The House of Doctor Dee (20 page)

It was then I telephoned Daniel Moore and asked him to visit me that evening: I knew that he was concealing some fact about the house and, in that moment of violence and power, I wanted to discover everything. I was wiping the blood of the dead bird from the cover of Doctor Dee's book when he arrived. 'Sometimes,' I said, 'I'm convinced that there's a madman somewhere in this house.'

'And what makes you say that?'

'Oh, I don't know. Dead animals everywhere. Piles of shit.' He looked at me in surprise for a moment, and I laughed. 'Don't worry. I'm only joking.'

I went into the kitchen, ostensibly to pour him a glass of whisky, but really to devour a plate of biscuits that had been left for me upon the shelf; there were two packets of assorted nuts beside them, and I managed to finish them before coming back into the room.

'If there was someone in the house, Matthew –'

'I know. I would have found him by now.' Then I laughed again. 'Do you want to know why my hands are dirty?'

'I don't think so.'

'I've been doing some digging. Look.' I pointed out the books scattered around the room, and tried to describe precisely what it was I had discovered about John Dee. 'And do you wonder why I'm so confused,' I said, after a long explanation, 'when every book has a different Doctor Dee? Not one is alike. The past is difficult, you see. You think you understand a person or an event, but then you turn a corner and everything is different once again. Just like you. I turned the corner of Charlotte Street and you were different.'

'I wondered when you were going to bring that up again.'

But I brushed his words aside with a movement of my hand. 'It's like this house, too. Nothing ever seems to stay in the same place. And do you know what? This may have been the actual room where Doctor Dee saw his visions. What did I call it just now?'

'The scrying room. Or the chamber of presence. What is the matter, Matthew?'

'Did you hear something then?'

'No.'

'I thought I heard a voice.'

'You'll be seeing him next, glimmering in the corner.'

'Well, I do see him. Look here.' I held up the book, with the portrait of Doctor Dee on its cover. 'Reader,' I said, 'this is the beginning and the end.'

We finished our drinks soon after and then walked slowly to the restaurant by Clerkenwell Green, where we had eaten a week before. I had known nothing then about John Dee, but now my life had changed. It was a warm night, and through the open window I could see the lighted interior of a small printing-works on the opposite side of the Green. Someone was moving back and forth and, in his random gestures against the light, I saw something of the frailty of all living things. A cluster of small flies, or gnats, was hovering near the door of the restaurant; they were circling in the evening air, with the setting sun glinting upon their wings. They might fly over the threshold into this small room, and to them it would seem an almighty palace of wonder. But where was the place to which I might fly, and see the glory around me?

As we sat down at the restaurant table I felt some excitement pass over me, but it was of so rare a kind that it seemed like sickness. I had experienced this sensation once or twice before, and I knew that something was about to happen. Something was about to change. I took the bottle of Frascati which the waiter had brought over to the table, and poured myself a very large glass before handing it to Daniel. There was a constriction in my throat, and some fire within me which I needed to extinguish; if I believed in such things, I might have been embodying the alchemical theory of the dry world aspiring to the moist. Daniel was watching me with uneasy amusement as I poured myself another glass of wine. 'Are we very thirsty?'

'Yes. We are. It's not often I sit opposite a beautiful woman.'

He looked at me reproachfully for a moment. 'Do you have to keep on mentioning that business?'

'But I'm very interested in you, Daniel. I become more interested all the time. How did you know that one of the upstairs windows was sealed?'

He put his index finger up to his nose, and sniffed it. 'There are always sealed windows in old houses. Haven't you heard of Pitt's window tax?'

'And by some miracle you also knew that there was a cupboard under the stairs.'

'I guessed.' He was still sniffing his finger. 'Or do you think I have magical powers?'

'Magic had nothing to do with it. You remembered something.' I filled my glass again. 'You know that house very well, don't you?' He shook his head with an uncharacteristically violent motion. 'There's no point in lying to me, Daniel. I think my mother recognized you, too.'

'She doesn't know me at all. I can promise you that.'

'But what else can you promise me?'

'Nothing.' He had lowered his eyes and, when the waiter came over to take our order, he took advantage of the diversion to clear his throat. Then he tightened the knot of his tie with another violent gesture. 'It's very odd,' he said, 'but whenever I come to this area, I always want to get back to Islington again. Is that what they call homesickness? And have you ever wondered who "they" are?'

I was tired of his attempts to divert me. 'Go on, Daniel. It's time.'

He looked at me directly now. 'This is all very difficult.' I noticed that his left hand was trembling, and I watched it with interest as he continued in a low voice. 'You're quite right. I have been to the house before. I knew your father. I went there with him sometimes.'

I had become very still. 'And why was that?'

'There is something I ought to tell you. I've been meaning...'

The waiter had brought us a first course of parma ham, and Daniel began to cut it into very small pieces.

'Go on.'

'Your father and I knew each other very well.' He stopped again, and continued cutting the meat without putting any of it into his mouth. 'We met in that club. Where you found me.'

'I don't think I know what you mean.'

'Yes. You do. Your father and I were lovers.' I think I rose to my feet but, at his look of alarm, I must have sat down again. He started talking very quickly, almost incoherently. 'It was about ten years ago. I do prefer older men, you see. And he was very charming. Very gentle.'

The excitement, or sickness, which I had sensed before was now all around me. It was as if I were bathed in some white light which made every movement and every word distinct. I got up again, and walked to the small lavatory at the back of the restaurant. I sat on the bowl of the toilet, and stared at the graffiti on the yellow door in front of me – something about a penis and a tube. I could see them together, Daniel and my father, lying naked in the basement. I could see them kissing one another. I could see my father kneeling against the sealed door, while Daniel knelt in front of him with his mouth open. I could see Daniel's dress and wig being hurled against the wall, while my father smiled that peculiar smile I knew so well. I could see them in The World Turned Upside Down, dancing together in the dim red light. And then I wondered what it would be like to have my father's tongue down my throat. I stood up, and vomited into the bowl.

Curiously enough, when I returned to the table I was smiling. 'Tell me, Daniel. Did he wear women's clothes as well?'

'Oh no.' He seemed almost offended at the suggestion. 'But he liked me to wear them. Around the house.'

I had heard enough. Now I understood the reason he had bought the property in Cloak Lane – it was the perfect cover for his sexual activities. There had never been any reason for him to divorce my mother, because she also had acted as a form of camouflage. But perhaps she had realized this all the time; that was why she remained so angry with him, even after his death. Perhaps she also suspected that my father had left me everything because I was in some way involved – but that was too hard a thought to bear. The whole of my past life had shifted now, and in these few moments had acquired a different shape. It seemed as if I must approach my own history as I approached the history of other centuries. 'Did he ever mention Doctor Dee?' was all I could think of asking him.

'Not as far as I remember.' We had both now assumed our customary manner and tone, as if we were trying somehow to reassure each other that nothing essentially had changed. He ate his food very quickly, stuffing it into his mouth and swallowing it voraciously. 'But he did say that there was something special about the house. He thought that something had once happened there, and he wanted to restore it. Or relive it. I'm not sure what he meant. But that was why – ' Once more he hesitated.

'It's a little late to keep any secrets.'

'He believed in something called sexual magic. He believed that you could raise spirits by practising, well, certain things.'

'And did he?'

'Did he?'

'Did he raise the spirits?'

'Of course not.'

So here was another truth with which I had to become reconciled. My father had practised magic in Cloak Lane, in the vain hope of conjuring up the ghosts of the past; that, at least, seemed to be the substance of Daniel's confession to me. He had performed some kind of sexual rite for the sole purpose of finding something which, he believed, still resided within the house. Could it be connected with his speculations about the homunculus? There were dark passages and corners here which I did not want to explore. In any case he should have known something I was now beginning to understand from my knowledge of John Dee: only love can restore life. The rest is illusion, and trickery, and nonsense.

'I never believed any of it,' Daniel was saying now, as some spaghetti was placed in front of us. I stared down at the white threads with something like horror. 'Some historians say that radicalism and occultism were related to each other, but I think it was only an act of despair. It was a way of pretending to have some secret force at your command, of imagining you had a form of power which could destroy the established powers. But occultism is really a refuge for the weak and the desperate. It's radicalism gone sour.'

'But my father was never weak.'

'No. He wasn't weak. Most occultists work in groups – it helps to bolster their confidence. But your father was different. He was quite alone. And he really believed that he had come upon a secret truth. It was as if it were some kind of inheritance.'

There was a meaning in all this which alarmed me. 'Did he ever mention me?'

'All the time.'

'Not when –'

'No. We remained friends, after we ceased to be lovers. He had a great passion for the past, you see. Just like you. He was always interested in what I was doing. Funnily enough, he was the one who led me to the Moravians. He found those meeting-places we visited. Do you remember?'

'Yes. I remember.' My father was coming too close to me, and it filled me with fear. I ordered some more wine, while Daniel tightened the knot of his tie again.

'There's something else I have to tell you, Matthew.'

'Oh God.'

'We didn't meet by accident.' The wine had come, and I started drinking heavily again. 'About two years ago, your father realized that he had contracted cancer. That's when he asked me to watch over you. He said that you were very special.'

'Special?'

'He said that you were unique. And of course you are. He just didn't want you to come to any harm. He told me what libraries you used, and it was easy enough to arrange an encounter. We share the same interests, after all, and London can be a very small city.' He stopped suddenly, trying to observe my reaction; but he could see none. 'I hope you don't think I'm a very dreadful person. We did become friends, after all.'

We had come to the end of our meal, as far as I was concerned, but it was still so early that the restaurant was almost empty. A young man and woman were sitting close together in a corner of the room, and I had already noticed that they were whispering intently. I strained to hear what they were saying, but all I could make out were stray angry words – 'worm', 'bitch', 'cow'.

'I'm sorry,' I said to Daniel. 'I really can't put up with this any longer.' I left the table, and went over to them. They looked at me in alarm. 'Why don't you fucking keep quiet?' I whispered, just as they had whispered. 'Do you hear me? Shut your fucking mouths.' Then I returned to Daniel. 'And that reminds me, my darling. I must get back to the house.'

I left him at once, and as I looked into the window I was pleased to see him bewildered and unhappy. I was no longer aware of any particular sensation as I walked back to Cloak Lane, and instead I began repeating the words of a song I had heard that morning as I sat in the old house. I think it was called 'Fortune, My Foe', but I could not be absolutely sure. I passed the churchyard and then, feeling the need to piss after so much wine, I jumped across the stone wall and urinated on one of the gravestones. Something moved beside it, and after I had zipped up my trousers I stamped on it with my foot. I felt as if I were knocking upon an open door.

 
HEAR SOMEONE knocking at my door,' I said to my servant, Philip Fox. 'See who it is.'

He hastened down the stairs, where I heard him talking to my wife's servant.

'Audrey, where are the keys?'

'They hang on the nail behind the door, where they are always to be found.'

'They are not! They are not here!' All the while there was a continual knocking, which was enough to wake the dead; I found myself musing upon my father's old dog, when the sound of Philip's voice roused me. 'Who may be there?'

'A friend, I hope. Open the door, since it rains so hard. I have come for Doctor Dee.' These words terrified me for an instant, and I rose from my chair.

'What is your pleasure? Who shall I say asks for him?'

'Tell him that it is one who was lately apprenticed to a good friend.'

'Come in, sir.' I heard the unlocking and unbolting of the door, and then some more hurried words. 'Sir,' Philip called to me. 'There is a gentleman here who would speak to you.'