can set up a sustained note, a kind of drone, which could – frequently did – throw me off-pitch. I hear the crack of coarse fingers against a microphone and the plaintive – self-pity can be a voluptuous pleasure; I can get a lump in my throat for myself – ‘Give the poor cow a chance!’
*
I found the key where I’d been told to expect it, under a spongy log to the right of the front door. The door opened into a small flagged space with a scrubbed bench and a plain shelf above it holding a decoy pigeon, a child’s torch and a single (adult) glove. There was a row of painted nails – the paint smooth from where it had accreted over the generations, drip-on-drip – for hanging coats. A kitchen – stone-flagged also – was off to the left. The sitting-room was up three stone stairs to the right, with another room up another short set of stairs at the far side of it.
I was struck immediately by the sense of solidness and permanence, the simple volumes and surfaces, the absence of pretence. All the walls were thick, rendered in irregular plaster with primitive storage spaces, repositories of family pictures, common family detritus, chiselled out of them.
The walls by the doorways had been worn smooth over the years, and there was efflorescence running along under the ceilings. I noted multiple examples of discoloration and variegation, like ancient maps or age blotches on skin.
All this I absorbed in an instant. In the next instant, having arrived at the heart of the house, I experienced what I can only call a grace state.
When I think of the moment now I think of it as consisting entirely of three kinds of mixed but incompatible light: the light from the fire that Mr Brotherhood had set, liquefying the ceiling and walls; a swimming-pool light coming from sun on the river, delirious, mutable, rinsed blue; a buttery summer evening light falling on the backs of sheep being herded down the lane running close to the rear of the house.
And what about the figure? Where am I?
Paint me black. A full-length standing figure in silhouette – dense, matt. Eyes and features blank with nothing to indicate that what I’m thinking is this: I have arrived. I will be happy here. And then when the time comes I will leave with reluctance but without regret, to go back into the world.
Chapter Four
There was a magic act popular in my time. It involved, as many of these acts did, a volunteer from the audience coming up on to the stage.
For this particular trick, the volunteer was shown a number of books and invited to pick a single title (the books were ‘presented’ by the magician’s assistant, balancing on the balls of her feet and wearing a scooped-out sparkling leotard, in the time-honoured fashion).
Having made his selection, the volunteer would be asked to tell the audience how many pages there were in the volume he was now holding.
He would then be asked to nominate a number (‘Pick a page! Any page!’) between one and the number he had just mentioned. This done, he would next be asked to pick another number corresponding to a line of text on that page and to read the line aloud slowly to the audience.
As he read, the magician would chalk the words on the board, writing rapidly, dotting the ‘i’s noisily and using other bits of stage business to bring up the dramatic tension.
I would sense the hush and hear the urgency of the scrape of chalk on board as I sat waiting to go on. And when I did, I would invariably reach out and turn up the volume on the Tannoy in my dressing-room in order to catch what the odd words, wrenched from their context, were this time around.
The act would be brought to a conclusion by the conjuror removing a cigarette from a silver case, showing it to the audience with a flourish, bringing a light to it, and exhaling a long puff of smoke up into the spotlight to prove it was real.
Then, taking care to ensure that it flashed a semaphor in the light as he produced it, he would take a
*
I found the key where I’d been told to expect it, under a spongy log to the right of the front door. The door opened into a small flagged space with a scrubbed bench and a plain shelf above it holding a decoy pigeon, a child’s torch and a single (adult) glove. There was a row of painted nails – the paint smooth from where it had accreted over the generations, drip-on-drip – for hanging coats. A kitchen – stone-flagged also – was off to the left. The sitting-room was up three stone stairs to the right, with another room up another short set of stairs at the far side of it.
I was struck immediately by the sense of solidness and permanence, the simple volumes and surfaces, the absence of pretence. All the walls were thick, rendered in irregular plaster with primitive storage spaces, repositories of family pictures, common family detritus, chiselled out of them.
The walls by the doorways had been worn smooth over the years, and there was efflorescence running along under the ceilings. I noted multiple examples of discoloration and variegation, like ancient maps or age blotches on skin.
All this I absorbed in an instant. In the next instant, having arrived at the heart of the house, I experienced what I can only call a grace state.
When I think of the moment now I think of it as consisting entirely of three kinds of mixed but incompatible light: the light from the fire that Mr Brotherhood had set, liquefying the ceiling and walls; a swimming-pool light coming from sun on the river, delirious, mutable, rinsed blue; a buttery summer evening light falling on the backs of sheep being herded down the lane running close to the rear of the house.
And what about the figure? Where am I?
Paint me black. A full-length standing figure in silhouette – dense, matt. Eyes and features blank with nothing to indicate that what I’m thinking is this: I have arrived. I will be happy here. And then when the time comes I will leave with reluctance but without regret, to go back into the world.
Chapter Four
There was a magic act popular in my time. It involved, as many of these acts did, a volunteer from the audience coming up on to the stage.
For this particular trick, the volunteer was shown a number of books and invited to pick a single title (the books were ‘presented’ by the magician’s assistant, balancing on the balls of her feet and wearing a scooped-out sparkling leotard, in the time-honoured fashion).
Having made his selection, the volunteer would be asked to tell the audience how many pages there were in the volume he was now holding.
He would then be asked to nominate a number (‘Pick a page! Any page!’) between one and the number he had just mentioned. This done, he would next be asked to pick another number corresponding to a line of text on that page and to read the line aloud slowly to the audience.
As he read, the magician would chalk the words on the board, writing rapidly, dotting the ‘i’s noisily and using other bits of stage business to bring up the dramatic tension.
I would sense the hush and hear the urgency of the scrape of chalk on board as I sat waiting to go on. And when I did, I would invariably reach out and turn up the volume on the Tannoy in my dressing-room in order to catch what the odd words, wrenched from their context, were this time around.
The act would be brought to a conclusion by the conjuror removing a cigarette from a silver case, showing it to the audience with a flourish, bringing a light to it, and exhaling a long puff of smoke up into the spotlight to prove it was real.
Then, taking care to ensure that it flashed a semaphor in the light as he produced it, he would take a
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