***
That afternoon, under the endless blue with its pockets of tiny silky clouds, I cycle towards Mrs Dawson’s house. I spend a little time thinking about Elvis as I peddle. The Reverend at St. Harold’s tried talking to him at the gates of Harley High and he held the attention of my brother longer than anyone I know. I hope it did him a bit of good.
Church bells chime lazily in the distance. I’ve escaped. I’ve led mother to believe that I cycle lots to keep fit and she’s just greatly pleased that one of her off-spring can extrapolate themselves from the TV.
I wear an oversized, green helmet. Mrs Dawson found it in the charity shop. It barely fits and it makes my head look like a giant eco-friendly mushroom but:
I got it free; I’m abiding by the law; I’m offering my brains some protection should I fall off.
I ride a yellow racer. This too, makes me look silly: Green hat, yellow bike.
I could purchase the bike because I won fifty pounds on the Premium Bonds. It was the cheapest second-hand bike that I could afford because one of my brothers ‘borrowed’ the remaining thirty pounds from me and hasn’t returned it yet.
As I approach Mrs Dawson’s cottage, I see her out in her garden, head buried in a bed of purple pansies. She lifts her head and smiles warmly at me; it’s such a genuine and welcoming smile.
‘Good afternoon, Shelly.’ Wiping her hands on an old apron, she stands.
Although on the tall side, Mrs Dawson is very skinny, with a body like a long-distance speed walker. She possesses a weathered beauty and I’ve never seen her wear make-up. Mrs Dawson is a true hippy in my eyes. Today she is wearing a pretty, flowing, sleeveless green dress. In the sunlight, I can see her toned arms and shoulders.
‘Time for tea; you can tell me all about your day.’
Taking off the ragged apron, she stoops and picks up her brown flask.
‘I must have known you’d be coming.’ she says, holding out two plastic mugs and clunking them together.
I set my bike down just inside her front gate and approach through her carefully tended and very pretty flower beds.
‘Thanks, Astra. I’m glad to get away from it all.’
‘I’m sure you are.’
‘Where’s meteor?’
‘He’ll be gallivanting around somewhere, chasing hedgehogs, no doubt.’
She smiles and pours from the old brown flask.
The tea she hands me is slightly sugared – just the way I like it.
I then proceed to tell her all about my day and she listens resolutely for several minutes. Astra Dawson is: My friend; my confidant; my Aunty; my Godmother and my counsellor. She’s my surrogate mum in so many ways.
‘Ahhh, I’ve just remembered, hang on a tick.’
As elegant as a gazelle, she picks herself from the soft lawn where we sit and heads towards the tiny green door at the front of her cottage. Astra likes green.
I take a moment to sit still. I think it’s important to sit and be still from time to time; just switch off.
My counsellor at school tells me it’s very important to appreciate the little moments in life, the here and now; not to always strive towards the future. So I will and here’s what I can see, feel and hear:
There’s a deliciously gentle summer breeze, blowing lightly in my face. The grass I sit upon, feels soft and well-manicured. I do feel peaceful, but I am aware there’s a dull nagging at the back of my mind, that my anxiety button could be pressed somewhere in my subconscious at any moment. I can see and hear the hum of hornets, as they gently hover by a large, lilac coloured bush. There’s an ash tree with low branches that hover lazily in front of Astra’s colourful window boxes. I can hear a few birds twittering in the apple trees behind me, and they sound particularly jovial; how is it that birds always sound jolly? I have never heard a miserable bloody bird in my life! What am I missing so completely, in my life?
The whole garden is myriad of inviting and vivid colours, and I become acutely aware that there is a tiny battle in my mind against default negativity, when I should be relaxing and just enjoying the moment. I like it here. I sit for another couple of minutes trying to enjoy the solitude before Mrs Dawson reappears.
‘I found the most unusual thing in the charity shop’s store room. It was sitting there on a big pile of books.’
She’s carrying something large and brown and she’s wiping its front with her gardening apron.
‘It looks like a brand new, old fashioned book - if you know what I’m trying to say. I was considering throwing it - we have so many books in the store room at the back - but then I opened the front cover, and...’
Only the tiniest plume of dust buffets outwards and shimmers in the sunlight, as Astra opens it on the front page.
‘...viola, my darling.’
There, inside the front cover, on antiquated paper, it reads:
‘To Shelly Clover, on your thirteenth birthday.’
Ever had a wow moment?
I sense my eyes growing larger, and my mouth, well - let’s just say, that it’s wide enough to swallow some of those hornets next to the lilac bush. Nothing this interesting ever happens to me. What is this?
Astra chuckles at my look of surprise, before adding:
‘...And you’re thirteen tomorrow.’
She adds this deliberately, and then pauses, pre-empting my suspicion and before I can respond:
‘No darling, I have nothing to do with this - nothing at all. I’ve got you an entirely different present. This isn’t my style.’
Astra writes limericks and all sorts of poems for people all over the world - that is her customary style - and she usually writes one for me on my birthday, so I believe that she’s telling me the truth.
She hands the book over. It has a solid, thatched front cover, with strange light engravings embroidered into its fabric. There’s a singular, diagonal burn mark; it takes nothing away from its majesty.
‘It’s early Nineteenth century. Have a flick through, darling; it gets very interesting towards the back. And the smell, ooh, you know how I love the smell of any book and this one’s odour is wonderful. The smell of History.’ she proclaims effusively.
I open it and staring at my name, I consider: likelihood; chance; coincidence and fortune.
One of my mother’s ex-boyfriends once took all my comic annuals, with my name written inside, to a car boot sale – he was selling them to pay off his debt. Several years later, I was at a completely separate school fete on the opposite side of the Island and was rummaging around some odd and sods, and came across the very same annuals that I’d let go years before. They had my name inside and everything.
This, however, is very different.
“To Shelly Clover…on your thirteenth birthday.”
I flick over to the contents page. It has been handwritten with the most beautiful, flowing, feather pen. The ink has faded to a brownish colour and the pages are a creamy colour. There is no noticeable damage or wear and tear. For a book so old, it smells divine; a rich and healthy, nostalgic scent. There are several chapters about different things. I pick out the one that says “Nursery Rhymes” and turn to it.
Whoever the author was, they have meticulously crafted several that I remember, the classics:
The Bells of St. Clements, Ring a’ Ring of Roses, Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary.
There are others I don’t recognise. I move to the back of the book; it feels heavier.
Astra Dawson watches me eagerly as I turn to the final page, not a page at all…and I nearly drop the entire thing, as a large dome – sharply serrated around its centre - springs out of the page towards me.
At first, it feels like I’ve uncovered a trap and I stare at it anxiously, waiting for something to happen.
Nothing happens.
Whatever this is, jutting outwards inches off the page, has eight sharp, triangular blades, made of iron. The centre of the object sticks out about six inches off the page. It is solid, apart f
rom a small, circular aperture at its centre.
‘How on…this earth...does it do that?’
I close the page so that the book is completely flat and then open it again.
‘I know! I haven’t got a clue for the life of me, darling, be careful on those sharp spikes.’
The spikes are, indeed, sharp but I am more intrigued by the Three-Dimensional pop-up object in the middle. I close the book again and turn it on its side. Every page packs comfortably and compactly together and from cover to cover, the whole book is nearly five inches in depth. The last page is pressed tightly against the back cover. I open it again very slowly, millimetre by millimetre, in an attempt to understand the mechanism that holds this object flat and hidden. The dome – whatever it is - comes into view, jutting out in unison with my fingers as I prise it open again.
I then prise it apart at different speeds, but the same large, solid object appears at exactly the same rate and there is no force required whatsoever to shut the book. I then flick to the penultimate page to check for scars left by the large, jagged spikes – something utterly different to any other book I have ever looked at. There is not a single mark, bump or crease here. Instead, in large joined-up handwriting, it reads:
“The end of it all.....”
There isn’t a single dent or fold from either the centre of the metal dome or the sharp spikes.
Mrs Dawson speaks; her clear blue eyes reflecting the sparkle in mine.
‘I saw some things in the seventies that you wouldn’t believe darling- you know...‘ she winks, ‘...things to do with your mind, but I’ve never ever seen anything like this without substances that alter your perceptions.’
My Aunty – Astra Dawson – has always been honest about her life.
Astra places her hands on the final page next to mine.
‘Now I must confess – I was so intrigued that I had a go at pulling these levers. They go up and down, and they must have a purpose, but I’m at a bit of a loss as to what. Be careful with them though.’
I gently push up one of the levers. It clicks. I push another one up, another down and another up. At this point all the levers click back into their original position with such singular force, that one of the sharp edges slices into my finger tip.
‘Owww!’
A tiny bit of blood smears on the centre of the dome as I pull it away. The drop vanishes instantly into the small hole in the middle.
‘Are you okay flower? I’ll get you a plaster.’
‘No it’s okay.’ I suck on my throbbing index finger.
‘Now listen Shelly, I have weird feelings about this book.’
Astra passes her hand over the book as if she is communicating with some unseen force. Although, I am intrigued by her ‘feelings’, I think I’m more interested in the look on her face as she describes them.
‘It’s neither malevolent nor benign - most strange though.’
Her expression hangs for a moment as I close the book and nod, acknowledging her concern.
The rest of the afternoon we sit there in the sun, talking some more about my arduous morning in front of the board of governors, Elvis’ second exclusion and my birthday tomorrow. I tell her about my appointment with the school counsellor. Mrs Dawson listens intently as always. We discuss our rehearsal for the upcoming quarter peel at St. Harold’s; it’s an important one; a practice, ready to mark two hundred years since the Island rose from obscurity on to the world map. Towards the end of the afternoon, I pack my book into my bright green rucksack – now very heavy - and set off riding into the sun. I love the feel of the sun on my face.
I have one more place to visit before I go home.
Within ten minutes, I’m approaching the cemetery at St. Harold’s, just as the bell chimes four o’clock. A solitary automatic bell rings out across the empty churchyard. I cycle past an old tomb, where an ornate statue of the Virgin Mary presides over its silent inhabitants.
So, here I am now inside the cemetery – which I am in love with.
I stop and rest for a while, the bag on my back weighing me down. My favourite spot is set deep inside, at the back of the Church, under a gnarled, rapidly-desisting ash tree. Its white trunk and branches bent and contorted to form an arch. There’s a sadness in its posture. It looks like a crooked old man stooping to gather his grand-children in his arms for the very last time. I think the ashen tree and the mouldy, fading headstones in this quiet place clear my head more than anything else. The gentle breeze trivially brushes the leaves above me; they glisten and sway in the friendly sun. The earth here is harder than Astra Dawson’s front lawn, but it’s not uncomfortable.
I know that St. Harold’s was built in Norman times as its darkened grey brick-work does not stand as high as some of the sixteenth century Tudor churches.
One of the saddest graves lies opposite me.
It’s that of a girl who died on her thirteenth birthday. It’s one of the newer plots here in the cemetery, confirmed by the glimmering sheen of the marble headstone: Something so new, marking something that is no longer; a life taken so early.
I think about this girl constantly because of our similarities. I think about her, at home, at school, and sometimes as I fall asleep at night. I didn’t know her. She died on March 13th 2003. That wasn’t too long ago in the grand scheme of things, but I would barely have been two. My mother vaguely knows the family who lost their daughter. She was a foster child, in a loving family, but found it hard to adjust. It’s hard to imagine what that must be like for her family – and for her: One minute she was alive; thinking and feeling the kind of pre-teen thoughts that I have, and the next – in an instant – just…gone. That mind has vanished; it’s no longer.
And yet, the gravestone still looks new. I guess as its newness ebbs away so do the memories of the little girl, just like everyone else in this place. Her name was Kelly Mortimor. Kelly’s life has, inadvertently, become a marker for my own; a point of reference for where we come from and where we’re going to, and for those who don’t make it that far. She died on her thirteenth birthday. I’ve become more and more obsessed with her as my birthday approaches; what if I’m like her and I don’t make it past the big day?
Mother says it was entirely her own fault.
She’d been showing off and had strolled across a busy road in a nonchalant fashion. She was attention-seeking; there was a group of boys on the opposite side. She must have presumed the driver of the car that hit her would fully appreciate that the road was her catwalk and slow to accommodate her.
Unfortunately, the woman behind the wheel was in the middle of her second sneeze when they collided. She was right on the speed limit too – no blame apportioned. As Kelly hit the bonnet, the windshield, and flew over the back of the car, she must have thought she’d be okay. Still - after all - in the movies they always get up again, don’t they?
She smashed her head on the road several feet behind the car and died of brain damage three days later. I’ll take special care crossing the road on my birthday tomorrow.
It is as I am contemplating Kelly’s life that a fragment in my unconscious mind slowly becomes attuned to something missing in front of me. I squint and look; I know this place so well.
There’s a small marble Angel attached to Kelly’s headstone and it’s no longer there.
Who on earth would take that?
It’s part of the gravestone itself for goodness sake.
I freeze a little and wonder how this could happen? Can this be classified as a crime? Does the Reverend Llewellyn know about this? I clamber to my feet and tread carefully around the mound towards the polished slab. It’s clearly been taken off by someone who knows what they are doing. It’s not been snapped off by some mindless thug.
So, Shelly: What now?
I’m upset that someone’s taken it, but the selfish part of me is probably more pained because it was a beautifully ornate part of the gravestone. Maybe somebody has taken it away for repair. T
hat’s probably the most plausible explanation. Maybe the family had noticed some damage to it.
I look around searching for the Reverend.
He’s a small Scottish man.
I can’t see him anywhere and consider riding over to the Vicarage to inform him, but it’s a distance and I’ve already taken enough time out to rest here. Truth is; I find him a bit scary. I finally decide that it’s simply been taken away to be fixed, but I’ll enquire about it the next time I see the Minister on his bicycle, or at Bells later - yes, that will do it.
Not entirely convinced that I’ve chosen the best course of action, I leave the Church as the automatic bell chimes half-past four. I have a little anxiety-knot inside my chest and I’m not sure if it’s because of the decision I’ve just made, or because I may be late for dinner. There’s someone else I want to visit on my day off.
Less than five minutes away from here lives one of my only other true friends, AKM as I abbreviate: Arthur Kingsley McFadden.
Arthur lives in the most bizarre house that he designed and built himself on the outskirts of Harley, one of the three small towns on the Island. He built it with a large amount of money he inherited. It’s an oddity to say the least – an upside down house; not very attractive but fitting for an inventor.
It looks like it’s been dropped from the sky on its head; and…not quite at a straight angle Half of the roof appears to be under the ground (Although, it really isn’t). Window ledges appear at the top of each window frame. Flowerpots can be found on these. (I don’t know how he reaches any of them.) Because it’s upside down, the top of the house is completely flat, and slightly slanted. The garden is also an enigma, containing the skeletal structures of many mechanical animals. They aren’t though. In actual fact, they are the eclectic designs of Arthur’s great mind; moving apparatus and contraptions that are really too large for the purpose they were built to achieve. They clutter the garden to the extent that it looks like the whole plot is undergoing permanent renovations.
I was going to call in anyway, but now I’m desperate to show Arthur the unusual book that Astra gave me, to get his take on the pop-up back page; he’s bound to have a clue what it is.
Having released my burden from my back and fastened up my bike, I approach through the gate.
Arthur has what I call a ‘tricksy’ gate. He thinks that anyone who solves the puzzle of how the gate is opened automatically deserves a visit. I ignore the handle on the black gate that you can click up and down until the cows come home, and get nowhere, and place my hands on the gate post itself. By pushing the post down, the gate is released.
I really like this. I feel like one of the privileged few who has decoded an ancient riddle and if there’s anyone in the vicinity, I make sure they’re not watching as I operate it.
I’m barely through it when I recoil in mild horror.
There lying in front of me, on his lawn, naked apart from purple underpants and some tiny red circular shades, (Or, are they swimming goggles?) is Arthur. He’s either sun-bathing or he’s dead. Surely an inventor doesn’t sunbathe, so he must be dead.
He’s lying completely still and I can’t see him move. I can’t see him breathe and I feel myself beginning to freak.
‘Ahhh. The wonderful Shelly Clover...’ comes the voice from the corpse on the floor.
I don’t even see his mouth move to utter these words, it’s almost like I’ve been greeted by a collapsed, shop window mannequin - and a particularly pale one at that.
‘Are you alright, Mr McFadden!?’
The head of the cadaver suddenly resurrects, turning to smile.
‘Yes I am, as a matter of fact.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Why, I’m doing what I always do – something novel, something new.’
I try hard to suppress a giggle, ‘Surely, not inventing.’
‘Looks – I know in this case – can be very, very deceiving.’
I’ve never been in this situation with Arthur, and I feel a little embarrassed to be seeing his pasty old skin. Only his colourfully mismatched attire – purple swim shorts and red sun glasses - gives me a sense that everything’s quite normal here.
‘I’m developing a new line in tan tattoos,’ he announces, peeling something partly transparent from his neck down to his waist.
Although it is difficult to see in the sun light, it looks like a piece of cling-film with lots of shapes dotted around it.
‘Lots of high-factor sun cream needed of course; don’t want to be encouraging skin cancer, do I? I’ve been lying out in the sun for the last three days, building the pattern.’
Even though AKM has a naturally white complexion, he’s tanned himself enough to reveal several tribal symbols - and love hearts - over his stomach. He then turns around and peels another tan-tattoo from his back to reveal an outline of mottled snake skin.
‘Ermm...,’ I’m speechless, ‘It’s not your usual line of inventing.’
‘Ahhh, one has to move with the times: Tis’ the mark of a good inventor. I have created a chemical in the dressing that turns the skin pattern several colours, although, the indigo isn’t working too well…’
Arthur rises to his feet and removes his goggle-like shades. I need to just point out that even though both Mr McFadden and Mrs Dawson are friends, I still feel a little shy around them. Mrs Dawson’s my Godmother and spent a lot of time with me as a child, and so I feel reasonably comfortable around her. I grew up with her, more or less. AKM on the other hand, is someone I’ve only got to know through my old part-time job delivering free newspapers every week. It took me about six weeks to figure out how to use his crazy gate. This was about four years ago. Unbeknown to me, he’d be watching me struggling away from one of his dark topsy-turvy windows. He’d figured that I’d be the same as previous paper-boys who would give up attempting to deliver.
I however, felt duty-bound to keep trying.
I guess I’m one of these girls who wants to please people and not let them down. I feel like I’ve let my family down many times, my mother’s boyfriends and my brothers in particular. I’ve always tried my best with them. Anyway, I kept trying with the gate and by the sixth week I’d figured it out. At this point, (Arthur later confided in me) he’d gone from thinking, “Here’s another imbecile...to, here’s somebody with tenacity and fortitude”. He’d been silently rooting for me from week four onwards, as he sat inside with his cup of coffee and a different morning paper (collected from the local shop). But, he refused to give me any help. I was also motivated by a desire to have a good look at his inventions; they looked so interesting from the roadside.
When I finally figured how it worked and I marched up his bendy path for the first time to the lavender coloured front door, I received nothing short of a fanfare.
He’d mistakenly thought I was gifted in some way, and even though I didn’t believe it, it was nice to hear somebody encourage me; it felt great. I felt very nervous going there for many months afterwards, being as I am shy and quiet, but he’d always make a fuss. I’d be escorted around his house, his garden, his pool at the back with the mechanical shark (not working) and I’d be shown his weird and wonderful inventions, and I loved it – all of it.
I’d purposefully set off on my round a full half hour early, so that I could spend more time at his place; the last stop on my route. I guess I’m a bit weird (so - the girls at school constantly tell me anyway) but in Arthur, I see someone who is misunderstood by society.
‘Do forgive my purple pants. I bought them in nineteen seventy eight.’
Mr McFadden has wispy white facial hair: A moustache that curls up at either side; a manicured pointy goatee beard, and thin side burns descending down the side of his cheeks. His nose is small and his teeth are dazzlingly bright - a testament to one of his molar-whitening inventions that worked a bit too well – and will never, ever be marketed. He looks sharp and intelligent, and he most certainly is.
But, despi
te all of that - I still behold before me – a nutty professor with one the most incongruous and ridiculous sun tans the world. He has red and yellow markings over his tummy and green, mottled, reptilian lines over all his back.
‘I’ve brought something to show you, that I know you’ll find interesting.’ I say.
He turns his head to the side and closes one eye suspiciously.
‘I’ve been waiting years for someone with your talent to say that to me.’
Just as I reach into my bag to pull out the book, my mobile goes. I reach past the book and scoop it from the bottom of my bag. It’s mother.
‘Hello.’
‘Shelly – you need to come home right away!’
I hear a commotion in the background.
‘Where are you? I need you to come back. Come straight home.’
Her voice is close to breaking.
‘Mum, what’s happening?’ The knot in my tummy tightens. The signal breaks a little and then there’s a pause.
‘...Mark and Elvis have had a row.’
‘Mum, I’m at Arthur’s.’
Arthur is now looking concerned.
‘Buddy’s really upset. I need you to come and look after Buddy.’
That one always works.
Mother knows the relationship I have with Buddy, and occasionally uses him as a bargaining tool. In this case, I have no hesitation; if Buddy’s upset, I’m already home.
Even though I’m absolutely terrified by some of the domestic abuse I’ve witnessed over the years, I know Buddy is even more so; it’s completely beyond his realm of understanding. When Buddy gets distressed, it breaks my heart. I’m very scared though and I’m now shaking as I hold the phone. Arthur looks on, compassion etched in his face. I hang up.
There’s a moment of quiet, of stillness.
Arthur speaks, ‘Is there anything I can do, Shelly, anything at all?’
‘You can invent a machine that makes my world a better place to live...and Buddy’s.’
Arthur nods slowly and thoughtfully, but there’s also something inquisitive in his expression that I can’t quite make out: Maybe he does want to try and invent that for me.
‘I’d love to meet Buddy sometime.’
He smiles.
‘Shelly, providing everything’s okay at home, you are most welcome to pop round here after five tomorrow, after you’ve done your homework, for afternoon tea and triangle sandwiches. You would be an honoured guest.’
I’ve managed to get my ruck sack halfway on my back, and I’m heading towards the gate as Mr McFadden is finishing that sentence.
‘Can I text you?’ I call out – the anxiety making me squeal.
I’m back on the bike and peddling away as I hear his reply.
‘Of course, just make sure you text tomorrow regardless of whether you can make it or not...just to let me know how you are?’
Chapter Two
Elvis Has(n’t) Left The Building