Crazy Paving

A retired army officer who has taken up painting has disturbing dreams which take him back to a traumatic incident in the Korean War.

My wife is asleep in her own room and I cannot hear her breathing.

 

In Keswick there is a place where you can sit and gaze at Skiddaw, head grandly hidden in the clouds. I was there three weeks ago, wasting a couple of fine afternoons by taking a few sketches. This time the giant lifts the covers from his shoulders and stares down at me. Brown shoulders and green legs. White dots on his coat must be sheep. I start to count them. He is crying. The cloud is too heavy for him to hold so it sinks back and forces me to sleep.

Today like most days I spend my time in the Monterey, my club. They have a casino at which I occasionally make a little money and sometimes lose a small fortune. Their head waiter is named Siegfried and he is friendly to me and appreciates fine art. He talks to all the customers and occasionally points one or two in my direction, though I do not really need the money for the pictures they buy. He recognises that art needs an audience. Siegfried always wears a bow tie. Even when I get so drunk that he has to prop me up in an armchair with a cushion under my head. I don’t attain that happy state today. Today I go into the casino and in two hours lose more than most people make in a week. Then I trudge home in disgust.

On the way home the paving stones start to rise at an angle. I clamber over them. They get steeper until I am afraid of falling and stop. There is no sound of traffic, just the silent breath of the wind. The street lamps make shadows behind the stones which by now are almost bolt upright. I cannot see into their depths. They seem to stretch down a very long way.

Beth my housekeeper has a degree from Nottingham University, acquired at the age of fifty-five. She lives in the east wing of the building. She has lived here seven years, since I found it too much trouble to look after myself. What with all the washing, cooking and cleaning I found the house becoming a wreck. I advertised in the paper for her. There were only three replies so I was lucky to find someone so good. She has two sons and a daughter, all grown up, and a husband who has been in St Anne’s church since before I knew her. Mark and Steve both live abroad and her daughter Zoe has a house nearby. She never speaks to me if we pass in the street. Zoe wears red and yellow and looks like a crazy woman. I think she is going to get married this year, to a boring man who works for one of the major insurance companies. His name is Gerald and his brother has two of my paintings. He is called Toby and is a doctor.

The paving stones look at me accusingly. I sense danger though it is hard to know how. The ground behind smells of fresh earth. I know there are cable ducts and sewers underneath and this gives me a sense of comfort. I say to them, will you please lie down and let me go on my way. I tap the nearest with my cane. Nothing happens and I am worried that they may stand up to me. One of the more timid sees what is happening and starts to retreat. I hit the slab harder and knock a chip off its shoulder. When I hit it again on the other side I am afraid again for a short while because of its rounded edges. All the others lay down obediently  so I walk round the stubborn fellow and continue my journey.

***

I see Toby in the Monterey. He is looking healthy. He comes round and talks to me.

“Hallo, Major, old boy. I hear you’re planning an expedition to the Alps.”

“Well, yes. Not for some time. Probably next July. Would you like to tag along with us?”

“Can’t I’m afraid. We’re going to Australia in the spring. Takes up all my holiday for the year. I’m interested to hear about your plans, though. Will you be taking your canvases?”

“No. I thought I’d just soak in the atmosphere and maybe bring back a few sketches. I’ll be staying with my relatives who live in Paris. We’re all going down in a big gang to invade the area for a fortnight. So probably not much time for work. Speaking of which, how’s yours going?”

“With great difficulty. I’m still trying to find a new partner after Henry retired. He still comes in two days a week, bless him. It’s almost more than he can handle and I think the patients would prefer someone new. I’ve advertised three times now and simply can’t find anyone suitable.”

Toby has to rush back after lunch so I spend a while reading the papers then go for a walk through the cemetery. It has views all down the hill and across the city and is almost free from the perpetual sound of traffic. Birds sing from the trees surrounding the church and the smell is both fresh and mouldy. Some of the stones are clean and bright with fresh flowers and others carry decades of dirt and tilt at an angle. None bear my name.

I have to phone my accountant.

“Hallo. Is that Mr Davies? It’s Major Brigham here. Major Howard Brigham. Yes. Fine thanks. I’m just phoning about my income tax assessment for the current year. You asked me to contact you.”

Mr Davies looks through his files and tells me how much I have earned over the year. Well, not actually earned, of course. He states my income. Excluding the paintings, which are hardly worth telling him about. He tells me how much tax I will have to pay, which account it is held in, and how much his fee will be. He assures me that everything is in order and that he will send me the documents to sign in due course. Very comforting. I wish Toby could get people like that to work for him. All down to money I suppose.

***

 

I take a bottle of port to bed with me. Beth always tries to stop me drinking in bed. Over the years I have found reliable ways to sneak it past her. I find the smell reassuring last thing at night. It masks the oil which sticks so doggedly to my fingers after a day in the studio. Today I painted a landscape of Helvellyn entirely from memory. I was very pleased with it. It is the only chance I get to see the mountain without people crawling all over it. I think I may post it in the dining room.

On the verge between waking and sleep stands a shadowy figure. Bold and grey and rectangular, nearly the size of a man. It rocks back and forth. It wonders what I have been doing all these years. A star peers at me through a curtain in the green- black sky and I reach out to it. It is my star and I want it to deliver me. This figure, a looming slab of nothingness, eclipses my star and overshadows me. It has writing on the front though I cannot read it. It has two large pale eyes which stare blindly at me. I reach out to it. I feel a suffocating guilt. It takes me in its arms. I push against it and it accepts me in its unyielding firmness. Flames spread over my body. I push and push and strain and strain and beat it into submission. I beat it and beat it until it is soft and lies on the ground where it seeps away into the brown darkness leaving two sightless eyes to accuse me. I scream and wake to a silent familiarity. I switch on the light and go downstairs. I remember and then I forget. I do not forget that I have remembered.

For days I dare not sleep. During the day I allow myself to be lost in a drunken haze at the Monterey or doze in the afternoon between lunch and tea. By night I listen to music, drink coffee and read, do a crossword or paint. Painting keeps the dark away till the natural colours of the world emerge again. I paint mountains and deserts and icy wastes, the dead things of this world that have never lived. I have seen these and take care to remember all the tiny details, so that I might the better forget.

For some reason I find myself in my bedroom. I prefer not to go there during the night hours now. The room glides back and forth before my eyes. I am so tired. I still dare not sleep because there is something hidden from me. It seems the very floorboards are standing on end. I smell blood and suddenly am back in Korea, where cracks and whistles compete with the birds’ efforts to impregnate each other. It is very very bad. I need to find her so that I can know what I have done.

I go out to the conservatory and inspect the patio. The crazy paving dances across my vision so I put my hands down and inspect the smooth flat slabs by stroking them. Someone has been here before me. The stones have been separated. There is a large steel mallet against the wall. I pick it up. My hands are sore and my shoulders ache. I replace it and turn my attention once more to the floor.

It must have taken all day to do this. Each of the irregular shaped stones lies separated from its surroundings by a thin crack. The slabs themselves are unbroken. They move when touched. I wipe a speck of dirt from my fingernail and notice that there are brown marks encrusted into the skin of my hands. I know now that I am about to uncover my secret and a spasm of fear tingles my body. I remove my dressing gown. Though I have not slept for the past nights I have behaved in all other respects completely normally. I squat with my back to the house. This feels like the wrong place to start so I move to the edge which backs on to the path. Still uneasy I try the opposite edge where there is little room. So I settle for the garden side, though very apprehensive that there may be something behind me. I go down again onto my haunches then try kneeling which turns out to be more comfortable. I take hold of the nearest stone. It gives a little. I tug at its neighbours and find that one of them comes away easily, the scent of rotten earth emanating from the slot where it had been. I am annoyed at the fact that a worm dangles from a piece of earth stuck to one edge. I brush it off imperiously. I place the stone on the grass border. After a moment’s thought I stand it on end, so that I can stack them horizontally. I ponder the gap I have made.

There is a definite order to the way these pieces of paving are removed. It is perhaps like doing a jigsaw in reverse though I do not really know because I have never done a jigsaw. I stack them along a line in the order in which I remove them so that they can be replaced more easily. Not that anyone will think of replacing them, they will have other things on their minds. As I remove each successive row I feel myself becoming calmer. I have to stretch for the last two rows to avoid stepping on my precious secret before it is fully revealed. When all is done I stand back and gaze with pride at my handiwork. A single line of pointed slabs stretches into the darkness. I step across them and stand over the bare bed, crying.

Once I was very much in love. With a girl named Ning Mun. Four years younger than me, small with short dark hair. She used to cook for our camp. She would have provided other services if I had not rescued her from the clutches of my men in the nick of time. Her family had been killed by a single mortar round. She lived in our compound and travelled with us. She was my wife, in all practicality if not in name, strictly against regulations. That is what being in charge is for. On our return to England she disappeared. No one ever found out where or why. We would have been married. Properly. In a church. Though she would have been a Buddhist. I presume. I never asked her. We did not speak much though she had a little English. Perhaps we should have spoken more.

I kneel on the newly uncovered ground and sweep away the topmost layer. It is soft earth, uncluttered by stones. Despite its long hibernation it smells fresh. Digging deeper I start to feel anxious. How far do I have to go? I scratch and claw at the loose soil, sending sprays to either side. My nails break and I use my cupped hands. I lie flat, digging deeper, working my head and my whole body into the dirt. My mouth becomes clogged and I cannot see, only feel my way down. There is nothing. She is not there. I know now. She is still in Korea, in the grave I dug for her. After I shot her. Looking out at me from the edge of the wood. Mistaking her for a Communist. I lost sixty-two men in Korea. I slump down, head buried in the empty soil.

A pair of bony hands coil themselves round my neck. Grabbing me they force me up until my back is nearly breaking. Warm fingers force the dirt out of my mouth, allowing me to breathe. I let myself be turned over. I am covered in soil.

“My wife. My wife.”

“Hush, now. It’s Beth. Mrs Williams. You’ve had a bad turn.”

“No. My wife.”

“Now, now, Major. You have no wife. You never have done.”

“Marry me. You’ll marry me won’t you?” My heart screamed. “For God’s sake please marry me.”

“Of course. Of course, Major. Now let’s get you back to bed.”

***

 

I sleep soundly now. I spend my evening at the Monterey, but do not visit the casino. The doorman smiles at me as I leave. On the way home I see graves and gravestones, though I know Ning Mun has none. There are sixty-three of them. They stand and fall obediently at my command and carry the inscription Rest In Peace. Above my bed hangs a picture I have painted of Beth. My wife sleeps in a room of her own, and I am not disturbed by her breathing, nor she by mine.

Reviews

[alanwgraham]

I enjoyed this Jerry. My own bio is similar - retired early, took up writing, mainly short stories. Most of mine have a twist in the tail like this one. I'll admit you caught me with your first line and where it led. Can I just say that I think that it would be worth a reread - for example, a waiter that sells fine art seems unlikely, and is the casino in Keswick. Removing detail superfluous to the story always helps.
Very good story and your dream sequences are great.
Cheers,
Alan

[Jerry Humphreys]

Thanks Alan. I have made a small change to the line you pointed out, this comment was very helpful. It is hard to recognise which bits trip readers up when you know the characters so well in your own head, so comments like this are always welcome.

[alanwgraham]

It occurred to me that I have a similar story called 'Mary Mary' on my page 8 if you have time for a read.
All the best,
Alan