow my heart down. Why won’t it slow down, why won’t it slow down? What can I do to make it slow down? Am I going to die, is this what dying feels like?

Calm down, Francis Orme.

I CAN’T!

Anna Tap tried to calm me.

Sit down, Francis.

I have to keep moving.

No, you don’t, sit down and you’ll feel better. That’s it. Take deep breaths.

I can’t calm down!

Deep breaths.

My heart!

Count. Slowly.

123456789101112 …

Slower.

1, 2, 3, 4 … I can’t!

Yes, you can.

What’s happening to me?

It’s nothing. It’ll be gone soon. Sssh.

Help me!

Try lying down. Better?

I can’t.

You can.

Better?

A little.

Deep breaths.

I feel faint.

No you don’t, you feel sleepy. Close your eyes. Deep breaths.

I feel sleepy.

Close your eyes.

My heart!

Close your eyes, breathe slowly.

Eventually, I fell asleep.

When I woke up they had all gone.

Later that night (when I was wearing a new pair of gloves) I heard a knock at our door and smelt Bugg outside.

Francis, I know what you’ve done is very wrong. But I will forgive you my part of the wrong if you would just let me talk to you for a little while. Everyone’s asleep and I must have someone to talk to. I can’t stop thinking, I can’t lose sight of the boy … He’s been smiling at me for a few days, but tonight he has begun to laugh. Francis, Alexander Mead’s come back to haunt me. Let me in. I don’t have a key to this lock. The Porter’s got it and he’s asleep. Let me in, don’t make me be alone tonight.