Chorus Endings Read online

  He beams knowingly at a nervous-looking member of the public, a middle-aged woman of medium height, dressed – as are most of those around her – in a loose-fitting summer outfit, liberally decorated with flowers of indeterminate origin, a large straw hat clamped to the back of her head. But it’s Murgo the camera loves. Focusing in on him it pans lazily downwards, lingering over buff shirt, orange bow tie, mottled green tweed jacket, bulbous leather buttons; resting on the familiar scarlet carnation pinned to lapel, taking in corduroy trousers with stout red braces, before finally resting upon the item in question: a picture of sorts, glazed, roughly A4 size, in a fragile wooden frame. He turns it this way and that before placing it on the table. The camera sweeps in once more, blurs, then swims into focus. We discover that it’s not really a picture but some kind of parchment, creamy yellowish in colour with lettering, bold black and cursive, uncoiling with confident ease beneath a gold and vermillion heading. The capital letters are wreathed in ivy or trails of vine leaves whilst, clinging on to each with tiny claws and grimacing menacingly, are a series of tiny multi-coloured creatures, some bearded, others horned, one in particular cloven hoofed, shaggy-thighed, merrily blowing into pan pipes.

  ‘A Saintley, by God,’ exclaims Murgo enthusiastically. ‘In good condition, too.’ And, receiving no response: ‘Before your time, I expect. Not many of them around these days. But each of them unique. Quite a collector’s item, in fact. A bit of a one-off himself, too, James Saintley. Lived down in Hampshire – Bereden I believe.’

  A mistake all of us made, so Jimmy claimed. Across the years, I hear his plaintive correction: Not Bereden, lad. It’s Beredene. Pronounced ‘beer’ as in the stuff you drink, then ‘dean’, the minor church official. Part of your heritage, Peter, don’t you forget it! He might as well have saved his breath. For as long as I’d lived it had been Bereden, pronounced Bher-a-den, and, as far as I know, it still is.

  ‘…bit of a man of mystery he was, a hermit really. Took himself off to the woods; there was still quite a bit of it left in those days. That would be, let’s see, the late 40s, early 50s? Appearing as if from nowhere, so it seems, then just as suddenly vanishing without trace. Lived off the land, communed with nature I suppose you’d say. Fancied himself as a poet as well. Mystical stuff: water maidens, woodland sprites, myth, folklore, legends about the Brits, Goths and Saxons, you know the sort of thing I mean. Had this strange theory about the appearance of his poems as well; the way they were set out. This had to be just right, nothing else would do…’

  Presentation and content; form and intent. They’re one, Peter. Can’t you see that? What a story or poem looks like is part of what it has to say.

  ‘… had these weird ideas about nature, but the man was a genius when it came to craftsmanship. Well, you can see that for yourself. Sketching, artwork, papermaking, calligraphy – you name it, he had the skills, so that each one of his poems were completely original from start to finish. He not only composed them, but made the paper on which they appeared, produced the ink from local plants and leaves, illustrated each one by hand, wrote them out longhand or chose an appropriate style of print, if requested would carve frames for them. Each one unique, a one-off production. And if we look carefully, we should be able to find his trademark. Yes, see there, at the bottom of the page? The bell. No one knows why, but it was the symbol he chose for each one of his works. He sold them, door to door, you know, like any other travelling salesman. Not many of them have survived, but those that have are worth quite a few bob I’d say. Let’s have a closer look.’

  The camera closes in once more on the object in Frank’s hands, his commentary continuing unabated.

  ‘One of his early works, I’d say. The script is beautiful and just look at the colouring, as bright now as the day he painted it. And those figures in the margin, enchanting aren’t they? It’s the story of the village draper. I managed to read it earlier; all of us did! Anyway, the fellow was also a violinist in the local band. He happens to be in Italy, don’t ask me why, but notice the vine leaves draped around the lettering. Once there he meets up with the great Paganini, who prides himself on being the fastest fiddler in the world. Our friend thinks he can do better and issues a challenge, but Paganini is too proud to compete with such a bumpkin in public. Privately, though, he agrees that, if the man is brave enough to meet him in the woods that night, the matter can soon be settled.

  ‘So off he goes, deeper and deeper into the woods. See, between each line the forest beasties are following his every step…’

  Every story tells a picture, Peter. Every story tells a picture.

  ‘… finally, he meets Paganini in a clearing and the contest begins. Faster and faster they play, furious and more furiously, becoming so engrossed in their music that neither of them notices they’ve been joined by a third figure. There he is, look, the one with horns sitting astride the ‘H’, tail draped to one side, leering evilly down at them. We can all guess who he is…’

  … It’s the bishop, darling, and don’t pretend otherwise. Poetry, art, call it what you will, this time Jimmy’s gone too far…

  ‘… He produces a scarlet violin of his own and joins the duet. The tempo increases, the music gets wilder and wilder, woodland creatures of all kinds creep out from behind the script; see there and there. Soon they’re dancing round the trio until Paganini, exhausted, sinks to the ground. Our village hero has not noticed, though. Thinks it’s the maestro himself beside him and continues at a furious pace. His violin starts to smoulder, but still he plays on. It begins to smoke but still he continues. And then, see there at the bottom, just when he thinks he can last no longer, a roar of anger rips through the forest. Old Nick flings his violin aside and vanishes in a puff of smoke. But still the draper plays on until Paganini revives, begs him to stop, and they return home, the violinist back to Bereden, unaware that he’s outplayed the devil himself.

  ‘Well, that’s the story.’ The camera swings and pans round taking in two dozen or so onlookers, zooms in on individual faces, intent on Frank’s every word. ‘Worth £700 or so. But somewhat out of fashion, I’m afraid. Not much call for such oldie-worldie stuff these days…’

  When the folk are dispersed, Peter, their landmarks uprooted, boundaries forgotten; who then will be left to tell their tales? What then?

  ‘… But you’ve got another tucked away somewhere, I believe. Quite like the London buses, isn’t it? Wait for years without seeing one, then they all start arriving at once. This one rather different, though. And unless I’m much mistaken…’

  The camera swings down and focuses on the picture itself: circular in shape, a solid block of text at the centre surrounded on all sides by a series of figures. Quite obviously Romans, the one to the right, richly attired in a toga, accepts what looks like a petition from the elderly serf. Below this a high-born lady, arms outstretched, seeks to detain him as he strides out into the street. On the left, figures crowd round him, daggers drawn, and the toga is soaked in blood. More stylised than the artwork we’ve just seen, unmistakably from the same hand, and – like Murgo – I recognise it immediately. Part of a series; I’d come across reproductions in magazines, even caught sight of one in an art shop window – but that had been some time ago, in Canada, I think, and when I returned later the premises was closed with my flight due out in a few hours’ time.

  But there’s a commotion on the settee beside me. Helen, who’s been riffling through the Radio Times, signalling her indifference to ‘Saintley’ and all his works, has my arm in a vice-like grip. I freeze Murgo in mid-sentence.

  ‘My God!’ She’s craning forward now, pointing at the screen. ‘It’s our Shakespeare. Or one just like it. On the wall in Daddy’s study. Mother hated it.’

  The relationship between her parents had not been good; ended in tragedy, in fact. I had the bare outline only, but enough to be concerned that the sudden appearance of this new picture m
ight bring it all back to her. I made to switch the programme off, but Helen shook her head and we continued to watch.

  ‘I thought so. Hardly mistake them, once you know what you’re looking for.’ Murgo is holding out the picture at arm’s length. ‘The Shakesphere series, hence the shape. He took extracts from the plays – Hamlet’s soliloquy, Romeo’s wooing of Juliet, Mark Anthony’s speech over Caesar’s body, which is the one we’ve got here – and placed the words Friends, Romans, countrymen in the middle, see? And arranged the characters involved around the outside. There’s the rebels plotting Caesar’s downfall, the man himself being warned by the soothsayer about not going to the Senate on the Ides of March, his wife begging him to stay home, and there he is getting his come-uppance when he did so. Bit of a gimmick putting them into round-shaped frames like that, giving them a catchy title. Proved popular though. He made quite a few bob out of it, till the novelty wore off. People began reframing them in more conventional fashion using mounts with circular holes cut in the middle. I’ve even come across individual characters cut out and framed separately.

  ‘And the value, I hear you ask.’ Floral Lady denies all such mercenary considerations, but she fades into the background as the camera sweeps in to catch the celebrated ‘Murgo moment’. ‘Fair condition, frame slightly damaged in the corner here,’ magnifying glass pulled from inside pocket, ‘complete with bell logo,’ polishing the lens with a scarlet handkerchief, ‘still in its circular frame. Genuine, not that there’s much future in faking a Saintley. Around the £800 plus mark, I’d say. Might make an extra seventy/eighty if you pick the right auction.’

  Floral Lady seems delighted, but not her picture, she explains. Brought along on behalf of a friend rather, someone who’d never part with it. And no, she has no idea as to its source. Some discussion follows as to the value of Jimmy’s work on today’s market. Not well known, apparently; never had an exhibition of his own, but some galleries included the occasional Saintley among their collections, stored away in their vaults for the most part, and one or two specialists might just be interested. By then the time allotted to Floral Lady comes to an end and the camera moves on to another group.

  At which point I switch off the set and turn to Helen, intrigued by the coincidence.

  ‘Daddy’s was As You Like It,’ she tells me. ‘Jacques’ “Seven Ages of Man” speech, with each of them, infant through to dotard, grouped round the text itself. Smuggled into the house, mother hated it that much. More to the point, what’s all this about “Saintley”?’ She’s returned her magazine to the rack and swivels round to face me. ‘God knows you’ve gone on enough about the man, but it’s only now I get to hear his name. Or that he was a talented painter. We might have spotted the connection long ago, but for your holding back.’

  Holding back! When only a moment ago she’d complained about the way I’d “gone on” about “that man”. Helen was no admirer of Saintley: his ideas, way of life, ethics, penchant for Browning – the one poet she couldn’t stomach. His stories especially. The antithesis of values she’d been brought up to respect, attributing my reminiscences to the ramblings of someone “in his anecdotage”. She always joked about the disparity in our ages – her twenty-five years to my forty-five. Light-hearted banter, begging the obvious response: that she was too young to appreciate the subtlety of such tales. Or I’d rib her about jealousy. His getting in first; my being that close to someone outside the family before she came on the scene. Not that there was anything disreputable about it; the man was always surrounded by children. Get any closer and he’d clam up – push you away metaphorically – but to the prurient all things are impure.

  ‘Saintley wasn’t his real name,’ I said. ‘Just the critics’ version of a nick-name we gave him. Making fun of his detachment, the kind of life he lived, the elevated ideas he had about art. Words framed by pictures, pictures framed by words, alphabets decorated with flowers, numbers hidden among trees… any combination, you name it.’

  ‘I can see that – now. No wonder he wasn’t better known if all his supporters were as reticent as you seem to be about his work.’ Helen busied herself clearing up the glasses. ‘A man of mystery, according to Murgo. Appearing from nowhere then vanishing just as suddenly as he arrived. Which is just about the most interesting part of the story, so how come I’ve not heard about it before?’

  ‘Because there’s nothing more to tell. I grew up, got a job, and – well – we just lost touch.’

  ‘Lost touch! After you’d been so close? Weren’t you just the tiniest bit curious as to what became of him?’

  Of course I was. But I’d moved on, made new friends by the time I reached secondary school. After which ties with that part of the world had become severed; there was the writing, and my work took me out of the country a lot of the time. Besides which, given his antipathy to over-familiarity, I had a lurking suspicion that even if I’d known of his whereabouts a reunion might not be all that welcome. It might even destroy illusions I’d built up over the years. I took the tray and followed her into the kitchen.

  ‘And that’s it? All you know about how he ended his days, his “disappearance without trace”? There’s got to be more to tell.’ Our glasses joined plates and cutlery deposited in the sink from a previous meal. ‘Your friend had real talent, I can see that, but he must have told you a little about himself. Who he was, where he came from? Most of all, just what was it made him value his privacy so highly?’

  ‘Not really.’ I fetched a towel and dried the plates as she handed them to me. ‘He left all that to the likes of Murgo and the rest. Naïve of him really, not realising that the more he shut them out the more convinced they were he’d something to hide. Same as it was with officialdom in any shape or form: council, church, school, police, charity and welfare even. Nor could any of us fathom just why this should be.’

  I held the last of the glasses up to the light. Squeaky clean; my reflection caught, squat and distorted, in the curvature. Just how much, I wondered, had we really got to know about the man? Aloof and unassuming, I told her. A recluse one might say; close in some respects, distant in others. Accessible when it suited him; unreachable when it didn’t. Kindness itself when it came to children, whatever his mood, yet unwilling to give of himself completely to anyone. True, there were parts I omitted – the ‘unreliable narrator’ as Helen would have put it. But then, which one of us isn’t?

  On several occasions over the next few months I was to change my mind as to the kind of person he was, just what his intentions might have been. But at that juncture, fairly early on in our relationship and unaware of the revelations that were to follow, I suppose I was merely playing for time.

  Chapter Two

  Figures in a Landscape

  We called him Saint Jimmy, or Jimmy the Saint, and he’d been with us for as long as I can remember. As much part of my childhood as the village itself: its gravelled square, the grey spire of St Matthias, the wooded backdrop beyond. Flint-studded Amberstone Hall concealed within a hollow in the hills, the tanneries, cowpat pasture, frogspawn shallows. The growl of distant tractors, clash of metal on anvil. Waking in my teens to a dense wall of birdsong; earlier still, the drone of aircraft, incoming and hostile, each night.

  Others were less kind, picking up on the name and converting it to ‘Saintley’. Hinting at sanctimoniousness, delusions of grandeur; linking it to the hermit-like existence he led, or the poetry he wrote. Adding that ‘e’ to his name to make him appear more childish; missing out completely on the significance of his logo: the bell.

  There were six of them altogether – bells I mean. ‘All tolled’ according to Jimmy, who was infamous for his puns. They made a complete peal and at some point in the past had acquired their own epithets: Sideman, Curate, Parson, Bishop, Cardinal and Saint, each just a little bit larger than the other, deeper and more sonorous in tone. Sideman was rung by Danny Earl, local handyman, a wizar
d with all things electric and a ham radio buff; Curate was the responsibility of Thomas Carter, the local fishmonger, who sang baritone in the church choir. Alfred Thomas hauled on Parson’s rope when not pulling pints for the regulars down at The Jugged Hare; Joe Wickbourne – farrier par excellence and a genius when it came to mending anything made of metal – took charge of Cardinal, which left Bishop and Saint in the hands of Jimmy and the Squire respectively.

  Yes, we still had a Squire back in the late 40s, as they do to this day. Not one of those titles I see advertised, or knocked down at auction, along with miniscule portions of real estate on Mars or the moon; the Amberstones had been up at the Hall for five centuries or more. I call them ‘Squires’ – it was how they liked to be known – but they were rather grander than that. The lineage took in generals and admirals, freebooters and privateers – military men all of them, serving their country with great distinction down the years, and suitably rewarded for doing so. Their portraits lined the corridors, escutcheon and musketry gracing the walls. We’d play hide-and-seek among suits of armour, race uncontrollably up and down the stairs when the place was thrown open for parties, at Christmas, Harvest-time or in celebration of one or other of the Amberstone birthdays. The family still occupied the pew reserved for them at St Matthias each Sunday, much kudos continuing to be attached to the shops they patronised. Cottages they owned about the village were let out on generous terms and always kept in good repair. Their role had, in fact, become almost entirely a social one by the time I came on the scene, disappearing entirely in the 1960s. Since then the Hall has been taken over by a charitable trust, but an Amberstone remains, much respected for his business acumen, with a young daughter destined one day to take over what remains of the heritage.