Arcadia (3 page)

‘Come away! Stop that!’ she scolded when she saw the beast, tail wagging enthusiastically as it snuffled at a bundle of old clothes. Then she looked closer. The clothes were inhabited. It was a man, lying on the ground.

Rosie cautiously walked closer; she had read in the papers of murdered bodies being discovered by people out for a walk. As she approached, though, the pile of clothes moved and let out a groan. The face of a man, pale and sick-looking, was staring up at her. He blinked and rubbed his red, bloodshot eyes. That’s a relief, she thought. ‘Are you all right?’ she said loudly, not daring to get too near and making up for her timidity with volume.

He rolled over and squinted as he focused on the figure of the girl in her bright red coat, clutching a large bag with one hand and the animal’s neck with the other. ‘Back!’ she said to the animal. ‘Bad dog! Naughty!’

‘Food,’ he croaked. His mouth moved as he tried to say more but no other words would come.

‘Food?’ she repeated. ‘Is that a good idea? You seem ill. Should I call an ambulance? A doctor?’

‘Just food. Give.’

She hesitated, uncertain about what to do. Then she opened up her bag and looked in it.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘You can have a little cake. One won’t be missed, I’m sure. It’s not very nutritious, I’m afraid. Just sponge, really.’

She held it out, but he didn’t move to take it, so she cautiously put it on the ground beside him, pulling the large animal away as she did so. ‘Don’t you dare!’

‘It’s a very nice cake,’ she added when she saw the way he looked at it.

He concentrated hard. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome. I must go. Sorry about Freddy here. He just wants to play. Are you sure you don’t need help?’

He ignored her, and she turned, took a few steps, then came back. She peered for a moment in the bag once more, and held out her hand with a coin between two fingers.

‘Get yourself some proper food if you’re hungry. It’s not much, but …’

‘Go away.’

She looked at him a second or so longer, scowled in disapproval, then hurried away. She was now so late she rapidly forgot the thoughtful state walking the dog had induced in her. Still, she felt vaguely proud of herself for giving a little money to that man. It had been, she reassured herself, the right thing to do. Charitable. Kind. The sort of thing nice, friendly people did. Not that she had got many thanks for her gesture. Probably just a drunk who had staggered there after too long in the pub on Friday night, spending his week’s wages. But what if he’d been really ill? Shouldn’t she go back and make sure?

She thought about it, but decided against. She had done what she could, and he had told her to go away. If you really want help, you are polite. You say, help me. That sort of thing. Still …

The thought spoiled her sense of virtue, and now she was annoyed as well as late. The shops closed at half past twelve and would not open again until Monday. If she missed the butcher the rest of her day would be in ruins. What would they eat? Guess who would get the blame? Her dad was a man of habit. It was Saturday, so it was pork chops. And tomorrow a roast. Sometimes Rosie wondered whether they might have pork chops on a Wednesday, but that would have caused confusion. When she grew up and was married with children and a house to look after, she’d have pork chops on whatever day she wanted. If, of course, anyone would have her.

She walked swiftly along the road, trying to keep her mind on the list in her pocket. Grocer, then butcher, then greengrocer.
Or perhaps the other way around. Then she’d drop off the dog and the shopping and in the afternoon go round to old Professor Lytten and feed his cat – the thruppence would come in handy now her charitable inclinations had depleted her resources.

*

Rosie liked Professor Lytten, although she knew she shouldn’t call him that. ‘Not a professor, my dear,’ he would say gently, ‘merely a fellow, toiling in the undergrowth of scholarship.’ But he looked and talked as if he were one. If only her teachers at school were a little bit more like him, she was sure she would enjoy being educated so much more. Instead, she had the prospect of Sunday morning preparing for a spelling test, with her parents muttering in the background, ‘Don’t know why you bother with that.’ And grammar. She hated grammar. ‘Never say “can I be excused”,’ the teacher had thundered at her only the other day. She had had to stand on one leg in agony as the impromptu lesson progressed. ‘We know you can, Wilson. That is obvious just from looking at you. But may you be? That depends. You are asking my permission, not enquiring about your capabilities.’

‘But Miss …’ she had interrupted desperately.

‘Never start a sentence with “But”. It is a conjunction, and in that position joins nothing. It is an error of the sort that marks out the ill-educated.’

When the woman had finished, Rosie had run off to the toilets so quickly she could have won a medal at the Olympics, while the rest of the class cheered derisively.

Feeding Professor Lytten’s cat wasn’t really a job, although only she could ever find anything remotely lovable or interesting in the beast, whose ill-humour was tempered only by laziness. Rather, she did it because every now and then the Professor would be there, and would talk to her. He knew everything.

‘He is a very nice man,’ Rosie had said to her mother once. ‘He talks to me very seriously, you know. But sometimes he just stops,
halfway through a sentence, and tells me to go away.’

Rosie was not disconcerted by this peculiar behaviour, and her mother assumed that it was the way professors were all the time. Certainly he never behaved in a manner which was, well, worrying. Quite the contrary; he addressed her gravely and carefully. She would tell him about the books she had read, or a song she had heard, and he never made fun of her or was scornful of her juvenile tastes. Nor did he seem to think that being a girl was a serious flaw.

‘I am afraid I do not know any of Mr Acker Bilk’s music,’ he might say. ‘A grave error on my part, perhaps. I will put on the radio next Saturday and expand my horizons. The clarinet, you say? A popular form of jazz, by the sound of it. It is, certainly, a most expressive instrument, in the right hands. As is the saxophone, of course …’

So Rosie would go home clutching records by Ella Fitzgerald or Duke Ellington – for Lytten was a great enthusiast – convinced of the sophistication of her musical tastes, and knowing rather more about both jazz and the clarinet than she had done when she arrived.

Lytten had even told her some of the stories of Anterwold, to gauge her reaction. She was the only person to know about this imaginary creation of his, apart from his colleagues in the pub and his old friend Angela Meerson. A grand idea, full of interesting characters, although, from Rosie’s critical point of view, there wasn’t much of a story yet. ‘They don’t seem to do anything,’ she pointed out one day. ‘Don’t they fight, or have adventures? Couldn’t you get someone to fall in love, or something? You need stuff like a love interest in a story.’

Lytten coughed, then frowned. ‘I’m setting the context, you see, in which the story takes place.’

‘Oh.’

‘When that’s done, then people will know how to fall in love, and what to fight about.’ He paused and studied her face. ‘You are not convinced, I fear.’

‘It sounds just lovely,’ she reassured him as he looked crestfallen. ‘Professor,’ she continued cautiously, ‘are apparitions real?’

‘How curious you should ask that,’ he said in surprise. ‘I have been thinking about the same thing myself. Great minds, eh? Why do you ask?’

‘Oh … a book. By Agatha Christie.’ She was shamefaced that this was the best she could think of, as she was sure he knew nothing of books with paper covers and pictures on the front. To her surprise, Lytten’s eyes lit up.

‘Agatha Christie! I am very fond of her, although I fear she cheats a bit by always introducing a crucial piece of evidence right at the end. Who do you prefer, Poirot or Miss Marple?’

Rosie considered. ‘Miss Marple is nicer, but Poirot goes to more interesting places. I like reading about foreign places.’

‘A very judicious reply,’ he said. ‘Do you wish to travel, Rosie?’

‘Oh! Yes!’ she replied. ‘Ever since I was little. I want to see everything. Cities and mountains, and strange places. Places no one else has ever seen.’

‘An explorer, then?’

‘Mummy says I should be a nurse.’

Lytten regarded her sympathetically. ‘It is not my place to tell you to ignore your mother’s advice,’ he said. ‘That said, in my opinion, I think you should seriously consider ignoring your mother’s advice. What does Miss Christie have to say about apparitions?’

‘There’s a scene where a character looms out of the mist like an apparition.’

‘I see. A true apparition is something which is not physical. “An idea raised in us”, as Hutcheson put it. It exists only in the mind of the person seeing it, like Beauty or Virtue. Or their opposites, of course. It is supernatural – a ghost or a fairy, or an angel – or it is an optical illusion, like a mirage, or, perhaps, the result of psychological disturbance. Those three classes, I believe, would account for all the possibilities. Would you like a slice of cake with your tea?’

Rosie digested the information, but not the cake. Her mother was strict about eating between meals. ‘A fat girl will never find a good man, Rosie,’ was her view, handed down to her by Greataunt Jessie, a woman of many clichés.

‘Fairies don’t exist, though.’

Lytten frowned. ‘Scientists would say they do not. But what do they know, eh? Believing something can make it so, I often think. If you believe in them you will never convince someone who does not. If you do not, you will never persuade someone who does. If you ever do encounter a fairy, it would probably be wise to be careful who you tell.’

‘You may be right,’ Rosie said.

*

The subject had become important a few days previously when Rosie had dropped in to feed Professor Jenkins.

Jenkins was old, malevolent and abominably overweight, his entire life dedicated to spreading his ancient carcass over the most comfortable piece of furniture which could accommodate it. Most of his few waking moments were spent in eating; he had long ago discovered that he could digest and sleep simultaneously. No bird or mouse had ever cause to fear his presence. Play was unknown to him, even as a kitten, although it was hard to imagine him being young.

That was the origin of his name, in fact – the beast was named after a man who had taught Lytten chemistry in his youth, a figure equally fat, unpleasant and idle. Sometimes Lytten wondered if his pet was the reincarnation of his old tormentor. There was something about the cold malice of his stare which reminded him of lessons, long ago, in an icy classroom.

Whatever the origin of his immortal soul, Jenkins would rarely allow anyone near him. But he tolerated Lytten, and almost seemed to like Rosie; she was the only person permitted to tickle his stomach.

Ordinarily, when Rosie arrived she would go upstairs, where Jenkins would be found lying flat on his back, his fat little legs sticking up into the air, the very embodiment of debauchery. Amongst his many other failings, he was slightly deaf and did not take kindly to coming downstairs and finding his food already waiting. So Rosie not only fed him but also had to wake him up, although she drew the line at actually carrying him down to the kitchen.

That day, Jenkins was not in his usual place, so Rosie had deposited her satchel in the hallway and walked from room to room, calling out to him. He was nowhere to be seen, but, as she was about to leave, she noticed that the door leading into the cellar was ajar. This was the bit of the house Lytten never used; it was really far too big for one person, although he had done his best to cram every room full of books.

Even by the standards of the rest of the house – and Lytten was not the tidiest of men – the cellar was unpleasant. It was covered in dust, with a damp, rotting smell. It was dark as well, and, as she crept down the narrow staircase, she could just make out the piles of paper, the old cups, the few, poor pieces of furniture in what had once been the servants’ kitchen. The only light came through a filthy window in a door that gave onto the overgrown back garden.

‘Hello?’ she called out. ‘Jenkins?’ She experienced a slight apprehension looking around at the squalor, even though she was rarely afraid of anything. She didn’t know whether she should really be there, for one thing.

‘Jenkins?’ she called again, then, more sure the place was empty, more loudly. ‘Jenkins, you lump.’

Maybe the deaf brute was hiding under something? Still calling out, she began peering in the cupboards and under the table. Nothing. Then she saw a rusty iron arch, the sort of thing people grow roses around, stacked in the middle of a pile of gardening equipment. She’d seen one at a country house her class had visited on a school trip the previous summer. It was odd, though,
covered in cans and bits of paper and tin foil, with a thick curtain draped over it, as heavy and dark as the blackout material that was still tucked away in many houses. Rosie doubted it would be much use against atom bombs, but people kept it just in case.

She walked to the curtain, which smelled mildewed, and pulled it open to make sure Jenkins wasn’t skulking behind it. She let out a cry of alarm, her hands reflexively going up to her face to cover her eyes, turning away from the dazzling light that flooded into the dingy little room.

Gradually, she opened her fingers so she could peer through them, letting her eyes accustom themselves to the sudden brightness. It was unbelievable. The pergola – in a drab, grim house, in a drab, grim street on a drab, grim day – gave a view not of the damp stained wall beyond, but of open countryside bathed in brilliant light. Before her eyes were rolling hills, parched by the sun. She had seen such landscapes before, in the books she borrowed from the library. Mediterranean, or so it seemed to her. Dark trees which she thought might be olives, hills covered in scrub. In the distance a wide river of an extraordinary blue, reflecting the sun in a way which was almost hypnotic.