Bigot Hall

METAL BOX

Like human hair, the reputation of a saint grows after death. Uncle Blute had driven a Morris Traveller into the lake. Now the turquoise square of its roof rippled just below the surface, dappled with emerald moss and jacinth rust. ‘Your mother’s brother,’ stated Snap. ‘Strange chap. Eyebrows met in the middle of someone else’s face. Insisted the same birds were being born every few years. Finite number. Made calculations. Invented devices he couldn’t operate. Disappeared for days at a time. Staggered back unable to tell the tale, covered in insect bites. A gentleman in the days when the word had a meaning.’

Adrienne said she dimly recalled him doing a stunt with his nose. ‘Turned it inside out,’ she said, frowning. ‘So it looked like a sea anemone. Arced over laughing — never grew tired of it.’

‘Well he won’t be doing anything with his muzzle these days,’ I said. ‘First thing to go Father says and I’m tempted to agree with him. Becomes a luxury.’

But I was forgetting the lake. Like certain Nevada lakes its water was clinically pure, preserving anything which sank there. After ten years Blute was at the wheel in immaculate condition.

Yet the strangest thing was that due to the water’s conductive alkalinity the headlights and radio were still on. If you sat at a particular spot on the shore you could faintly hear the weather report. At night a corner of the lake glowed an agreeably ghoulish green. Adrienne would sit with me on an overhanging rock, her face underlit as she crunched an apple. ‘He was ready.’

On the anniversary of his death it was decided we should endure a memorial service for this amusing fellow. We trooped down to the lake in a squelch of rubber insulation, carrying wreaths of iron flowers which the nuns had hammered to order. ‘Why the hell are we doing this now?’ I asked, tugging on Father’s sleeve.

He raised his mask. ‘Man is made up of body and spirit, but not until death is he forced to take sides.’

That shut me up — I bit upon the snorkel and looked toward the water. The others were already getting in, big ripples spreading — they were like zealots in a ritual cleansing. As I began wading after them I heard classical music throbbing through the water and thought maybe it wasn’t such a malignant ceremony. Above all, I was curious to see an authentic gentleman.

As my mask went under the surface everything became luminous. I saw the others floating like haunts around the two headlights. Debussy’s Rondes de printemps was playing as Mother laid a metal wreath on the bonnet. I couldn’t help but marvel at the condition of the wooden panelling.

‘There’s Blute,’ said Father, touching his mask to mine. ‘Absolutely mint.’

The driver, whose white balloon head became visible through the windshield, was certainly in good repair. He was staring like a madman, his chalky hands still on the wheel. His nose was squashed against the glass like the sucker of a snail, nostrils flared. Light and shadow shifted like commune ideologies, giving the illusion of life. But there was no reaction when I laid the wreath — nothing there atall. This was either a dead, abandoned body or a wax mannequin. Neither was of interest to me.

As I stared, the music faded and an announcer began to describe the royal celebrations. It was Jubilee year.