I’d like you to carry on with the story. Can you describe how it ended?
I think we both entered an enchanted state. In reality we were sitting on a small island in a tiny Welsh lake, but in our cocoon of snow, sitting in perfect silence, each of us lost in thought, we were living – briefly – in a magical land. We were children again.
I suppose you saw the similarity to Afallon – it’s almost too obvious to mention.
Yes, clearly. But he told me also about a former paradise on Earth called Hyperborea, at the very centre of the Arctic Circle. I’ve looked it up since. In Greek mythology it was a country of rich soils, soft azure skies, gentle breezes, prolific animals, and trees which bore fruit all the year, even in winter. Discord and sorrow were unknown. The inhabitants were the earliest members of the human race and they lived for a thousand years. They were a happy race, compassionate and contemplative. They died, eventually, by diving off a certain rock into the sea after full and happy lives. In some legends it was a land where white feathers fell continuously from the sky.
It was still snowing on your little island?
No, it had stopped by then. The clouds had cleared suddenly and we found ourselves in a wonderland of blue skies and gleaming snow, crisp and absolutely white.
[It was an island of dazzling fantasy. The snow was uncontaminated, not even a bird’s footprint had marked it yet. When the sun shone in the Arctic, polar bears were known to lie on their backs with their limbs in the air, drinking in the yellow spirit. Duxie would feel like doing that now. Yes, he would do just that. His breath would frost the chilly air; it would become a white balloon drag-anchored to his mouth, a cartoon bubble waiting for the right words to form in it – the words he’d want for this moment. Another balloon would float above Olly’s mouth and he’d think of Salomon Andrée, a Swedish explorer whose balloon had come down in the Arctic ice-pack, condemning him to a rare death: the polar bear meat he ate in a vain bid to survive had contained a tiny parasitic worm, which had eaten him alive from within – a disease called trichinosis. Andrée’s remains – a pair of legs and part of a torso, without the head, were found propped up against a rock on White Island, 200 miles east of Spitsbergen, 33 years later. Duxie would wonder if he too had worms riddling his insides, slaloming along his silvery viscera. Perhaps the worms would bore through his skin soon and he could join the circus as the Rainbow Man; fine jets of spray, tinged with all the colours of the rainbow, would arc all over his body. The water slopping around inside him would be released. He could see the headlines now:
RAINBOW MAN FEELS A HOLE LOT BETTER
WATER DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES
CIRCUS FREAK WORMS HIS WAY TO THE TOP
Yes, he’d be famous.
Then he’d almost go to sleep, a little polar bear with his paws in the air. The earth would lie underneath him still, exactly the same in form and content, yet it would have disappeared completely. Just like his childhood. He would feel its bumps and hollows pressing and yielding underneath him. Righting himself, he’d wiggle a hole with a finger through the snow between his legs: yes, he would see again the coarse grass and soft rushes of the uplands, pressed flat to the ground. A hint of sadness would creep into him; his body would have made a little hole of destruction in the snowscape already.
His mind would wander.
A Himalayan panorama, scrimshawed in carved ice, would open up in his mind’s eye and a few garbled sentences from the Tibetan Book of the Dead would come to mind:
O nobly-born, thy breathing is about to cease; and now all things are like the void and cloudless sky, and the naked, spotless intellect is like a transparent vacuum without circumference or centre. At this moment know thyself and abide in that state. Thine own consciousness – shining, void, and inseparable from the Great Body of Radiance, hath no birth nor death at this moment. Sounds, lights and rays are experienced. These awe, frighten and terrify, and cause much fatigue…
Olly would smile and flick her fingers with a sharp fillip because she would have a wonderful surprise for him: seven figures would appear over the brow of their little island and form a circle around them. The seven Rainbow Messengers! Of course! They would be there to witness the end of the story. They would be frolicsome, in festive spirits, pushing and jostling each other playfully. They would be dressed in their best garb: shoes fashioned from the finest Cordovan leather, with gold buckles; shimmering tunics in all the colours of the rainbow. They would each represent a component of memory: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell. Tears and laughter too. One of them – Orange, perhaps – would tease him, saying:
Duxie fellah, you’ve poked around in the earth, with your holes and your wells. You’ve even dabbled with fire on the top of Pumlumon Arwystli, but you haven’t once mentioned wind, and he’d blow with all his might, and a strong wind would come swirling down around them, scattering snow in their eyes, and Orange would laugh until Olly said that’s enough now Rainbow Messengers, behave yourselves…
The seven Rainbow Messengers would clap and titter; one of them might produce a Bible and read:
They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry and cut himself with stones.
When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What do you want with me Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won’t torture me!’
For Jesus had said to him, ‘Come out of this man, you evil spirit!’
Then Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’
‘My name is Legion,’ he replied, ‘for we are many.’ And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.
A large herd of pigs were feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus, ‘Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.’ He gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned…
Duxie would thank the reader, and he would remember that the Mr Cassini of his dreams was possessed by demons, and had a pig living in his back garden. A hush would come upon them. The Rainbow Messengers would cease their chatter and Olly would look serious. She would point towards the way they came, across the water, towards the coast. She would say: Look at our wake. What do you think this means?]
What happened next?
Nothing happened for a while. We were frozen, too amazed to do anything.
The cold was getting to you?
No, it wasn’t that. It was something else – something marvellous, more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen. The ground glittered with colours – reds, and blues, and violets, and greens… we were suddenly in the middle of an extraordinary, fantastic display of lights, flashing and gleaming.
An optical illusion?
It was an illusion of some kind, perhaps, but I think maybe it was caused by the sun playing on the snow, being refracted through the ice-vanes all around us on the rocks.
Did Duxie say anything about it?
He laughed… no, he gurgled. He rolled over onto his back, pointed at the sun and gurgled like a baby.
Definitely on drugs, then?
No – as I’ve told you, I’m positive he was clean that day.
Why was he behaving like a baby, then?
He was stupefied by the colours – we all were. It was like being in one of those discos with a light show coming from the floor beneath your feet.
Did he talk?
Yes, he said something about the colours. He said look, Olly, you’ve unwoven the rainbow.
What did he mean?
He thought I’d separated all the colours and put them into individual bands. They were his past coming towards him, all the separate elements of his life converging at that precise spot. That’s what he seemed to believe.
You’ve mentioned the word prism before. Was that what he meant?
Yes, that’s exactly what he meant. He said he was inside the prism again. Near his white room.
White room? What did he mean?
He’d mentioned this white room before. He said he’d been in it twice before in his life. I got the impression that it was a near-death experience on both occasions.
Did he say when?
The first time was when he was a kid, the second time when he was in his late twenties.
But he didn’t remember his childhood, that’s what he said, isn’t it?
Perhaps he wasn’t telling the whole truth. Perhaps he remembered more than he cared to say. I got the impression, once or twice, that he was playing a version of the Thousand and One Nights, telling himself tales to keep himself alive. I simply don’t know.
Did he say anything about this white room?
A little. He said it was a place with two doors. It was a place where you sat on a low white bench and you only had one decision left in life. There was only one decision left in the whole world, and it was a simple one.
[He would make a special chocolate cake, full of devious contents. But he would have no hunger left. After the water had all gone, his interior would be empty again.
O nobly-born, when thy body and mind were separating thou must have experienced a glimpse of the Pure Truth – subtle, sparkling, dazzling, glorious and radiantly awesome, in appearance like a mirage. Be not daunted thereby, nor terrified, nor awed. That is the radiance of thine own true nature. Recognise it.
Sitting next to Olly on a small island in the middle of a lake in the middle of nowhere, he would wonder: should he ever take drugs again? Powdered or parcelled into tiny tombstones of white marble… the opiates which had kept him permanently on the threshold between two rooms. Earlier in the day, as he sat on the toilet, he would have rolled himself a supersize joint in case he became flakey during the day. But now, after rooting around for it in his shirt pocket, he would toss it into the lake. Wouldn’t all this be enough in itself, without any special effects? And Olly… she would be so disappointed. She’d be looking at him and she’d be laughing, flicking the snow around her into the air, watching it cascade back to earth in small explosions of beauty. Trying to help him. She would thrust the onion into his hand and he would try again, but nothing would happen. They would sit in the snow with a ring of white water around them. Waiting for something to happen.]
This white room – I’d like to know more about it… was it a real room?
He simply described it as a small room with two doors. They could have been virtual doors because they didn’t have handles, or signs on them. One led to life, the other to death. It was a very simple image, but that was the whole point, he said – at that stage nothing else meant anything at all… the entire world had disappeared. He had sat in this room in silence – the event was like a dream, but it wasn’t – and then he’d made a very simple but fundamental decision.
To live or to die?
Yes, it was that simple. But it was beautiful, he said. Like being at a birth. A fundamental thing was happening, with amazing clarity.
He wanted that to happen on the island, too?
Yes, he was expecting it to happen. He said the seven colours of his life had all met again, and he wanted complete and absolute clarity for a few moments before he moved on.
You make it sound like a… a climax?
No, there was no suggestion of that. It was a feeling of supreme calm.
[He wouldn’t be able to cry. But he would have to empty himself of water somehow, before it froze inside him, before it cracked him open. Ice was congealed water, tears were congealed emotions. He would look down at the hole he’d made in the snow with his finger and he’d see his whole life being carried away on a beetle’s back as an insect, black and busy, snowploughed its way through a tiny terrain of snow-scree and disappeared into a hole.
He goes from place to place, he enters darkness. He falls down a steep precipice, he enters a jungle of solitude. He is pursued by karmic forces, he goes into a vast silence. He is borne away on the great ocean, he is wafted on the wind of karma. He goes where there is no certainty. He is caught in the great conflict, he is obsessed by the great affecting spirit. He is awed and terrified by the messengers of death.
The Rainbow Messengers would sing a sad lament and they would bow their heads, they would listen to the water lapping on the banks of the lake. Olly would hand out apples to all the Rainbow Messengers.
He’d tell them about the Yanomami shamans with rainbows in their hair, and he’d tell them about Merlin in the woods. He, too, wanted a vision of splendour again. A little death. When he came back to life the world would be brilliantly real. Extraordinary and beautiful. But first he would have to get rid of the water… he could hardly move.]
So there were two rooms, I think that’s important, don’t you?
No, he mentioned only the white room.
I think you’ve forgotten something.
What’s that?
Well, he also mentioned a very dark room, in his dreams. Am I right?
Yes of course – there was another room, you’re quite right. A very dark room, but it was getting lighter… gradually.
In his dreams?
Yes, in his dreams the room was getting lighter, he was beginning to see things inside it. He thought he was on the brink of a breakthrough of sorts.
But he never got to see what was inside the room?
No, not clearly. He thought there were people sitting in it… they were very quiet, they never moved. It all sounded weird, spooky.
A nightmare?
Close to a nightmare, yes.
Am I getting this right, then… he was between two rooms – between a very dark room from the past and a white room which… I don’t know… took him into the future?
Possibly.
He was on a sort of threshold… the island was an in-between place, is that a possibility?
Yes, but you’d have to ask him yourself.
[In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan; earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone… the snow would be cold and beautiful. Icing on the cake. A brief and flimsy covering for the earth. An age-old metaphor for absolution, purity, wonder and forgetfulness. He was attracted to snow because it blanked out the shadows; nothing unexpected could happen, nothing nasty could creep up on him from the darkness.
May the Mother, she-of-white-raiment be our protector. May we be placed in the state of perfect enlightenment. May the ethereal elements not rise up as enemies. May the watery elements not rise up as enemies – may we come to see the realm of the Blue Buddha. May the earthy elements not rise up as enemies – may we come to see the realm of the Yellow Buddha. May the fiery elements not rise up as enemies – may we come to see the realm of the Red Buddha. May the airy elements not rise up as enemies – may we come to see the realm of the Green Buddha. May the elements of these rainbow colours not rise up as enemies. May it come that all the radiances will be known as one’s own radiances.
The ice would be so beautiful. Icebergs were blue. Didn’t the soul leave the mouth as a small blue light in Welsh folklore?
He would have to take his gloves off. It would be the only way. The onion would fail.
Olly and the seven Rainbow Messengers would fail. He would have to take his gloves off... just one more time.]
The onion failed to make him cry. Did you really think it would?
Perhaps not. But it was worth a try, wasn’t it? Anything was worth a try.
Didn’t work, though.
No, it was a great pity. I ran out of ideas then.
You’d finished your picnic by now?
Yes, I’d put the picnic things in my bag. There was only the rug left, a tartan thing he’d borrowed from someone. I was still sitting on it. He was still in the snow.
What next?
That was when he took his glove off. I heard the snap as he undid the popper and then I saw him peel the glove off.
And?
He had a very small hand. It was the hand of a child.
I seem to remember that he had small arms, too.
Yes, he had the arms of a child. They were puny and weak – not big enough for his body, really.
And?
I saw his right hand first.
Yes?
It was perfect, really, but very small. It could have belonged to a seven-year-old. Not a mark on it. It could have been made from porcelain. I could see his veins, they were small and blue like you see in kids. You could almost see through his hand.
[He would take his gloves off in the snow. He would reach for the little black poppers which snapped as they opened… he would peel his right glove off first. The inside of the lambswool glove would be a miniature snowscene. There would be a little warmth trapped in the wool for a while, and then the glove would lose its heat. His own heat, dispelled into the radiant air. It was a hand from a Renaissance nativity scene. Very white, with a shimmer of blue around it. Again, he thought of the Tibetan Book of the Dead:
Be not attracted towards the dull blue light of the brute-world; be not weak. If thou art attracted, thou wilt fall into the brute-world, wherein stupidity predominates, and suffer the illimitable miseries of slavery and dumbness and stupidity; and it will be a very long time ere thou canst get out. Be not attracted towards it. Put thy faith in the bright dazzling radiance, vibrating and dazzling like coloured threads, flashing and transparent, glorious and awe-inspiring…
He would look at his right hand for a while, as he did every morning in bed. He would study its contours: the little hill below his thumb, the Mons Venus… the Plain of Mars; the long, delicate middle finger – his Saturn finger – with its tale of destiny… his fractured lifeline.]
Had you never seen his hands before? Surely he took his gloves off in the café, to eat?
No, never. Not to my knowledge, anyway.
Neither of them, ever?
No.
Didn’t people notice? Didn’t they say anything?
Little Michael was the only one who ever mentioned it… he had a nasty streak, Little Michael. He made snide comments, like do you wear them in bed too?
Did Duxie ever give an explanation?
I think he said once that his hands were always sore because he was handling parcels and stuff all day – they were his driving gloves and he’d got used to wearing them. Something like that.
Were you curious, when he took his gloves off in the snow?
Yes, sure. Those gloves were part of him so I was bound to notice, wasn’t I? It was like watching someone getting their clothes off before doing a streak.
[Did it snow in heaven? Of course, there was another Valhalla much closer to home – the Celtic otherworld, Annwfn. Below them, underneath the snow. Should he go there first? All the people down there would be speaking in a weird accent, using words he’d never heard before – they’d be talking in an ancient type of Welsh. How many words would he recognise? He would point to the snow on his boots maybe and say eira. Perhaps they’d look daft at him. There was one problem with going to Annwfn. Only seven would return – that was the tradition, wasn’t it?
Annwfn – a place where sickness and old age were unknown, where there was music and a continuous supply of drink. Where they kept the cauldron of rebirth. Duxie was due a rebirth, he thought he’d earned one by now. And what would it be like, passing into the otherworld? Would there be a tinny, buzzing sound in his ears, a sharp pain in his head and the taste of blood in his mouth, all those sensations he used to get when his father banged his head against a wall? Would he be very afraid when he went to the otherworld, as afraid as he felt all those years ago when he heard the key in the lock, when he heard footsteps coming down the passageway towards him along the cracked red quarry tiles, past the black and white print on the wall with its line of pensive children? No, he would feel pretty good actually as he and Olwen and the Rainbow Messengers descended into the otherworld. But was it what he wanted? He would never be able to see the world again, never be able to go down to the café and drink coffee with his mate Stefano, never be able to score the perfect 147. He would never be able to save his children from the forces of evil…]
No, I wasn’t particularly shocked when he took his other glove off. I’d felt a sort of… I’d expected something, in a way.
You expected something to be wrong with that hand?
No, not exactly. But I wasn’t completely surprised either.
Why not?
I think something had warned me, inside my head. His little boy arms – they sort of said something to me. Part of him had never grown up. As if a part of his body had been frozen at a certain time in the past, like a car clock which had stopped during an accident. And I suppose there had been other hints too…all that guff about Mr Cassini’s book, The Dexter Propensity… his hatred of left-handed people. It’s easy to be wise afterwards, but we should have realised. Duxie was trying to tell us something all along.
His hand – tell me about it. Did it frighten you?
I felt nothing much, really. You get that strange sensation across your skin, don’t you, like someone dropping snow down the back of your neck. Goosepimply – you know what I mean. I moved closer to him, wiggled my bum along the tartan rug, I was going to put my arm around him but I was too slow – he’d already done it.
[The click-counter would be still going in his head – click click click click click… everyone had one, he thought. A meter up there in the head. Every time something nice happened it went click and the number went up, every time something bad happened it went click and the number went down. He would meet his father for one last time in the otherworld and he would give him a big smile and he would hug him, hold him tight and he would be able to smell him again; that unique smell of moss, and earth, and whisky. And his father would be sober, and the click counter would go click and Duxie would read the meter in his brain, as if he were an electricity man poking around in a cupboard, and when the click-counter went click – because his father was sober – Duxie would shine his torch on the meter inside his head and it would say 1,000,000 negatives, 1,000,001 positives, and everyone would shout hurrah! They would have one hell of a party, and they would all get drunk (except his father) or spliffed out of their skulls and they would dance about in a conga, a conga that went from one end of the otherworld to the other.]
Was it disfigured?
Yes, quite badly. It had fingers and a thumb like a normal hand, but it had been burnt badly at some stage. Parts of it were a livid red, other parts were white or yellowish in a sort of cobweb pattern. It looked like a lump of meat, I suppose, with fatty bits. It had white ridges all over it, as if someone had held it under a candle and let the wax run all over it.
Did he say anything?
Yes. He held it up in the air and wiggled it at me. Then he said: ‘The last bit of magic he got wrong’.
Is that all he said?
That’s all he said.
Any idea what he meant?
I think he was talking about Mr Cassini – his father.
Had he been burnt deliberately?
I don’t know.
I wish I could talk to him.
Yes, so do I.
[They’d be on their way down to the otherworld, and the Seven Rainbow Messengers would start singing a barbershop tune:
We’re on our way to Annwfn,
We shall not be moved,
We’re on our way to Annwfn,
We shall not be moved…
There would be seven wells down there in the otherworld, all them interconnected. Each well would be related to an event in his life… or should he say accident? Which word should he use? After each event – accident – another hole had appeared in his skin. His holes were interconnected, like the wells of Annwfn. Seven blemishes, which looked like fake wounds painted on a volunteer in a mock disaster staged by the emergency services. Every so often his blemishes sprung a leak and water came out of him everywhere. As if by magic. He was about to have such an occurrence now. He could barely move. Why was water so heavy? If he looked into the palm of his left hand he could see the water, moving around and glimmering under the red plastic of his skin. There were another six sites on his body: looking through them was like peering through a sheet of ice on a pond, looking at the water below: if he looked through the damaged surface of his skin, if he peeked through the old burn-marks, he could see a body of cool red water pressing up, trying to break through the surface. The Rainbow Messengers would understand everything: maybe they’d hug him, one by one, and laugh a bit and say never mind, everything’s going to be all right now…
He would thank them all for their help. Together they would watch the afternoon fade, and he would prepare to scatter his father’s ashes in Annwfn. The old bastard couldn’t get up to any more mischief down here…he would come back to life again, as usual, but maybe they’d put him in a work party and he’d have to spend the rest of his life winding the well-buckets up and down, supplying Annwfn with a constant flow of fresh water. They would give Duxie a tiny bit of his father, perhaps, a bit of bone from his right hand, the slapping hand, and he could put it inside his telescope as a memento. Duxie and Olly and the seven Rainbow Messengers would sit on a little knoll and they would admire the beauty of the landscape. All those flowers, all that grass! It would be very beautiful down there in Annwfn. No cars, no rainbow vans, no satellites, no mechanical noises at all. The air would be busy with wings. Nature would be fresh and resplendent; they would have to shield their eyes.]
So his hand was badly disfigured. Burnt probably, or scalded.
Yes, that’s what I thought too.
Did you get a close look at it?
Didn’t want to, really. Anyway, I didn’t get a chance to.
He put his glove back on?
No – he put his hand into the snow. Quite quickly – I hardly saw him do it.
And…?
He gave a sort of muffled scream. A cry of pain, but he tried to keep it in.
It hurt him?
A lot, I think. Then it occurred to me that he’d never felt anything in that hand before, that’s what he’d told me.
Except for the feeling he’d got through the water-divining rods.
Yes, he’d felt some sort of sensation at that time, but his hand had been numb still. Now, in the snow – when he put his hand in the snow he felt real pain.
Was this a surprise to him?
No, I don’t think it was. He knew exactly what he was doing.
So he could only feel pain when he put his hand in the snow?
In extreme temperatures, perhaps. I think he would have felt pain if he’d put it in a fire or in boiling water too.
What happened next?
He held it in the snow for quite a while. A few minutes – it felt like a long time.
Did he show any pain?
Yes. He started to cry.
[He would cry. Tears were fallen stars, weren’t they? He would ask Olly to look through his telescope – from both ends. Look, he’d say, Mr Cassini’s the same size whichever way you look at him now – from the past end of the telescope or the future end, he’s the same size as a fly…]
He cried, at last?
Yes. He cried and cried. For ages. It felt like days. I was transfixed by it, couldn’t move. There was water coming out of him everywhere. It seemed to be coming out of his clothes, from all over his body. I’ve never seen anything like it. Even the lake waters seemed to rise, he cried so much.
Did he say anything?
No, nothing at all. He just wept, as if he had never cried before – as if he’d been storing it up for years. He cried like a little boy. I held him for a while. I tried to console him. We’d got rid of the satellite, I said. He could choose his own future now. He was in control. His ghosts had been laid to rest. He could be at peace.
What was his reaction?
He said Yes Olly, but he was miles away. It all meant nothing, really. I’d thought – hoped – that the whole thing was sorted.
[It would feel as if he had millions of gallons in there, a bottomless aquifer. How could one small human contain so much water? It was as if he were trying to recreate a primitive ocean so that he could return to it – as if he were trying to return to an amoebic state, amniotic and protective. Finally, all the holes in his skin would seal up; he would be empty again, completely drained of water. He would feel very light, as if he were on the moon. He would look back over seven days and he would take one last look at the words he had expended, littering the ground like snowflakes. When all was said and done, words were snowflakes. They came and they covered the ground, and everything seemed magical for a while, and then they became slush, melting in dirty meltpools. And the land would be back again…
The story should end at this point, but it wouldn’t. He’d be disappointed. He would stand up and flex his legs because they’d be stiff by now. His bottom would be wet. Suddenly, he would feel very tired. He would be cold too. He would rub his shoulders to warm them. His teeth would chatter. He would smile at Olwen and she would smile back at him. It would be time for him to enter the white room again… it was time to go.]
And what happened after that?
He told me not to eat any of the chocolate cake.
Pardon?
He said don’t touch the chocolate cake.
What cake?
He’d made a cake, it was in a tin which he’d put in my bag.
Not just a normal cake, I take it.
No, obviously not.
I’m struggling… why would be say that?
I’m not entirely sure, but I think maybe he had second thoughts about something. It was like a change of plan. I think he’d intended to eat the chocolate cake and maybe offer me some too. But then he decided, somewhere along the line, not to.
Why?
[Fly agaric… poisonous, a relative of the more lethal Destroying Angel. Hallucinogenic. In Lapp societies the shaman prepared the mushroom carefully to make it safe enough to eat. During his trance he would twitch and sweat. His soul left the body as an animal and flew to the otherworld to communicate with the spirits. The shaman’s urine was recycled and could pass through up to seven people, staying potent. St Catherine of Genoa used fly agaric to achieve religious ecstasy.]
He told you not to eat the chocolate cake because it was drugged, presumably.
Yes, that’s the only sensible explanation.
You have no idea why?
Yes, I have an idea – but it’s only a possibility, not a probability.
And that was…
He’d mentioned once that he wanted to try it without drugs.
Try what?
Moving from the dark room to the white room.
Yes, you’ve mentioned that already. I have a rough idea what he meant. He implied that he’d kept himself in a state of permanent suspension, on the threshold between the two rooms, I think.
Yes.
And he’d used drugs to do this.
Yes, and alcohol. Food also. He used them to fill the holes inside him, to keep the water out as long as possible and to keep himself in suspension.
Had he managed it?
Mostly, yes. Sometimes – he mentioned the twenty-year cycle – he was dragged back towards the dark room.
What happened?
He was capable of absolute terror when that happened. All his defences were broken and he became extremely scared of something.
Something?
He was never able to identify what caused his terror. But he knew it had something to do with Mr Cassini.
[Olly would be restless by now. She’d say come on Duxie, we must get back, or we’ll be here for ever. He would see a few snowflakes gyrating in the air; it would begin to snow again. Olly would get up, shake the snow off the tartan rug, fold it carefully and put it in her bag. It would be time for them to leave the island. The snow would be melting fast. The ground would begin to appear again, rubbed into existence again by an unseen coin in an unseen hand. The Rainbow Messengers would check their apparel, rub their shoes on the grass clumps to get rid of the snow.
Shall we make a move? Olly would tell the Rainbow Messengers to go on ahead because their work was finished. They’d all hug each other and laugh or cry. One moment they’d be there on the island, then they’d have zoomed off in a brilliant, radiant, dazzling super-arc which stretched far into the distance. He’d be waving at them long after they’d gone; a rainbow tinge would remain in the air for some time afterwards.
Duxie, it’s decision time, she’d say. Look, you can stay in your make-believe world or you can come and sort things out on earth. He’d be torn between the two options – should he stay there, or should he go back with her, to tie up all the loose ends?]
I tried to be firm with him. He’d stopped crying by then but he wanted to stay. I was bloody perished, I wanted to go home. So I tried to drag him off the island, back into the boat.
Tell me, did he put his gloves back on?
Yes, straight away. I never saw his hands again. I didn’t mention the crying. I think he felt rather foolish about it. He made a joke of it, said he needed a good cry now and again. I’m just a big kid really, he said to me.
How was he at this stage?
Subdued… he looked pretty groggy and his eyes were very red. But he made me leave without him.
That must have been difficult.
Very. I thought it was crazy. But he wouldn’t have it any other way.
You must have found it hard to leave him there, surely? He would have been stranded.
He was adamant. So I let him row me back to land. He got out for a bit. We sat on a tussock, looking back at the island. I tried to talk some sense into him.
What did you say?
I tried to persuade him not to dwell on the past, on his problems. I said he needed to sort things with his family, find them again. I was a bit hard on him, I suppose. I told him he needed to raise his eyes from his own petty problems. His children probably needed him right now.
[Olly would be cross with him. ‘Look what they had to overcome to survive, all those people who came before you,’ she’d say. ‘Your own little problems are nothing in comparison. Your children need you…’
‘But they seemed to be coping fine.’
‘That’s not the point, Duxie, and you know it. Maybe they need you around, that’s all. One thing’s for sure, you won’t find out unless you get in touch. You’re taking the drugs route to oblivion, and that’s selfish. You know it. You’re being selfish.’
He’d nod a lot, but he wouldn’t say very much. He’d be occupied with something on the ground by his feet – he’d scoop it up in his hands and they’d look at what he’d found: a tiny worm, a baby worm probably, which had drowned in the melting snow water. It would look pathetic, the colour washed out of it already.]
Then he left you?
Yes, he held me tight for a long time. I could smell the earthworm on his glove. He gave me all the picnic stuff and then he got straight into the boat and rowed off. He was looking at me all the time he rowed across.
Was that the end of it all?
Pretty much. I waved to him when he landed on the island again, and he waved back. There wasn’t much point standing there all afternoon so I went back to his pick-up and drove back.
And how about him – how was he getting home?
He said he’d be all right, thumbing it. So I drove home.
[He’d sit on the island and he’d see a long line of people, from one horizon to the other. There would be thousands and thousands… his ancestors on one side and his descendants on the other. His own children would be right next to him, and they would laugh and mess around. They would do the conga. Come on Dad, do your special dance, they’d say. So he’d do his special dance, and they’d love him again. He’d look up, and there would be a long line of people stretching into the distance, all doing the conga.
The Rainbow Messengers would have disappeared into thin air and Olly would have gone for ever. His alibi girl. He would shout out her name and it would echo back from the hills around, but there would be no response. Soon, he would be all alone. Maybe he’d get a coin from his pocket and he’d spin it into the lake. He would make a final, final, final wish. He’d hear the plop far below.
A white light would spread along the land; it would grow in strength, almost blinding him. And he would realise what it was: a mist, coming to engulf him. A cold white breath coming to enfold him. Soon, he’d be asleep in the mist and the snow would start falling again, flowing around him in the silent air, covering him in a featherweight duvet of white.]
He was going to his white room?
No, not necessarily. He was looking for it.
An igloo?
No, I don’t think so.
Was it on the island?
I don’t know. It could have been anywhere – I think it was a state of mind, not a place.
And the dark room – was that also a state of mind?
I don’t know for sure, but I think the dark room was a real place in his past.
Would he have given you a sign if he’d reached the white room?
Again, I don’t know. There was a big problem with going into the white room.
What was that?
He couldn’t go into it without going into the dark room afterwards, at some stage.
Could you explain that to me?
You’d have to ask Duxie himself to get the truth.
Come on, give me some sort of idea.
Well, he said that coming out of the white room was an amazing experience.
Did he describe it?
He couldn’t because it was such a personal thing. It was a feeling of ultimate happiness… complete joy, I think. The world seemed very, very beautiful. Everything seemed very simple. He said he could live happily in a single second and it would seem as if it lasted for eternity.
Sounds like an LSD trip to me.
No, that was the whole point. He’d used drugs to keep him on the threshold of the white room for a long time, but when he went into the white room the whole point of the experience was to be on nothing except fresh air.
And you believed him?
Yes. It was necessary to take the drugs route first, he said. One could achieve absolute clarity only if one had tried to reach it through drugs and failed. It was all a matter of contrast.
But I thought that every drug trip was an attempt to recreate the magic of the first trip.
Not for him, I don’t think.
OK – we’ll have to leave it at that, I suppose.
No, there was something else – something very important. Going into the white room was an amazing experience, but there was a downside.
Which was?
Eventually the colours faded and normal life would catch up with him again. He would start worrying about mundane things again – about bills, and having somewhere to live, and money – that sort of thing.
How long did the colour world last?
It depended on the clarity he experienced in the white room.
Go on, give us an idea.
At least six months, perhaps longer.
And then?
He would have to go into the dark room again.
But he couldn’t. He said many times that he couldn’t remember it clearly.
No, he couldn’t remember it clearly but he could remember the fear and the dread. He could feel the horror all over again.
[Damn. He’d forget to leave a note for Harriet. She’d worry about him. She’d put a glass against the wall and listen out for the ping! And the boys at the snooker hall… they’d talk about nothing else, not even about motorway exits and the girls in the trailer parks. It would be snowing heavily now. The whole country would be preoccupied with this white scab, picking at it. His mind would drift to Siberia’s seven time zones, the reindeer’s third lung to keep it warm. He’d open his mouth and taste the snowflakes falling onto his tongue. An iron taste, like blood. He’d have a little nap, then he’d head for the white room. He’d know where it was now. Inside a snowflake, inside his head. Mr Cassini would be trapped forever in the telescope. If Duxie looked inside that cylinder Mr Cassini could be a few inches away, or he could be somewhere in deep space, or he could be a little dot moving around on the silvery moon – wherever he was, he couldn’t harm anyone now. Duxie wanted a view of the truth. Galileo risked his life, everything, for the truth. Duxie would sleep for a while, then he’d wake with a start. It was dangerous to sleep in the snow – he could die. He wouldn’t want to die now. He’d want to live. He’d want to go into the white room again, he’d want to see all those wonderful, brilliant colours.]
What will you do now?
I’m leaving tonight. This business has taken a lot of my time already. I was supposed to marry a month ago, but we had to delay it.
Going ahead now?
Yes, next Saturday.
You never know, it might snow. That’s the forecast…
Yes, we hope it does.
I bet the photographer doesn’t.
Why’s that?
You’re getting married in white?
Yes of course.
You won’t be able to see the dress in the snow. No contrast.
Perhaps I should marry in black…
Don’t think that would go down very well. In red, perhaps? That was the medieval colour wasn’t it?
Funny… wasn’t Mr Cassini a funeral photographer in Duxie’s dreams?
That’s what you said.
Are there such people?
Yes, I think so – in some religions.
Why not. Seems OK to me.
You won’t have to worry about that for a while – you’re still young.
True.
It’s been nice meeting you. I’ve enjoyed it.
Well I haven’t. It’s been a very strange time, and I feel as if I’ve failed him. But there were times when I thought he was using me.
Could you explain that?
You know something – that little girl down inside the well was the only important thing to happen all week, but he was only interested in his little island of introversions. I felt like an actor, a girl in a fairy tale or a myth, just a foil for his ego trip. It’s a tic of the age – a hypochondria, a pathetic need for self-diagnosis. He wasn’t really interested in me as a person.
But you did everything you could.
Sure, but it didn’t help much, did it?
How do you know? He could be inside his white room at this very moment. He could be about to reach the colour world again.
I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.
No, that’s for sure. Can I offer you a lift?
Yes, that would be great.
Where to?
I wouldn’t mind going to the white room myself.
Now you mention it, nor would I.
There’s one last thing.
Yes?
His mobile – it rang when we were on the island.
Did he answer?
Yes, it was the nuisance caller again.
Are you sure?
Yes, I could tell. So I took it from his hand and I shouted as loud as I could at the person on the other end. I was really angry. I told him to fuck off and leave Duxie alone.
Did he answer?
No, nothing. But I could hear some music in the background, very light, the sort you get from a musical box or some sort of wind-up thing.
And?
I threw his phone into the lake. As far as I could.
He’d be almost asleep now. He would go up into the tree, he would feel as light as a snowflake, or a butterfly, in the upper branches, and he would look all around him, to all four corners of Wales. Waves would break in his head – he would miss the sea – and far below him he would see the diving rock from which the Hyperboreans made their final exit from the land, into the copious oceans from whence they came. Perhaps he would see seven swans flying along the horizon, through a rainbow. There would be an opportunity for a final imprecation to Lady Luck and good magic...
He’d feel nothing by now. His body would be anaesthetised. The numbness in his body would merge with the numbness in his hand. Quite pleasant, really. He would sleep for a while. Just a few minutes, to refresh him. The snow would mean something new to him now – a secret relationship; an eradication, a light on the truth. Perhaps he would dream again. A nice dream. There would be people on the shore, waving to him. Was that Karol Karol the Polish hairdresser he could see, and Captain Oates with Yuri Zhivago and Baron Munchausen? They would want to be there with him. But first he’d have to go to the eye of the prism.
He would see a vision of splendour. A moment of absolute clarity. All time would be there: the past, the present and the future. He would desire, now, the silence and the beauty of the prism, and then he would want to step out again, into the world… he’d want the seven colours of his existence, the seven basic plots, to meet him in the branches of this rowan tree, to fuse into a tranquil clarity; he would look down into the very earth itself, and he would see all that was below him in the ground: gemstones and crystals and agates shimmering in their myriad colours, and living creatures splendid in their earthy skins; and he would look into the sky above, at the perfections of blue and white and grey and pink. And in the exit from the prism, he would engender his own story – in the meeting of all the colours and their parting again, with the cocoon unspun, he would create his own curious refraction – another story, the eighth; his own personal version… it would start with a sheaf of white paper in a child’s hand; a love letter to the world, sent in a new white envelope, unaddressed. And it would seem to him that all the many millions of words he had expended in his life would be rendered to but a few, a haiku of his own existence, or a mere verse:
Out of whose womb came the ice?
And the hoary frost of Heaven, who hath gendered it?
The waters are hid as with a stone,
And the face of the deep is frozen.
Then he would take a step forward on the tree’s outstretched palm, and he would fly.