Lempriere's Dictionary Page 16

  Gloved hands waved appealingly as she came to rest, the shock of it already receding and her eyes narrowing in efforts to right herself. She cannot be more than seventeen. Tall, angular, bespectacled, twitchy; hunter is assessed by hunted and approaches with all the confidence of his resolve. Both, after their fashion, have been precipitated into this as he reaches down to offer his hand.

  ‘May I?’

  Uppp … and she seems none the worse for the tumble, except she cannot quite reach a patch of dry grime, thus the request, could you? He can and does, just there, yes, all so natural one would think this holds no fears for either. The hunter inveigles his prey into a brief promenade but it seems that one of those pretty ankles is indisposed and she hobbles, limping, little gasps of pain for only a few steps before ‘Perhaps I might?’ and her arm circles his waist, all ‘help me’ and ‘thank you’ type feelings transmitted by a certain kind of pressure, her finger-tips tangled in the pocket-flaps, button-holes and braid of his coat. Might this be the time to ask just what exactly is going on? They proceed, Rosalie (for that is the name she gives) chattering about the nip in the air, the women they pass, fabulous vessels decked in satin and muslin, purples, rose-pinks and blues, her limp disappearing now and then for a pace or two, returning suddenly with redoubled emphasis. The hunter is turning protector, affecting not to notice these lapses, now perhaps? But no, not while her patter is washing so deliciously over him, now and again a hint, no more, of another animated face, the glow of pleasurable embarrassments and another’s whisper in his ear.…

  ‘Just what is going on here?’ he interrupted, fearing immediately that he had broken the spell, that in some roundabout way she had been just coming to that and now she would tell him in flat factual tones that would leave him wondering why he had asked at all, better to let her come to it in her own sweet time and why had he been such a fool? But no, not at all, this was simply where gentlemen came to meet their companions for the evening, simply that. For the evening…. Ah ha. Those ladies over there, her sisters (but they had to be over forty) were awaiting their callers and she was merely … conducting the likely gentlemen to them, you see?

  He sees. He waits for the dreaded invitation, but it does not come. Her limp has disappeared completely now, somehow they have got beyond that. She unwinds herself gracefully from him, asking where is he from, what does he do. She has his measure. He, hunter, disclaiming all and light banter is suddenly the order of the day with carefully judged jibes about young boys and mothers’ apron-strings, countryfolk gaucheries and the like.

  ‘I’ll wager half-a-guinea you carry a gold-framed miniature of Mama, to remind you not to talk to people like me,’ she throws at him, laughing. And he blushes at the direct hit, trying at the same time not to think what exactly that half-guinea would purchase.

  ‘Only brass, I fear,’ offered with a smile, half-embarrassed still. Rosalie, still smiling, manoeuvring round to ‘How could he be embarrassed of his own mother?’, and asking ‘Only brass?’ and he confirming it. Then confiding that she too carried one and would he like to see it? Of course he would and she fishes for it, cupping her hands, suddenly shy and beckoning him closer, don’t want the others to see, giggles escaping from the sides of her mouth lace the air … opening her palms and there it is.

  There it is and the blood freezes in the hunter’s veins, his face drains to grey. He is not flesh; he is stone. The head she holds up to his eyes is his own mother’s. But giggles are becoming peals, adept hands are failing to stifle her mirth and then she is pressing the likeness into his hands, closing his fingers over it as it dawns on him, those busy, little hands tugging round his pockets…. Outrage! How could she, dare she! Then he thinks again and sees her smiling at him, enjoying the bitter-sweet of the joke.

  ‘I have to work …’ she said, allowing him to construe this as an apology as she took her leave. Lemprière was still stunned by the horror of the thought that had been so adroitly served him. Only later would he think of how she might view his obvious dismay. She was bidding him farewell, she had given him something, something he valued, risking his rage to do so….

  ‘Rosalie!’ She turned and now he was not certain what he wanted to say.

  ‘My name is,’ the sentence was absurd, but now she was looking back for him to finish it, ‘is John.’

  ‘Naturally,’ replied the girl. She turned and walked slowly towards the two women in blue who had waited patiently throughout this exchange.

  ‘Any luck, Roz?’ they asked as she approached.

  ‘Not a bean,’ their companion smiled sadly, ‘not even a purse.’

  ‘It won’t do, Roz,’ said one, ‘not for you, not for us neither. We’ll starve at this if you don’t….’ Her words trailed away. The other’s voice was harder.

  ‘You have to go to work, Roz. It’s that simple.’

  ‘Simple?’ Rosalie looked away. ‘Work it is,’ she said.

  Lemprière kissed the miniature, offering thanks to his mother for not repairing the other pocket. A furtive tap at the lower lining of his coat and a clink confirmed the safety of his purse, and the ring. The minx, he said angrily to himself. But that was not what he felt. He knew the accidental resemblance that had attracted him and set him at his gullible ease. Yet this was not uppermost in his thoughts as he began the trudge home. He remembered, long ago, a feeling like the one he experienced now. His father and another man, Jake most likely, had been sitting on opposite sides of the table in the kitchen at Rozel. They were not important, hazy now, going in and out of focus. What had held his attention were the figures between them which they had lifted and replaced in turn and at irregular intervals, all this with an air of the most intense concentration that emanated not from the two men so much as the board whose chequered grid locked all the figures in place. It was chess, of course, and he had almost forgotten that there was a time when he had not known the game. He had watched for what seemed like hours trying to fathom the mystery, but each time he thought he had deduced a principle, it was contradicted by some inexplicable variation and the crude tissue of his speculation had collapsed. Castling had been a prime culprit in all this.

  Later, when he had learnt the rules, it seemed inconceivable that they could be other than they were, and when he began to appreciate the severe beauty of those rules he understood his father’s remark that the perfect chess-player was a man without a will. This observation galled him; he had regularly beaten his father at chess. Now he felt again that first unsettling sensation, a mixture of knowing the most precise rules were in place at the same time as being ignorant of even their first principle. And Rosalie, or whatever her name really was, had played, won and handed back her winnings. Part of him rebelled at the humiliation, part of him wished she, or others like her, might guide him through other such games, other rituals and other puzzles.

  Puzzles such as Septimus. Skewer he understood, at least as much as he wanted to. Peppard, he felt, he not only understood but liked as well. Septimus though.… It was not that he had the air of a concealer, more that there was too much on view. And why had he wanted the agreement? The agreement! No … she could not have, his hand reached in, no, she had not, reassured now…. But it was not really the document either.

  And in truth he had no idea quite what it was at all. Wondering why he was wondering about Septimus would not get him home, nor would it answer the questions that Peppard had raised. (Why had Septimus’s hint latched itself so strongly to him?) It would have to wait until Saturday. Saturday at the least.

  So he continued, a scurrying dot in an ant-army of scurriers, winking in and out of view of all but the watchful, silent buildings. They awaited his performance, their serried balconies and storeys stacked one on another, on and up, each succeeding the next in dispassion until only a mosaic of jostling heads was available to the eyes of stone above. The bustling street had its own needs, the street creatures their desires, but somehow from up here it was all too remote, too faint. Perhaps it was lost
somewhere in the ascent. The buildings registered it in the jumbled noise of the street, an always-decreasing but still fervent possibility that the shapelessness below might suddenly coalesce. They sensed a drift away from the marked-out paths and towards, well, the tingling prickle of cold water down the spine, the tang of vinegar and a thousand other, minor derelictions from the proper route. Towards, in fact, the lesson of their cousin, the ziggurat, on whose eighth and highest plane there is no image, only yourself, and the doubts that dance attendance on your sufficiency.

  Lemprière’s doubts milled and whirled about him as he carried his thoughts homewards. His Persiad-burlesque was somehow growing weightier in failure (and ridicule) than it might have been in success. Never mind that his Andromeda had failed him, that winged sandals and prophysaxic shield had been carefully packed away, for now there was only a certain tilt of her head, a crease round the eyes, not that even, a light catch in her voice, hints of another anima, another place and the words, whispered to him at a time before this one. Bravo, my warrior. Encomia enough.

  Suck. He was watched as he made his way along Fleet Street, trudging west to gain the Strand. Weary steps into Southampton Street, watched until he disappeared from view.

  The thin man who watched from the far side of the quay, yes, without a doubt. The chain of porters lurching on board with the cases, no, also without doubt. The cripple was too obvious, discount him, but the face that had appeared twice now at the attic-window a hundred yards up the quay would have to be taken into the reckoning. A plan was taking shape in Nazim’s mind, a provision. The Vendragon was watched, but not guarded -a weak point. If he failed in his first mission, he would triumph in the second. Some might have argued that the way to stop a river was at its source, that the rule of the Nawab was in some way undermined by this kind of expedient. But Nazim knew, indeed had been told by the Nawab himself, that there were larger issues involved. There was a need for secrecy and beneath the confiding tone the injunction to be caught dead if at all was unspoken and understood by both. The thin man would not look in his direction. This was part of the game; Nazim knew he had been noted and remembered. You too, he thought back. He tipped his hat at the thin man, saw the eyes flicker. His quarry turned and walked eastwards along the quay. Nazim hoped he wasn’t giving too much slack, if the thin man left before he could double back he would be left with nothing but the old man in the window, who might well have nothing to do with it….

  Untimely Anthesteria, bitter fruit out of season. His elation had proved short-lived as he sifted through his father’s papers, sitting there on the hard floor. Another, more substantial pile of papers lay in the trunk awaiting inspection. A map of the world with a question mark scrawled on the Mediterranean, a series of monthly receipts ‘reçu par Mme K, 43, V. Rouge, Rue Boucher des Deux Boules, Paris’, old letters from people whose suffixes (retr.d, Capt.(ex), miss) told tiny stories of disappointment. There were sketches of ships, long columns of figures, plans of buildings and a map of some structure he could not identify. Also: a notebook with all the pages torn out, the second half of a sonnet, a list of the ten most numerous butterflies on Jersey with brief descriptions and sketches, a memoir of his grandfather and some doodling. He had read through most of these, poring over the contents, trying to match handwriting, ink colour, types of paper, all in an effort to find the one detail, phrase, jot that, he felt sure, would reveal whatever his father had been searching for. So far, he had discovered nothing.

  Septimus had paid a visit the following day, ostensibly to draw a diagram of where the Craven Arms was.

  ‘I would guide you there myself, but as Master of Ceremonies I must arrive early.’ Lemprière had wondered exactly what ceremonies were being alluded to, but Septimus had already become disruptive, making paper darts out of the more frail-looking documents and offering to teach Lemprière the art of boxing. When he had begun propositioning women from the window - ‘Come on up!’ - Lemprière had asked him to leave.

  ‘Saturday then!’ he shouted as he went, practising his left jab down the stairs.

  Now Saturday had come and he knew no more than before. He turned pages listlessly, barely looking at them now. Remains. Could it matter that much? Here was a ship’s inventory, here was a broad-sheet ballad like one Father Calveston had given him (by mistake?), here was one that Septimus had ruined. He swiped at the papers in irritation. As they settled and came to rest only a few feet away, it occurred to him suddenly that these were the first words he had read in weeks. Strange. Why had he not thought of that before? Of course he had not packed any books (of course?), but then….

  He had set off on this line of thought and now he did not wish to follow it through. Peppard had read the covenant; he had only glanced at it himself. He might have read it, had he wanted. He had not wanted. Books had led him to all this; already further than he wished to go. All books though? No. Only the books he had loved most, books with gilt letters on the spine, rag-paper leaves, the Ancient books, the stories that had stayed. Stories of times when the deeds done meant nothing more than they pretended to, when the world could be plotted from its centre. He thought of his father’s body as it lay by the pool. He thought of the story he had read idly. The dogs ran low over the ground. He never dreamed it could come true. And yet he had dreamed. The cloud above turned the waters grey and his father’s blood turned them red. The dream was his and no-one else’s.

  It was getting too late for all this, it was getting too dark and far too late. Lemprière rose, put on his coat and boots and stamped downstairs to the street. Cold? Your father? No. His feet tap on the cobbles, the street oddly empty and very little to distract his thoughts as he hurries along, coat wrapped tight against possible rain. Quicken up now, don’t want to be late. Why do the feet curl in like that? Must be why boots wear through at the instep, a good anatomist could put England’s cobblers out of business, skeletons never his strong suit…. Left, right, left at the Henry VIII and Seven Bells, onward and upward, why we’re all Protestants, seminal baptism of the new faith.

  Puddles reflect his face as he keeps his head down, avoiding the pilasters with their Doric bottoms and fussy Corinthian capitals, the gaze of caryatids, other relics and remnants. He turns into Hogg Street, walking faster still. Excessively baroque masonry might fall and crush him to death at any moment, no-one can say the streets are safe, tap, tap, tap on the cobbles. Your father? No, not yet, better to wait, or a passing eagle might drop a tortoise on his head like Æschylus, better to work round to it, press-ganging makes the worst sailors, the triremes manned by freedmen, galley slaves a thing of the future…. This is more like it, wondering now about the ceremonies Septimus mentioned. He is in the mood for company, and singing (although he can’t) no, yes and perhaps drinking too, cantilevered here between something approaching hysteria, walking even faster now, and that other voice that he hopes he has lost somewhere in the backstreets to be found murdered the next morning; death by tortoise-bombardment.

  Above, the moon is being unnaturally silvery, cloud illumination high on its agenda tonight. Well to its rear, several particularly pluvial specimens are making their way eastwards over the shires to demonstrate cloud functions (moon-eclipse, rain, symbolic needs of one kind or another) to the city that chance has dictated as their destination. At the moment though, compact, woolly puffs (strictly scenic) amble around the sky, dissolving as they pass the lunar face and providing it, momentarily, with a wispy fringe of hair.

  Had Lemprière looked up he might have drawn an analogy between this phenomenon and the steel-grey leonine head of the ranter who appeared to be waving a flag in fury at an invisible opponent at the other end of the street. The flag-waver is very angry as he shouts about vanity and the exchange of goods and the land of our fathers. Really, Lemprière thinks, it is too late for this kind of thing but a crowd of fifteen or twenty people are standing around listening, excuse me, excuse me as he finds a way through, ‘… and the worst of it, the worst of it is this,’ (mo
re flag-waving)…. But Lemprière never hears the worst of it, at least not until too late, because now he’s through them, around the corner and anticipating his entrance at the inn, whose sign he has spotted just a matter of yards away, hurry up now, nearly there and distractions a-plenty, find out all the things I, fumble the door, all the answers, all the questions…. Your father? No-oo, here we go….

  ‘Wel-come to the Pork Club!!’ Septimus, mountebank, impresario, is in full flood, jigging on the table. The place is heaving. Is this what he agreed to? Around and about, a herd of brocaded fops conduct intercourse of several sorts with sozzled and unbuttoned beauties.

  ‘Oink!’ They turn as one to acknowledge their heralding master of ceremonies. No-one (except Septimus) is actually shouting, but the din is horrible. Lemprière blinks nervously, this is not what he expected at all and now Septimus has spotted his entrance and decided to leap over the assembled Pork Club members in a greeting designed at once to draw attention to his bespectacled friend and confirm this bundle of first night nerves as party to all this, one of the gang. As he attempts this manoeuvre, a shrieking chit and her swain feel that this is the moment to propose a toast. Bottle waving and leaping coincide as Septimus boots the vessel inadvertently, crashing into the crush where bystanders break his fall.