The Book of Evidence (5 page)

p o u n d e d as if f r o m embarrassment, but as well as shock there was a sort of antic glee, it surged
in
my throat and m a d e me choke. T h a t peasant was still watching me. He sat canted f o r w a r d a little, hands resting calmly on his knees, his b r o w lowered, at once intent and remote. T h e y stare like that, these people, they have so little sense of themselves they seem to i m a g i n e their actions will not register on others. T h e y m i g h t ' be looking in f r o m a different world.

I k n e w very well, of course, that I was running a w a y .

1 HAD expected to arrive in rain, and at Holyhead, indeed, a fine, warm drizzle was falling, but when we got out on the channel the sun broke through again. It was evening.

The sea was calm, an oiled, taut meniscus, mauve-tinted and curiously high and curved. From the forward lounge where I sat the prow seemed to rise and rise, as if the whole ship were straining to take to the air. The sky before us was a smear of crimson on the palest of pale blue and silvery green. I held my face up to the calm sea-light, entranced, expectant, grinning like a loon. I confess I was not entirely sober, I had already broken into my allowance of duty-free booze, and the skin at my temples and around my eyes was tightening alarmingly. It was not just the drink, though, that was making me happy, but the tenderness of things, the simple goodness of the world.

This sunset, for instance, how lavishly it was laid on, the clouds, the light on the sea, that heartbreaking, blue-green distance, laid on, all of it, as if to console some lost, suffering wayfarer. I have never really got used to being on this earth. Sometimes I think our presence here is due to a cosmic blunder, that we were meant for another planet altogether, with other arrangements, and other laws, and 26

other, g r i m m e r skies. I try to imagine it, our true place, o f f on the far side of the galaxy, whirling and whirling. A n d the ones w h o were meant for here, are they out there, baffled and homesick, like us? N o , they would have b e c o m e extinct long ago. H o w could they survive, these gentle earthlings,
in
a world that was m a d e to contain
us?

T h e voices, that w a s what startled, me first of all. I thought they must be putting on this accent, it sounded so like a caricature. T w o raw-faced dockers with fags in their mouths, a customs man in a cap: my fellow countrymen. 1

walked through a vast, corrugated-iron shed and out into the tired g o l d of the s u m m e r evening. A bus went past, and a w o r k m a n on a bike. T h e ciocktower, its addled clock still showing the w r o n g time. It was all so affecting, I was surprised. I liked it here when I was a child, the pier, the promenade, that green bandstand. There was always a sweet sense of melancholy, of mild regret, as if s o m e quaint, g a y music, the last of the season, had just faded on the air. My father never referred to the place as anything but K i n g s t o w n : he had no time for the native jabber. He used to bring me here on Sunday afternoons, sometimes on weekdays too in the school holidays. It was a long drive f r o m C o o l g r a n g e . He w o u l d park on the road a b o v e the pier and give me a shilling and slope off, leaving me to what he called my o w n devices. I see myself, the f r o g prince, enthroned on the high back seat of the Morris O x f o r d , consuming a c o m e t of ice cream, licking the diminishing k n o b of g o o round and round with scientific application, and staring back at the passing promenaders, w h o blanched at the sight of my baleful eye and flickering, creamy tongue. T h e breeze f r o m the sea was a soft, salt wall of air in the open w i n d o w of the car, with a hint of
27

smoke in it from the mailboat berthed below me. The flags on the roof of the yacht club shuddered and snapped, and a thicket of masts in the harbour swayed and tinkled like an oriental orchestra.

My mother never accompanied us on these jaunts. They were, I know now, just an excuse for my father to visit a poppet he kept there.
I do
not recall him behaving furtively, or not any more so than usual. He was a slight, neatly-made man, with pale eyebrows and pale eyes, and a small, fair moustache that was faintly indecent, like a bit of body fur, soft and downy, that had found its way inadvertently on to his face from some other, secret part of his person, it made his mouth startlingly vivid, a hungry, violent, red-coloured thing, grinding and snarling. He was always more or less angry, seething with resentment and indignation. Behind the bluster, though, he was a coward, I think. He felt sorry for himself He was convinced the world had used him badly. In recompense he pampered himself, gave himself treats. He wore handmade shoes and Charvet ties, drank good claret, smoked cigarettes specially imported in airtight tins from a shop in the Burlington Arcade. 1 still have, or had, his malacca walking-cane. He was enormously proud of it. He liked to demonstrate to me how it was made, from four or was it eight pieces of rattan prepared and fitted together by a master craftsman. I could hardly keep a straight face, he was so laughably earnest. He made the mistake of imagining that his possessions were a measure of his own worth, and strutted and crowed, parading his things like a schoolboy with a champion catapult. Indeed, there was something of the eternal boy about him, something tentative and pubertal.

When I think of us together I see him as impossibly young and me already grown-up, weary, embittered. I suspect he was a little afraid of me. By the age of twelve or thirteen I
zS

w a s as b i g as he, or as heavy5 a n y w a y , for a l t h o u g h I h a v e his f a w n c o l o u r i n g , in shape I t o o k after my m o t h e r , and already at that a g e w a s inclined t o w a r d s flab. (Yes* m i n d , y o u see b e f o r e y o u a m i d d l i n g m a n inside w h o m there is a fattie trying not to c o m e out. F o r he w a s let slip once9 w a s Bunter* j u s t once* a n d l o o k w h a t happened.) I h o p e I do n o t g i v e the impression that I disliked my father. W e did n o t converse m u c h , but w e w e r e perfectly c o m p a n i o n a b l e , in the w a y of fathers and sons. If he did fear me a little* I t o o w a s wise e n o u g h to be w a r y of him, a relation easily mistaken, even by us at times, for m u t u a l esteem^ ~Wc h a d a great distaste f o r the w o r l d generally, there w a s that m u c h in c o m m o n b e t w e e n us. I notice I h a v e inherited his laugh* that soft, nasal snicker w h i c h w a s his o n l y c o m m e n t on the large events of his time. Schisms^

wars, catastrophes, w h a t did he care for such matters? -- the w o r l d , the o n l y w o r t h w h i l e w o r l d , h a d e n d e d with the last viceroy?$ departure f r o m these shores* after that it w a s all j u s t a w r a n g l e a m o n g peasants. He really did try to believe in this fantasy of a great g o o d place that had been taken a w a y from us a n d o u r kind — o u r kind being Castle Catholics, as he liked to say, yes, sir* Castle Catholics* and p r o u d of it! B u t I think there w a s less pride than chagrin- I think he w a s secretly a s h a m e d n o t to be a Protestant: he w o u l d h a v e h a d so m u c h less explaining» so m u c h less j u s t i f y i n g , to d o . He p o r t r a y e d h i m s e l f as a tragic figure* a g e n t l e m a n of the old school displaced in time, I picture h i m on those S u n d a y a f t e r n o o n s w i t h Ms mistress* an a m p l e y o u n g !adys I surmise* w i t h hair unwisely curled a n d a g e n e r o u s decolletage, b e f o r e w h o m he kneels* poised t r e m b l i n g on o n e knee, g a z i n g rapt into her face, his m o u s t a c h e twitching* his m o i s t red m o u t h o p e n in supplication. Oh b u t I m u s t n o t m o c k h i m like this.

R e a l l y , really, I did n o t think u n k i n d l y of h i m — apart, that 29

laughter, and he frowned at them, pursing his little mouth so that it almost disappeared in the folds of his fat chin. He affected contempt for his clientele, though it was said he kept a bevy of boys himself, over w h o m he ruled with great severity, jealous and terrible as a Beardsleyan queen.

I drank my drink. There is something about gin, the tang in it of the deep wildwood, perhaps, that always makes me think of twilight and mists and dead maidens.

Tonight it tinkled in my mouth like secret laughter. I looked about me. N o , Wally's was not changed, not changed at all. This was my place: the m u r m u r o u s g l o o m , the mirrors, the bottles ranged behind the bar, each one with its bead of ruby light. Yes, yes, the witch's kitchen, with a horrid fat queen, and a tittering band of fairy-folk.

W h y , there was even an ogre — Gilles the Terrible,
c'est moi.

I was happy. I enjoy the inappropriate, the disreputable, I admit it. In low dives such as this the burden of birth and education falls f r o m me and I feel, I feel — I don't k n o w what I feel. I don't know. T h e tense is w r o n g anyway. I turned to Wally and held out my glass, and watched in a kind of numbed euphoria as he measured out another philtre for me in a little silver chalice. That flash of blue when he added the ice, what am I thinking of? Blue eyes.

Yes, of course.

I did say dead maidens, didn't I. Dear me.

So I sat in Wally's pub and drank, and talked to Wally of this and that — his side of the conversation confined to shrugs and dull grunts and the odd malevolent snigger —

and gradually the buzz that travel always sets going in my head was stilled. I felt as if, instead of journeying by ship and rail, I had been dropped s o m e h o w through the air to land up in this spot at last, feeling g r o g g y and happy, and pleasantly, almost voluptuously vulnerable. Those ten years I had passed in restless wandering were as nothing, a 32

dream v o y a g e , insubstantial. H o w distant all that seemed, those islands in a blue sea, those burning noons, and R a n d o l p h and Sefior Aguirre, even my wife and child, h o w distant. T h u s it was that when Charlie French came in I greeted him as if I had seen h i m only yesterday.

I k n o w Charlie insists that he did not meet me in Wally's pub, that he never went near the place, but all 1

am prepared to admit is the possibility that it was not on that particular night that I saw h i m there. I remember the m o m e n t with perfect clarity, the queers whispering, and Wally polishing a glass with a practised and inimitably contemptuous wrist-action, and I sitting at the bar with a b u m p e r of gin in my fist and my old pigskin suitcase at my feet, and Charlie pausing there in his chalkstripes and his scuffed shoes, a forgetful Eumaeus, smiling uneasily and eyeing me with v a g u e surmise. All the same, it is possible that my m e m o r y has conflated t w o separate occasions. It is possible. W h a t m o r e can I say? I hope, Charles, this concession will soothe, even if only a little, your sense of injury.

People think me heartless, but I am not. I have m u c h sympathy for Charlie French. I caused him great distress, no doubt of that. I humiliated him before the world.

W h a t pain that must have been, for a m a n such as Charlie.

He behaved very well about it. He behaved beautifully, in fact. On that last, appalling, and appallingly comic occasion, when I was being led out in handcuffs, he looked at me not accusingly, but with a sort of sadness.

He almost smiled. A n d I was grateful. He is a source of guilt and annoyance to me n o w , but he was my friend, and —

He was my friend. Such a simple phrase, and yet h o w affecting. I don't think I have ever used it before. W h e n I wrote it d o w n I had to pause, startled. Something welled 33

up in my throat, as if I m i g h t be a b o u t to, yes, to w e e p .

"What is h a p p e n i n g to m e ? Is this w h a t they m e a n by rehabilitation? Perhaps I shall leave here a r e f o r m e d character, after all.

P o o r C h a r l i e did n o t recognise m e a t f i r s t , and w a s distinctly uneasy, I c o u l d see, at b e i n g addressed in this place, in this familiar fashion, by a person w h o s e e m e d to h i m a stranger. I w a s e n j o y i n g myself, it w a s like being in disguise. I o f f e r e d to b u y h i m a drinks but he declined, with elaborate politeness. H e h a d a g e d . H e w a s i n his early sixties, b u t he l o o k e d older. He w a s s t o o p e d , and had a little e g g - s h a p e d p a u n c h , a n d his ashen cheeks w e r e inlaid w i t h a filigree of b r o k e n veins. Y e t he g a v e an impression of, w h a t shall 1 call it, of equilibrium^ w h i c h s e e m e d n e w to h i m . It w a s as if he w e r e at last filling o u t exactly his allotted space. W h e n I k n e w h i m he had been a small-t i m e dealer in pictures and antiques. N o w he had presence, it w a s a l m o s t an air of i m p e r i u m , all the m o r e m a r k e d a m i d the g a u d y trappings of W ally's bar. It's true, there w a s still that familiar expression in his eye, at once m i s c h i e v o u s and sheepish, but I had to l o o k hard to find it.

H e b e g a n t o e d g e a w a y f r o m m e , still queasily smiling^ but then he in turn m u s t h a v e c a u g h t s o m e t h i n g familiar in my eye, and he k n e w me at last. R e l i e v e d , he g a v e a breathy l a u g h and glanced a r o u n d the bar. T h a t I did r e m e m b e r , that glance, as if he had j u s t discovered his flies w e r e o p e n and w a s l o o k i n g to see if a n y o n e h a d noticed. Freddie! he said. W e l l well! He lit a cigarette w i t h a not altogether steady hand, and released a great w h o o s h of s m o k e t o w a r d s the ceiling. I w a s trying to recall w h e n it w a s I had first m e t h i m . H e used t o c o m e d o w n t o C o o l g r a n g e w h e n m y father w a s alive a n d h a n g a b o u t the house l o o k i n g furtive and * a p o l o g e t i c . T h e y h a d been y o u n g together, he and my parents, in their cups they w o u l d 3 4

reminisce about hunt balls before the war, and dashing up to Dublin for the S h o w , and all the rest of it. I listened to this stuff with boundless contempt, curling an adolescent's villous lip. T h e y sounded like actors flogging away at s o m e tired old d r a w i n g - r o o m c o m e d y , projecting wildly, my mother especially, with her scarlet fingernails and metallic perm and that cracked, gin-and-smoke voice of hers. B u t to be fair to Charles, I do not think he really subscribed to this fantasy of the dear dead days. He could not ignore the tiny trill of hysteria that m a d e my mother's goitrous throat vibrate, nor the w a y my father looked at her sometimes, poised on the edge of his chair, tense as a whippet, pop-eyed and pale, with an expression of incredulous loathing. W h e n they got going like this, the t w o of them, they forgot everything else, their son, their friend, everything, locked together in a kind of macabre trance. This meant that Charlie and I were often thrown into each other's c o m p a n y . He treated me tentatively, as if