The Book of Evidence (14 page)

T h e sun w a s shining t h r o u g h a thinning haze. It w a s still impossibly early. I w a l k e d d o w n o n e side of the m a i n street and up the other, twitching with impatience. F e w people w e r e about. W h e r e did the notion c o m e f r o m that

. country folk are early risers? A van passed by, t o w i n g a trailer with a pig in it. At the end of the street there was a b r i d g e over a shallow b r o w n stream. I sat on the parapet and w a t c h e d the water for a while. I needed a shave. I t h o u g h t of g o i n g back to R e e k ' s and b o r r o w i n g a razor f r o m h i m , but even I w a s not ruffian e n o u g h for such effrontery. T h e d a y was g r o w i n g hot already. I b e g a n to feel light-headed there in the sun, w a t c h i n g the water squiggle and g u l p b e l o w m e . Presently a large, ancient m a n c a m e a l o n g and b e g a n t o address m e earnestly. H e 93

w o r e sandals, and a torn mackintosh slung like a kern's tartan over one shoulder, and carried a thick ash stave. His hair was long, his beard matted. For s o m e reason I found m y s e l f picturing his head borne aloft on a platter. He spoke calmly, in a loud, strong voice. I could not understand a w o r d he said — he seemed to have lost the p o w e r of articulation — yet I found something oddly affecting in the w a y he stood there, leaning on his ashplant, with one knee flexed, his eyes fixed on me, speaking out his testament. I watched his m o u t h w o r k i n g in the thicket of his beard, and n o d d e d my head slowly, seriously.

M a d m e n do not frighten me, or even m a k e me uneasy.

Indeed, I find that their ravings soothe me. I think it is because everything, f r o m the explosion of a nova to the fall of dust in a deserted r o o m , is to them of vast and equal significance, and therefore meaningless. He finished, and continued regarding me in silence for a m o m e n t . T h e n he n o d d e d gravely, and, with a last, meaningful stare, turned and strode a w a y , over the bridge.

Y o u r honour, I k n o w I have spoken of having a plan, but it was a plan only in the broadest sense. I have never been m u c h g o o d at details. In the night, when the e g g hatched and the thing first flexed its sticky, brittle wings, I had told myself that when m o r n i n g c a m e and real life started up again I w o u l d laugh at such a preposterous notion. A n d I did laugh, even if it was in a thoughtful sort of w a y , and I believe, I really do, that if I had not been stranded in that hole, with nothing to pass the time except my o w n dark thoughts, none of this w o u l d have happened. I w o u l d have g o n e to Charlie French and b o r r o w e d s o m e m o n e y f r o m him, and returned to the island and paid my debt to Sehor Aguirre, and then I w o u l d have taken my wife and child and c o m e h o m e , to C o o l g r a n g e , to m a k e my peace with my mother, and settle 94

d o w n , and b e c o m e a squireen like my father, and live, and be happy. Ah —

What was I saying? My plan, yes. Y o u r lordship, I am no mastermind. T h e newspapers, which f r o m the start have been quite beside themselves — it was the silly season, after all, and I gave them a glorious, running story — have portrayed me both as a reckless thug and a meticulous, ice-cool, iron-willed blond beast. B u t I swear, it was all just drift, like everything else. I suppose at first I played with the idea, telling it to myself as a sort of story, as I lay there, the sleepless prince, in Mother R e e k ' s gingerbread house, while the innocent stars crowded silently in the w i n d o w .

In the morning I rose and held it up to the light, and already it had begun to harden, to set. Strangely, it was like the w o r k of someone else, which had been given to me to measure and to test. This process of distancing seems to have been an essential preliminary to action. Perhaps this accounts for the peculiar sensation which came over me there on the bridge above that gurgling river. It's hard to describe. I felt that I was utterly unlike m y s e l f That is to say, I was perfectly familiar with this large, somewhat overweight, fair-haired m a n in a wrinkled suit sitting here fretfully twiddling his thumbs, yet at the same time it was as if I — the real, thinking, sentient I — had s o m e h o w got myself trapped inside a b o d y not my o w n . B u t no, that's not it, exactly. For the person that was inside was also strange to me, stranger by far, indeed, than the familiar, physical creature. This is not clear, I k n o w . I say the one within was strange to
me%
but which version of
me
do I mean? N o , not clear at all. B u t it was not a new sensation.

I have always felt — what is the w o r d — bifurcate, that's it.

T o d a y , however, this feeling was stronger, m o r e pronounced than usual. Bunter was restive, aching to get out. He had been shut up for so long, burbling and 95

g r u m b l i n g and taunting in there, and I knew that when he burst out at last he would talk and talk and talk. I felt dizzy. Grey nausea m a d e my insides cringe. I wonder if the court appreciates what a state my nerves were in, not just that day, but throughout that period? My wife and child were being held hostage by wicked people, I was practically broke, my quarterly allowance f r o m the pittance left me by my father was not due for another t w o months, and here I was, after a ghastly night, red-eyed, unshaven, stranded in the middle of nowhere and contemplating desperate actions. H o w w o u l d I not have been dizzy, h o w w o u l d I not have felt sick to my guts?

Eventually I sensed the village behind me c o m i n g sluggishly to life, and I walked back along the main street, keeping an eye out in case I should encounter an importunate R e c k or, worse, R e e k ' s mother. T h e morning was sunny and still, dew-laden, and a little dazed, as if drunk on its o w n newness. There were patches of d a m p on the pavements. It w o u l d be a glorious day. Oh yes, glorious.

I did not k n o w until I found it that I was looking for the hardware shop where R e c k had stopped the taxi the night before. My arm reached out and pushed open the door, a bell pinged, my legs walked me inside.

G l o o m , a smell of paraffin and linseed oil, and clusters of things pendent overhead. A short, stout, elderly, balding man was sweeping the floor. He w o r e carpet slippers, and a cinnamon-coloured shopcoat such as I had not seen since I was a child. He smiled and nodded at me, and put aside his brush. He w o u l d not speak, however — professional etiquette, no doubt — until he had taken up position behind the counter, leaning forward on his arms with his head cocked to one side. W i r e - r i m m e d glasses, I thought, w o u l d have completed the effect. I liked him straight away. G o o d clay to you, sir, he said, in a cheery, hand-rubbing sort of voice. I felt better already. He was polite to just the correct degree, without undue subservience, or any hint of nosiness. I b o u g h t a ball of twine and a roll of b r o w n wrapping-paper. Also a hank of rope — coiled, I recall, in a tight cylinder, very like a hangman's knot — g o o d hard smooth hemp, not that m o d e m plastic stuff. I had little notion of what I intended to do with these things. T h e rope, for instance, was pure indulgence. I didn't care. It was years — decades! — since I had experienced such simple, greedy pleasure. T h e shopman placed my purchases lovingly before me on the counter, crooning a little under his breath, smiling, pursing his lips approvingly. It was playtime. In this pretend-world I could have anything I wanted. A tenon-saw, for instance, with rosewood stock.

A set of brass fire-irons, their handles m a d e in the shape of crouching monkeys. That white enamelled bucket, with a delicate, flesh-blue shadow d o w n one side. O h , anything!

Then I spotted the hammer. O n e moulded, polished piece of stainless steel, like a bone f r o m the thigh of some swift animal, with a velvety, black rubber grip and a blued head and claw. I am utterly unhandy, I do not think I could drive a nail straight, but I confess I had always harboured a secret desire to have a h a m m e r like that. M o r e laughter in court, of course, m o r e ribald g u f f a w s f r o m the wiseacres in the gallery. B u t I insist, your honour, gentle handymen of the j u r y , I insist it was an innocent desire, a wish, an ache, on the part of the deprived child inside me — not Bunter, not him, but the true, lost ghost of my b o y h o o d — to possess this marvellous toy. For the first time my fairy-godfather hesitated. There are other models, he ventured, less — a hurried, breathy whisper — less expensive, sir. B u t no, no, I could not resist it. I must have it. T h a t one. Ves, that one, there, with the tag on it. Exhibit A, in other words.

97

I stumbled out of the shop with my parcel under my arm, bleared and grinning, happy as a drunken schoolboy.

T h e shopkeeper came to the door to watch me go. He had shaken hands with me in an odd, cryptic manner. Perhaps he was a mason, and was testing to see if I too might be a member of the brotherhood? — but no, I prefer to think he was merely a decent, kindly, well-meaning man. There are not many such, in this testimony.

I felt by n o w that I knew the village. I felt in fact that I had been here before, and even that I had done all these things before, walked about aimlessly in the early morning, and sat on the bridge, and gone into a shop and purchased things. I have no explanation: I only felt it. It was as if I had dreamed a prophetic dream and then forgotten it, and this was the prophecy coming true. But then, something of that sense of inevitability infected everything I did that day — inevitable, mind you, does not mean excusable, in my vocabulary. No indeed, a strong mixture of Catholic and Calvinist blood courses in my veins.

It came to me suddenly, with happy inconsequentiality, that it was midsummer day.

This is a wonderful country, a man with a decent accent can do almost anything. I thought I was heading for the bus-stop, to see if there was a bus to the city, but instead —

more inevitability — I found myself outside a tumbledown garage in the village square. A boy in filthy overalls a number of sizes too small for him was heaving tyres and whistling tunelessly out of the side of his face. A rusty tin sign nailed to the wall above his head proclaimed:
Melmoth's ar Hire.
T h e bo y paused and looked at m e blankly. He had stopped whistling, but kept his lips puckered. Car? I said, pointing to the sign, for hire, yes? I jiggled an invisible steering wheel. He said nothing, only 98

f r o w n e d in deep puzzlement, as if I had asked for something utterly outlandish. T h e n a stout, b i g - b o s o m e d w o m a n c a m e out of the cashv office and spoke to h i m sharply. She w o r e a crimson blouse and tight black trousers and high-heeled, toeless sandals. H e r hair, black as a c r o w ' s w i n g , w a s piled up in a brioche shape, with ringlets trailing d o w n at the sides. She reminded me of someone, I could not think w h o . She led me into the office, w h e r e with a lurch I spied, a m o n g a cluster of g a u d y postcards tacked to the wall behind her desk, a v i e w of the island, and the harbour, and the very bar where I had first encountered R a n d o l p h the A m e r i c a n . It w a s unnerving, an o m e n , even a w a r n i n g , perhaps. T h e w o m a n was studying me up and d o w n with a sort of s m o u l d e r i n g surmise. W i t h another shock I realised w h o it w a s she reminded me of: the m o t h e r of the squalling b a b y in Sefior Aguirre's apart-ment.

T h e car w a s a H u m b e r , a great, heavy, high m o d e l , not old e n o u g h to be w h a t they call vintage, just hopelessly out of fashion. It seemed to h a v e been built for a simpler, m o r e innocent a g e than this, one peopled by a species of big children. T h e upholstery had a v a g u e l y fecal smell. I d r o v e sedately t h r o u g h the village in third gear, perched high a b o v e the r o a d as if I w e r e being b o r n e along on a palanquin. T h e engine m a d e a noise like muffled cheering.

I had paid a deposit of five pounds, and signed a d o c u m e n t in the n a m e of S m y t h (I t h o u g h t the y a fiendishly clever touch). T h e w o m a n had not even asked to see a driving licence. As I say, this is a w o n d e r f u l country. I felt extraordinarily light-hearted.

S p e a k i n g of jaunts: I went to my mother's funeral today.

T h r e e plain-clothes m e n t o o k me in a closed car, I was 9 9

very impressed. We sped through the city with the siren hee-hawing, it was like my arrest all over again, but in reverse. A lovely, sunny, crisp morning, pale smoke in the air, a few leaves down already on the pavements. I felt such a strange mingling of emotions — a certain rawness, of course, a certain pain, but elation, too, and something like grief that yet was not without sweetness. I was grieving not for my mother only, perhaps not for her at all, but for things in general. M a y b e it was just the usual September melancholy, made unfamiliar by the circumstances. We drove by the river under a sky piled high with bundles of luminous Dutch clouds, then south through leafy suburbs. The sea surprised me, as it always does, a bowl of blue, moving metal, light rising in flakes off the surface. All three detectives were chain-smokers, they worked at it grimly, as if it were a part of their duties. One of them offered me a cigarette. N o t one of my vices, I said, and they laughed politely. They seemed embarrassed, and kept glancing warily out the windows, as if they had been forced to come
on
an outing with a famous and disreputable relative and were afraid of being spotted by someone they knew. N o w we were in the country, and there was mist on the fields still, and the hedges were drenched. She was buried in the family plot in the old cemetery at Coolgrange. I was not allowed to leave the car, or even to open a window. I was secretly glad, for somehow I could not conceive of myself stepping out suddenly like this, into the world. The driver parked as near as possible to the graveside, and I sat in a fug of cigarette smoke and watched the brief, hackneyed little drama unfold beyond the fogged glass, a m o n g the leaning headstones. There were few mourners: an aunt or two, and an old man w h o had worked years ago for my father in the stables. T h e girl Joanne was there, of course, red-eyed, ioo