The House of Doctor Dee

FOUR

THE GARDENER FOUND the small bones. He had arrived to clean up the ground in front of the house and, although it was early in the morning, I thought I could smell drink upon his breath. He was wearing the headphones of a Walkman, and seemed to be swaying to some insistent tune. So I watched him as he set to work among the weeds and bushes; he was no more than middle-aged but he seemed very feeble, and immediately I regretted hiring him. The weeds defeated him, and he was bent over one patch of ground with a spade in his hand for several minutes. Then he began to examine the stone path tentatively and cautiously, as if it were about to collapse beneath his feet, before turning his attention to an area of tall grass. He was digging at its roots, without very much success, when suddenly he slipped and fell forward. I could see no other movement, so I hurried outside: he was sprawled inside a small pit which had been dug between some bushes but, more curiously, he had disturbed a ring of bones which had been neatly placed at the bottom of it.

'That's a very unusual thing,' he said, quite unperturbed by his fall. 'To see bones like that.'

My first sensation was that they were the remains of a child, and I looked at him in horror. 'What do you think they could be?'

'A dog. A cat. Some damn thing like that.' He picked up one of the bones and handed it to me; it felt oddly soft and pliable and I was tempted to put it up to my face, when I saw something gleaming by the side of the pit. It was a glass tube, snapped in half, and I recognized it at once: it was the same as the glass I had found in the drawer, with the odd distortion or protuberance at the end. But it had broken so neatly, as if something had been carefully poured on to the ground.

I went back into the house, and opened the table beneath the window in the ground-floor room; the glass tube was no longer in the drawer. I looked more carefully, letting my hand slide over the dusty wooden interior, when I felt something yield to my touch. Some sheets of paper had been laid here. When I removed them I saw that on the first of them had been written, in crude capitals, DOCTOR DEE'S RECIPE. I stared at the words in surprise: here was the strangest proof of what I had discovered yesterday, and the identity of the one who came before me in this house was now unexpectedly confirmed. But what kind of 'recipe' was this?

So that it may grow without the help of any womb! This is the secret of all secrets, and must remain so until that time of the end when all secrets will be revealed. Let the spagyricus take the seed and place it within a sealed glass, for preference the glass of Antwerp in which all light and heat seem to prosper. Bury it within horse dung for the next forty days, together with four true magnets in the shape of a cross, without forgetting to renew the water within the glass by pouring in the liquid of fresh dew each fourth day; then on the forty-first day it will begin to breathe and move its limbs. It will seem to you like a perfect human shape, but transparent and without any eyes. Now it must imbibe arcanum sanguinis hominis for the space of one year, all the while remaining beneath the glass, and at the end of that time it will be a pretty little infant thing. It will be a true homunculus, therefore, and can be taught like any other child; it will grow and prosper with all its intellect and faculties, until its thirtieth year when it will fall asleep and return to its first unformed state. One of the generation of the Inspirati must then cherish it, and place it again within glass, so that this secret and wonderful being may grow once again and walk upon the world. If you speak to it the sacred words it will prophesy about future events most cunningly, but its chief glory is that with proper care and reverence it will be constantly regenerated and so live for ever.

I looked up, and through the window glimpsed the clouds passing across the house. They formed such strange shapes that for a moment I thought I saw my own face among them; but the vision faded, and I looked down again at the papers I held in my hand. How could such things be? Margaret Lucas had told me that Doctor Dee practised black magic, but this was some monstrous fantasy. To create an artificial life within a tube of glass… I turned to the next sheet of paper, and then saw this.

PASSAGES IN ITS LIFE

It survived the Black Death by taking a compound of tannic acid, which it mixed instinctively. It prophesied the Great Fire, though no one listened. Dogs barked at its coming, and horses were afraid, but nothing else in nature recognized it for what it was. Yet it was loved by cats.

It knew Isaac Newton, and they held many learned conferences in which it explained to him the scientific meaning of the kabbalah. It was present at Newton's death, and was the thing which placed the coins upon his eyes.

It joined the Royal Society, and did several notable experiments upon the functions of the lymph gland.

It created the air pump, and then wrote in its pocket-book: Only our visions give us away.

It was employed in a glassworks, in Holborn, making lenses for the Greenwich Observatory.

It was once attacked by a London mob, which from its pale complexion thought it was a Huguenot.

It was a teacher at St Mary's Infant School in Walthamstow when it was first opened in 1824. Here it made a model of Trevithick's steam locomotive, to the great delight of the children. In the company of young people its natural colour was a light pink, which was ascribed by the other teachers to rapid circulation of the blood.

It has worked in the sewers beneath London.

It looked after Charles Babbage from his infancy, knowing him to hold the key to future prosperity.

It loved to walk among the New Docks at Wapping where there was an iron swing-bridge.

It worked on radar during the Second World War.

It travelled to the moon.

There are times when it leads an ordinary life in the world, without knowing anything of its destiny, but then by accident it causes wonders. It is such a loving subject that it helps others to find their true genius. It remembers nothing about its past or future until it returns home at the end of its thirty years, but it always does return home.

It has a doctrine — it believes in progress and the perfectibility of man. That is why, in the presence of superstitious people, it changes from white to red.

This is its vision of the future. It knows that contemporary science will develop so far that it will return to its origins, purified, and then expound the mysteries of the past. The doctrines of the alchemists and the astrologers, whom the homunculus knew very well, will then be revived within the great vision of quantum theory.

It knew Galen, and says that his beliefs were essentially correct. The doctrine of the humours will therefore be revived. The homunculus further tells us that the theory of the four elements is also accurate in a spiritual sense and will one day be employed by theoretical physicists.

It has one great fear. If the cycle of the ages is not mastered by great scientists, then the end of time (which it prophesies for the year 2365) will be reversed. It knows then that the centuries will roll back and that humankind will return in stages to its beginning. The Victorian and Elizabethan periods will recur, and Rome will rise again before crumbling into the darkness of what we now call pre-history.

I had read enough, but I looked at the paper a little longer; I seemed to know the handwriting, and then at once I realized that it was my father's.

There was a tapping at the door, and I went towards it in alarm. It was the gardener. 'What do you want me to do with those bones?'

'Bury them,' I said. 'Bury them as deep as you can.' He looked so worn and tired from digging in the old garden that I felt sorry for him. 'No. Wait a minute. I'll help you.'

So together we walked over to the pit and covered the circle of bones with dry earth; then I poured more soil upon the spot, and stamped it down with my foot. I had already taken out the two halves of the glass tube, and now I carried them down Cloak Lane and into the churchyard of St James. I would have been happy to linger among the graves, but there were two old men sitting apart on fragments of the stone wall there; it was as if they were waiting for resurrection. I did not want to disturb them and so, on an impulse, I climbed the steps towards the front porch; the great wooden door was unlocked, and I entered the cool darkness of the church. I was still holding the glass, and as soon as I saw the baptismal font by a side altar I knew what I should do. I went over and filled both pieces with holy water; the water seemed warm to my touch, and I placed the halves of the glass tube against the small altar. Then I crept down the aisle, and sat in one of the wooden pews. I do not know if I tried to pray — there was nothing I really wished to pray for — but I remember kneeling down and putting my face in my hands. Somehow I wanted to lose myself, and so be at peace. But as I knelt there in the silence I knew there could be no rest for me here: my god dwelt where my love was, and my love was for the past. If I had any deity, it was contained within time itself. That was all I could worship and reverence — that passage of the generations which, as a researcher, I tried to enter. There was nothing for me in this place.

It was midday by the time I returned to Cloak Lane, and the gardener had gone. I hurried along the path, taking care not to look at the mound of freshly dug earth, and opened the door as quickly as I could: I did not want to admit to myself that I was afraid to enter the old house, now that I had found the notes in my father's handwriting. If I once entertained that fear, where might it lead? I might find myself permanently estranged or excluded from what was, after all, my inheritance.

Once again I was surprised by the silence of the house, and I could hear myself breathing as I sat down on the stairs. I was about to climb up to my bedroom, when I heard the low murmur or whisper of water. Was this what John Dee had heard, as the stream of the Fleet flowed down in his garden towards the Thames? Then I realized that the sound was coming from within the house. I could still hear my own breathing as I hurried into the kitchen, but nothing was wrong: I had left the tap running in the sink, and the water was flowing down the drain to the pipes beneath the earth. It was such a clear stream, too. It sparkled in the light of the sun coming through the window, and for a moment I closed my eyes in peace. When I opened them, the water was gone. The current had been stopped. And what was this? I recalled leaving my breakfast cup and plate in the sink, but now I could see them gleaming upon the shelf. I must have cleaned and dried them in some reverie, and it occurred to me that there might have been other occasions when I wandered through this house like a sleepwalker. I went up to my own room and noticed, with some surprise, that the bed had been made; as far as I was aware, I had left it in a state of disarray that morning. After a moment I realized that a small carpet had been laid across the carefully folded sheets. It was then I telephoned Daniel Moore.

He arrived soon after, and listened very quietly as I tried to explain everything that seemed to have happened within the house. For some reason I did not mention the notes about the homunculus, perhaps because it was too ridiculous a fantasy to entertain. But I did mention John Dee, and then for no particular reason started laughing. Daniel got up quickly from his chair, and went over to the window. 'Summer will be coming to an end shortly,' he said, rubbing his hands with satisfaction. 'No more late nights.'

I was about to ask him about his strange knowledge of the house — how he had found the recess under the stairs and how he knew about the sealed window — when the telephone rang. It was my mother and, before I could say anything, she began apologizing for her behaviour two days before. She would have called earlier, she said, but she had been ill ever since. 'I was coming down with something, Matty. I just wasn't myself. I wasn't myself at all.'

'How are your eyes?'

'My eyes?'

'Are you still seeing things?'

'Oh no. Of course not. I'm not seeing anything now.'

'It must have been the house, I suppose.' I was eager to have her opinion on this place. 'Did you like it?'

'How could I like it, Matthew, when I felt so ill?' Her curt manner had re-emerged, but then she apologized again and rang off.

When I came back into the room, Daniel was still looking out of the window and he started to whistle. Then he returned to his chair and leaned over to me, his hands clasped in front of him as if he were praying very earnestly. 'Let's put it this way, Matthew. Aren't we being a little too theatrical? Do you really believe that someone, or something, is living here with you?'

'But what about the dishes, and the carpet on the bed?'

'Perhaps we were doing a little sweeping, or dusting, and left it there by accident.' His hands were still clasped tightly in front of him. 'Haven't we been rather absent-minded recently?'

'Well…'

'I'm telling you, Matthew, that nothing out of the ordinary has happened here.' I suppose I was reassured by what he said, although the alternative — that something 'out of the ordinary' had occurred in this house — was too disagreeable to consider. 'Let's stick to what is known rather than what is unknown,' he was saying now. 'Tell me exactly what you found out yesterday.'

'Only that John Dee paid rates here in 1563 and that, according to Margaret Lucas, he was a black magician.'

'Oh, she always has something fanciful to say.'

'You asked me the other day how far I wanted to take this research.' I felt very tired and had the most peculiar sensation of hearing myself speaking from a distance, as if I were somewhere else within the room. 'I want to know everything, Daniel. I won't find any rest until I do. How does that poem go? "And yet can I not hide me in no dark place".'

He looked at me oddly for a moment, as if I had spoken out of turn. 'I suppose it is the right thing to do.'

'It's the only thing to do. It's my responsibility.'

'You make it sound as if you belong to the house.'

'I feel as if I belong to something. Don't you feel it, too?' It occurred to me suddenly that I might hang the carpets on the walls, so that the polished stone of the floor could reflect their colours. 'And don't you think there's a kind of duty involved? When you come to a place like this? I owe it to the house. I owe it to myself.'

'And to John Dee?'

'Of course. In a sense he's my ancestor now.'

I closed my eyes; I must have been more tired than I knew, because at once I found myself dreaming of the churchyard I had just visited. There was a tramp and a dog walking towards me. But I could only have slept for a moment because now, when I awoke, I could hear Daniel talking as if there had been no interval at all. 'In that case,' he was saying, 'John Dee may be waiting for us somewhere. Where shall we begin?'

*

Once upon a time I was afraid of libraries. Those shelves of books formed a world which had, almost literally, turned its back upon me; the smell of dust and wood, and faded pages, induced in me a sense of melancholy loss. Yet I began to repair my life when I became a researcher and entered the past: then one book led to another book, one document to another document, one theme to another theme, and I was led down a sweet labyrinth of learning in which I could lose myself. It has been said that books talk to one another when no one is present to hear them speak, but I know better than that: they are forever engaged in an act of silent communion which, if we are fortunate, we can overhear. I soon came to recognize the people who also understood this. They were the ones who always relaxed as they walked among the shelves, as if they were being comforted and protected by a thousand invisible presences. They seem to be talking to themselves but, no, they are talking to the books. And so I am a subscriber to the English History Library in Carver's Square, which, of all London libraries, is the most curious and dilapidated; the passages are narrow, the stairs circuitous, and the general atmosphere one of benign decay. The books here are often piled up on the floors, while the shelves can hardly bear the weight of the volumes which have been deposited on them over the years. Yet, somewhere among this ruin, I hoped to find John Dee.

In fact, to my surprise, there were two books devoted to him in an alcove labelled, in old-fashioned Gothic script, 'The History of English Science'. The most recent was John Dee's Natural Philosophy: Between Science and Religion by Nicholas Clulee, and as soon as I took it down from the shelf I realized that this was not the history of a black magician; there was a bibliography of thirty-four pages and it was clear, even from my brief examination of the chapters, that this was a serious account of mathematics, of astronomy, and of philosophy. Beside this volume was another, John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus by Peter French; and when I took it down, he stared at me. He was depicted on the cover, and in my sudden fright I almost dropped the book. I had not expected to see him so soon, and it took me a moment before I could look at the painting again. The eyes were slightly too large, as if the artist had not known how to capture their brightness, and there was something about his expression that disquieted me. His capacious forehead was framed by a black skull cap; he had a medium-length grey beard, which spilled over his white ruff, and he seemed to be wearing a black gown. And yet what was wrong with his expression? He looked both menacing and confidential, as if he harboured some secret of great importance which he might or might not reveal to me. But his eyes were so wide, and so steady, that I could not help but meet his gaze.

I carried these books back to Cloak Lane, and placed them on the table beneath the window. I suppose that this was for me the strangest part of all — to leave these books about Doctor Dee in the same room where he had once walked. I felt as if I were some magician, trying to conjure him into existence from the grave. And then suddenly it occurred to me that he might have died in this house. I could have opened one of the books to discover the truth of this, but instead I turned and left the room.

I opened the front door and went out into the garden. It was a humid summer evening after another humid day, and I was peculiarly tired and nerveless. I do not think I would have noticed even if the spectre of John Dee had suddenly risen up before me: I felt too much of a ghost myself. I walked slowly over to the side of the garden, where a narrow passage still filled with weeds separated my house from a high public wall. I had never properly examined this narrow space, largely because it was filled with the kind of stray profuse vegetation which might harbour living things. But I walked through it now, and ran my hand across the old wall; it was cold, and some of its crumbling texture adhered to my fingers. I licked it, and it tasted like ancient salt.

It was then I noticed how, near the level of the ground, large black marks were painted across the stone; at least that was how it seemed to me for a moment, but when I knelt down I realized that these stains had deeply impregnated the stone itself. They looked like scorch marks. I turned to the wall of the house, and patches of blackened stone were also visible. Something had burned here. Or the house itself had been touched by fire. And if the original upper storeys of the house had been destroyed, it would explain the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century additions. It could not have happened in the Great Fire, since Clerkenwell was not part of the area of burning London. No, this had occurred at some earlier time.

I looked up at the sky for a moment, shielding my eyes from its brightness, and then without thought I lifted my shirt, pulled down my trousers, squatted upon the ground, and defecated. I was so surprised by what I had done that I rose hastily to my feet and stood there for a minute or so, slowly rocking backwards and forwards. Was it in shit like this that the homunculus had grown? I could have stayed there for ever, looking down at the ground, but I was disturbed by a noise behind me; it sounded like laughter, but then turned into a sigh. Had someone been watching me all this time? I pulled up my trousers and ran back into the house.

*

John Dee was described by Aubrey as 'one of the ornaments of his Age'; Queen Elizabeth called him 'hyr philosopher', and another contemporary said that he was 'the prince of Mathematicians of this age'. Peter French, in his biography, declared him to be 'Elizabethan England's greatest magus'. So much I recognized at once. But then, over the next few days, I began to be surprised by this man who had once inhabited my house; he was an adept in mathematics and astronomy, in geography and navigation, in antiquarian studies and natural philosophy, in astrology and the mechanical sciences, in magic and theology. I consulted other books which chronicled his development: Frances Yates's Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, Astronomical Thought in Renaissance England by F.R. Johnson, and E.G.R. Taylor's Tudor Geography, 1485–1583. All these accounts had very little to do with his reputation as a conjuror or a black magician and, as I read various alternative descriptions in other texts, the only familiar image was the face I now knew so well. Every time I entered the ground-floor room, with its thick stone walls and narrow windows, I took up the book and tried to return his steady gaze.

In Frances Yates's history Doctor Dee was described as a 'Renaissance Magus' who continued in England the same hermetic tradition that encompassed Ficino, Pico della Mirandola and Giordano Bruno. But in his study Nicholas Clulee disagreed, suggesting that a large part of Doctor Dee's inheritance came from medieval sources and particularly from the writings and experiments of Roger Bacon. Where Yates tended to see Doctor Dee as the steady exponent of a European philosophy, Clulee described him as a more eclectic and empirical figure. Yet all my books conveyed the same central theme — that he stood upon that ground where the concerns of his age met and could not easily be distinguished. There was another fact which seemed to be of equal significance. John Dee himself had, in one way or another, belonged to every time. He was in part a medievalist, expounding ancient formulae, but he was also an active agent in contemporary natural philosophy; he was an antiquarian, who speculated about the origins of Britain and the presence of ancient cities beneath the earth, but he was also one of those who anticipated a future scientific revolution with his experiments in mechanics; he was an alchemist and astrologer who scrutinized the spiritual world, but he was also a geographer who plotted navigation charts for Elizabethan explorers. He was everywhere at once and, as I walked about his old house, I had the sense that somehow he had conquered time.

Through these books, too, I came to understand the alchemy in which John Dee placed his faith. He believed the world to be imbued with spiritual properties — with 'signatures' and 'correspondences' that reveal its true nature. The seed of the aconite is used to cure optical disorders because it is in the shape of an eyelid; the breed of dog called the Bedlington terrier resembles a lamb and is thus the most nervous of its species. Each material thing is the visible home of a universal power, or congregation of powers, and it was the task of the enlightened philosopher and alchemist to see these true constituents. He understood from the very successful medicine of Paracelsus, for example, how the stars, the plants of the earth and the human body might be fruitfully combined to effect cures. But there was another truth: God is within man, according to John Dee, and he who understands himself understands the universe. The alchemist finds the perfection or pure will within all materials; he knows that salt is desire, mercury is turbulence, sulphur is anguish. When the alchemist finds that will and idea within the material form, then he is able to bend it to his own will. For this was the truth which John Dee maintained all his life — there is nothing in heaven and earth which is not also in man, and he quoted Paracelsus to the effect that 'the human body is vapour materialized by sunshine, mixed with the life of the stars'. When the astrologer sees the sun rise, according to Dee, the sun within his own self rises in joy. This is the true gold of wisdom.

That, at least, was the theory. But in reading accounts of his life (there was even a novel about him by Marjorie Bowen, entitled I Dwelt In High Places), it became clear that he was too concerned with secrets and with mysteries — with numerology, cabbalistic tables, and magical technique. He became infatuated with the poetry of power and darkness, which in turn made him susceptible to the demands of envy and ambition. So there were times when he lost sight of that sacred truth he wished to investigate.

I knew now the full story of his life — his intense studies as a young man, his travels to Europe where he had acquired his reputation as an extraordinary scholar, his services to Queen Elizabeth, his scientific and mathematical researches, his creation of the largest library in England, his work as an alchemist and a magician. He believed that he spoke with angels, and as yet I had found no reason to disbelieve him. He was a man obsessed with learning, one who spent his entire life trying to resolve the mysteries of nature and, by various means, to achieve a kind of divine illumination. He knew too much to be impressed by the work of his contemporaries, and understood too much to be unduly affected by their malice when he went beyond the boundaries of established theory. He was energetic, ambitious, determined; and yet, as I said, there was a darker aspect to his love of learning. He seemed to want knowledge, and power, at almost any cost to himself or those around him. Something drove him forward, something harried him into that darkness where he spoke to the angels and plotted the restoration of the spiritual world through the agency of alchemy. Many of his contemporaries believed that the Devil was perched upon his shoulder, but how could I believe that as I sat in the room where he had once worked?

And what books had he written here? Had he composed his mathematical preface to The Elements of Geometrie of the most auncient Philosopher Euclide of Megara as he looked from his window at the quietly flowing stream of the Fleet? Had he paced around this room, as I paced now, while preparing his thoughts for General and rare Memorials pertayning to the Perfect Arte of Navigation? Had he laboured upon Monas Hieroglyphica and Propaedeumata Aphoristica in this house? I spoke the titles out loud, but stopped when it began to sound like the chanting of some priest or nun. After a few moments I took up another book, a modern translation of Doctor Dee's Liber Mysteriorum Sextus et Sanctus; there was a photograph of the original title-page among the illustrations, and on it were inscribed four signs that sent me racing from the room towards the stairs that led under the ground. I switched on the light for the basement and crossed the floor, cautiously approaching the marks which had been scratched above the sealed door; they were the same as the signs in the book, but some other element was missing from them. In the title-page illustration, 'Sunsfor', 'Zosimos', 'Gohulim' and 'Od' had been written underneath each in turn, but these names were not inscribed upon the door. On this old titlepage there was also a picture of a glass bowl, covered with straw, or mud, or some other substance; beneath it I could read the words, 'You will live for ever'. I do not know what happened to me then; I turned and turned under the electric light until I could no longer stand. Then I lay upon the stone floor.

There was a noise in one of the upstairs rooms, and the crash of something falling to the ground. I rolled upon the cold stone, not wishing to leave it yet. But then there was another crash, and unwillingly I rose to my feet: if I hesitated now, I would never be able to remain in this house. When I came to the top of the stairs, by the open door, I heard a sound like rustling coming from somewhere above me; I looked up, but I could see nothing. I crossed the hallway and climbed the stairs to the first landing; the door to my room was open and, as I glanced across my bed, I noticed a white mark upon it like a little globe of smoke. Then something moved across it.

I screamed, and it rose up towards me; I staggered backwards, and would have fallen down the stairs if I had not caught hold of the banister. I thrust out my hands, and they brushed against something very warm. And then there was a fluttering of wings. It was a pigeon. It must have come in through the open window, and was no doubt one of those I had seen clustering around the churchyard of St James. I did not want to touch it: I had a horror of its beating heart beneath my fingers, and of its writhing within my hands. The bird had wheeled back into the room and quietly I followed it, opened my window wider still, and then left it there — beating its wings against the wall — while I closed the door.

There was something amusing about all this. I went back into the room, where the bird was still ineffectually fluttering against the walls and ceilings. There was a book beside my bed — a study of John Dee's alchemical charts — and, with all the violence I could summon with a prayer, I hurled it against the bird. I must have damaged its wing because it slumped down on to the floor and then, with a cry of triumph, I brought my heel down upon its head. I don't know how many times I stamped upon it, but I stopped only when I saw the blood running on to the book which was lying beside the dead bird.

It was then I telephoned Daniel Moore and asked him to visit me that evening: I knew that he was concealing some fact about the house and, in that moment of violence and power, I wanted to discover everything. I was wiping the blood of the dead bird from the cover of Doctor Dee's book when he arrived. 'Sometimes,' I said, 'I'm convinced that there's a madman somewhere in this house.'

'And what makes you say that?'

'Oh, I don't know. Dead animals everywhere. Piles of shit.' He looked at me in surprise for a moment, and I laughed. 'Don't worry. I'm only joking.'

I went into the kitchen, ostensibly to pour him a glass of whisky, but really to devour a plate of biscuits that had been left for me upon the shelf; there were two packets of assorted nuts beside them, and I managed to finish them before coming back into the room.

'If there was someone in the house, Matthew —'

'I know. I would have found him by now.' Then I laughed again. 'Do you want to know why my hands are dirty?'

'I don't think so.'

'I've been doing some digging. Look.' I pointed out the books scattered around the room, and tried to describe precisely what it was I had discovered about John Dee. 'And do you wonder why I'm so confused,' I said, after a long explanation, 'when every book has a different Doctor Dee? Not one is alike. The past is difficult, you see. You think you understand a person or an event, but then you turn a corner and everything is different once again. Just like you. I turned the corner of Charlotte Street and you were different.'

'I wondered when you were going to bring that up again.'

But I brushed his words aside with a movement of my hand. 'It's like this house, too. Nothing ever seems to stay in the same place. And do you know what? This may have been the actual room where Doctor Dee saw his visions. What did I call it just now?'

'The scrying room. Or the chamber of presence. What is the matter, Matthew?'

'Did you hear something then?'

'No.'

'I thought I heard a voice.'

'You'll be seeing him next, glimmering in the corner.'

'Well, I do see him. Look here.' I held up the book, with the portrait of Doctor Dee on its cover. 'Reader,' I said, 'this is the beginning and the end.'

We finished our drinks soon after and then walked slowly to the restaurant by Clerkenwell Green, where we had eaten a week before. I had known nothing then about John Dee, but now my life had changed. It was a warm night, and through the open window I could see the lighted interior of a small printing-works on the opposite side of the Green. Someone was moving back and forth and, in his random gestures against the light, I saw something of the frailty of all living things. A cluster of small flies, or gnats, was hovering near the door of the restaurant; they were circling in the evening air, with the setting sun glinting upon their wings. They might fly over the threshold into this small room, and to them it would seem an almighty palace of wonder. But where was the place to which I might fly, and see the glory around me?

As we sat down at the restaurant table I felt some excitement pass over me, but it was of so rare a kind that it seemed like sickness. I had experienced this sensation once or twice before, and I knew that something was about to happen. Something was about to change. I took the bottle of Frascati which the waiter had brought over to the table, and poured myself a very large glass before handing it to Daniel. There was a constriction in my throat, and some fire within me which I needed to extinguish; if I believed in such things, I might have been embodying the alchemical theory of the dry world aspiring to the moist. Daniel was watching me with uneasy amusement as I poured myself another glass of wine. 'Are we very thirsty?'

'Yes. We are. It's not often I sit opposite a beautiful woman.'

He looked at me reproachfully for a moment. 'Do you have to keep on mentioning that business?'

'But I'm very interested in you, Daniel. I become more interested all the time. How did you know that one of the upstairs windows was sealed?'

He put his index finger up to his nose, and sniffed it. 'There are always sealed windows in old houses. Haven't you heard of Pitt's window tax?'

'And by some miracle you also knew that there was a cupboard under the stairs.'

'I guessed.' He was still sniffing his finger. 'Or do you think I have magical powers?'

'Magic had nothing to do with it. You remembered something.' I filled my glass again. 'You know that house very well, don't you?' He shook his head with an uncharacteristically violent motion. 'There's no point in lying to me, Daniel. I think my mother recognized you, too.'

'She doesn't know me at all. I can promise you that.'

'But what else can you promise me?'

'Nothing.' He had lowered his eyes and, when the waiter came over to take our order, he took advantage of the diversion to clear his throat. Then he tightened the knot of his tie with another violent gesture. 'It's very odd,' he said, 'but whenever I come to this area, I always want to get back to Islington again. Is that what they call homesickness? And have you ever wondered who "they" are?'

I was tired of his attempts to divert me. 'Go on, Daniel. It's time.'

He looked at me directly now. 'This is all very difficult.' I noticed that his left hand was trembling, and I watched it with interest as he continued in a low voice. 'You're quite right. I have been to the house before. I knew your father. I went there with him sometimes.'

I had become very still. 'And why was that?'

'There is something I ought to tell you. I've been meaning…'

The waiter had brought us a first course of parma ham, and Daniel began to cut it into very small pieces.

'Go on.'

'Your father and I knew each other very well.' He stopped again, and continued cutting the meat without putting any of it into his mouth. 'We met in that club. Where you found me.'

'I don't think I know what you mean.'

'Yes. You do. Your father and I were lovers.' I think I rose to my feet but, at his look of alarm, I must have sat down again. He started talking very quickly, almost incoherently. 'It was about ten years ago. I do prefer older men, you see. And he was very charming. Very gentle.'

The excitement, or sickness, which I had sensed before was now all around me. It was as if I were bathed in some white light which made every movement and every word distinct. I got up again, and walked to the small lavatory at the back of the restaurant. I sat on the bowl of the toilet, and stared at the graffiti on the yellow door in front of me — something about a penis and a tube. I could see them together, Daniel and my father, lying naked in the basement. I could see them kissing one another. I could see my father kneeling against the sealed door, while Daniel knelt in front of him with his mouth open. I could see Daniel's dress and wig being hurled against the wall, while my father smiled that peculiar smile I knew so well. I could see them in The World Turned Upside Down, dancing together in the dim red light. And then I wondered what it would be like to have my father's tongue down my throat. I stood up, and vomited into the bowl.

Curiously enough, when I returned to the table I was smiling. 'Tell me, Daniel. Did he wear women's clothes as well?'

'Oh no.' He seemed almost offended at the suggestion. 'But he liked me to wear them. Around the house.'

I had heard enough. Now I understood the reason he had bought the property in Cloak Lane — it was the perfect cover for his sexual activities. There had never been any reason for him to divorce my mother, because she also had acted as a form of camouflage. But perhaps she had realized this all the time; that was why she remained so angry with him, even after his death. Perhaps she also suspected that my father had left me everything because I was in some way involved — but that was too hard a thought to bear. The whole of my past life had shifted now, and in these few moments had acquired a different shape. It seemed as if I must approach my own history as I approached the history of other centuries. 'Did he ever mention Doctor Dee?' was all I could think of asking him.

'Not as far as I remember.' We had both now assumed our customary manner and tone, as if we were trying somehow to reassure each other that nothing essentially had changed. He ate his food very quickly, stuffing it into his mouth and swallowing it voraciously. 'But he did say that there was something special about the house. He thought that something had once happened there, and he wanted to restore it. Or relive it. I'm not sure what he meant. But that was why — ' Once more he hesitated.

'It's a little late to keep any secrets.'

'He believed in something called sexual magic. He believed that you could raise spirits by practising, well, certain things.'

'And did he?'

'Did he?'

'Did he raise the spirits?'

'Of course not.'

So here was another truth with which I had to become reconciled. My father had practised magic in Cloak Lane, in the vain hope of conjuring up the ghosts of the past; that, at least, seemed to be the substance of Daniel's confession to me. He had performed some kind of sexual rite for the sole purpose of finding something which, he believed, still resided within the house. Could it be connected with his speculations about the homunculus? There were dark passages and corners here which I did not want to explore. In any case he should have known something I was now beginning to understand from my knowledge of John Dee: only love can restore life. The rest is illusion, and trickery, and nonsense.

'I never believed any of it,' Daniel was saying now, as some spaghetti was placed in front of us. I stared down at the white threads with something like horror. 'Some historians say that radicalism and occultism were related to each other, but I think it was only an act of despair. It was a way of pretending to have some secret force at your command, of imagining you had a form of power which could destroy the established powers. But occultism is really a refuge for the weak and the desperate. It's radicalism gone sour.'

'But my father was never weak.'

'No. He wasn't weak. Most occultists work in groups — it helps to bolster their confidence. But your father was different. He was quite alone. And he really believed that he had come upon a secret truth. It was as if it were some kind of inheritance.'

There was a meaning in all this which alarmed me. 'Did he ever mention me?'

'All the time.'

'Not when —'

'No. We remained friends, after we ceased to be lovers. He had a great passion for the past, you see. Just like you. He was always interested in what I was doing. Funnily enough, he was the one who led me to the Moravians. He found those meeting-places we visited. Do you remember?'

'Yes. I remember.' My father was coming too close to me, and it filled me with fear. I ordered some more wine, while Daniel tightened the knot of his tie again.

'There's something else I have to tell you, Matthew.'

'Oh God.'

'We didn't meet by accident.' The wine had come, and I started drinking heavily again. 'About two years ago, your father realized that he had contracted cancer. That's when he asked me to watch over you. He said that you were very special.'

'Special?'

'He said that you were unique. And of course you are. He just didn't want you to come to any harm. He told me what libraries you used, and it was easy enough to arrange an encounter. We share the same interests, after all, and London can be a very small city.' He stopped suddenly, trying to observe my reaction; but he could see none. 'I hope you don't think I'm a very dreadful person. We did become friends, after all.'

We had come to the end of our meal, as far as I was concerned, but it was still so early that the restaurant was almost empty. A young man and woman were sitting close together in a corner of the room, and I had already noticed that they were whispering intently. I strained to hear what they were saying, but all I could make out were stray angry words — 'worm', 'bitch', 'cow'.

'I'm sorry,' I said to Daniel. 'I really can't put up with this any longer.' I left the table, and went over to them. They looked at me in alarm. 'Why don't you fucking keep quiet?' I whispered, just as they had whispered. 'Do you hear me? Shut your fucking mouths.' Then I returned to Daniel. 'And that reminds me, my darling. I must get back to the house.'

I left him at once, and as I looked into the window I was pleased to see him bewildered and unhappy. I was no longer aware of any particular sensation as I walked back to Cloak Lane, and instead I began repeating the words of a song I had heard that morning as I sat in the old house. I think it was called 'Fortune, My Foe', but I could not be absolutely sure. I passed the churchyard and then, feeling the need to piss after so much wine, I jumped across the stone wall and urinated on one of the gravestones. Something moved beside it, and after I had zipped up my trousers I stamped on it with my foot. I felt as if I were knocking upon an open door.