The Holy City (19 page)

Illogical though it might seem, I somehow succeeded in persuading myself that Vesna had for some reason shed all her clothes and forced herself into this somewhat shapeless and coarse brown Capuchin-style outfit. She was holding a missal and looking up, smiling, contriving an attitude of beatified rapture.

I began to get the joke at last as I snapped my fingers and gave my thigh a smack, beginning to appreciate the hilarity of the situation.

— Ha ha! I laughed. Vesna! Yeah, Stevie Wonder. You got the joke. You made it your business to find out who he was. Well, I have to say that I'm pretty impressed! The joke's on poor old Christy now!

I laughed again, doing a little dance. And said:

— Oh Vesna baby, you for sure are outasite! A real gone kookie, that's no lie!

I even sang a little snatch of the song:

— My Cherie Amour, distant as the Milky Way!

But the longer ‘she' stood there — unsmiling, almost grim — the more it became apparent that, regrettably, in fact, it wasn't Vesna. Certainly it might have been her in the beginning. But, whatever the likelihood of that — it certainly wasn't the case now. I would have given anything to make him like the others — to turn him into Lulu, Herb Alpert or Mukti. To make him too a mere six or nine inches high. The size of a milk bottle, or even a table-leg — so that he mightn't represent the same threat as he did now.

But he wasn't, you see. He wasn't the height of a table-leg, I'm afraid. No, unlike all the others, Marcus Otoyo was every bit as large as I remembered him in life. Standing there, smiling, haughtily gazing down at me — casually adjusting his Foster Grant sunglasses. So cool I might not have even been in the room — as his jaws rotated and, unflappably, he continued to chew his gum.

Yes, chewing that gum, to be brutally frank about it, as if I had never existed at all. But what happened next I found even more difficult to come to terms with. As, without any indication or warning at all, he parted his lips, opened his mouth and began to sing. With his eyes uplifted and his dusky hands folded. Hardly even aware of what I was doing, already I had found myself falling to my knees, unconsciously apprehending myself as some crusader of old, a soldier of antiquity — exhausted and humbled, crouched in homage outside the gates of a sacred, shining city.

—
At last I have reached it,
I could hear my voice, clear as a bell, extolling.
This city of sapphire where abide the lost tribes.

As Marcus Otoyo's voice sailed out across the landing, approaching a crescendo — pealing, it seemed, in the hot desert sun, borne upon it the echo of forgotten trumpets, now resounding in glory across the ramparts of history:

— Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Hosanna, hosanna, lift up your gates and sing!

As the minarets flickered beyond the high stone walls, the Byzantine towers gleaming as then at last it came: the
robust falsetto of a vast, massed choir. Rending, it seemed, the very roof of heaven itself, booming above me in the livid sunset:

— Hosanna in the highest! Hosanna to our King!

With his rich voice proceeding sonorously — exactly as it had done on the steps of the high altar during the play's performance, when he had surpassed himself in his role as Blessed Martin as he continued:

—
In the holy place of love,
he continued,
the altar was heaped with fragrant masses of flowers: and as I prayed there, methought I saw the gorgeous crimson piles of glory in the west. Where a cloud floated across the western heaven, like a seraph's wing in its flaming beauty. Far beyond that hilltop city of the Bible where they had placed them, God's blooms. White flowers that were as clear and silent as my own soul, as I swooned and prepared for the descent of my last end.

When I looked again, Marcus Otoyo had disappeared, with nothing remaining now but the thin, cowed figure of my wife staring fearfully through the fencing of the banisters. So pale, in fact, that I thought her quite beautiful. And told her so. As I slowly began my ascent of the stairs.

— Vuh-Vesna, I said, as I stroked her cheek, Vesna. I want us both to be together for ever. Together for ever in the city of love. In our own sacred home, where the gates will remain closed to the outside world for ever. And where but we too, as eternal lovers, shall reside.

I paused and looked away. Then I turned, and once more stroked her cheek.

— Do you agree to that, Vesna? Duh-duh-do you, my precious?

She choked and kind of stammered, but didn't really give a response that was satisfactory.

As I never tire of repeating to my beloved, even the most unremarkable events contain the potential to yield the most rewarding of life's pleasures.

— For example, Vesna, I will often remark — particularly if I am in the process of daubing her black eyelashes with this tiny little mascara brush, or buttoning her dress up at the back — how consistent is the satisfaction these small, otherwise seemingly insignificant mementos of ours continue to give us?

And which is why they are so much a part — an essential part — of our lives here in the Happy Club. All these little bits and pieces, so lovingly collected over the years: the numerous Carpenters albums, ancient singles by Herman's Hermits — all lying randomly scattered about the club — amidst, of course, the other debris, namely all the empty Martini bottles as well as who knows how many crushed packets of Peter Stuyvesants. Then there are the other — even more precious — artefacts. Such as the gilt-framed photo of Ethel Baird, which proudly adorns the mantelpiece. And which, shamefully, I'm forced to admit, I illicitly removed from her house that day. An act I'm not particularly proud of, I have to say.

But I simply couldn't resist it. Depicting as it does those two remarkable women — Ethel Baird and my mother Lady Thornton, smiling in her girlish collar with its delicate edging of smooth seed pearls. Standing beside a baby grand piano one sunny autumn day long ago, in the grounds of Thornton Manor, singing hymns on the lawn. And in which they look every inch the Protestant ladies, in their hats and gloves and perms, with husband Henry standing stiffly behind. As if to say:
However grudgingly, I must say, I do approve.

For Marcus too, of course, Ethel never had anything but the highest of praise.

— I have never encountered such — such
honesty of feeling
I remember her remarking, a quality particularly in evidence whenever he sings ‘The Holy City' for me, that lovely old standard by Weatherly and Adams. Far and away the finest pupil I think I have ever taught, sweet Marcus Otoyo. The town of Cullymore should be so proud.

I'd watch him going in, parking the Massey out of sight across the street. Thinking of him inside the parlour, fingering the notes of ‘The Holy City' on Ethel Baird's old walnut upright. At that time, it has to be emphasised, he had never demonstrated anything but the most exquisite manners towards me. In fact, was almost unbearably courteous. Sometimes, while he was waiting for Ethel to open the door, I could see him busying himself combing those tight corkscrew curls. And it would always seem as if time had stopped, as if this was a crystallised moment in history for us, with no past, no future — just this singular, lightflickering
instant, sandwiched between twin unfathomable eternities.

The week before the performance was due to take place in the cathedral I became aware that he had started visiting Ethel's on a daily basis. In the end I just decided to leave the tractor behind. And just stand there in the alleyway, withdrawing discreetly into the shadows, imagining that the recital was being conducted solely for my benefit. It was just a harmless illusion, that's all, with his pristine voice sailing through the opening of the raised sash window, wafting out into the drab surroundings, transforming the world through a heart-stirring alchemy.

As I clasped
A Portrait m
my two folded hands, elevating my eyes towards the dome of the sky, where, lit by the sun in unclouded splendour, I might have apprehended the towers and pinnacles of the holy city, distantly gleaming by the side of a tideless sea.

— O Zion, I prayed, put on thy beautiful garments — and be as a bride adorned for her husband.

I knew Sidney Poitier was the star of the Hollywood film
To Sir With Love
but that was pretty much all I knew. I had finished up unexpectedly early that evening, I remember, and had been treating myself to a few pleasant glasses in the Good Times, before heading to ‘the pictures', as they used to call them in Cullymore.

So it would have been about seven-thirty or eight when I finally made it up to the Magnet. I know that it might
be possible to infer, considering my already established patterns of behaviour at the time, that I had spent all that evening following, effectively shadowing, Marcus Otoyo. That maybe, in fact, I had planned the whole thing, unable to help myself. But that really isn't true — it was just by chance that he happened to be at the pictures. Black though he might have been himself, I would have been very surprised if he had ever heard of Sidney Poitier. So I am sure he just happened, more or less on a whim, to go to the cinema. Yes, the whole thing had happened completely by accident. Of course it had. But of course. I'm certain of that. Yes. Pointless thinking otherwise.

But I had got such a shock, I remember, when I saw him. I was sure that he'd be at home, availing himself of what little time remained for the purpose of assiduously consolidating his lines.

A whole three weeks had now elapsed since the night of the disastrous Beachcomber Affair.

I had been inside the cinema no more than five minutes when I felt the hairs bristling on the back of my neck. In fact, my skin was beginning to crawl. As I realised, with a kind of delicious horror, that he was seated almost directly below me, in the stalls. Like any ordinary, impishly confrontational youth, as I realise now, defiantly draped across the padded upholstery. With a cigarette — I have to confess to being somewhat shocked, although I possessed no such authority — sullenly suspended from his lips. I recalled a line from a classical anthology I had been perusing recently in
the library, and which had read:
in whose luxuriant confines the desultory convivialists habitually exhibit themselves.

He was unaccompanied, lolling there casually, uninterested, alone — flicking his cigarette with a kind of awkward, sullen boredom. He was wearing his braided bottle-green blazer. Now and then, in the projection beam, I would see his high glossy forehead suddenly appear. Then I heard him yawn and my heart began to race. As the curtains parted and, unbidden, once more the hymn began its ascent in my mind:

—
Hosanna!
I heard, and trembled as I did do.
Hosanna to your King!

As I fled in anxiety from the incipient crash of the mighty brass cymbals, the soaring crescendo of imagined choral voices. My attention, happily, and with incommunicable relief, being unexpectedly diverted by the basso profundo of the onscreen commentator, as a sprightly advert for Blue Band commanded attention in the crackling, dusty darkness.

— It's the margarine the whole country is talking about — soft and spreadable, all the way from the USA!

The film had told the story of a black American teacher relocated to the East End of London. But of its substance I don't recall a great deal. All I can remember, in any detail worth talking about, is the presentation finally coming to an end. And standing right beside me, as we exited — Marcus Otoyo.

— Whuh-whuh-what did you think of it, Marcus? I stammered. Whuh-what did you think of Sidney Poitier? Some negro actors can be very good, can't they?

I wasn't even aware of the fact that I had spoken.

He smiled thinly, as he regarded me with some curiosity. Before responding:

— Could be. If you say so.

Yes, that was what Marcus Otoyo said that night, on an otherwise quite unremarkable summer night in 1969, three weeks after the Beachcomber Affair. Yes, three weeks after the Butlin's catastrophe. As the credits rolled on
To Sir With Love,
with Lulu's voice now belting out, fortissimo, rising to its zenith as the swaying velvet curtains closed.

The following day, which of course was the actual date of the performance, I had spent the whole morning arguing violently with myself. As to whether I ought to attend
The Soul's Ascent
or not. I had been so overwhelmed by our conversation in the cinema the night before that my ears were still burning, out of a not unreasonable sense of shame. How could I have gone and said such a stupid thing, I persistently chastised myself. In the end, I made the only decision I could. Even if, to this very day, I still wish I hadn't.

For nothing had prepared me — not even Ethel Baird's unqualified praise, the laudatory rumours I'd been hearing around the town — for the unmatched power of the boy's prodigious delivery. Of the world-famous hymn by Stephen Adams and Frederick Weatherly.

— ‘The Holy City', intoned Canon Burgess, stepping aside as he introduced Marcus. Our Blessed Martin de Porres.

The boy's eyes, mindful of his duties as a performer and out of respect for the work of the authors, were already tightly shut.

It would have been better if I had vacated the cathedral there and then. With an alacrity similar to that displayed in the Beachcomber Bar the night of ‘the affair'. When I had quit the building and not bothered to return. Yes, I ought to have instantly removed myself from that cathedral. I didn't, however. I couldn't find the strength within me to do so. Like everyone else, I was stirringly captivated.

The interior was flooded by a dull scarlet light that filtered through the lowered blinds and the rustle of pamphlet pages ebbed and swelled like a sweetly hushing wave. Which acted as a counterpoint to the magisterial chords of the pipe organ in the gallery as the first few notes came from his thick, parted lips: