The Living and the Dead in Winsford

53

We spend the last few days repeating everything.

We go for our favourite walks one more time: Doone Valley, Culbone, Selworthy Combe, Glenthorne Beach. We manage to find our way back to Barrett’s bolt-hole and to the pub in Rockford where Jane Barrett’s exhibition is still taking place, but she happens to be out when we go there. I’m a bit annoyed to find she’s absent: there are a few things I’d have liked to ask her, but I suppose I’ll get by even so. The main thing is to dare to get that feeling of confidence she talked about, and rely on Darne Lodge being protected. We call in at the second-hand bookshop in Dulverton one last time and say goodbye to the hundred-year-old dandelion. We also say goodbye to Rosie, Tom and Robert at The Royal Oak Inn. It feels odd to note that it’s only three months since I set foot in here for the first time. I remember that sofa the cat had been peeing on for so long. How was it doing now, and how was Mrs Simmons?

And I carry on writing. It’s surprising to find how easily I make progress with ‘At Sunrise’ — that’s the working name I’ve given the play. I’m writing on Martin’s computer, of course, and perhaps that’s the reason why I don’t feel I need to accept responsibility for it all, and the dialogue flows so smoothly. In parallel I’m reading Bessie Hyatt’s two books, and with Martin’s reports on them at hand it’s not difficult to work out the references.

The setting is the same all the time: the big table on the terrace. It’s explained that we are in Greece during the first two acts, and in Morocco for the last three. It’s important for the audience to understand that time has passed. Eleven roles, of which two are servants. I use Megal — and in a few places his hypnotic wife — as a narrator. They address the audience directly, and describe the off-stage circumstances — exactly as in classical dramas. Their roles are especially important in the closing scenes, when they are together with Bessie Hyatt in the house, watching what happens to Gusov from some distance away. How the murder takes place.

But it’s all about Herold and Hyatt, of course. I’ve changed the names of all the other characters, and I stigmatize Herold as much as I dare without turning him into a caricature. Hyatt is the innocent party, albeit not absolutely so; all the rest are fellow travellers who act in such a way that Herold can assert himself continuously. Which makes it possible for him to crush both Gusov and Bessie Hyatt. For instance, I locate Bessie’s abortion in a room adjacent to the terrace: the audience will know what is happening, but the other characters pay no attention: they sit eating and hear her cries through the open window without bothering about them. Her suicide is announced in a sort of prologue before the curtain rises. I know that my play is brutal and harsh, without mercy or reconciliation; but I think a little rewriting can make it more mild and sophisticated. If such adjustments need to be made. I also toy with the idea that at some point in the distant future I can explain to Eugen Bergman that I have worked on the text together with Martin, so that perhaps I can take another good look at it and produce an amended version. At some point in the even more distant future I can envisage the play being performed at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, and picture myself saying a few brief words about Martin from the edge of the stage before it starts. There is no limit to my fantasies.

Two days before we leave I complete the script. Five acts, a hundred and twenty pages of dialogue. Tom Herold and Bessie Hyatt placed under the microscope: I’m surprised by the euphoria pounding away inside me. This must be what it feels like to be a real writer, I think. When you come to the point at which a project has been successfully completed.

My taking leave of Mark Britton turned out to be less emotional than I had feared, and it occurs to me that I have underestimated him. As usual Castor and I spend an evening, a night and a morning in Heathercombe Cottage: when we part on the Sunday, we have checked carefully one another’s telephone numbers and e-mail addresses, and I am sure that we shall meet again. Nothing, not even the most awful short story imaginable, can end like this.

‘We’ll meet again,’ says Mark. ‘I know we shall.’

‘You can read my mind, can you?’

‘There is no end of ways in which I know. If I haven’t heard from you in a week’s time, I shall come looking for you. But of course it’s best that you sort out what has to be done, and then come back here. Any questions?’

I laugh. ‘So this is plan A, is it?’

‘Exactly,’ says Mark. ‘And you’d rather not know about a plan B, I can assure you. I’m in love with you, have I said that before?’

I give him a big hug and say that I probably feel more or less the same. He doesn’t need to worry.

‘I’m not worrying,’ says Mark.

I shake Jeremy’s hand — he’s wearing a yellow Harlequins jersey today, with blue and red text — and then Castor and I leave Heathercombe Cottage. In the car on the way up towards Winsford Hill I start crying, and I let the tears flow freely until they dry up of their own accord.

Early in the morning of the twenty-ninth of January I close the gate of Darne Lodge. Drive down Halse Lane for the last time and park by the war memorial. It’s a foggy morning, grey and gloomy. I take Castor for a short walk up Ash Lane and knock on the door of Mr Tawking’s neighbour. It’s answered by the same nurse as last time: she tells me that old man Tawking is in hospital in Minehead, and probably doesn’t have much longer to live. I thank her and hand over the key.

‘So you’re leaving now, are you?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’m leaving now.’

‘You should come back at another time of year,’ she says. ‘Winter is so damned awful.’

I nod and say that I shall certainly be coming back.

We walk past the computer centre but it’s so early in the morning that it isn’t open yet. I knock on Alfred Biggs’s door, but there is no answer. For once he’s not in — but then I’ve already said thank you and goodbye to both him and Margaret Allen.

And I intend to come back after all.

I do, don’t I?

Then we walk back to the car, and drive off.

The A396 via Wheddon Cross, the same road as we came on. We don’t go into The Rest and Be Thankful Inn for a glass of red wine. Besides, they’re not open.