Reggie Oliver
Unlike some people, I do not in the least mind going into clothes shops with my wife, always provided that there is what I call a ‘man-seat’.
Most of the really good ones seem to have them. They are the comfortable armchairs tucked away in a corner of the shop where you can sit down while your partner browses through the racks and shelves. There you can read, or consult your mobile, or, as I usually do, just sit and look at the world going by. If you pay attention, even the most banal activity of your fellow human beings can become fascinating to watch. Interactions between staff and customers are particularly worth studying. So, my experiences in shops with a man-seat have been rewarding, and, up until a certain event this year, my friend Fergus Moore might have agreed with me. When I visited him in hospital, just after he had undergone a second eye operation, he told me what had happened.
You may have heard of Fergus Moore. He is an opera director, particularly well-known for his productions of contemporary work by the likes of Ligeti, Poul Ruders, Turnage, and Thomas Adès. Of course, that world may be a closed book to you, but it really doesn’t matter. Fergus is about my age, yet looks considerably younger. He seems as fit and trim as when we first knew each other as young actors thirty or so years ago. Unlike me, he is not married, but has enjoyed a number of relationships, mostly with dancers and opera singers. Every time I saw him, Fergus seemed to be with someone younger and more glamorous. I have always liked his girlfriends, and when they and Fergus part, as they always do, there is rarely any acrimony – or so he tells me. It is just the way things are in his world; people are constantly on the move from opera house to theatre across the globe, so bonds of communication fray and snap.
When I called on him in Moorfields last week, he was sitting up in bed with his eyes bandaged, but he knew who I was as soon as I came into his room. He did not at first seem to me particularly downcast, but he was in a febrile, agitated mood. When I asked him how he was, he waved my commonplace enquiry aside. Fergus, in any case, is never one for small talk. It was clear that he urgently wanted to tell me something, and so, after putting a bag of seedless grapes into his hands, I let him.
This last summer Fergus was in Alderness directing an opera for the Music Festival there. It was Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, as it happens. The classic operatic repertoire was not his usual territory, but, by all accounts, he made a good fist of it. Being unattached at the time, he began to befriend a cellist in the Alderness Festival Orchestra called Anna.
“Not my usual type,” Fergus told me, “I am generally drawn to the singers. Anna is not unattractive; far from it, but she is not, you know, obviously…well, glamorous like some of the others. But we just got on, went out together on long walks, when we were free: that kind of thing. I began to feel that this could be someone I might actually want to, you know – oh, God, what’s the ghastly phrase? – ‘settle down with’.”
“What became of the last girlfriend, Gina, wasn’t it? The soprano. I rather liked her.”
“Oh, she was lovely, yes. Unfortunately, after she was runner-up at Cardiff Singer of the Year, she became a sort of celebrity which rather spoiled her. Gina even wrote a bad children’s book, as these celebs do. Mrs. Fighole’s Marvellous Sock, it was called. The most frightful ullage. Ever come across it?”
“No.” I write an occasional book review for the papers, but children’s fiction by minor celebrities is not my field of expertise.
“Frightful ullage…” Fergus paused to contemplate Gina’s aberration while he reached into the bag for a grape. The silence continued as he savoured the fruit. Finally he said: “I’d better tell you the whole thing. You’re the one person who might possibly believe me.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Well, you write that sort of stuff, don’t you?”
“What sort of ‘stuff’ are you referring to?” I felt mildly offended.
“Just listen. Okay?” He had suddenly become very agitated and irritable. I sensed fear, and the fear was infectious.
“All right! All right!”
“Well, one afternoon Anna and I were both free, so we decided to go into Alderness. We’d just had the first night of Pasquale, and I was staying on to monitor subsequent performances, and for a bit of a holiday. Also, of course, because of Anna… As you know, most of the Alderness Festival actually takes place inland at a place called Froston Manor where there’s the theatre and rehearsal rooms and so on. Alderness on the coast is the nearest big town and one or two of the festival’s concerts are also held there. Are you listening?”
I nodded, then, remembering that he could not see me, murmured some kind of assent.
“We had a coffee and wandered along the sea front. It was getting a bit windy. I don’t know whether you know Alderness. It’s basically an old fishing village, now grown into a sedate and respectable seaside town. Retired solicitors go there to yacht and play golf. Quite picturesque, but it can appear rather bleak at times. Rough seas, stony beach, no dogs allowed on it between May and September, that sort of thing. The tide was coming in; there were big angry grey waves. Then it started to spit with rain. We decided to go back to the High Street and get under cover somewhere. That was when we started looking at the shops.
“Anna spotted one which she said she hadn’t seen before. She comes every year to play at the festival, so she knows the place pretty well, you see. And she told me the shop hadn’t been there last year; in fact, what had been where the shop now stood was an old-fashioned undertakers, with, she informed me, a ‘Chapel of Rest’.
“Then I said something like, ‘Ah! Chapel of Rest, just what I need.’ It was a sort of joke, but it was a stupid thing to say, because she hugged me and said: ‘Oh, you poor old thing!’
“Sweet of her, I know. And Anna is a sweet girl, but I hated her saying it because it reminded me that I am rather older than her. To be honest, about twenty years. Or thereabouts. I was rather hoping that we could forget about that. It’s the kind of thing which shouldn’t really make a difference, these days, should it?”
“I’m sure it doesn’t,” I said, as convincingly as I could.
“Yes… Well… This was a new shop and had just opened. It was called Seahorse and was obviously designed to reflect the fishing village aspect of Alderness. You know: artistic piece of driftwood and a rusty anchor in the front window display. It sold smart casual clothes with a slightly nautical feel: stone-washed denim, cable knit sweaters, striped fisherman’s jerseys. Lots of woolly stuff. The sort of thing you might wear on a yacht, if you had one, or aspired to have one. Anyway, Anna said she wanted to take a look, and, as it was still spitting, I didn’t object. Anything to get out of the rain; so we went in.
“Anna liked the look of the place, but for some reason I didn’t. I can’t quite explain. It may have been the light, which seemed unnecessarily subdued. The nautical theme of the shop was pursued by the murals, more or less in the manner of post-war artists like Craxton and Minton: slightly stylised depictions of coastal scenes with muscular sailors, coils of rope, and dead fish with gaping mouths and staring eyes lying on stone jetties.
“There was piped music, of course, but it was not the usual light pop. It sounded like an organ, and reminded me of the lugubrious murmurations you hear from the instrument in a crematorium chapel before the service begins. Normally that would have been preferable to light pop – for me, anything would! – but somehow not on this occasion.
“Luckily, or perhaps unluckily as it turned out, this shop had one of those chairs you can sit on while your partner browses.”
“Yes. I know what you mean.”
“Right. Well, this one was situated at the back of the shop, not far from the sales counter and next to a couple of changing rooms where people could try things on. You know, those little cubicles with curtains in front of them? The cubicle curtains in this shop were rather heavy looking: they went right down to the floor and were a sort of greyish colour decorated with the shop’s seahorse logo. I would have much preferred it if my chair had not been so close to the changing rooms, but it was the only seat available, so I sat down. Anna saw me do so and smiled.”
Fergus hesitated.
“That smile. It was a kind smile, meant to reassure me, but there was something about it, and the way her body was only half turned towards me as she smiled, that filled me with an almost uncontrollable desire. I suppose you might call it lust: well, possibly, but I don’t like that word. So bloody moralistic! At the same time I felt a sort of terrible despair, that I would never have her, didn’t deserve her, was too old for her. At one and the same moment she never seemed more desirable, never more unattainable.
“I was beginning to feel sorry for myself, and I suppose I must have looked it, because I suddenly noticed the two shop assistants at the counter staring at me, and not in a friendly way. One of them was blonde, petite and – what’s that awful polite phrase? – ‘well endowed’. The other was tall and thin with a beaky nose. Looked like one of those wading birds that haunt the estuaries around Alderness. The Blonde kept calling her ‘Trace’: presumably an abbreviation of ‘Tracey’. Trace was clearly the dominant partner.”
“The alpha female.”
“Yes, well, I don’t want to sound sexist or superior or anything, but that was the gist of it. They looked at me with disapproval. Older man with young girlfriend, that sort of thing, I suppose. Am I sounding paranoid? Well, I just waved at them in a friendly way and pretended to study my mobile, but secretly I listened in on their conversation. They talked pretty loudly so I had no difficulty in hearing. It was mostly the usual girly stuff—”
Fergus then went into a full impersonation of Trace and the Blonde. It reminded me what a good actor he had once been before he entered the more rarefied world of opera direction.
“‘So Trace, did you see Gary last night?’ ‘Yeah, I saw Gary.’ ‘Where d’you go?’ ‘Down Saltbridge. That place called Ghoolies.’ ‘Oh, yeah. Cool. The music’s cool.’ ‘Saw that Teegan.’ ‘Did you? I think he’s weird, Trace.’ ‘He’s cool.’ ‘Yeah, he’s cool, Trace, but he’s weird. Looks like one of them Zombos, like in that Zombo Acopalypse on the Netflix.’ ‘It’s Zombie, lame-brain. Zombie.’ ‘So did Gary try anything, Trace?’ ‘What d’you mean?’ ‘You know. “Lerve.”’ ‘I told him where to shove it.’ ‘Oh, yeah? Where was that then, Trace?’
“And so on… I can’t vouch for the absolute accuracy of that rendering, but that’s what it sounded like to me. Anyway, just as they were gabbing away, this woman came up to the counter. She was elderly, foreign, not very agreeable looking. She plonked a garment on the counter and said: ‘I wish to try on. Where?’
“Trace and the Blonde just stared at her for a while. I must say the woman had sounded rather abrupt, but I thought you were supposed to put up with that sort of thing if you were serving in a shop. There was quite a long silence until finally the old lady snapped: ‘Come! I have not all day!’ Trace looked at the Blonde, who nodded, and said to the lady in a very formal, affected voice: ‘If you would go to that changing cubicle there, madam. Nearest to where the old gentleman is sitting.’ My God! Old gentleman! Me! I nearly threw something at Trace.
“The elderly lady said: ‘Why not the other?’ And Trace said: ‘That one is currently occupied, madam.’ Now, I happened to know it was not, because as I came to sit down in the chair, I saw someone coming out of the changing cubicle furthest from me. I’m pretty sure Trace and the Blonde had seen them too. So the woman went in through the curtain nearest to me. I had a brief glimpse of what lay beyond. It seemed perfectly normal except rather more dimly lit than expected, and the mirror reflected an oblong of pure darkness. I only had the briefest of glances, though, and I turned my attention surreptitiously back to the two shop assistants.
“The Blonde looked at Trace, who said: ‘She can go to Hell and fuck herself there.’ Now I reckon to be pretty unshockable, but this was said in such a cool, matter-of-fact voice that it shook even me. I studied my mobile intently and tried hard to pretend I had not heard what Trace had said. I doubt whether they noticed, though, because by that time they were attending to another client.
“Shortly afterwards I heard this cry, more of a wail if you know what I mean. It was quite faint, seemed to come from a long way away, but definitely from behind the curtain of that changing cubicle. The curtain started to move, as if someone was fumbling behind it, trying desperately to get out. This movement was accompanied by a whimpering sound, more like a dog’s than a human being’s. Then the curtain parted and it burst out.
“What surprises me most in retrospect is that nobody else in the shop apart from me appeared to pay it much attention. It was the old lady who went into the cubicle, but she had changed. The head, partly covered by a piece of dirty grey cloth, was twisted and elongated, so that her features were barely recognisable. The face was bestial, half-human, half like that of a goat, and the eyes were bulging. I noticed that the pupils were not humanly round but slitted, like a cat’s. She was making a faint animal whining sound. No distinguishable words were uttered. She staggered on two thin and sinewy legs. They were bare, sprinkled with coarse grey hairs, and several times she almost fell. I realised why this was. Her right leg was so twisted that the foot, shod in a heavy brown leather sandal, was back to front, its scaly heel facing forward. What clothes it had on were no more than rags, and all black.
“I realised, even then, that this must be some kind of hallucination, but that did not make it any less terrifying. What was happening to me? I must be ill, having a weird sort of seizure. I could barely get to my feet but I did so to follow this monstrosity in the hope that my eyes would somehow adjust and I would see properly again. I blinked hard, each time expecting my sight to return to normal, but it didn’t.
“The creature stumbled through the shop while I followed. It went out of the door and into the street where it collapsed onto the pavement outside. The rain had stopped and some fitful sunlight was breaking through. I thought of going out and doing something to help, but what could I do? Fortunately for me, by the time I had got to the shop door, a considerable crowd had gathered around the body, obscuring it from view. What they were seeing I don’t know, and frankly I don’t want to.
“I began to breathe hard, trying to restore a sense of normality to myself. It must have been a waking dream of some kind. I was certainly feeling very exhausted. As I was going back to my chair, I saw Anna at the counter with a blouse on a hanger, and Trace point towards the changing cubicles. As Anna turned in that direction, I hurried to catch up with her. I did not want to cause a disturbance, but I was determined at all costs to prevent her going into the cubicle from which that thing – that creature – had emerged. I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. She did go into that cubicle; I could swear to it. I saw the curtain shake, and I could do nothing but follow her and try to save her. I pulled aside the curtain and went in after her.
“I could not see her anywhere, but it was all rather dim. I called out to Anna and thought I heard a faint answer from somewhere. There was a mirror on one wall, yet when I looked at it there seemed to be no reflection of me in the glass, though I could see the curtain behind me. My eyesight – or the room – was darkening by the second now. The space I was in, by contrast, looked as though it was getting larger, but perhaps this was the fading light. Then I was in complete darkness.
“I knew by that time that I must be suffering from something physical, as well as mental: perhaps a heart attack. I could see nothing, and began to grope my way towards the curtain, or what I guessed was my way because I had lost all sense of direction. I was uttering those whimpering animal sounds that I had heard coming from the old lady. My hands met something that at first I thought was the curtain. It was certainly cloth of some kind, but thinner, almost muslin, and beneath the cloth was a shape which felt like a head. There was a round smooth cranium and then below it two indentations, as if it might be two eye sockets. I know it said something to me in a low, sort of jabbering voice which I cannot now remember, but it put me into a further state of shock, after which I can remember barely anything at all until, somehow, I staggered out of that cubicle, stone bloody blind, as you see me now.”
Fergus stopped to take in a great gulp of air; beads of sweat were coursing down his forehead into the bandages over his eyes.
“I don’t quite know what happened next, but Anna was there. She was safe, at least, thank God! According to her, she hadn’t gone into my changing cubicle; she’d gone into the other one, and she had heard me calling out, but only very indistinctly. Anyway, they summoned an ambulance and I was carted off. Anna was very sweet; went with me in the ambulance and all that, but I could tell she was just doing it out of kindness. Not more than that. After all, in her eyes, we were just friends.
“So, she has gone off on tour with the Alderness Festival Orchestra, and I’ve been here mostly. They tell me that I should be able to see, more or less, after this operation. That, if you will excuse the rather dull play upon words, remains to be seen.”
I got the impression that Fergus felt even more deeply about Anna’s absence than he was letting on, so I decided to contact her to let her know. Fergus and I went on talking, but we said nothing of great interest. I knew he didn’t want me to go, while I felt guilty about my desperate urge to get away from him. Even as we talked about the old times at the Grand Theatre, Tudno Bay, where we had first met as young actors, my thoughts kept straying to that shop in Alderness. I had never seen it, but it was clear in my mind’s eye.
I obtained Anna’s address from the Alderness Festival people and have emailed asking her to visit Fergus and hinting at the strength of his feelings for her. I am quite sure Fergus would not have wanted me to do that, but it seems necessary. She is currently in Bratislava with the Festival Orchestra and I have yet to hear from her.
Yesterday, I went to Alderness. I did not tell my wife what I was doing. I said I was off on a research trip for my new book. It was a lame excuse and I am not sure she quite believed me, but it would have been too difficult to explain. I am not even sure if I can explain it to myself, just that I owed it to my friend to try to disentangle illusion from reality, if that is at all possible.
It was a white, damp day in Alderness, so misty that you could not tell where exactly the sea met the sky. I walked along the High Street and there was Seahorse, just as Fergus had described it with its arrangement of driftwood and rusty anchors in the shop window, denim yachting caps and cable-knit sweaters draped over them in an artistic manner. I went in.
I was surprised, in fact disturbed, by the way that my image of the place culled from Fergus’s description almost exactly corresponded with the reality of the shop itself. It was as if I were seeing the place with his eyes. There on the walls were the fake Craxtons with their assemblies of staring sea-creatures lying dead in the foreground. Only the piped music was different: it was the regulation light pop, and not the moans of some sepulchral organ.
I recognised the two shop assistants from Fergus’s descriptions: Trace, the senior partner, and the Blonde. I did not want to talk to them, at least not yet. I was afraid, so I decided to make a general tour of the shop before addressing them; but as I passed by the counter where Trace and the Blonde were, I heard Trace say:
“I can’t stand all these dead people, can you? Makes you sick.”
To which the Blonde, who was filing her nails, replied: “No, Trace. Dead people are the pits.”
I was so astonished by this snatch of conversation that I could not prevent myself from stopping in my tracks and turning to stare at Trace and the Blonde. They noticed me and stared back.
Trace said: “Excuse me, sir, were you wanting anything?” It was not a friendly enquiry; I thought there was a hint of mockery in it.
I explained haltingly that I was a friend of Fergus Moore, who some weeks previously had ‘had an accident’ in this shop, and that I wanted to see for myself, and find out what had happened. It sounded very lame: it was. I was beginning to wonder what on earth had driven me to come here. Trace and the Blonde looked at each other and then me with suspicion.
Trace said: “Oh, I remember. The old man who went blind. Was that him?”
I nodded.
“Poor old man,” said the Blonde, a slender note of sympathy in her voice. Trace gave her a hard glance, after which the Blonde was mute. I explained that Fergus would appear to have lost his sight in one of the changing cubicles at the back of the shop. Trace looked at me blankly.
“What d’you mean ‘one of’? There’s only one.” The Blonde nodded her agreement; then it was my turn to look blank.
Suddenly and very decisively Trace came out from behind the counter, took me by the arm, and guided me to the back of the shop. She spoke no word as she did so. I felt like a small boy being taken unceremoniously by a schoolteacher towards an unknown punishment.
The back of the shop was as Fergus had described, but not quite. There was the ‘man-seat’, but next to it there were not two curtained alcoves for trying on clothes, but only one. I told Trace that Fergus had specifically stated that there were two.
Trace insisted, rather irritably, that there had never been a second changing room and pointed to the fact that the place where Fergus had said it had been was marked by a door and not a curtain. The door looked to me as if it had been very recently installed, but Trace told me emphatically that it had ‘always been there’. When I asked what was beyond that door Trace gave a very vague response, something about it being ‘the old part’; then she said, with what seemed to me like a touch of menace:
“Would you like to see for yourself, sir?”
I shook my head.