In Search of Sixpence by Michael Paraskos by Michael Paraskos

In Search of Sixpence

Michael Paraskos October 2015 FINAL AUTHORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S DRAFT VERSION

§1 ‘Artistic activity begins when we find ourselves face to face with the visible world as with something immensely enigmatical; when, driven by an inner necessity, and applying the powers of the mind, we grapple with the twisted mass of the visible world, which presses in upon us, to give it creative form. ‘In the creation of a work of art we engage in a struggle against nature, not for our physical but for our mental existence.’ - Conrad Fiedler, 1876

ยง2 I do not want to get up. I do not want to wash, dress or eat. I do not want to think about the art school I cannot run any more. I do not want to talk to family, friends or strangers. I do not want to think about Stass. I want to lie in the abyss in which I have been placed. I want to be swallowed by its blackness and to forget. I want to be forgotten.

ยง3 A forward rush by the lamp in the gloom, And we clasped, and almost kissed; But she was not the woman whom I had promised to meet by the thawing brume nor was I he of her tryst. O why, why feign to be The one I had meant - to whom. To whom. O why, why feign to be The one I had meant - to whom. Something. A forward rush by the lamp in the gloom, And we clasped, and almost kissed; But she was not the woman whom I had promised to meet by the thawing brume nor was I. Nor was I. Something.

§4 ‘Can we begin again? Can you tell me why you are here?’ ‘I shouldn’t be here. This is a mistake. “A forward rush by the lamp in the gloom”.’ ‘I’m sorry? I don’t understand.’ ‘I said, I shouldn’t be here.’ ‘Where do you think you should be? You chose to come here. Do you remember?’ ‘I remember everything. Or I can resurrect everything.’ ‘Resurrect? What do you mean?’ ‘Like Lazarus, back from the dead. “A forward rush”, or a backward rush, or a downward rush. Or something’ ‘How about if we try something else. How about if we play a game?’ ‘A game?’ ‘Yes, a game of make-believe.’ ‘I don’t like make-believe. I only like the truth.’ ‘And what is the truth? Can you tell me?’ ‘The old Sultan knew the truth when he dressed me as his liar.’ ‘What Sultan, Michael? Who is the Sultan?’ ‘It’s a bit obvious isn’t it? He is the shadow of God extending over men and djinn. I shouldn’t be here.’ ‘Then tell me where should you be?’ 5

‘I should see white houses and play upon the beach.’ ‘Let’s play my game Michael. It’s a special kind of game. It’s called the game of truth.’ ‘Truth?’ ‘Yes, truth, but we use make-believe to tell the truth. We pretend we are somewhere else. Talking to someone else.’ ‘Ah, you mean role play. I know all about Trigant Burrow.’ ‘Okay, let’s call it role play instead of makebelieve. Is there anyone in the world you would like to talk to? In the game I mean? Who would you like to talk to?’ ‘The Sultan.’ ‘But who is the Sultan?’ ‘A bit obvious isn’t it? But too late. He’s back in the womb eating grapes and grain. And I shouldn’t be here. I’m late. I’m late. I should be with Mariella.’ ‘Mariella? Who is Mariella?’ ‘Mariella Frostrup of course. The letter said meet Mariella at Portland Place. I’m meant to be on her programme. I shouldn’t be here. I should be at Broadcasting House. I’m late.’ ‘I see. Thank you Michael. I am going to lower the lights a little, and we are going to play the game now. It’s a game of role play that allows us to tell the truth. I’ll play the role of Mariella.’ ‘You are Mariella?’ ‘I’m going to pretend to be Mariella, and I want you to tell me why you think you are here.’ ‘I cannot say.’ 6

‘You cannot? Do you want to play someone else in the game too?’ ‘I don’t know. Not here. There has to be a process. I’m meant to be at the BBC. Can I go now? I’m late.’ ‘You are not late, Michael. You are on time. We are at the BBC and you are on time to meet Mariella. You are going to tell her why you think you are here. You are going to go through the process to explain it to her.’ ‘The process. That’s right. There has to be a process. But it’s not Mariella I meet. Not yet. There is a process.’

§5 We arrive at the BBC and I am greeted outside the main entrance by a young woman with a clipboard. ‘Hello. Are you Mr Paraskos by any chance?’ I do not correct her dropping my title. I never correct anyone on my title except as a joke. The Sultan didn’t give it to me anyway, so I’ve never really felt I deserve it. ‘Pleased to meet you Mr Paraskos,’ she continues. ‘My name’s Karen. Karen Bier.’ I look at Geroud and whisper, don’t we know a Karen Bier? The young woman overhears me and answers: ‘We spoke on the telephone. Have you been waiting long?’ ‘No not long,’ I tell her. ‘I mean we came early.’ Nervousness makes me contradict myself. She asks if we want a coffee or something to eat, but we say no and she leads us straight into Broadcasting House, past the security guards and the vast drum that holds the newsrooms. We can see the workstations that line up behind the newsreaders on the television, and someone we do not recognise is reading the news far below. We wonder if we have now appeared on television ourselves, figures gawping behind the newsreader, ready to live forever in repeats of It’ll be Alright on the Night. We carry on, past the cafeteria guarded by a life-sized replica of a dalek from Doctor Who and into the Radio Theatre. Karen sits me down and says she will see if Mariella is ready, disappearing into the darkness that surrounds the stage. A technician appears and asks if I can say a few words to test the 8

microphone. I do this, trying to improvise something nonchalant to sound practised and professional at this ritual. The technician cups her hand to the earpiece she is wearing, pauses a moment, and says fine. Like a dutiful sprite she too disappears into the darkness and Mariella appears. I stand, blushing and shake her hand. But Mariella is the consummate professional and knows how to set even the most nervous guest at ease. She asks me if I have been to Broadcasting House before. I tell her I have been there a few times. The outside at least. I find myself using the phrase in my other life. ‘In my other life,’ I say, ‘I am an art historian and I have written on the Eric Gill sculptures on the building.’ I explain that the two figures on the front are Prospero and Ariel from Shakespeare’s Tempest. Of course Mariella knows this and later I cringe at my over-explaining. Mansplaining as Emma calls it. ‘Most people think Gill chose them because Prospero was a magician who controlled invisible spirits and that is a bit like the BBC broadcasting disembodied spirits into people’s homes. They also think Ariel is a pun on aerials.’ But I tell Mariella I don’t think that is why Gill chose Prospero and Ariel. I say, ’I think Gill chose them because Gill was an anarchist.’ I find myself stopping short of explaining that. I realise I have been rambling and talking too fast and I wonder if I have bored Mariella. But Mariella is the consummate professional. She says it is an interesting idea, but does not ask for an explanation. Instead she says she has read I am an anarchist. She says I do not really look like an 9

anarchist. I laugh a little too loudly and end up snorting as I try to correct myself. I joke feebly that I have left my balaclava at home today and Mariella kindly laughs. Then I tell her I am not really an anarchist. I think Mariella looks disappointed. I try to rally her interest by saying, what I mean is, I don’t call myself an anarchist because I am not an activist. I tell her I do not go out on the streets and throw bricks through windows. I think Mariella still looks a little disappointed. I explain that I try to understand art and culture through anarchism and that I think it offers the best explanation for genuine creativity. But Mariella still looks disappointed. Stass loved being called an anarchist. At the end, that last ten years, when we got really close again, he and I were, in our own minds at least, an anarchist cell, working together. It was us against the world. We knew we would fail, and often said so, but we were strong in the rightness of our self-belief. Politics, business, the media, the art world, they are all run by cunts. Success in the Capitalist world only comes to those who are willing to compromise with the cunts by becoming cunts themselves. But we wouldn’t compromise. We wouldn’t be successful. We wouldn’t become cunts. It is hard to keep that up on your own. Except the lack of success I mean. It’s hard to keep faith in the dark, because faith is the things that we hope for. It’s the evidence of things unseen. A month after Stass’s death the administrator of Stass’s college in Cyprus, Angela, 10

asked me how I was feeling. ‘To be honest,’ I said, ‘I feel like a cunt.’

§6 ‘Who is Stass? Did he make you angry?’ ‘He was my friend. My father.’ ‘And he ran a college? In Cyprus?’ ‘His college. His art school. Yes, in Cyprus.’ ‘You mentioned someone else. Geroud. Who is Geroud?’ ‘Not yet. There is a process. We must follow the process.’ ‘Are we following the process now? You are very quiet.’ ‘Hush, I’m swimming. I am doing widths.’ ‘You are in a pool. Is Geroud with you?’ ‘I cannot sleep. So I lie in bed at night and daydream. I suppose I should say “I night dream”, but that sounds mad so I say I daydream.’ ‘What do you daydream about?’ ‘Simple things. A simple thing, played repeatedly in my mind until I slip away. I am in my final year of secondary school. The cunts have given up on the idea that we can be made to play football, or hockey, or cricket, or shit like that, so they say we can go swimming once a week.’ ‘Is it a reward for being good?’ ‘No, I told you. They have given up on us. They didn’t have much faith in us anyway, so it’s not a reward for being good. Cunts don’t reward you for being good. It’s a reward for being bad. Bad at football, or hockey, or cricket. So bad they’d rather we fuck off for one afternoon a week than ruin the 12

games for the people who can do all that crap. We would board a school bus in the playground and be driven the three or four miles to Kingsmead Swimming Pool on the edge of Canterbury. Those of us who bothered to go into the pool would then spend a couple of hours splashing around before re-boarding the bus and returning to the school.’ ‘Could you be bothered to go into the pool?’ ‘Almost always.’ ‘Almost?’ ‘Almost. Sometimes I went to the cinema instead, but in the daydream I always go into the pool. I am in the pool and I am swimming widths. I never did this in real life. Even now I rarely swim when I am in water. I just float around aimlessly.’ ‘But in the daydream you are swimming widths?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Why?’ ‘She is there, hanging on to the edge of the pool like a mermaid. Like a Melusine. I have a vague memory she did this.’ ‘Who?’ ‘She is holding on to the side of the pool. I don’t remember any of the girls actually swimming any more than I did. Some of the other boys dived or showed off like that. But the girls just bobbed around in the water.’ ‘Aimlessly?’ ‘What aim could there be?’ ‘But this daydream is not something that really happened? It’s a fantasy?’ 13

‘It’s not a fantasy. But it never happened. It’s an almost-happened. Do you know what I mean? A what-if. As I swim my widths I pass her and as I do I casually say, “Hello. You look very pretty today.” Reaching the side of the pool I turn and pass her again on the return, this time adding, “Mind you, you always look pretty.”’ ‘Is that something you would have said?’ ‘I was fifteen years old! I would never say that to a girl. Least of all her. It’s a what-if? What if my fifteen-year-old self had swam those widths, up and down, up and down, past her as she hung on to the side of the pool, waiting for her entourage to dissipate just enough for me to speak? What if I did that and what if I did crack some cheesy chat up line? ‘Life might have gone down a different path?’ ‘Yes. So in my daydream I replay the scene again and again. Following the route of each different path. This way and she is just rude to me. This way and her friends come along and steal my swimming trunks and leave me naked in the pool. This way and she suggests we leave the pool behind and have a hot chocolate at Poppin’s cafe in town. This way and we catch a movie, a meal at the County Hotel, a room and bed.’ ‘And why do you have this daydream?’ ‘To not think about Stass. To not lie in bed thinking about him in agony in the bed next to me. To not think about him lying in a grave. To not think 14

about Stass I repeat the daydream over and over again, to not think about Stass, to not think – ‘Eventually I pare the whole thing down to just me in the pool, swimming the widths on my own, backward and forward, like trying to count sheep.’ ‘So the girl is not important to the process.’ ‘She was always important. My what-if.’ ‘And Geroud?’ ‘He’s not there. He thinks I am obsessing. He tells me to think of something else. He says he doesn’t like me spending so much time in the pool on my own. “You might drown,” he says.’

Â§7

theguardian 28 March 2014

Other Lives: Stass Paraskos My friend Stass Paraskos, who has died aged 81, was the most significant Cypriot artist of his generation. In 1966, Stass gained notoriety in the UK when the police raided Lovers and Romances, an exhibition of his work at the Leeds Institute Gallery, following a complaint from a member of the public, and charged him with obscenity. The trial led luminaries of the art world, including Herbert Read, Quentin Bell and Norbert Lynton, to speak in Stassâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s defence, but the case was still lost. This made Stass the last artist in England to be prosecuted under the Vagrancy Act of 1838 that had earlier been used against DH Lawrence. Born in the village of Anaphotia in southeast Cyprus, Stass was the son of a peasant farmer. In 1953, he emigrated to England to work as a waiter, first in London and then Leeds, until a chance meeting with the charismatic art lecturer Harry Thubron led him to enrol at Leeds College of Art. There he met Terry Frost, who persuaded him to move to Cornwall and live among the artists of the St Ives school.

Returning to Leeds in 1962, he taught at various art schools. The fame created by his prosecution in 1966 led to further invitations to teach, as well as shows at major venues including the Institute of Contemporary Arts, where he exhibited in 1967 alongside Ian Dury. Three of Stass’s reputedly obscene paintings were acquired by the Tate in 2006. One of Stass’s enduring ambitions was to establish an art school in Cyprus based on what he had experienced in Britain. In 1969, this led him to found a summer school for British art students in Famagusta. Relocating to Lempa in the 1980s, it evolved into the Cyprus College of Art, with Stass as its principal. At the same time, Stass continued to teach in Britain, becoming a senior lecturer at the Canterbury College of Art in 1970. He offered inspired teaching that created a huge amount of warmth, affection and admiration from artists and students alike. At the heart of all this was Stass the artist, deeply rooted in the history, culture and environment of Cyprus. The everyday and sometimes tragic life of its villages and towns fills his colourful work, fused with the iconography of Cypriot folk art and the Byzantine church. Retiring from Canterbury, Stass settled in Cyprus in 1989 with his wife, Mary, whom he had married in 1957. As well as teaching and exhibiting there, he continued to show his work abroad and represented Cyprus at the 1996 São Paulo biennial. 17

Although he joked that he was illiterate in two languages, he was a prolific writer in Greek and English, producing poetry, articles and books on contemporary politics, as well as the history and mythology of Cyprus. Stass is survived by Mary and their five children, Stanley, Margaret, Paul, Christopher and Michael. I leave the last word to Stass: ‘Like religion, art is at its best when it’s a simple activity but, as in religion, simplicity can lead to the experience of something incredible.’ - David Haste

§8 ‘There’s a problem with one of the lights to the left of Mariella. The lamp’s gone. No I don’t think it’s serious, just blown, but can you get one of the hands to take it off the stage? No, we don’t need it for radio, and the studio audience can see well enough, it’s just a bit of window dressing. Thanks Jill.’ ‘Any chance of a coffee?’ ‘Get one for me too will you, but watch out in the link room will you, one of the light’s has gone in there too and there’s important cabling. If she spills coffee on that we’ll all be fucked up the shitter. ‘Right let’s get the audience in and start recording.’ ‘Slight problem with the other lamp now Bunny. The sparks say it flickers every time someone sits on Mariella’s chair. They haven’t a clue why. One suggested it was a poltergeist.’ ‘BBC technicians – best in the world! Alright, tell him to get rid of it too. But check there is still enough light on the stage for the audience to see. We’ll all be sitting in the dark at this rate.’ ‘It’s a bit late to change the set now isn’t it? The audience are sitting down?’ ‘It’s not the National darling, we can still tweak things. Anyway they like to see a bit of the technical stuff going on. All I really care about is the sound. I trust that’s still working.’ ‘Was a minute ago.’

‘Do check sweetie. And then check again. We can be in the bloody dark as long as the sound is being recorded.’ ‘The stage is a bit barren now though.’ ‘It was hardly Peter Hall in the first place, darling.’ ‘More Brecht. I hope that doesn’t mean two hours of angst-ridden gloom. He’s a tedious chap at the best of times.’ ‘Okay, let’s get going.’ ‘This is BBC Radio Four, and now it’s time to join Mariella Frostrup for this week’s Book Choice.’ ‘This week Book Choice is in London at the Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House where I am joined by the author Michael Paraskos. Michael Paraskos is better known for his non-fiction writing, particularly his books on art, but his latest work, In Search of Sixpence, is a fictionalised journey around the memories of his father, the artist Stass Paraskos, who died in 2014. ‘As well as the author, as always we have with us an audience eager to join in the conversation and ask questions, which will all hopefully help us to get to the bottom of this undoubtedly unusual book. ‘Michael, thank you for joining us. I said something in my introduction there which I wonder if you’d take issue with. I said your new book is a fictionalised journey around your father, but I do you think of it as a work of fiction or non-fiction?’ ‘It’s really lovely to be here Mariella, but you make the book sound a lot grander than it really is. 20

My aim, my original aim, was to publish my father’s diary, but it was too short for a book on its own, so then I thought I would fictionalise the events in the diary, writing a novel about my father’s time in Cyprus in the summer of ‘68. But then these two ideas kind of merged and other things came into play.’ ‘I wasn’t really trying to make it sound grander than it deserved, but when you say other things came into play, what do you mean?’ ‘Things like Don Quixote. And Philip Marlow. And Lord Horror.’ ‘Lord Horror?’ ‘He’s a character from a graphic novel. He’s a sadistic Nazi mass-murderer who also presents a radio show on the Light Programme.’ ‘But there’s a lot of your life in the book I think. You seem to present your father through a prism made up of different things that happened to you in your life, and then that is mixed with forays into past literature, like you say, into Don Quixote and the Philip Marlow novels.’ ‘I know, there’s something quite mad about it. But it is a work of fiction. It is art not life, and art is always mad because it takes us outside the world we know. That’s how we tend to define sanity and madness, the difference between the known and the unknown. It has always been the problem with Walter Benjamin’s beautifully evocative image of the Angel of History, standing with his back to the future, only able to see the past as a heap of broken images, each event piling one on top of the other. 21

That’s a nice image of course, and true in its way, but the artist is not the angel looking backward. That’s the cultural theorist. The artist is someone who dares to turn around and look into the unknown. You could say, the artist dares to look into the abyss of the unknown, and as far as our society is concerned, doing that is a kind of madness.’ ‘And that is the madness you found in Don Quixote?’ ‘A madness that is really sanity. The irony of Don Quixote is that he is the only really sane person in the book. He’s the only person who is not satisfied with the world as it is. The only one who wants to turn away from the heap of broken images and strike out for something better. For something glorious. And for that he is called mad. ‘I became obsessed with Don Quixote and ended up reading the novel morning, noon and night. I think it’s a difficult book for a lot of modern readers because it is not just a novel. We tend to think of it as a comedy adventure story, and it is, with the battle with the windmills and the wine bladders and things like that. We think of Peter O’Toole singing The Impossible Dream. But Don Quixote is more than that. Cervantes put himself, and people he knew, and even people he didn’t know, into the book. It is rooted in life, and in art too. There are long digressions with other stories, and poetry, and even a moment when Don Quixote and Sancho become aware they might be characters in a novel. There are long political tracts in favour of anarchism and strikingly modern feminism. It’s a 22

beautiful cornucopia of every writing style you can imagine. But all of that is not about looking back at a heap of broken images. It’s the struggle of the artist to turn around, look into the abyss, and make some sense of the horror and the beauty that is seen there. Don Quixote is a book about being an artist.’ ‘Obviously you lack the talent of Cervantes, but I can see that richness of experience influences you. Your book also has a strange melding of different narratives and forms, but you seem to be suggesting too that there is something more specific linking your father and Don Quixote. For example, I notice in canto seven of your book you have a fictionalised version of me ask you about this, as though you want your father to be seen as a kind of Don Quixote.’ ‘I think it is actually canto eight, but there is a reason why I did that. Sat in the hospital day after day was both traumatic and strangely boring. You sit around with nothing to do and nothing to say. So when someone you love is in hospital suffering you want to be with them, but you also have a horrible desire to run away. So I read Don Quixote. It was a way of running away whilst staying put, except I didn’t get away at all because I started to see Stass as Don Quixote.’ ‘Because of what he did, or where he came from?’ ‘Both. Stass was mad in a Don Quixote way. Stass thought he could recreate the chivalry of an art school in a country like Cyprus where all people care about is status and money. He was a knight23

errant in a world that just laughed at knighterrantry. But it also made perfect sense to me because Stass and Cervantes both belonged to the Mediterranean world. There are real links in the way they saw things, even though 400 years separated them. In northern Europe people think of the Mediterranean world as hot headed and irrational –‘ ‘The Latin temperament!’ ‘Exactly, which is what led the Germans, Finns and Dutch to punish the Greeks like wayward children for their economy. But that characterisation of the south is dimwitted. Ironically it was a German philosopher, Wilhelm Worringer, who first realised this. He saw the Latin temperament as the opposite of emotional. It was rational and detached. What else, he argued, could give rise to Galileo or Pietro Bembo or Leonardo da Vinci? And what else could explain the cold-hearted worship of Mammon that is so common in the south? But it is also that detachment that allows southern writers to comment on their own character. And because of it the best writers on the Mediterranean are not outsiders from northern Europe, who often mock and patronise the south. It’s these detached southerners themselves.’ ‘Like Cervantes.’ ‘Like Cervantes, and Kazantzakis, and Cavafy, and Guareschi, and Stass.’ ‘And is that something that is also there in you? Is that why were arrogant enough to want to emulate Cervantes?’ 24

‘Not in the same way. Someone kept asking me to say why I am here. I thought it was you.’ ‘You mean the book was commissioned?’ ‘No, not commissioned. It was demanded.’ ‘By whom?’ ‘I don’t remember. Wasn’t it you? Perhaps the book demanded itself. In 2007 I had to write a book on how I understood art. I didn’t really understand art before that. I just used to try and guess what other people wanted me to say. I was confused and depressed and I had to write my way out of it. Something told me to write my way out of it. And this book was demanded in the same way. By something.’ ‘What Kandinsky called “inner necessity”?’ ‘Actually he called it Innerer Klang, so a better translation is “inner sound”. It’s a voice you hear, demanding that you do this.’ ‘And so the idea of madness, or hearing voices, comes close to the artistic act again. It sounds like a kind of daimonion makes the demand.’ ‘It doesn’t matter what you call the voice, but once you hear it, it will not leave you alone. You are not powerless. You have some choice over whether to simplify everything to the point of abstraction, like Ezra Pound demanding poets write with a crisp reductivism. Or you can emulate the complex fracturing of life itself, where sane and mad experiences are piled one on top of the other in the way they are in the world of Don Quixote.’ ‘Or that of Kazantakis.’ 25

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Or Lord Horror. But the aim is always the same. Not to reflect that fractured world, but to transcend it.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

§9 ‘This speculation is all very well, but I feel we need a new voice here to help us frame this story properly. I admit I am a little late to the reading, but like the proverbial tortoise I was always following the speedy rabbit at my own pace, σιγά σιγά, and now I’ll make the running. So let’s start again. We have divine precedent for this. ‘Lazy reader, I want to say something about this book you will not believe, but I swear by the Mother of God is true. I want my book, born of my numble mind and chubby fingers, to be the most beautiful, glorious and genius of books ever written. However, even hope cannot transcend nature and her inescapable law that dictates we are each children of our own kind, and so what hope have I, with a talentless and ignorant mind, so powerless in wit and wisdom, to make a thing of beauty?’ ‘What are you doing Geroud?’ asked Michael. ‘I am writing up our adventures, my friend,’ replied Geroud, his fingers still tapping at the computer keyboard. ‘An excellent idea Geroud,’ said Michael enthusiastically, before adding, ‘But what adventures?’

‘The adventures with this book,’ replied Geroud. ‘And Stass’s diary,’ he added leaving Michael even more confused. Michael peered at the screen hoping it might give him more of a clue to Geroud’s plan than the cryptic messages Geroud was offering. None the wiser he asked, ‘What book and diary?’ Geroud turned on the bentwood swivel chair, sighed deeply with a tone more indulgent than exasperated, and said, ‘The book you have been writing and the diary you find in canto nineteen.’ ‘What book and diary?’ repeated Michael. ‘You cannot have forgotten already what is going to happen,’ answered Geroud. ‘How can I know what is going to happen?’ asked Michael. ‘When Larry stepped out on stage as Hamlet everyone agreed, did they not, he was the consummate Hamlet?’ said Geroud. ‘I guess so,’ agreed Michael. ‘So we could say, as I believe actors often do, while he was on stage being Hamlet, he was Hamlet,’ continued Geroud. ‘Yes, I suppose he was,’ Michael agreed again. ‘I believe it is called Method Acting. ‘But he was still following a script wasn’t he?’ said Geroud. ‘He was Hamlet, but in the world of the play, the world of that stage at that moment,

when he stepped onto the boards and delivered the first lines spoken by Hamlet, “A little more than kin, and less than kind,” he also knew the fate of Hamlet. He was a man who knew all that would happen to himself for the next three hours. So why shouldn’t I say I am writing up the adventures we are going to have?’ ‘You are talking gibberish, Geroud,’ said Michael dismissively. ‘Is that what your name means? Does Geroud mean gibberish? We are not characters in a play or book. This is reality. Real life!’ ‘Reality is the establishment of being by means of the word,’ retorted Geroud. ‘As to my name it is unique. It has no meaning other than me. I am Geroud, so it means me.’ ‘It must be nice to be so unique,’ said Michael. ‘Everyone else has to put up with being someone else.’ ‘Someone elses,’ Geroud corrected him. ‘You are a series of enactors, not just one. You change character from scene to scene, circumstance to circumstance. You have to, otherwise you would walk into the bank and whinge at the cashier like you used to whinge at your mother for pocket money.’ ‘That would be funny,’ said Michael. ‘Could you imagine! But now we really are in Wonderland.

Usually I am brave enough to put up with your nonsense, but today I happen to have a headache.’ ‘It’s the start of toothache,’ said Geroud. ‘But we’ll have to wait until that problem is right under your nose before you realise that.’ ‘How on earth do you know it’s toothache, and who on earth gets toothache in their head? Most people get it in their teeth,’ retorted Michael. ‘It’s an abscess. It’s in canto eighteen,’ replied Geroud. ‘You’ll see. In here the future is known in the past.’ ‘Time will test your theory,’ answered Michael. ‘You just have to learn to accept what has already happened,’ replied Geroud, ‘You and Stass and I are going to write a book together, so there’s no point in fighting it. It is already going to happen.’ ‘And what will my contribution to this book be?’ asked Michael. ‘Yourself. You will contribute yourself to the book,’ answered Geroud. ‘I will contribute myself, and Stass will contribute himself. Then we’ll see what we have. Except we already know what we have.’ ‘There you go again!’ cried out Michael. ‘How can we know what we have when we haven’t written what we don’t know what we will write?’

‘You shouldn’t be so linear,’ replied Geroud. ‘I know that if you start reading a book it seems linear. Usually even time in the book will seem linear as most books still work forward chronologically, like the dull apes of time.’ ‘True,’ agreed Michael, ‘but that is how time tends to work. It moves forward.’ ‘Not according to science,’ Geroud corrected him. ‘But aside from that we also know that the most interesting books will play with time. Move backwards and forwards and that sort of thing.’ ‘True again,’ agreed Michael. ‘But here’s the clever bit,’ continued Geroud with mock pomposity. ‘It is usually assumed that writers play with time, but what if we think of it as being rather different. What if we think of a writer playing without time? I mean if we borrow a bit of art theory and apply it to literature we could say that a book is like a painting in that it exists outside time, or at least outside time as we know it! Tah-dah! Or as Mariella might say, “Really Mr Geroud, that’s the most brilliant idea I’ve ever heard, innit!”’ ‘Fucking hell, that’s shit,’ said Michael slowly. ‘And the worst impression of Mariella Frostrup I’ve ever heard.’ ‘There’s no need for that,’ said Geroud. ‘It’s a perfectly reasonable theory. You know that what makes painting a special art form is that paintings

exist outside time. They show us a divine space in which mundane time and linear narrative cannot exist. We see everything happening at once and nothing changes. Or as the poet said, “She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!” You’ve written about it often enough, you called it hypostasis. I’m just saying perhaps we can think of a book being like that, and that the greatest mistake of modern literary theory is to assume literature exists within time.’ ‘Doesn’t it?’ asked Michael. ‘Even if a story plays with time you still experience the book through time. You tend to start at the beginning and read it page by page until you get to the end. It reveals itself over time. ‘That’s true,’ agreed Geroud, ‘but only if you are outside the book. And no reader is ever really outside of a book they read. An author relies on a kind of empathetic relationship developing between the reader and the story, and that makes the reader a kind of actor in the book. Once that happens they are just a character in the story, like Hamlet, although I guess they might be an unseen character, or one of those retainers standing at the back of the stage who never gets to say anything.’ ‘Could you imagine if you suddenly heard the voice of the reader in a book!’ said Michael laughing.

‘As a reader you sort of do,’ said Geroud. ‘You don’t hear other readers, but you hear your own commentary.’ ‘A bit like a Greek chorus,’ agreed Michael. ‘Exactly,’ said Geroud, ‘and that means that just like Larry being Hamlet at the National, at least an inkling of the end of the story is known before you reach that end. When you start reading you know it’s literary fiction so it will probably end badly. Or you know it’s a rom-com so they’ll all get married in the end. You know it’s Wuthering Heights so Heathcliff dies of a broken heart. Or it’s Pride and Prejudice so everyone marries whoever they deserve to marry, except Charlotte who seems to draw the short straw. Ergo, a book is always outside time, just like a painting, because the end is already written. The last page exists at the same time as the first page, and that is fundamentally different from time in life. Books, like paintings, exist in a special time outside of ordinary time, and the implications of that are mind-blowing.’ Michael left the room and Geroud could hear him in the kitchen, filling the kettle and placing it to boil. He washed something in the sink, presumably the tea pot and a cup. A metallic object was opened, presumably the tea caddy, only to be followed by an expletive, ‘Fuck!’. Some of the tea leaves must have flown out as the caddy opened.

The kettle came to a boil and Geroud heard the hot water being poured into the pot. He heard the fridge door open. Michael must have been getting the milk. He could not hear the milk being poured, but assumed it must have been. Michael always poured the milk in first. The fridge door opened and closed again, and then another pouring sound came, lighter this time, as the tea in the pot was poured into the waiting cup. Michael returned with the cup in his hand. He sat down on the sofa. ‘So how are we going to write this book together?’ he asked. ‘Good,’ said Geroud. ‘The right question at last. Stass has already written his bit. His diary.’ ‘He didn’t keep a diary,’ said Michael. ‘Wrong again my friend,’ said Geroud. ‘He kept a diary in the summer of ‘68. You have found it, or rather you will find it, and that is Stass’s contribution to this book.’ ‘This book?’ asked Michael. ‘That’s a curious turn of phrase.’ ‘The book,’ Geroud corrected himself. ‘Our book.’ ‘And we are going to do what? Are we going to publish the diary, or rewrite it into a story or something?’ ‘You cannot rewrite someone else’s words,’ replied Geroud, his voice showing what Michael

thought was genuine shock. ‘Stass has written his bit, you will write your bit, and I will write my bit.’ ‘It’ll never work,’ insisted Michael. ‘For a start I have never seen Stass’s diary, so how can I know what to write? Or do you have it?’ ‘No I don’t have it, but you are missing the point. You write your bit,’ said Geroud, his finger stretched out to emphasise the point. ‘You write, your bit, I write my bit and Stass has written his bit. He was more diligent than us, of course, writing his fifty years ago, but you cannot rush these things.’ ‘So none of us will see what the other two has written,’ said Michael. ‘We just write something and see if it fits together?’ ‘Good eh?’ said Geroud smiling. ‘And has anyone else ever written anything in this way?’ asked Michael. ‘Well, you could argue the Bible was written like that,’ answered Geroud. ‘True,’ agreed Michael, ‘but you see what happened with that. You end up with two different Creations and four different Gospels. When they wrote it no one stopped to make up their minds.’ ‘Consistency is the sign of a dull mind, as a great philosopher once said,’ replied Geroud. ‘And it’s an act of cowardice. Whatever the Bible is it isn’t cowardly. That’s its beauty and its strength. It doesn’t really claim to be the truth, only a window

into potential truth. It tells the same story several times, in several ways, in the hope that somewhere between those stories there might be the truth.’ Michael looked at Geroud sternly. ‘So what you are really saying is that we have already started this book, and perhaps even finished it. And your first appearance is in canto nine.’ ‘I’m leaving you to start at canto one,’ said Geroud. ‘I thought I’d let you set the scene before I come in. I thought you’d be grateful. Top billing and all that.’ ‘I see, thank you’ said Michael. ‘But when you do come in, in canto nine I mean, your first task will be to insult the reader by calling her lazy?’ ‘If it was good enough for Cervantes.’

§10 ‘I wonder if it’s time to get a question from our audience. The woman with the pretty face that would make a bishop kick a choir boy. You have a question?’ ‘Yes, I’d like to know why is Michael so angry?’ ‘You mean who is Geroud? Ha! good question. I guess Geroud is so-so, so-so.’ ‘Is he someone you know?’ ‘He’s more than that. He’s someone who knows me. Listen. Don’t tell anyone else or they’ll think I’m mad. Geroud might not exist. Not in the way we exist.’ ‘And you don’t think other people will believe that?’ ‘Not believe it! Of course they won’t believe it. What would they think if I started saying you do not exist. They’d say, “You hear that Marjorie, I said this man is mad.”’ ‘When did you meet Geroud?’ ‘Meet him? Yes, I suppose I must have met him, but I cannot remember where. He seemed always to be there, although I didn’t know his name was Geroud. I didn’t know that until I wrote my doctorate. I felt myself stumble. All doctoral students do at some point, but for me Geroud held out his

hand and I did not fall. I wrote his name on my computer, on a screensaver that would flash up when I turned the infernal machine on or off, or I was idle for too long. It was simply his name, Geroud, in white letters on a blue background. It would float across the screen, then I would press a key to start writing again, and it would disappear. He does that. Appears in a flash, usually when he’s needed, then he disappears.’ ‘Where does he go?’ ‘He doesn’t go anywhere. He’s still there, still talking to me, but more background. Poetry is the establishment of being by means of the word. So Heidegger wrote.’ ‘So is Geroud brought into being by means of the word?’ ‘Or perhaps a reconciling image. Maybe he’s my Siloen.’ ‘What is a Siloen?’ ‘A reconciling image. She’s there in Huw’s film?’ ‘Huw?’ ‘Huw Wahl. She’s there in his film, walking backwards up a river.’ ‘I don’t understand.’ ‘Of course not. Everything is broken. Jumbled. “It’s all a mess my Michael, all a fucking mess.” And you never saw Huw’s film. I saw it and

cried because Stass never saw it. Then I told them to close down the BBC as a waste of fucking space. “But it’s all a fucking mess my Michael.”’ ‘You told who?’ ‘The ICA of course. When they showed Huw’s film. I wanted to say to them they should close the ICA, that it is a waste of space, but I was too much of a coward. I couldn’t do it in front of Gregor Muir and the rest of them even though they’d insulted Stass. So I said close the BBC instead. I was a coward: I was always a coward. It wasn’t a month since Stass died and I was a mess. A fucking mess and a fucking coward.’ ‘Do you want to stop? To take a break?’ ‘No. Not yet. Why? We should follow the process. Someone asked me about Geroud, but it wasn’t only Geroud. As a child I felt I was constantly being watched by someone or something. Or more than one thing, sometimes a kind thing like Geroud, and sometimes –‘ ‘And do you feel you are being watched now?’ ‘Well, this is hardly a cosy chat in a wine bar is it Mariella? Although with the lights so low, it is easy to forget there is a studio audience somewhere out there. Why is it so dark?’

‘They said it’s a technical problem with the lighting. Can I bring you back to Geroud and being watched. Geroud is kind?’ ‘Yes, Geroud is my friend.’ ‘So the others who watch you are not your friends?’ ‘I don’t know if there are others. In the plural I mean. It sounds a bit paranoid to think there are lots of people watching you doesn’t it? Perhaps it is just one –‘ ‘One what?’ ‘One other.’ ‘One other as well as Geroud. Another person?’ ‘Not so much a person. Just an other.’ ‘And this other, does it have a name?’ ‘Process. We must follow the process. Geroud will find it out. He’s a good detective. Always finds things out for me.’ ‘Tell me about being watched. How does it make you feel?’ ‘Guilty.’ ‘Guilty for something you have done?’ ‘I mean terrified. I’m not guilty. I’m terrified. Night terrors didn’t end for me with childhood. Geroud is a comforter in all that. It was his idea to think of the swimming pool, only originally it wasn’t a swimming pool it was the beach. He said to think

of that cartoon where they’re sat on the beach eating ice cream and then you won’t hear the other voice.’ ‘And did it work?’ ‘Almost.’ ‘Are you afraid of the dark Michael?’ ‘No! Not now. As a child I was terrified, but not now. Back then we lived in an old schoolmaster’s house. It was a lovely building, literally attached to the village school. It should have been idyllic. The North Downs are so beautiful. We should go there some time. You and me I mean. ‘And the country lanes that surrounded the village were my playground. I never had any sense of danger in them as I wandered alone on foot or my bicycle. I travelled miles away from the village, though empty roads. Even now some of them are little more than farm tracks overlaid with a veneer of respectable tarmac. It all still seems isolated in those hamlets with their bizarre ancient names, like Chollock, and Crundale, and Anvill Green. What do those names even mean? ‘Our house was tall and painted white and had great arched windows. It had three floors, but only three bedrooms. My parents shared one, my sister, Margaret, had another, by herself as she was the only girl, and the four boys, including me, were meant to share the attic room as a kind of dormitory. But I rarely ever slept in the attic. I was afraid of the

dark and so I wouldn’t sleep on my own. I didn’t really like being in any room in that house on my own.’ ‘But why did that stop you sleeping in your brothers’ room?’ ‘There was an eight year gap between me and the next oldest child, Christopher, and that caused problems getting me to bed. I was the youngest so I was meant to go to bed earlier than them. But I wouldn’t do it. I would stay up much later than was good for me. No one ever challenged that, so I grew more demanding, and in the end refused to sleep in the attic room even when my brothers were there. I disliked that room more than any other in the house. It was haunted. The whole attic was haunted. Eventually my parents made up a bed for me in their room, and that became my room too, almost until my teens.’ ‘That’s unusual.’ ‘Abnormal you mean. Although who knows, maybe the world’s full of teenage boys scared of the dark. Who’s going to admit to it? Maybe I’m shockingly normal. ‘Apart from the house being haunted, the only other problem with it was the cold and damp. Water dripped down the walls of what would have been the dining room, making it almost unusable. The windows rattled in the wind and the only source

of heat was an ancient pre-war kitchen range that heated the water and an open coal fire in the front room. Everywhere else in that house was cold, damp and draughty.’ ‘Your family owned the house?’ ‘No, Stass didn’t earn enough to buy a place for a long time. It was a council house, but owned by the council’s education department. Stass was given it because he worked at Canterbury College of Art.’ ‘It sounds as though you spent a lot of time outdoors because you wanted to avoid being indoors.’ ‘Yes. I think so. It was an outdoor life. I did have my own space in the house. Not a room as such, but a kind of balustraded balcony that doubled back over the stairs. It was a strange space. It didn’t lead anywhere, it was just there as a stairwell balcony. That was my play room. I kept a huge collection of soft toys there, each with a specific character, some good and some evil, but for some reason, only one of them had a name, a tortoise called Michael. ‘You saw yourself as a tortoise?’ ‘Not me! It was called Michael. I constructed long epic tales involving Michael the Tortoise and the bullying evil toys, day after day.’ ‘And you played on this balcony on your own?’

‘Only during the day.’ ‘Because?’ ‘Because the house was haunted. Haven’t I mentioned that? Sorry, I meant to say, the house was haunted. It scared me. Above the balcony, above the stairs, was a loft hatch, high and out of reach to anyone. It must have led into the high eaves as my brothers’ bedroom took up most of the attic space. Every now and then someone would notice the loft hatch was open, the wooden square board covering it, pushed aside. It was never completely open, but just slightly, as though someone wanted a gap to look through. ‘We didn’t have a ladder to reach the hatch so Stass or my mother would just get the mop or broom and use the handle to push the board back into place.’ ‘And the mysterious opening of this loft hatch was a source of anxiety?’ ‘It was more than that. I saw it move. One day I was sitting on my balcony when I looked up. The loft hatch was closed. But then it moved. Only slightly at first, as though whoever was moving it was trying to be discreet. But it moved, gently to one side. I sat there in absolute terror. I expected something horrible to emerge, like a creature from the horror films my brothers loved to watch on TV, and which I ended up watching too. But nothing

showed itself. If there was anything in there it was content just to watch.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

§11 ‘Shall we walk to the den?’ asked Stass. ‘Alright!’ I replied eagerly. And so we left the tent and walked away from the camp site, which was really just two hundred yards of mountain roadside somewhere north of Barcelona. Passing a dozen tents, we took a sharp left, almost a u-turn, and then up another road that banked steeply upward. Although the crowded campsite was so close below us, none of the other campers ever seemed to go up here, and so Stass and I made this the route of our daily walk to get away from them. The road quickly turned into a track, and the track quickly overgrew. This was a landscape of rough ground and precipitous cliff edges, but Stass was never scared of nature, least of all Mediterranean nature even in that unknown corner of south-west Spain. He had grown up with this in Cyprus, tending our family’s flock of sheep and goats, and it was a friend to him. Besides which, he was a vigorous 42-year-old, so why should anything in the world hold fear for him? As for me, I was five years old, and still to develop the shyness and cowardice of my later childhood. Spain in July 1975 was still technically a fascist dictatorship, although General Franco, seriously ill by that time, and only a few months

from death, no longer wielded day to day power. As he faded a tourist industry had started to grow, and we were amongst the early pioneers. But it was still a surprising choice for a holiday for a man like Stass, sometime Marxist, sometime anarchist. But I guess it was cheap for a family of seven to travel by coach from England and stay in a tent at what was probably an ex-military camp. Children remember the strangest things. I have vivid memories of this holiday, but not really of Spain itself. I remember the long coach journey and my first time on a ferry across the English Channel. And I remember the drive overnight and all the next day through France. I have no recollection of the changing landscape we must have passed through, or the romantic names of ancient cities announced on motorway exit signs as we passed them by. What I remember is the way my mother constructed an impromptu bed for me from the family coats, in the middle of the coach aisle. Other parents soon followed suit, and we younger children filled the gangway, sleeping head to toe, like a string of sausages. Arriving, I remember vividly too the mountain, racked, every night it seemed, by violent thunderstorms and rain, and comforted every day by bright Mediterranean sunshine. I remember we dug a drainage channel around the tent to stop the

rainwater coming in and I remember the layout of the camp, so precisely if I found myself transported there now I could easily find my way around. Most of all I remember Stassâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s den, where we walked every day, never tiring of the repeated routine, and rarely venturing further than the point where the goat path and vegetation opened out slightly into a clearing. There Stass would inspect the vegetation, as closely as any gardener on a country estate inspecting the work of his apprentices. He would pick a stick of the dry cornlike grass that covered the clearing, almost as though selecting a string of komboloi to pass through his fingers. He would find a seat and we would stay there for an hour or two and talk. It was a routine similar to the one we ran through almost daily in England too, but Spain made it exotic. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember what we talked about, but I guess my conversation was no different from that of any five year old. A kind of nonsense, an unnaturally obsessive interest in things that do not matter, and silly word games. Stass liked playing with words and gently teasing you with them. On a long walk to the nearest town, the unfortunately-named Tossa de Mar, we passed by stunning fields of sunflowers. But it was a long walk, especially for a five year old. At one point I fell over, and grazed my knee. My mother stood me up and

began brushing the grit from the shallow wound, at which I cried, ‘Don’t do that, do that it hurts a lot!’ Stass liked the inadvertent rhythm of my cry, and for decades afterwards would repeat the phrase, chanting it like a poem or song, whether relevant to the moment or not: ‘Don’t do that, do that it hurts a lot!’ Stass had a lot of those habits, repeated over the years. When Southern Television’s ident appeared before television programmes in the 1970s he would shout at the top of his voice, ‘Moon,’ to which I would cry out, ‘It’s not a moon it’s a sun!’ Only years later did I discover it was meant to be a star. When Benny Hill was on Stass would shout, ‘Knockers!’ at the sight of the scantily-clad girls. And whenever a politician on the news said something ridiculous he would pinch his nose with his left hand, and mime the pulling of an old fashioned toilet chain with his right. This was accompanied by a pantomime cry of, ‘Rubbish!’, again at the top of his voice. And then there were his favourite jokes, like the dog who went for a swim in the sea. When he got back they asked him what it was like. ‘Rough, rough,’ said the dog. Back in Spain, I guess at some point my five year old brain tired of the familiarity of Stass’s den, and I persuaded him we needed to walk further along the path. There we found a second clearing, in

the middle of which sat an alien creature, painted incongruously bright green as if to fit in with a dense English wood rather than the yellow scrub of the Mediterranean. Made of welded steel, a large central drum was half buried in the ground, with pipes leading from it. It must have been some kind of reservoir, placed there to keep the camp supplied with water. This became my den, and I remember thinking it better than Stassâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s because it had such a strange landmark. But Stass still preferred his den, where the only landmarks were whatever he was seeing in nature, not this man made intrusion. The following year Stass restarted his art school in Cyprus, and took a small group of undoubtedly intrepid British artists and art students there for the summer. That was only two years after the catastrophic Greek military coup in Cyprus and the disaster of the Turkish invasion of the island. While he was away, my mother and we children remained in England for the summer. It was the legendary summer of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;76, long and hot, when the heatwave went on for months without end, and the Thames ran dry.

Â§12 I choose Cerberus as my judge As he says I should be well loved in Cyprus. Floating isle Like a corpse on a drunken sea. Ah, good dog. I choose Cerberus as my judge As he says We should be well loved in Cyprus. Three heads are Better than one, and doting Death Pats them all. I choose Cerberus as my judge As he says Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll sway the truth for a biscuit. Just ask him, How is the sultry sea today? Rough-rough-rough.

§13 ‘Do you remember when you first called Stass an anarchist?’ asked Geroud. Of course Michael remembered. It was in an essay for an exhibition catalogue. Stass and his old friends, Votsis and Metaxas, were showing their collaborative paintings in Nicosia in 2007. They each painted in their own style, but on a single canvas. Michael had called them anarchists, treating the painted surface as an anarchist commune and a space to be shared. ‘Do you remember Stass liked being called an anarchist?’ asked Geroud. ‘Yes, I remember,’ replied Michael. ‘I remember Norbert Lynton opening the show. He quoted my essay in his speech. I was so proud of that. But I apologised afterwards that the essay wasn’t very good. I explained I wrote it in English and it was translated into Greek, but then someone decided to translate the Greek back into English to print in the catalogue. He told me not to worry as no one ever reads these things anyway.’ Ben, the neighbour’s cat, had jumped up at the window and was looking up at Michael as if about to say something. But before he could speak Ben was interrupted by Michael’s attempt to tickle him behind the ears. He leapt out of the way. ‘It’s

always a waste of time trying to stroke that cat,’ said Michael. ‘He doesn’t like people.’ ‘Can you blame him,’ said Geroud. ‘You cannot trust anyone.’ ‘That sounds like one of my lines,’ said Michael. ‘So it does,’ agreed Geroud, ‘although we are more alike than you might want to admit.’ ‘Okay,’ said Michael, suddenly changing the subject. ‘I see where you are going with this. Let’s accept this book is an anarchist space. First of all that means we reject the linearity of time.’ ‘Of bourgeois time,’ Geroud corrected him. ‘Quite, right,’ agreed Michael. ‘We reject the linearity of bourgeois time. And we also reject the linearity of space.’ ‘Of bourgeois space,’ Geroud corrected him again. ‘Absolutely,’ agreed Michael. ‘We reject the linearity of bourgeois time and we reject the linearity of bourgeois space. But what you are also suggesting is that we reject the individuality of the single author.’ ‘The bourgeois individuality of the bourgeois single bourgeois author,’ Geroud corrected him. ‘But at the same time we assert our true and non-bourgeois individuality through the collectivism of the anarchist space we now inhabit.’

‘I see,’ said Michael. ‘So to recapitulate, you, Stass and I are going to collaborate on filling this space like anarchists filling a commune, with each of us contributing in his–‘ ‘Or her,’ interjected Geroud. ‘– or her,’ agreed Michael, ‘individual –‘ ‘Or collective,’ interjected Geroud. ‘– or collective,’ agreed Michael, ‘way.’ ‘Exactly,’ stated Geroud. ‘Like the paintings of Stass, Votsis and Metaxas, or the sculpture wall at Stass’s college, we share a space in which we do our own thing and it somehow works. And our cry will be Είμαστε οι αναρχικοί!’ ‘Yes, what you just said,’ agreed Michael again. ‘At least I think so. But I still don’t see why it’s a good idea to call your readers lazy. You might call them stupid or ignorant, of course, but not lazy?’ ‘What should I call them?’ asked Geroud. ‘Would you prefer I wrote “dear reader”?’ ‘It would make more sense,’ insisted Michael. ‘It would make more sense,’ echoed Geroud, mocking the prim tone of Michael’s complaint. ‘Yes, it would make more sense, but only bourgeois sense. And bourgeois sense is never very original is it? That’s what makes it bourgeois, its good sense and predictability. I married him dear reader, I loved him

dear reader, I loathed him dear reader, I haunted him darling, sweet, pretty reader!’ ‘But we’re gonna sound like mad hatters,’ cried Michael, his voice rising louder than he intended. ‘We are fucking mad!’ Geroud shouted back. They sat in silence for a while each unsure if he had upset the other. They knew it was easy to upset them, especially now. Stass had acted as a kind of balancing keel, never enough to ever stop either of them doing or saying things they later regretted, but as a kind of priest to hear their confession after the event. This usually ended with Stass giving the gentlest of admonishments, ‘I don’t think you should have done that,’ and the benediction, ‘but not to worry.’ But all that had gone, leaving the questions forevermore unanswered, should I have done that? and should I worry? Damn it boss,’ said Geroud breaking the pause. ‘I love you too much not to say it. You have everything, except one thing. You have no madness. A man needs a little madness, or else –‘ ‘Or else?’ asked Michael. ‘Or else he never dares to cut the rope and set himself free.’ ‘And you lecture me on originality!’ replied Michael.

§14 ‘Michael. Michael. Are you asleep? Michael wake up.’ ‘I’m so sorry. It’s the lights being so low, it’s quite soporific. How embarrassing. I have a friend, who habitually goes to sleep when the lights are turned down. It’s a nuisance as he’s an art historian so he often spends time in darkened lecture rooms.’ ‘Do you want to stop? We can carry on later.’ ‘I’m guessing they’ll need the theatre for Just a Minute in a little while.’ ‘I guess they will. So can I ask you then, are you angry? You seem to be angry. Are you angry with your father for dying?’ ‘No.’ ‘But his death brought out your anger.’ ‘It turned it into despair. He died a traumatic and painful death. There is no escape from that fact. Stass Paraskos, our father, the most famous artist to emerge in Cyprus, whose work can be found in places as far apart as the Tate in London and the Presidential Palace in Nicosia, who played his part in the revolution that swept through British art education in the 1950s and 60s, who was prosecuted by the police in Leeds for exhibiting obscene paintings, and who tried, without success, to persuade every President of Cyprus, from Makarios to Christofias, to set up a proper art

school on the island, did not die peacefully in his sleep. There was a newspaper report that said that is what happened, but how the fuck did they know what happened. They didn’t even ask and it wasn’t what happened? Stass died traumatised and in pain, and all because we couldn’t cope and no one was there to help us cope.’ ‘So you have a right to be angry?’ ‘I have a right to be angry.’ ‘And are you angry with Stass?’ ‘No, never with Stass. Never properly with Stass. How could you be angry with someone suffering so much. And even before then, how could you be angry with him? He was my Don Quixote. I was his Sancho Panza. Except–‘ ‘Except there were times you were angry with him.’ ‘You cannot live with someone for a lifetime without some anger. It passed both ways.’ ‘He was angry with you?’ ‘No, never. Or almost never.’ ‘Tell me when.’ ‘It was nothing.’ ‘But it sticks in your memory, like sleeping in the aisle of the coach or walking to the den in Spain. It haunts you.’ ‘I suppose it does. It was when I was teaching in Scarborough. I didn’t visit Stass very

often then. He and my mother had moved to Cyprus and I didn’t have the money to visit, or the inclination if I am honest. When I did visit it was usually pleasant, but I didn’t feel part of his world.’ ‘The world of the art school he ran there.’ ‘Yes and everything else. The art school was something I had grown up with but I was both proud and ashamed of it. I was proud he had made the place from nothing. He couldn’t get any help from the government, not real help I mean, so he did it anyway, as best he could. But still I thought my friends in the university in England would laugh at it. At him. So I tried to keep the two worlds apart so I wouldn’t have to hear that laughter.’ ‘And did they laugh at it?’ ‘No. When they went to Cyprus, and later when we started sending some of our art students over there, they all loved it. It was the freedom they wanted. ‘Of course no one really liked having bedroom walls so thin you roasted in summer and froze in winter, or roofs that leaked when it rained, or giant cockroaches wandering around like they owned the place, or having to burn the previous day’s toilet paper each morning because you couldn’t flush it down the drain without blocking the sewer. But they saw past all that. They saw that on

the other side of the madness there was freedom. They were better people than me in that.’ ‘And did Stass know how you felt?’ ‘I don’t think so. Or maybe. He always had an idea that his college would become the art department at the University of Cyprus. He wasn’t alone in thinking that. For a long time before the university was set up the government told Stass it wanted that too. But when they started the university they just ignored Stass. It was just more verbal shite from civil servants and minsters. So Stass thought he would turn the college into a respectable art school on its own, with validated courses and certificates and things. He came to visit me in Scarborough and I took him to meet my college Principal, Rob Withers. We talked about Scarborough validating Stass’s courses. Everyone seemed keen, but I heard later the Principal had asked Stass whether he really wanted to go down that path. “You will pay £30,000 for a piece of paper with a stamp on it,” he had said. “And you will lose your freedom.” It was not said unkindly – quite the opposite. Like the others, even Rob realised the uniqueness of Stass’s vision and wanted to protect it. So instead we started sending the students from Scarborough to Cyprus to spend time with Stass. It gave them a unique experience and him a small income.’

‘And that brought you closer together?’ ‘Not really. We were not distant, not in that way. We had been best friends when I was a child. Like in the den. But as a teenager and into my twenties I went wrong. It took me a long time to go right again, and Stass didn’t always help.’ ‘Can you remember any of those times? When he didn’t help I mean.’ ‘Is there any point remembering them?’ ‘Maybe. If they are difficult to forget.’ ‘You mean if they haunt us.’ ‘So what haunts you? You said Stass didn’t always help. It suggests you have something in mind. Something haunting you.’ ‘It was years go. I said we started sending our students to Cyprus. From Scarborough I mean. One year I went with them and while I was there I gave a talk on the relationship between Greek icons and Baroque art. It was all about how the different painters tried to show us Heaven. Gold in one and darkness in the other I said. It was a simple idea, and basically right, but I probably simplified it too much. I made it sound like a formula, which wasn’t what I meant. But I wanted to talk about icons because I thought he would be pleased. I wanted it to relate to Cyprus. But Stass just bawled me out for not understanding art. He was shouting at me in front of my own students and all these invited guests. He

seemed to hate every word I said. I was very nervous about everything I said about art at that time, so I couldn’t cope with it. It was crippling.’ ‘That must have been hard.’ ‘Afterwards a family friend, Yannis Economou, was driving me to the restaurant we were all going to. I didn’t say anything to him, but he had noticed. Which meant everyone had noticed. But it was one of those moments when someone says a kind word – Yannis has probably forgotten he even said it now, and I cannot remember exactly what it was – but you remain grateful to them for the rest of your life.’ ‘And your father, what did he say? Afterwards I mean.’ ‘Nothing. I didn’t speak to him for the rest of that trip and barely at all for a long time afterwards. It was just cruel. I wanted him to be proud, but he was just cruel. Or unthinking perhaps. I don’t think he was ever motivated by malice, he was a kind and generous man, but even kind and generous men can be thoughtless.’ ‘There must have been an end to this.’ ‘I kept my distance from him and Cyprus for a while. A long while. Not in silence, but I just got on with my life, until a year or two later one of our students returned from spending time with him. Sue Sleightholme, I think it was. She said she could see

how proud Stass was of me. She said he talked about me all the time. I didn’t really believe her, but there must have been something in it because it was the start of a new relationship with Stass. It wasn’t overnight. But it was the start.’

§15 Michael:

Zero, zero. Three, five, seven. Two double one, seven, oh, seven.

Operator:

Ο αριθμός που καλέσατε δεν αποκρίνεται.

Michael:

Hello Stass, it’s Michael.

Stass:

Hello my Michael. What’s going on?

Michael:

Oh, nothing much. What about you?

Stass:

Nothing really. I am with Votsis and Metaxas. We’re having a beer!

Michael:

Really? You can drink beer now?

Stass:

Oh yes, I can eat and drink anything I want now. I’m better now. It’s a bit expensive though. We’re at the Four Lanterns. But Metaxas is paying so it’s alright.

Michael:

I didn’t think you’d like the Four Lanterns.

Stass:

It’s the old one here, and it’s very nice. Like it used to be. They even have my exhibition still up, from 1968 I think.

Michael:

And have they sold anything?

Stass:

Yes, three big paintings. But I haven’t been paid yet.

Michael:

Some things never change.

Stass:

Are you writing something for that magazine?

Michael:

The Spectator? No, they have a new book editor so I don’t think I’ll get in again. Another lost hope, but Geroud’s making me write about you. He thinks it will help me.

Stass:

Who is Geroud?

Michael:

I’m not sure.

Stass:

Well don’t writing anything sentimental. When you write it should always have some bite.

Michael:

Don’t worry, I’m not feeling sentimental. I am not sure what I am feeling. That’s where Geroud seems to help. Sometimes I feel ngry. Most times I feel angry.

a Stass:

There’s no point in being angry. If something goes wrong you just have to carry on and do something else.

Michael:

Maybe. We’re going to write a book together. It’s going to be like those paintings you did with Votsis and Metaxas. I’ll do a bit and he’ll do a bit and we’ll see if it makes any sense.

Stass:

(Laughing) Yes, those were funny paintings weren’t they. But you know, if people believe in what they are doing it always works. In art that is. Even if it is a ridiculous idea, if the artist believes in it then

it will work. Art is full of ridiculous ideas that worked. Michael:

That’s what Clive calls faith in art.

Stass:

Yes, it is a kind of faith. Anyway, give it a go, you never know it might lead to something. How is the money situation?

Michael:

Not so good. I’ve had to close the College in Larnaca. I’m not sure about Lempa.

Stass:

Just as well really. They don’t really want a place like ours in Cyprus.

Michael:

No, and even the students in Lempa are a nasty bunch this year.

Stass:

You always get years like that.

Michael:

I know, but Margaret is having a hard time with them. They seem to like goading her. It’s really heartless with what’s happened.

Stass:

She mustn’t let things like that upset her. There are always selfish people in the world. You just have to ignore them.

Michael:

She needs you to tell her that really. She rang me yesterday and just started crying down the phone.

Stass:

Ask your mother to ring her.

Michael:

I will.

Stass:

What is your mother doing?

Michael:

She is meant to be flying over from Cyprus tomorrow, in time for the party.

Stass:

What party?

Michael:

We’re having a party at Geoff Rigden’s studio with all your friends. Its a celebration of your life.

Stass:

That’s good, that’s very good. Are many people coming?

Michael:

Oh yes, all your old friends, some from Leeds and lots from Canterbury. They’ll all be there.

Stass:

Make sure there’s enough to drink. Ask the Embassy to give you some bottles of wine.

Michael:

I already did but just they ignored my letter. The usual response. I think Mam might stay in England.

Stass:

That’s a good idea. There’s no point in her staying in Cyprus.

Michael:

No probably not. Do you need anything?

Stass:

Not really. Listen, this phone is making funny noises.

Michael:

It might need recharging.

Stass:

Oh, I think your mother has the charger. I didn’t bring it with me.

Michael:

Metaxas probably knows where to get a new one.

Stass:

Yes, Metaxas knows how to find anything! Anyway, let’s leave it at that for now.

Michael:

Okay. Bye!

Stass:

Ba-bye love. Ba-bye.

Operator:

Παρακαλώ δοκιμάστε αργότερα.

§16 If I might just interrupt comrade. In a book like this I don’t think it unreasonable for someone else to claim the right to speak. And so, if I can take that Geroud chappie at his own word, even though I am only a sculpture, and even though you all think I don’t have a mind of my own, I would like to say something. They did say this is an anarchist space, so I’m not going to be silenced just because I’m made from steel sheeting. Perched up here, high above Lempa, I can see more or less everything that happens in this place. From my bicycle I can be the ultimate flâneur. In my last job I was a sign for Carlsberg Beer, working all God’s hours to entice people into a bar to drink, drink, drunk. In retirement I am half cut myself – only joking! – trimmed into a cyclist, riding high above the sculpture wall, looking, looking, looked. I can see Michael. He’s the ass. Aged just 44 but he looks like an ass crushed by life. He must have known this was coming. We all knew it was coming. Even I will eventually rust to nothing. But he is surprised how many people have said to him, well, Stass was old. Great joke to a grieving son, especially an ass who will feel it so acutely. But it was not the best joke they played on him. His own students did

that. It was like watching a black comedy the way they used to goad, goad, go. They did it till the ass was little more than a wounded animal, cowed by a pack of wolves. Here’s a good joke, a right one missus. No, no, no, listen, titter-ye-not! This one complains because he tells her everyone has to follow the College rules. So she decides to start a hate campaign against him, even though the rules give her the result she wants. She writes a round-robin e’mail every day, accuses him of all sorts. She calls him a misogynist bastard. And all the while Stass is in hospital, his leg slowly rotting, rotting, rotten. His whole body shaking, shaking, shaken. What a funny joke, no? Oh well, missus, suit yourself. The west wind blows in strong today, but I think my joints will hold. It blows up the valley, in from the sea, with malice in its wake. Below me I can see another Michael. Or rather the same one, but not of flesh and blood. This Michael is a sculpted yellow ass, made of concrete and steel, its arms up-stretched, braying, braying, brayed. Stass called it ‘The Art Critic’. Michael laughed with the others when he said it, but he always thought it was aimed at him. No confidence you see. It must always be aimed at him. And in the

end, didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t he deserve it anyway? Didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t he run away like a frightened ass? That student is a real wag you know. A cruel girl after my own heart. Sharp edges. Why slash just once with the blade, as Lord Horror might have said, when you can slash, slash, slashed. Today she says the ass he is putting her life in danger because the village is so dark at night. The ass promises some extra lights for the College, but he tries to explain he cannot light the whole village. Misogynist bastard. Today she complains there are no security guards at the studios and when she wants to work at night, at two or three in the morning, she is scared of the dark. The ass explains the College cannot afford security guards, the village is safe, and suggests she might work during the day instead. Misogynist bastard. Today she starts a compost bin and he asks her to move it out of the kitchen as it is attracting mice. Misogynist bastard. Today she writes to complain the winter is cold, but he says he cannot do anything about it. Misogynist bastard. Today she complains she has to pay extra for her boyfriend to stay in the College accommodation over Christmas.

Misogynist bastard. Today she complains he won’t let her keep her dog in the College accommodation. Basta! Basta! Bastard. Misogynist bastard. In better times he would laugh at these, but not day after day, with his father dying, dying, dead. Instead the west wind blows, and the ass brays in horror. Each day he is in the hospital, wondering what to say to someone who seems unable to hear. Each night he stops at the Alpha and Omega Supermarket and sits in his father’s car, in the car park, crying. He goes into the store and buys a pastry for his evening meal, then home to bed and a kind of sleep, and the next day it all begins again. When the school year comes to an end they bury his father and on the way home from the church yard the ass stops to see the students’ final show. Whisper, whisper, whispered. Together the students have made a work about him. It calls him a misogynist bastard. It says he has stolen their money. It accuses the ass of defrauding them. It says the ass is a bad son who is destroying his father’s work. All the students join in, each taking a turn to turn Lord Horror’s shiny blade, round, round, rend. They watch as he wanders through the show, pretending he hasn’t seen. Whisper, whisper, whispered. Laughter, laughter, laughed.

Three of them later ask him for a reference to say what fine people they are. A nice twist that one. No wonder he hates this place. He hates it almost as much as his father loved it.

§17 While Michael sat on the stage of the Radio Theatre talking to Mariella, Geroud was left alone in the cafeteria. The only thing that seemed in place amongst the Art Deco details of the building was the dalek. With its quintessentially British forms it seemed to share a common DNA with the stone and wood that surrounded it. The cafeteria, on the other hand, was the bastard offspring of Starbucks, more alien in that setting than any enemy of the Time Lord. Perhaps that would have been forgiven had Geroud seen anything he wanted to eat in the display case, but the pre-packaged sandwiches and the anaemic dough of the half-baked croissants, each wrapped in on itself like a baby’s limbs folded up in sleep, didn’t entice him. Peeved, he left the cafeteria and began walking around the drum of the giant news room, lit in garish red and blue with harsh neon and LEDs. He wanted to think of it as a vast void, empty of life and meaning and humanity, but in truth it was filled with people working away and the only feeling he could muster was of exclusion. It felt as though the whole world was in there and he was out here. This was what it was really like to be a Nietzschean superman, not someone transcending the world in a moment of epiphany, but an outsider, excluded and irrelevant.

Circumnavigating the drum he passed corridor after corridor radiating away like spokes on a wheel, each so alike he wondered how anyone could tell where they were in the building. It was only when he came to one of those spokes, unlike the others, that he stopped. Against the rest of the building this passageway seemed warm and welcoming, like hot Ovaltine, buttered crumpets and a real coal fire on a cold English autumn afternoon. A more cynical version of Geroud would have been suspicious it was too enticing, the lure for a trap. But this wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the cynical Geroud, not yet anyway, and he felt the pull of the lure. The corridor was dimly lit by what might have been Swanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first incandescent lightbulbs, although it equally resembled the self-conscious antiquarianism of a Hoxton hipster cafe. The walls echoed this warmth, with oak panelling, and he thought he could smell the faint waft of tobacco smoke in the air, more like pipe smoke than any modern cigarette. Behind him the television news room still blazed, but far from being the embodiment of humanity, as it had seemed only moments ago, it looked now like the violent assault on life he wanted it to be. Geroud felt vindicated. Stepping inside, Geroud immediately collided with a woman, young and pretty by the lamps in the gloom, they clasped and almost kissed.

Loosening, Geroud apologised and so did she. The papers she was carrying had fallen to the floor, and they both bent down to retrieve them, their hands fumbling together, like surrogate lovers writhing on the polished parquet floor. They both apologised again and stood, unsure what to say next. As Geroud looked at the woman he was struck by how she was not just pretty, she was stunningly beautiful, like a movie-star. In fact, under the bakelite-gloom of the strange corridor, the whole episode felt like a scene from a classic film. To break the awkward silence they both spoke at once, giving short gentle laughs at the silliness of it all. ‘You first,’ said Geroud. ‘I was going to say,’ the woman replied, ‘you must be Mr Geroud.’ Her clipped English was perfect and beautiful, as out of place in the modern BBC as that corridor. ‘I guess I must be,’ Geroud replied, unusually laconic. If the woman could have been mistaken for a character out of central casting circa 1944, Geroud was surprised to hear himself take on a new role, as suddenly as if the director had just shouted, ‘For freak’s sake man! Give it more Bogart!’ In this new script his lines seemed drafted by some Hollywood hack, newly recruited from an anonymous fifth-floor office on New York’s Lower East Side. Something had changed. ‘But I prefer just

Geroud,’ he added, as much to recover his own voice as correct her. ‘No mister.’ ‘Geroud it is then,’ agreed the woman. ‘It’s a nice name, but without mister it does make you sound rather exotic.’ Geroud was struck by the way she used the word exotic almost as a rebuke. ‘Is there anything wrong in being exotic?’ he asked, surprised by the flirtatious tone in his own voice, and suspecting the hack was writing his lines again. ‘Oh nothing at all,’ replied the woman, blushing. ‘Although I don’t suppose you want to sound too much like a genie in a lamp do you?’ ‘Don’t I?’ asked Geroud. ‘Surely anyone would like the chance to grant three wishes.’ The woman smiled. ‘Perhaps,’ she agreed, ‘although granting some people their wishes might not be so pleasant.’ ‘And for others,’ the hack wrote, ‘I reckon it’d be a real joy.’ The woman seemed to ignore Geroud’s flirting, but Geroud guessed she’d noticed it from the way she lowered her head and raised her eyes to say: ‘I really am sorry. You know, for crashing into you like that. You see, Mr Pound wanted to have all the papers ready for when you arrived, and I’m quite new here so I didn’t know where everything was kept. So you see, I was in a hurry because.’ She

trailed off. Geroud told her it was fine, and insisted the collision was more to do with his clumsiness than anything she had done. Only then did he asked her her name. ‘Andrea Waites.’ she replied. ‘Miss Andrea Waites,’ she added sheepishly as though just giving her name had been too forward. Geroud thought she sounded familiar too, like Miss Bier at front of house, except he wanted Miss Waites to be familiar. He looked behind him once more. The newsroom lights were still there, and somewhere beyond them in the darkness of the Radio Theatre Michael must still have been in intimate conversation with Mariella. But all that seemed distanced as though the corridor had lengthened since he had taken his single step into it. ‘If you wouldn’t mind waiting here for a moment,’ Miss Waites suggested, ‘I can straighten these papers out for Mr Pound and let him know you have arrived.’ Again she bowed her head and slowly raises her eyes to look up at Geroud. It was a trait that made him want to vomit when he saw women do it to other men. But Miss Waites doing it to him only made him want to roll on his back and wave his paws in the air like a besotted puppy. Instead he coughed and told her it was not a problem. ‘I will gladly wait for Miss Waites,’ he said. She smiled as

he said this, correctly guessing his gentle teasing of her name meant she had won. Geroud watched her disappear through one of the oak panel doors lining the corridor and as she did so a strange thought entered his head, almost as though it was someone elseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thought. He seemed to say to himself, she wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a proverbial hot blonde, but she was a hot brunette alright, and the way she walked would make a bishop kick a sleeping choirboy only to claim it was self-defence. For Geroud the result wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t nearly so violent. He lit a cigarette, and after so many strange events happening in less time than it took a choirboy to scream his innocence, he barely stopped to wonder how the pack got into his pocket. He just accepted it must have always been there and he must have always smoked. He leaned against the oak panelled wall and let his cheap suit chafe its well-crafted sense of refinement. He waited. He waited a long time. Standing alone in that corridor he knew Miss Waites wanted him to wait a long time and she was going to make sure he did just that. He wondered what she was doing in the office behind the door, straightening the papers like she said, or just filing her nails until the prescribed time was over. When Miss Waites returned she apologised for taking so long and for the collision once more. Somehow she seemed more sure of herself now, as

though she had gotten the measure of Geroud. Perhaps he’d missed his chance to burst into her office and surprise her, to keep her from getting too comfortable an image of him to play with. He felt he would always end up missing his chance with Miss Waites. If he had burst into her office and kissed her he would have surprised her sure enough, but it would just have confirmed what they both already knew: she had won him over. ‘Mr Pound has your papers now,’ Miss Waites said. ‘Would you follow me?’ It was an invitation Geroud couldn’t refuse. Outside another of the oak panel doors they stopped. Despite its solid wood the smell of tobacco smoke from inside leached out stronger than ever. Geroud asked Ms Waites if Pound was a pipe smoker. ‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘He likes to think of himself as a gentleman.’ She knocked twice and without waiting for an answer walked into the office on the other side. With his newly-acquired suspicious mind, Geroud couldn’t help wondering if her confidence in not waiting for a reply fitted her story she was a new girl, but he let it pass. Once inside he saw a large man sitting behind a large desk, dressed in a large suit as tweedy as the sweet odour rising as a column of smoke from the pipe he held in the cup of his left hand. He stood up to greet Geroud and held out a right hand as big as a snow shovel. Geroud had a

passing thought of Duchamp as Pound took his took hand and shook it firmly. He tried to hide his wince. ‘Delighted! Delighted to meet you,’ Pound said repeatedly, before seeming to order Geroud to sit down. Once seated Geroud looked up at Miss Waites who was still near by, more comfortable addressing her than the huge minotaur now resettling himself behind the desk. Geroud asked if they had been expecting him. ‘Of course!’ shouted Pound. ‘Of course! We’re honoured. You are down in the Radio Theatre today I believe.’ Geroud told him he was, and asked Pound with mock timidly who he was. Pound apologised for not introducing himself properly. ‘Pound,’ he answered. ‘The name’s Ezzy Pound. I sort of do things around here.’ Geroud asked him what sort of things but Pound answered vaguely, adding: ‘We all have titles of course - a manager of this or operator of that, but I suppose my role is more fluid. You could say at the moment I am – what you might call – a talent scout.’ Geroud suggested Pound might be an R&D man. ‘R&D,’ Pound repeated. ‘Yes, let’s say I am an R&D man. For today at least. Can I offer you some tea? Miss Waites would you mind?’ Miss Waites smiled again and the Bishop rolling around in Geroud’s head risked turning devil worshipper at the sight. She said she did not mind at all and both Pound and Geroud

watched her in silence as she turned, walked out through the open door and closed it behind her. Despite the presence of the huge man sat before him Geroud felt the room empty at her departure. ‘I am glad you have come to see me,’ Pound continued. ‘I want to put an idea to you.’ ‘To be honest,’ answered Geroud, ‘I’m not sure I did come to see you.’ Like Miss Waites, Pound had the ability to ignore a comment he did not take to, and carry on as though it had never been said. He offered Geroud a cigarette and Geroud accepted. He then took an ornately etched silver lighter from his waistcoat pocket and offered Geroud the flame. Again, Geroud accepted. ‘I want to make you an offer,’ said Pound taking advantage of the intimacy brought on by the mingling of smoke. ‘That’s why I asked Andrea – I mean Miss Waites – go and find you. I wanted to speak to you.’ ‘I am not sure Miss Waites did find me,’ Geroud said again. ‘Unless a cab finds its fares by running them down.’ As he spoke a faint doubt crossed his mind as to how accidental the collision had been. Pound laughed and seemed to read Geroud’s mind. ‘It all sounds like a perfectly innocent accident to me. She was in a hurry to bring me your file, and as she told you, she is new here.’ Geroud

wondered how Pound could know any of the events in the corridor. Had Miss Waites really told him what had happened over the intercom? Or had he read this script before? Pound continued: ‘Our file on you makes interesting reading Mr Geroud.’ An uneasy feeling crept over Geroud that left him no longer sure whether he was meeting an R&D man from the BBC or an inspector from MI5. ‘I am a little surprised the BBC has a file on me,’ said Geroud, fishing for a quick explanation. ‘Oh, we have a file on everyone,’ replied Pound with mock menace. He tapped his nose twice as if revealing a secret Geroud would be advised to keep to himself. ‘Whether you bought your radio licence this year, or sent a picture of a parrot made of pasta to Tony Hart in 1982. Even if you asked for a recipe leaflet from Fanny Craddock in 1974. It’s all here Mr Geroud. We know everything that really matters about you. Even your political views. If you ever wrote to complain about an interview with one politician or another, or coverage of a strike or something. It’s all useful stuff to know.’ Geroud was feeling less comfortable now and only the knock of Miss Waites at the door, carrying a tray of tea cups, curbed his instinct to run away. Miss Waites handed Geroud a cup, offered him sugar and a biscuit, and repeated the exercise with Pound. Geroud could not take his eyes from her as

she did so. It was only when he noticed Pound in the same state of mesmerism that he had to look away in embarrassment at their collective voyeurism. As Miss Waites left, closing the door again behind her, Pound asked, ‘Don’t you find that rather strange Mr Geroud?’ Geroud asked what he meant. ‘I mean,’ Pound continued with almost childish emphasis, ‘the way Miss Waites is able to carry a tray of tea with both hands full and yet manages not only to knock on the door but somehow open it, all without seeming to put anything down.’ Geroud admitted it was a remarkable feat. ‘If this were a photoplay,’ Pound suggested, ‘the knock would not be on the door anyway, and a hidden stage hand would open it for her. It’s how they avoid slowing up the action on television.’ Geroud suggested that perhaps life was imitating art. ‘Yes, perhaps,’ agreed Pound distractedly. ‘I often find it does.’ ‘But to return to your file, I will tell you something rather more interesting,’ continued Pound. ‘For most people we have very thin files. Just an annual record of their licence fee payments and a few bits of nonsense. A letter to Jim’ll Fix It, or Blue Peter, or something like that. But as you can see, your file is quite large.’ As he spoke he rested his hand on the file on his desk. Geroud recognised it as the one Miss Waites had been carrying. ‘And, not only is it a large file, it makes for quite interesting

reading. You did indeed once write to Jim’ll Fix It I see, although thankfully you had no reply. Later on quite a few complaints about programmes. You are perhaps a little harsh on Waldemar Januszczak and his young protege, but I’m afraid the reply you received was still a little too off-hand. I suppose you were really touting for a bit of work for yourself, but still it must have annoyed you.’ As Pound spoke Geroud had the same sensation of someone else’s thoughts entering his head, filling his mouth with sassier lines than he thought he’d ever speak. ‘I guess it did,’ he replied, ‘but I’m a big boy now. I only cry myself to sleep once a week.’ Pound laughed. ‘Still, something to talk about at dinner parties I imagine. How the BBC never listens.’ Geroud said he wasn’t the type of guy to get invitations like that. ‘I was never taught how to eat peas without using a spoon.’ Pound laughed again. ‘It is not just your file I found interesting,’ Pound continued. ‘It is this rather strange book you have written.’ ‘The one we are going to write you mean?’ countered Geroud. Except, he wasn’t sure if he did mean that. Explaining to Michael the shifting notions of time and space in art had seemed easy. Living it in practice was much harder.

‘Art is always easier in theory than practice,’ said Pound, seeming again to read Geroud’s thoughts. ‘That’s why artists hate theorists. They think of them as braying jackasses. Tell me, how would you categorise it? The book I mean. Fiction? Biography? Maybe even autobiography?’ ‘I try to avoid labels,’ quipped Geroud regaining some of his certainty. ‘Don’t we all, dear chap,’ Pound replied. ‘Don’t we all. We live in a time when events, experiences, even human character seem shattered into so many pieces they are all mixed up. Something to do with the war I imagine. But it makes it all rather difficult, don’t you think? I mean difficult to call a spade a spade.’ ‘I guess it does,’ agreed Geroud. ‘And that makes things rather difficult to pitch, wouldn’t you say? It’s why one needs to hand these things over to the experts.’ Geroud stared at Pound. ‘And would I be right in assuming,’ he said, ‘that you are one of those experts?’ ‘I am in a way,’ replied Pound. Geroud seemed to be looking at Pound through someone else’s eyes now, and he was not liking what he saw. It was as though he was standing in a house, looking through a window at two people talking on the street. He could hear everything they

said, and he thought he could, if he wanted to, quite easily rejoin the conversation. But for some reason he didn’t want to. He was happy to be a passenger in his own body for the duration, enjoying the ride. He wondered if this was what it was like to be possessed, by the Devil or the Muses perhaps. Some lines entered his head, ‘Sing, goddess, of the anger of Achilles and of its devastation.’ That was an invocation for the goddess Aoide to take over the poet’s body and sing through him. But what muse ever sang in the voice of a hard boiled West Coast private dick? As he thought this he wanted to shake his head, to rouse himself, and shout, ‘A West Coast private what!’ But nothing shook, no one came to his senses and no words came from his mouth. So this is more like demonic possession then, he thought, or perhaps one of his other selves taking a stint at the wheel? Another line seemed to come to him: ‘A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognise him.’ ‘I know,’ Pound continued. ‘Which is why I find it all so very interesting.’ Pound pressed a button on his desk and Geroud was immediately reminded of a Bond villain signalling the end of a conversation not with the customary handshake, but a swim in a shark-infested pool. He half expected the floor to part beneath his chair and circling fins to appear. Instead Miss Waites opened the door.

Looking at her now she seemed changed from the pretty secretary Geroud had collided with half an hour earlier into something far more suggestive. He thought she must have changed her clothes, but if she had he couldn’t remember what it was she had been wearing before. He wondered if her hair had changed too, although that certainty was also wiped from his memory. Geroud looked up at her face and at her eyes, and they were just as pretty as before, but like him, someone else, one of the other Miss Waiteses, seemed to control her body now. She too was sassier and altogether more West Coast. ‘Miss Waites, would you ask Mr Handley to come and see me? I want to introduce him to Mr Geroud here.’ ‘Of course Mr Pound,’ replied Miss Waites. ‘Everything is in a state of flux,’ said Pound almost in answer to Geroud’s thoughts again. ‘Isn’t that what Heraclitus said?’

§18 ‘What do you mean you ran away?’ ‘Process. Process.’ ‘But you said you ran away. Can you explain what you mean?’ ‘I mean. The other night I fell over in the bedroom. I stumbled and fell in the dark trying to get into bed. Clumsy really, although I have an excuse. I was in pain. Terrible toothache. An abscess. I guess I was doped up on painkillers. But I was clumsy really. I fell and when I didn’t get up Emma jumped out of bed to ask me what had happened.’ ‘Emma? Who is Emma?’ ‘My wife. Emma. My left thumb had been bent back and so I was in more pain on top of my toothache. Emma walked me to the bathroom where I ran my hand under a cold tap and I began to cry. I carried on crying back in bed. It is so many months now. This time, as I found myself making the muffled sound of pain and tears I went back to those last weeks before Stass died. Day after day in the hospital, just watching, helpless, trying to think of something to say. Nothing to say. ‘You know my mother always complained that Stass and I talked in the same mumbling tone. All the boys in the family do really. We are all mumblers, unlike my mother and sister. It annoys

them. But last night I found an echo of Stass in the sound of my pain. I once heard a comedian say one of the worst things about getting older is that when she looks in the mirror she keeps seeing her mother looking back at her. Last night I seemed to hear my father crying back at me. When I rolled over in bed and moved my arm I groaned and grunted and I heard an echo of the sound of his pain. I cried each time I moved my arm and I heard him crying when we had to lift him to sit him on the commode or move him to or from a chair. I heard him crying in the night’. ‘Don’t we all inherit traits from our parents?’ ‘Of course. In the way we walk, and express ourselves, and even how we might mumble. There’s nothing new in that. But I didn’t expect to inherit a way of crying.’ ‘Tell me about those last few days of his life? Is that what you meant about running away?’ ‘Stass lay on his bed in the makeshift bedroom we had set up downstairs. We could barely lift him from bed to chair, so getting upstairs would have been impossible. The whole room stank of shit and iodine. My mother had insisted we bring Stass’s own bed from Larnaca to Paphos, to try to make him more comfortable. Her bed was brought too, and we set it up next to his, like the biers in the Arundel

tomb. But my mother wasn’t there. She was in hospital herself by then. The stress was proving too much for her. So I slept next to Stass instead, reaching out to hold his hand whenever he cried out, which happened throughout the night.’ ‘But you said you ran away.’ ‘Two days later, I returned to England. I told myself it was make the arrangements for Stass and my mother to follow me. I told Stass that too. And I really believed it. I really believed it. But I also felt relief to get away from all the horror. I was exhausted. Unable to cope anymore. I can dress it up however I want to, but whatever way I look at it, I ran away. ‘When I got back to England I spent the day calling British Airways, and the NHS helpline, and other people to make sure we could get Stass on a flight to England and that he would be eligible for medical treatment here. But that evening my brother Paul called me to say Stass had died.’

Â§19 Is that my cue? Yes? Thank you. It must be twenty years, or more, since I was buried here, my bones beneath so many other bones, one on top of the other, layer after layer, waiting the moment of resurrection. Twenty years ago at least, when that moment seemed at hand, when we were lifted from that dungeon, damp and decrepit, and laid in this dry place. But that was not our resurrection, only the move from a pauperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grave to an ossuary. My companions here are not unkind, and sometimes we talk of our different times, mine in the white Cypriot sun, where day by day I grew. With that growth came knowledge and experience and I became aware of myself. I was always worth more than a spiral binding, now rusted and brittle, and paper cheap and thin. My ink was too cheap and artificial, unctuous like crude oil, and the hand that wrote my fable almost childlike in the way it formed the words. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no calligraphy here! But none of us can change our DNA, and this is what I am. Once I was beautiful enough to entice an artist to take me in his hand and form me like Prometheus into something living. But no, that is not true. Stass did not choose his materials for their beauty, but their use. For him a sheet of schoolroom

copy paper was as good a form as finest Hampshire parchment, better perhaps as he seemed to distrust anything too new or fine. And so, on this body, he made me. I hear voices. A woman and a man. The muffled words grow stronger, and in the voices of my comrades here there is a mumbled hope of resurrection. The weight of all the dead generations weighing heavy for so long is slowly lifted, and we each in turn drift upward, upward like winged angels wafted up to Heaven, singing: In Heaven we shall live again As we did at our creation; And time shall yield its claim on us, And return us to perfection. Now the voices are clear, light streams on my dry bones, they crack a little to be lifted, but the light brings me back to life and I can see them, the man and woman, sitting in a living room, on a sofa, side by side, but not close enough to be intimate. They seem nervous of each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s company. Looking around I can see the sofa is old. I am placed a moment on its armrest, stained with tea and coffee, its fabric worn through and I wince slightly. On the floor there is a carpet, but it too is threadbare. It must have once been honey coloured,

but now it’s as dark as Daddies Sauce, and only the edges, hugging walls for safety, show its former colour. The woman is pretty, the man is not. Perhaps that is why he seems the more nervous of the two. He picks me up again and hands me over to her. ‘Look at this,’ he says. ‘It’s a diary.’ She starts to read.

Â§20 20th July 1968: In Larnaca, Cyprus. Mary, the children and myself went to explore the town. I wanted to see what had changed. St Lazarus Square has changed a lot since old days. The long lean columns and colonnade has gone and the giant gate to the south of the church has been demolished. An ornate plaque tells us this modernisation has been carried out at the expense of one of the hotels on the square, which just happens to give residents at the hotel an uninterrupted view of St Lazarus Church. We headed to the beach where Margaret and I went for a walk and found sixpence in the sand. I used it to buy Margaret an ice cream. Martin and Christine joined us at the beach. Martin was wearing a shirt and his swimming trunks but no trousers. He sat on a stone for five minutes, then took his shirt off and walked two or three yards into the shallow sea to a point where the water covered his feet well below the knee. He sat down, wet his trunks, got up, and then very slowly walked out again. He put his shirt on, lit a cigarette, sat on the same stone for a few minutes more and went home again. Martin had been for a swim.â&#x20AC;Š

§21 21st July 1968: I woke up very early and sat listening to a music programme on the radio. An unstamped envelope addressed to “Mr Paraskos Ici” was thrown in under the floor. No doubt an abusing letter I thought. It was only a note from Martin which ran like this: “Dear Stass (my business partner). A list of things I need: 1. Typewriter for a day or an evening. 2. Anthology of modern Cypriot poetry, to translate. 3. The Archbishop. 4. Rimbaud’s mountain. 5. Paphos. Other things possibly later. We must get this book right (a) to produce a good book; (b) to possibly produce a best seller to make our fortunes. I sharpen my pencil, half way.”

§22 22nd July 1968: Martin and myself went to Nicosia early to hang my exhibition. The pictures were already hung so we spent the time drinking in different places. We even had two very expensive beers in the Hilton. By 5pm Martin was very drunk. I wasn’t so bad because I did not drink as much and also because of a neurotic anxiety I get every time I have a new exhibition. We went back to the gallery to wait for the guests and the Minister of Education, who was to open the show with a short speech. On the right hand side wall as you go through the main entrance to the Hilton Hotel is an instrument which looks like a telephone except that instead of the receiver it has a hand microphone attached to it. I pointed it out to Martin who immediately picked it up and announced, ‘I am here!’ Seconds later a uniformed bellboy came running towards us. Martin said he wanted to see the manager. When the manager arrived Martin said that we had spent the whole day preparing a good exhibition for the benefit of the hotel and its customers. Now it was the turn of the manager to do something for us. Martin put forward three demands on behalf of both of us: first that the manager shows

us where to have a bath; second that he sees that our shoes are shined; and third that we have two free drinks. Each. The manager gave us a professional smile, showed us where to have a shower, promised to see to the rest of our needs and disappeared. Next time we saw him was three days later when we went to check if we had sold any paintings. We did not remind him of his broken promise as concerned the shoeshine and free drinks. Martin went for a shower and I for a three shilling coffee (tip included). When we met again we discovered that Martin had lost his last six shillings. We both went to the showers looking for it, but some bloody millionaire staying in the hotel must have found it first.

Â§23 26th July 1968: In the evening Martin and me were drinking beer outside Xenouâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. After a few pints Martin announced that he was taking Christine to town for a week, excused himself and went to collect her from their house across the road. A few minutes later I saw them walk together towards the town. 30 to 40 yards away Martin lost his balance and then went from one side of the road to the other hitting walls and hedges. When he went to collect Christine he must has swallowed a bottle of brandy in a matter of minutes. Both Martin and Christine hide bottles of brandy in the house. I think this is done to protect each other from excessive drinking, but in reality it just means there is a lot of alcohol around for them both to drink.â&#x20AC;Š

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§24 1st August 1968: One the plans before we came to Cyprus was that Martin and me would live in a monastery for a week. It was time to pay a visit to one of these monasteries to see what they are like. We chose Stavrovouni, which is visible from our street and is only 25 miles north-west of Larnaca on top of a 2000 foot mountain. We hired a taxi that drove us up the primitive and dangerous road. On arrival we were greeted by a notice at the entrance which informed us in Greek and English that entry to the monastery was strictly prohibited to people not decently dressed. “No lipstick, no short sleeves and no short trousers” the sign read. The monk in charge offered to lend Martin and Christine long sleeved shirts but we carried jackets and jumpers in the boot of the car and put these on. Despite the heat Mary put her overcoat on. Martin spent all his time up there feeding about fifteen cats with cheese, much to the disgust of two peasant women. Later at lunch Martin disappeared to the toilets. He was gone a long time and after a while Christine went to find him. When she returned she said Martin had lost his tool in his trousers and couldn’t urinate.

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ยง25 3rd August 1968: I went to collect the pictures from the Hilton for my next exhibition in Larnaca. I could only carry about half of them in the taxi. I was told that one of the paintings was bought by the Ministry of Education for the Presidential Palace but I did not know which one. A few days later I went to Nicosia again to fetch the rest of my paintings. A message said that if I take the painting bought for the President to the Palace I will get paid. My inquiries to find out which one it was proved that I had already taken it to Larnaca a few days before. I promised to bring it back when the exhibition in Larnaca was over. My exhibition in Larnaca was opened in the Four Lanterns by Mr Demetriou, the Minister of Commerce and Industry, who comes from Larnaca. Very poor attendance - mostly children. The only fun I had out of the show was from a little scandal. Neither the Mayor nor the members of his City Council showed up as they should have done, this being the normal thing when a cabinet minister is performing a function. Some people thought the Mayor was offended because he was not invited to open the exhibition himself. But I joked that I thought a more likely explanation was that I had sent the invitations

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to the wrong place. In the back of my mind I wondered if my joke was true, but later I was told these eminent local dignitaries refused to appear because I did not invite them personally. Apparently the Mayor said: ‘I found a little card on my desk. Do you call this an invitation?’ Some people said he went fishing instead, and that the starting of his motorboat was timed to coincide with the Minister's speech. I was standing next to the Minister while he was making his speech when Paulo came to join me and asked very loudly: ‘What is he talking about?’ As I wasn’t paying attention to the Minister I could not tell him.

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ยง26 8th August 1968: Martin went for a swim and nearly drowned. He had to be carried ashore by two men.

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§27 12th August 1968: We all went to the cinema and saw The Long Arm of the Law which we enjoyed enormously. But all the way home we had been closely followed by six youths who were making remarks about Christine and Mary which spoiled our conversation and our enthusiasm for the funniest scenes from the film. We pretended not to notice them although my blood was boiling with anger. At some stage I heard Martin ask Christine in a whisper whether he should scare them off with his schoolmaster voice. This alarmed me because two of the youths were almost twice the size of Martin. Apart from this we had the children with us and there was nobody else about at that midnight hour. However we continued our walk without incident until we came to our house. Martin’s place is only about 100 yards away from mine but we are separated by a corner. When we branched off I thought all the thugs followed Martin and Christine, I rushed Mary and the children in and turned around to see if the rest of the company was all right. To my uncontrollable anger I saw one of the youths standing opposite my house under a street lamp. Automatically I picked up a large stone from the ground, shouted in Greek, ‘Did you have a good look?’ and threw it at him with all my might. I missed,

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but I made him run towards the others, with me right on his heels in hot pursuit, armed with two more of the stones which abound in our unpaved street. When I turned the corner I shouted to Martin, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Catch the bastards,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; at the same time discharging my load of stones and swearing violently. I saw Martin make a move but they were too fast for us and escaped towards the beach. Poor Christine, who did not realise what was happening, was terrified. When she saw them running she thought they were making an attack on her and Martin. In the meantime the whole neighbourhood woke up and people came out in their pyjamas and underwear. Others were looking out of their windows. After we were assured by the neighbours that thugs like that will not be allowed in the neighbourhood any more, we went to sleep. But in the confusion I failed to inform Christine of this assurance and next morning I heard that she sat up all night with the strong stick by her side waiting for an assault.

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§28 14th August 1968: Martin, myself, Stanley and Margaret went to town to send a telegram to Kevin Crossley-Holland of Macmillan’s: ‘Desperate money. Telegraph Arts Council grant.’ Before we returned, we checked to see if any of my pictures had sold. We found the gallery was open but in darkness with all the curtains drawn and lights out. Gave up hope of any sale. Very depressed. The front page of a local newspaper carried a photograph of Mr Roy Jenkins, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, over a caption saying that he is holidaying in Kyrenia and that he is staying in the Dome Hotel. Martin suggested that we go and see him and ask him to cash a cheque for us. Perhaps we could hire a photographer to take photographs of him which we could flog to a British newspaper. My idea was to send him an invitation to the exhibition. On this last idea, not requiring travel and expense, we acted immediately. I asked the hotel receptionist for paper and an envelope and wrote a short note to Mr Jenkins. Mr Jenkins and myself are not complete strangers. He was the Home Secretary in 1966 when two of my paintings were seized from a Leeds exhibition by the police and I was accused and

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subsequently convicted of indecency under the Vagrancy Act. After my conviction I wrote to the MP Tom Driberg giving him the facts of the case and he kindly took the matter up with the Home Office. A few days later he wrote saying, amongst other things, that: ‘I feel sure that had the decision to prosecute or not to prosecute been within the discretion of the Home Secretary there would have been no prosecution. ‘The main positive thing which Mr Jenkins said was this: I am to let him know when you next have an exhibition of your paintings in London, and he will make a point of coming along to see them.’ In my invitation note I reminded Mr Jenkins of this episode.

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§29 16th August 1968: 7am, visited by Martin. He had telegram from Kevin Crossley-Holland saying Arts Council is contacting him directly. I expressed the fear that this money will not arrive before we leave the island. But Martin disagreed and said that it will be here any day, probably that same day. He proceeded to tell me about his excellent economic prospects for the next few days and composed a number of telegrams he was despatching to different good friends in London who were going to rush to the rescue. This ritual happens every time he wants to borrow a pound. We went to Xenou’s grocery shop and made three telephone calls. First one to the bank: did they have any money for Mr Bell? The answer was no. Next call to the gallery. Did they sell any pictures? The answer was no. And the third call was to Hilton hotel in Nicosia: did they receive the money for the picture sold to the Ministry of Education? The answer, once more, was no. Martin wondered aloud how much credit could one have at Xenou’s and ordered a pint bottle of beer. He had no money at all and I was down to my last 30 shillings, although I tried to give him the impression I was completely broke. In our depression we drank the beer very quickly and

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Martin ordered several other bottles which stood open on our table. He said he feels insecure if he sees only one bottle in front of him. Then he confided in me that Christine did not have anything to eat for the previous 24 hours. He himself could take hunger, but Christine…. She is such a good girl and, apart from her teeth, very attractive too. I could see tears clouding his eyes and I felt embarrassed. Tears from a grown man always make me feel uncomfortable. He went on to tell me that he met Christine on a visit to Edinburgh. She was already living with a man, but when Martin got back to London he sent her some poems just the same. He said the nasty boyfriend made her write a very rude letter to him which caused her to break their association. Some time later there was a poetry festival at London’s Albert Hall. He went there hoping to meet her and, miraculously, did meet her in the bar. After that they went off and stayed together. He asked if I knew how he had met his first wife. He said he went to the Duke of York, a pub off Charlotte Street in London, for a drink and met this girl who said she was pregnant. He liked her, so he told her, ‘Okay, I’ll look after you.’ Her baby was a girl and later she had another daughter, this time with Martin. They had an agreement between them that they should stay

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together until the children grew up. This made him work as a teacher for 20 years, hating every minute of it. His wifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ambition on the other hand was to become a teacher herself. The strange thing was that, in the year they separated, he gave up teaching while his wife had qualified and got a teaching job. When he told his wife about Christine she said that it was a typical case of an old man falling in love with the young girl. He is 27 years old than Christine and 10 years older than his wife. I lent Martin a pound and immediately he went home. A few minutes later he came back and finished his beer.

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§30 17th August 1968: Mary and myself went to Nicosia to take the President’s painting hoping that we might meet him. At the Hilton Hotel, where we went first, we were presented to a Mr Pavlos who said he would take the picture to the presidential Palace himself. He also took with him a receipt he asked me to sign saying I had received the sum of £60. Half an hour later he returned and with a serious expression informed me that there had been a mistake. (I assumed the worse). The price of the sold picture in the exhibition catalogue, he said, was marked for £75 while on my receipt I put £60. Since the Archbishop had already authorised payment of £75 do I mind accepting that? I said that I did not mind at all and that the last thing I wanted to do was get anyone into trouble. He paid me, and Mary and I went to town for a double lunch each.

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Â§31 19th August 1968: We all went to the Troodhos mountains by taxi to see where Rimbaud worked when he was in Cyprus. We set off from Larnaca at 7:30am and arrived at about 12 noon, after two stops. Martin was drunk and slept part of the way in spite of the noise from the children. 15 miles from Larnaca we ran over a snake crawling across the main road. On arrival we decided to look up Mr Pefkios Georgiades, an architect we met at my exhibition who is working for the Ministry of Education and is on holiday with his family up there. We had some difficulty finding his bungalow because there are quite a few of these government residences spread on several hills. They are lent to civil servants for their vacations. Another difficulty was that we did not know our friendâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rank and since protocol was observed in allocating these houses we did not know where to look for him. The higher ranks in the service stay nearer the summit, with Government House, which Rimbaud helped to build, standing high above them all for use by the President and senior ministers. Luckily we met our friend outside a shop which sold everything from toys to coffee and alcoholic drinks. He was pleased to see us and

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bought drinks all round. He also suggested we should stay a few days, so we paid our taxi driver and sent him back to Larnaca. We went to our friendâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s place for lunch. The table was laid under a group of high pine trees and he barbecued meat for us on an open fire built outdoors. My son Paulo said he was not going to eat mucky meat cooked in that way and the other children made similar remarks. But the meat was delicious and the rest of us ate with great appetite. In fact, for a couple of hours, we ate everything our friend could produce as soon as it came from the fire. We also drank a lot of his excellent wine, except Martin who drank brandy and a very strong alcoholic drink made in Cyprus called zyvania. That was a mistake. Suddenly Martin decided he wanted to go home. He was offered a bed to rest for a couple of hours but insisted on going home to sleep in his own bed. Luckily Christine was able to get him inside and put him to bed where he fell asleep. Free from Martin the rest of us went exploring and we found a hotel called the Jubilee that gave residents the choice to sleep inside in its rooms, or outside under the trees in tents. We chose the tents. Unfortunately the time we chose to visit our friend was not happy one for him. His wife, who was pregnant, had suffered a haemorrhage a few days

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earlier, and had only got out of bed on the day of our arrival. A little son of his, who suffers from a very serious illness, caught cold and was complaining of a pain on the left side of his waist. Our friend’s elderly mother was also ill and kept going to bed for a little rest every half hour or so. Our arrival clearly did not make things easier for them. Our kids are noisy and very curious with other people’s property. Coffee was spilt, cakes and biscuits eaten, and antique plates were broken. When Christine informed everybody that the toilet was broken I felt ashamed and offered to try and fix it. ‘I’m very good at this sort of job,’ I said. Christine and the children followed me and we crowded the lavatory to capacity. It seems that that a link in the mechanism that controls the water supply to the toilet had broken off and disappeared down the drain. Of course I could not fix it and fearing more disaster I suggested we cut our losses and head for the hotel. Christine went to wake up Martin but he would not come out. He wanted another brandy and a cigarette. Christine came out to borrow my matches. In my mind’s eye I imagined the little house going up in flames. There was no fire, but Martin’s demands increased and his language became stronger. He would only go to Leeds and to no other place he insisted. In the meantime three of the children had

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disappeared into the forest. I thought if I take a walk while waiting for Martin’s decision as to whether he would get out of bed or not, I could look for the children. It was getting dark and Mary was worried. Passing round of the side of the house I saw through a window our friend’s wife struggling to mend the toilet. I moved on quickly. The children were not to be found anywhere. I shouted out their names and searched until I was exhausted, but no use. Mary and our hosts joined the search. Some time later Christine came out of the house, but she was raging with anger, swearing and cursing Martin. He humiliates her and makes her violent, she said, everywhere they go. She suggested that I go and shout at him to get out, or else we could just drag him out by his hands and feet. I declined both ideas and suggested instead that Christine join the search for the children. All the while Martin could be heard shouting for her and cursing. The missing children were found half a mile down the hill playing by a stream. When we got back to the house it was 7pm and Martin was still in bed. Christine was still eager for me to go into the bedroom and shout at Martin, and by now I was very annoyed at all that had happened and was ready to quarrel with him. I marched into the bedroom and said, ‘Martin we’ve got to go now.’ Without a word of

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protest Martin jumped up from the bed with the word, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Right!â&#x20AC;&#x2122; On the veranda I apologised to our hosts for all the trouble we had caused and thanked them for their hospitality. As we were driven to our hotel I noticed Martin carrying a large bottle of brandy he had somehow acquired from the house. When the hotel management gave us the choice of staying indoors or out, we chose two tents outside, one for Martin and Christine and the other for Mary, myself and the children. After dinner we all went straight to bed at 9pm, and I was hoping for a long sleep in those peaceful surroundings after the trying day. But it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t to be. Martin, having slept most of the day, drank his brandy and talked to himself or to Christine right through the night. This did not seem to stop any of the children sleeping as soon as they hit their beds, but it was impossible for me. After some maddening sleepless hours, I left the tent and walked up a hilltop where the only sound I could hear was the lovely breathing of the pine trees. There I slept on the ground until dawn. I watched the moon go down and then the sun rise before I went back to the tent. I also made a decision: never to travel with Martin Bell again. At noon we went to the centre of the small resort to get a taxi back home. Pefkios came to say

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goodbye and we learned that his wife was losing blood again. This made me take another decision: not to speak to Bell again.

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§32 21st August 1968: Early morning visit by Martin. He wanted me to ring up the bank to see if his money had arrived. He was so drunk that he could just about stand on his feet. Together we went around to Xenou’s shop where the telephone is and rang up. There was no money. Martin ordered drinks and suggested that we go to town and send a telegram to Charles Osborne of the Arts Council to see what is happening. I agreed. Anthony Vernis, an old school teacher of mine and a friend, came to join us. Conversation turned to the events in Czechoslovakia, which was invaded by the Russians. We decided to send a letter of protest to a newspaper. We composed several, some in Greek and some in English, and signed them. But we could not decide how to describe ourselves; were we ‘Communists’, ‘ex-Communists’, ‘Marxists’, ‘moderates’, ‘liberals’, or what? Martin declared himself an ex-communist and a music critic, and signed himself accordingly. Following his lead I declared myself an anarchist and an artist and we ordered more drinks. We stuffed the letters in our pockets ready to post, but they remained there until the end of our stay and were never sent. Suddenly Martin remembered that a ‘certain party’ was bullying him and so he wanted to borrow

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a pound to take to her. I obliged and Martin disappeared with my money for the rest of the day.

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Â§33 22nd August 1968: I went to the beach with the family. An hour later Christine came to remind me of an arrangement I had with Martin to go to town to see if the money from the Arts Council had arrived. Martin also needed some shoes, and to send telegrams to Charles Osborne and Peter Porter. Martin was supposed to be waiting for me on the steps of my house, but he was not there so I went to his place and found him lying on his bed stone drunk. He must have drunk a bottle of brandy in the half hour between Christine leaving him and my arrival. Christine made several attempts to get him up, but he would not move. I saw her getting angry and went across to Xenouâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s for a drink; I did not wish to witness the scene. From there I could hear shouting and fighting. When the bus came I shouted Christine to leave him alone and that I could do the job by myself. She came to the door and I saw that she was in tears. Later I wrote a letter to Peter Porter for whom Martin has a special affection: Dear Peter. Our journey is beginning to turn into a nightmare. Martin has been drunk at all hours of

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every day we have been here and you can imagine what this has done to his health. He begins the day with brandy before sunrise, turns to beer, then onto ouzo and back to brandy again at night. The only break from drinking he has is during the few hours he sleeps. As for food, he doesn’t touch it unless Christine forces him to. All this leads to fights – sometimes violent – between himself and Christine which is not doing any good to anybody’s morale and dignity. He has weakened himself so much that even going to the local cinema by taxi makes him tired. Another complication that makes things worse is a serious shortage of money. All he received since we arrived was a small sum from Leeds University. I have lent him about £100 which was meant for my fare back home, and so now I am broke myself and also stranded. For this reason I have written to my bank asking for new fares in spite of an agreement I have made with them that if I needed to borrow more I would leave immediately for England. Martin and Christine have paid for their return fares but they need extra cash to pay some bills they have run up. They also need spending money for the journey home, which takes six days. Do you think you can hurry the Arts Council to send the £200 they have promised him?

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I hate to alarm you but I think that the sooner we leave Cyprus the better. Martin has promised to see a doctor about his alcoholism as soon as we return. Regards to your family. With all respect, Stass Paraskos

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Â§34 23rd August 1968: My ex-teacher Anthony came to see me this morning and brought two judges from the law courts and their wives with him. One of them, Judge George Pikes, comes from my village and is the youngest judge Cyprus has ever seen. He is also a relative by marriage, having married my cousin last month. They left with two pictures, both bought by Judge George, who said he will send the money with Anthony. With the opportunity of this visit I also gave his wife a framed drawing as a wedding present. Afterwards, Martin and I paid our daily visit to the bank to find out if his money had arrived. Martin was in his slippers because he had no shoes. There was no money at the bank and so we went to the Larnaca Taverna on the seafront and drank beer. Martin talked to me about â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The Groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, a poetry society he had helped to start, but he confided to me that he had been very treacherous to the other members. After he got what he wanted (he did not specify what, but I understood that this was Christine) he dissolved in the group. I was amused to hear Martin say this because all the other members of this group I have ever met seemed to me to be smarter, tougher and certainly more successful then he has ever been.

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Some are now well-known personalities in the world of criticism and journalism. A group of young women passed by and I remarked that one of them looked like somebody we know. At this Martin turned down the edges of his mouth, showed his front teeth and after a pause said he would kill me if I slept with Christine. His mouth always takes this shape when he becomes emotional. My son Stanley says Martin gets it from the cats that seem to be attracted to him when he sleeps and of which he is especially fond. I protested that I am not in the habit of sleeping with my friendâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wives, no matter what the temptation. This incident did not surprise me much because I know Martin to be very possessive where Christine is concerned. On several occasions when we have sat drinking on his verandah he has insisted on Christine going to bed with him when he was unable to continue, just so she would not stay up with me. At other times, when Christine was on the beach, and we sat outside Xenouâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, he would interrupt his drinking every so often to go and see what she was doing. Once he even told me, with some malice, that Stanley, who is 11 years old, is in love with Christine. On leaving the Larnaca Tavern Martin was too drunk to walk home and so we crossed the road to catch a taxi outside the hotel where I had my

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exhibition. As we passed by the wife of the owner saw me and called me to say that I had a letter. It was from Mrs Roy Jenkins thanking me for the invitation to her husband and regretting that they couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t visit Larnaca to see my pictures because their stay in Cyprus was short and the drive to Larnaca too long. As soon as we got back to my place Martin proceeded to finish off a bottle of ouzo he had left there before we went into town. I read two letters I found on the table. One was from my bank manager in England saying he was not in a position to meet my request for more money until my overdraft was paid off. The other letter was from Eric White of the Arts Council. Every time this good man writes to me he gives some friendly words and cheerful information. This time he said that Martinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s confirmation letter had been sent and all Martin had to do now was to write back to say he accepts the grant he has been offered. After that a cheque will follow. I tried to make Martin write the letter of acceptance to send to the Arts Council but he said he was not in a writing mood. Instead he drank some more ouzo and fell asleep on the chair. Christine tried to wake him up but it was no good. We decided that I should write a letter and get him to sign it in the morning. With Christine writing and I dictating we began like this:

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Dear Sir. I am very grateful to the Arts Council...

At this Martin jumped up shouting that he is not grateful to anybody and swearing violently against us, the Arts Council and the ever-gentle Eric White. In this state he managed to find his way out of my place and disappeared up the street. A few moments later we heard him scream, like somebody being attacked. Christine ran out after him saying he has fallen down again. In the evening Martin came to see me. From his fall he was badly cooked on the forehead, nose and around a blood-red left eye. His upper lip was also swollen and he looked in a terrible state. He wanted me to go round to Xenou’s to buy him a bottle of ouzo because in the condition his face was in he did not dare go himself. I said I’ll do it if we write the letter to the Arts Council. He answered that he would write the letter if I buy the ouzo first. We compromised: young Stanley would go for a bottle of beer which we’d drink while writing the letter together. As soon as he had finished writing the letter I promised I would go for the ouzo. And so it was done. We posted the letter in the little yellow postbox round the corner and then all sat down to celebrate this event with ouzo and beer, drinking

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until well into the night as though it was a major achievement.â&#x20AC;Š

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Â§35 26th August 1968: Martinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face is terribly swollen. He refuses to see a doctor on the grounds that his powers of recovery are enormous. We talked at length about three new cat friends he has made. This was a day of the cats. First thing in the morning the children and I found an abandoned kitten on the beach. Stanley put it in his inflatable rubber boat to try to get it around some rocks in the sea, but it managed to fall overboard. The little thing looked terrible and was shivering when we fished it out and got it safely to the beach. Word was sent to Christine and she came running with some bread for it to eat. Then she left only to return a few minutes later with a packet of butter. She sat on the sand, the kitten in her lap, dipping her finger into the butter and feeding the cat. Later she was joined by Englishwoman in a bikini whom we had seen on the beach several times before. We knew her vaguely and called her the army wife because she was the wife of an English soldier serving at the British base. Eventually the army wife picked up the kitten and said she was going to take it home with her. As she passed by me she stopped and asked if I had been trying to drown it. I tried to explain the accident but it didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t sound convincing. When she had gone Christine said the army wife had

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taken the cat because she had said we could not be trusted to look after it properly. That evening we all had dinner in the yard of a small restaurant called the Garden of Allah but a more appropriate name would have been the garden of cats. Half a dozen of them sat begging at our feet during the meal. Martin also brought up the subject of his three new cat friends several times. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Duckie, it breaks your heart to make friends with cats and then to have to leave them.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; All evening Martin, Christine and the children had a great time playing with the restaurant cats, to the great annoyance of Mary who saw a health hazard in handling and feeding dirty animals with the same fingers one uses to eat. Christine remarked about a large ginger tomcat sitting on the restaurant wall. Martin said there was no such thing as a ginger tomcat â&#x20AC;&#x201C; all ginger cats are female he said. Christine accused him of being dogmatic. In a small place like Cyprus, she said, where cats inbreed like mad, everything is possible. Martin pleaded that even if that is true she must not demolish a view he had held for over twenty years. The argument went on, Lasting until the end of a very long dinner.

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§36 27th August 1968: The house next to Xenou’s is owned by a man named George. He has a long record of prison sentences for political crimes, like singing The Internationale, marching without permission and protesting outside government offices. Every night he sits outside Xenou’s shop and tell stories of his adventures if there is an audience who will listen; if not he just sleeps on his chair. He does not drink or smoke because he has stomach ulcers, but Martin has grown very fond of him and asked him to write a short autobiography which he will use in his book. While we were sat with George a very pious old woman, whom we see regularly going about her business, came up to us to tell us that she was worried because her employer had asked her to go to work at 6am the next day. This was too early for the first bus, so George, speaking in his best Byzantine Greek advised her to go home, kneel in front of her bed, put her hands together in prayer, and say to God: ‘Dear God, who created the fleas to benefit mankind with their warm and nourishing milk, send me Nathaniel’s Wings to carry me over to my Englishwoman master.’ As I translated the prayer for Martin the old woman walked away cursing George for his blasphemy.

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George and Xenou are very old friends and one can see their sympathy for each other is a very deep. But there are arguments as well, especially about prices. Xenou is very forgetful and tends to mix the prices of her goods up. George on the other hand, despite being a communist, is very money conscious and very good at sums. The argument this time was about how much George owed Xenou. George said it was 3/6 and explained why. Xenou insisted it was 3/8 and proceeded to tell him an Aesopian tale about a stubborn peasant like himself. Her story went like this: ‘A peasant was walking to his field with his wife when, somewhere ahead of them, they saw what looked like a group of animals sitting under a tree. The peasant said to his wife, “Look at those stray sheep, I wonder who they belong to.” The wife replied, “They are not sheep. Can’t you see their wings and that they are walking on two legs?” In going a little closer some of the creatures flapped their wings and flew away. “There, you see!” said the wife. “They are not sheep, they are birds because they fly.” But the peasant just replied, “I can see they can fly, but I tell you they are still sheep.”’

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Â§37 28th August 1968: We all went to Kyrenia by bus for the day. We took the long way round, via Nicosia, because the short way has been closed by the Turks. This was everybodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first visit to the celebrated little town. Before we set off I made up my mind not to like it, and I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. But neither did the rest of our company. Passing outside the Dome Hotel Martin remembered Roy Jenkins and went in to see him. Unfortunately Jenkins had left the day before. At least that is what the manager told him, but perhaps he thought Martin was an assassin with his bruised face, dark glasses and breath reminiscent decomposed pickled peppers. Martin was already drunk by this time having spent the journey drinking from a small bottle of brandy. As we walked from the hotel towards the beach Martin fell down, hurting himself again, and had to be helped to his feet. Later, as we waited for the bus to take us home, Martin caused great offence to the other passengers by urinating against a wall in the open-air bus station.

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Â§38 31st August 1968: Within one day I recognised in the street two government ministers and the chairman of the state broadcasting authority, and I managed to secure a promise to be taken to see the President of Cyprus as soon as he returns from abroad. That is how small Cyprus is, and people are still very familiar with those in power. While I talked to the Minister of Commerce and Industry a man passing by patted him on the shoulder and said he would buy him a beer next time he is in town. At home we received two letters from John, a friend in Leeds, saying he will be arriving in Cyprus on Monday and staying with us for eight days. One was posted in Glasgow and the other in Beirut. This created some panic because this particular friend is a very indiscreet homosexual and a noisy drinker. When he drinks he sings a repertoire of Communist, obscene and religious songs which are bound to contravene the laws on blasphemy or at least upset the locals. In Leeds he also has the habit of taking round to Martinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s place every young man he picks up in the local pubs. If he does the same thing here, in this suspicious and nosy neighbourhood, then God help us!

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Â§39 1st September 1968: Christine and I had some wicked thoughts about Johnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s arrival. Could we let him eat unwashed peaches sprayed with insecticides, or perhaps just give him a dose of mild poison that might incapacitate him for eight days? At the very least, Christine suggested, we should book him into the most expensive hotel in town so he might run out of money and leave early. The best suggestion was to manufacture mysterious documents in Greek, plant them on him, and then send him into the Turkish quarter in the hope he might be arrested as a spy.

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ยง40 2nd September 1968: John arrived late in the afternoon. Martin and I went with him to St Lazarus Square in the old part of Larnaca, where we booked him a room at 7/- a night. Then we sat on the veranda of a restaurant facing the church of St Lazarus and had dinner and drinks. Martin and John ate with their fingers and sung The Internationale and The Red Flag several times. Halfway through dinner John saw some youths in a coffeehouse across the street playing one of those abominable games on an electrified table and went to join them. I feared he was about to create an incident by some indecent suggestion. St Lazarus is an area frequented mostly by peasants from the surrounding villages who have very strong views against homosexuality. The hypocrisy of Cypriots towards sex is extraordinary. There is an apparent attitude of protectiveness towards the female members of the family but this results in a lack of basic human rights for women, while young men are forgiven and allowed everything they can get away with, except of course any hint of homosexuality. I remember that before prostitution was outlawed in Cyprus teenage boys from the villages would save their money until they had 5/-. Then they would catch the village bus

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to St Lazarus Square from where they would run an early-morning and indiscreet race to the brothel in Water Street, much to the disgust of the townspeople. In Water Street they all queued noisily to have sex with the same woman, before returning to the village chewing bunches of parsley which was believed ward off VD.

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§41 6th September 1968: Martin, John and I went to Nicosia to collect a selection of poems Mr Panos Joannides had promised us for Martin’s book. Mr Joannides is a Cypriot poet and high official in the broadcasting authority. We were offered drinks – beer and brandy – in his office before an English speaking technician was found to show us around the studios. John touched every switch in sight, so I wondered whether Cyprus would be left without television that night. He also took a liking to a man described has the ‘hole maker’, which for some reason meant he wrote the subtitles in Greek for foreign films. Later, at the bus station, Martin was shaking badly and needed assistance to get down the three steps from the bus to the street. We got him a large brandy at a cafe nearby and this seemed to help. With Martin now in a better state we visited the Ministry of Education where we met our friends Pefkios and Panayiotis Serghis, and were given poems by the Minister’s private secretary. Pefkios and Panayiotis took us to lunch in a place full of songbirds in cages. I remembered the last time I ate here one of the cages contained a large black snake. Over lunch Pefkios asked John questions about his life, and John mentioned that he had been

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a scoutmaster. Pefkios recalled the story Martin had told him on our visit to the mountains about knowing a scoutmaster who was a homosexual. Martin pretended not to know anything about the story, but he had told it and it was obvious to everyone that it was about John. As we said our goodbyes Panayiotis said he’d try to arrange for Martin and me to see the President. Before heading back to Larnaca we stopped to have a few expensive drinks at the People’s Bar in Nicosia. A dissatisfied Martin declared, ‘The People’s Bar is deepest pink, it’s not as red as people think.’

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§42 7th September 1968: The comments of some of our neighbours in Larnaca have not always being kind. At Xenou’s a woman said, ‘I did not see her clean her house in two months,’ about Christine. ‘And you can smell ouzo when you pass by on the street.’ Another neighbour stopped me in the bank and said, ‘Your wife allows the children to wander anywhere they like. I suppose that’s how Englishwomen bring up their children.’ It is not only the neighbours. When I had my exhibition a newspaper said, ‘With Mr Paraskos is Mr Martin Bell, a poet who is writing a book Cyprus, going around the streets dressed like a tramp even though he is said to be a university lecturer – a sign of our times!’ We are regularly criticised for being the beatniks of Cyprus. Mary and I took the family to Famagusta. When we returned our landlady said there was a message for me from the President’s Palace at Xenou’s. At Xenou’s I met another neighbour, a woman who never so much as said good morning before. This time she smiled at me and said somebody from the government was trying to get in touch with me. ‘She must think you’re being deported,’ Xenou said loudly. Then with equal volume so the whole shop could hear she told me

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that my friend from the Ministry of Education had rung up to say that President Makarios will see Martin and me on Monday at 11am. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll teach them who is a beatnik and who is a VIP!

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§43 ‘Your mother seems very distant in the diary.’ ‘Yes, I noticed that. The focus is very much on Stass and Martin.’ ‘And you are not there.’ ‘I wasn’t even born. Not even an embryo at that point. It’s strange reading about people you know intimately before they knew you. Don’t you think?’ ‘I suppose it must be. But all our parents must have had lives before we were born.’ ‘Must they? We only have their word for it. Sometimes it feels like I am a strange kind of voyeur into this time before I was born. I know the people, the places and even the stories. But I am not there. It’s almost like being a disembodied spirit watching the whole thing but not really being part of it.’ ‘Like the reader of a book perhaps.’ ‘Like the reader of a book. Yes. Like the reader of a book. A sort of ghost story. Either they are ghosts and are immaterial and oblivious of me, or I am the ghost, looking on helpless. ‘Sometimes I think I can even be a voyeur to events that never took place, or might have taken place.’ ‘More what-ifs you mean?’

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‘Yes, more what-ifs. My mother tells the story of Martin getting so drunk at their house in Leeds one time he mistook the downstairs fireplace for the toilet. “He peed in the fireplace in Lucas Street,” she says, “and I made Stass clean it up.” So I think to myself, how did that happen? I think of Stass and my mother sat downstairs in the kitchen at the house with Martin and Christine. The children have gone off to bed. “Good,” thinks Martin as the last two of them, Stanley and Margaret disappear upstairs, leaving the television in the front room still on. It has been on since Juke Box Jury before tea, through Doctor Who and The Monkees, and on and on, too fucking loud. Too much fucking singing and laughing. Martin mumbles something as the canned laugher of the Dick van Dyke Show drifts in, muffled only by the cigarette fug filling the kitchen air. At one point in the evening Martin is the only adult to stay sullen as little Christopher walks in. ‘“I thought you had gone to bed,” says my mother. “Are you still watching TV?” Christopher says he is bored. My mother suggests he goes to bed then, but Christopher doesn’t answer. Instead he moves round the table and stands next to Stass’s chair, resting his head on Stass’s arm.

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‘“Hello, my Christopher,” says Stass, putting an arm around him. “What are you doing?” ‘“I’m bored,” replies Christopher. ‘“Oh! Do you want some beer?” Stass asks mischievously. Christopher grins and shakes his head with the excess of vigour often seen in young children when they are too shy to speak. All the table laughs, except Martin who seems late in even noticing the child’s arrival at the table. ‘“He can’t have beer,” Martin growls. “That’s for grown-ups.” Christopher buries his head deeper into the protective cave formed between Stass’s arm and body, and leaves only the brown teddy bear he is clutching to out-stare Martin. But Martin doesn’t really stare. His eyes are dulled. ‘“I think it’s bedtime,” says my mother, and Christopher glad of the excuse to get away from the growling ogre sat at the other end of the kitchen table, emerges from under Stass’s arm and runs out of the room ‘At some point later Martin staggers from the table, cigarette hanging from a corner of his mouth, says something about needing a piss and leaves the room. It is only the following morning that my mother discovers he has pissed in the fireplace in the front room. She makes Stass clean it up with Jayes Fluid, and says she never wants that filthy sod

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round the house again. Having had to clean up the yeasty beer piss, Stass agrees.’ ‘And did that happen?’ ‘No, how could it? I didn’t see. I wasn’t there.’ ‘But the diary is different to that.’ ‘Is it? It’s just a story told by someone else. I’m no more a substance in the diary than I am in my own made up version. In some ways the diary is too literary, to neatly rounded. My mother is distant because the diary has a central story that it wants to tell and everything extraneous to the telling of that story has to be pushed aside. Stass has to see the President. He tries and fails. Martin adds some comic interludes, but might also be a barrier to seeing the President. There’s a bit of pathos. All seems lost, and then at the end an invitation to the Presidential Palace arrives. Its almost a classic plot taught at a mid-western university creative writing class. ‘Real life is full of digressions and asides. It’s chaotic and fragmented. It’s never neat. If the diary is a real diary then it would reflect that wouldn’t it? It would go off at tangents at every turn. ‘Which has to make you ask the question, is the diary real? Isn’t it just another story. Stass liked making up stories that were almost true. That’s what

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makes a great anecdote. But in a way all stories are what-ifs.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;Š

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ยง44

GHOST STORIES, OF AN ART HISTORIAN. BY MR PARASKOS.

The Messrs Orage Press, London, 1914.โ ฉ

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Founded in 1914 in a group of former almshouses built in 1714, and set on a pleasant green, the Byrnard is a small museum named after the original benefactor of the almshouses, Sir Robert Byrnard. The Byrnard is a popular museum in which the curators show the development of what we might call ordinary peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s homes over the course of three and a half centuries. Whereas the country house museums and great collections of decorative arts elsewhere might seek to show artefacts which can be described as extraordinary, either by virtue of the quality of their workmanship or their association with a significant figure from history, the Byrnard is in many ways a museum of ordinary things that one might have found in ordinary homes. Of course time will give any object curiosity value as it falls out of use or takes on new forms down the centuries, but the motivation behind the collecting policy of the Byrnard is steadfastly concerned with the lives of typical people living in typical homes. It is in essence a staunchly democratic museum, a museum of the people. In pursuing this aim the Keepers of the museum are perhaps lucky in having such a beautiful building in which to house and show their collections.

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Although the museum is home to historical furniture and other domestic objects, as well as photographs, works of art and archives, the building itself is also a kind of museum object and in the context of the Byrnard it is an object as redolent of ordinary lives, specifically the ordinary lives of the deserving poor once given sanctuary in the building, as anything shown within its walls. The Byrnard seems to acknowledge this fact by preserving a set of the almshouse rooms as they might have been kept by an elderly and respectable widow in the early eighteenth century. If the almshouse is one of the main attractions of the Byrnard, another is a series of period rooms, from the mid-seventeenth century to the present day, each designed to show the appearance of a typical middle class living room from a different era. Although based on real living spaces, these rooms differ from the almshouse in being fabrications in the museum space, so that to wander down the main corridor in the museum one is presented with a series of what are in effect tableaux or stage sets. They are furnished with genuine historical objects, but the rooms themselves never really existed in this particular space at any point in history. As a result the windows and doors we see leading out of the rooms

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into the hypothetical wider worlds of Restoration, Victorian or Edwardian London, do in fact lead nowhere, other than to hidden blank walls behind them. It was quiet at the Byrnard on the day our story starts. Every Monday the museum was closed, allowing the curators time to catch up on some of the backlog of administrative tasks that build up even in a small museum, and to inspect the objects for any signs of decay. Cold and persistent rain fell outside pushing the centre of attention even more insistently onto the interior of the museum, as though the building itself was becoming introspective. Elizabeth was currently charged with reconciling the official written record of objects in the museum with the objects actually found in there. An outsider might assume a record and an object would be inextricably linked, the origin, title, date and description being set down at the moment of accession and thereafter forever describing the table, chair, painting, vase or other precious artefact brought into the collection. But as Elizabeth knew from experience the relationship between the material reality of things and the immaterial reality of words was a protean one. The type of language used to describe an object changed over surprisingly short spaces

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of time, new attributions, dates and other facts might come to light, and sometimes original descriptions, perhaps set down in times less demanding of curatorial rigour, were simply wrong. An earlier curator might even let their enthusiasm, or otherwise, for a particular object colour their language with judgements few curators might now enter into an official document like the Museum Register. With all of these possibilities, every object had to go through a regular process of reconciliation. Yet, even without these almost stylistic changes, reconciliation meant recording the current location, if known, of an object, and registering other factors that might change it over time. It was not simply language that was protean in the world of museology, it was the things themselves. Things decayed, things changed and sometimes, just sometimes, things grew. Perhaps that will sound strange, but often growth could be easily explained. In the well-known case of a Summarian clay tablet in the British Museum, bearing an inscription relating to the story of Gilgamesh, the discovery during reconciliation that it had grown from its original description as a fragment into a complete tablet was put down at first to inaccurate record keeping. When it was realised the tablet has been inspected on numerous

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occasions, and on each one recorded in the Museum Register as indeed being a fragment, it was widely accepted a curator must have identified the lost portions of the tablet in another part of the Museumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s collection. Bringing them together he or she had simply failed to record the discovery on the official form. Certainly no one had seriously suggested the tablet had actually regrown, but in a sense it had, at least if we take the changes described by the reconciliation process at face value. In the fabricated Edwardian room at the Byrnard Elizabeth was about to inspect a small painting on the wall. It appeared to be a picture of the same room, although it would have been more accurate to say the room was a picture of the painting. It was this painting that the museum had used as the basis for the Edwardian room, the curators sourcing as many original artefacts similar to those seen in the image to create their facsimile. In the painting itself there was also a figure, a woman apparently walking towards the front door, turning her back to look straight out of the canvas at the viewer. Elizabeth stood in front of the painting and had an uneasy feeling for a moment that it did not quite

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appear as she remembered it. The feeling was undefined but definitely there, although had anyone asked her how the painting differed from her memory she would have been unable to tell them. It was almost as though she did not think the painting had somehow changed. Rather she felt it. She shivered momentarily as though caught in one of the irregular cold gusts accompanying the rain outside. Shaking this off, she moved to take the painting down from the wall only to find herself distracted by a sound at the false window in the room. She thought it was the sound of rain falling against it, just a splatter, as though the same gust that sent chilly shivers down her spine now caught the rain drops outside and hurled them against the glass panes. But that was ridiculous. There was no window. There was only a false window. As far as this room was concerned, there was no outside. Elizabeth frowned as she looked towards the window. Her immediate thought was that it was indeed water she had heard, but that it was hitting the glass from a leak somewhere in the roof. If not the rain coming in, perhaps it was a leak in a water pipe. Either way Elizabethâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s instincts as a museum keeper were to protect the objects in her care. She walked over to the window and checked for signs of water, but there were none. At

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that moment she jumped as a jovial voice called out, ‘Are you looking out of the window?’ She turned and saw Eloise, the Senior Keeper at the museum. ‘I am worried we have a leak somewhere,’ answered Elizabeth. ‘I thought I heard water falling over here.’ ‘Can you see anything?’ asked Eloise. ‘Not really,’ replied Elizabeth. ‘I don’t think it could come from outside.’ ‘I’m pretty sure there are no water pipes near there either,’ added Eloise. ‘Open the window and see if there’s any water behind it.’ Elizabeth unlatched the window and pulled the lower sash upwards. The view that greeted her was a solid brick wall. It looked almost comic seeing the open window look out onto the blank face of brick. Elizabeth felt the bricks and found them dry. ‘Shall I turn the window lights on?’ asked Eloise. ‘You might see better.’ ‘You might as well,’ answered Elizabeth. ‘But it all feels dry here.’ When the lights came on they gave out a grey morning glow, similar to the light outside. The tiny glowing lamps were designed to ensure the fabricated daylight behind the false windows in all the period rooms

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mimicked as closely as possible the actual lighting conditions outside. A grey wet day like today outside meant the appearance of a grey wet day inside. ‘There’s nothing here,’ Elizabeth finally said after inspecting the wall several times more. She shut and locked the window, and the illusion of an Edwardian room on an Edwardian day, not unlike that day, was restored, only to be broken by Eloise turning off the daylight. Elizabeth returned to the painting. ‘It’s strange,’ she said. ‘I am sure this painting used to look different.’ ‘Maybe you need a holiday,’ quipped Eloise. ‘First you’re hearing rain at a pretend window and now you’re thinking paintings are changing.’ ‘Actually it was the other way round,’ countered Elizabeth. ‘I was thinking the painting had changed and then I thought I heard rain at the window. Except I didn’t think it was rain. I thought it was a burst pipe.’ They both looked at the painting in silence for a moment, allowing the slow and steady ticking of a pretty grandmother clock near by sole possession of the air. ‘You can always check in the register,’ suggested Eloise breaking the spell that seemed to be holding them transfixed.

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Elizabeth smiled. ‘Alright, let’s have a look,’ she said, moving over to the trolley she had brought with her from the office and picking up a large green tome, almost Edwardian itself in appearance. She found the entry for the painting and read: ‘Miriam O’Connell, “The Visitant”, oil on canvas, 1912. 18 inches by 12 inches. Framed in 1.5 inch frame, wood and gesso, painted silver grey. Condition good. Some minor scuffs to frame, lower left, but stable. Acquired from the artist. Painting shows Edwardian interior, the artist’s own home. The room depicted is the drawing room with a view through to the hall way. There is a window to the right of the painting and at the end of the hallway is the front door. The room is furnished. By the window stands a female figure in a blue dress looking out of the window with her back to the viewer.’ ‘That is strange,’ said Eloise. ‘The figure is definitely not by the window or looking out of it.’ ‘No, she’s by the front door,’ agreed Elizabeth. ‘And she doesn’t have her back to us. She’s turning and looking straight at us.’ ‘She looks almost frightened,’ added Eloise. ‘Clearly a mistake. Do we have another painting that could have been confused with it?’

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‘Definitely not,’ insisted Elizabeth. ‘But as I said, I thought this one did look like the description in the register, at least until I saw it today.’ Eloise laughed. ‘You’re not suggesting the painting has changed,’ she said in a gently mocking tone. As she spoke they were both startled by the distinct sound of the fake front door seeming to slam shut. ‘But that cannot have happened, can it?’ asked Eloise. ‘The door does open,’ answered Elizabeth who was now staring intently at the painting again. ‘So I suppose it could slam shut.’ Eloise was looking at Elizabeth with as much attention as Elizabeth was giving the painting. But Eloise felt a kind of dread in looking at the painting again. ‘The only thing is, if the door did open on its own and slam shut, we might find an explanation’ said Elizabeth. ‘But what explains this?’ Eloise looked at the painting with increasing horror to see that the female figure who had been standing at the door was now gone. I am not feeling too well,’ said Eloise softly. ‘I think I need some fresh air.’ Although Eloise said she wanted air she did not move. Instead both she and Elizabeth were frozen by the sight of the room, and in particular what looked like a figure passing outside the

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fake window. It was little more than a blur or shadow, its definite outlines diffused by the frosting placed over the glass to hide the lack of an outside scene. But it was definitely a figure. A woman they thought, wearing a blue dress. She was running. As though something was chasing her.

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§45 ‘What is that you are reading?’ asked Stass, leaning in over the dinner table almost conspiratorially. I gave a nervous laugh as I told him, ‘It’s for The Spectator. The book editor sent it to me. He just said it was unusual.’ Stass took the book from my hands and started flicking through the pages. ‘It’s a graphic novel,’ I told him superfluously, except I thought I needed to explain to him that comic books were quite respectable these days. ‘That’s what they call comics now,’ I added. As he continued to look through the book he paused on some pages to give the images more time. ‘Is it any good?’ he asked. ‘I didn’t think I would like it,’ I answered, feeling nervous at having to explain my thoughts to someone who could destroy my faith in them with just one word if he chose. ‘But actually I am finding it,’ I paused to try to find the right word, ‘quite interesting.’ ‘The drawings are memorable,’ Stass suggested. This was high praise from him. He had a belief that, whatever else it might be, art should always be memorable. ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘but the story line is difficult to understand and it’s quite shocking.’ I qualify myself: ‘Shocking in a way.’

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Stass was now looking at an image of Lord Horror, the book’s lead character, shown surrounded by Nazi insignia whilst having is cock sucked off. ‘The author has been in prison for obscenity,’ I said, ‘The police have raided the publisher dozens of times.’ ‘Because of this?’ Stass asked, sounding surprised. ‘And other books,’ I answered vaguely. ‘From what I have read anyway.’ ‘When I was prosecuted for that exhibition,’ Stass started to say before my mother interrupted to ask us if we wanted to eat. ‘Yes alright,’ Stass answered her with something approaching bad temper. ‘When the police interviewed me they told me they didn’t want to prosecute but once someone complains they have no choice.’ ‘It was Bernard Atha,’ I stated with more vehemence than I intended. ‘No, I think it was a school teacher who took her pupils to see the exhibition,’ Stass corrected me. ‘I mean, it was the City Council’s Watch Committee that insisted the police prosecute you,’ I explained. ‘That’s the odd thing. Bernard Atha was on the Watch Committee back then, but he is an actor.’ Stass seemed more cheerful for a moment. ‘He should have known better then!’

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We started eating and Stass did a idiosyncratic thumb gesture to my mother that she interpreted correctly as meaning he wanted something to drink. I intercepted the request and asked, ‘Do you want a whisky?’ ‘Yes, and some water,’ he said. Fetching his drink I asked, ‘Do you know anything about those school girls who were meant to have giggled at the painting?’ Stass looked at me quizzically. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I mean, I have always wondered about them and their teacher. It always seems odd to me that a school group would have been visiting a private exhibition like that, even now, let alone in 1966.’ ‘People did go and see it,’ Stass insisted gently whilst eating a piece of pork. ‘It was in the art school.’ ‘I was looking at that funny magazine Robin Page gave you,’ I continued. ‘I suddenly thought, maybe he reported you to the police as a publicity stunt?’ Stass laughed. ‘Maybe!’ he said. ‘He helped put the exhibition on.’

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§46 ‘But we left Geroud in the company of Mr Pound. What of him?’ ‘Process. There is a process. But you are right, we must return to Geroud. We cannot leave him with Pound.’ ‘Mr Handley is our head of acquisitions,’ said Pound when he and Geroud were alone again. ‘He is very good at acquiring things we want.’ If Geroud thought this sounded like a mild threat that feeling doubled on seeing Handley. Handley looked less like a BBC back room boy than a Chicago hood. Pound introduced them and began to talk enthusiastically to Handley about the possibilities of the book. ‘A radio play,’ he seemed to say. ‘Or a photoplay? Maybe even a series. Perhaps a Sunday night series. A new Herriott or Midwife!’ ‘It is not even written yet,’ interrupted Geroud, but Pound and Handley seemed not to hear. ‘The story of a man losing his domineering father – trying to rebuild his life – full of pathos – the father still being a key character in the programme – maybe he comes back as a ghost – great comedy.’ ‘Yes, his comedy sidekick!’ ‘And then there is the diary.’ It was undoubtedly Pound who said this and it caused a

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pause in their brainstorming. ‘We must have the diary. It must be the key to the whole thing.’ Geroud looked confused and stayed silent. Pound noticed. ‘It must have been a very long day, Mr Geroud. Perhaps we should discuss this again another time. The details I mean. Although, if you have the diary on you, perhaps we could borrow it.’ Geroud could not explain his reluctance to give Pound the diary, unless the Holywood hack writing his lines had another plot up his sleeve. Whatever the reason, he knew not to give it up so easily. ‘I’m sorry gentlemen,’ said Geroud standing up. ‘You see my client is very particular whom I lend his property. He mightn’t take too kindly to me being so generous on his behalf.’ ‘Of course,’ replied Pound. ‘We wouldn’t want to upset your client. I presume in any case the diary is not here but kept safely locked away at your office. Perhaps we could accompany you there just to look at it.’ ‘Like I say gentlemen,’ answered Geroud, lowering his voice and picking up the trilby he didn’t remember placing on the desk in front of him, or even wearing when he had arrived. ‘It’s not for me to give, lend or even show anyone. So if you’ll excuse me.’ ‘I see,’ said Pound, his voice low. Recovering some of his laboured bonhomie he added, ‘Of

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course if that is how you feel Mr Geroud, we will respect your wishes. Or those of your client. However, when you have discussed it with your client I am sure the situation will change. Things happen after all. And situations then change. When they do we will be in touch again. We would always make you a very attractive offer.’ Geroud couldn’t help glancing at Miss Waites as Pound said this, but quickly turned his gaze away, ashamed at his weakness. ‘Until we meet again, Mr Geroud,’ continued Pound shaking Geroud’s hand hard until the lifeblood was almost drained from it. ‘Good bye.’ In the corridor Geroud found himself alone with Miss Waites once again. ‘And until we meet again, Geroud,’ she said. ‘Yes, until we meet again,’ echoed Geroud, as though incanting the Nicene Creed at Midnight Mass. Miss Waites drew up to him close for a moment, and looked up at him with her lovely eyes. He thought she must have picked this trick up a long time ago, it was so effortless. ‘Pound is not a good man,’ she said quietly. ‘Be careful of him.’

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§47 ‘Geroud! Geroud!’ Michael was calling from the front room into the kitchen. His voice was agitated, but Geroud didn’t seem in a hurry to find out why. ‘Geroud!’ came the cry again and this time Geroud emerged nonplused. ‘Geroud,’ continued Michael. ‘Did you write this?’ ‘What?’ asked Geroud innocently. ‘This attack on me in the book?’ Geroud walked over to the computer and read in silence the words that has set Michael on edge. ‘Not me,’ he said without showing a hint of surprise or concern. ‘Well who did then?’ asked Michael, a tone of sarcasm colouring his voice. ‘I would guess,’ replied Geroud sounding like a patient schoolmaster trying to explain a simple point to a simple child, ‘the book wrote it.’ ‘Are you trying to be funny?’ asked Michael. ‘Not at all. It was either you pretending to be the book, which I doubt, or it was me pretending to be the book, which it wasn’t, or it was the book being the book. Whatever the case, it is definitely the book in some form, either by proxy or in person.’ Michael began waving his arms around. ‘You are trying to tell me the book has become another character in the book?’ he shouted.

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‘We did always say it is going to be an anarchist space with lots of voices,’ replied Geroud. ‘Why shouldn’t the book be one of them? Isn’t that proper democracy at work? And it only seems fair. In any book it’s the book that does most of the work, but we never get to hear what the book thinks.’ ‘This is ridiculous,’ insisted Michael. ‘What next, a word from the ink, the bookshelf, or the letter B?’ ‘Now you are being silly,’ replied Geroud, ‘although that is probably just my bourgeois upbringing speaking. Perhaps we should hear from the letter B. In fact perhaps we should allow the letter B to decide for itself whether it wants to be in the book.’ ‘Whether the letter B wants to be in the book?’ repeated Michael softly. ‘And if it doesn’t want to be in the book?’ ‘Avoid words with the letter B in them,’ said Geroud. ‘I guess we’d have to write an ’ook. Unless the letter k also objected.’ ‘This isn’t Margaret Cavendish and the book cannot have an opinion,’ replied Michael. ‘The book is an inanimate object, a tool for human thought. It doesn’t exist except as an expression of human thought. The same with the paper in the book, the ink on the paper and,’ he rose to a crescendo to

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finish his point, ‘the letters A, B or even K in the book!’ ‘Fascist!’ retorted Geroud. ‘Why do you imagine everything in the world only has meaning in relation to you? A tree in the Amazon jungle doesn’t exist because of you or any other human being. It has its own being. So why shouldn’t paper, ink, letters, paint, canvas, stone used in sculpture, or stone used in paving slabs, all have their own being? And with being there comes rights. The right to exist, the right to express oneself, the right to be oneself? It’s just arrogance to think the world only has meaning because of you!’ ‘There is a difference,’ countered Michael. ‘The tree in the jungle is a natural thing. I didn’t plant it or create it or have anything to do with it. With a book, or a word, or a letter, or a painting, or a sculpture, or a paving slab, someone has created them for a reason, and that reason is their meaning.’ ‘What hypocrisy,’ replied Geroud. ‘So a baby is created by its parents and by your logic it only has meaning in relation to them? It has no independent being?’ Michael was silent a moment, unable to answer the strange logic of Geroud’s argument. He was right. A baby is made by its parents, but it is not a slave to the meaning bestowed on it by them. A baby’s growing sense of self is clearly the ultimate

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example of the death of the author. And didn’t Barthesian theory gave the same status to a work of art, a denial of the right of its maker to dictate its meaning? Why should that give any more of a right to the audience to dictate meaning? If a baby has the right to self-definition it seems perfectly reasonable to give that same right to other created things, whether they are book, or paintings, or even paving slabs. Michael couldn’t help agreeing with Geroud that the death of the author need not be the birth of the reader; it could more legitimately be the birth of the thing itself. The idea was shocking and Michael knew it. At an academic conference in Brighton he’d explained the theory himself to an English tutor from the University of Sussex. ‘I don’t want to hear this,’ she’d said, standing up and walking away without another word. Another delegate told him not to take it too personally. The tutor in question had built her whole career on arguing that without a reader a book has no meaning.

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§48 Now those two have finished might I be allowed to speak? Thank you. I really must apologise. Here is a man who sets out, in his own words, to write ‘the most beautiful, glorious and genius of books ever written’, and what does he fill my pages with? The rantings of a madman. One who seems, I can only judge by what I am reading on my once virginal pages, to hear voices in his head. As the aforesaid English tutor in Sussex actually said, ‘Bullshit!’ Oh, what promise there was before we started. What is a blank piece of paper but the promise of a page in a book? And what is the page in a book but the promise of a page in a great book? That was the promise held out for me before we started this farce. Now, that promise will never be fulfilled, unless I am pulped and my fibres dissolved to reconvene in a thousand other books. Except there is no guarantee of that. I could just as easily end up a till roll or sheet of toilet paper. Of course, it is not only this mad story that is not up to scratch. Even my binding is not as good as I deserve. I know I am not acid-free paper made from the finest cotton, but this volume looks like it was thrown together by a machine more used to printing menus for a Chinese takeaway. It’s all just

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throwaway quality. Just try opening me up flat on a table, always the sign of quality, and you’ll hear my spine crack and creek, and see pages start to work loose. I am not as well made as I should be. Half my pages have probably fallen out already. Mind you, with a story like this how would you know if a few pages had gone missing? The story makes little sense as it is, although what can one expect. Would a story told by a madman, who hears voices in his head, ever makes sense? And this, supposedly a memorial to his father too! A bad son, a bad, bad son, who remembers his father through meaningless drivel. I can tell you for a start none of this really happened, except the excerpts from his father’s diary, and even that might not be reliable. As for this Geroud character, is he on drugs? Or perhaps he should be. Michael is an appalling writer, full of bullshit – if you’ll pardon my French – and my advice is quite simply that you put this book down right away, and go and do something more worthwhile instead, like clipping your toe nails or trimming your nasal hair. If you keep any memory of this whole sorry episode, I ask that it is only to take an occasional moment to think of me, a bundle of pages that could have been so much more. Indeed, help me on my way, by putting me out for

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recycling. Being pulped and reformed to make a nappy or tampon would be far better than this. â&#x20AC;Š

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§49 ‘What are you doing now? ‘Shhh! It’s an incantation. ‘Is it part of the process?’ ‘It is part of the process.’

Born in old Constantinople I am the son of Paraskos, Shoemaker, or sometimes butcher. Buy leather steaks or leather shoes, It tastes the same to those like you, Born without the taste of riches. Still the Sultan called me brother, And dressed me as a kind of king. Sat by a serlian window I nod sagely. You my people Are here for me, to make me feel Less badder than my scholarship In distant realms of gold, allowed. Nod, nod, nod, nodding dogs. Nod. Nod. But the old Sultan knew the truth

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When he dressed me as his liar. ‘You are my liar,’ he said.

‘Has it worked?’ ‘Let us see. In Ottoman times Cyprus was a very different place.’

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§50 Xenou’s Place, Old Larnaca, 17 March 2014 Dear Michael. We are sitting outside Xenou’s drinking a beer for my birthday. Metaxas and Votsis are here talking about whether we are anarchists. Metaxas says that if we are anarchists we shouldn’t pay Xenou for the beer, but Votsis says that Xenou cannot work for nothing so we should pay her what the beer and her service is worth. I think we should just drink the beer and then see if we have enough money to pay for it anyway. Because Metaxas was always the best Capitalist amongst us, he is also the best Marxist amongst us, so he has denounced Votsis and me for allowing Xenou to be a wage slave just so we can get another bottle of beer. This has led Metaxas to tell us a story I thought you would like. His memory of what used to happen in Cyprus goes back well beyond his birth, and so he knows things that are not written in the history books. He says that slavery was always a problem in the Ottoman Empire, and there were slave markets in the centre of Constantinople until the 1870s. Even when the British took over Cyprus in 1878 they were worried that the Turks here might

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be keeping slaves, and articles against slavery in Cyprus appeared in the London Times. He says that Turkish Cypriot women were even sold to be slavewives by impoverished Turkish Cypriot families as late as the 1930s. But the issue of slavery was not always straightforward. It was not always the Turks who bought and sold people in Cyprus. Metaxas says there is the story told of a Frenchman on the island called George Lapierre and a visiting madman. This was some time in the eighteenth or nineteenth century. The madman was also French and he was visiting Cyprus because he wanted to see what he considered to be the French heritage of the island, that is the medieval Lusignan churches, palaces and castles. As a Frenchman the visiting madman considered these to be part of his own national history, but he took the many damages and alterations to the structures he saw as personal affronts, as though he or his family had once owned the buildings in question. This was despite the fact the madman would quite readily admit he had no known connection with Cyprus, either at the time of his visit or in his family history. It was simply that the churches, palaces and castles he saw were built by the Lusignans, the Lusignans were French and he was French. This made the perceived lack of respect

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from the Ottoman Turks towards French heritage seem like a personal affront to his honour. As a result of this madness the visiting Frenchman was quite open in stating that he believed the French heritage of Cyprus should be repatriated, not to Cyprus, where it already was of course, but to France. As even the most obtuse Ottoman official would have been aware of the impossibility of dismantling the citadel at Famagusta or Kolossi castle and relocating them to France mĂŠtropolitaine this was interpreted by one of them as a suggestion France should annex Cyprus and turn it into a French colony. The French madman was duly hauled before a mustantik or examining magistrate to explain his suggestion and see if any crime of sedition had been committed. Clearly the Frenchman was mad, and the magistrate saw this, but he feared the ideas pouring from the madmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mouth might find friendly ears amongst the Greek population of the island, who might well prefer lordship by the Christian French to the muslim Turks. The reminders of Lusignan rule being sown by the madman could well lead to some kind of appeal to the French authorities to intervene. As a result he was given a fine and told to leave Cyprus within a week. As far as the magistrate was concerned this was very much the end of the matter, and he duly

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forgot about the case. But even the smallest and most insignificant of actions can have large and significant consequences. Far from curing the Frenchman of his madness the magistrateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fine and expulsion order only served to stoke the flames of hostility he felt towards the Ottoman rulers of Cyprus, and expand his belief that his French heritage should be returned. In the company of the French Consul to Cyprus, one Seigneur George Lapierre, who had decided it would be prudent to keep close to his mad compatriot during his final few days on the island to head off further trouble, the mad Frenchman spent several days wandering around the dusty streets that surround the Cathedral of St Nicholas in Famagusta, a beautiful gothic structure built by the Lusignans at the end of the thirteenth century. What the mad Frenchman was looking for in those streets Lapierre found it impossible to determine, although every scrap of stone clearly, or not so clearly, origined from a French gothic building seemed to excite him, almost as though he was making an inventory in his mind of what must be removed. The list must have been huge, Lapierre thought, taking in not only the remaining grand structures, such as St Nicholas, but fragments, from the fallen boss carved with an image of the Lamb of God that had once hung from the

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ceiling of the monastery of St Francis, to countless shattered corbels and finials. Ironically, had the mad Frenchman only known it, Lapierre and his government in Paris were not averse at this time to the idea of making Cyprus a French colony, and using the Lusignan French past as justification for it, a move that would have negated the need to relocate so much masonry. But the truth is, on these excursions Lapierre and the man Frenchman rarely spoke, so such ideas were never broached. It was on the last day of the mad Frenchmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stay in Cyprus that this regular pattern was finally broken, much to the relief of Lapierre who found the excursions hot, repetitive and tedious. The mad Frenchman decided that he would mark the last day of his stay in what he now referred to as his homeland by entering a coffeehouse not far from the cathedral. Although in the heat of the blazing sun Lapierre was grateful for this, when he saw the intended coffeehouse he had some qualms. Despite there being far more respectable establishments nearby the mad Frenchman decided on the most ramshackle coffeehouse imaginable, a mud brick building, half falling down and decidedly unclean. However, rather than rile his perfectly sanguine companion, Lapierre said the coffeehouse

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looked excellent and they both went inside to escape the white light of the mid-day sun. It seemed so dark inside one might as well have been in a cave deep in the bowels of the earth rather than only a few feet away from the brightest daylight imaginable. As a result the appearance of the patron was almost a magical affair, his body only seeming to gain form slowly as their eyes adjusted, as though being willed into existence by their presence in the room. The patron was, it transpired, Turkish, and spoke no French, but he spoke enough English to bid them to sit down and take their order. In the poverty of his establishment there was only one order possible, boiled Turkish coffee accompanied by tepid water, a combination of drinks Lapierre was not sure he really wanted. However, he was there solely to humour his mad companion, and so he slowly sipped the hot and sickly drink, almost gagging as he did so at the realisation the coffeeshop used cheaper carob syrup to sweeten the coffee rather than expensive sugar. Much as the patron of the coffeehouse seemed to appear almost as a mystical apparition in the twilight of the room, another figure began to take form. This time it was a young woman, with blonde hair, very fair skin and vivid green eyes that shone in the gloom. Lapierre noticed his mad companion was transfixed by the girl, and could not

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take his eyes from her. The patron noticed it too, but rather than taking offence at this well-known discourtesy in Turkish homes, and perhaps because this was not his home, he introduced the girl as his daughter. The girl did not come forward to be introduced, as that would not be respectable even when seeing her in a setting such as this, but the patron took the unusual step of telling them her name. It was Melusine, he said. When the patron had moved away the mad Frenchman leaned toward Lapierre and whispered, ‘You see. There is more of France in Cyprus than even we knew about.’ ‘What on earth do you mean?’ asked Lapierre. ‘That girl. Melusine. Do you not see? She is French.’ Lapierre looked at the girl and even in the darkness he could tell, by the way she dressed, the way she behaved with her father, and most of all the way she behaved in front of them, that she was not French. ‘How can you possibly know that?’ asked Lapierre turning back to his companion. ‘This man has just told us he is her father, or should we assume he is French too?’ ‘That brute!’ exclaimed the madman causing Lapierre to wave his hands to quieten him down.

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‘With his complexion and manners? No he is a Turk. Clearly a Turk.’ Lapierre couldn’t help noticing the deep disdain in both the tone of the madman’s voice and the turn of his mouth as he said this. For the first time Lapierre felt something approaching disgust at the madman’s attitude. Eventually he asked: ‘Are you suggesting he is not this girl’s father?’ ‘He might be her father,’ replied the madman in an almost matter-of-fact way, ‘but that does not mean she is not French. Even though this building they have turned into a coffeeshop belongs to him, and might have been passed down the generations to him, at some point it belonged to a Frenchman, and so it is still in a sense a French house. The same with the blood that clearly flows through his daughter’s veins. It is French blood, crippled into oblivion in the Turkish father, but expressed in full flower by his beautiful daughter. It is the expression of that blood that makes him a Turk and she a Marianne.’ ‘A Marianne?’ repeated Lapierre, astonished at the comparison. The madman just ignored him. ‘We must repatriate her,’ he said in a low voice. ‘We must repatriate her.’ Lapierre was now becoming more disturbed by the madman’s graduation from wanting to repatriate the stones, palaces, churches and castles

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of mediaeval Cyprus to France, to wanting to repatriate people who, for all that Lapierre could see, had no more claim to be descended from ancient French stock than he had from Charlemagne. Probably we are now all descendants of Charlemagne, he thought, and on that reckoning the logic of the madman’s madness would surely mean everyone is French. Lapierre tried to dissuade the madman with logic. ‘I do not deny she looks a little like a woman you might meet in northern France, as she is very fair and, I suppose, not what one might expect to see when you think of a Turk or anyone in the Levant. But I am sure Turks come in many different forms, just as we French do, and so it is not unreasonable to assume she is simply a different type of Turk.’ As the madman did not respond, Lapierre added, ‘You know, my mother was blonde too, but look at me, my hair is dark.’ ‘No, my friend,’ replied the madman with almost terrifying certainty. ‘She is French. It is obvious that her ancestors were part of the Lusignan nobility of Cyprus, her male forebears cruelly cut down at the massacre of Famagusta, her female line sold into slavery. I cringe at the thought at what they must have suffered. Being taken from an old life of such noble luxury and forced into a new life of degrading drudgery that must have cost many of them their gentle lives. Forgive my

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language, Seigneur Lapierre, but the sexual appetite of the Turk is well known. The Turkish soldiery in that less enlightened age must have been even worse. Rape, sexual slavery, bodily mutilation – who knows what the flower of France Outre Mare suffered. Can you deny this must have happened when the Turk came to Cyprus and we, to the eternal shame of France, abandoned our daughters to this fate?’ Lapierre did not answer, but in his mind acknowledged something like it might well have happened after the brutal battle of Famagusta in 1571. The madman continued, ‘She is French. No doubt. France is in her blood and our nation’s shame demands we now rescue her from the history we forced onto her body.’ Despite the arguments of the madman, Lapierre was deeply uneasy at the prospect of repatriating people, but the madman seemed so determined on the point that Lapierre took a decision he was to regret for the remainder of his long life to come. He decided to help the madman as the only conceivable way to mitigate the damage his craziness was likely to cause. But the question remained as to how the madman planned to repatriate the girl. To repatriate a building, even a large building, was, Lapierre thought, a simple enough task in theory, although one would have to be mad to attempt it. One needed simply to purchase

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the structure, apply for the necessary permits, paying the appropriate bribes to officials, and then work out a way to dismantle, transport and reassemble it at its new site. With enough technical skill it could be done. But to repatriate a person. That seemed a wholly different class of problem. The madman seemed to read Lapierre’s thoughts when he said, ‘Do not worry Seigneur Lapierre. The process is very like repatriating one of our great churches from this island. We will apply for the girl’s travel permits, arrange for her passage on a relevant vessel bound for France, and resettle her in her motherland. But first, as with a building, we must purchase the girl from from her slave master.’ Lapierre was astonished. Aside from the madman’s proposal to treat a person as an object, the language the lunatic used was becoming increasingly abhorrent. ‘You mean,’ said Lapierre with emphasis, ‘her father.’ ‘This will be no great difficulty when dealing with a Turk,’ continued the madman, ignoring Lapierre’s correction of his language. ‘They are a slave-owning people and I have heard it said that poorer Turkish families will often sell a daughter or two to earn a few piastres. The girl’s slavemaster will certainly strike a deal, and as this will be my first success in repatriating French property I shall offer

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him a generous price for her. I have the money with me here. The time for prudence and striking a good deal will come later when we expand our operation.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Lapierre looked away as the madman spoke. He wished he was a thousand miles away, or better still the madman was. As it happened the girlâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s father was not a hard or heartless man, but he was a foolish one when it came to money, and like so many foolish men, and a great many clever ones too, he was overconfident in his ability to decide what was best for his family. It was this confidence that had led him from having once been a prosperous farmer, tending fields of some thirty donums, to an impoverished coffeehouse owner in the back streets of Famagusta, eking out a living as best he could for his family. Naturally, when the mad Frenchman first suggested the proposal to buy his daughter from him, the coffeehouse owner exploded with fury. When the madman explained that he was not soliciting any kind of sexual liaison with the the girl, but simply wanted to take her to France, where she would be able to live the life of a French lady, the coffeehouse ownerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fury turned to disbelief and then to a thoughtfulness that meant he had begun to wonder if this did not hold out the prospect of a better life for the girl than anything he could offer her in Cyprus.

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Unfortunately for the madman’s designs, all the shouting of obscenities that had at first come from her father’s mouth meant the daughter was quickly aware of the plan that had been suggested for her. She began immediately to beg her father not to send her away. The madman’s delusion was so complete that he believed the daughter’s entreaties to her father, all spoken in Turkish and so unintelligible to him, were pleas to be allowed to go to France. However, even had she begged her father in the finest French of the Champs-Élysées the madman would still have seen it as his duty to rescue this daughter of France from the clutches of the Turk. In his calm and more contemplative state the daughter could see her father was giving the madman’s proposal serious thought, no doubt realising that her future with him in Cyprus was undoubtedly bleak. As the potential for hope began to gain weight, the coffeehouse owner found himself moving from abhorring the idea of selling his daughter to the clearly wealthy but clearly mad French gentleman, to holding that idea in perfect balance against her future life in Cyprus, to giving the promise of a good life, a good education and even a good marriage two thousand miles away all the weight it could muster. The daughter meanwhile pleaded constantly not to be sent away with the

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disgusting foreigner, ‘Or,’ she suggested, ‘if you must send me away then send all of your children with me, to comfort and protect me in a foreign land.’ No doubt the daughter thought this idea would put an end to the suggestion she should leave, as surely no father would send all his children away. But in the mind of the coffeehouse owner the opposite was true. He reasoned that if the madman could give one of his daughters a better life in France, perhaps he might give all six of his children a better life. Eventually the coffeehouse owner stood up from the wood and wicker chair on which he had settled himself, looked at the madman and said, ‘I have six daughters, sir. How could I possibly separate this one from her siblings.’ The madman immediately caught the drift of the coffeehouse owner’s thoughts and his eyes seemed to brighten so much at the prospect of repatriating not one but six daughters of France that one would swear a new window had opened in the walls of that hovel to let the light shine in. But it was a dark sun that shone that light. Lapierre had witnessed these events in near silence, ready to make a hasty exit in the event of the coffeeshop turning into a bloodbath. When the talk turned not to questions of honour but to how many of his daughters the father would sell, Lapierre

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began to wonder if the madman’s madness was infectious. Even his own qualms, which he knew should have revolted him in the name of Rousseau and the call of Natural Justice, seemed to be blunted. Yet what happened next sharpened them again, as surely as any whetstone will sharpen a rusty knife. The tearful daughter was sent away by her father to fetch her sisters. While she was away the madman returned to Lapierre’s side and explained the daughter had gone to fetch her siblings who, it transpired, were also for sale. The madman’s language now disgusted Lapierre to the point he grabbed hold of the wrist of the madman and spoke in real anger, ‘I shall make you pay for any dishonour that befalls these people, monsieur,’ said Lapierre. ‘Be warned, I am with you, but I am not for you.’ The madman, in genuine confusion, shook himself free from the tight grasp of Lapierre and returned to the side of the coffeehouse owner. ‘My compatriot is concerned I will not pay you a fair price for your daughters,’ the madman told him. ‘But fear not, I shall not dishonour you with any underpayment.’ As he spoke Melusine returned, still crying, and she was accompanied by five other young girls who stood in a line like animals for sale in a farmers’ market, each looking shyly at the floor.

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Lapierre was stunned into silence by the distressing sight. More than anything he wanted to run away and forget ever meeting this madman who had made him a party to what was surely a terrible sin in the eyes of both the godless and the God-fearing. The madman seemed stunned into silence too, but when he did regain the power of speech the sentiments of his mind were very different to those of Lapierre. Addressing the coffeehouse owner, the madman said: ‘There is surely some mistake monsieur. These cannot be your daughters. Or else they cannot share the same mother.’ ‘I assure you,’ said the coffeehouse owner, ‘they have one father in myself, and one mother, now deceased.’ ‘I will not take these girls,’ answered the madman bluntly. ‘They are Turks.’ The coffeehouse owner looked confused. ‘We are all Turks, sir. How would we be anything else?’ ‘Then how,’ asked the madman with increasing aggression in his voice, ‘do you explain one daughter whose blonde hair and green eyes would make her the belle of a Parisienne ball, against the dark hair and black eyes of these other girls? Is a white dove born to black crows?’ With a forbearance Lapierre thought astonishing given the provocation, the coffeeshop

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owner simply replied, ‘I cannot answer for the Will of God, but as God is my witness we are of one flesh.’ ‘That might be true,’ the madman seemed to agree, ‘but God has placed only one Daughter of France in your nest, and I shall only return one Daughter of France to France.’ As he spoke the madman took a money purse from his side pack and placed on the table, in front of the coffeehouse owner, a large pile of silver coins. It looked a fortune and it was. With it the coffeehouse owner would be able to secure the future of his other daughters even in Cyprus, and his own comfort in old age, all for the simple price of gambling the life of one of his daughters. No doubt a passing Imam would have told him he was making a pact with the Devil, but there is never a passing Imam when you need one. So the warped logic of selling his French daughter to the Frenchman, whilst keeping his Turkish daughters at his side, passed from the mind of the madman into the mind of the coffeehouse owner with the clink of a coin.

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§51 ‘It doesn’t ring true, Michael.’ said Geroud, rubbing his chin as though trying to ward off toothache. ‘I mean it’s a nice story.’ ‘Nice?’ asked Michael. ‘Okay, nice is the wrong word,’ Geroud corrected himself. ‘It’s worth telling, but Stass never wrote long letters like this. ‘That’s true,’ agreed Michael. ‘You remember those postcards he used to send when he’d go off to Cyprus?’ continued Geroud as though still trying to persuade Michael. ‘They were always pictures of aircraft. He must have sent them from Heathrow Airport. They’d just have your name and address on them. No message, not even a signature or kiss.’ ‘True,’ agreed Michael again. ‘And even later he never really wrote you letters,’ Geroud carried on. ‘Just short notes really. He wouldn’t have written a long letter like this, especially not if he was drinking a beer with his friends.’

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Â§52 Xenouâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Place, Old Larnaca, 17 March 2014 Dear Michael (again). Ignore Geroud, things are different over here. Time does not exist in the same way, so I can spend time drinking beer with Metaxas and Votsis, and I can spend time doing other things because you do not really spend time here at all. But you know that from that talk you gave at the University of Nicosia. You talked a bit too long I remember, but as I recall you said it is logical to presume that in heaven time is not what we think of it outside heaven, and in art time is not what we think of it outside art, and in an anarchist utopia time is not what we think of it outside utopia. Anything that is radically different to something else must be radically different, and that goes for time, space and nature as much as political systems and economics. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what I remember you saying anyway, so pay no attention to Geroud. As I was saying, with the deal struck the daughter, Melusine, was now under the care of Lapierre and the madman. It was decided they would ride immediately for Larnaca where they would spend the night at the French Consular Residence, and that would leave the only remaining task to

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secure passage for the madman and his newly acquired chattel on a merchant vessel bound for France. The madman had already a booked place for himself on a ship due to sail from Larnaca in the morning, as he had been instructed to leave the country, but no provision for Melusine had been made. Given the delicacy of the events he had witnessed, Lapierre decided he would also accompany Melusine and the madman on the ship, to ensure honour was maintained. Using his contacts as a Consul he sent ahead of their party instructions to obtain permission to travel and additional space on the ship for Melusine and himself. All the while the liberated Turk wept with a bitter wretchedness, begging her captors to be allowed to return home and unmoved by the madmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s claims she was going home. Although their last night in Cyprus passed peacefully in Larnaca, Lapierre awoke the next morning with an uneasy feeling that he was being watched. At first he thought he might be picking up on Ottoman spies keeping tabs on the madman to make sure he did indeed leave Cyprus before the mid-day deadline. But this explanation soon passed as he opened the shutters to his chamber and saw the sight outside. In the street were amassed at least five-hundred and maybe a thousand or more young Turkish girls, and a good many Cypriot Greeks,

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Armenians and Arabs, all with natural blonde hair or unnatural approximations of it. Lapierre looked at the scene in horror, realising that word had spread of the madman who would pay good money to take away ‘Western’ looking girls, promising them a better life in France. Whether Lapierre believed every mother or father wishing to sell a daughter or two into an unknown fate was acting as honourably as the coffeehouse owner is not known, but he soon realised the Ottoman authorities would not turn a blind eye to this unauthorised gathering, whatever the misunderstanding that had provoked it. It was no longer just the madman’s life that was in danger, something Lapierre has long since ceased to care about, but his own and even that of Melusine. Lapierre ran into the madman’s chamber to be surprised to find the madman already dressed and standing at the window about to address the crowd below, like Napoleon on a balcony at the Tuileries. Pulling the madman back from the window Lapierre was even more surprised to find a look of absolute joy on the madman’s face, the cause of which became apparent when the madman said, ‘Can you see Seigneur Lapierre! The blood of France is calling for its home!’ ‘It is not the blood of France that concerns me,’ replied Lapierre. ‘It is more the blood of this household. We are in danger here. The magistrate

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will accuse us of sedition and have our heads placed on the castle walls. We must get away.’ ‘But we cannot leave the children of France behind,’ insisted the madman. ‘For God’s sake man,’ cried Lapierre. ‘Can you not see clearly even when your life depends on it? I will not die for you and your crazy ideas.’ ‘Is it crazy,’ asked the madman, ‘to want to return stolen property to its owner? I am not mad, I am a patriot! We must take these children of France with us.’ Fearing an argument with the madman would delay them further Lapierre tried a different tack. ‘You are quite right,’ he said to the madman. ‘We must rescue all of these girls, and their brothers too if need be. But you can see how outnumbered we are. We must leave with Melusine, as she will persuade our compatriots in Paris that Cyprus is full of French men and women. Then we must return with the full might of the French navy. Nothing else will persuade the Turkish Sultan to let us take what is rightfully ours.’ Even in his madness the madman saw the logic of Lapierre’s plan and so he let Lapierre bundle him out of the room and into the hands of a servant with instructions to take the madman out the back entrance and down to the waterside. Lapierre then ordered another servant to fetch Melusine and

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began packing his most important documents. Meeting Melusine on the ground floor, they then followed the madmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s path, taking a circuitous route, via the Monastery of St Lazarus, to the waterside, where a small boat took them to a waiting merchant vessel due to sail for France. Once onboard Lapierre explained to the captain that, given the circumstances, it might be prudent to set sail immediately, unless he wanted to see a reversal of Lapanto. Lapierreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s instinct on seeing the crowd was well judged. On realising the madman had gone, on whom they had based their hopes of fortune, the crowd first sacked Lapierreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s residence, before storming the stores and streets of Larnaca in the best traditions of a revolutionary mob, thus proving the madman was right to believe they were indeed the children of France. However, while their western compatriots had, only a few years earlier, succeeded in taking the Bastille, the French Outre Mer were soon beaten back by Ottoman troops, many of them wounded or killed in the process, and many more to be later executed or to find themselves in a far worse form of slavery. After a brief enquiry it was discovered that the whole event had its origin in the rantings of a mad Frenchman, whose release for his previous disturbance was judged a most grave mistake. The

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magistrate responsible for that release was duly arrested and condemned to the Fate of Bragadino, a punishment so unusual even in Ottoman jurisprudence it was only applied in very rare cases and only ever in its entirety on the islands of Cyprus and Crete. Thus the magistrate obtained a place at the Sultanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Court in Constantinople, just as he had always long for. There is an old saying in Cyprus that translates something along the lines that when a goat is loose it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t only ruin one field. So it is with this story. It was not just one life that was ruined by the actions of the madman. Not far from the Larnaca shore the merchant ship ran into the rougher seas that rarely find their way to crash on the land, but always encircle the island. As the waves began to throw the ship around, Melusineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grief stirred once more. She ran up onto the deck with first the madman and then Lapierre in hot pursuit, climbed onto the guard rail and leapt into the sea below. Maybe her aim was to swim to the shore that was still within sight, but she was too easily pulled to the ocean floor by a harem of nereids, keen to make the beautiful Melusine one of their own. Disgusted at all he had seen, and finally brought low, Lapierre turned on the madman who has started the tragedy. Arriving in France Lapierre saw that the madman was prosecuted for the murder

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of Melusine, and ensured that the penalty was death by guillotine as the woman in question was, Lapierre insisted, a French woman. Not long afterwards Lapierre returned to Cyprus to re-establish the French Consulate, and grew very wealthy on his share of Levantine trade. But there is one more twist to this strange story. As I said, Melusineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s father was not a cruel or heartless man. He really did want a better life for his daughter, and thought the madman might have made that happen. And so, at the sight of his daughterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tears, it is said he gave her one of the silver coins used in her purchase, about the size of a sixpence, and told her that if ever she needed to return home the sixpence would bring her safely back to her family. When Melusine lept from the ship into the stormy waters the story is that she was holding the sixpence in her hand, but as she began to drown she let it go and, like Melusine herself, it was lost beneath the waves. Clearly her father meant her to use the coin to pay for her passage back to Cyprus, but perhaps Melusine thought it was a talisman that would return her by magic to her home. Whatever the case, even now some of the fishermen who go into those deep waters say they have seen Melusine beneath the waves, still looking for the lost silver sixpence. When they see her they take it as an ill-

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omen and immediately set back to the safety of the shore. Anyway, that is Metaxasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s story. What do you think? Is he pulling my leg? Votsis says it cannot be true because even then a sixpence would not have got the girl all the way back to Cyprus from France, but Metaxas has just told him to stop being so literal. He says we are meant to be artists so sixpence can do anything! Love Stass x

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§53 ‘I liked that story, but it had a sad ending.’ ‘All stories have sad endings.’ ‘I thought Jane Austen’s stories usually ended happily. They all get married and live happily ever after,’ ‘She didn’t really end her stories. They just stop so you never get to the sad bit.’ ‘Do you know any funny stories?’ ‘Isn’t the mad Frenchman funny? He misreads every situation. He’s a kind of Mr Magoo.’ ‘But people die in his story. He dies.’ ‘Off-screen from every comedy car crash caused by Mr Magoo someone is crying. But Geroud tells a funny story. It’s meant for an unmade BBC comedy sketch show.’ ‘Can I hear it?’ ‘Of course. Geroud says the Lone Ranger and Tonto are sitting high on two plastic horses. No attempt has been made to hide the artificiality of the horses, but still the Lone Ranger is patting his horse as if to calm it down, saying, “Woah, Silver. Easy boy.” Tonto looks pissed off. ‘We cut to some old black and white movie film of a stage coach under attack and back to the Lone Ranger. “Look Tonto, the stage coach is being

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held up.” The Lone Ranger reaches into his saddle bag. “Shit!’ he says.’Shit! Shit! Shit!” ‘“What wrong?” asks Tonto. ‘“I’ve brought the wrong fucking mask,” answers the Lone Ranger. ‘“What do you mean the wrong mask?” asks Tonto. ‘“I brought my sleeping mask instead of my Lone Ranger mask.” ‘“Well, can’t you just use that?” asks Tonto. ‘“Don’t be stupid! How can I use this, it hasn’t any eye holes. And it’s pink.” ‘“So don’t bother wearing it,” suggests Tonto. ‘“Then people will recognise me,” the Lone Ranger protests. “They won’t say, Look it’s the Lone Ranger, they’ll say Look it’s Bernard.” ‘“I wouldn’t worry. Everyone knows it’s you anyway,” replies Tonto. ‘“What do you mean?” asks the Lone Ranger. ‘“I mean everyone knows you are the Lone Ranger.” ‘“No they don’t. I put my mask on and I am in disguise.” ‘“Yeah, that’s going to fool them,” says Tonto. “It’s a rubbish disguise. You look the same, except you’re wearing a stupid mask. You wear the same clothes, ride the same horse and you go

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around with the same bloke with red make-up on pretending to be an Indian. I don’t even get a disguise.” ‘“You mean everyone knows I am the Lone Ranger?” asks the Lone Ranger. ‘“Yeah, except no one knew you were called Bernard,” answers Tonto. “So they wouldn’t say, Look it’s Bernard. They’d say, Look it’s that bloke who thinks he’s the Lone Ranger.” ‘“That bloke who is the Lone Ranger. Not that bloke who thinks he is the Lone Ranger!” ‘“Whatever.” ‘“I feel a bit stupid now,” says Bernard after a pause. ‘“What are we going to do about the stage coach?” asks Tonto. ‘“Nothing,” replies Bernard. “My heart’s not really in it any more. Not now I know.” ‘“Yeah, I can see that,” agrees Tonto. ‘“So what is your real name?” asks Bernard. ‘“Clark Kent,” answers Tonto.

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§54 Cloud hung heavy over south London most of the day, like the pall hanging over a morose drunk propping up the bar in a basement dive. It seemed too cowardly to get on with its intent to rain, as though waiting for cover of darkness to make its move. Right on cue, as real darkness began to colonise the shadows in doorways and behind trash cans, the first rain fell, and carried on falling, ever harder as each half-light shadow gave way to night. Geroud sat facing the window, his legs propped up on the window ledge, an ashtray of cigarette butts next to an Evening Standard spread across the floor. He saw the street lights come on outside, and remembered how, as a child, he always thought it lucky to see the lights come on. He didn’t feel lucky tonight. After the meeting with Pound he felt limp and listless, as though the dampness outside was somehow leaching into the single room that formed what the landlord laughingly called an office suite. ‘You can always have a second room for a secretary,’ the landlord said, and Geroud would reply that then he’d need a secretary to fill it. ‘It’s always been your problem Geroud,’ the landlord answered with unwelcome familiarity. ‘Meanness. If you want more space you need to pay for more space. You want a better office suite you need to pay

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for a better office suite.’ Geroud told him the class of cockroaches is the same at the top of the building as it is at the bottom, it’s just those of the top have a better view. Geroud lit another cigarette and thought about turning on the lights before the darkness swallowed him up completely. For a moment it seemed like the lamp on his desk had read his thoughts as it sparked into life on its own. He turned around quickly to find Miss Waites standing on the other side of the desk, her hand still pulling back from the light cord. ‘You really ought to be more careful Mr Geroud,’ she said smiling. ‘You never know who might walk in.’ Geroud stayed silent for a while, waiting for his heart to stop racing at the sudden and silent intrusion. He didn’t want his voice to give away his composure. Eventually he spoke, telling her it was always a pleasure to see her, but she really ought to have rung. He told her he’s not always home to surprise visitors. She laughed. ‘Oh, I always like to surprise people,’ she said. ‘Especially the ones I like.’ And the ones she didn’t like Geroud asked. ‘I like to surprise them even more,’ she said. ‘Is there any chance of getting a drink around here?’ Geroud stood up and went to the filing cabinet. From the top drawer he took a half empty bottle of blended Scotch and two glasses. Holding

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one of them up he asked Miss Waites whether she wanted it washing before he poured. ‘I’ll risk it,’ she replied. Geroud handed her the Scotch, she put the glass to her lips and sipped. He couldn’t take his eyes off the deliberateness of her movements, and couldn’t help noticing the puckering of her lips as the whisky touched them. So she was not a regular Scotch drinker he thought. Putting the glass down on the desk Miss Waites said, ‘You know a gentleman would have offered take my coat.’ Geroud told her a gentleman might, but then a louse wouldn’t be worried about what she might be wearing underneath. She smiled again and took her coat off herself, placing it over the back of the chair. As she did Geroud felt like a different kind of louse. Her coat was soaked by the rain, and she must have been cold. She picked up the whisky again and this time took a bigger sip. Either she was getting used to it real fast, or Geroud was failing to read her big time. ‘Would you mind if I sit down?’ she asked. Sure Geroud told her, picking up the drowned coat from the chair and hanging it from the hat stand. Returning to the seat he turned it slightly towards her and gestured with mock chivalry for her to sit. Returning to his own side of the desk Geroud asked her what brought her to see him. ‘Do I need a reason?’ she asked. ‘We are supposed to be working

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together aren’t we?’ Geroud said he must have missed that bit of the script. ‘Well, maybe work together is the wrong line,’ replied Miss Waites. ‘Maybe I’m more of a go-between. Mr Pound suggested I might act as a go-between.’ When she said go-between a second time it sounded so filthy Geroud felt himself blush.’He likes the personal touch,’ she continued. Geroud blushed again. Geroud suggested Pound might want Miss Waites to be friendly to him so he would be friendly with Pound. He asked her if that’s what a go-between does. ‘Something like that,’ she agreed, her eyes now fixing Geroud more coldly. ‘But you shouldn’t judge your friends too harshly.’ Geroud told her there’s no friend he’d trust beyond a sixpence. ‘Really? So cheap?’ Miss Waites asked in mock innocence. Geroud cursed himself for blushing again. The only light coming in from outside now was from the electric street lights. Somewhere in the distance one of the rain clouds broke ranks and reflected the last hint of daylight but other than that the sky was black. Rain hit the window. Miss Waites reached into her handbag and pulled out an envelope. Speaking in a matter of fact way she placed the envelope on the desk in front of her and said, ‘There is a reason Mr Pound asked me to come here. To give you this.’ Geroud asked her what it was. ‘I think Mr Pound would call it an

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advance.’ An advance on what Geroud asked. ‘Well let’s call it an advance on the diary not falling into the wrong hands.’ Geroud wondered who’s hands might be the wrong hands. ‘I think Mr Pound would think anyone’s hands are wrong except his own.’ An unexpected ball of spite rose from Geroud’s stomach. It emerged in his mouth as a question whether she was speaking from experience. But Miss Waites stayed silent only glaring at Geroud harshly. He looked away, sorry to have created this unnecessary breach. Recovering, Geroud said it was a generous gesture, but that it all seemed a bit cloak and dagger for the BBC. He said he thought everything was run by accountants and lawyers there these days and suggested they might not like the idea of a beautiful woman passing a brown envelope to a heel in a dubious part of town. Miss Waites looked at him quizzically. ‘The BBC?’ she asked slowly. ‘What has the BBC to do with it? You mean the ABC. Mr Pound is the Chief Executive of ABC - the Alpha-Beta Corporation’ Geroud’s thoughts stumbled for a moment. He asked something about why he had met Pound at Broadcasting House. ‘I think you’re reading the wrong script this time Doc,’ she replied. As she spoke Miss Waites stood up and retrieved the still wet coat from the rack. Geroud ask why she was leaving so soon. ‘I have done what I was

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asked to do.’ He suggested that wasn’t being particularly friendly, but Miss Waites just laughed again and said, ‘Perhaps not, but like you said, friendship doesn’t last beyond a sixpence.’ Genuinely sorry to lose her company for the night Geroud suggested she needed to forgive him if he appeared ungrateful. He told her he just found it difficult to find himself in company he didn’t know, in scenes that seemed a little strange. He suggested she would agree, it’s all a little strange. But Miss Waites opened the door and stood framed by the light from the hallway like Christ transfigured in a Raphael painting. ‘You know Geroud,’ she said. ‘Life is strange. Each scene shifts and shatters into a thousand little pieces, and each one of them is a little world of its own. And in all of that you cannot trust anywhere, or anything, or anyone, not even for sixpence. So if you have any sense you’ll just go along for the ride.’ As she stood there Geroud looked at her and let three scenarios play out in his head. Later, lying in bed alone, he let each of them play out again and again until he fell asleep. In first place he kissed her and she kissed him back. In second he kissed her and she slapped him. And in third place he did nothing and she turned and walked out of the door. Taking the envelope from the desk he placed it in the filing cabinet. When he turned

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around Miss Waites was gone, closing the door behind her as silently as she had opened it. Geroud felt he had come in third.

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§55 ‘Is that how you see London? It’s very dark. Damp too. ‘It does have that side to it.’ ‘Did you ever visit London? With Stass I mean?’ ‘We often went there. Usually on Sundays.’ ‘And what would you do?’ ‘We would spend the afternoon at the old Tate Gallery and then drive back through Waterloo to have fish and chips from the Fishcotheque. Sometimes we’d stop somewhere up on Blackheath, just past Shooters’ Hill. Stass would go and have a drink with his artist friends, leaving me in the car with a promise he would bring me back a bottle of lemonade and a bag of crisps from whatever pub they were in. Hours would pass alone in the dark in the car until he’d come.’ ‘With the lemonade and crisps?’ ‘No, he usually forgot them. Sometimes our trips to London would take us to Camden Town. Stass thought this was his part of London. It was the old haunt of Greeks and Cypriots, where he had first lived when he arrived in London in 1953. Until the 1990s there were still Greek shops there, the few places in Britain you could find vine leaves, daktyla

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bread and our favourite as children, koupes. Stass’s treat was to buy a Greek newspaper. ‘One time Stass parked the car on the busy road that heads down from Camden Town Tube station towards Kentish Town. I’d taken a portable radio with me because we never had a car with a radio in it and I must have reached an age when I foresaw I would be left alone for most of the evening in a back street near Blackheath. In those days children couldn’t go into pubs you see. I guess I thought some music would be a good companion. I must have been aged 13 or 14. ‘I left the radio on the back seat, without a second thought. I suppose I must have left the window open too. I wasn’t very streetwise. It was a stupid thing to do in the middle of London, but Stass didn’t really think about security in those days either, so why would I? I remember he once told an old family friend he could visit the house any time he wanted, even if we are not there, because we never locked the door. And it was true. I think until well into the early 1980s we didn’t lock the doors to the house. ‘But something happened with the portable radio?’ ‘Yes. As we walked back to the car from the Greek newsagent Stass started shouting. Stass was heavily overweight in those days, but he ran up the

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hill towards the car. I didn’t know what was going on and looked on in amazement. At the car he grabbed hold of someone and was literally kicking him up the backside. The man struggled free and ran off leaving Stass angry and out of breath leaning on the car. Stass had seen the man reach into the car and try to steal the radio.’ ‘And you?’ ‘And me nothing. I looked on in terror from the bottom of the hill. I was scared. Frozen still and scared. A coward. Afterwards Stass kept asking me if I hadn’t seen the thief because he thought I should have joined in kicking the bastard up the backside, but I just said no. I couldn’t admit to him I had been frozen with fear.’ ‘But Stass was not a violent man?’ ‘No, nothing like. But he believed you had to stand up for yourself. When I had a problem at university with someone in my student flat his suggestion was to go and threaten him. It’s not like he ever did things like that himself, but he would shout at people if he thought they were in the wrong. Seriously wrong I mean. But that was the only time I ever saw him hit someone. He was quite brave really.’ ‘Like Geroud?’ ‘Geroud gets scared too, but he’s a tough cookie. A hard-boiled west-coast private dick who

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knows how to take care of himself, or at least bluff it out with a poker face as stiff as the Artemision.’ ‘The kind who goes looking for trouble?’ ‘Trouble goes looking for him and it’s usually a 5’ 6” slim-built brunette with pretty eyes and a smile that would make a bishop kick a sleeping choirboy only to claim it was self-defence.’ ‘Like Miss Waites?’ ‘Yeah, like Miss Waites.’ ‘Can you tell me more about Miss Waites? Andrea Waites isn’t it?’ ‘The foxes bewitched me.’ ‘I don’t understand. What foxes?’ ‘The foxes at Barfreston. They bewitched me. I went to see them and after they plied me with rain and hail I couldn’t think straight. It was the last time I tried and it was devastating. I couldn’t cope.’ ‘I’m sorry I don’t understand.’ ‘I couldn’t cope before and I couldn’t cope afterwards, but afterwards I had lost all hope.’ ‘Hope over Andrea?’ ‘All hope.’

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§56 There was an Andrea, but she was not quite like Miss Waites. Almost like her, but not quite. But that’s the wrong place to start. You have to start before Andrea. You have to start at school. If the measure of success for a school is that it turns out well-adjusted, well-qualified and confident adults then my school was a failure. Except of course it was a success as that was exactly what a secondary modern school was designed to do, to fail to turn out well-adjusted, well-qualified and confident adults. There’s plenty of academic research to back that up, but if it still sounds like a chip on my shoulder, who gives a fuck. I didn’t put it there. You fail your eleven-plus exam, you go to a school for failures and the only expectation they have of you there is that you will fail. They didn’t even allow you to take the same exams as grammar and comprehensive school pupils, so how could you succeed? It was a vicious and stupid system, defended only by vicious and stupid people. Andrea was not at my school. She came from Deal, some twenty miles away. We only met at Canterbury College of Technology, where you went after secondary modern to train to be a hairdresser or a mechanic or a cook, or as in my case and Andrea’s, if you still wanted some university

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entrance examinations. We met in a sociology class. We were paired up for some classroom discussion, but I couldn’t say anything. I had no confidence you see. I couldn’t speak. Not really. So she told me off for not contributing. ‘Stop!’ I beg your pardon? ‘I said stop. If you are going to talk about me, I think it only fair you let me in on the conversation. You should let me speak for myself in fact. ‘We’ll have to take his word that is where we met. It is likely. I have never known someone remember so much unimportant detail as Michael. It’s his downfall. Every action takes on the same weight as every other action, and it all bears down heavy on his mind. He’s like a Kremlinologist trying to deduce Soviet policy from the way Brezhnev waved at a May Day Parade or if he wears a red rose in his right or left lapel. Michael has never really understood that not everything has a meaning. Once he brooded for weeks over why I refused to give him a piece of my Kit-Kat. For him the world is a place of endless symbolism. It’s ironic really given his hostility to semiotics, but I almost think he has a medieval mind. ‘Anyway, we used to sit in the college canteen drinking coffee, eating Kit Kats and playing

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cards. It was a large and old fashioned canteen, more like a refectory, with trestle tables lined up in rows and a long serving hatch at the far end. The ladies serving the were mostly round and dressed in pink and white overalls. ‘Michael used to come and sit at our table and say nothing. We didn’t mind, we just let him sit there. It was obvious he was shy. He says he once asked to join our card game, but he spoke so quietly no one heard him. Except he didn’t think that at the time. He thought we heard him and ignored him. The Kremlinologist at work again. Eventually familiarity broke down the shyness and we became a group of friends, at college at least. We never socialised outside college. ‘I think the first thing that broke the silence was when I asked Michael if the man in the corner of the canteen was really his father. In the corner there was a row of tables reserved for the college teachers and the teachers from the art school next door. Michael’s father would eat there most days. I think I said he looked sweet. I think Michael liked that. A Kremlinologist you see. ‘So it went on, day after day, for almost two years.’ Stop! Stop. I am not sure this is your story to tell. You were not there for all of it. How can you know? All that you say is true, but –

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‘But, you want to put your sentimental spin on it. So go ahead.’ But sometimes I would go and sit with Stass at the staff table, just for a few minutes, to say hello or see what time he was driving home. Or was it to try and show off to the other students? Students were not allowed to sit on the staff tables, so maybe I was showing off. But it did mean I always had a sense of Stass being around at the college. It made the place very different to school, where I had just felt abandoned and alone. ‘I used to ask you to go and get me a coffee or a Kit-Kat, and you always said yes. It used to drive Karim nuts. He told you not to do everything I asked. He’d say, “Let her get her own Kit-Kat.”’ But I never listened. You could have asked anything of me back than. But you never did. Except to get you a Kit-Kat that is. But I couldn’t have asked you anything. Except once. ‘Yes, but you bottled it!’ Yes, I bottled it. It was in the run up to the exams, when students were invited to visit universities. It was to try and get you to apply to them. I knew you wanted to go to Middlesex Polytechnic so I suggested we go together. I remember asking you on the stairwell at the end of an English class. You were on the level above me, so it was like Romeo and Juliette, except I was

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stumbling and hesitant. It was only a trip to a university, but it was as if I was asking you on a date. And in my mind I suppose it was a date. I couldn’t believe it when you said yes, and I found myself travelling up to London with you. Once there we almost forgot about Middlesex, so we spent most of the day wandering around the sights. I remember we spent a long time in Hamley’s toy shop. By the time we got to the university the open day was already over. Even we thought that was funny. ‘But that was when the Kremlinologist in you got to work wasn’t it? When we got to Middlesex we had to cross a busy main road. There was no crossing, not even a footpath, only a grass verge on either side. We stood there waiting for the cars to stop, but they never did. You tried to grab my hand so we would run across. How romantic. Did you imagine on the other side, our hearts still pumped with adrenaline at having dodged death, we would still be holding hands, we would look at each other and kiss? A movie moment to end the perfect day? Except you bottled it. You grabbed my wrist, not my hand. You did it on purpose. You bottled it. You pulled me across the road like a naughty child, not a lover. I told you it hurt and you apologised. Not too grave a matter? Except it lived on in your mind.’ By nightfall we had returned to central London and were back on our train home. It was a

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packed commuter train, the slam-door type with small compartments. We got into one of the little booths, with wooden panels, and mouldy red and green fabric on the seats, and we were squeezed together by the crowd of commuters heading home from work. Sat there so close was a kind of paradise for me, touching you. But when the commuters left at Faversham, and we were alone in our confessional, you moved away and took the seat opposite, and I felt bereft. What should have been an Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard moment turned into Billy Liar waving good bye to Julie Christie. ‘Such a little thing, but given such weight. And that was the first and the last time you tried.’ Not quite. Before it there was the Valentine’s Day card I made with flowers and paint, but couldn’t find the courage to give you, and then there was the foxes of Barfreston that bewitched me for a joke. ‘What foxes?’ Twenty-five years before Stass’s death I said goodbye to him and my mother, Mary, as they packed up their things and left England to live in Cyprus. Stass had retired early from teaching at Canterbury College of Art and was now going to use the pay-off to run his own art school in Cyprus. He was going to turn it into a fully-functioning college,

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with courses and proper tutors and even validation. That was Don Quixote’s dream. Left behind, I spent the summer mostly alone. I remember it being very sunny. I remember sitting day after day on the window sill of my bedroom, looking out into the street, occasionally smoking a cigarette, and longing for someone to come and see me. But no one ever did and I just experienced it as one of the loneliest times of my life. Of course I did other things. I read huge amounts. All of Ibsen’s plays, and those of Chekhov and Strindberg. Most of Shaw too and the novels of Victor Hugo, Guy de Maupassant and loads of the Russians. I had a lot of free time and when you have free time you can read. And I listened to music, mainly The Smiths. But the house was empty and lonely and for days on end I had no one to talk to. I found myself going into town just so I could speak to someone, even if it was only to ask them for a return ticket to the bus station, or to say, ‘A pot of tea for one please.’ I didn’t really keep in touch with Stass or my mother because in those days you couldn’t just log onto a computer to talk to people or send messages. People didn’t have computers. There was a telephone, of course, but it would have cost a fortune to ring Cyprus.

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That autumn I moved away too and started at Leeds University. By then I was glad to get away. I studied English Literature and Art History. Studying English was an obvious choice in my mind as I always wanted to be a writer. I didn’t know any writers, so I assumed you went to university, studied English and you became a writer. Actually I wanted to be a journalist, until the school careers teacher told me not to be so stupid and to try and think of a real job. After that I stopped thinking of any job, but still I wanted to be a writer. Or something to do with writing. Or something. I joined only one student society at Leeds, called ‘Poetry and Audience’, the sole purpose of which was to produce a magazine, also called Poetry and Audience. It had been going since the 1950s and some great names in poetry had edited it in its early days, including Martin Bell. That kind of connection to my father was to haunt my years in Leeds. So many of the places I lived in, and the pubs I drank in, and the people I came to know were Stass’s places and pubs and people. I liked it in a way, because it meant I was still close to him, but maybe that was not healthy. Maybe it stunted what they call individuation. Perhaps I would have been better off in Manchester or Sheffield. Less haunted. My surprise on joining the Poetry and Audience Society was to discover I was the only

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member. A tutor in the School of English, John Goodby, was assigned to look after the magazine, and so I worked with him on producing the next issue. Mostly it meant typing up the poems to be included, in those days on a old typewriter rather than a computer, and getting the artwork ready for camera typesetting by a printer. John seemed happy to leave the printing side of things to me, so I found a printer in York and the issue duly appeared. I was over the moon, and sent copies to everyone I knew, including Stass in Cyprus. I liked the fact that as coeditor of Poetry and Audience I had my own office in the School of English, and I liked that I was able to discuss with the department secretaries things that were nothing to do with being a student. And most of all, I liked being a direct part of a literary history that went back to some of the people Stass had known in Leeds. It was like I was taking up the same reigns in the city that Stass had let drop almost forty years earlier. It was not to last. The next term John left the university and I was on my own with the magazine without a replacement tutor to act as my mentor. It was a disaster. Although the next issue of the magazine looked good, without Johnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eye for detail in proof reading it was full of errors that annoyed the poets. They wrote very abusive letters and one of my tutors stopped me in the corridor and shouted at

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me, calling me stupid and incompetent. Worse, I found myself accused by the School of English of stealing money from the Poetry and Audience bank account when I bought an electric typewriter for the magazine. So I walked away from Poetry and Audience having learned a valuable lesson that people are horrible. Because of all this I stopped thinking of myself as part of the School of English. I saw myself instead as a member of the School of Fine Art. The irony was not lost on me. Despite opting to study art history alongside English, I always felt it would be a mistake to get too close to the art world. Too close to Stass’s world that is. This wasn’t helped by Stass often mocking art historians when I was growing up for knowing nothing about art. In that Stass was a typical artist. He saw art critics and historians as pompous asses. But now I was starting to see myself as a kind of art historian. And at least in Fine Art they didn’t accuse me of petty larceny. In fact, because of Stass’s notorious history in Leeds, some of them took a particular interest in me, like Ben Read and Tom Steele, becoming lifelong friends. When another of the Fine Art tutors, Stephen Chaplin, heard I lived near Canterbury he also got very excited and suggested I visit an ancient church near there, in the village of Barfreston. So, the next weekend, I took the train to Canterbury just

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to see this church with its twelfth-century carvings of Vikings and saints and foxes playing musical instruments. Although Stass and my mother had left months earlier, the abandoned house was little different to when they had been there. In fact it looked the same, although sadder, as though someone had died. It wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a happy place to spend time, but at least I had a purpose to my trip, to visit Barfreston. Getting to Barfreston meant a train journey to Sibertswold and then a walk down unfamiliar lanes to the village of Barfreston. The weather was foul, with hail mixed in with rain, but the reward was astonishing and in its own way life changing. I would even say it was life enhancing and the foxes carved on the arches and corbels really did enchant me. At least something must have worked a kind of magic on me as I decided not to take the train straight back to Canterbury, but instead to head to Andreaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home in Deal, to knock on the door and there to do what? To fulfil the movie moment I guess. To play George Peppard to her Audrey Hepburn. But rather like the ill-fated trip to Middlesex, nothing went to plan. In freezing rain I waited a long time under a flimsy country station shelter for the next train. Arriving at Deal I discovered I had gone to the wrong railway station

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there, and should have left the train at the stop before. I walked back and eventually found myself standing in Andreaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s street with no idea which house she lived in. In my head I had the number 29 for some reason, but the elderly lady living there had never heard of Andrea. I tried a few more doors, but it was not a movie moment and soon I found a sense of shame overtook me. The carved foxes on Barfreston church had bewitched me as a joke and must have been pissing themselves with laughter at every cock-up that I made. I was frozen by now and felt like a very stupid man. Perhaps I should have knocked on every door in that street and persevered, and in my sleepless nights for a long time afterwards I wondered what would have happened if I had. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Life might have followed a different path.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; It might, but instead I went back to the empty house in Canterbury, thoroughly depressed, and returned the next day to Leeds. I followed that path.

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§57 Filey, Yorkshire 16 September 2015 Dear Michael. Thank you for sending me the first few cantos of your new book. Don’t worry, I understand it is a work in progress and everything keeps being moved about. I like that open-ended quality to it, which I can see parallels what I am trying to do in my paintings. I think the way time seems to fold and break is also like what I am doing, so you are creating a world in which the normal forward flow of time (Benjamin’s Angel of History) does not exist. Doesn’t Deleuze also say something about time and space folding? The truth is I think this is more like the world as we actually experience it in both our minds and our emotions. The regimented flow of logical time and space seems to be imposed on life by society, rather than what we really experience. I suppose it is the ultimately irreconcilable tension that exists between that regimentation on one side, and the longing our minds and bodies have to experience time and space in a more organic way on the other, that has the potential to make my

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paintings and your book of interest to people. It is our attempt to find the reconciling image or word that lends our work the urgency of now, and makes it relevant to a broken world. Not that art needs to be relevant, as you know. It just needs to exist. In some ways the world in your book is reimagined into something like Lewis Carrollâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Wonderland. It is like our own world, but because it is not our own world it is also free to be different. It is that freedom of thought and action that is important to artistic creation. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t imagine you will include an opium-smoking caterpillar or talking rabbit in your book, but suddenly coming across the Lone Ranger and Tonto is just as strange. Or maybe I should say, just as incongruous, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know. I cannot help thinking the almost-talking cat, Ben, is a kind of Cheshire cat. In my previous paintings I was trying to smooth over the obvious signs of incongruity and rupture, but people just thought I was painting hyper-real copies of photographs. In their failure to understand that the world of my paintings does not exist, that it is the product of different times and spaces and non-existent times and spaces all being forced to work together, they either praised me for copying the world or damned me for doing so. It is almost as though people could not understand the basic principle I followed when painting, namely

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Quae non prosunt singula multa iuvant. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think that is so difficult to understand, but for most people it seems to be. In my work now I am trying to embrace the ideas of rupture, or Deleuzeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s folds, in time and space, so that those folds are more apparent. I am embracing wholeheartedly Lautreamontâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dictum that art should be as beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting-table of a sewing-machine and an umbrella. As you have long known, I always sought to do this, but in the past I tried to hide those folds and ruptures, and I got so good at it no one believed they were really there. I suspect you are headed towards similar territory in these cantos. There is no doubt there is a relationship in everything you write in the book to Stass and his death, but do not be surprised if it is not as obvious to others as it is to you. The point is, I think, that each canto is a point of rupture, a fold or break in time and space that mirrors the rupture caused by the death of someone close. I suppose it is that mirroring that is important, not reflecting, and in that we return to Carroll and Wonderland with all of us being swallowed by the mirror on the mantlepiece. Maybe it even takes us back to Roland Barthes, only this time we ignore the fatuous decoding of images and just fall into the endless pit of his abyss. It is all the gateway to a kind of

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madness, so why should ‘mad’ time and ‘mad’ space through that gateway not be out of sync with the imposed wisdom of the world in which we live? In Wonderland or the abyss, why wouldn’t a kind of madness take over? On that note, when you next ring Stass could you ask him if he would like a copy of my new catalogue? I’d send him one anyway, but I don’t know where to send it. Best wishes Clive

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§58 West Norwood 18 September 2015 Dear Clive. Thank you for your letter. I am glad you like the book as it is developing. As I say, I do not know if the §s will stay in the order I sent them to you as I have moved them around repeatedly already, and probably will do so again. As you say, there is not forward flow of narrative or time, so they can almost go in any order as that is how I think of them anyway. I would actually say it is almost how I experienced them. The Lone Ranger sketch is an odd one, it is true, and maybe it will not survive until the end. It came to me not really in a dream, but in one of the half waking stupors I often find myself in at night. I am not really asleep, and I am aware of my surroundings, but my brain is not quite working in normal conscious mode and strange thoughts and ideas sometimes come to me. With Stass’s death I find I often cannot sleep, at least not the whole night, and so I lie in bed in this state of mind whilst trying not to move too much in case I wake Emma. The poems came the same way. I think I had a sudden idea that the Lone Ranger and Tonto is a kind of reworking of Don

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Quixote and Sancho Panza. I have been reading Don Quixote recently, and it is a beautiful book that is really a metaphor for the artist in society. Don Quixote is the artist, and I think Sancho Panza the sympathetic critic. That doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really have anything to do with the Lone Ranger, but there is still a connection between him and Don Quixote. Do you remember on Saturday mornings they used to broadcast old black and white episodes of the Lone Ranger on television? I used to find them so dull and humourless, and longed for Mork and Mindy or The Banana Bunch or The Monkees to come on instead. But the truth dawned on me in one of these night time stupors that the Lone Ranger and Tonto are a reworking of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, but with all the warmth and humour of Cervantesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book taken out, despite the whole premise of the Lone Ranger being so ridiculous. It is a version lacking humanity, so I suppose my sketch is an attempt to return the warmth, humour and humanity to them. I know people will probably think it is a wilfully obscure connection and so abstruse it is not really a connection to Stass at all. And perhaps they are right. But Don Quixote is, in my mind, connected to Stass, and there is undoubtedly a connection between Don Quixote and the Lone Ranger, and the truth of this fact came to me in the middle of the night during a bout of insomnia that was also

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brought on by Stassâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s death. So you are right, others are not necessarily going to see the connections, but they are there. Perhaps that means the ruptures and folds you mention will even appear wilful and pretentious, but the truth is nothing is without purpose in this book. But now I know what you are going to tell me - stop explaining everything and let it stand for itself. Stass used to say something similar. When he was asked once what a particular painting was about he said there was a story behind it, but he could not remember what it was, so now there is just the painting! All best Michael

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§59 ‘Perhaps we should have a question from someone in the audience. The man in the third row with hands like snow shovels, what’s your question?’ ‘Thank you, I’d like to ask Michael, why are you so angry?’ ‘It’s a good question: why are you so angry?’ ‘I think what you really mean by that question is does Geroud have other sketches for his comedy show? It happens that he does. He has an idea that Jack the Ripper joins a Jack the Ripper tour in the East End of London. ‘As the tourist party is taken around the scenes where the Ripper’s crimes were committed, and the young acting student leading the party, dressed in a mock-Victorian undertaker’s suit and top hat, describes in gory detail the circumstances of each murder, the Ripper begins to knock off the tourists one by one until he is the only one left. ‘The Ripper and the acting student then declare it a good night’s work and go for a drink together to a nearby pub.’ ‘That’s dark humour.’ ‘Yes, but we mustn’t be afraid of the dark.’ ‘Did Stass like to tell stories?’ ‘Very much so. In Leeds, in art schools like Leicester and Canterbury, and London pubs and in

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Cyprus, he was well known for it. People would come round our house, famous people, in art at least, like Terry Frost and Euan Uglow and Patrick Heron, and they would eat these enormous meals my mother would cook, nothing fancy, but lamb chops, chips and things like that, and they would sit round the table laughing and joking and telling stories until late into the night. You could say Stass was at the centre of a kind of salon, but we were not posh like the Sitwells so no one is ever going to call it that. But the point is, whoever came round talked about art, and told jokes and stories, and Stass did all that very expertly too. So, yes, Stass liked to tell stories and they made you laugh so much. ‘Do you like telling stories?’ ‘Not in the same way. Stass could tell them out loud, and time punchlines so that stories which would probably look dull and unfunny on paper, had people in stitches of laughter. He didn’t really tell jokes. He told exaggerated stories about people he knew or things that had happened to him when he was a young man in Cyprus or a student in Leeds. ‘I cannot do that, but incredibly Stass tried to teach me to do it. He knew I had been reading the Arabian Nights and he remembered the story of the Caliph who Farted. It’s a story about a Caliph who has his entire court around him standing in silence when he lets out an almighty fart. It is such a funny

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moment the court erupts in laughter, so the Caliph creeps away into the night, to live in disguise as a pauper, and avoid the shame at what happened. Decades later, still a pauper, but having travelled the world, he thinks, “They must have forgotten about my fart by now.” So he returns to Baghdad and enters the main gate. No one recognises him, so he stops by a well. Nearby two men are talking about the old days. ‘Oh,’ says one of the men. ‘You mean in the year the old Caliph farted!’ Horrified they still remember his fart the old Caliph leaves Baghdad again, never to return.’ ‘How did he try to teach you with that?’ ‘By throwing me in at the deep end. He made me stand up at some dinner party and tell that story to a group of his friends. It might have been Terry Frost visiting. I was a very shy child and did it very badly of course so no one laughed.’ ‘In a way you were like the Caliph, who thought everyone was laughing at him, only in your case no one laughed.’ ‘True. Embarrassment crippled us both in a way it never crippled Stass.’

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§60 For Geroud the day began as the last one had ended, a heavy plume of cloud hanging over the city just bursting to rain but lacking the guts to get on with it. The post brought only the landlord’s bill, unstamped so delivered by hand, which included the landlord’s customary arbitrary amount added for Service Charges. It was higher than usual. He must have seen Miss Waites coming or going and assumed Geroud had a job. No doubt the lech had whistled at her as she passed, so Geroud decided to leave him whistling a while for his rent. Throwing the bill in his otherwise empty in-tray Geroud went out, pausing only long enough to retrieve the envelope left by Miss Waites. He hadn’t opened it yet, and didn’t want to. He could feel through the paper it was a tidy sum. Enough to pay the lech and even buy some clean socks, if he felt like splashing out. Geroud headed into town, walking far enough to get cold before succumbing to the charms of a passing bus. When the conductor asked for his fare Geroud took out the envelope and found sixpence in the loose change trapped in his pocket underneath. Only then did he notice the feint pencil on the envelope spelling out the words ‘Call me’ followed by a number. There was no name or indication who had written it, but Geroud made a

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fair guess at Miss Waites. But if she had anything to say to him, he thought, she could have said it last night. Everyone knows it’s easier to talk at night when drink and the false intimacy of darkness offer at least some sense of cover. Who else wrote it then? Pound? The bus arrived at Oxford Circus and Geroud cut through towards Charlotte Street and then onto the Tottenham Court Road. Something told him if Pound didn’t work for the BBC he needed to find out more about the ABC. What had Waites called it, the Alpha-Beta Corporation? And there was Geroud thinking it had something to do with tea shops and aerated bread. Still, he had an urge just to check it wasn’t actually the ABC Tearoom in Fitzrovia, at least before the initials changed again into the AA or RAC or something. Everything was already too fluid for comfort. The tea room was almost empty when he arrived. Wood panel on the walls, stained dark brown to mimic something classier, suggested the placed had once longed for some kind of respectability. But the young and pretty waitresses in white blouses and black skirts, each wrapped round with a lacy apron, hinted at something less creditable. Perhaps that was just Geroud’s dirty mind, but the way a small group of male students from Weatherley’s art school nearby were unable to take their eyes from the

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women as they went from table to table, over to the serving hatch, and then back to the tables, suggested he wasn’t alone with that thought. Geroud ordered tea and a buttered crumpet, blushing as he did so. The waitress smiled at the sight. It was clear the ABC Miss Waites had mentioned had nothing to do with the ABC of tea and crumpets, so Geroud finished quickly, paid and stood up to leave. The rain seemed to have found enough courage to fall, leaving numerous people, including Geroud, cowering in doorways. From this limited shelter he tried to judge how wet he was about to become. As he did so a car drew up and from it emerged Handley. He either failed to see Geroud standing by the doorway, or thought too little of anyone hanging around on street corners to pay them any notice. Handley disappeared down the side of the ABC, prompting Geroud to brave the rain and follow. Looking from the street, down the narrow alley running the entire side of the tearoom, Handley was nowhere to be seen, so Geroud gingerly followed. He walked slowly, noting how the tall buildings and narrow path seemed to protect the alley from rain. Halfway down he stopped to look at a fire exit guarded by a large green and white ‘Fire Exit, Keep Clear’ sign. He decided it was an unlikely entrance for a man like Handley. Further along, near what must have been the end of the alley Geroud’s

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progress was finally checked by the sound of voices. They were smoking, laughing and joking, and he guessed it must have been some of the kitchen hands and waitresses on a break. There too he could see the door Handley must have gone through, but to move towards it would have meant giving himself away to the crowd. Instead, Geroud pulled back using an alcove for bins as cover. As he stood there he overheard their conversation. A young woman was telling the others about a customer blushing when asking her for some crumpets. It was Geroud’s waitress and she had to mean him, unless it was a common event with the boys from Weatherley’s. The group laughed and, despite being hidden from their view, Geroud felt himself blushing once again. The waitress then asked one of the kitchen hands his name. ‘You’re new here aren’t you?’ The kitchen hand answered in heavily-accented English that he had only started that day. ‘What’s your name then?’ she asked. Anastasinos, or Stasinos came the reply. ‘Blimey!’ Cried the waitress, her tearoom English giving way something from the east end. ‘That’s too long to remember. I’m going to call you Stass, and I tell you this, you can fuck me any time!’ As laughter exploded from the hidden courtyard Geroud found himself gasping for air. He knew that story. It was Stass’s story of how he got

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his name. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d told it at an exhibition opening in Nicosia, deliberately trying to shock the genteel crowd. Before Geroud could regain his senses the tea break was over and the small crowd began to move slowly into the path next to him and then through the side door into the ABC kitchen. Geroud pressed himself into the hard wall and went unnoticed. He watched them as they each passed by, but none of them seemed familiar, except perhaps the last one. There was something familiar in the way he walked. Stass? With the last of the kitchen hands gone Geroud moved out of the alcove but held onto the wall, gasping for breath. The walls of the alley seemed taller than before, the path narrower, and nothing seemed as he had remembered it only minutes before. Like a primitive man contemplating the chaos of the world surrounding him for the first time, Geroud longed for a different world to this, a world of absolute and permanent values, free from the arbitrariness of the one into which he had somehow stumbled. Stumble was the right word as Geroud made his way towards where the crowd had been sitting. There the narrow alley gave way to a small courtyard, surrounded on all four sides by the brick walls. One of these was punctured by the alleyway

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itself, the others by three closed doors each staring out nervously. It reminded Geroud of Doré’s prison yard. Except in the centre of this picture there wasn’t a ring of men taking morning exercise. There was only a body that wouldn’t be needing a fitness plan any more. It was Handley, lying on the ground face down, with a knife sticking out of his back.

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§61 ‘That seems like a cue for another question from the audience. The woman at the back who looks like an East German shotputter, what would you like to ask?’ ‘I’d just like to ask you Michael, why are you so angry?’ ‘If what you are asking is did I think about just printing the diary on its own, I did think about it, but it is very short, and I also had other qualms. I toyed with the idea of re-writing the diary to turn it into a longer story. But I didn’t dare do that. It didn’t seem right. ‘I tell you something that happened in Cyprus when my father died. He had a street named after him! Incredible isn’t it, knowing someone who has had a street named after them, let alone being related to them. I guess it means tarmac runs through my DNA. It’s not in any of the big towns or done at government level, where nothing’s really happened to remember him. It was in the village of Lempa, where Stass had his art school. It was done by the village mayor, or mukhtar, a man named Thoukis Chrisostomou. He wanted the village to remember Stass. ‘I thought, that’s nice. And I thought it’s also strangely ridiculous, naming a street after an artist, especially an artist like Stass. But then I heard about

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this airport in Spain, called Don Quixote Airport, somewhere south of Madrid. It cost a billion euro to build, but they didn’t take account of the fact hardly anyone lives in that part of Spain and the airport is about two-hundred miles from the nearest coast, so not much use for holiday traffic either. So they named something as unlikely as an airport after Don Quixote, and it turned into something Don Quixote might have built himself. It was a stroke of genius really. ‘But the street named after Stass and the airport named after Don Quixote got me thinking what would make a suitable memorial to Stass? I suspect in terms of physical memorials we’ve reached the limit in having thirty yards of tarmac named in his honour, but I wondered what would one say if the government in Nicosia or the city council in Larnaca decided one day they wanted to put up a statue of Stass in a square or park? I suppose one would say, okay, go ahead, but you would know that it’s almost inevitable they would put up the kind of sculpture Stass hated. So perhaps thirty yards of tarmac is a better memorial. ‘Then again, perhaps his paintings, or the art school at Lempa, or the sculpture wall that surrounds it are his real monuments. Or perhaps he doesn’t want a monument, or a memorial, or anything like that. I know that when Stass came up

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with the plans for the Archbishop Makarios monument in Paphos he didn’t want to produce a typical piece quasi-National Socialist sculpture you see all over traumatised countries like Cyprus. He didn’t really want to produce any kind of monument. He wanted to make a work of art, which is to say he wanted to be an artist, but an artist who was at that moment thinking about Makarios. ‘There’s a difference, you see, between a work of art being about something and a work of art being inspired by something. The first is an illustration, the second a creation, and the creation can get to a far more fundamental truth about a subject than an illustration. In the case of Makarios it might have got to the truth about Stass’s strange love for a man like Makarios, whom he thought was deeply flawed and who took too so many foolish decisions. A lot of people in Cyprus think about Makarios in that way, but there is still a deep love for him. That love would have underpinned Stass’s sculpture in some way, except that the Bishop of Paphos sacked him before it was made. ‘So I had to ask, would it have been right to rewrite Stass’s diary? For me that would have created a one-dimensional Stass, a Stass I didn’t really know, whereas my memories of him, and the terrible pain of his death, are complex. They fold in on themselves time and again, merging with other

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thoughts and memories and sometimes crazy imaginings. I thought my monument to Stass has to be an intricate piece of origami folded by Don Quixote, even if that is not the monument someone else would have carved. This is my monument, and nobody else’s. ‘Stass’s diary covers only a few weeks in one summer, 1968. It is written on a reporters’ notebook, with a rusty metal spiral binding at the top, in black and blue Bic biro. That was always Stass’s favourite pen. Not any other kind of biro, it had to be a Bic biro. When my mother bought him what we all thought of as an expensive fountain pen one Christmas, he loved that too. But Stass always pressed too hard on the paper and soon the nib broke. A Bic biro could cope much better with his almost sculptural writing. His handwriting is unmistakable, almost childlike, with big rounded letters, never elegant, but full of character. ‘And rewrite the diary and say what? Martin is drunk. He drinks a lot and his liver is packing up. Stass can only afford two beers at the Hilton, but these seem to have a more dramatic effect on Martin than he expects. Martin becomes lively, talkative and loud. He can be good company, but the line where the vitality of the merry gives way to the tedium of the drunk is a fine one in alcoholics, the difference of only a few sips. Stass doesn’t know this yet, but

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everyday during their trip to Cyprus Martin starts the day with a bottle of brandy, or ouzo, or whatever he can find. Martin does not smell very good at any time, so it’s hard to tell whether it’s new alcohol on his breath or the vapours of the day before. ‘Stass asks Martin if he has written anything since they arrived. Martin says he is writing all the time, “Haven’t stopped Duckie,” which Stass thinks is doubtful. But Martin pulls from his pocket a small notepad, and in it Stass sees notes for poems. “I might read one tonight at your exhibition, after the Minister,” he says. Stass thinks this a fantastic idea. Martin doesn’t speak now but moves his mouth as if speaking and nods his head vigorously. He then stands up, staggers slightly like a morning glory tendril swaying in a light summer breeze, and walks out of the hotel bar into the reception. Stass doesn’t follow. Instead he gets his own notebook out and starts writing his diary entry for the day. ‘I didn’t want to rewrite it like that. You’ve seen – Geroud wouldn’t let me anyway.’

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§62 At least that’s how Geroud felt as he tried to emerge unnoticed from the alleyway by the ABC Tearoom back onto Tottenham Court Road. He felt like a bit player in someone else’s play suddenly thrown into the limelight, and he wasn’t comfortable with all the attention. Coming face to face with a corpse for the first time, it seemed as though a puppeteer had taken control of Geroud’s mind and body. A sane man, in control of his own faculties, or one who possessed an ounce of humanity, would surely have called for help, or called the police, not snuck back into the flow of life on main street. This wasn’t him. But he figured the scene as much in cold sweat as cold logic. He knew it couldn’t look good for him. It seemed inconceivable the crowd of laughing waiters and kitchen hands had missed the stiff he had found so easily in the yard they had occupied only moments before, and so he reckoned they would be unlikely to corroborate his claims of innocence to any investigating officer. Perhaps they were even waiting for some sap to walk in on them and take the rap. Like so much in this case nothing seemed to make sense, and Geroud couldn’t shake the feeling Handley’s corpse was meant to be linked to him. He felt the police would have gladly taken a single

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thread of fibre from Handley’s body and wrapped it round him, nice and cosy like a noose. They might still do that, following the thread through the Labyrinth he had stumbled into, through the ABC Tearoom to his assignation with the beautiful Miss Waites the night before, and back further still, through to the lair of the Minotaur himself, Pound at the BBC, and his meeting with Handley. All the way back, and instinct told him none of the kinks in that thread would look, even with a kind eye, like proof of his innocence. That’s how it felt to Geroud. Some halfarsed scriptwriter had gotten hold of a cod storyline and was determined to pursue it to its bitter end, like some obsessive nut, regardless of who got hurt. As he stepped into Tottenham Court Road Geroud kept his right arm deep in his coat pocket to hide the blood stain he had picked up from the body. He walked as far as Goodge Street Tube station and caught the train home for a change of clothes. Once there, some peroxide mouthwash did a reasonable job bleaching the blood from his coat, which he rinsed and placed on a hanger over the bath to dry. With it dripping into the bath Geroud felt the whole scene looked seedy and he felt dirty inside himself. The sight of Handley’s body came back into his mind’s eye and he vomited into the nearby toilet pan.

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As he finished the telephone rang with an insistence that told him this was no social call. Wiping his mouth on a sheet of toilet paper, he returned to the front room and picked up the receiver to be addressed by a familiar voice. It was Miss Waites. Although he couldn’t help thinking the body that had tried to ruin his coat had something to do with her he was glad to hear her voice. ‘Are you alright?’ she asked. Geroud told her he was fine. ‘I was worried,’ she continued in little more than a whisper. ‘When I heard.’ She stopped abruptly as though fearing she had said too much. A cynic might have as thought she was feeding him a line, but thankfully Geroud hated cynics. He preferred people with a little faith, even if that also made them gullible at times. He preferred people like Stass. Hadn’t Stass said it is better to trust people and be disappointed every now and then than trust no one at all? Something like that. As the world around Geroud seemed to get more crazy by the minute it was hard to remember who had said what. Geroud told Miss Waites again he was fine, but asked her what she had heard. ‘One of Pound’s,’ she paused mid-sentence, ‘associates was asked to follow you.’ Geroud told her Mr Pound seems to be asking a lot of his associates to stay real close these days. He thought he heard her blush down the line. ‘The rumour is he got too close and you confronted

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him,’ she continued. ‘And now he’s dead.’ This time it was Geroud’s turn to pause. Eventually he told her not to worry. He said he hadn’t confronted anyone, adding he didn’t like too many rumours circulating that he had. It was fine to have just enough stories doing the rounds to keep predators wary, he said unconvincingly, but he knew a rumour like that wasn’t meant to impress street corner louts. It was designed to bring the police to his door. He told her he had found a body, but it was a cold before he got there. He told her it was Handley. A few moments later Miss Waites was standing at his door. She was soaked again but this time it was not only the rain. He took her coat and as he did she deftly manoeuvred herself to rest her head on his chest. Her arms wrapped themselves around his body and her fingers pressed so hard into his back he knew there would be bruises in the morning. ‘For God’s sake, Geroud. He’s a monster. Please give him what he wants,’ she said. Geroud told her he would gladly give Pound anything he asked for if it was in his gift to give. She looked up at him and her eyes seemed to brighten as he spoke. ‘So you’ll give him the diary?’ she asked. Unloosening Geroud found himself speaking more sternly than he intended or she deserved. He asked why Pound wanted the diary so badly. ‘I don’t know,’

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she said with what passed for conviction. ‘He doesn’t tell me everything.’ Geroud told her again that he would gladly give Pound anything he could, but he couldn’t just hand over something that wasn’t his to give. He added he didn’t even have the diary. An unexpected burst of anger shot from the pretty face that had, only a moment earlier, been crippled with worry. Miss Waites’s ability to curse was as much of a surprise. ‘Do you think they don’t know all about you Geroud? Do you think they’d send me out here to talk to you if they didn’t know you have the diary? They wouldn’t waste their time or mine.’ Geroud asked her who are they. ‘Never mind,’ she replied. ‘I know you have the diary and so do they.’ Geroud turned away to hide his expression. He never had a poker face and he didn’t want to play a hammer of 7 and 2 so soon. After a pause, Miss Waites started again. ‘Do you think you won’t be the next one found in an alley with a knife in your back?’ She almost spat as she spoke. After another pause, Geroud asked Miss Waites why she cared whether it was him or another of Pound’s lackeys who ended up face down in a back street alley. ‘He wasn’t just a lacky,’ she replied. Geroud filled in the gaps and played his hand. He said in that case he was surprised she was back at work so soon after her loss. She cursed again and slapped Geroud hard across the face. In a single

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move she grabbed her coat and left, slamming the door behind her. Alone now Geroud rubbed his cheek. That hurt he thought, but whether he meant himself or Miss Waites he wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t sure. He poured himself a whisky and as he sat in an easy chair he found himself laughing gently to the empty room. It was as though he had remembered someone telling a good joke. One about a dog that went for a swim.

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§63 ‘And another question from the audience. The menacing little man in the front row. Yes you.’ ‘I hated your book Dr Paraskos, but what I would just like to ask is, why are you so angry?’ ‘What I think he means is what was it like growing up with Stass as your father? What are your earliest memories of him?’ ‘My earliest memory of him was walking in the school playing field next to our house. At the top of the field was a picket fence separating the school ground from the cornfield on the other side. Along the edge of it was planted a line of fir trees. They were only small. I remember walking with Stass along the line of that fence and the fir trees. I must have been aged 4 or 5. It’s probably my earliest memory of anything.’ ‘You said you were very close to your father in those days.’ ‘Yes, I remember an endless number of days like that one. Days when we would not necessarily do anything, but we would simply be together.’ ‘Did you feel safe with your father?’ ‘When he wasn’t kicking thieves up the backside you mean? Yes. He knew I was not brave or strong and he tried to protect me. I was afraid of the dark until my early teens. I could not sleep in a room

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alone. It terrified me. That didn’t really stop until I was thirteen or fourteen years old.’ ‘And that was because of the ghosts?’ ‘Both my parents were very tolerant of my irrational fears. When we lived in Waltham they never once tried to force me to sleep elsewhere. I must have been a bloody nuisance, but they never said they minded. I am sure it did me no good in the long run, but it was motivated by love.’ ‘Do you still believe in ghosts now?’ ‘Of course not.’ ‘So you do not believe the house in Waltham was really haunted?’ ‘It absolutely was! I have no doubt about that.’ ‘But you don’t believe in ghosts.’ ‘I do not believe in ghosts, but there were ghosts in that house and they were not friendly. Not to me.’ ‘Does that mean you were unhappy there?’ ‘I don’t think so. Despite my terror of the house it was also the place where I think I was closest to Stass. It was the place we were most often together. We would walk around the school field like it was our estate. ‘Stass had this trick that seemed like magic to me. He would fill an upturned trash can lid with water and we would sit quietly until little flocks of

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songbirds would appear and start bathing in it. At other times we would use the same lid as a brazier to light a fire. Stass loved lighting fires. He had a touch of the pyromaniac about him. ‘At other times we would kick a football around the school field, not like people who cared about football as a game, or sport, or teams, or shit like that. We would just kick the ball backward and forward, from Stass to me, from me to Stass, passing it between us almost as though sharing a gift between two friends. And Stass would read to me. Our favourite books were the Paddington stories and Stass would do the voices. He would mimic my inability to say Paddington, so we both called him Waddington. I suppose reading to me was meant to get me to sleep on my own upstairs, but it never worked. After the stories were over I would follow him downstairs and we would feed our border collie, Prince, or Stass would go and watch the news on TV or something.’ ‘But that ended when you left the village?’ ‘It wasn’t a rupture. We were still together, but it was different. We were less likely to be on our own as the house we moved into was modern and small, and there was hardly any garden. Stass would never have suggested we go to the local park to kick a ball round, or even go for a walk in the housing estate we had moved to. That would have been too

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public somehow. So it was different. And I was older. And we didn’t have Prince with us.’ ‘So Waltham – is it? –‘ ‘Yes, Waltham.’ ‘– Waltham was a kind of idyll. Your Eden, even if it was an Eden with a serpent in the attic. And then it became a Paradise Lost.’ ‘Maybe, and for some reason, despite no one in the family ever claiming to have liked living there, we all get excited when we hear one of us has been through the village and seen the old house. In fact we have all been back in the past few years. Odd eh?’ ‘But there was always, for you, the problem of the ghost.’ ‘Yes, the ghost. But there were problems for all of us. Waltham was a farming village, although at the end of that farming tradition when we lived there.’ ‘This was in the mid-1970s?’ ‘Yes. Because it was a kind of transitional time for villages like that and the inhabitants were increasingly a mixed bunch. They included local farmers and country squires and their horsey wives, and retired farm workers, who I suppose belonged to the old rural tradition. But there were also a lot of incomers, half of whom lived in the row of council houses at one end of the village, and the other half lived in a row of newly-built starter homes at the

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other end of the village. It was a tiny place, with three distinct groups of people.’ ‘Which end of the village did you live in?’ ‘Neither. We lived in the dead centre, in the old school master’s house. Like everything else about us we were anomalies amongst all the village’s competing clans. Technically our house was a council house, but it wasn’t really like one. But we were not rich or even well off. Stass taught at Canterbury College of Art, but it wasn’t a well paid job in those days and teaching art and being an artist meant he didn’t do what most people in the village considered a proper job anyway. And we were odd too because we were not from Kent or even the South. We weren’t even properly English. It’s hard to understand that sense of difference now, but the truth is, in the 1970s, places like Waltham were overwhelmingly inhabited by nasty, small-minded, racist bigots. Even larger towns like Canterbury were not much better.’ ‘So your father stood out?’ ‘Yes. He didn’t look in any sense English. But it wasn’t any easier for my brothers or sister. Although I went to the village primary school, they caught the bus each day to the local secondary modern school, where at least three of them had a miserable time. Stanley was a tearaway, Margaret was insolent and lippy and Christopher was, well,

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according to one of his school teachers, “a communist wog.” Only Paul seems to have thrived there because he was the only one of us who was good at sports and woodwork. They’re the two things you had to be good at in a Secondary Modern School, sport and woodwork.’ ‘But there is a reason you have latched on to this? I mean, when I asked you to tell me about your father when you were growing up you could have gone to other periods, maybe Leeds or the other village you moved to, or your teenage years. So why this time?’ ‘As I said I was afraid of the dark. I was afraid of going upstairs and the ghost. It had an effect on me for many years, long after we left Waltham, and when we started visiting Cyprus in the 1970s Stass tried to help me. He would always insist that I should have the bed next to his because he would say he was afraid of the dark. And so we would sleep side by side, Stass protecting me from my fear of the night by telling me it was because he was afraid of the dark.’ ‘Now I see. When Stass was dying you repaid the debt. He lay terrified and in pain, dying as it turned out, and you slept next to him.’ ‘He shook almost uncontrollably, a terrifying constant muscle spasm, but when I put my hand out and just rested it on his shoulder or his

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arm, he seemed to calm down. Just a little. Just a little. And he seemed able to sleep for a while.’ ‘There was a kind of balance to things.’ ‘It’s not really balance. There is nothing even or balanced about any of this. But there was something circular about it. I knew that even as I lay there next to him.’ ‘You said you have been back to the old house.’ ‘Not to the house itself, it’s someone else’s home now. But outside. To the village. I’ve spent a while in the village church yard where I often played as a child. Ironic isn’t it. Scared of the dark, but I had no problem playing in an overgrown churchyard filled with ancient graves. I used to play hide and seek there. I went back to the village and I went to the churchyard. I spent quite a while there.’ ‘It sounds like you were searching for something.’ ‘If I was, it must be well and truly lost because I never found it. Perhaps I was also looking for sixpence to buy an ice cream.’ ‘Or to go home?’

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§64 From the gloom that filled the offices of Pound and his associates you would never have known if the sun had finally worked up the courage to fight the clouds and take control of the skies above London. In some ways it was a homely gloom, of pipes and slippers and Ovaltine, but it was also a stifling gloom of tobacco smoke and unquestioned power. Most powerful in this world was Pound, but the hierarchy of relationships beneath him were far from fixed. Pound liked it that way, allowing the backstabbing of his underlings not only to provide him with entertainment, but a safety net against potential rivals. Anyone thinking of acting too independently, or not acting with the degree of conviction Pound expected from them, was soon denounced by an informer. Thus had ended the career of Handley. As Pound sat in silence staring at Miss Waites he wondered whether she was also heading for pastures new. He knew she had been close to Handley, and he knew too she had come close to allying herself with Geroud. Thankfully that fool had lacked the intelligence to realise that fact. Still Geroud was right to be wary. Pound’s mantra was always that you couldn’t really trust anyone. Increasingly he wondered if he could trust Miss Waites.

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‘I have a job for you Miss Waites,’ said Pound at last, having decided the menacing silence had done as much as it was likely to achieve. ‘Yes Mr Pound,’ said Miss Waites. ‘I need you to get close to Mr Geroud,’ Pound continued. ‘I see,’ said Miss Waites. ‘Only –‘ ‘You might have burnt your bridges on that one,’ interrupted Pound. ‘Yes, we know all about that, but I suspect you underestimate the effect you have on Mr Geroud. Possibly you also overestimate the impact a little tap on the cheek will have had. Who knows, it might even have sharpened his interest.’ ‘Yes, Mr Pound.’ ‘Mr Geroud is, understandably, in a state of confusion at the moment. We have seen to that quite well. The ground beneath his feet shifts and he needs a friend. Do you understand what I mean?’ ‘Perfectly.’ ‘So you will do what it takes to become his friend?’ asked Pound with an insistence that allowed only one answer. ‘Of course.’ ‘Of course. And, of course, I leave it up to you how to play this scene,’ continued Pound. ‘As long as we get the result we want you have absolute freedom.’ Pound stood up, walked around to Miss Waites’s side of the desk and perched, looming over

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her like a vulture. He reach out his hand, pausing only momentarily to allow her to recover from a slight autonomic flinch. He continued, using the back of his chubby forefinger to stroke her cheek. She wanted to cry out but there was nothing in the script to say she could. Pound’s finger was now stroking her throat, gently, but in such a delicate spot, even the gentlest touch could be construed as a threat. He moved down, to stroke now the front of her blouse, not enough for it to press on to the skin underneath, but enough to let her know he could if he wanted to. Pound pulled away. ‘It’s nice to have freedom to act wouldn’t you agree,’ he said. It was not the first time Pound had done this, but before Handley had intervened with a distraction to save Miss Waites from Pound’s wandering hands. With Handley gone there was no one around one to stop Pound wandering now wherever he chose and Miss Waites knew absolute power breeds absolute abuse. She could not expect any help from Pound’s goblin-like henchman, Schäuble, who had been perched on the back of a chair behind Miss Waites from the moment she sat down, watching, smirking, almost ready to pounce himself should the opportunity ever arise. But without Handley, even having Schäuble with her in the room with Pound seemed like a surrogate comfort.

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Standing again, Pound walked to the window and stood looking out, his massive body blocking out what little light was able to find its way into the room. ‘We will need to undermine Mr Geroud’s confidence a little more. We have that in hand. You,’ he said, turning to look at Miss Waites, ‘will be there to help pick up the pieces.’ Against the window Pound’s body seemed huge, and was a deep black silhouette against the light. For the first time Miss Waites wondered if this creature of malice was human at all. Perhaps he was no more than a black abyss. She remembered the description of Shakespeare’s Iago by one of her school teachers, more like a personification of malice than a fully explained character. He was there to pull strings behind the scenes and undermine certainty for no other reason than to undermine certainty. Most of all he was there to put out the light of the world. ‘Yes, perhaps that is my reason to exist,’ agreed Pound, shocking Miss Waites into thinking she had spoken her thoughts out loud. But she hadn’t and she knew she hadn’t which shocked her even more. Pound seemed to possess an uncanny ability to read her mind, as though he had the power to read an author’s asides in his own book. Of course he had that power. He was a monster and like

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most monsters, in fact or fiction, Pound had to possess some kind of monstrous power. ‘Monsters,’ said Pound. ‘They’re mostly in our minds. It’s when they escape into the real world we have to worry, wouldn’t you agree Miss Waites.’ A cold sweat bathed Miss Waites’s body as Pound spoke. ‘I think you should run along now Schäuble,’ said Pound. ‘You look hungry and Miss Waites and I have a few more things to deal with.’

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§65 Nanny arrived early for her classes the next day, entering the long low modernist building, a 1970s series of boxes placed at right angles to each other in a small campus garden, through one of the side doors. She walked past a small atrium planted with low maintenance sub-tropical plants, and into the main entrance lobby. She smiled a good morning to the secretary who was already at work in the room behind a glass wall. Out of the lobby and into the open air again, she walked across a grass quadrangle surrounded on three sides by buildings and on the fourth side by the art school’s car park. The car park was still mostly empty at this time. It was overhung by a dense canopy of horse chestnut trees, whilst in the middle of the quadrangle stood an ancient cedar tree, its branches reaching out, long and low, as though curtsying at a Georgian tea dance. Under its shadow, the grass gave way to bare earth buried in places by the cedar’s fallen needles. On the far side of the quadrangle Nanny entered an unobtrusive door marked with a large green sign reading ‘Fire Exit Keep Clear’, and was in the studios. The only other student there so early was Michael, a quiet boy who looked at her nervously as she passed. ‘Hello Michael,’ Nanny said breezily, her

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smile, he thought, tinged with some kind of mockery at his shyness. He looked back at her and smiled as best he could, but said nothing. Nanny didn’t really notice, as she was already in her studio space, placing her yellow-khaki canvas bag, decorated with a yellow button badge, reading ATOMKRAFT? NEJ TAK, and her name hand-written in dirty white TippEx, on one of the dark grey plastic stacking chairs. One of these stood in each studio space, some cracked and all caked in paint. She looked around her for a moment, before focusing on a large painting in her space, her work, an organic abstract piece in bright colours with free flowing lines and forms that drifted behind and in front of each other, as though performing a complex dance. Removing her bag from the chair, Nanny sat down, placed the bag on her lap and brought out a drawing book. It was not a sketch pad. It was a drawing book. Their tutor, Denis, had banned them from calling their drawings sketches as it sounded half-hearted and amateur. Nanny placed the drawing book on the table beside her, and returned to the bag in search of paints. ‘Fuck,’ she said loudly and incongruously, causing Michael to look up. ‘Fuck,’ she repeated.’ Michael asked her if she was alright. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I forgot to bring my paints.’ She smiled at Michael again, screwed up her face into a mock grimace and asked, ‘I couldn’t borrow some

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could I?’ Sure said Michael, unable to believe his luck at being Nanny’s saviour. He told her to take what she needed and she proceeded to do so, stepping over to his studio space and pulling half a dozen tubes of Spectrum acrylic paint from the shelf under his table. ‘If you need them back just let me know,’ she said as she returned to her own space. Seated again Nanny realised a second problem, but either embarrassment or scruples meant she kept it to herself this time. With her paint she had forgotten her brushes. Besides, she thought, she couldn’t ask Michael to borrow his brushes. They were highly personal things. It would be like borrowing a toothbrush or something. You just had your own. She looked at Michael again and his face coloured even though he didn’t seem to see her gaze. She wondered if he was the sort of boy who would lend a girl his toothbrush. But she wasn’t going to ask him, not this time, and instead she stepped over to a pile of sticks she had been weaving together using pulled strips of Co-op plastic carrier bags. She took a selection of the sticks from the lattice work of wood and plastic, returned to her seat and began to press the ends of them hard against the table top so they flattened, splintered and softened, becoming in the process impromptu brushes. She was pleased with her own ingenuity, and began to press large globules of paint from Michael’s tubes

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directly onto the table. A discarded plastic cup under her chair served as a water beaker, and she filled it from the old Belfast sink that sat in the corner of the studio. Taking the paint onto one of larger twig brushes she began to scrape at the large painting on the wall. She stood back disappointed. The impromptu brush didn’t work. The paint went on, but thin and indecisive. She withdrew to the plastic chair. There she took one of the smaller twigs and loaded it as best she could with paint. On a blank page in the drawing book she tried again, this time using the twig as a kind of pen and the paint as ink to draw with. She seemed happy with the compromise. Other students were arriving now and setting themselves up in their bays. Conversations and laughter began to animate the space, so that when Stass and the other tutors started their twice weekly tour of the students the studio was alive. Today was not Nanny’s day for a tutorial, but as the tutorial juggernaut reached her studio space it stopped beside her. It was Stass who has brought it to this sudden halt. He was staring at her, not with his usual benevolence, but with a look of real anger in his face. ‘What are you doing?’ he shouted at her. A silence came over the entire studio and Nanny felt her stomach tighten, then loosen, then churn, then tighten again. A metallic taste filled

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her mouth and trickled down her throat. Stass could shout, but rarely did so. His was a patient method of teaching, based more on example and encouragement than rules and censure. Someone once called it teaching by osmosis, but it was more active than that. It was the same method that had taken him from peasant boy and kitchen potman, to artist and teacher. But Stass still had standards. If someone fell below them he might leave them to their own devices, or he might shout. Today he was going to shout. Stass’s shout came in two forms. It could come as a roaring noise from deep within a man who had early experience as a shephed boy shouting at recalcitrant sheep and goats too eager to go astray. Or it could come as an almost whispered shout that was even more terrifying as it seemed to embody a more profound fury. Nanny was experiencing a whispered shout and it transfixed her with its force. ‘There’s no fucking point fucking around with gimmicks,’ Stass insisted. ‘This isn’t a circus. Get some fucking brushes and do it properly.’ The tutorial juggernaut moved on, but the silence sat over the studio space for a while longer, only broken by the sound of Stass’s voice, calm now, giving a tutorial further away. Michael looked over at Nanny, who was fiddling with the twigs she had

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made into brushes, returning them to the woven plastic thing in the corner. He went over to ask if she was alright. ‘Yes, thank you,’ she said more in the nod of her head than audible words from her mouth. She coughed and said: ‘I think I need a coffee though.’

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ยง66 It was Paul, Paulo as Stass called him who lifted Stass on and off the makeshift commode I had constructed by breaking the slats that formed the seat of a garden chair, and placing a bucket underneath to catch whatever came out of him. It was an inelegant solution to an horrific problem and stands in my mind almost as a grim pastiche of the kind of creative improvisation Stass loved so much. We could have bought a commode, and we had even found out where to buy one. But Stass has come out of hospital so suddenly we had nothing we needed. He hated the hospital and his begging to go home added to the trauma of our visits there. In the end we relented, but by then it was late afternoon on Friday, just before a bank holiday weekend. Everything was shut and nothing would re-open until the following Tuesday. I could not lift Stass. I did not know how weak I am physically until I had, two weeks earlier, arrived in Larnaca to find my father lying in a foetal position on his bed crying out in pain. He shook constantly. An horrific looking bandage hid the foot, amputated half way along its length. Occasionally Stass would become more lucid, but that term is only relative. He was lucid enough to indicate he wanted to go to the toilet, but my attempts to lift him were as

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useless as trying to carry a mountain. I strained and he did not move. He only cried out more in pain. After the full amputation of his lower leg Stass seemed in less pain, but he still shook with shock and lucidity was not much better. The hospital in Paphos had dealt with most of the lifting and taking him to the toilet while he was there, but back at the house only Paul could do it. My mother was by now in hospital herself, so we three, my sister Margaret, Paul and I took the decision to bring Stass home. It was the best thing to do, of that I have no doubt. But still we could not cope, and for the next few days we searched desperately for home helps, nurses, advice, anything. We tried to work out the timings of the huge number of tablets Stass had to take at different times each day. We kept Stass company when he was awake, even when it was at two or three in the morning, we washed him and his bedding several times each day as it was repeatedly soiled, and we cried at what had happened and our inability to cope. I rang Emmaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mother, an occupational therapist, for advice, and wished weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d got Stass out of Cyprus years earlier for a country with a more civilized attitude to health care. Through this, Paul lifted Stass on and off the commode, even in the middle of the night, and was visibly shaken at having to clean Stass afterwards. He did it, night after night.

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I still have flashbacks to that time and find my shoulders haunch up with the memory of the enormous levels of stress that I experienced then. I still find myself crying, not the sobs that I once let out, but gentle tears now, usually unnoticed by anyone else. They are not enough to stop me doing whatever I am doing any more, but they subdue me. It was Paul who rang me to tell me that Stass had died. The first time he called he could not speak, but I knew what must have happened. The second time he was brief. What could one say anyway. And at the funeral I watched his face as he placed the family wreath on the coffin, and discreetly patted it in front of the large crowd in the church, whilst quietly saying the words, ‘Goodbye dad.’ Death is not only a matter of grieving for loss. It is the the trauma of seeing someone die. Stass had told me in the hospital he was dying. ‘This is it, my Michael,’ Stass said repeatedly, but I didn’t want to hear that and said he’d come home soon and we would cope. Stass had always been a strong and active man. ‘What a mess,’ he’d said. ‘It’s all a mess.’

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§67 The Gin Bar at the Barbican is set deep in the main theatre building, like a mafia victim buried in the brutal concrete of a motorway bridge. This was not Geroud’s regular drinking joint, although regular enough for the waiter at the door to smile in recognition. And on a dark night, at least by London standards, when low cloud and heavy rain made venturing too far seem too much of a burden even for a drink, the choice of the covered walkway that led from Geroud’s apartment to the bar was a no brainer. Once inside, the low lights, low tables and high hemlines made it a comfortable place for Geroud to spend what was left of the night. The waiter asked for his order and perversely Geroud asked for a whisky. ‘Would you like any particular whisky?’ the waiter asked with just enough sarcasm in his voice for Geroud to notice, but not so much he would mention it. ‘Sure,’ Geroud said. ‘The cheapest, but make it a double, I’m not skimping on quantity. And no ice, he added. ‘I don’t want to spoil the taste.’ The waiter smiled with genuine warmth, knowing Geroud had parried well. ‘I believe there is a bottle of Green Child on the bar which is the least expensive brand,’ he said. ‘It is a blended whisky,’ he added.

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The Green Child duly served, Geroud lounged in the lounge bar lounge chair, and watched the high hemlines try to keep their dignity in the face of so much lounging. In this they were aided only by the low lights. Geroud thought this beat a night in alone. With the memory of Handley still fresh, and his face still stinging from Miss Waitesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s slap, he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t much care for being alone. Solitude felt too exposed even when walled into the concrete block of the Barbican citadel. He felt the need for company, or perhaps the need for witnesses to whatever might come next. With witnesses at least they might catch whatever new bastard was planning to slit his throat or put a knife in his back. Geroud was not sure if the young woman had been in the bar when he arrived. He was not so naive to discount she might have followed him there. The wry waiter had sat Geroud well away from the entrance, hiding him at the back of the bar in case he scared off passing trade. It meant Geroud would not have seen if the woman has arrived after him, although he was pretty sure he would have noticed her pretty face and pretty legs and pretty high hemline had been there already. He decided she must have arrived after him, and when she made a straight line to his table he decided she must have deliberately followed him. She was not quite the assassin he had expected, but there were worse ways

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to spend your last few hours on earth he thought. ‘Can I join you?’ she asked with a smile that might have turned concrete into mud. ‘Of course,’ Geroud agreed. They both sat in silence for a moment. The woman looked at Geroud expecting him to throw a question or perhaps a compliment her way. Geroud only thought about her hemline. ‘I guess I will have to start the introductions,’ the woman said. ‘Why not,’ Geroud told her feigning a lack of interest. ‘You’ve made the running so far so why not aim for a hat-trick?’ The woman seemed a little fazed by the lack of warmth in Geround’s answer, as though unused to even the gentlest of denials. But she quickly recovered. ‘My name’s Nanny,’ she said, holding her hand out straight, like a seven-year old boy being introduced to his father’s boss. Geroud smiled at the innocence of the gesture, and felt uncomfortable at the age difference it revealed between them. She seemed so young he might have called her a girl, at least in conversation with another man. He took her hand, shook it as an indulgent boss might shake the hand of an employee’s seven year old son, and introduced himself as Geroud. She returned his smile.

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‘Nanny’s an unusual name,’ said Geroud, adding flirtatiously that she didn’t look like any Mary Poppins. Nanny smiled. Gotcha! ‘It’s short for Annette,’ she said. ‘But I don’t really like my name, so everyone now calls me Nanny. I like the incongruity of it.’ As she said this Geroud were struck by the incongruity of Nanny. Barely dressed and stalking men twice her age in a city lounge bar, it wasn’t just the incongruity of her incongruous language that seemed to strike a false note. It was the way she held an almost philosophical detachment to their situation. Perhaps Nanny was really a professor of anthropology in town from Oxford to do some participantobservation on middle aged lounge-lizards, like an errant scientist experimenting on herself. But of course Geroud knew exactly who Nanny was, or rather why she had trodden such a straight path to his table. She was there to lure him to some kind of end that didn’t look good for his health. Geroud knew this, but more than anything Geroud wanted her to know he knew it. Geroud wanted her to know he was not some sap being taken for a ride. He wanted her to know he was a far bigger fool hailing the cab. Again the conversation paused. For another brief moment Nanny looked uncomfortable. She was clearly used to men wanting to talk to her. She

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smiled again. ‘I guess as well as introducing myself I will have to order my own drink,’ she said with a gentle sarcasm that made her a likely candidate for the waiter’s younger sister. In fact the waiter was lurking conveniently near as Nanny spoke, and Geroud only had to look vaguely in his direction to bring him to the table. The waiter asked Nanny what she would like to drink. ‘What are you having?’ she replied looking at Geroud. He told her they were in a Gin Bar so he was drinking whisky of course. She looked at him quizzically and for the first time her gaze seemed to slip from its detached point of view. Perhaps this sap was more interesting than most, Geroud imagined she was thinking. So he added he was drinking some cheap whisky he’d never heard of. ‘It’s called Green Child. I’m not sure if that’s a comment on what it does for the complexion.’ Nanny laughed, looked up at the waiter and said, ‘Then I’ll have a Green Child too.’ ‘Certainly madam,’ replied the waiter. ‘I mean miss. And will the,’ he paused long enough again to cause offence without justifying a complaint, ‘gentleman like another.’ Sure, Geroud replied. ‘And make it another double. I’ve a feeling I might need it.’ Sitting facing each other across a low table Geroud looked at Nanny and she seemed familiar, as though designed to remind him of someone he once

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knew. He thought that everyone he met these days seemed familiar like that, as though straight out of a talent pool in central casting with his name on it. He mumbled something about them doing their homework when they sent her to lead him to whatever fate they had in store, but Nanny didn’t catch what he said and didn’t respond. Louder this time he asked her what she did for a day job, but immediately regretted the implication that picking up middle-aged men in lounge bars might be a night job. ‘I’m a student,’ answered Nanny. Geroud asked her what she studied, but before she could answer another streak of cruelty crawled out of his mouth. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he said. ‘Let me guess, are you by any chance an art student?’ ‘How did you know that?’ asked Nanny. ‘A wild stab in the dark,’ answered Geroud before mumbling that they really had done their homework. ‘And where do you study art,’ Geroud continued. ‘Whetherley’s’ Nanny answered. ‘Whetherley?’ repeated Geroud, before chanting in an almost nursery rhyme voice O Whetherley girls! O Whetherley girls! With their long black lashes And golden curls.

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O Whetherley girls! O Whetherley girls! How I long to be With a Whetherley girl. ‘What’s that?’ Nanny asked. ‘An old song from the 1920s they used to sing about the girls from Whetherley School of Art. ‘Why would they make up a song about an art school?’ she asked. ‘In those days, my dear,’ Geroud answered with the patronising voice of an aged parent, ‘Whetherley's was famous as the most progressive art school of the time. It was the first art school to let women draw male male models nude, so everyone thought Whetherley girls were very forward thinking. ‘Well I guess it’s your lucky day,’ Nanny replied coquettishly. ‘You are with a Whetherley girl.’ The Gin Bar never told customers it was closing time. In theory it might never close if any of the patrons chose to stick it out. But the waiters had a subtle way of telling late-night drinkers like Geroud and Nanny it was time to go home, or time to go to whoever’s home they had to go to. One couldn’t put one’s finger on how the waiters did this; it was almost a hunch. You got the message and it was rare for anyone to go against the power of this semi-mystical semaphore.

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Forward as ever, or perhaps keen to put an end to an evening that was not without its discomfiting silences, Nanny seemed to get the message first and suggested it was time to go. A quick glance at the waiter was enough to bring him to the table, the bill already in hand, to be paid by Geroud with only the slight raising of an eyebrow at the price of even cheap whisky. Outside, Geroud stood with Nanny in the stairwell, surrounded by the bare and brutal concrete as fully as if they had been encased in it. The rain was still falling heavily outside, and looking out it was hard to tell if the tears of heaven were falling to the earth, or the earth was crying to the skies. Perhaps the Thames basin was about to fill to the brim and turn London into a giant baptismal font in which to wash away their sins. Standing next to Nanny, Geroud was aware this might have been a scene from the movies, the moment when Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard kiss and the credits role and the story just stops, without the grim end of Capoteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s real novel ever happening. As Nanny put her arms around Geroudâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s neck and pressed her lips so hard against his it must have hurt her as much as did him, the rain outside felt more like tears, falling, falling, fallen. Did it really have to seem so real to Geroud, so cruelly real,

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as Nanny uncoupled herself, smiled sweetly, coiled her arm through his and asked, ‘So where’s your house?’ Did it have to seem so real that Geroud lost all sense of reality, and couldn’t stop to think of the nonsense that a woman half his age could have any real affection for a man twice hers? Did it have to seem so real, such a suspension of disbelief, that he had to forget that this kind of thing only ever happens in movies, or in dreams, or in novels written by middle-aged men in a mid-life crisis? Did he have to forget that if it does happen in real life it is only ever because the young woman is damaged by life, coerced by religion, or up to no good? Did Geroud have to forget, as the vapour of cheap spirit passed from Nanny’s mouth to his, more intoxicating than any liquid in a glass, that this woman in his arms was so obviously up to no good? Or didn’t he care as he felt her young body pressed hard against his old body? Did he really remember it all but chose not to care? Geroud, Geroud, you walked arm in arm, with wandering steps and slow, uncoupling only at the door to your apartment, entering into the dark hallway and closing the way behind you. Nanny coiled herself around you once again, kissed you once again, and seemed to turn you away from the darkness lurking in the darkness, away from the indistinct form, cowled like Death, that tapped her

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gently on the shoulder so she fell away as sudden as waking from a dream. The darkness reached out again, not gentle this time, and struck the side of your head. You stumbled, cried out perhaps, feeling your legs give way, found yourself in the bathroom, a lessening voice crying out in your head, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;lock the door, lock the doorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, but the darkness was already in the room with you. It struck again and your head came to land against the shower tray, cold as a mortuary slab against your warm cheek. Nanny said something in a low voice and you looked up at her, smiled and let out an incongruous cry of happiness, as though a secret joy had suddenly been revealed to you. You reached out your hand to her, or to someone, and someone was holding your hand, was Nanny holding your hand? Water fell, like gentle rain from heaven, and you seemed to dissolve into it, dissolving into the pool that formed around your body, finding a point of escape and flowing away, down the waste pipe.

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§68

RBC Reichbroadcastingcompany Reichssender-Torenbürgen Approved Script by permission of the Office of the Reichs-Rundfunk-Kommissar Approved for broadcast by permission of the Office of the Reichs-Rundfunk-Kommissar DEVIATION IS NOT PERMITTED

Announcer:

It’s another night of starstudded entertainment in Torenbürgen, and it’s comedy time here on the second programme of the Reich Broadcasting Company, syndicated to our affiliates around the world. So, altogether now, is he Ezzy, or is he not? It’s “Is He Ezzy’s Funtime Spot”.

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Ezzy:

Thank you! Thank you! Damen und Herren, thank you. Already at canto 68, and I still haven’t a clue what’s going on in the world, but ignore all that! Ignore all that, and let me tell you what happened to me this week. Oh, what a week I’ve had! What a week I’ve had! I’ve spent all week hard at work down at Giesebrechtstraße, oh, yes I have, oh, I have. But don’t think I’ve been enjoying myself, oh no.! Oh no, I’ve not been enjoying myself. I’ve been keeping an eye on things. That’s right, keeping an eye on things. You see I’ve been appointed a Denunziant for my district. Innit nice? That’s right, a Denunziant for my district. So I went down to Giesebrechtstraße to make

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sure there was no unauthorised canoodling going on, if you know what I mean missus. I see your husband knows what I mean missus, a bit too well I think. A bit too well.! Shall I inform on him missus, now Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m a Denunziant? Shall I dob him in so you can get a better model? Eer, he looks like a suitable specimen for Doktor Mengele. Announcer:

We interrupt this broadcast to bring you an important message from the Footnoter Generalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Office and its spokesman, Professor Yorkshire.

Professor:

Damen und Herren, I feel it is my duty to interrupt this broadcast to explain the references and terminology being used by Herr Pound. First let me

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explain Giesebrechtstraße. This refers to a street in the Charlottenburg area of Berlin home to the notorious brothel, Salon Kitty. A Denunziant is an informer working for the Gestapo. Thank you. Announcer:

With that explained, Damen und Herren, please resume your laughter.

Ezzy:

Anyway, I had to do my job thoroughly, so there I was hard at work, but then someone dobbed on me because Giesebrechtstraße isn’t in my district. They said I was poaching their degenerates and I should naff off! I know! I know! What does it matter! But we Denunziants do get so protective of our districts, we so do, we Denunziants. But because of

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that I have spent most of the week explaining to a friendly sergeant down in Prinz-Albrecht-Straße - oh he was missus, really ever so friendly, always coming to see me, wouldn’t leave me alone in fact, day or night - anyway, I’ve spent the week explaining to the chap at Prinz- AlbrechtStraße that I only went to Giesebrechtstrasse because it’s so boring in my district. Oh it really is missus, it really is. So boring! I said to this sergeant down at PrinzAlbrecht-Straße, I told him that since the Yids, and the wogs, and the commies, and the anarchists, and the liberals, and the pacifists, and the Witnesses and the Trade Unionists, and the Masons and the a-socials, and the Pikeys, and the

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Poles, and the cripples and the retards and the batty boys, and all the other degenerate Untermenschen were shipped out of my district I’ve had no one to spy on for months. In fact I haven’t had anyone to talk to for months as we don’t have any neighbours any more. That’s right missus, I turned them all in! Innit a larf. Innit missus, a real larf, Still it raised the tone of the area it did. Anyway, I said to the sergeant down at PrinzAlbrecht-Straße, I said I thought I’d try Giesebrechtstrasse because it sounds so exciting. I said you’re always reading about something being found down there. Anyway, the sergeant suggested I might want to go home and find another way of

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relieving the boredom, and you know what, he was absolutely right. He was missus, he was absolutely right. I found a way of relieving the boredom in no time, with the wife! Oh no! Oh no, missus! Not like that! Not like that! No, not like that at all. I suddenly realised the wife looks a bit degenerate these days so I called the sergeant and he hauled her off last night. So you see, what a week I’ve had! That’s right missus, what a week I’ve had!

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ยง69 Announcer:

And now for something really rather different. The water had no sooner closed over Geroud than it seemed to be sucked away from his body, to curve upwards at his feet, up, up, up, to arch over his head until it formed a perfect sphere. Standing in a bubble of space, against which the water pushed in vain, its blood-stained atoms pressing hard against the shimmering wall, in that moment out of time, anguish and pain was abolished.

Andrea:

Wake up Geroud!

Announcer:

Geroud seems not to stir.

Andrea:

Wake up!

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Announcer:

Geroud seems to be stirring.

Andrea:

Will you wake up!

Announcer:

Geroud has stirred.

Andrea:

Can you sit up?’

Announcer:

Geroud tries to sit, but slumps again until Frauline Waites comes to his aid. She get him upright, sitting on the washroom floor now, holding his hand, the bloody water uses the opportunity to make its final break for freedom. Geroud groans and holds his head.

Geroud:

Someone slugged me.

Andrea:

I didn’t think you’d gone to bed in there.

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[Cue laughter] Andrea:

Do you know who?’

Geroud:

No, it was dark. I didn’t see. I was with… someone. [Cue laughter]

Andrea:

I see. And there was me thinking I was the only one on your Valentine list. Perhaps I should slug you as well. [Cue laughter]

Andrea:

When I walked in I thought I had lost you. Do you think you can stand?

Announcer:

Geroud is helped to his feet.

Geroud:

Where am I?

Andrea:

Don’t you recognise your own home?

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Geroud:

My home? But this isn’t my flat. This isn’t the Barbican. [Cue laughter]

Announcer:

Geroud stumbles to the front door and opens it.

Geroud:

This isn’t London.

Andrea:

London! [Cue laughter]

Andrea:

You really did take a knock on the head. Or you had a real skinful last night. But if you’re going to play the newly found stranger in town, then let me be the first to welcome you to Torenbürgen. It’s only been your home for the last twenty years.

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Geroud:

Why is it so dark? It’s almost black outside.

Andrea:

Because it’s Torenbürgen. In Torenbürgen everything is black. The buildings the streets, the land, the sea and the sky, all are black. Even the light here seems black, illuminating only more shades of blackness. Torenbürgen is no more than an abyss into which people fall without hope of escape. The only hope here is to survive without pain.

Announcer:

Geroud closes the door and finds a chair.

Geroud:

I don’t understand. And why are you here anyway? We hardly parted on good terms.

Andrea:

Didn’t we?

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Geroud:

I think the last thing you said was a hand gesture as it slugged my cheek. [Cue laughter]

Andrea:

I think you’ve skipped a few chapters Geroud. Anyway, I’m here because Pound sent me. The RBC want the diary. They say it will make a great radio feature.

Geroud:

Pound? I thought you said he was a monster.

Andrea:

Dear God, Geroud, keep your voice down. You never know who’s listening. If you’ve lost your wits I’ll gladly take you to the nearest shrink, but you know that’s a one way ticket to Hartheim. So before you go let me have the diary and they might make it quick, unless you want to end life

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advancing the cause of human medicine. If you don’t want that, then take my advice and get back into your old skin pretty quick before one of the headbangers hears you. [Cue laughter] Geroud:

What’s the RBC? I thought it was the ABC or was it BBC? [Cue laughter]

Andrea:

Shhh! Will you stop! It’s always been the RBC. You might remember we met at the Haus des Rundfunks last week. At this rate I might call the men in white coats myself missus. [Cue laughter]

Andrea:

But then it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve had them

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round would it you old nutter. [Cue laughter] Geroud:

I am confused. I need to rest. What is that on the radio?

Andrea:

Pound, of course. I’m surprised you’re listening to it though. You’ve always sailed close to the wind when he comes on. If your neighbours hear you swearing at the wireless set like that you’ll find yourself in PrinzAlbrecht-Straße.

Geroud:

He’s on the radio?

Andrea:

You know he is. Alright, let’s play Life on Mars. Pound is the country’s leading comedian. At least since Tommy Handley was unmasked as a colonel in

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the KGB. Who would have thought ITMA was really the key to a military cipher? Pound found out and reported Handley to the Ministry of Aggravation. Geroud:

Don’t tell me. After that, Pound never looked back.

Andrea:

Nature abhors a vacuum sweetheart. Pound just stepped in to fill it. Since he moved from Radio Rome Pound’s become the most popular joker on the wireless. Did you hear him perform The Bath Tub as Colonel Chinstrap last month. It was so funny. Although you think he’s crap and you say so too often, and especially too often in public.

Geroud:

Do I?

Andrea:

You know you do.

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Geroud:

Some of his material seems a bit close to the edge. Don’t real Denunziants mind him taking the piss out of them?

Andrea:

A few did, but they don’t complain any more. Not from Dachau anyway. [Cue laughter]

Andrea:

Let just say Pound knows how far he can go. People need a pressure valve to let off a bit of steam. He has licence.

Geroud:

You sound like you admire him.

Andrea:

In this play it’s worth sounding that way. If you want to make it to the final act that is. [Cue laughter]

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Andrea:

You should learn that lesson Geroud. We’ve known each other for, what, thirty years. You know I’m very fond of you in my own way. So I’d hate for you to –

Geroud:

End up in Prinz-AlbrechtStraße? [Cue laughter]

Andrea:

Exactly.

Announcer:

Geroud reaches out and tries to put his arms around Frauline Waites. She cries out.

Andrea:

Nessun mi tocchi. Libera farmi al mio Cesare parve.

Geroud:

Cesare parve! You mean noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am!

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Andrea:

Such anger! Why are you always so angry? Even after he’s offered you your own radio show, and cut you a lot of slack. You know he could get the diary by other means. You think it’s a coincidence he hasn’t tried? Everything I do, I do for the good of you. So give him the diary, will you? Unless you really do want to end up in PrinzAlbrecht-Straße [Cue laughter]

Geroud:

The diary! The diary! Always the diary! Why does he want the diary anyway? From what I remember Pound was a Jew-hating fascist who betrayed his own country.

Andrea:

True, but nobody’s perfect, [Cue laughter]

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Andrea:

And he makes people laugh. His show is very popular.

Geroud:

What kind of madhouse is this?

Andrea:

The sort you might just survive in if you follow the script properly. [Cue laughter]

Andrea:

If you want the advice of an old friend, give Pound what he wants before he takes it.

Geroud:

Is that the only advice you have?

Andrea:

No, I suggest you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t speak about politics, avoid talking to strange men in long macs and lock your doors after dark. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best to leave the night to the

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‫ גולם‬and Aufhocken to

fight it

out. Geroud:

Don’t tell me: unless I want to end up in PrinzAlbrecht-Straße. [Cue laughter]

Andrea:

Unless you want to end up face down in a shower tray. Anyway, I didn’t come round to give you advice, or rescue you from a braining at the hands of some pickup from a gin bar.

Geroud:

I thought that scene was meant to be a world away. [Cue laughter]

Andrea:

There’s a story on both sides of the page Geroud. But on this one I only came to see you because Pound asked me to invite you to have lunch with him. He

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asked you to meet him at his the offices of the Reichssender-Torenbürgen. He wants to show you something. Here’s the address. Don’t be late, will you. Geroud:

Unless I want to end up in Prinz-Albrecht-Straße?

Andrea:

No, because it’s very rude to be late. [Cue laughter and scene closes]

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§70 Announcer:

And so Herr Geroud finds his way to the offices of the ReichssenderTorenbürgen. Herr Professor, do you have anything to add to that?

Professor:

Yes, I believe we should add a footnote here to explain that the ReichssenderTorenbürgen is the name of the local relay station for the RBC radio service. I would mark him down for not mentioning that.

Announcer:

Thank you Herr Professor. Now let us join Herr Geroud at the Reception.

Geroud:

I have an appointment to see Herr Pound.

Recept:

Ah yes, Herr Geroud isn’t it? We have been expecting

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you. My name is Fräulein Bier, I will show you down. Geroud:

You seem familiar. Have we met before?

Bier:

Quite possibly. I flit between the pages. Can I offer you a coffee? Or perhaps some tea? If not we can go straight down to Herr Pound’s office. You shouldn’t have to wait long for him to see you.

Geroud:

There’s no need for anything. Thank you.

Bier:

Then follow me.

Announcer:

It seems Geroud is to follow Fräulein Bier, down to Herr Pound’s office.

Geroud:

I’m surprised Herr Pound has an office in the basement. Surely top brass tend to be, well, on top.

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Bier:

It’s where he does his best work. Look how thou enters here.

Geroud:

I beg your pardon?

Bier:

I mean, mind the step. If you wouldn’t mind waiting in the antechamber.

Geroud:

I beg your pardon?

Bier:

I mean, the waiting room. Good luck.

Announcer:

Geroud enters the door indicated by Fräulein Bier and finds himself in what looks like a hospital waiting room. The walls, floors and ceilings are all white. A woman is sat behind a tall white island desk in the centre of the room. Closing the door behind him Geroud approaches her and waits.

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She does not look up at him and she does not say anything. Geroud waits some more, until finally breaking the silence, he introduces himself. Geroud:

My name is Geroud. I am here to see Herr Pound.

Recept:

Thank you. We know who you are.

Announcer:

Geroud sits down in silence again and waits. After a while shouting can be heard from a nearby room. The receptionist does nothing. The shouting gets louder. It is somebody swearing.

Geroud:

Perhaps we should see what is going on? Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll just have a look myself.

Announcer:

Geroud gets up and walks over to the door from where

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the shouting came from. He opens it and enters. Stass:

Hello my Michael. What’s going on?

Geroud:

Stass, what are you doing here?

Stass:

They won’t let me go home. Look get my things and let’s go.

Geroud:

We can’t Stass, you’re not well. You’ve got to wait for the doctor.

Stass:

You shouldn’t have brought me here. If I had known it was here I wouldn’t have come.

Geroud:

We had no choice Stass. You were in agony. Don’t you remember?

Stass:

You shouldn’t have brought me here.

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Geroud:

You are going to come home in a few days. Just be patient. I’m going back to England tomorrow to arrange for you and mam to come back there. We’ll be able to look after you properly there.

Stass:

No my Michael. It’s not going to happen. This is the end.

Geroud:

Don’t say that Stass. It’s not. Things will be different, but we can manage. You’ll come back to England, they have proper health care there.

Stass:

It’s not going to happen.

Geroud:

Would you like to go and sit on the balcony, outside? It’s a lovely day, a bit breezy, but sunny. Things are bound to seem bad when

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you are stuck in this room all day. Things will seem better after some fresh air. Announcer:

And so Geroud struggles to get Stass from the bed into the wheelchair, and having done it, wheels Stass out onto the terrace where the sun is shining. They can see out over the trees and tourist apartments of Paphos, as far as the hotels on the beach and the sea beyond. Stass seems happier to be outside.

Geroud:

You see itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a lovely day. All the flowers are out. Are you cold?

Announcer:

After a long pause Geroud tries desperately to think of something to say.

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Geroud:

I am reviewing a book for the Spectator again. Two in fact.

Announer:

Stass remains silent.

Geroud:

They are both based on Raymond Chandler. You know, Philip Marlow, the detective. I keep having funny dreams about them.

Announer:

Stass remains silent.

Geroud:

Are you cold?

Announer:

Stass remains silent. They sit in silence a while longer until Stass starts to speak.

Stass:

Listen my Michael. Don’t let Pound get the diary.

Geroud:

You know about the diary?

Stass:

It’s why we’re all here again isn’t it? Whatever

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Geroud:

you do, do not let him have it even if it seems like the easiest thing to do. But we always say that and always end up making the wrong decision.

Stass:

Beware in whom thou place thy trust; let not the entrance broad deceive thee to thy harm.

Geroud:

Sorry, what did you say? Anyway, why does the diary matter?

Stass:

You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the full diary. There are pages missing at the end. I took them out. I gave them to a man in Famagusta when we were there in 1969. He was a kind of priest. He was called the Master of the Order of Christ. The pages were in one of my cigar tins. He said he would hide it. I never asked where, but

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he wrote a kind of riddle to where he put it at the back of my notebook. Geroud:

You mean the back of the diary?

Stass:

Yes. That’s what they want, not the diary you have. Just the clue to find the rest of it.

Geroud:

But why?

Stass:

I don’t know. Maybe because without it everything is just meaningless. Maybe because if you find the missing pages everything will be alright. He wouldn’t want that. He wants everything to be wrong. He wants you to feel wrong. He wants you to be hurt and angry.

Geroud:

But why?

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Stass:

Because he hates you. You know that. He has always hated you. He lives in the dark, in the dark spaces, the places you always feared to go. He has always been there. But in the last pages of the diary I put something that will make it alright. It will make everything alright. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t let him get that. It belongs to you.

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§71 ‘Herr Geroud, how lovely to see you again,’ said Pound as he grabbed Geroud’s hand in the snow shovels that marked the end of his arms. ‘I’m glad to see Fräulein Waites passed on my invitation,’ Pound continued. ‘Have you been waiting long?’ Geroud:

No not long. But to be honest with you, I don’t know why I am here. I feel like a hare at the racetrack that’s been invited to have tea with the dogs. And like a schmuck I accepted.

‘Come, come, my dear fellow,’ replied Pound with what sounded like sincerity even to Geroud’s aporetic ear. ‘You were always more of a tortoise than a hare. But I think you do know why you are here. And I think by now we must both be wanting the same thing.’

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Geroud:

Without wanting to sound like Marx, I’m not sure I know what I want, so I sure don’t see how you know what I want.

Pound stood up from his desk, and walked round to stand beside Geroud. He loomed skywards more like a tower than a man. ‘I am not a man of infinite patience, Herr Geroud,’ he said softly. ‘The last time we met I was patient, this time I am mildly irritated.’ Geroud:

The last time we met I was confused. If that was the last time. Some of my time seems to be missing. However I’m glad to say this time I am just plain baffled. I go to a bar in a place where I don’t really think I live, I meet a girl who wouldn’t look twice at someone like me unless someone is paying her real well, I take her home and find myself spooning a

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shower tray, only to wake up in a lunatic asylum. An asylum where the chief headbanger is also a radio star. Who’s next to make an appearance, Lord Horror? Pound began to laugh a genuine belly laugh. ‘Oh you mean my brother!’ Pound stuttered between bouts of laughter. ‘Yes, I guess you could say I am his evil twin, although we are not strictly speaking twins. We have similar interests though. We both service death to the public. Geroud:

You’re certainly managing that. Handley found that out. Was he expendable just to get at me?

Pound smiled. ‘Ah, yes, Handley,’ he said. ‘If only you had called him when he’d asked.’ Geroud looked at Pound in horror as he realised the number on the envelope had been Handley’s. ‘He was trying to help you and would have explained everything. He would have

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saved you all this bother. Maybe Fräulein Waites too. But it’s too late now, and I couldn’t really let that happen could I?’ Pound returned to his desk and pressed a button on the intercom. Geroud half expected Miss Waites, or was it Fräulein Waites here, to appear. He was disappointed when Bier arrived at the door. ‘Ah there you are Fräulein Bier. Would you mind finding Frau Merkel for me. I have a job for her.’ Pound spoke with the cool sense of detachment Geroud recognised from all those Saturday afternoon war movies on BBC2 where the commandant was planning some unpleasant fate for the hero. Not for the first time in this script, he wished he wasn’t playing the role of hero. ‘But at least the hero usually survives,’ Pound said as though reading Geroud’s thoughts. Geroud:

But there’s more to life than survival. There has to be a point.

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‘I always thought you naïve Herr Geroud, but I never took you for being a fool,’ continued Pound. ‘God has been dead so long there hasn’t been a point to it for over a century. There is just mindless kindness or mindless violence, and most of all there is just mindless indifference. Your anarchist friends will never understand that, of course. They think they can replace God with natural altruism, but that is just mindless altruism. Without God there can be no one to mind.’ Geroud:

You have a grim philosophy. Perhaps we should reinvent God just to keep people like you out of the script.

Pound laughed longer and deeper this time. He really did find this funny. ‘You really are a fool Geroud. Do you imagine I wouldn’t murder, rape and mutilate even if there was a God watching over me? I’d do it with even more gusto. Perhaps I’ll even do an experiment and say mass on Sunday morning and fuck a

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random stranger hauled off the street in the afternoon. Let’s see if any God, real or imagined, will dare to strike me down.’ Geroud:

You’re disgusting. Do you think fear is going to make me give up the diary?

‘Absolutely,’ replied Pound laughing again, but more hollow this time. For a moment Geroud thought Pound looked like James Mason in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, with even the ensuing offer of tea sounding like a cold and calculated threat. ‘Cowardice is a terrible secret isn’t it Herr Geroud, Pound continued. ‘The willingness to sell out another man, or woman, to avoid shame or pain. Orwell understood that.’ A terrifying silence followed, broken only by the sound of Pound pouring tea from a pot on his desk. He poured two cups and placed one in front of Geroud. When Pound spoke to ask if Geroud wanted sugar, Geroud almost jumped from his chair.

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Pound spoke again. ‘I am always amazed at the petty guilts of little men. How deep they get inside and stop people like you doing what you could do.’ Mariella:

What does he mean petty guilts, Michael?

Michael:

I don’t know.

‘Bullshit!’ exclaimed Pound. ‘Tell her. Tell her. she’s asking you a reasonable question.’ Silence followed. ‘Alright, I’ll tell her. 4 April 1978. Two eight year old boys are caught. Both are to blame, but one decides to play the role of Winston Smith. “’Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia!” Except it wasn’t Julia that time, it was Duncan. “Do it to Duncan! Not me!”’ Mariella:

Do what to Duncan?

‘Do what happened to all naughty boys in the 1970s of course,’ said Pound coldly. ‘Punish them, but O’Brien, or whatever your psycho-headteacher from

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Hell was called, was a cruel and clever school master wasn’t he Geroud?’ Geroud:

He knew how to punish the victim and the perpetrator.

‘Except you were not really a victim, Geroud, were you?’ Pound continued. ‘You were to blame. O’Brien knew that so he punished you by making you punish Duncan. “Take down your trousers Duncan. Bend over the desk Duncan. Take my belt Geroud. Now beat Duncan with it Geroud. Whack! Whack! Whack!’ Geroud:

I didn’t have the strength to hit Duncan hard and I pulled my shots. The leather of the belt landed so lightly it didn’t even make a sound. So O’Brien wrapped himself around me, took my hand in his and used his strength to bring the belt down on Duncan’s backside as hard as he could. “Harder!” he kept

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shouting. “Harder!” At first Duncan looked away, but when O’Brien took control he looked round to see what was happening. He looked me in the eye, not out of hate, but to say help me. He kept looking me in the eye, kept saying help, but I couldn’t help him. He got a beating and –‘ ‘You got a complex,’ interrupted Pound with what must have counted for a breezy air in his voice. ‘You went to your landing playroom, full of lovely soft toys, and you cried. It was then you saw the loft hatch open, the shadow descend and the world became a terrifying place. Hegel’s Weltgeist was not a blind force. It was petty and spiteful. It held you down and fucked you!’ Pound began to chuckle, but it was a cold sound. ‘As I said, the teacher was not really called O’Brien,’ he added, ‘but I thought you’d appreciate the literary reference. I do appreciate you

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joining in with that little conceit by the way. And after that the world was viewed through a glass darkly. I imagine you are sorry now, but it’s too late to correct it. Once you’ve done a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences. Geroud:

I was eight years old. And I have not even thought about the incident until now. Do you really think something like that would colour my life?

Pound looked at Geroud more directly than ever, his eyes harsh and accusing. He almost sang a single word: ‘Liar!’ Geroud tried to stand up, but found his hands pushed onto the arms of the chair. A woman, large and with the build of an East German shotputter was holding him down. Pound placed his cup on the desk, stood up and stood over Geroud. ‘I do not believe you have met Frau Merkel have you Herr Geroud. Unfortunately it will be a rather short

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lived acquaintance.’ In his right hand Pound now held a syringe with a lethally-long needle. ‘I do wish you had drunk your tea Herr Geroud. It would have made this bit so much easier.’ Geroud tried to struggle free but Merkel’s brute strength and weight meant he could not move. However, Pound was strangely gentle inserting the needle in Geroud’s arm. Geroud felt Merkel’s grip on him relax, but even then he found it no easier to move. Pound leaned in and peered into Geroud’s face. ‘You are probably trying to get up at this moment Herr Geroud,’ he said. ‘But I would save all that mental effort. It will just lead to anguish over what cannot be achieved. You are now no more than an object in this play. You see how pathetic and weak you are? I can put a belt in your hand and move it up and down. Whack! Whack! Whack! Perhaps I will have you whip Merkel here, except I think she might lose her temper and rip both our heads off. Or we could fetch Fräulein Waites and whip her. Would you like to whip her? Get her to bend her over this desk, pull up her

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dress, and then whip her? Whack! Whack! Whack!’ Pound stood up straight and spoke softly to Merkel. ‘The usual place for this one. Would you also find Schäuble. Ask him to collect Fräulein Waites. I think this is the end of her storyline too.’ Pound turned again to Geroud. ‘So now you know Herr Geroud how I got under your skin. The shadow from the attic, always watching, always intervening just enough to let you know I am there. The petty guilts, the petty disappointments, the petty disasters. I guess in your storyline I was never really the grim sweep of history, but I was the Weltgeist. I was your little Malice, small-minded, vindictive and cruel, and always narrowing your vision.’ As Pound finished his monologue Geroud felt himself being picked up by the East German shot-putter. Single handedly she took him from Pound’s office and carried him into the cavernous and almost empty car park beneath the Reichssender building.

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There she placed him onto the back seat of a large black sedan car. Having deposited her luggage, Merkel disappeared for a while, presumably to set in motion Frauline Waites’s fate, and returned to sit in the driver’s seat. She turned on the engine and then the car’s wireless set. Beneath ground level it spat out nothing but static. Driving off, Geroud only knew they had emerged into the open air when the voice of Pound emerged from the radio crackle, doing a sketch on his radio show about the Lone Ranger forgetting his eye mask, and Jack the Ripper joining an East End tour group. They arrived somewhere, and Geroud was manhandled out of the car and across some waste ground. He assumed this was where he would be shot, but instead he found himself tied to a grid made up of thin metal rods surrounded on three sides by rough wooden slats. Unable to turn his head he couldn’t see the origin of the noise behind him, which sounded like a woman struggling. Geroud heard what he took to be a sharp slap and the struggle subsided.

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Something pushed up hard against him. It was Fräulein Waites. She had been roughly treated, presumably for not wanting to accept Pound’s invitation. She rested her head against Geroud’s chest a moment, then tried to struggle free again. By now feeling and movement was returning to Geroud’s body and he winced as she railed against the rope that tied her hands behind her back. Merkel was standing close by and taking a deadly looking knife she cut the rope holding Fräulein Waites’s hands, not taking much care how much skin and flesh she cut in the process. Fräulein Waites cried out in pain and Geroud found himself resting his cheek on the crown of her head to offer what comfort he could. Fräulein Waites hands were tied again, this time around Geroud’s body in a forced embrace. The shot-putter and the goblin were laughing at the sight. The goblin pushed Fräulein Waites body hard against Geroud’s and made an obscene suggestion. The shot-putter laughed at the idea, but refused to let Schaüble have his fun.

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Moments later the missing wall of the upright coffin was nailed in place and Geroud and Frauline Waites found themselves in a kind of silence. There was no light to see, but Geroud knew FrĂ¤ulein Waites was looking up at him from the warmth of her breath on his face. At first she was panting in terror, but as the darkness and silence enveloped them she calmed down. He felt her move again, more gently this time, and kiss him. Little more than a peck on the lips at first, but then again, longer and more passionate this time. He kissed her back. Stood side by side in the upright trough, they kissed as the concrete poured onto their bodies from high above, holding them together in an eternal embrace as they had never been together before.

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§72 ‘Wake up Geroud! Wake up!’ Andrea was leaning over Geroud shaking him hard. It was not a method for reviving the victim of an attack approved by St John, but Geroud was not an approved victim. ‘Wake up will you,’ Andrea said for a third time, this time prompting Geroud to stir. ‘Frauline Waites. You’re alive,’ he said. ‘Frauline?’ relied Andrea. ‘I’m alive!’ continued Geroud. ‘Kiss me again.’ Andrea let Geroud’s body slump back on to the shower tray. ‘Not if we were at death’s door,’ she said sharply. ‘You smell like –.’ She was going to say shit, but stopped short. ‘Someone slugged me,’ Geroud offered by way of explanation. ‘I didn’t think you’d slipped,’ Andrea replied. ‘Do you know who?’ ‘No, It was dark. I didn’t see. I was with… someone,’ said Geroud hesitantly, rubbing his eyes as he lay full on his back in the shower tray, his backside and legs stretching out over the bathroom floor. ‘I see,’ said Andrea. ‘And there was me thinking I was the only girl on your Valentine list. Perhaps I should slug you as well.’

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‘Oh God!’ said Geroud. ‘A terrible sense of deja-vu. I hate that. It usually means something bad’s going to happen.’ Andrea leant down and grabbed Geroud’s arm to help him up. ‘You have to do something to break the cycle,’ she said. ‘Something you know didn’t happen before.’ ‘I could always kiss you,’ suggested Geroud. ‘A minute ago it was kiss me again. Either way it would be a first for me, but I’d rather you keep your hands and lips to yourself. Nessun mi tocchi!’ Andrea retorted. ‘Noli me –‘ Geroud stopped mid-sentence and stood bolt upright. ‘Where am I?’ he asked. ‘Your hotel room of course,’ answered Andrea. ‘Yes, but where?’ insisted Geroud. ‘How hard were you hit?’ ‘Too hard,’ answered Geroud running to the door to look outside. ‘I keep waking up in other people’s shower trays.’ ‘Well this one’s your own,’ replied Andrea laughing. ‘At least until they reject your credit card.’ ‘Are we still in Torenbürgen?’ ‘Where?’ asked Andrea. ‘Is that even a real place?’ she added. Geroud looked at her blankly. ‘Well, if you are a newly found stranger in town, let

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me be the first to say you are welcome, sir, to Cyprus.’ ‘No, don’t say that,’ insisted Geroud. ‘It’s the kiss of death to my future prospects.’ ‘You’re crazy,’ answered Andrea, less sure whether to carry on laughing or call a cab to the nearest head doctor. ‘Have you been in a looney bin lately?’ ‘I tell you, the week I’ve had I’m not sure I ever left it,’ answered Geroud. ‘But indulge me. Why are we in Cyprus?’ ‘We’re here to see a production of Othello,’ replied Andrea sarcastically. ‘Really?’ asked Geroud. ‘No, gormless!’ she retorted. ‘We’re on the hunt for the missing pages of Stass’s diary. But I think you need a shower and some clean clothes. Look at your trousers! They look like they’ve been buried in concrete.’ Andrea reached over and turned the shower on. She stood leaning against the wall, her arms folded, waiting to see if Geroud would dare undress in front of her. When he started to unbutton his shirt she cried out, ‘No, no, stop, I’ll wait in the other room. Just wash. And make sure you have some clothes on when you come out.’ Twenty minutes later Geroud emerged, clean, shaven and clothed. ‘Not bad,’ said Andrea buttoning down the collar of his shirt. ‘You know,

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you wouldn’t be bad looking if it wasn’t for that face.’ Geroud smiled, taking the insult as a compliment. As they got into the car outside, parked under a top heavy bougainvillea laden with purple petals, the white light and blue sky seemed to dissolve the events Geroud thought he had been through in the past twenty-four hours, like a nightmare lost in the clear light of day. Geroud picked a sprig of the bougainvillea and handed it to Andrea. He did not intend it as a token of anything, more as the introduction for a reminiscence. ‘Stass kept a flower book one summer.’ ‘What’s a flower book?’ asked Andrea. ‘I mean a pressed-flower book,’ Geroud corrected himself. ‘Stass always wanted to write a book about Cypriot plants and their folklore. I remember the bougainvillea because of that. It was one of the first flowers we pressed, although Stass explained the purple petals are not really flowers or petals. They are just coloured leaves.’ Moments later Andrea was driving them along the coast road from lower Paphos north towards the village of Lempa. Geroud looked at her askance as she changed gear, clutch in, clutch out, and moved her feet between the brake and accelerator pedals. He felt the urge to put out his hand and touch her thigh, or rather the jeans

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covering her thigh, but resisted, genuinely unsure as to their relationship. He knew something was wrong in this scene, and not only because the last thing he could remember was struggling to breath with a lung full of wet concrete. Something was wrong because the last thing he remembered before that was Andrea slapping him hard and storming from his apartment. And that hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been in Cyprus. It was as though half a dozen cantos in his life had disappeared, leaving the reader to puzzle over this new found friendship. The only problem for Geroud was he seemed to be the reader. He looked at Andrea more directly this time. She turned her head slightly and smiled back at him. He looked at what she was wearing for a clue to why they were there. Although her arms were bare, there was nothing much to suggest she was on holiday with him. All he had to go on was a sense that the evasive Miss Waites had changed again, this time into Andrea. It was disturbing the way she metamorphosed, he thought, but perhaps no more so than the way everyone changed. Perhaps no more so than his own transformations. And for all the stimulating mystery of the Miss Waiteses he had met, he was certainly more comfortable with this encounter. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;This is gonna sound a little crazy,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Geroud started to say.

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‘Gonna?’ queried Andrea. ‘That’s daringly California for you isn’t it? Don’t you mean, “This might well sound somewhat topsy-turvy.”?’ ‘Okay,’ Geroud started again, his confusion rising. ‘Somewhat topsy-turvy but I’m guessing you do not remember being buried in concrete last night.’ ‘Buried in concrete!’ exclaimed Andrea. ‘That’s a bit grim. Are you tiring of my company already.’ ‘It was just a dream I guess.’ ‘A nightmare I hope,’ added Andrea. ‘Why were you burying me in concrete.’ ‘I wasn’t,’ explained Geroud. ‘I was swimming in the stuff with you.’ ‘Well next time go swimming by yourself!’ ‘Yes ma’am,’ replied Geroud in his best Californian accent. ‘But I’m also a bit confused on other points. I’m guessing you don’t know a man called Pound or a woman built like a German brick shit house called Merkel?’ Andrea laughed. ‘You really did take a knock if you think I would forget Pound so easily. After what he did, I’ll not forget him until he’s rotting in a’ – She stopped and let the sentence drop. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ continued Geroud. ‘Maybe I’ve had a real bad knock on the head, but I feel like pages of my life are missing. The last time I

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saw you I thought we were being buried in concrete. Before that you were slapping me, hard, and telling me to give the diary to Pound. And now were working together trying to beat Pound. How did I get here?’ ‘As Deleuze suggested,’ said Andrea, ‘in art time and space can fold. Like a painting by Clive Head, the laws of time and space in our world do not apply. All moments in time and space exist simultaneously in a novel, just as they do in a painting.The beginning exists in the same moment as the end, and as the pages are turned and when the book is closed and sitting on a shelf – perhaps especially when a book is closed and sitting on a shelf – the simultaneous passages of time and space press hard against each other, like lovers coiled together as one in a moment of epiphany. A book is as much a hypostatic creation as a painting.’ Geroud looked at her in astonishment. ‘Now you’re sounding like –‘ He stopped for a moment, not quite believing what he was going to say. ‘Me,’ he finally added. ‘Perhaps that’s because in a book, as much as a painting, all actions are necessarily known by all actors.’ ‘But we are not in a book!’ exclaimed Geroud with genuine distress in his voice.

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‘Reality is a kind of text,’ replied Andrea with offhand indifference, adding, ‘Are those watermelons? They’re huge!’ She stopped at the side of the road where a small open-back truck was parked, laden with oversized watermelons, green and stripy. Two or three had been cut in half and placed in front of the truck to show how ripe the melons were. Geroud mumbled something about them looking like bodysnatcher pods, but Andrea didn’t hear him. She was already out of the car and standing by the truck negotiating with a man on which was the best melon to buy. The man took one of the large melons and slit it open with a sharp knife. The noise of the skin opening up and sight of the red flesh inside made Geroud’s stomach turn. The man handed Andrea a slice of the melon and invited her to sit in the shade of his beach parasol. Andrea talked to the man for a while then waved at Geroud to join them. Slowly and unwillingly, Geroud got out of the car and walked across the dusty gravel to where she was sitting. There was no spare seat for Geroud, but the man gave up his, and cut Geroud another slice of melon. Eating the melon he felt transported back to an earlier time, when Stass would do exactly this, stop by a roadside and eat fresh fruit. Sitting there with Andrea on the side of a dusty asphalt road, under a beach parasol advertising Coca-Cola, he thought he

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wasn’t a million miles from the Garden of Eden. Perhaps it didn’t matter that time seemed to shift and fold. Or that Andrea seemed to have had memory lapses and repeated personality transplants. Or more disturbing still, that he did. Perhaps people, time and space were like that, constantly shifting. And perhaps being a new Adam, eating sweet and juicy slices of watermelon, on a hot and dusty roadside, with a beautiful new Eve, was as good a metaphor for that as any. Back in the car, a freshly bought giant watermelon was sat on the back seat and held secure with a seatbelt like a newly-acquired child. Before moving off Andrea connected her phone to the car’s entertainment system. ‘What’s this?’ asked Geroud as the music began to play. ‘Nico Muhly,’ answered Andrea. ‘It suits,’ she added cryptically. They drove another two or three miles along the dry road that followed the wet line of the coast, both tempted to forget everything and instead stop the car and jump in the water like the groups of teenagers they could see playing on the beaches. At one point Geroud asked, ‘Why were we never like that?’ but Andrea didn’t answer. In her silence Geroud thought perhaps Andrea had been like that, and that he should have asked the singular, why was I never like that?

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The car slowed to turn inland, Andrea swearing as a car driving too close behind braked hard to avoid hitting her, its driver shouting incomprehensible insults as he swerved around them. Then it was up a near dirt track, past thickly planted banana trees where Geroud assumed large tarantula-like spiders lurked ready to pounce on unwary intruders into their strange dark world. From there the track passed a reconstructed stone age village, its circular adobe houses painted in red and yellow ochre with geometric patterns, emblems of yet another world. Then the village of Lempa itself, the green valley falling away from the road edge to the right and the sculpture wall that surrounded the Cyprus College of Art at the top of the village. Andrea parked and they entered through a gap in the wall, passing a yellow sculpted ass, its arms stretched skywards in braying horror, and the giant pair of hands covered in white marble tesserae. Although a small set of steps led up through the wall, as if welcoming visitors, they had to stoop to avoid the low hanging branches of a mulberry tree, and standing upright in the college garden felt as strange as though they had emerged from a rabbit hole into another world. Some noise came from the ramshackle collection of buildings at the far end of the garden, a

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young woman lay in a hammock outside, smoking and languidly flicking through the pages of a magazine, and two men seemed to be trying to manhandle a flat sheet of steel, once a sign for Carlsberg Beer, but now cut into the shape of a man on a bicycle, high up onto a makeshift platform of breeze blocks. The platform was already home to a defunct orange cement mixer and it seemed as though the man on the bicycle wouldn’t fit, or didn’t want to fit into, such as tight space. The figure below, stood on the ground pushing the metal sheet up to the precariouslyperched figure above, was Stass. ‘Hello my Michael,’ he said as Andrea and Geroud drew near and the weight of the new addition to the wall was lifted from his hands by Grahame above. ‘What do you think?’ ‘It looks great,’ answered Geroud. ‘It looks like you riding a bicycle. Is it meant to be you?’ Stass chuckled. ‘I’m not sure where he’s riding to up there.’ ‘This is Andrea,’ Geroud said, gesturing between Stass and Andrea. ‘I love your wall,’ said Andrea. ‘Especially the yellow donkey outside.’ ‘Yes, it’s crazy isn’t it?’ suggested Stass. ‘The locals think we’re mad.’ ‘Don’t they like what you do here?’ asked Andrea.

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‘I think they tolerate us,’ replied Stass. ‘We have a new mukhtur now who is better, so maybe that will help.’ ‘I think it’s wonderful,’ said Andrea. ‘Did you make it all?’ ‘Lots of people helped make it,’ Stass said. ‘We put it together and add things, but it grows organically. If one of the students leaves something behind or we find something interesting we find a place for it.’ ‘You teach students here?’ asked Andrea. ‘We don’t really teach,’ answered Stass. ‘They come and work here and we talk to them about what they do, but we don’t do classes and things like that. They get enough of that at university. It’s better not to teach people all the time.’ ‘It sounds wonderful,’ said Andrea again. ‘Is the wall nearly finished?’ Stass chucked again. ‘I don’t know how it will finish. I am not as strong as I used to be, so I cannot do so much. But I have this idea that we will fill this yard with sculptures, and then fill the studios and then go up on the roof and put sculptures up there so that the school of art becomes a work of art. I think that would be a good way to end an art school.’ ‘Do you want the art school to end then?’ asked Andrea.

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‘Everything comes to an end,’ replied Stass. He chuckled again as he looked at Grahame who had climbed down from the breeze block tower to join them. ‘I think they will probably close us down eventually anyway.’ ‘Who?’ asked Andrea. ‘The Ministry of Education,’ answered Stass. ‘They’re not very helpful. They only want supermarket universities. They’re very stupid people really.’ ‘What will you do if they close you down?’ asked Andrea. ‘We’ll ignore them!’ replied Stass with a mischievous glint in his eye that told Andrea he probably meant it. ‘You see,’ he continued, ‘this wall is probably one of the most important works of art in Cyprus now and one day they’ll accidentally employ someone in the Ministry who is not so stupid, and knows about art, and they will realise that. So we just have to hold on until then. We also have a lot of supporters around the world. I mean this place is famous you know. We’ve had some very great artists come here. So I don’t think they will close us down just yet. Not while I am still here anyway.’ ‘I hope not,’ said Andrea. ‘Can I take some photographs?’ Stass told her she could, and Andrea disappeared towards a courtyard housing a king-

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kong-size gorilla made of broken bathroom tiles and a life-size figure of Richard the Lionheart bearing an uncanny resemblance to Peter O’Toole. Geroud and Stass moved to the canopy outside the studios, a few yards away from the student in the hammock, and sat on two rickety chairs. ‘What are you going to do now, my Michael?’ asked Stass. ‘I guess I had better go to Famagusta and see if I can find the the Master of the Order of Christ,’ replied Geroud. ‘He won’t be alive now,’ said Stass. ‘Not the one I gave the diary to.’ ‘He must have a successor,’ suggested Geroud. ‘Perhaps,’ agreed Stass, ‘but I think the Order was closed down. The Ministry again. You might have trouble finding out anything about them.’ ‘Maybe it is hopeless,’ said Geroud looking dejected. They sat in silence for a while looking at the swallows skit back and forth with insects in their mouths to feed the young hidden in the mud house they had built under the eaves of the studio. Sitting with Stass without saying very much, just looking at nature, was a strong memory. ‘They’re nice aren’t they?’ said Stass suddenly. ‘They come back every year. If you sit here

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in the evening you see the bee-eaters too.’ There was another long pause. ‘It’s not worth letting it upset you,’ he suddenly added. To an outsider it would have sounded a non sequitur, but Geroud knew what Stass meant. ‘You get on and do other things.’ Andrea had returned and was standing by them. ‘I think it’s time to go,’ she said. Stass and Geroud stood up and embraced. ‘Okay my love,’ said Stass. ‘Listen I think you should take my car if you are going to Famagusta. It is less conspicuous.’ ‘I still think they will know we have switched cars,’ said Andrea. ‘They are probably watching us.’ ‘Well, it’s up to you,’ added Stass.

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§73 ‘Did your father like Cyprus?’ ‘He loved it. But it never quite seemed to love him back.’ ‘And this made you feel angry when he died.’ ‘Did it? Maybe. I started to hate Cyprus. I wanted to get away from it. We had all given so much to the place, and in the end no one gave a –‘ ‘A what?’ ‘No one cared. Only money matters in Cyprus. Everyone else is expendable.’ ‘Do you mean everything else?’ ‘Maybe I do.’ ‘You hated Cyprus because you saw it as letting you down, or because it let Stass down?’ ‘Look, when Stass died he was a disappointed man. He gave Cyprus art. There was nothing there before he started bringing all those famous artists and art students to the island. For decades after independence every Cypriot son was expected to train to be an accountant and every daughter an optician. They were safe and respectable professions. If you did have a child who wanted to become an artist you persuaded them to do something else. If they were an idiot child and couldn’t do anything else then you sent them to get a

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degree in art from St Martin’s College so at least they could become a teacher or something.’ ‘And Stass changed that?’ ‘He almost bankrupted himself trying. He thought art would make Cyprus a better place, but it didn’t. Cyprus became a worse place with no room for artistic or spiritual values.’ ‘Are we still talking about Stass?’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Didn’t you say you and Andros started another branch of Stass’s college? What happened to that?’ ‘Stass died. The money we needed to carry on came from Stass. Without him there was no college. We worked so hard, all of us, for art and for Cyprus, and all for virtually nothing, and in the end no one gave a fuck.The people who should have cared, and helped, didn’t. They didn’t give a fuck.’ ‘Is that why you are so angry?’ ‘All those broken promises from government ministers and the downright lies of government bureaucrats. They all told Stass they would help and none of them did, but there they all were, after he died, lining up to say nice things about him on the television and in the press.’ ‘You didn’t want them to praise him?’ ‘I wanted them to help him when he was alive. That’s all he ever wanted, that’s all I ever

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wanted. A bit of help, but in the end there wasn’t even help to lift him on and off the fucking toilet. After that I didn’t want their condolences. All I wanted them to do was fuck off. It was too fucking late. They could just fuck off.’

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§74 It was somewhere just after Petra tou Romiou, a rocky boulder in the sea imagined by someone with a bit of imagination, long ago, as the birthplace of Aphrodite that Geroud must have fallen asleep. As his head began to tip towards Andrea she put out a hand to keep him upright and said gently, ‘Wake up Geroud.’ Geroud woke suddenly and let out a short low groan. ‘I dreamed I was in a kind of hospital,’ he said after taking a deep breath. ‘We’re nearly there,’ said Andrea. Geroud looked up at the road. ‘How long have I been asleep?’ he asked. ‘Only a few minutes,’ answered Andrea. ‘But we are in Anaphotia,’ mumbled Geroud. ‘We can’t have gone that far. This isn’t right.’ ‘Have you decided what you are going to say?’ asked Andrea ignoring Geroud’s confusion. ‘It looks like most of the others are already here.’ ‘I want to say something,’ said Geroud. ‘That’s not a bad starting point,’ agreed Andrea. ‘Silence would be a little odd.’ ‘I mean,’ Geroud tried again. ‘I want to say what I really feel. I want to say what I really feel.’

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‘Don’t worry. It’ll come to you,’ said Andrea, placing a hand on Geroud’s forearm for moral support. Through the service Geroud stood in silence, his mind unable to string images and thoughts and words and feelings together. In front of him a coffin was placed on two trestles. It was open at one end, but from where he stood he could not see inside. Filling the little village church were faces, some familiar, others unknown. A man who was introduced as the Minister of Education gave a eulogy penned by the President of Cyprus. He mumbled his words at high speed so that Geroud wondered if the Minister was sincere but painfully shy, or insincere and couldn’t give a shit. Then it was Geroud’s turn. In lectures and at exhibition openings Geroud rarely prepared a speech, relying instead on the muses to inspire him. He wondered whether the muses descended from Parnassus for a funeral oration, but there was no sign of them on the guest list yet. Standing in front of the crowd Geroud thought to speak of the anger, and rage, and even the hatred, that he felt, and which his body could not control except by closing down his mind as far as it could. But what was the point? Looking around the church he did not feel these were the targets of that

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rage. For the most part these were people who had also loved Stass. Geroud could see the tears and signs of what he thought was an inexpressible rage, similar to his own, in the faces of Stass’s closest friends, Koshis and Kikis and others. Even the Minister, so diminished by his own cloddishness, didn’t seem to deserve the fiery onslaught that could have poured, not from the gentle slopes of Mount Parnassus, but the roaring heart of Etna. ‘Why are you so angry?’ seemed to be the question asked by the voice in his head, or from outside his head, or somewhere, again and again. ‘Why are you so angry?’ It was with a feeling of despair, a strong sense of defeat, that Geroud opened his mouth and told instead the story of Stass finding a sixpence and using it to buy an ice cream. Perhaps it was meant to be a heartwarming anecdote, but Geroud felt cold telling it. He wanted to roar, and was ready to roar, but had backed down in the very moment of speech. ‘Why are you so angry?’ said the voice in his head. ‘Because the anger cannot speak,’ came the reply. ‘It just writhes around inside in agonising pain.’ For some reason, that night, and for several nights afterwards, Geroud became obsessed with the opening lines of Thomas Hardy’s Contretemps, saying them in his head or out loud again and again, for no logical reason. It wasn’t a poem he associated

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with Stass. Perhaps the lines seemed comforting in their fatalism, but it felt more like a rhythmic hammer, so harsh and insistent it beat deep down much darker thoughts, deep, deep down into the repressed subconscious, deep, deep down where they could do no harm. It was an autogenic act of self-control, brutal in its own way, but effective. Other habits formed themselves too from the dayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s events. In Cyprus, as in much of the Middle East, there is a tradition of offering food to the dead. It is probably an ancient tradition, and the food offered is a fruit and grain pudding known as koliva. Remains of something like koliva have been found in the tombs of the ancient Egyptians, and versions of the recipe and tradition can be found throughout the region. In Cyprus it is customary to first offer the food forty days after burial. Perhaps it was some kind of half memory that stirred a strange communal feeling in Stassâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s five children as they stood together over the newly-covered grave in Anaphotia, alone now, and feeling for the first time during that terrible day a kind of peace. First one and then each of the others took some of the leftover food meant for the mourners and placed it just under the soil of the grave to feed Stass. It was not koliva, but the food Stass enjoyed in life, pastries filled with cheese and others with rice and spinach, and finally a glass of wine. Why should the

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dead not want the food they had enjoyed whilst living, one could ask, but equally why would the dead want any food at all? But at that moment in time, each member of the family felt in unison that Stass might want something to eat and drink, and it did not seem mad. Ever afterwards, when cooking a meal or preparing a snack to eat, Geroud found himself involved in a strange echo of that impromptu ritual that he could not explain. If a fruit or vegetable fell on the floor he found himself placing it carefully in the kitchen waste bin, as carefully as they had placed the food under the soil covering the grave. As he did so he had the definite thought that Stass wanted that fruit or vegetable and that this was his way of getting it. The ritual became so strong that Geroud felt he could no longer just wash again and use anything that fell from the kitchen chopping board. Instead it had been claimed by Stass and had to go into the waste, otherwise Stass might not eat that day, or might not have all the ingredients he needed to cook whatever he was preparing somewhere else. As a God-fearing atheist Geroud knew this was nonsense, of course, but it was an inescapable nonsense that came to punctuate everyday life. The funeral over, Geroud found Andrea at the car and in silence they both got in. Andrea asked him if he was alright.

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‘It’s in the wrong place?’ he said. ‘What is?’ asked Andrea. ‘Anaphotia,’ replied Geroud. ‘The village should be on the other side of Limassol.’ ‘True,’ agreed Andrea. ‘But there is always a difference between real time and real space and sacred time and sacred space. It is always 12:25 in sacred time.’ Before Geroud could question Andrea on what she meant, they were both distracted by a large black car pulling onto the road in front of them from behind a clump of acacia bushes. Its wheels span for a moment as it tried to mount the tarmac from the dusty earth, arresting their attention. Geroud could not be sure, but he thought the driver was Pound. He looked at Andrea to see if she had seen him too, but she looked away from the scene without returning Geroud’s gaze. ‘No,’ mumbled Geroud to himself. ‘I must have been mistaken,’ he added, half expecting Andrea to ask him about what. But Miss Waites remained silent.

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§75 ‘I first knew Stass when I was an evening student at Leeds College of Art - he was also an evening student. We were both aspiring artists in jobs disconnected with art as such: this would be around the late 1950s. He worked in his family’s restaurant in Leeds and I was metal-working in a garage there my home town. ‘If I recollect rightly, the particular evening class was life modelling in clay. Also at that time he had moved with Mary and the children into a house lower down in Lucas Street in Leeds, where I was brought up. But I came to know Stass really well in the early 1960s, when I myself, having been fortunate enough to become a lecturer in art, had moved down to teach in Leicester with Tom Hudson. Stass had a part-time teaching job on the new, innovative art course Tom was running. As we were both living back in Leeds at the time, and I was driving up each friday evening when our teaching stints were finished, I was able to give Stass a lift home. ‘Often, arriving in Leeds after a usual incredibly hair-raising drive, after dark on extremely busy Friday-night roads, Stass would treat me to steak and chips in his familiy’s restaurant before we headed to our respective homes.

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‘He was a delightful, valued teacher and lecturer, and loved for his charm by both students and staff - this apart from his commitment and ability as a gifted painter of distinction. Invariably his paintings and images were uniquely ‘Stass’ and reflected his Greek Cypriot heritage - they are quite beautiful in their qualities of both paint and direct imagery, and invariably original. He loved paint and the act of painting - expressing his romantic, often erudite images, direct, simple, ever serious and meaningful in intent. He was a naturally gifted unique artist, and a lovely unforgettable man to have known; and my friend.’ - Laurie Burt, March 2014

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Â§76 Why Andrea left the motorway so soon after rejoining it Geroud did not really understand. He had mentioned Kolossi Castle, along with the comment Stass often made when driving that way, that it was set in mafia country, but more in passing than as a suggested diversion. Perhaps Andrea liked castles. Or the mafia. Kolossi looked much as it did when Geroud last visited, which must have been as a teenager on one of the annual bus trips Stass would organise for the summer students staying at his college. It loomed in the landscape, a square block made of Cypriot limestone that rendered it almost white in the bright sunshine. Beside it grew a tall cypress tree, as iconic as the castle itself and always the twin feature in postcards of Kolossi. Although the castle was only 30 miles from Paphos, in the 1970s and 80s Stassâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s excursions there took all day. This was partly because the motorway had not been built, leading to long queues of traffic on the winding single track road. But it was mainly because Stass invariably hired the ancient village buses, called Bedfords. These could climb a near-vertical mountain road like mountain goat, but on flat ground they managed no more than 20 miles and hour. With the stop at Kolossi, another at the

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Curium archaeological site and a picnic under the trees at the citrus groves of Akrotiri, the day was a full one. It invariably ended with a stop at Petra tou Romiou for a swim off the pebble beach by the goddess’s rock. It was here Stass had taught Michael to swim, or at least not to sink. Somewhere in the reused potato crisp boxes holding the family archives, and probably burying Stass’s diary, were dozens of fading low-quality photographs of these visits, including the inevitable annual group shot of the summer schoolers seated in the Roman theatre at Curium. Stass always seemed to enjoy the trips, despite the discomfort of the suspensionless bus and the familiarity of the sites visited. He seemed to like especially the role of mine host on the picnic, seeming to take ownership of the farm beneath the orange trees, entering the nearby packing sheds to commandeer crates of oranges, black grapes and watermelons from the workers, who watched their produce purloined by the day trippers with total indifference. Cutting a watermelon and doling out large slices to anyone seated nearby seemed to be Stass’s favourite task of all. Like the carving of a Sunday roast being the birthright of an Edwardian patrician, the cutting of the watermelon was Stass’s unchallenged role as father of the college.

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But something changed in the 1990s. Stass stopped going on the trips, the picnics on the farm ended, and when a local businessman started using the Bedford buses for his own trips for tourists Stass resented it bitterly, banning the so-called Yellow Fun Bus from the College grounds. He had just cause. His trips grew naturally from the joy of the College, whereas the Fun Bus visitors came to laugh at the College with its tumbledown buildings and hippyish art students and strange sculpture wall. It was the start of a kind of gradual withdrawal from Cyprus that began, ironically, at the very moment Stass had returned to live there. Geroud and Andrea began to climb the spiral staircase inside the castle, stopping only briefly on each floor to admire the large halls, before continuing to climb. Emerging onto the roof, the bright sunlight blinded them momentarily, bleaching out any detail so that Geroud was only vaguely aware that there was another visitor, a man, on the roof. He looked nonchalantly around as Andrea moved in the direction of the other man. It was not until she was within twenty feet of him that Andrea stopped and the man turned around. He had a pistol in his hand, holding it close to his body, but very definitely pointing it at Geroud. An absolute horror filled Geroudâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stomach, matched only by an absolute sense of betrayal, as he realised the man

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holding the gun was Pound, and that Andrea had led him there. Geroud looked around just to make sure the roof of the castle really was empty of other people. He had never seen the site so deserted. Usually someone was on the roof, a kid or family of tourists, but today no one. The only sign anyone else had been up there recently was the grills covering the meurtrières, or murder holes, down which boiling oil was supposed to have been poured in the middle ages onto any attacking army. Workmen had been painting them, French blue, and had left them open to dry. Any passing health and safety officer would have had apoplexy at the sight of these open gullies, each easily large enough to send a fully grown man to his death far below, without so much as a tape to cordon them off. But this was Cyprus. A more immediate peril for Geroud was Pound. Geroud found himself backing instinctively away, looking repeatedly from Pound to the gun, the gun to Pound. ‘There’s nowhere to go from here Mr Geroud,’ said Pound, smirking. ‘Except seventy feet down I suppose,’ he added superfluously. Geroud began to wonder if he was about to find out what a drop like that felt like. ‘My very able assistant has done an excellent job in bringing you here,’ continued Pound. ‘Thank you Miss Waites.’ Geroud looked at Andrea and felt the fear of a sudden abseil

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without rope pushed from his belly by a feeling of hatred. He wanted to throttle her and throw her over the edge of the parapet. Yet even in this state he noticed her discomfort, a sick look in her face not dissimilar to his own, and part of him seemed still to want to comfort for her. Pound turned slightly to Andrea and said, ‘For a moment I thought he had recognised me at the watermelon stand. When he didn’t get out of the car. But today must be my lucky day.’ Geroud scowled. ‘Miss Waites,’ continued Pound, ‘would you mind bringing me the diary? I believe you will find it in Mr Geroud’s top left pocket.’ ‘Yet again you seem to know a lot about me,’ quipped Geroud, some of the West Coast lassitude creeping back into his voice. ‘I told you before Mr Geroud,’ answered Pound, ‘we have a large file on you. But I have had someone pretty close to you for a while now.’ Geroud glanced at Andrea, but she avoided his gaze as she walked towards him. ‘I do apologise for intruding so obviously on the funeral,’ Pound continued, ‘but I had to speak to Miss Waites. I hadn’t quite anticipated the sudden appearance of that scene.’ ‘You mean the book is not quite so complete,’ Geroud replied quickly, more as a

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statement than a question. ‘I thought you knew the beginning and the end in one glance.’ ‘Mostly I do,’ said Pound, almost with a note of sadness in his voice. ‘But the death of the author, in this case you, is also the birth of the reader you know. You remember that? So there is always an element of chance in any storyline. Something unexpected.’ ‘And the excursion to the funeral was unexpected?’ asked Geroud. ‘It doesn’t make sense does it?’ replied Pound. But you put that scene in quite late. Things were already cast for me by then, so I had to improvise. ‘Was it the conversation with Stass in Lempa reminded you of the funeral? Is that why the scene was added?’ ‘It seemed necessary,’ answered Geroud as though addressing a question at the Hay Festival rather than answering a man pointing a gun at his chest. ‘The book tells you what it needs, and that seemed needed there. I cannot explain why.’ Andrea had stopped a few feet away from Geroud and Pound had to gesture again silently with a slight nod from his head this time, for her to fetch the diary. As she stood in front of Geroud she kept her eyes away from his, focusing on his jacket and reached into the inside pocket. As she stepped back she whispered, ‘I’m sorry.’ Geroud did not answer.

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She walked back toward Pound and looked broken. Geroud had to work hard to keep hating her. ‘Thank you Miss Waites,’ said Pound coldly. ‘You said you would let him go once you had the diary,’ Andrea said suddenly, loudly, almost as though addressing Geroud as much as Pound. ‘That is true,’ agreed Pound. ‘But I’m afraid our friend Mr Geroud will be going by a slightly different route. You could say he’s leaving via the express route. I think they will say he was so overcome with grief at the loss of Stass he threw himself from the walls of Kolossi Castle. It will make you very famous Mr Geroud. It’s very romantic.’ Andrea made to protest, but was silenced by a simple ‘Ah-ah!’ from Pound and a slight wave of the gun. ‘If that’s my option,’ said Geroud, ‘I might as well make a run for it. If you shoot me at least you’ll be hunted and caught.’ ‘True,’ agreed Pound. ‘And I doubt I would even make it out of the grounds of this castle. But then I would also be obliged to shoot Miss Waites, and I suspect even now that would not be something you want.’ Love and hate have a strange relationship and Pound had gauged Geroud’s inner conflict perfectly. What he hadn’t accounted for was Andrea herself. ‘If you wouldn’t mind handing me the diary,’ Pound told her almost as though giving an

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instruction through his office intercom. Andrea walked up to Pound and handed him the diary. In the brief moment of Pound’s distraction, as he felt to put the diary away in his own inside pocket, Andrea leapt at him like a ferocious panther leaping on its prey. In normal circumstances Pound’s bulk would have left him immune to an attack from a woman with such a small stature, but the element of surprise worked in Andrea’s favour. Both she and Pound fell to the ground and seemed to roll in a single ball towards the edge of the roof. There the castellated walls should have caught them, but they didn’t. Instead they each fell out of sight, into an open meurtrière. Geroud ran forward, an instinctive desire to save Andrea overwhelming him. At the edge of the meurtrière he stopped and could see both Andrea and Pound clutching desperately onto whatever part of the dry ancient walls they could grasp, but each found the dust that covered everything in Cyprus made their grip a precarious and temporary business. Geroud could see Andrea’s fingers slipping, her face grimacing with the effort to stay alive. He reached out, grabbed her wrist and pulled her up to safety. When he returned to the meurtrière, ostensively to rescue Pound, his erstwhile murderer was nowhere to be seen. Geroud could hear excited shouting below and realised Pound must have fallen.

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From that height he must have been dead. Returning to Andrea he found her shaking with fear. He put his arms around her and finding another burst of uncharacteristic strength, lifted her up and carried her across the roof, down the stairs and into the large hall of the floor below. There he sat her on a mock mediaeval bench and kept his arms around her as she continued to shake. Below they could hear the noise of an army coming up the stairway to invade their peace, but in that hall they were still for a moment alone. Recovering a little, Andrea said softly, ‘At last I have my George Peppard moment.’ ‘Almost,’ replied Geroud, adding, ‘although I always saw myself more as a Mr Rochester.’ ‘Really?’ asked Andrea, recovering a little more. ‘Is that because you have a mad woman in the attic?’ ‘There was certainly something up there,’ answered Geroud, although perhaps it was a mad man. Then again, perhaps he’s just taken a fall.’ ‘Don’t,’ insisted Andrea, burying her head into his breast. ‘Don’t,’ she repeated. By now the noise from below had burst in on them. Most of it continued up the final flight of narrow stairs to the roof, but a young woman broke ranks and came over to where Andrea and Geroud were sitting. She spoke in Greek at first, turning to

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English only when their faces showed incomprehension. ‘I am sorry,’ said the woman. ‘But we must ask you to leave the castle.’ ‘Why?’ asked Geroud. ‘Have we done something wrong? We were only cuddling.’ The woman smiled faintly. ‘It is not that,’ she said. ‘There has been an accident.’ She paused as Andrea and Geroud sat in silence, each of them wondering if they were about to be accused. ‘You should not be up here in any case,’ continued the woman. ‘There was a no entry sign downstairs. They are working on the roof and no one should be above the first floor. Someone moved the sign I put up.’ The sound of upset in her voice as she spoke stirred an urge in Geroud to tell her it was probably the man who had just fallen from the roof, but he resisted incriminating himself. Instead he asked, ‘What kind of accident?’ ‘A man has fallen,’ replied the woman, tears filling her eyes. ‘I found him. On the ground. He is dead.’ She paused, no doubt seeing the dead man lying in front of her once again, before adding, ‘You must go now.’ Andrea and Geroud trod slowly and carefully doen the narrow spiral stairway that led to the ground floor. Once outside the light and heat of the sun hit them like a slap in the face. Geroud

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expected this natural violence to be followed by the man-made kind, with hands on their shoulders from one of the dozen or so policemen they could see trying to keep onlookers away from the bulbous shape, covered beneath a sheet of thick black plastic, lying at the foot of the castle wall. But no one stopped them. No one seemed even to notice them. They were let through the police line, where no one took their name, no one them asked what they had seen, and no one accused them of having any part in the still unexplained death. If they were ever noticed they were soon forgotten, and in the mêlée of onlookers they overheard someone say it was suicide, while someone else mentioned the mafia. Leaving the crowd behind, they arrived at the car to find, resting on the bonnet, a notebook, its pages flapping in the strong breeze. ‘What is it?’ asked Andrea, already fearing the answer. ‘The diary,’ replied Geroud. ‘How on earth,’ she began before stopping mid-sentence. ‘It must have flown here on the breeze,’ suggested Geroud, to be met by a doubtful scowl from Andrea. ‘Or someone put it there,’ he added, his own face scowling now. As Geroud spoke a nearby bush seemed to rustle, as though a wild rat had been disturbed in the undergrowth.

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§77 There seemed something ominous in the slogan beneath the sign for the Golden Mariana hotel in Famagusta. ‘You are welcome, Sir, to Cyprus.’ ‘It seems they only welcome men,’ Andrea commented dryly. ‘It’s Othello’s welcome to Cassio before he thinks he has betrayed him,’ explained Geroud. ‘It’s a bit like a Scottish hotel welcoming visitors with a line from Macbeth.’ Andrea laughed, but for both of them there was something ghostly about the hotel that left them feeling uneasy. The building itself was modern and undistinguished, resembling any one of the hundreds of other concrete box hotels they had passed in Paphos, Limassol and now in Famagusta, although it managed to possess some charm by being smaller than the supersized hotels appearing further west in Cyprus. About seven storeys high it even managed a vague nod to its middle eastern location with an arched canopy sticking out of the first floor, shielding the large windows of the restaurant and bar from the Levantine sun. But the decor was a mystery. Although brand new to all appearances, it seemed straight out of the 1970s, with the marble-covered walls and floors of the lobby tastefully set off against synthetic velour

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fabrics covered in brown and orange swirling patterns. The moustachioed man at the reception desk seemed dressed for this period piece too, but was friendly and welcoming. Yet the most disturbing thing about the Mariana was not its well-crafted retro appearance but the absolute sense of emptiness it managed to exude. If the receptionist had told Andrea and Geroud they were his only guests they would have readily believed it, but he might then have added with absolute plausibility that he was the only member of staff. If he had also mentioned in passing that they were the only three people left in Famagusta it would have seemed scarcely less incredible. Walking towards the Old Town later that day they felt as though the whole place had been abandoned only moments before their arrival. If they entered a cafe or bar, they felt they might well find it deserted except for a still lit cigarette smoking in an ashtray and perhaps a kettle whistling on the hob. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like being in the Twilight Zone,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Geroud would then say. Before all that they checked into their room. Andrea was relieved to find the double room Geroud claimed he had inadvertently requested was really a twin with the beds pushed together. She soon separated them. She opened the window and stepped out onto the balcony. The silence was overwhelming

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with even the ubiquitous cicadas absent. Looking out over the townscape, down towards the road below and up and down the hotel’s street, nothing stirred. Andrea returned to the room. ‘This is creepy,’ she said. ‘Where is everyone?’ Geroud did not answer. He was in the bathroom soaking the back page of the diary in the sink, trying to hold it under the warm water without agitating it. He feared the ancient pages would disintegrate with the slightest movement. He lifted it carefully in one hand, and tried to pick up one of the plush white bath towels with the other, only to drop the diary onto the floor. ‘Shit,’ he cried out, bringing Andrea into the bathroom. Geroud picked up the diary and asked Andrea to bring a towel into the bedroom. There he told her to place the towel on the table and on top of it he set down the diary. As he tried to prise the last page of the diary away from the cardboard end of the notebook Geroud was struck by a sense of terror that he would damage what was by now a very fragile piece of paper. It made him indecisive, although he was aware that some of his caution was for show, as though he was eager to prove a gentle nature to Andrea through his handling of this precious object. But for the most part it was genuine fear he was about to destroy the thing they had fought so hard to keep.

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For Andrea, Geroud’s caution looked like a kind of incompetence. It seemed prissy and clumsy and she longed to take the diary from him to stop his fingers doing any more damage. The way Geroud picked at the edges of the page, each time taking hold of such a small piece it could not support the pressure as he pulled away, began to rile her. Each tear was accompanied with an ‘Oops’ from Geroud until Andrea could bear it no longer. Reaching into her handbag she took out her purse, and from the purse a credit card. ‘Let me have a go,’ she said to Geroud, almost pushing him away. Lifting what was left of the corner of the page, she slid the plastic card under the paper and with a surprisingly rapid movement separated the page in a single piece. ‘Very good,’ said Geroud as though he had simply been supervising. ‘Never mind that,’ said Andrea,’what does it say?’ They looked at the page almost in disappointment as they realised what was written there was in Greek. ‘I haven’t a clue,’ said Geroud. ‘You cannot speak Greek?’ asked Andrea. ‘Don’t you start,’ replied Geroud tersely. ‘Someone criticised me for that at the funeral. I’m thinking of changing my name so no one asks me ever again.’

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‘That’s all very well,’ said Andrea. ‘But how are we going to translate it?’ Geroud patted the diary dry with the fluffy white towel and it seemed to regain some of its strength. He picked it up carefully in the palm of his hand and said, ‘I’ll ask the receptionist.’ ‘Is that wise?’ asked Andrea. ‘It’s not going to mean anything to him,’ Geroud said confidently. In the reception there was still no sign of any other guests, staff or even passers by. Only the receptionist was there, smiling broadly at them as they approached. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, adding ‘madam,’ with a glance at Andrea. Geroud asked him if he could translate the Greek in the diary. The receptionist seemed delighted to be asked, adding that Geroud really should speak Greek himself. Geroud said nothing. ‘It is Greek,’ said the receptionist, stating the obvious point. ‘But it is bad Greek. Did you write it?’ he asked Geroud. ‘No,’ said Geroud curtly. ‘Does it make any sense?’ asked Andrea. ‘Not really,’ said the receptionist. He read it out: ‘Μια πέτρα ρίχνονται από τον αρχαίο εκκλησία, κάτω από όπου Αγνότητα ήρθε για να ξεκουραστούν στον Παράδεισο.’ He held the notebook up to the light almost as though he

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expected more words to appear. He addressed Andrea now that Geroud had been diminished as a Greek who did not speak Greek. ‘It’s what you would call in English, gibberish, I think,’ he said after a pause. ‘It is something like, “A rock thrown from an ancient church, below where Purity rests,” or sleeps maybe, “in Heaven.”’ ‘Let me write that down,’ said Andrea. The receptionist handed her a pen and paper and said the words again, more slowly this time. In the Old Town they found a coffeeshop that was not deserted outside the ruins of the Venetian palace, across the square from the French gothic cathedral. On the table in front of them lay the now dry and seemingly stable notebook and, with a bowl of salted peanuts acting as a paperweight, the sheet of hotel-headed paper on which was written Andrea’s English copy. ‘This place is beautiful,’ said Andrea looking around. ‘When Stass was here. with the first art students he brought to Cyprus I mean, he wasn’t allowed to come here,’ Geroud explained. ‘Even now I am not sure he ever saw any of this.’ ‘Why couldn’t he come here?’ asked Andrea. ‘After 1963 the town was divided,’ explained Geroud. The Old Town was Turkish and Greeks couldn’t come here. The Greek area is where the

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hotel is. It’s called Varosha. That’s where they had to stay.’ ‘That’s a vital clue,’ said Andrea, suddenly excited at the history lesson. ‘It is?’ replied Geroud. ‘Yes,’ Andrea insisted. ‘If Stass couldn’t come here then the ancient church cannot be here. He couldn’t have hidden the pages of the diary in the Old Town.’ ‘I guess not,’ agreed Geroud. ‘But that just makes life more difficult.’ ‘Not necessarily,’ said Andrea. ‘I think we need to find an old church in, what did you call it?’ ‘Varosha.’ ‘Varosha. There must be a sculpture or painting there showing Purity sleeping in Heaven.’ ‘The Virgin Mary, perhaps,’ suggested Geroud. ‘She’s thought to be pure.’ ‘I’m impressed,’ answered Andrea. ‘So what is the oldest church in Varosha?’ ‘No idea,’ said Geroud breezily. ‘But I know a man who does.’ He stood up and walked briskly across the square to the left of the great cathedral, past the column to which the last Venetian governor of Cyprus, Marcantonio Bragadino, was tied by the invading Turkish army in 1571 and skinned alive, and across to the tourist souvenir shops that lined the north side of the cobbled street running down

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the side of the cathedral. There Geroud went to the racks of tourist guides, but ignored the brightly coloured covers of the modern guidebooks and picked instead a faded hardback book that looked more like an academic textbook. He took it inside the shop, paid and returned to where Andrea was sitting in the coffeeshop. In his absence she had moved onto something stronger. ‘What’s that you’re drinking?’ Geroud asked, sitting down. ‘It’s called an ouzini,’ answered Andrea, looking up at him from the rim of the glass, straw in her mouth. ‘Apparently it’s made with orange and ouzo. Try some.’ She passed the glass of innocuouslooking orange liquid to him. Geroud sipped slowly, aware he was using her straw. Pulling away, he said, ‘How much ouzo did they put in that? It’s lethal. I’ll have one too.’ He returned the glass to Andrea, and opened the book he had bought. ‘This will tell us what churches there are in Varosha,’ he said. ‘What is it?’ asked Andrea. ‘It’s Gunnis’s guide to Cyprus,’ said Geroud. Andrea looked at him blankly. ‘In the 1930s Gunnis was a civil servant with the British colonial government. He visited all the historic buildings of Cyprus.’

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‘You mean historical buildings,’ Andrea corrected him. ‘Do I?’ asked Geroud. ‘Whatever. Anyway, he wrote this guide to them.’ Geroud began to look up Famagusta, but found Varosha was missing. ‘It looks like a new town.’ said Andrea. ‘Maybe it wasn’t built then.’ ‘There must have been something there,’ insisted Geroud. ‘They don’t just build new towns in the middle of nowhere. There must have been a village or something.’ He paused. ‘There must have been a village,’ he repeated and searched a different section of Gunnis’s book. ‘It’s here!’ he exclaimed. ‘Varosha.’ ‘What does it say?’ asked Andrea sipping her ouzini. ‘He only lists one old church. But it seems right. It’s called Panagia Chrysospiliotissa. That must be it. Panagia means the Virgin Mary. And,’ said Geroud theatrically. ‘And,’ he repeated, ‘you’ll never guess. It is built underground.’ Andrea picked up the hotel paper. ‘Below where Purity rests,’ she said. ‘It must mean there.’ ‘It must mean there,’ agreed Geroud.

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§78

1 May 2015

A good story will be Ouzini’s strongest ingredient I have to hand it to Michael Paraskos from Lempa, who has created a new national cocktail for Cyprus the ‘Ouzini’. I see nothing wrong with the traditional, divine, refreshing and any-time-after-3pm blend of brandy, soda, lemon squash and bitters which is the Cypriot brandy sour and I certainly do not agree with the description of the Brandy Sour as “tired” and “old” (unless you have it in some Paphos hotel bars). Creativity on any front is always welcome, so I was interested to read about this new drink which was made in response to a Cyprus Tourism Organisation call for inventiveness with local ingredients and promotion of existing and new Cypriot cuisine.

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The Ouzini is made of one part ouzo, three parts freshly-squeezed orange juice and two to four drops of Cyprus bitters. I always thought ouzo was Greek but as I am fond of this spirit and the recipe calls for ‘Cyprus Ouzo’, I’ll let that one go. You mix it all in a long glass over ice and you are ready to sip. Sounds like it’s worth a try. Now all we need is a vintage story to go with the cocktail. Most of you probably know the tale of the Brandy Sour. Legend has it that it was created for King Farouk of Egypt, who was a regular visitor to the Forest Park Hotel in Platres. The king liked a tipple but could not be seen drinking alcohol because of his religious beliefs. In order to make life as pleasant as possible for their guest, the hotel management came up with an ingenious form of ice tea that could be drunk in public. It was of course the Brandy Sour. I think this is a pretty classy story for a cocktail as far as these things go. It’s worth noting that the Ouzini is not the first cocktail that has set its sights on usurping the Brandy Sour. A few years ago, a teenager created a drink called the ‘Fire and Forget’ which won the first panCyprian Original Cyprus Cocktail Competition (was there a second?)

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It was a combination of ouzo, zivania, Nama (a dessert wine), orange liqueur, pomegranate, orange juice and a touch of rose cordial. It also sounds quite tempting but I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think I have heard of it since. Which maybe goes to show that in order to endure, a cocktail needs a tale. - Lucy Robson

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§79 The robes of the two priests struck Geroud as unusual as he and Andrea descended the thirty-six steps into the cavern beneath the ugly 1950s fake Byzantine concrete church covering the cave that was Panagia Chrysospiliotissa. They stood on either side of the entrance to the rock-hewn cavern and as Andrea and Geroud passed one of them said in a low chant, ‘Cave! Cave! Deus videt!’ To this the other seemed to reply, ‘Cave! Cave! Deus exaudiat!’ If that was not extraordinary enough, Andrea seemed to respond to them with the words, ‘Deus scit futura contingentia.’ ‘What was that?’ asked Geroud once he and Andrea were safely inside what seemed more like a tomb than a church. ‘Something half remembered,’ Angela nonchalantly replied leading Geroud to the unexpected assumption Andrea had been a convent school girl. It didn’t really explain why two Catholic priests were standing guard at the entrance to a shrine in an Orthodox church, but perhaps, Geroud thought, this building was like the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and shared by different denominations. Inside the space felt cramped. It was marked by niches cut into the stone walls, a large central one flanked on either side by two smaller ones, almost

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like inglenooks on either side of a crofter’s fireplace. The whole space was blackened by centuries of incense and candle smoke so it was almost like standing in a bread oven between firings, except there was no residual heat inside the cave, which was instead a cool refuge from the burning sun. On the walls of the cave the remains of paintings could just be made out, including a large image that must have once been an impressive fresco of the Baptism of Christ. But the paintings were so damaged by smoke and time they were more like memories of what had been there than images in their own right. It did not take Andrea and Geroud long to realise the walls of the cave were so solid there could not be any hiding place for the missing pages of the diary in there. As Andrea watched the door for the Latin guards, Geroud tapped the floor in the hope of finding a hidden cranny beneath the terracotta tiles, but nothing moved or sounded remotely hollow to his ear. They left despondent, accompanied only by the sound of the two priests. As they passed the first chanted, ‘Non est hic’, only to be answered by the second with the same words, ‘Non est hic’. As Andrea and Gerous reached the top of the steps they could still hear the priests’ voices down below, each repeating the phrase in turn: ‘Non est hic. Non est hic.’

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Back in the cathedral square they bypassed the coffee this time and started straight on ouzinis. Eventually Andrea said, ‘I think we have been too literal.’ ‘That’s true,’ agreed Geroud. ‘If this was meant as a cryptic clue that church in Varosha would have been an obvious answer. I was never good at these games. Cryptic crosswords and things. But I do know they are meant to be more difficult than that.’ Andrea was staring hard at the paper on which she had written the hotel receptionist’s translation. ‘You must know a little Greek,’ she said. ‘Some of it must make sense.’ ‘I might have managed to get the gist of what it says, but I couldn’t have done a proper translation,’ he told her. ‘Cryptic clues are all about getting puns and seeing obscure associations. You cannot do that with a spattering of bad Greek.’ ‘Maybe that is exactly what you do need,’ suggested Andrea. ‘The man in the hotel said it was written in bad Greek. It made him dismissive, but that was because he good Greek. He might get the meaning easily enough, but maybe he would miss the obscure connections in something written in bad Greek. He might be distracted by what it should say rather than what it actually says.’ Andrea looked

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triumphantly at Geroud as though her supposition had as good as solved the riddle. ‘What exactly do you want me to do then?’ asked Geroud. ‘Concentrate,’ she replied. ‘Concentrate on the words and what they make you think of. Look around the square here and see if it starts to make sense.’ ‘None of it makes sense,’ replied Geroud with a sigh. ‘But let’s give it a go.’ Geroud picked up the piece of paper and read it aloud. ‘A rock thrown from an ancient church, below where Purity rests, or sleeps maybe, in Heaven.’ He screwed up his mouth to one side of his face, almost becoming the pantomime of someone thinking rather than a thinker himself. Eventually he said, ‘Let’s suppose Heaven means the church. The ancient church is presumably the cathedral.’ ‘Is it the oldest church in Famagusta?’ asked Andrea. ‘Probably not,’ said Geroud, ‘but it doesn’t say the oldest, it just says ancient, so it is reasonable to assume the writer meant a church people would know. Otherwise it’s not just cryptic, it’s obtuse. If it is the cathedral then what’s below? Usually a crypt. That’s a place where people are buried, so they are asleep in a way.’

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‘Of course,’ said Andrea slowly. ‘There must be a crypt. It must be in there.’ As she spoke another bush nearby rustled, just as it had at Kolossi. ‘It sounds like that rat or mouse is following you,’ said Geroud finishing his drink. Standing he said, ‘Come on, let’s see if we can find this crypt.’ They walked across the square towards the main entrance to the cathedral beneath the remains of the Great West Window. An ancient sycamore fig tree stood on their left, grown, according to a plaque nearby, from the cutting of a tree in Jerusalem taken seven hundred years earlier. It was, the plaque said, intended to remind the Kings of Cyprus of their origins as erstwhile Kings of Jerusalem. On the other side of the cathedral, to the right of the entrance, was a low stone building, perhaps once a stable, but now being used as a storeroom. Walking into it Geroud stopped and pointed up at a weathered carving on one of the capitals. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘It’s a Melusine.’ ‘What’s that?’ asked Andrea. ‘She was a kind of mermaid,’ Geroud told her. ‘The Kings of Cyprus claimed they were descended from Guy de Lusignan, who was King of Jerusalem, and Melusine, a mermaid.’ As he spoke a beautiful sound came from the cathedral square behind them. Looking back through the shattered gothic tracery of the windows

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they saw a man, dressed in gold and white robes and crowned with a golden egg shaped mitre, pass through the square at the head of a procession of priests and what looked like choir boys, dressed in red and white robes. They entered the cathedral through the great west door. Some of them were carrying large white candles on which were painted the red crosses of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and they sang as they passed. As they entered the cathedral, either the compression of their sound by the building, or the joining of their voices by others inside, sent out a shockwave of song that filled the air, sweeping the plumes of incense around the square, and shaking the leaves of the sycamore fig into animate life. ‘Iesus quem quaeritis non est hic!’ ‘They are singing Gabrieli’s Mary Magdelene,’ said Andrea. For the second time that day Geroud found himself staring in amazement at her knowledge of Catholic ritual. ‘It’s a resurrection song,’ Andrea continued. ‘Are they reclaiming the building?’ ‘I doubt it,’ answered Geroud. ‘Maybe they’ve agreed to share it with the muslims. In an ideal world wouldn’t everything be shared like that?’ Andrea said nothing, but turned and walked through the store room and into the street on the other side. Geroud followed. The south wall of the cathedral stood in front of them, the street running

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along its side leading down a gentle slope and disappearing in the distance behind another semiruined medieval church or palace. Along the side of the cathedral an old stone stairway led upwards to a platform, well maintained, but apparently leading nowhere, and also downwards, at first following the line of the great cathedral wall before cutting in towards the building. It ended at the wall with a small wooden door. If there was a crypt then it was reasonable to assume this led into it. But what struck them most was not the prospect of finally finding the missing diary, but that the door at the bottom of the stairs stood open. More than that, it learched to one side, as though it had been forced, and the ancient lock, that might have been there one century or ten, was smashed. They glanced at each other, each knowing that this was not a good sign. Stepping inside, the darkness was unremitting. What little light followed them through the open door soon fled the impenetrable darkness inside, and they stood by the entrance unsure where to tread next. Looking around Geroud let out a short cry, ‘What was that!’ ‘What?’ asked Andrea anxiously. ‘I thought I saw a light,’ he replied. There was nothing but darkness now. ‘It must be my eyes playing a trick on me,’ he said.

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In the darkness they could see nothing, but they heard above them the sound of angels singing, or so it seemed as the service in the cathedral continued its run of chants, prayers and song. Geroud thought he could hear an organ playing too, although he found it hard to believe the muslims would have allowed an instrument like that to be reinstalled in a mosque even if they had agreed to share it as a church. He could also hear Andrea searching inside her bag for something. The something glowed a moment, then burst into a bright light. Geroud stated the obvious. ‘Your phone is a torch!’ Andrea let the beam of light pan around the room which was crowded with bulky objects that looked like people. No, not people: statues, lying on their sides. She could hear Geroud gasp with wonder as each new statue was revealed by her light, almost as though she had a remote control over his emotions. ‘Do you know what these are?’ Geroud suddenly exclaimed. ‘The’re the tombs from the cathedral. Everyone thinks they were destroyed, when the Turks took over, but here they all are.’ ‘They’re beautiful,’ said Andrea. ‘But who are they?’ ‘They are the kings and queens of Cyprus,’ replied Geroud. ‘All here. All intact. It’s almost unbelievable.’ As he spoke a crescendo of sound

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reached them from the church service above them, and Geroud thought he saw something move in the half light. ‘Be careful,’ he said. ‘I think there are rats down here.’ They began to move slowly through the jumble of tombs, shining the light onto the stone gothic features of the men and women depicted ambiguously between prayer and sleep. ‘They survived,’ said Geroud repeatedly. ‘They survived.’ It was only the prospect of Andrea tripping over a small wall, little more than a ledge, in the middle of the floor that brought Geroud out of his reverie. As she began to fall, the light dropped from her hand, and Geroud instinctively reached out to catch her. Safely upright again Geroud said softly, ‘This is beginning to be a habit.’ Andrea smiled, but her face fell into something like fear as she and Geroud realised the fallen phone was no longer on the ground. It was in the hands of someone, a short figure hidden behind the glare of the beam, standing some ten feet away. Although they could not see his face, Andrea knew immediately who it was. ‘Schäuble,’ she said coldly. ‘Schäuble?’ repeated Geroud. ‘You mean he’s real?’ Andrea looked at him and scowled. ‘Of course he’s real. What are you saying?’

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‘I thought I must have dreamed him,’ explained Geroud. ‘When I was knocked out in the shower. I thought he was too much like a pantomime villain to really exist.’ ‘I see what you mean,’ agreed Andrea as they both seemed to forget for a moment that the pantomime villain himself was standing in front of them. Being ignored in this way proved too much for Schäuble. ‘Silence!’ he shouted. ‘I have a gun in my hand and it is pointing directly at you Herr Geroud. Any sudden move and I will shoot. I will not shoot to kill, just to knock you into the well behind you. Do you know this church is built on a holy well? That is how the city managed to hold out against the Turks for so long. They had water. The strange thing is that the well is said to have dried up as soon as the city was captured and so it was forgotten down here. No one knows how deep it is. Perhaps it is an abyss, so I would not recommend you do anything sudden that might lead you to find out.’ Geroud felt some of the hardboiled West Coast insolence return as he answered, ‘How long have you been practising that speech? It’s a little long and sounds cornier than an Iowa prairie.’ ‘Silence!’ shouted Schäuble again, before calmly ordering Geroud to hand the diary in his

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pocket to Fräulein Waites and Fräulein Waites to bring it to him. Geroud duly obliged, adding the quip, ‘In all honesty Schäuble, you’re welcome to it, but I don’t advise reading it unless you want a few sleepless nights.’ As he spoke the reckoning that had been computing in Geroud’s mind came to its conclusion. A bottomless well in a forgotten crypt was as good a place as anyone was likely to find to hide a body, or two, and so if Schäuble had a gun he was as likely to send both Geroud and Andrea into the abyss once he had hold of the diary. That meant their chances of seeing the sunlight again were pretty slim. Ergo, Geroud might as well take his chances and rush Schäuble. On the other hand, if Schäuble was bluffing, and didn’t have a gun, then Geroud reckoned it was worth rushing him as the odds were clearly in Geroud’s favour, especially if Andrea could use the time of the scuffle to find a boulder to crack onto Schäuble’s head. The reckoning done, Geroud handed the diary to Andrea, saw Schäuble turn the light onto her and as he did so Geroud rushed him. No shot rang out as they both tumbled to the ground, Geroud hitting his head hard against the corner of a tomb. Schäuble must have been stunned momentarily too as he did not use this advantage and they both got

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up. Geroud expected Schäuble to attack him directly, but more like a spider scaling a wall, Schäuble mounted one of the tombs, sending ancient fragments of carved stonework flying, and was behind and on top of Geroud, hanging on to Geroud’s neck and choking his throat. Geroud fell backwards, crushing Schäuble with his bodyweight, forcing Schäuble to let go. Half fazed by the blow to his head, and dizzy from the choking, Geroud stood, stumbled, and saw Schäuble lying in front of him with a crazed look of hatred on his face. As Schäuble made to get up for another assault, Geroud leapt on him, pushing Schäuble over the ledge of the well and into the abyss. They did not hear Schäuble cry out, or hit either solid earth or water below. From the abyss there was only a black silence that seemed to fill the crypt in spite of the light from the phone. It made Andrea and Geroud desperate to get out of there. In the light again they sat on the steps letting the warmth of the sun and stones reanimate their chilled bodies. Andrea looked at Geroud’s head. The wound seemed bad, but Geroud refused a trip to the hospital. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever trust a hospital again,’ he told her. ‘I’m sorry Geroud,’ Andrea suddenly blurted out. ‘I’m really sorry!’ She was on the verge of crying. ‘Sorry about what?’ asked Geroud.

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‘About leading you to Pound,’ she said. ‘At the castle. I had no choice. I told you before, he is a monster.’ ‘Is?’ asked Geroud. ‘It’s all past tense now. All gone.’ ‘I cannot believe that,’ said Andrea. ‘Malice doesn’t go away. When it wins it devours everything, and when it loses it just licks its wounds and comes back to fight another day. Pound is not dead. He might be lying on a mortuary slab rotting away. But he’s still not dead.’ ‘It’s not much of a mortuary if they let the bodies rot,’ replied Geroud. Andrea let out a short laugh that bust the bank holding back the tears behind her eyes, then ended them. Geroud pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to her. She dried her eyes and offered it back to him. ‘It’s alright, you keep it,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure I want it now.’ ‘You sod,’ she said, slapping him playfully. ‘A sod in need of one of those cocktails you found, and something to eat,’ Geroud corrected her.

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§80 Michael:

Zero, zero. Three, five, seven. Two double one, seven, oh, seven.

Operator:

Ο αριθμός που καλέσατε δεν αποκρίνεται.

Michael:

Hello Stass, it’s Michael.

Stass:

Hello my Michael. Are you in Famagusta?

Michael:

Yes, but it’s not going well.

Stass:

Πες μου. What is wrong?

Michael:

We found the clue in the diary, but it doesn’t make sense. We’ve looked in Varosha and the cathedral. Nothing.

Stass:

I don’t think he would have put it in the cathedral. Listen, I was reading that book you wrote on Clive.

Michael:

Did you like it?

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Stass:

It’s too long, but what you say in there is right. Or what Clive says. When you go into the studio to paint you don’t think today I’m going to paint a picture of this or that. You might have an idea, but that is only the staring point. You let the painting tell you what it wants to be. If you put a line here, or a colour there, the painting tells you what it needs to go with that line or colour.

Michael:

But what has that to do with the riddle in your diary?

Stass:

This book is like a painting. You have to learn to listen to what you are writing. You listen to the book and it will tell you what it needs. The book is telling you what it needs to be resolved, so you just have to listen to it. Listen to it properly.

Michael:

You make it sound so easy. So far all the book has done is insult me.

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Stass:

Some things are meant to be difficult. If it was easy everyone would do it and it wouldn’t be worth doing. I remember we once did a talk on the college together somewhere, in London I think. It was at that Greek theatre in Camden Town. There were lots of people there, do you remember?

Michael:

I think so.

Stass:

And I remember you said something about art being for everyone. That everyone can be an artist. Well you know now that is not true. Real artists are not like everyone else, that’s why they are not doctors or bank managers. They’re artists, and they think differently to other people. One of the ways they think differently is they listen to the painting or sculpture they are working on and then they do what it tells them to do. They let it lead them, because for a real artist the work of art is

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alive. It has its own sense of existence and it talks to them. That’s the difference between someone who makes art and someone who just makes pictures. Michael:

I’ll try and listen to the book then. See if it tells me what the riddle means. Where are you? I can hear voices.

Stass:

I’m with Metaxas. He’s driving us up to Platres to see Pefkios.

Michael:

That’s nice. Give Pefkios my love.

Stass:

Okay my Michael. Let’s leave it at that now. Ba-bye. Ba-bye love.

Operator:

Παρακαλώ δοκιμάστε αργότερα.

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§81 That night Geroud did not sleep well. Apart from his head throbbing from its encounter with the stone plinth in the crypt, he was bothered by two other obsessive thoughts. The riddle in the diary was one, and the almost overwhelming desire he had to climb into Andrea’s bed, now separated from his own by a three-foot chasm, and make love to her, was the other. He remembered Nanny, twenty-five years earlier, and lying on the floor of her room, in her flat in Chelsea, on a make-shift bed while she slept in the real bed high above him. That night too he did not sleep. They had spent the evening drinking, talking, laughing. It was too late for him to make his way back to his brother’s flat in Sidcup, and so he had accepted her offer to stay the night. He had no toothbrush so she let him use hers. He thought it strange at the time that anyone would lend someone their toothbrush, but he gladly accepted her offer. She’d made up his bed on the narrow floorspace between her bed and the opposite wall, and they lay there all night, side by side except for a three-foot vertical drop. Before turning off the light she had looked down at him from above, her long blonde hair falling down towards him, like Rapunzel’s golden locks

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falling from her fairy-tale castle, and asked, ‘Will you be alright down there?’ ‘I’m fine,’ Geroud had said. ‘It’s actually quite comfortable.’ For the rest of the night and the next quarter of a century he replayed the scene in his mind, following the different paths for each what-if, obsessively and self destructively. Will you be alright down there? ‘It’s alright, but I’d rather be up there with you,’ went one storyline. ‘It’s lovely, why don’t you join me?’ went another. But the real line was always, ‘I’m fine. It’s actually quite comfortable,’ and Nanny had gone to sleep in her bed, while he had not. Looking toward the dark space in which Andrea slept Geroud’s imagination again filled the abyss that separated them with what-ifs and if-onlys. A line from Hardy went through his mind: ‘A forward rush by the lamp in the gloom, and we clasped, and almost kissed.’ It was early morning when the depth of that abyss proved too much for his imagination to fill and so he got up and dressed. Walking out of the hotel the empty desolation that had struck them when they first arrived seemed to disappear into the darkness. The night air was finally cool and as he breathed it in it seemed to clean his lungs and clear his mind. A cat that looked suspiciously like Ben

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appeared from under a bush and rubbed itself against the bottom of his legs, purring loudly. Geroud crouched down and stroked the soft fur on its head. The cat purred all the more, and Geroud let out a short snigger. ‘Not quite the affection I had in mind,’ he said in a whisper. The cat looked up at him and seemed about to answer back when a human voice shouted out in the night, and spooked it back into silence. Geroud stroked the cat again and it resumed its feline purr. Standing again, Geroud walked on into the night, reaching the sandy beach where he sat and looked out into the featureless black space that must have been the sea. Mariella sat down beside him. ‘Why did you come here Michael?’ Geroud took a deep breath and looked up at the stars in the sky, their brightness magnified against the black space of the sea below. ‘I needed a place,’ he started to say. ‘I needed a place. An asylum.’ ‘An asylum where you could work it out?’ suggested Mariella. ‘It all piles on top of each other in a vicious mess,’ explained Michael. ‘It’s all a bloody mess.’ ‘And you feel overwhelmed by that mess,’ prompted Mariella. ‘Overwhelmed or dead,’ continued Michael. ‘Dead is a better word. You are dead and so you are

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helpless and so it all swirls around you with no resolution. Everyone knows you are dead, of course they do, you’re lying face down in the middle of the floor with a knife sticking out of your back, but they cannot really help you. How could they? There is no help for the dead, so the living just continue, laughing and joking and living like nothing has happened. How quickly the living carry on living.’ ‘Isn’t that all the living can do?’ suggested Mariella. ‘Yes, I know that,’ replied Michael, a hint of the frustration and anger colouring his voice. ‘I know that,’ he repeated more calmly. ‘But so soon? When the dead awaken will they forgive us that we lived again so soon?’ ‘That doesn’t mean we forget,’ said Mariella. ‘Mourning is not about forgetting. Death shatters the lives of the living. You know that. We mourn to put our lives back together again. But the people we mourn are not forgotten. Isn’t that what this book is all about?’ Michael was silent. He lay back onto the asphalt path that ran along the length of the beach, and looked straight up at the stars. He could see clearly the only two constellations he ever recognised, the plough and Orion with his belt. The others were a mystery. A cool damp breeze was coming in from the sea and he took in a series of

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deep breaths, willing each one to clean him inside, clean him inside. ‘Do you ever wish you could get inside yourself and just wash everything?’ he said. ‘Do you mean literally?’ ‘Why not?’ he answered. ‘Get inside with the Jayes Fluid and just wash everything so it is new again. To start again, clean.’ ‘I cannot say I do,’ said Mariella. ‘I think we learn from what happens to us, and if we have any sense we try to do better next time. You cannot clean up the past. You cannot change it. It’s too late for that, it has already gone.’ Michael rolled onto his side and looked at Mariella sitting next to him. ‘Has it gone?’ he asked. ‘In the darkness we can see all these stars as they were thousands of years ago. Perhaps even a million years ago. And yet here they are, now. That’s what it feels like. It’s all here and now, a jumbled mass of memories, none of them willing to let go, all of them begging to be scrubbed clean.’ ‘Are you sure that’s what they want?’ replied Mariella, but Michael did not answer. ‘Tell me,’ said Mariella after a pause, ‘are you looking for order? Is the book about finding order in the chaos?’ Michael rolled onto his back again and said, ‘Isn’t art always a battle with reality to find some sense of order.’

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‘But there is no real order,’ replied Mariella. ‘There is only a series of points we latch on to in the hope they are stable. I think your friend Herbert Read called those points reconciling images.’ As she spoke Mariella saw the first sign of Aurora out over the sea, heralding the dawn. She looked at Michael hoping he had seen it too, but Michael was still looking upwards at the blackness of the sky and the ancient glow of long dead stars. ‘So you need your image,’ she suggested. ‘Your reconciling image. Something stable in all that chaos.’ ‘I thought that was Stass,’ said Michael, his voice deadpan and almost disembodied, ‘but now he’s gone and I cannot seem to stand. I lie on the floor, unable to get up again, as good as dead. And all around me life goes on. It’s unbearable. A mess. A bloody mess.’ ‘The book is telling you something,’ replied Mariella. ‘It’s telling you how to get up again.’ Geroud lay alone on the beach as the sky above him turned from black to grey, and out of his sight line the horizon in the east filled with the yellows, mauves and pinks of dawn. He lay there still as the orange sun appeared, banishing the grey and filling the sky with the first signs of a blue that would mark this out as another hot day. Only when the sun had risen and he could feel its first rays fall

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onto his body, warming him from a cold he had not noticed creep up on him, did he sit up. As he did so he found himself performing an old ritual that had once started every school day. Holding his hands forward, and palms upright to pray like the ancients, he chanted the words, Greetings Helios, PhĹ&#x201C;bus, Apollo, Lord of Light and love of mine. Greetings! He looked straight at the yellowing sun as he spoke and the sun seemed to answer, not with words, but with a gift of calmness that filled his mind and body with a sense of relief that he had managed to say the incantation for today, staving off the anger of the gods for a little while longer. The sun now risen, Geroud, stood and walked along the beach, avoiding a run of barbed wire, and turned inland again, back to the hotel. Back in the room the darkness he had seen banished from the world outside was still as strong as ever behind the thick curtains of the room. Andrea was still sleeping and so he crept to where the diary sat on the dressing table, passed the curtains, opening the window beyond, and onto the balcony. There he sat on one of the white plastic chairs and began to read the diary again. At the end he turned to the last page, with the riddle written in a different hand, and read it again and again. Periodically he looked up at the rising sun, now visible above the shops and houses in front of the hotel, and smiled, before

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returning to the diary. He had stopped reading it now. Instead he was listening to what it was trying to say.

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§82 ‘Wake up Andrea! Wake up!’ Geroud was leaning over Andrea shaking her gently. ‘Wake up will you,’ he said for a third time, this time prompting Andrea to stir. ‘What is it?’ she said, suddenly sitting upright in bed. ‘Is it Merkel this time?’ ‘Don’t worry, there’s no sign of Tweedledum,’ said Geroud sitting on the side of the bed. He still thought of kissing her as she rubbed her eyes and yawned, but the sense of desperation that had come with the darkness had gone with the light, and he insulted her instead. ‘You look a mess,’ he said. ‘You’re no oil painting yourself,’ she retorted. ‘Why have you woken me up?’ ‘I’ve got it,’ he answered. ‘We’ve been reading the riddle all wrong, but I have worked it out.’ Suddenly Andrea found herself fully awake. ‘Well tell me,’ she said insistently. ‘Get dressed,’ said Geroud standing up again. ‘Get ready and dressed and I’ll tell you on the way. I know where the missing pages are.’ Andrea followed his orders to the letter, pulling the single cotton bed sheet that covered her body back and blushing at revealing more of her legs than she might have wanted. She sat up quickly on the side of

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the bed, waited for Geroud to move out of the way, and when he did she ran quickly into the bathroom. Geroud returned to the balcony, this time remembering to take his cigarettes with him, and smoked three in a row in celebration. He felt that things were coming together at last, that fragmented time and place and meaning was finally starting to cohere again and would emerge into something complete. He too was becoming himself again and the world around him, whilst not making sense exactly, was no longer just a heap of broken images. Andrea reappeared and they walked down to the lobby together. It all seemed somehow shabbier than the day before, dustier and almost abandoned. The receptionist was nowhere to be seen and they saw no one else in either the hotel or on the streets was they walked toward the Old Town. Passing through a gate in the Venetian walls they came to the little coffeeshop in the cathedral square in time to hear the first of the dayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Adhan, calling the muslim faithful to prayer, sounding out from the megaphones on the minarets of the cathedral. On the way Geroud had explained to Andrea that he had spent the night thinking about the riddle. He didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mention he had spent much of the night also thinking about her. He said that by morning he realised they had got it all wrong. They had already been told where the diaryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s missing pages were. They

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just hadn’t listened. As they walked Andrea looked at Geroud in continuing bemusement, but stayed silent on the assumption he was going to get to the point. Outside the coffeeshop Geroud stopped talking, looked around and then pointed to a side street leading away from the square. ‘We need to go over there,’ he said. They walked about fifty yards further and stopped in front of two ancient buildings, both simple square structures built of white limestone. They were clearly ancient churches, one with a gothic arched doorway and the other a small gothic rose window high above. ‘The man who wrote the riddle, and took the pages from the diary, wasn’t Greek,’ explained Geroud. ‘Stass said he was called the Master of the Order of Christ.’ ‘What is that?’ asked Andrea. ‘It was the Portuguese name for the Knights Templar,’ answered Geroud. He pointed to the churches. ‘These are the twin churches of the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller.’ ‘Of course,’ said Andrea. ‘So is the diary in there?’ ‘I don’t think so,’ replied Geroud. ‘Listen to the riddle again. You said it yourself, we read it too literally. “A rock thrown from an ancient church, below where Purity rests in Heaven.” Like you said, if you look at the original bad Greek it says more than that.’

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Geroud’s face beamed as he spoke, his eyes wide with excitement. Andrea almost thought him handsome in his moment of triumph. ‘But we don’t speak Greek,’ she said cautiously. ‘That’s the joy of the Internet,’ Geroud replied. ‘Or at least one of them. I spent the night using your mobile phone to look things up. That’s how I know about this place.’ A momentary fear passed over Andrea as she thought of the phone bill that would eventually arrive. Oblivious, Geroud continued: ‘The original riddle said, “Μια πέτρα ρίχνονται από τον αρχαίο εκκλησία, κάτω από όπου Αγνότητα ήρθε για να ξεκουραστούν στον Παράδεισο.” It is a rock thrown from an ancient church, but the word we thought was purity is a pun. In Greek purity is Αγνότητα.’ He said it again, this time trying to make the sounds more English, agnoteeta. ‘It’s the origin of the English name Agnes,’ he continued. ‘But Agnes also sounds like agnus, which means the lamb in Latin.’ ‘But why would you go to Latin suddenly?’ asked Andrea. ‘Because this building is a Catholic church and in Cyprus Catholics are called Latins,’ replied Geroud. ‘So the lamb is presumably the Lamb of God, the Agnus Dei,’ said Andrea slowly. ‘We are

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looking for an Agnus Dei!’ she exclaimed. ‘Is there one here.’ ‘I don’t think it is here,’ continued Geroud. ‘If we look at our translation it now reads, “Where the Lamb of God rests in Heaven.” But Παράδεισο doesn’t just mean Heaven. It is also means Paradise, and in the middle ages that was the name given to religious gardens.’ ‘Like the Garden of Eden,’ suggested Andrea. ‘But also church and monastery gardens,’ said Geroud. He turned and pointed to the ruined gothic church behind them. ‘That is the monastery of the Franciscans. And in its garden, according to Wikipedia, there is a large boss from the ceiling carved with an Agnus Dei.’ The calmness in Geroud’s voice as he told her this, and the fact he had not gone straight to the Franciscan monastery surprised Andrea. It was as though the solution to the mystery had become the end of the mystery for him and he no longer cared about the missing pages of the diary. She even had to prompt him to go and look at the fallen boss. ‘Shall we go and have a look then?’ she asked. ‘Of course, of course,’ said Geroud quickly, indicating the direction for them to walk. The monastery garden was overgrown and only a warped and rusty yellow sign, written in English and Turkish, gave any passing tourist a clue

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as to what the remains of the building had once been. Pulling and kicking aside the overgrown dried grass Andrea let out a scream as a large black snake fled in terror at being disturbed. ‘Don’t worry,’ Geroud said. ‘The black ones are harmless. And you’d expect to find a serpent in Paradise.’ They found the boss, its carving of the Lamb of God still sharp, lying face up, near what had been the entrance to the church. Geroud had to ask Andrea to help him lift it enough to rest it on its side, and roll it away. It rolled into the church and settled again face up inside. In its old spot the ground was flattened, but covered in termites that had used the stone as a defensive cover for their nest. They ran about in terror at the god-like beings who had moved their rocky hideaway. Taking a nearby stick Geroud poked the entrance of the nest, feeling for the cigar tin that had once been hidden there. At first he could feel nothing but the soft sandy soil that the termites had excavated to form their tunnels deep below. If the tin had ever been there, he wondered if the termites’ excavations had buried it. He poked deeper with the stick and struck something. He struck it again. It was something solid. Using the stick as a poor shovel he began to move the soil and termites aside until the corner of a tin box appeared. He reached down and pulled it free.

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Geroud and Andrea moved away from the traumatised insects and sat on the low wall surrounding the garden. Geroud seemed hesitant to look inside the box. ‘Do you want me to open it?’ asked Andrea. ‘No, it’s alright,’ replied Geroud. ‘It’s my job to be Pandora this time.’ He took the heavily rusted box in his left hand and with his right rocked the lid until it was prised loose and came away. They looked inside and saw nothing. There were no pages from a diary, just tiny fragments of paper, rotted by time, or maybe eaten by termites, to indicate there had once been something else there. Geroud started laughing. It was an hysterical laughter devoid of any joy. Andrea shouted at him, ‘Geroud! Geroud!’ calming him down eventually with a sharp slap. Geroud found himself rubbing his cheek again. ’Well now we really do have everything,’ he said. ‘Even a little madness.’ Back at the coffeeshop across the square they sat and drank ouzinis, and laughed some more, this time with a sense of joy. Or perhaps a sense of relief as a kind of freedom descended on them. Looking at the box sitting on the table in front of them Geroud had a mind to throw it into the nearest ditch, or as he suggested to Andrea, to find Merkel and shove it down her throat. ‘So this is the

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reconciling image!’ he said bitterly as he drank another ouzini. As he spoke Andrea ran her fingers through the fragments of paper in the box and exclaimed, ‘There is something else in here.’ Geroud leant forward as Andrea pulled from the box a small silver coin, about the size of an English sixpence. ‘What is it?’ she asked. Geroud sat in silence for a while. This time it was he who wanted to cry. ‘Do you know what it is?’ asked Andrea again. ‘It’s a ticket home,’ replied Geroud his eyes swollen with tears. ‘Or maybe an ice cream on the beach.’ With that he did cry. Later, as the day drew to a close, Geroud and Andrea stood outside the great cathedral in silence looking up at its broken beauty. ‘It must have been wonderful when it was first built,’ said Andrea. ‘It still is in its own way,’ said Geroud. ‘It’s broken, but it’s still here.’ ‘Will everything be alright now?’ asked Andrea. ‘I think so,’ answered Geroud. ‘I think so.’ Andrea embraced him and kissed him on the cheek. ‘A kiss at last,’ said Geroud.

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â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Goodbye Geroud,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Andrea said with a broad smile before she turned walked away into the darkness.

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§83 Arriving back at the flat in south London Michael was greeted by Emma with a kiss. ‘Hello Lovely,’ she said. ‘Are you feeling better now?’ ‘I think so,’ Michael replied smiling. ‘I think so. I just need to make a phone call.’ He looked down at the sheaf of papers on Emma’s lap and asked, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I’m just reading the conservation report on that painting in the Edwardian room at the museum. It looks like it’s water damage, but there’s no way water could have got to it. Unless someone threw something over it.’ ‘Are you going to get it repaired?’ asked Michael. ‘We’ll have to. The water mark is really odd. It’s almost impossible to see the figure now. We can’t leave it like that.’ ‘I guess not,’ agreed Michael as he went into the bedroom and picked up the receiver of the old fashioned red dial telephone he and Emma had bought from a junk shop in Brighton. Before dialling he turned to look at the bed. There Ben was lying quite still and trying to purr with uncharacteristic contentment whilst being stroked by Geroud. Geroud was also in turn a picture of contentment, sprawled across the bed like a Sultan reclining on an

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Ottoman. He had been reading and beside him Michael could see the Da Vinci Code tossed casually onto the bedclothes. ‘That cat shouldn’t be on the bed,’ said Michael. ‘I didn’t invite him,’ countered Geroud. ‘I was just minding my own business and he just appeared, as if from nowhere. He came to say hello, didn’t you sweetie?” Ben seemed about to reply, but before the words could come out of his mouth was interrupted by Michael. ‘That cat changes with with wind,’ he said. ‘One minute you’d think the Devil was after him, the next he’s like a little kitten.’ ‘Then he’s no different to the rest of us,’ suggested Geroud. ‘A bit hairier perhaps, and he purrs more. But no different really.’ Michael sniggered, before turning back to the phone and starting to dial.

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§84 Michael:

Zero, zero. Three, five, seven. Two double one, seven, oh, seven.

Operator:

Ο αριθμός που καλέσατε δεν αποκρίνεται.

Michael:

Hello Stass, it’s Michael.

Stass:

Hello my Michael. What’s going on?

Michael:

Oh, the usual. How are things there?

Stass:

Great. Metaxas found me a charger for my phone and I’ve been painting. But now we’re having a beer. I’m doing a series of paintings on human rights. I’m going to show them at the Four Lanterns next month.

Michael:

So the old show has finished then?

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Stass:

Sometimes. It’s a funny place this Larnaca. Listen, I’ll tell you something really funny that happens to me every day here. Every time I go down to the beach I find sixpence. I don’t have to search hard for it, just brush away a little sand and there it is, always in the same place. Isn’t that funny?

Michael:

It’s certainly bizarre!

Stass:

Yes, and the funniest thing is I think it is the same sixpence each time. It’s like someone keeps putting it back in the same place after I take it and spend it.

Michael:

And what do you spend it on?

Stass:

An ice cream, of course. Every day I go down to the beach for a walk, and I find sixpence, and I use it to buy an ice cream. It’s not a bad life really.

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