Isabel's Skin Read online

  Sometimes, I thought, it is impossible to tell the difference between the wishing and the well. Impossible? You know how it can be. You stare into the well and see yourself reflected in the water, and the water is deeper than you will ever be. Its surface is quiet and its depths are freezing, dark and lost. And what lies at the bottom of the well? A dead dog, a pile of tarnished coins, the rotted pages from a book no one reads any more. And the air between the surface and the brick edge of the well is filled with the echo of a silenced voice. I stopped thinking like this, and started to leaf through my notes. They whispered back at me. All those years, all those chapters, words, valuations, meanings. The house was still and quiet, and motes were dancing and chiming in their columns. I remembered the cakes my mother used to bake. Sponges steaming on the side, a bowl of icing waiting for a thieving finger. The gentle scrape of a chair on the kitchen tiles, sun reflected in a saucepan lid and the polished top of a kitchen table. Smells and memories, colliding in my head, turning me around and taking me away from my work.

  The books waited and the books came, and within an hour I had discovered more remarkable treasures in Lord Malcolm’s collection. The beauty of the set of Œuvres (Dresden, 1748), published under Voltaire’s personal supervision, exceeded all my expectations. Each of the nine volumes had minor chips and scuffs, but their pages could have rolled off the presses yesterday, under his eye, under his thumbs. Some were foxed, but only lightly, and as I worked my way through them, it was easy to imagine supernatural elements at work, protecting and holding the books and their pages, the smudge of dead fingers and the scent of love.

  The same thought occurred when I found a first of Rousseau’s Dissertation sur la musique moderne (Paris, 1743). Once again, here was a book that could have been handled by its author, and as I turned the pages it was difficult to ignore the thought that my gloves were picking up traces of the man’s skin. Maybe a flake from his forehead had dropped onto page 68 and been trapped in the gutter, and now its dust was released and drifting up my nose, down my throat and into my stomach. It sank into my gastric juices and joined the half-digested remains of breakfast. I noted the condition, likely reserve, and was about to slip it back on the shelf when I heard a single knock at the window.

  I jumped. Miss Watson was staring in at me. She was carrying a basket and pointing up the drive. She was wearing a coat and a woollen hat, the strands of escaped hair were matted and sweat was pouring from her forehead. When I started to open the window she shook her head and shouted, “No!”

  “I’m sorry…”

  “I’ll return after lunch,” she said, “so help yourself to something from the larder,” and without another word she was off, disappearing around the top of the drive, and then I was alone in the house, and the cats could have been mine.

  I thought about the cats but left them alone. They meant nothing to me, with their hairballs and eyes and the way they padded around and waited for nothing in particular. I worked hard, and after lunch – some hunks of bread and cheese and a glass of lime cordial – I walked into Ashbrittle.

  I stood in front of the house and scanned the orchard, the field beyond, and followed the line of the sodden path into the woods. Leaves rustled in the lightest breeze, a rabbit hopped along the line of a hedge, stopped, stared and disappeared into a thicket. A bird called, but only once. I walked up the drive, into the lane, past the outlying houses, round the bend, around another and into the village.

  The air was sour, as though it had been borrowed from a forgotten larder, and the hedges were full of a damp must. This drifted in small, private clouds and settled on the leaves and twigs. I sneezed once.

  I strolled past a line of cottages into the churchyard and visited the famous yew tree with its healing powers and branches spreading over the graves.

  It grew from a small burial mound. I climbed up, ducked down and stood inside the forks made from the cracked trunk. The bark was flaked and pale and running with ants. Once, the warm guts of living men were nailed here and the men forced to walk around the tree, unravelling their entrails, bees humming, women laughing and yelling to their mad gods, children in lines singing pretty songs. Gods looking on, laughing back and nodding satisfaction and waiting for the next man to be brought for slaughter. The blood running, dogs howling and waiting to eat, sweet smells in the air. Music played on instruments people smashed and burned a long time ago. Purple. I believe the world was purple in those days, but now the colour was green and it was cool in there like a still draught, and birds chirped in the branches. Someone had put a posy in a crack in the bark, little yellow and blue flowers that had faded now. I touched them, petals dropped away and the church clock began to chime the hour.

  One.

  Two...

  Two chimes. They echoed across the valley below and, as I listened I saw an old woman come from her house, scatter corn for her hens and look towards me. She was wearing a woollen hat on her head and a long ragged coat. She watched me for a minute and took off her hat. Her hair spilt out like water from a jug, down her back to her waist. She smiled at me, but I knew she did not want to know me. She smiled as though she knew something I did not but would not breathe a word, not a single word. Her eyes were cold and hard, and her face lined. I thought I was looking at the face of a witch and supposed she read my mind. She took her hair in one hand, twisted it into a knot, tucked it up and put her hat on. Then, as I turned away from her, she went back inside and slammed the door. A dog barked at a cat. The sun was wet. The bells faded. The day faded too.

  After my mother’s death, my father’s behaviour became increasingly strange and irrational; one day he announced to his congregation that church bells were un-Christian and, rather than serve as a call to worship, tempted people to turn away from God. Their noise was an anathema to the Almighty and distracted from sincere prayer, so the next day he disconnected the mechanism that controlled the chimes, hid it in a cupboard and refused to entertain campanologists. This caused an outcry in Dover, and petitions were written to the Bishop, who wrote to inform my father that he had no authority to incapacitate the bells and was to restore them to working order immediately.

  The Bishop was a thin man who arrived at the vicarage in a fine black carriage with purple curtains, but father locked the front door and refused to speak to him or accept his authority in the matter. For over eight years, the issue of St Michael’s bells vexed Kent’s ecclesiastical authorities, until the problem of declining congregations became a more pressing issue and my father’s behaviour was consigned to the back of the stove.

  I thought about my father simmering while I listened to Ashbrittle’s bells, and when they had finished chiming and their echoes had disappeared over the graves, I climbed down from the yew mound, crossed the lines between a memory I had, another I imagined and all the others pouring out of the ground, and walked through the graveyard to a gate that led into the fields.

  I was going to return to my work but did not. I was pulled on. My feet had their own ideas and my eyes wanted to follow. I climbed over the gate, crossed the fields and found myself on the path that led to the woods. When I reached the first trees, I stopped and turned to look back at Belmont. The library windows blinked at me, the books were silent in their rows. Spines and pages and marbling. The scent of wax, the dark oak panelling, the leather-backed chairs. The pictures on the walls, the carpets on the floors, the light dust of flour drifting in the kitchen. The cats snoozed on the garden wall and waited for Miss Watson’s return. They sneered, and I sneered, hissed and turned my back.

  The woods were damp and still, and when I reached the tumbling river, I followed it for a while and found some curious pebbles on the muddy bank. They were lying in little groups like families of stone, round, transparent and covered in speckles. Some of them were pitted and others were perfectly smooth. I picked one up and rolled it in the palm of my hand, put it in my pocket and carried on until I came to a place where a spring was bubbling from the ground. Lush plants
were growing all around, their leaves dipping in the water and bobbing in a light draught that blew up the path. I stopped to scoop some water, splash my face and drink. It was sweet and cool. Then I climbed up through a hall of hanging vines and brambles towards the top of the wood.

  When I reached the crest, I sat to watch the west and the thatched house below me. Its chimney was still smoking, the windows were still dark and closed, and as I watched I saw a man walking towards me. He was carrying a walking stick, swishing at nettles, hurrying through the field, his eyes fixed on me all the way. For a moment I considered ducking back into the woods and walking back the way I had come. I was not in the mood for conversation, and all I wanted to do was sit down and watch the land and the sky, but when he got close enough I suddenly called “Good afternoon!” as though I had no choice.

  When he reached me, he looked me up and down, paused, ran his hands through his hair and took deep, panting breaths. For some reason, no particular reason, I expected him to walk on without saying anything – a wild, odd man with better things to do than talk – but then he smiled and said, “And a good afternoon to you.”

  I held out my hand, he wiped his on his trousers, we shook, and he said, “Professor Hunt. Professor Richard Hunt.” His hand was ice-cold, his skin was too smooth for a man of his age and his face had a sucked-in, skeletal look. His hair was dark and thin and combed carefully over the crown of his balding head. I guessed he must have been sixty, but he could have been forty-five.

  “David Morris,” I said.

  “David Morris…” he said, as if he was trying to remember my name from somewhere else, some other field or town or a dignified occasion where men in evening dress and women in beautiful frocks had drunk exotic drinks and talked about nothing in particular.

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re on your holiday?” He was dressed in a brown woollen suit, a check shirt and a red tie, and spoke with a polished, even voice. I assumed he was English, but an edge to his accent made me think he was German, maybe, or Austrian. His eyes were grey and cunning and looked straight into mine. There was something guarded about his manner, but he was working hard to be open and friendly.

  “No,” I said. “I’m working at Belmont.”

  “Ah, Belmont.”

  “Yes.”

  “Such a superb house. It must be one of the most beautiful in the county. And such a wonderful atmosphere, don’t you think? A calm, civilized air about the place.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  He smiled at me. “And what are you doing there?”

  “I’m cataloguing Lord Malcolm’s library.”

  “That must be such interesting work. He had so many wonderful books. We didn’t know each other for very long, but I think I can say Lord Malcolm was a good friend of mine. I do miss our conversations. He was such a gentleman.”

  “That’s what I’ve heard.”

  “I don’t think he had a bad word to say about anyone – or anything, for that matter.”

  “I never met him,” I said, “but I wish I had.”

  “Mmm,” said Hunt, and he smiled again. “I’m sure you do. He was a man who understood what it is to be great.” Hunt put emphasis on this last word and puffed out his chest. “You must understand, greatness is inborn, it can never be given. Some people even say it can be bought, but no. Never.”

  “I think…” I started, but Hunt interrupted.

  “I’ve been saying this for a long time, and some people said I didn’t know what I was talking about. Me?” He held his stomach and laughed at the idea. “I wouldn’t think so.” He stopped laughing as quickly as he had started.

  “And now you live here?”

  “Yes,” he said, and he pointed towards the house below. “And that is where I am going now. I like a walk after lunch, but must get back to work now.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Do?”

  “Yes.”

  “I do not do, young man. I work. I create.”

  “My apologies. What do you create, Professor Hunt?”

  He took a step towards me, lowered his voice and said, “I would not tell you, even if I could. But suffice to say it is a marvel.” I thought he was going to continue, but he stopped suddenly, looked straight into my eyes and shook his head.

  “I see,” I said.

  “No,” he said, “you do not. How could you?”

  “I…”

  “How could you even begin to see?”

  “I didn’t mean to imply…”

  “I am sure you didn’t.”

  “…that I know…”

  “Of course you didn’t,” he said and he turned, bowed politely, took a couple of steps back, and before I had the chance to ask him anything else, he signalled the end of the meeting with a raised hand and said “It was very interesting to meet you. It’s good to talk to someone with something to say. Too many of the people round here are idiots. Idiots and fools. You cannot talk to any of them…” And then he was gone and I was left standing alone. I opened my mouth and was about to tell him that I had not said anything interesting, but he disappeared, and when I saw him next he was far below me, walking across the fields towards his house.

  I turned and was heading back to Belmont when I saw something twinkling on the ground. I stooped to pick it up. It was a gold tiepin, set with a single diamond. There was a Latin inscription on the back. I read the words: Væ puto deus fio. I cupped my hands over my mouth to shout, but Hunt had disappeared again, so I put the pin in my pocket and walked back into the woods, with the leaves as green as black, and the fevered streams and springs.

  I worked for a few hours. I had catalogued the most important books in the collection and was working on the first shelf of lesser volumes when Miss Watson came back from the village. She stood by the kitchen table and refused to let me make her a cup of tea. She said it was her job and always had been, and she was not changing the way she worked simply because Lord Malcolm had died. I had no choice but to sit and wait until she had stored the shopping away, and then she put the kettle on the stove.

  As we drank our tea and ate cake, I asked Miss Watson about Professor Hunt. She spluttered and slammed the table with her hand. “Was he here?”

  “No.”

  “Because he’s not welcome.”

  “I met him in the woods…” I began, but she interrupted.

  “He’s not to be trusted.”

  “He seemed pleasant enough.”

  “But of course he did. His Lordship thought he was pleasant enough too, but that didn’t stop him from taking advantage.”

  “How?”

  Miss Watson stared out of the kitchen window, looked down at the cats and shook her head. “It’s a long story,” she said, “but I’ve no time now.” She slapped her knees and stood up. The cats opened their eyes, looked at her, blinked at me and shut them again. “No time. And you… shouldn’t you be working?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I suppose I should be.”

  “Then go. Go back to your work.”

  My father used to tell me to work hard, play games and pass exams, and when I was thirteen I won a scholarship to a minor public school in Dorset. As the only child of a widowed parson, I was the half-dreamer who sat near the back of the class, stared out of the window at the hills and trees, only spoke when spoken to, and absorbed lessons without thinking.

  It was during this period of my life that I discovered my passion for books. The school had a good library, and I worked my way through the shelves like a ferret. I read anything – and by my sixteenth birthday had wandered from the obscure to the popular, the dangerous to the anodyne, stopping at all the major stations on the way.

  My love of books did lead me into trouble, but when I returned to Dover for the holidays, and my father ceremoniously opened and read my masters’ report, he seemed disappointed that none had a bad word to say about me. Maybe I am being hard on him, and maybe he always had my best interests at heart. And maybe he was frustrate
d, working all his life in Dover, without the chance to move to a comfortable parish in the West Country where the yews spread, the dogs wink and he could visit his parishioners on a sleek black mare. But at the time I did not know what frustration was, and I thought I was a nuisance to him and he had hardened his heart against me. I did not know he had only removed my mother’s picture to a locked drawer and took it out and stared at it when he was alone, and touched the image of her face with his fingers. And that one day he would find salvation in archery.

  Holidays. I remember the salt air stinging my face in August, and the smell of the housekeeper’s honest cooking. She was called Miss Pringle and would arrive in the afternoon to clean the house, do the laundry and cook the evening meal. A quiet and pious woman, I think I only heard her say half a dozen words, and then in a whisper. She hummed softly as she worked, mainly hymns, but occasionally tunes I did not recognize. She did not have children of her own, and was always very kind to me. I think she might have been a disgraced nun, or someone who was waiting for someone else she used to love, maybe still loved. Sometimes she brought sugar lumps to work with her and offered one to me when father’s back was turned. He believed sugar was another of the Devil’s instruments, and should be avoided at all costs. He would say, “It’s not just your teeth that will rot,” but would not elaborate. He did not like to elaborate: if the message was unclear, then this was the listener’s fault.

  I worked through the afternoon, and now and again I took Hunt’s tiepin out of my pocket and turned it over in my hand. It was a curious thing, made from a curl of delicately worked old gold, with the diamond set at the widest end.

  I recognized the inscription on the back – Væ puto deus fio – from school. “Oh, I think I’m becoming a God.” These were Vespasian’s last words, spoken from a wide bed in a cool room overlooking the dewy fields of the Sabine country. With his suppurating legs and the boils on his face, the old Emperor died in pain but wonder, and as he gasped his final breath he doubted the wisdom of his priests. One of my classics masters used to return to the good pagan again and again, citing him as one of Rome’s greatest reformers. From the military to the law courts, the man had taken the tottering empire and put it back on its feet. He made his name as a brutal oppressor of the Jews, but his later tolerance of the religion paved the way for Christianity’s growth. Indeed, Vespasian’s granddaughter, Flavia Domitilla, is still revered by the Catholic church as saint and her lonely banishment on a Tyrrhenian island is held up as an early example of Christian fortitude and constancy.