The day was fine, so I walked through the park, the avenue of trees cool and regimented, planted in straight lines.
I had sat and painted watercolours here; but they were not very accomplished, so my tutor informed me. The park was a flat, green, open space with borders of yellow and pink flowers – and paths as unbending as arrows. There were ladies in carriages, wearing pink gloves and fixed smiles. A gentleman on a bicycle rode past me and tipped his hat. He had a dark moustache, hairy and strange, and his teeth were yellow and bent, and I could see the pink tip of his tongue sticking through. It felt like some sort of warning. Some sort of sign.
But I continued down the straight path. It was at times like those I wished I had a brother or sister to take with me, to talk to. I suppose I was quite lonely. I knew I was lucky to live in a nice house with a good family. I was told this regularly by my parents. I wonder, if you are continuously told how lucky you are, something bad eventually happens.
I was lucky
I was lucky
I was lucky
I
was
so
lucky.
The gentleman on the bicycle rode past me again. This time he was smiling. He circled me with his bike, playfully. Marking out a circle. Enclosing me. I ignored him; I kept my eyes straight ahead on the path through the park. And then he rode off. The danger was gone.
I was lucky.
The path approached the vast flat lake in the centre of the park. I could see a white boat with couples oar-in-hand sail past. The air was calm, the water flickered gently, a few ducks floated past, comfy and quacking. The colours of this park were watery blue and soft greens with a few drops of Turkish delight pink and buttercup yellow, and a great deal of grey. It was a boring watercolour. A bad painting. A line of heavy-laden trees stretched over my head, momentarily putting me into shadow. Cool and dark. For a moment I felt that heavy shadow over my head, as though the features of my face had disappeared. As though I had gone. As though I was already slipping away out of this life, out of this world. And yet I kept walking.
The darkness made me think about Doctor Cherrytree. He had a face like a shadow, it hides his real intentions. He had clever little dark eyes and a very ugly mouth. Over dinner he was telling my father about his photographs. He takes pictures of souls leaving human bodies. He showed me one of them. It was a picture of an old lady in her armchair. She looked as though she were asleep, a book resting in her lap and over her head a wispy trail of light, which Doctor Cherrytree said was her soul.
I asked him, “Have you trapped her soul in the photograph?” And I remember, that was the point when he took out his pocket watch and checked the time. It was humming like a soft insect. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and he was very pleased that I liked it. He seemed amused by it. The way he looked at me: he saw a plain, not very interesting girl; he saw something empty in me. And I think that’s why he let me look at his watch. He let me touch the ruby snake eyes. They were warm, like fire beads. And he took a small card out of his pocket with an address on it and said, “Why don’t you get one for your father for his birthday? Here is the address of the shop.”
That card was in my purse. It had his fingertip prints on it. Maybe he left a trace of his own soul upon it. And, I wondered, when I die will Mr Cherrytree take a photograph of me?
I walked round the edges of the lake, the path still straight as a line, all clear. I could see the exit; I could see the gates in the distance. Children played on the lawn with a fox-eyed Nanny; a policeman strolled past, eyes ahead, always looking ahead. My feet kept moving, one step after another, as though I were an automaton. I had a wind up clock monkey that walks up and down on the carpet that Daddy got from India. That’s what I felt like, now. I was moving but someone else had control over me. I was turning into dark spaces. Emptying.
The rest of my journey I forgot, as though it wasn’t important. As though I had been switched off. When I arrived at the clockmaker’s shop I felt like I had woken up, and I looked into the window at the beautiful display. They were like precious jewels glinting, touched with something magical. A dark elixir. I found it hard to take my eyes off them. Right in the centre of the display was a silver toad with its mouth open, and inside a clock ticked gently. It made me feel calm, its soft ticking a creepy crawly sleepiness. I opened the door to the shop, the bell above my head ringing, and I knew suddenly.
I was already a dead thing