The Clay Dreaming (10 page)

It was the first of the month. Sarah tabulated their needs, balanced them against her obligations, and resolved that it was not due time – not quite yet. The inevitable might be put off for a few days more.

Running the final few steps, Sarah reached the front door of No.89 and presented her key to the lock. She paused a moment in the lobby. Dr Epps did not appear to be in. The door to his waiting room was shut, as was the way to his surgery.

She needed to replenish the coal supply, at least in her father’s room, and would rather not be seen tripping back and forth from the back yard. First, however, she would need to change clothes; these few items she wore were the only ones fit for public appearance. Gathering her skirts, she sped up the narrow staircase.

Sarah looked in on her father, only to find him sleeping. Her nose wrinkling, she opened a window. On his overcrowded bedside table, she left behind a
sheaf of her most recently transcribed notes, placing a fir cone from one of his collections as an ineffectual paperweight.

King Cole follows the Guardian, unsure of his approach. She disappears into another set of buildings close to the first, slender by comparison, but almost as tall. Part, he is disturbed to note, goes down under the ground.

She is somewhere inside. He must gather up his courage and make his way to her.

A stone bridge leads to the doorway through which she went. The ditch that separates building from street is only a few feet wide, but deep and dark enough to threaten disaster. He steps gingerly – one foot, then the other – making sure it takes his weight; that he won’t be tipped to his doom.

He examines the door, and imagines it open, and the Guardian standing there before him.

Returned to the landing, still unchanged from her street clothes, Sarah experienced a curious magnetism. She had found herself drawn back down the stairs. From the first floor landing, she considered the door to the street. Was it properly shut? She was sure – so why this bizarre compulsion?

Open the door
.

The loop-holes of retreat held their pleasures in reserve, ‘to see the stir of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd’. Or was that in itself denial? All morning, for just such cowardice, she had taken herself to task.

Sarah opened the door.

She knew neither how, nor why, but Sarah Larkin was in no doubt that the dark stranger standing in the shadow of the porch had come for her.

The figure moved into the light – not light so much as the leavening of London’s greater gloom.

A wild man, he showed even blacker than before. Dark waistcoat and trouser caked with indescribable filth, his shirt, worn without a tie, gaping open at the neck: it might once have been white. Shock-haired and red-eyed, his appearance might have excited greater alarm had she not recognised him instantly.

His name was King Cole, and he was one of the Aboriginal Cricketers.

The threshold, raised a foot or so above street-level, was enclosed by an iron railing, the broad stone slab levelled like a drawbridge beneath their feet. Sarah stood within the doorway; he hovered on the step.

On her doorstep, an Australian Aborigine! A visitor had come to see her, come all the way from the bottom of the world; and looking, for the life of him, as if he had run all the way.

His expression was one of total bewilderment. Shaded by long, dark lashes, his pupils were great black marbles flung in her face – haunted eyes, pleading with her.

How had he come to be there? Was he lost?

‘
Ngayulu
…’

King Cole spoke. Head inclined, his manic stare searched the ground at his feet.

‘…
ngayulu nyanga teiwa pitjangu
.’

Sarah’s own lips had formed no question, yet his appeared to make answer. She marvelled at the beauty of his language, words ‘more soft than rain’.

He looked away down the street. From somewhere deep and rich inside heaved the most affecting sigh.

‘
Teiwa
,’ he said, ‘…
teiwa
.’

A carriage sped past, wheels rattling. The length and breadth of Great Russell-street rang with vendors’ cries. King Cole’s gentle phrases all but drowned in the surrounding din. He seemed so sad.

Their eyes locked for a split second, with the force of a thump to the chest.

His face brightened.

‘
Jangan-djina-njug
!’

Dodging a sudden missile, quite invisible to the eye, Cole staged a brief pantomime – the exaggerated placement of one foot before the other.

‘
Jangan-djina-njug
,’ he shouted. ‘
Jungunjinanuke
!’

‘I can’t…I can’t understand you!’ said Sarah.

Less than two feet away from her danced a near total stranger – not perfect, and none so strange. She had no guarantee the man was even in his right mind. With a reach of his arm he might…

No, she would not give in to fear. The black orb of his eye was that of a dove, not a hawk.

Passers-by concentrated largely on their own affairs; his loud actions, however, his dishevelment, had begun to attract notice.

‘Comealong comealong comealong comealong comealong…’

Hypnotic rhythm rolling, thick and throaty, King Cole burbled pleasantly by her side. ‘…comealong comealong makim makim Serpent.’

Thirpent
? Lulled by his banal narrative, Sarah barely noticed as the flash flood of native language eased into a guttural approximation of her own: an Aboriginal sort of English.

‘Goalong goalong goalong goalong PINIS!’

His sudden spit brought forth a flush of hot blood to her face and cheeks. He was staring again. People were staring. Some had stopped in their tracks just to stare. Sarah grasped King Cole by his sleeve and pulled him inside the quiet house, closing the door to the street behind them.

Having bidden the fellow enter, she could not very well refuse him welcome. Nothing to be done about the mud all over, but it was mostly dried. As directed by her good conscience, Sarah mounted the stair. She signalled, shyly, that he might follow.

She moved carefully, her tread deliberately light. The Aborigine followed on without making a sound.

They gained the upper floors and the relative privacy of Sarah’s own family apartments, where she led him into the front parlour. A four-square chamber of medium size, their ‘morning’ room, so-called, was an embarrassment, but no more so than any other. Neither fixtures nor fittings had been improved in
the fourteen years since her mother’s death. Even in the old days, they had only received guests on rare occasion.

‘Welcome,’ said Sarah.

Politely but promptly she excused herself. A dubious reflex action demanded that she wash her hands. She then lit the stove and put a pan of water on to boil.

Sarah rushed further upstairs to check on her father. Although it was gone eleven, almost twelve noon, he remained sound asleep – a small mercy.

Repairing downstairs, once again to the kitchen, she rapidly gathered all the makings of a tea tray – the Staffordshire Porcelain – teapot, sugar-pot, milk jug, two cups, and a delicate slop bowl. She fretted all the while. Lambert overslept, meaning that he must have suffered another restless night. And what would he have to say, if he only knew that she entertained a man; especially such a man as King Cole. Better to think of herself as entertaining royalty!

Sarah returned to find Cole engaged in particular close study of a picture frame. The antique map was of London. Surely aware of her presence, he nevertheless paid her no heed. Instead, with his fingertip, he traced the course of the River Thames, marked as a long, looping ribbon of blue. Seeing a matching trail inscribed in the thick layer of dust on the picture-glass, Sarah felt deeply shamed.

She went to arrange the tea service on a tabletop caddy, only to find it missing. Hesitant to put the tray directly down, Sarah scanned the room before approaching her guest.

‘Tea?’

Her strangulated voice sounded ridiculous, the hoarse squeak of a house mouse. She cleared her throat as delicately as she could. ‘Tea?’ she repeated.

The dark face turned, the lost, wild cast from before replaced by a beatific calm. Cringing no longer, King Cole stood erect, if in relatively relaxed fashion. Were it not for the raggedness of his clothing, the darkest copper of his complexion, he might suit formal surroundings as well as any gentleman. Lest she be completely beguiled, he wore no shoes. She might have noticed sooner were the colour of his feet not so intrinsic.

‘Will you take a cup of tea?’ said Sarah.

He moved to take the obviously heavy tray from her arms, froze, and then bowed slightly. When it came to social graces they appeared equally rusty; in more relaxed circumstances she might have granted it amusing.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘Have a seat.’

He hesitated. She nodded towards the balloon-back velour, its cabriole legs carved from mahogany. This he spurned in favour of a much-worn easy chair. Deep-buttoned chenille stuffed with horsehair, the spongy upholstery swallowed his narrow flanks. Struggling to rearrange himself, he perched on its edge.

‘How do you like it?’ persisted Sarah. ‘Your tea?’

She set down the tray, picked up the pot, and with a faint tremor poured from it. King Cole had again failed to respond, but when she proffered the tiny silver-plate jug he nodded eagerly. She poured the milk, understanding from his bashful smile to add a more generous measure. The most curious expression on his face, he watched as the white swirl circled in the dark liquid, finally taking up his teaspoon and blending it in.

He sipped his tea, thoughtfully.

Sarah occupied herself with the makings of her own cup. The brittle clink of crockery seemed to fill every corner of the room, until they eventually sat in mounting silence. That blasted grandfather clock in the hallway – she could have died between its every tick, and tock.

Cole scarcely looked at her, and spoke not a word. She wondered what he could possibly want – for her to begin with the introductions, perhaps.

‘Sarah,’ she said.

However much she felt she should, she did not extend a hand.

He did not react.

Sarah smiled, feeling slightly foolish. More of a context might be required. ‘Sarah,’ she said again. ‘My name…is Sarah.’ Wincing, she gave herself a light tap on the shoulder.

The reticent Aborigine nodded curtly, but would not meet her eye. After a little delay, he mumbled a single word.

‘Thara.’

‘S-Sarah.’

‘Thara,’ he said.

With the gentlest lisp on the sibilant ‘s’, he repeated her name, she was sure of it. She must allow it.

‘And – uh…you?’ Sarah made what she hoped was a reciprocal hand gesture. ‘Your name?’

He was examining the carpet, testing it with his bare black foot. His feet and hands too were surprisingly slender.

‘Your name is…Cole?’ she asked. ‘King Cole?’

She knew full well what he was called, but suspected it a given name. Still, he nodded.

How was she meant to address him? ‘King’? ‘Mr Cole’?

‘I hear the team will play at Lord’s,’ Sarah said, meaning nothing by it. She knew very little of cricket, other than that her father very much liked it.

A further pause before Cole grunted agreement. ‘
Uah
.’

‘How is the tour going?’ she asked.

His hand waved: it goes.

‘You are in London playing another engagement?’

According to the latest report she had read, the team had returned to their base in Kent. Why had he come?

‘Is everything all right?’ she asked.

No answer was forthcoming. Evidently, his life was his own.

Enough of this! She spoke bluntly. ‘How may I be of assistance?’

The whites of his eyes flared slightly, black pupils arcing in her direction.

Sarah had not meant to sound so unfriendly. At least his looks, she noted, were no longer quite so bloodshot. He remained relatively calm – content, so long as left in peace. She lapsed into a similar quietude, simply waiting for him to speak. ‘King Cole‘ could explain himself, and in his own good time.

Once again, Sarah became aware of the noise of the city: filtering through glass, through bricks and mortar, bluntly it forced its way into her home. Even held at such a remove the sweep of traffic was a constant. Closing her eyes, she chose instead to picture it as waves, breaking on a distant shore.

She made one or two moves of the tea things, tacitly making sure to meet her guest’s every want and comfort. She availed herself of these opportunities to study him at close quarters – aware, and not unpleasantly so, of his subtle reciprocal investigations.

Cole had a flattish sort of nose, and a wide mouth. Both lip and nostril were thick and fleshy. She did not find it an especially attractive face; it was too alien for that. Hair lustrous and crow-black made it difficult to guess at his age, his unruly mop a mess of curls. He looked years younger than previously, while upset: he was perhaps around the same age as she was – not yet 30. All the same, life had left its mark. The deep knots in his brow aged him prematurely.

Here was a man who harboured a secret, whose dreams were troubled.

He suddenly spoke.

‘You,’ he said, ‘help me.’

‘Help you, how?’

Cole stood, pointed to the far corner, and led her to the map hanging there. Talking nineteen to the dozen, with his finger he retraced the line of the river two, three times over in quick succession. He stabbed at the map so forcefully that it jerked and rapped against the wall. Sarah reached and in one smooth motion lifted the frame off the nail. She brought it to the nearby table, into the light.

He made a plaintive animal sort of noise.

Short of any available rag to wipe it clean, Sarah dragged her sleeve across the glass. As the fold of dark material cleared the frame, King Cole yelped. He began to clap loudly, shouting out more of his nonsense.

‘Please! Please be calm,’ entreated Sarah, and then, more sternly, ‘Be quiet!’ She looked up, mindful of her father: as if she might see through the ceiling! She looked down again.

Outside, the sun had finally emerged from hiding. The room was
momentarily
illumined: loosened threads of dust swirling around the interior caught the light, surrounding them with a bright halo.

He was pointing at a smaller image, revealed in the far corner of the chart. The illustration was of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich: not the Great Equatorial Building – the sallow old map pre-dated its construction – but the quasi-Jacobean frontage of Wren’s Flamsteed House, topped with its characteristic time-ball.

‘The Royal Observatory?’ she said.

He didn’t understand her.

‘The Royal Observatory,’ Sarah repeated. She pointed to the picture. ‘You want to go there?’

‘YES!’

Cole straightened up, apparently expectant of their immediate departure. It was plain if not so simple: he wished them to go to Greenwich – the pair of them.

Sarah Larkin was not sure quite what else to say.

‘Yes.’