A doctor telephoned me this morning. She told me that Mr Rafferty was suffering one of his grey periods. He had fallen into a sort of neurasthenia, a lethargy from which nothing, it seemed, could rouse him. She thought it might help if he could spend some time outside the institution. I agreed; I would travel to Edinburgh and take him swimming. The doctor was waiting for me when I arrived. She wore a blush suit and vivid red bandeau. She shook my hand and brought me into her office.
‘During his grey periods,’ she said, glancing at a report, ‘in between periods of exhausted silence, your grandfather generally becomes confused. It’s a phase he returns to every so often. One knows he is about to enter this cycle when he insists he is hearing voices.’ I knew this already, and I tried to tell the doctor, but she cut me off.
‘The voices announce forceful and important thoughts, at least as far as your grandfather is concerned. They are sometimes reassuring, but more often menacing, commands or insults directed at him. Someone has implanted a broadcasting device in me, he will repeat. It is then he succumbs wholly to the voices. He literally does not know who he is and spends periods as a different person. One can never predict which personality he will choose, far less why he has chosen it. It is not that on certain days he assumes the persona of Thomas Mudge, watchmaker to George III; for him he is Thomas Mudge or Edward Dent or Taqî ad-Dîn or Ulysse Nardin or any number of past clockmakers, with whom he shares significant characteristics.’ The doctor picked up a book entitled Antique Clocks and Their Makers and turned to a fold-marked section. The verso page showed a gold pocket watch with black and gold hands; on the facing page a portrait of a man with a kind, energetic face.
‘For example, one can deduce,’ she said, pointing to the portrait, ‘from the flat brow and protruding lower lip, the cheerful, childlike trusting gaze, that your grandfather has become Mr George Graham, known as “Honest George”, who tramped to London in 1687 and became a leading watchmaker, but who never secured a monopoly on his inventions.’ She closed the book. ‘At other times it is impossible to know who your grandfather is, because he is wholly preoccupied and impenetrable.’
This morning the doctor told me she had been able to discover not only who Mr Rafferty had become, but also a significant event in this person’s life. For the past six hours he’d been Abraham-Louis Breguet, one of his more frequent incarnations, and it was June 1780, the day Breguet’s wife died.
‘Indulge his fantasy,’ she said. ‘He may resent you if you attempt to set him straight.’
‘Will he be all right?’ I asked. We had been standing all this time, but now she invited me to sit. She offered me a cup of tea, which I declined, herself sat down, and told me the following story. – Some time ago she had been called to treat a twelve-year-old boy. He was typical in all aspects but one: since he was seven years old he had not spoken a single word. At first his parents thought he was merely brooding. Soon, however, his teachers expressed concern, and he was brought to a GP, who examined him but found nothing wrong. He was taken to a speech therapist, who decided that she too could be of no help, since the boy had once spoken fluently; the child, she said, simply had no desire to talk. There followed visits to various specialists, of whom she, the lady doctor, a psychiatric therapist, was the last. She told me she had asked the boy to draw and to note down his favourite actors. All of this he carried out willingly, in silence. She performed a Rorschach test, which demonstrated he had a critical side to his character, an unwillingness to cooperate with his peers, inclinations to purity, a sensual side outweighed by his facility for reasoning, a tendency to follow the crowd, to believe in his ambition, and to be both sensitive and untruthful; all of which was perfectly normal. She dismissed the case, recommending his silence be indulged, since she believed he would break it of his own free will. About a year later she received a letter from the boy’s mother, who had decided to call in other specialists: Chinese herbalists, acousticologists, experts on whale song, yogis and clairaudients, none of whom had restored speech to him. Finally she contacted a famous hypnotist. The boy was instructed to lie on a kind of bed on stilts. The hypnotist stood on a wooden footstool from where he conducted the mesmerization. An hour later the parents were invited into the room; the boy looked just the same, but his speech had returned. That evening, over supper, he answered their excited questions. It seemed he wanted to unburden himself by relating certain episodes from his life; with great effort he spoke about his past. His words, however, were incoherent, disrupted by long pauses, and he repeated the same phrases again and again. His mother produced a jotter and invited him to note down the memories he was unable to voice. The boy went upstairs, brushed his teeth and climbed into bed. The next morning they found him hanging by the cord of his dressing-gown. The mother’s letter went on to say that, before he died, her son had filled almost two-thirds of the jotter with tiny handwriting. The doctor had asked to see it; one passage in particular caught her attention. It related how, as a little boy, he had played a torch bearer at the fire festival on Beltane night. His mother, a keen dressmaker, sewed the pagan costume herself: the sable flowing robes, the black circlet, and she had daubed his skin with boot-black. His father made the torch from a broom handle topped with benzine-soaked rags. With solemn pride he carried his torch around the Calton Hill (wrote the boy), proceeding as one with the crowd in an upward spiral, under the fire arch, passing sprites representing the four elements, stopping in the hollow at the summit; where they were ambushed by the Red Man, who unleashed his wild and complex dance, before marrying the May Queen, so that blue aimless summer might begin.
I record here what I remember of the story, and what I remember of the story I do not remember word for word. It was at least twice as long. I have left out a passage concerning the boy’s left-side right-side cerebral make-up, for instance. As soon as the doctor finished her narration she shook my hand and took me to see my grandfather. Perhaps she wanted to emphasize that she is not a magician, as I have heard her say before, that she cannot perform miracles for her patients. No doubt this is true. But I cannot help feeling that she spoke for my benefit.
I found my grandfather hunched at the low table, his fingers working rapidly and with delicacy on the air. He turned, and immediately I noticed a wild expression on his face, which he was struggling to hide. He got into bed. I saw that his eyes, heavily bagged, entirely filled by their black pupils, were shiny with tears that were still being shed, even after what must have been several hours. I remained in the doorway.
‘I am not sure if you are able to receive visitors, Monsieur. I have … heard.’
Mr Rafferty peered uncertainly at me. Then his face creased in recognition. ‘Thank you, Marat. It is Marat, isn’t it? Yes, I knew it was you. I am inconsolable. But please, do come in. I welcome the distraction.’
I had no idea who Marat was. But, attentive to the doctor’s advice, I decided to indulge his fantasy. I pulled the chair to his bedside and sat down, as if I were visiting an invalid in hospital. Then it occurred to me that this was, in fact, exactly what I was doing.
‘I am … er … I am so sorry to have heard of your misfortune.’ There was an awkward pause. Mr Rafferty placed his hand on top of mine, which was placed on my crossed knee.
‘Dear Marat,’ he said, ‘you of all people will understand the enormity of my loss.’ I lowered my head. I wanted him to release my hand, but he gripped harder. He was waiting for me to say something.
‘Indeed …’ I began. I could think of nothing else to say.
Suddenly Mr Rafferty shook his hand from mine and levered himself to a sitting position. ‘We were married only five years.’ He took a plastic tumbler filled with water and emptied it into his mouth. ‘Tell me,’ he gazed solemnly into my eyes. ‘How will you remember her?’
I reached for the tumbler and filled it with water. Mr Rafferty emptied it again. There was a pause.
‘Don’t be shy, Marat.’ I didn’t say anything. He had a fleck of paper tissue stuck to his cheek. ‘You are reluctant to talk about Cécile.’ His eyes softened. ‘You think I ought to put my mind to other things. Yet for the time being, I must reminisce. Tell me,’ once again he had taken my hand in his, ‘how will you remember her?’ I looked up at the ceiling and cleared my throat.
‘Her … happy gaze.’ Mr Rafferty furrowed his brow. His tongue darted over his lower lip. Then he looked at me, astonished. ‘How right you are! It was her eyes that first attracted me.’ His own eyes were blurred with tears. ‘Let us tell happy stories.’
I searched in my mind, but I could think of nothing to say.
‘I never was much of a storyteller,’ I said.
‘What’s come over you? I may be in mourning, but you mustn’t treat me like a child!’
‘Very well,’ I said, ‘let me see.’ I filled the tumbler and took a large sip. I sat down and declared in a loud voice, ‘There was a young man lost in a desert sandstorm …’
‘I want to hear about Cécile.’
I stood. Mr Rafferty had begun to nod his head, waiting for me to speak, as though my words would stay his grief. Suddenly I wanted to leave his bedside. I had read about a gorilla at Edinburgh Zoo. A child had fallen into her enclosure, and had died from the impact. And yet for several minutes, until the zoo keeper arrived, the gorilla had cradled the child in her arms. I didn’t move. Mr Rafferty must have sensed my uneasiness because he looked at the floor. He had been leaning against the metal bedstead, which had made a raw impression on his cheek. After a while he said, ‘Nothing will cure my grief.’
‘You’ve your work to be getting on with.’
‘I’m distraught.’
‘Your melancholy will pass.’
He didn’t seem to hear me. ‘When the doctor broke the news of her illness,’ he said, ‘I would not believe him … although Cécile knew. The afternoon we found out how advanced the malady was, we came here, to this sitting room, and we cried together.’ Mr Rafferty closed his eyes and disappeared beneath the duvet. We were quiet for several minutes.
‘Monsieur Breguet!’ I said. ‘Would you care for a walk?’
‘Why not?’ He was covered by the duvet. ‘I will only sink further if I remain in this house that was yesterday brightened by Cécile’s happy gaze.’ I grabbed his swimming bag. He rose unsteadily and rubbed his eyes, which were circled with red.
Outside it was clear and cold and buildings stood out keenly against the sky. Unseen, through the sharp light, birds flitted and sang. We set off down Mankind Street. Mr Rafferty wore a long overcoat whose pockets sounded with loose change. Soft, squat, clock-faced, with busy hands, he shuffled over the paving stones. It took all my strength to guide him in a straight line. Soon we turned on to Morningside Road, with its row of shops and wide heath, and he became fearful of the cars. He tried to run off, but I managed to keep hold of him. We approached a homeless person with a bandaged face. Mr Rafferty came to a stop, produced a fistful of coins and placed them in her upturned cap. ‘Alms for your plight,’ he said. I wrapped my arm around his arm. We set off again, beneath the cloudless sky. At the Dominion we turned right and proceeded along Terrace Grange. To our backs rose Blackford Hill. Now he had begun to walk with confidence, and I thought he had forgotten Breguet. Of course I was relieved, for I was able to guide him without strain. Yet if I let go of his arm I knew he might begin to follow the cats, one of his favourite diversions. We proceeded down past the cemetery. Once or twice I attempted to start a conversation, but he didn’t answer. We stopped beside a tramp sitting on an applecrate. Beside him lay his mongrel. Mr Rafferty sought the beggar’s blessing and threw coins into his hat. We walked on. I intended to take him swimming, and now I suggested it. Mr Rafferty stopped, recoiled, thrust fists into his pockets. But I know how much he loves the water. Again I suggested it. He shook his head. People were beginning to stare. I had an idea; I told him I would throw coins, that I would let them sink to the bottom of the pool, and that he could dive for them. He changed his mind, as I knew he would. The attendant at Warrender Baths knows us, and, since the men’s changing room was empty, she allowed me to help him into his kit. We entered the swimming area, myself in my swimming suit, he in his large trunks and yellow goggles.
Immediately, in the open hall, I noticed a shift in the atmosphere. Every movement – the sweep of swimmers’ arms, the nodding cork-lined rope, the attendant swaying on his high perch – seemed precise, lazy, stretched out, and every sound reverberated in the high space and dampness of the air. Mr Rafferty stepped down into the water. I stood to the side and wet my toes. Only a few bathers occupied the baths, all of them swimming lengths, and each, strangely, practising the back crawl. A trio of toddlers flapped their orange-banded arms. I stood listening to their cries – echoing – and the extractor fan – a low hum. Then, mid-pool, I dropped six penny-coins. Mr Rafferty swam back and forth for a few minutes, then sank below the surface. A few seconds later his head appeared, and his chest and arms; he was clutching a coin. I stepped down into the pool. Mr Rafferty glided to the edge and was beside me. His eyes shone. I swam for a while, then dived. I found a coin he had overlooked. Above me, I caught a flash of yellow from Mr Rafferty’s goggles then heard a swifter resonance and saw bubbles rising from his mouth. I myself surfaced. Now he was standing. He pointed upwards. ‘Look,’ he said. The roof of Warrender Baths is made of glass, and the panes are framed by a domed latticework of iron. The building was enveloped in a blue haze, as if it were open to the air. And occasionally, as at that moment, a shaft of sunlight would stream through the glass and splinter on the water.
In the foyer everything seemed dark and sapped of colour. I bought Mr Rafferty a chocolate bar. I myself had a cup of tomato soup. Outside, I was surprised to find that it was still light. It was like coming out from watching a matinee performance. Mr Rafferty walked in silence, eating his chocolate bar and making a mess of his upper lip. I had forgotten to dry my hair and the cold air gnawed my scalp. We crossed the road on to the Meadows, over the humpy grass. By Jawbone Walk we sat on a bench. A fine rain had begun to fall. It made no sound. Mr Rafferty had sucked off the chocolate and was crunching the biscuit centre. It was some time before he spoke. ‘Barbets have downed,’ he said. I smiled in answer. There was a group of children in the distance; they were kicking a ball. ‘What was Mother’s star sign?’ I said. He didn’t seem to hear me. His eyes followed the movement of the ball. At that moment I wanted to throw my arms around him, although I knew it was impossible, because he doesn’t like to be held. Without turning his gaze, he said, ‘Who are you?’ I didn’t answer. We were quiet for a while. I looked across the Meadows, whose grass was silvered with rain. A little later I took him back to the institution.
The sky was starting to pink over and darken. Clouds, great zeppelins of amber and grey, crept across the horizon, as if, though lighter than the air, and floating in it, they were composed of a substance of great weight. Yet their edges were thinned and stirred, whisked almost. These clouds called up ponderous thoughts, but threw no shadow, and I had a notion it was not yet time to go home. So I took a diversion. I visited the zoo. Dusty from the evening’s sweep-out, and aided by the rain – rain so fine it might have been a mist – the air smelled strongly, sweetly of truffles. I looked over the railing to the gorilla enclosure and saw a dark form among the knotted timber. I walked down into the monkey house and pressed my face to the glass. And there she was, sitting on a cement outcropping, a mighty weight, perfectly balanced. As I approached she seemed to raise herself a little on her haunches, her black fingers husky, charred, her skin sparsely coated and patched with silver. Her eyes, a shade of deep red I have seen on a certain type of berry, stared coldly through the glass. Even colder was her indifference to my gaze, and the obvious might in her arms, with which she had held the child, but used now only to balance her movements and worry a welt on her thigh. I saw in her eyes, in their unconcern, something I did not wholly understand, but which linked, in my mind, the cement in her enclosure and the boy in the doctor’s story and also the light of the swimming pool and my awareness of that light.
Travelling home, I looked through the window of the bus. The clouds had turned to ash, and ghosts of embers were scattered across the horizon. Below the sea and the tall-funnelled tanker with its row of lights slanting from masthead to bow, a string of beads, winking. The water was black; the wash inaudible. Not the engine of the bus. It throbbed in my chest. I turned my thoughts back to my history. I started to recall my mother’s funeral. By the time I reached Gullane the clouds had disappeared, and a few stars were out. Now I am seated at my desk. The pocket watch ticks (from now on, unless I state otherwise, the pocket watch is always ticking); cars wash by outside; the mice are asleep in their holes. In the familiar quiet, I will press on with these stories of my past.
…
It was raining as the small group of mourners arrived at St Saviour’s Church on Ikoyi Island. The priest was waiting below the pulpit. Thick-necked, with skin that had bled from his shaving, he stood with his arms spread before him, palms upturned. Pallbearers, Yoruba from the mission, set my mother’s coffin to the priest’s left; Ben, who bore my cot, placed me to his right. Mourners filed in, perspiring, occasionally coughing. Their footsteps clattered on the floor. Father approached last, worrying the scar on his chin and hauling his big frame with metre-strides. He thanked the men and took his place in the front pew. Lying on my back, I examined the ceiling. It was many-domed, of a dark wood that showed signs of swelling from the damp. I focused on a panel between two arched beams. As the priest began to speak, I kept looking – I could not move, the sheets cosseted me – and I saw that Christ was painted on the ceiling. His face was lean; the cheekbones high; his body wasted and pale; the ribs raised corrugations on his chest. No one attended him, not Mary his mother, nor St John, nor the captain Longinus, nor angels or thieves. A single bead fell from a wound in his right flank. Christ was dead, yet his eyes, an inordinate blue, were open. And for this reason, and the fact that the artist himself could not have set eyes on him, I felt that he was very beautiful. As I followed the play of brightness and shadow from the candles on the ceiling, Christ stared down at me, his face fading and rekindling by turns. I imagined what he would have seen from up there: the floor of black-and-white lozenge-shaped tiles, the rows of pews sparsely peopled, the apse depicting in stained glass his journey to Golgotha. But more vividly, I thought, he saw the two of us, my mother in her open coffin and me in my cot, lying side-by-side, directly in his line of vision; my mother’s eyes closed, as if she had shut her lids to the warm light of the sun, the skin paler above her cheek bones, almost transparent; my eyes round, dry, wild amid my flushed and wrinkled face. And it struck me, as I listened to the priest, who spoke of the glory of the afterlife, that my mother could not have died in vain – to have perished so would have been an affront to Christ. The rain rattled on the roof. A candle hissed and was extinguished, and the priest told the story of the Passion, following the sequence from the Stations of the Cross to the Resurrection.
‘Evelyn’s untimely death,’ he said, ‘reflects Christ’s own, for did he not, like Evelyn, who has given us a wonderful baby daughter, did he not also pass away in order to bring life into the world? Christ taught us that in nature every moment is new,’ he said, ‘that the coming is sacred.’
How right he was! It was then I hoped for a miracle. I willed my mother to wake, she who like me faced the painting of Christ. And if she would not enact a miracle, she might show a sign of forgiveness. Perhaps she would find a way to speak to me! I could not believe she had died for no reason. Even as I willed it, however, I sensed her lifeless form. The priest said, ‘Let us pray.’ I did not close my eyes or listen to his words. Instead I thought of my mother, urging her to speak. I felt there was something inside her that wanted to come out. But she did not speak; the stillness of her coffin, and the horrid heat in the church, and the dull responses of the mourners, only expressed the meaninglessness of her death. I closed my eyes and uttered my own prayer. From the grave comes life, I said to myself, from the coffin the cot, from death, birth. I itched under my sheets. Mother, I said, forgive me. Tell me you died for a reason. The rain continued to rattle on the roof. But my mother was silent.
When I opened my eyes Christ had disappeared; his chiaroscuro face eclipsed by Father’s, equally shadowed. He had moved from the front pew and stood, head bowed, between the coffin and my cot. I saw his eyelids pulse, but his face was taut. As the tear slid from his cheek and struck my forehead, his expression did not change.
I turned, hot with fury. Why, I thought, did my mother have to die to bring me into the world? Where is the glory in death that the priest spoke of? Mother was not glorious. She was cold and mute and the heat in the church was putrefying her.
‘Her soul is in heaven,’ said the priest, ‘filled with glory.’ Mother is miserable, I thought, and she cannot say otherwise. The tear burned on my forehead. Mother’s silence was something I could not fathom.