Desire line, p.17
Desire Line, page 17
Alfred Hitchcock, you made use of every one of these motifs but never provided a solution for Le Prince. What a movie that would’ve been!
My own subject Sara Meredith, (b. Sara Althea Severing, 1968, Oxford, England) was an historian who arrived in a certain seaside town and never left. She featured among the UK’s missing for nearly three decades and for most of them also on the wheressara? site, hosted from the Virgin Islands by an American named Charity Weiksner. All the known facts about Sara were here, plus Sara tributes, Sara theories and every nervy interview Sara ever gave— have a look, see if you agree she’d rather be anywhere else. And of course Sara sightings. These go right back to her disappearance in 2008. The best (May 9th 2010) has her coming from ‘a Eucharist service’, a Sara-like shape on some tourist snap of Salisbury Cathedral. One illegible line entered in their Intercession Book, same day, was ‘almost certainly by Sara’. Another year she popped up in Florence, among crowds leaving the Uffizi as the light fades. It’s billed as, ‘Our only vid but fully checked out!’ (Who by?) Yet you have to give credit. Sara was known to love the city. The recent authentication of St Francis Tended by Doves as by Bellini had brought his fans flocking and made it extra smart as choice of venue for a faker. But a believer of Charity Weiksner herself, among others – I’d guest into the wheressara? community from time to time. Just out of curiosity, just in case. I wasn’t tempted to clue them my identity. I preferred to enjoy in private a following that seemed to swell – and swell. Sarareally wasa work in progress. Female students from Munich to Manila added courses of brick. Abused, low-status women testified to turning their lives around under Thomasina Swift’s banner. Sightings dried up and the tributes substituted. Frequent updates and moderating meant crazies with this lost one in their cellars got hustled out of Saraville automatically.
The day her body was identified the site went down.
Here’s a lighter note to finish up. Only in Britain would The Missing Top Ten include a horse. When national characteristics come into play a bay colt easily takes the lead, our equivalent of Louis Le Prince. Shergar won the 1981 English Derby by a record ten lengths. Then he was kidnapped by the IRA from his stable and a perfect animal’s never seen again. My mother never had much interest in history but when I was a child she did tell me Shergar’s story.
Chapter 17
Three weeks after she came ashore, and less than twenty-four hours since I found her ghost waiting in Gaiman Avenue, I’ve fled Rhyl. Or it looks like it and I’m content with that for now. The instant Sara Meredith was known to be deceased, I’d merited a personal visit from the authorities. Unpleasant, even if you manage to be out. Having organised leave of absence – suspicious otherwise – from a Forward Rhyl not far off deceased itself, I’m tucked into a seat aboard the Sealink morning ferry out of Holyhead to Dublin with someone else’s drinks containers already rolling round my feet. Just passed Salt Island’s conical 1821 lighthouse (probably the second oldest in Wales), the good/bad/ugliness of a failing seaport at the tip of nowhere is behind us. We’re aimed into a big swell under a roof of boiling cloud, though aimed sounded too positive. Hopping is more like. The Stena Coole Park was Dublin-bound in a series of ungainly, mistimed splats. Even spray hitting the curved glass failed every pattern test. Up to eye-level, then barely above the sealing strip then it was washing the whole pane as though we’d dived. I hate planes— and boats almost as much. I should’ve been doing this in summer at least when strong light gave the surface proper edges, made shapes and fins for a half-Japanese to sketch and keep his attention off any messages routed direct from belly to brain. The ALL-NEW ANTI-SICKNESS DRUG!! TRANKIJEN!!! sold me in the port cafeteria, as replacement for my effective discontinued brand, didn’t work for me. Nor did shutting my eyes. Nor did trying not to think about who I’m going to meet.
Like Trankijen, this journey wasn’t what it seemed for me. For a start mine isn’t a random flight but a familiar one, being the nth time I’ve taken a train and then boarded a boat (the testing bit) before picking a car up for the four-hour slog north west to Josh Meredith’s home. In Co. Mayo now. I’ve known him, thought I’ve known him, known of him, and tried to get to know him, in that order, throughout my life. And usually the trip’s something to look forward to because we don’t meet often enough. Also – I may as well own up – because my destination is Westport. Laid out by Cassels and the great James Wyatt it’s a masterpiece and that rarity in Ireland, a model town. Each return tells me something new about developing a coastal site for habitation, how any vista should include a glimpse of water, a bridge or at least one mountain, so adding value to the other elements. There are streets in Westport that are pure planner’s erotica—
—such as this, inviting South Mall. Trees along it and with a river diving under in a grey stone channel. I’ve come in via the N5 for speed but am cruising now through the pocket, busy centre. Small-scale shops and numerous bars and offices and houses are spruce in multi-colours and new combinations of strawberry and cream, silver and jade. (Always cheerful as they can make it— also wrong today.) The Jester is one building I can pick out straight away, being a public bar inset into a pair of villas that lord it over the street. Lemon and lime livery is being finished off on the pub frontage half— redoing your property is, as Josh says, the local obsession. Something to be proud of OMP. Respect to Westport.
Reluctantly I follow the CARROWBAUN sign to where Westport will thin out and already I can feel my anxiety rising another notch. Just to be perverse, the heavy cloud I’ve travelled under suddenly splits and late-afternoon sun catches the fresh grass along verges that replace pavement here – and makes me notice the samey white coats on many newer homes. So the house I’m after really stands out in cobalt blue. It definitely isn’t new – the front was rendered when Westport was first Georgian-ised but low eaves give away a cottage past, that and opening straight onto the road. I’ve always admired Josh’s choice of solid and workmanlike. But this year – the Year of Rhyl’s Great Wave, the Year of Sara’s Comeback – I park and knock, different moods fighting it out inside me. Impatience to get what I’ve come for over and done with looked like winning.
He was quick with the door. ‘Hello, Josh.’ I hadn’t noticed the chill till bowing my head gets me a cold hand on the back of the neck. At this last moment it occurred to me I usually had a gift – Welsh cakes or the sticky fudge he liked and couldn’t get in Ireland – and today I was here worse than empty-handed.
‘Yori! Get in!’ He backed into a hallway wide enough for only one not-fat person at a time but beyond there was a flicker in the gloom and I smelled the familiar wood smoke. The room he lived in had a fire lit, something Josh did every day apart from the summer months, at five. ‘You on your own?’ he said over his shoulder. ‘What about bringing a girl here sometime? I know that girl from uni wasn’t – in the end – but there’s another, yeah? Bound to be.’
‘That project might be on hold.’
He laughed.
A couple of grown men in a space less than twenty square metres, we were awkward. He did raise an arm as if about to— but the gesture fizzled out. At least, ‘You’re looking fit,’ he could say.
‘Yes.’ He wasn’t. His hair was still thick enough to stand cropping, the scalp barely visible, and he was dressed as ever in wrinkle-free khaki pants and a half-zip tan baselayer open at the neck. There were sports-shoes showing bare feet through. He was a figure from my past and loomed over me just as he used to, sinewy and spare. Pretty good so far. Except time had riddled him, unchecked, like a disease. Much worse than I remembered. I had the weird notion I was back home after one of those faster than light trips they’re saying now will work, you’re still young and then you find everyone else is ancient. ‘I’m here, anyway.’
My feelings finally hit the floor seeing the wreck of him and knowing I was about to do more harm. As if Sara between us and Eurwen between us wasn’t enough. And I have his complete attention and he certainly has mine so I note the weather-beaten skin with masses of tiny haemorrhages across his cheeks and chin and, deep in their sockets, his eyes, dull as a photograph’s. Nothing would ever change for the better behind there, they said. I’d meant to deliver my message straight out so the rest of the stay could be spent in its wake, sticking with him while the surface calmed— now the idea only brought my seasickness back and I stayed dumb. Driven away by the fire and still not saying my piece, I couldn’t find a right position. Over by the window or lean against the wall? Wanting to keep to the promise I’d made myself – Don’t make a production of it! – my fingers went up to a spot on my forehead where my father’s scar ran. I must remind Josh Meredith of another young Japanese that came to his door once. ‘Are you busy?’ I asked.
‘Na-a. Don’t know the meaning of the word. Up the mountain the other day— no, yesterday. When I should’ve been tackling the garden. Old slacker, that’s me.’ His accent remains strong against the pull of Connemara. He points to a Windsor chair. ‘Sit.’
I can’t.
One thing I could start with is the fate of the Avonside property we once shared. Had he seen the pictures? Beyond repair post-flooding, it’s scheduled for demolition. Would he care? I couldn’t make a guess and to put off giving even this information, I scan around as you do in two minds, catching up with Josh’s way of life, or as much as the room displayed. Against the blank wall the first thing stands out is Josh’s framed letter of commendation from Thames Valley Police. I knew it virtually by heart… the assailant in Littlemore, South Oxford who threatened an elderly cashier with a baseball bat and what appeared to be a handgun – it had been a replica gun which he had no way of knowing – but as a result of the courage and professionalism of Officer Meredith a successful arrest was made whilst the safety of other members ofthe public was never compromised. He’d been very young with everything to lose and, stuck in a sort of policeman’s hostel, he’d not even met his future wife yet. A brave man – just being beneath Josh’s roof once made my chest swell with pride. I never said though and should’ve.
Imaginary conversations, always easiest. On the mantelpiece was the polished chunk of driftwood resembling a lizard we’d unearthed together, pulled free of sand and mud and carried home, filthier than the trophy ourselves. Meg screaming in mock horror — then laughter from my mother, who happened to be there. Suddenly Josh’s room seemed even more crowded and I ran a finger along the lizard’s head, anticipating its spines. ‘I remember finding this—’ but that’d be the year I left Rhyl so we were in danger of wandering into quicksand again. Most of our joint memories were pretty raw. Hence not only no screen in here but no images up— and wooden chairs with the sofa pushed back to show the cracked flagged floor as though this was a cell. Just three books propped together on an otherwise empty window ledge were – I’d no need to check – Chambers Concise English Dictionary, a dog-eared PocketGuide to the Trails of Mayo and Galway and A FirstAt Oxford, an identical hardback copy to mine. But unsigned. He’d bought it on eBay for £140 the year Sara went rather than ask his father-in-law for a copy. I picked Sara’s one and only book up like a visual aid. Bleached cover. Inside pristine. The seller’s courtesy bookmark Trinders, Chetwynd Cottage, Hay-on-Wye, UK, Dealers in Rare Editions, Manuscripts etc lurked at the start. ‘Sorry to give no warning—’
His expression lacked energy not intelligence. ‘You’re welcome any time. You know that.’ The tone verged on suspicious and the eyes narrowed. Josh the detective. ‘Spit it out, then. Eurwen, is it?’
‘No. Not her.’ Of course that’s what he’d be afraid of. Bad news of Eurwen. Was there any other sort? I started again. ‘It’s something else, some— thing. A shock. Yesterday I got a message from the Coroner’s clerk in Rhuddlan that they’ve identified a body.’ No sign yet he expected what was coming. ‘Well, part of one. They’ve found pieces of a skeleton that washed ashore on The Wave then got left. They haven’t even started the clear-up in a lot of places so it could’ve just lain there but a man was down by the water and thought he recognised a human skull. It’s taken a couple of weeks to identify because things are really disorganised. But they’re sure. It’s Sara.’
Not a blink. His mouth, a firm line once, was slashed with vertical wrinkles now. And stayed shut. He took it in and then his shoulders jerked up and fell back like somebody stabbed. But it’s the complete freezing of the Josh mask I’ll remember for a long time. ‘Sara?’– like he’d forgotten how to say her name, a barely known person’s or a foreign word he lacked confidence with, Glenn Hughes attempting Sayonara. Then, ‘Why tell you?’ came out hardly audible.
Because you’re my grandfather? Because I’m her grandson?
I said nothing. He would’ve realised it didn’t matter as he asked.
‘Right—’ Comprehension was rushing in fast. ‘Part of a skeleton? Yes.’ He raised a hand like a claw. But you could see the levels of understanding gone through while he glared at me and then, craning forward, it felt like into me. ‘Sara!’
Never at my best with Josh I stepped away, rattled. He’d always had this capacity, my grandfather, without knowing it to remind you what some men are really like. Sudden. Button-activated. Men other than Tomiko, I mean, or Geoffrey Severing, for that matter so it’s not race or age, it’s men like Josh. No use blaming the dead alone when considering Eurwen’s personality. Look at the other parent. I’d seen him punch a door in Avonside so hard it warped out of true never to close again. Now he jumped the gap between us with all the old speed and wrenched the book off me. He clasped it to his chest. A low moan escaped through his clenched jaws, a long base note it must’ve hurt to make. With his face still rigid he circled the chairs and then extended it to knock against the sofa with his knee – an irritated retreat towards the fire – to the window again, like a beast pacing its cage. I became just another obstacle to avoid. The keening continued. Got louder. Something was building behind his façade, that was for sure. Louder again. Speech was impossible even if I could come up with a single sentence.
So what did you expect Yori?
Laps and laps of the room. Still loud but maybe not louder. A good sign?
While I was debating whether to go and find the bottle of spirits he kept in a kitchen cupboard and one glass – and I’ve never wanted to be able to join a man in a drink so much – the moan just stopped with him facing away. He let out a noisy sigh. I waited. He’d demand every detail of the notification, I’d convinced myself. Which was why ready inside the jacket I’d hung up lay the hard copy describing the finding, the identity solving and then the pathologist’s first thoughts, such as they were. Basically it was a list of things that couldn’t be determined. But ‘Yeah, well,’ Josh said, ‘everybody knew she must be dead.’ He came and knelt down in front of the fire, seeming to realise what he had hold of, the book with Sara’s black and white portrait uppermost. I’d often examined it myself, Sara at her best, the possibilities still all there in a face being swept of masses of hair known to be copper.
They stared at each other, Josh and the wife who’d walked out nearly three decades ago, although that woman had been forty and the hair less amazing by then— like the possibilities. Then he seemed to examine the book for condition, pondering, a potential purchaser, and ran a fingertip down the sinuous Pythian Press logo.
Another moment and Josh began to dismantle A First.
The frontispiece is easy— the glue and stitching aren’t any real match for him. Then he finds he can tear out thicker and thicker sections at a time and post wads of paper into spaces between smouldering logs till they flare up. I’ve never seen a book destroyed before. It’s shocking— especially this book. But all I do is watch. Rip, feed. Rip, rip, feed. Soon Josh is puffing and wrestles with the thing. The point comes when he gets worse at it, tearing pages in half rather than removing them properly. A thick, well-made book— but he sticks to it until only the cover remains. The dust jacket is crumpled into a ball and he almost bowls it in. The binding breaks with a crack and the end boards are thrust on either side of the blaze so that for a few seconds they contain ashes with the blue and green flames of the inks running through them. Then the colours burn off and there go the last flakes of Sara’s work. He gives a satisfied huh!
Still breathing heavily, ‘So you’ve told her,’ he said as though we’d just agreed it. ‘You’ve told Eurwen?’
I went for the overdue alcohol and found a nearly full bottle of Bushmills— and went again to boil the kettle, giving him time, I pretended, and lurked in Josh’s kitchen which would strike anybody as surprisingly sleek after the low wonky living room. The MultiCook shone, the steel table gleamed, also the stools pushed under— though the unopened blister pack of lecer next to the sink was out of date. I put it away. On the counter top a lone ripe banana sat in a glazed platter, itself new-looking, a bit holiday present-ish, maybe a bit Meg Upton? They’d come to Ireland as a couple not long after Eurwen and I left his house, and had managed to stay like that for a while. A fresh start even if a late one for Josh. What went wrong wasn’t a subject my grandfather was ever going to discuss. But the cheap pottery looked North African— and Meg had always craved the sun. It could be her choice and I scraped a bit of relief up from that. Someone other than me was out there sharing responsibility.
