Observatory Mansions (5 page)

I asked her if there was anything about the voice that might describe its owner. Miss Higg thought it the voice of a woman, a young woman, probably in her twenties or thirties.

We decided that through whatever means possible, the new resident must be out of Observatory Mansions within the week. I stroked my gloves – that white, that cotton – thinking hard. Claire Higg offered noise intrusions as a possibility. She proposed to keep her television set at all times (except during news broadcasts, documentaries, financial bulletins, weather reports, black and white films, wildlife programmes and police appeals) at its highest volume. Bugg and I thought this a good beginning. I suggested that, for my part, I follow the new resident wherever she went to try to discover what it was that made her want to live in this part of the city and what, if anything, might make her leave Observatory Mansions. Higg and Bugg thought this an excellent suggestion. But when it came to Bugg’s turn, he could think of nothing he could do to help.

And so, after stroking my gloves for a few minutes, I came up with a task for him. Peter Bugg was, by use of the Porter’s
ladder kept in the basement, to climb up to the window of flat eighteen. Whilst the new resident was out he was to enter her flat, make a note of all her possessions and move those possessions about, shift their places. Place everything in a different order. This was sure to intimidate the new resident enormously. It would cause her great concern, not only for the safety of her possessions, which we were to move into different places, but also for the safety of her person, which we were not to touch. A person’s objects make up their identity, they are placed inside a person’s home according to their specific tastes. When a person’s objects are moved by an unseen force, it feels to that person as if their soul is being played with, as if someone were messing with their insides.

If all the windows of flat eighteen were shut Peter Bugg was instructed to try to wedge one open, but if that was not possible then he should carefully smash a pane of glass. But he, poor Bugg, nervously sweating and crying, wondered if perhaps he wasn’t the man for the job and if he could possibly do something else. What would happen if the police became involved, he added, he would surely have left his finger prints everywhere. I told him to wear gloves. Poor Bugg didn’t have any so I leant him a pair of pink rubber ones. These I wore over my white gloves when I washed dishes.

It’s nearly half past nine.

Good night, Miss Higg.

Good night, Francis Orme.

Good night, Claire.

Good night, Peter.

And a little later …

Good night, Francis.

Good night, sir.

Glove diary
.

I felt comforted to be back in my bedroom. Everything, I thought, now that we had decided to take action, would soon be sorted out. The threat would be moved on, we would become a calm people once more. No one was going to take away the peace in Observatory Mansions, no one was going to change our lives, no one was going to infiltrate flat six. I looked around my bedroom, soothed by what I saw.

Lined up by the foot of my bed were three wooden boxes. The boxes were the same size. They were made by a carpenter to my specifications. Eight inches by thirteen inches, thirty inches in height. In all three boxes there were two vertical slats of half an inch thickness which divided the interiors perfectly in three. Two of these boxes had already been filled. They contained my gloves. My old, obsolete gloves. The two full boxes each held a total of six hundred pairs of gloves, two hundred in each compartment. I was still using the third compartment of the third box. The third box would be full in twenty-three pairs time. Between each pair of gloves I laid a piece of tracing paper and wrote on a small piece of watercolour paper, two inches by two inches, the date that I began wearing the gloves and the date that I finished. This was my glove diary. From the dates written on each piece of watercolour paper it was possible, by referring to the relevant school exercise books (numerically stacked in rows underneath the bed), to discover what had caused me to cease wearing them. I never allowed myself to wear gloves that had become remotely dirty, my hands were always to be an immaculate white.

The new resident would be encouraged to leave the next day. Everything would be as it was.

No one was going to touch my glove diary.

Looking at Mother
.

Mother’s bedroom had always been a bedroom, it was a bedroom when Observatory Mansions was a country residence, it displayed old-fashioned crimson flock wallpaper which had been decorating the walls undisturbed for over sixty years. My mother’s bedroom contained a mother, a bed, books, paintings, photographs, hats, shoes, mirrors, knickers, bras, magazines, gramophone discs, empty bottles, umbrellas, pressed flowers, teacups, sherry glasses, a man’s wristwatch, a walking stick, an abacus and many other things besides. The curtains in Mother’s bedroom were closed; they were always closed, day or night. On a small teak table stood a porcelain night lamp designed for infant children. The night lamp, which was never turned off, was in the shape of a mushroom and had a hollowed-out centre where a small porcelain rabbit resided. The porcelain rabbit held up a porcelain lantern which contained a tiny twenty-watt bulb. This lamp was mine, it was given to me when I was a child.

The objects about Mother’s room were her aids to memory. Each object opened up for her a passage of time. When Mother could not remember her happier days naturally, she opened her eyes and looked around at the objects in her room. Her looks stroked them, she closed her eyes and retaining the image of a particular object took it with her, back into her past. Mother never opened her eyes to a person, only to objects, those certain objects collected in her room. I
had not seen my mother’s eyes, which were blue in colour, for some years.

So when, the next morning, I went in to tell Mother of the new resident and to ask her for advice, she did not even acknowledge me. I would often go into her bedroom to speak to her, to tell her all my fears and, though Mother never spoke back, I felt comforted, that she was – by simply being there, quietly breathing, never interrupting – calming me. But that morning, with such news, I hoped she might say something to me, I hoped she might at least move to indicate her alarm, I hoped she might somehow show that I had her sympathy. But she didn’t take hold of a gloved hand and squeeze it tightly, she kept her eyes closed, kept her long grey hair still on the pillow, kept her breathing regular.

Motion
.

The new resident didn’t leave her flat all morning. I listened out for her footsteps for an hour, and even twice went up to the third floor, listening at her door to make sure she was still in.

But she couldn’t keep me indoors all day, waiting for her to make a move. I wouldn’t be trapped like that, I would leave Observatory Mansions, I could follow her later. That day of the week I customarily took off work, and on all my days off I went to the park.

I walked out, I stood by the entrance of Observatory Mansions, there was once a gate here, now there was just a gap in the brick wall. I stood on the perimeter of our traffic-island home and watched the cars rush around. I thought: everything goes around but nothing comes in. I waited for a break in the traffic. This is a procedure that must always be enacted when leaving a traffic-island home. Sometimes it takes minutes before a break occurs, sometimes only seconds, and when it comes you must run for your life. Yes, traffic must
never be underestimated when leaving a traffic-island home, the little girl from flat seventeen learnt that. Too late. She was in too much of a hurry, she went over one car and under the next.

Finding the required pause, I dashed across to the street on the other side. Into an any people place, into the stupidity of the city. A girl chewed gum – I could smell her coming. An adolescent with a skin that betrayed his diet listened and hummed to thumping rhythms as he moved, his gait attempting to acknowledge the music. Young, beautiful horses of girls clopped their high-heel hooves. Men in suits walked alone, contriving to be serious. An old woman paused every six or seven steps for breath. Her mouth worked quicker than her legs – she sucked a boiled sweet. Children ran; they’re the noisiest. They barged into me. I did not complain. I would have liked to complain, but I lacked the guts. I found nothing more terrifying than youth.

Weighing the world
.

I reached the entrance of the park. The park was not an exceptional park. It was a very ordinary, a very uninteresting park, called Tearsham Park Gardens. I stopped outside. There stood the man who worked in front of Tearsham Park Gardens. There stood a man sacred to his duty, providing the public with his everyday service. Bank holidays inclusive. He was never late, he put in long hours, he was loyal to his work. What was his work, what were the tools of his trade? There was only one implement necessary to earn him his meagre living. He stood behind it with great pride. He was, I believe, the only man in the city who worked in this way. He was an original. His object was a set of bathroom scales. For two coins you could afford yourself the pleasure of obtaining your weight in stones and pounds. I stepped on the scales, I stepped off the scales. I gave the man two coins, as I did once
a week, always on this day. The man, I never knew his name, began his employment many years ago. It was an extraordinary enterprise to give up days for, it was extraordinary to put your bathroom scales at people’s disposal. At first he had few customers. This is perhaps not surprising. Bathroom scales are not uncommon objects. But he stuck to his post. His presence was noted. He was viewed with some fondness as an amiable imbecile, his list of clients grew. They were mainly old women, sometimes young men, never alone, who considered the action of weighing themselves amusing. His clients were never young women. I had never heard him speak, the procedure did not require words, I appreciated that.

The man noted down the weight of each customer in a little notebook. I do not know why. I never asked him why. He recorded the weights of the people of the world, it was his business. Perhaps he had noticed trends in corpulence or slenderness. Perhaps he worked out the average weight of a certain height. Or of age. Or of sex. Perhaps he just wanted to be near people. (Once he misplaced his weight notebook. Confused for two weeks, he left his post vacant. Eventually though, he bought himself a new notebook and returned to work. Lot 644.)

My weight was recorded, as it was every week in the same way. It was our routine. He noticed me as I came out of Observatory Mansions. I smiled at him, he smiled back from behind his scales. Then I rushed across the road and walked over to him.

I never asked him about his scales, about his notebook. He never asked me about my gloves. We communicated through smiles. Once a week.

Since it was my day off, I went and sat in the park.

Love and hate in Tearsham Park Gardens
.

1. LOVE. I loved Tearsham Park Gardens for its beautiful white, sad trees that had been stripped of their bark by pollution and autographed by young vandals with their sweaty-handled magnifying glasses. Someone loves someone, someone loves a football team, someone burns letters of abuse, another scratches with a knife.

I loved this park for the couple that passed me that day: an old man with his grandson riding a tricycle in front of him. The old man walked slowly, slowly (there’s time, there’s always time these days) from one end of the park to the other. The grandson was supposed to keep to his grandfather’s pace, but he was always at least two metres ahead. The boy stopped to observe a pair of lovers kissing on a bench. The grandfather stopped, he watched too. Eventually they set off again, but not at the same time and not at the same pace.

There was a concrete square in the middle of the park. Its paving stones were uneven. In its centre was a rusty fountain. I do not recall the fountain ever working. It had always been dry, save when the rain came, when the rain came it flooded. I called it a fountain out of optimism perhaps, but also out of regret. By the unworking, rusting fountain, which lacked water and appreciation, sat a beautiful girl. Whenever I saw a beautiful girl I thought of my own best interests.

Late teens. Ripped trousers. Jeans. Chequered coat. Dyed ginger hair. Brown freckles. Moon face. Beautiful. She worked chalks on to the paving stones, she worked many colours into the uniform grey. She smudged them, blended them. The subject that day was an angel. The angel was by some Renaissance master, she copied it down from a postcard, the likeness was not good. A handkerchief with stones in each of its four corners had a message above it. THANK YOU. She was thanked with coins. Generously. Not because of her angel,
but because she had large brown eyes. We had known each other for two years.

I had never spoken to her.

People, all people, old, young, ill and well, spoke to her. I would have liked to have collected her chalk drawings but they faded quickly. People walked across them as soon as she had gone. The rain diluted them and then scrubbed their faces blank. Once, in a fit of stupidity, after she had left, I rubbed my gloved hands across her art. My gloves showed dirty, ugly, smudged colours. I had to replace them. I was ill for days. She looked at me once, smiled at me. I did not smile back. I was frightened. She stopped smiling and went back to her colours.

Whenever I saw a beautiful girl I thought of my own best interests, for a short term.

It was late spring; with the blossom in the park there was a hint of hope.

2. HATE. This park was detestable because of its memory. It was sad, like so many people, because of its memory. It enjoyed, like so many people, passing its sadness on to others. This sadness, though not a dangerous disease, was infectious. It had a habit of getting through the pores of a person’s skin. People sat in the park perfectly happy but before they stood up again sad thoughts would have stroked their lungs. The park remembered what it once was. It remembered other trees. It remembered grass, acres of grassland. It remembered the feet of cows and of calves. It remembered. Penned in by wrought-iron fencing was all that remained of a once wide and plentiful park. The parkland was churned up, houses were planted on its soil. The cows were moved on, people were herded in. And here I must admit that I walked on the streets surrounding this park when I was a child. I was there, the streets were not. It was all my home once.