A Traitor to Memory

That's where I lived. Not in one of the Peabody Houses, but in my grandparents' house on the south side of the square. The Peabody Houses are long gone now, replaced by two restaurants and a boutique the last time I checked. Still, I remember those houses well and how my father employed them to fabricate the Gideon Legend.

That's how he is, my father, ever prepared to use what comes to hand if it has the potential to get him where he wants to go. He was restless in those days, always full of ideas. I see now that most of his ideas were attempts to allay my grandfather's fears about him, since in Granddad's eyes, Dad's failure to establish himself in the Army presaged his failure at everything else as well. And Dad knew that's what Granddad believed about him, I suppose. After all, Granddad wasn't a man who ever kept his opinions to himself.

He hadn't been well since the war, my grandfather. I supposed that's why we lived with him and Gran. He'd spent two years in Burma as a prisoner of the Japanese, and he'd never recovered from that completely. I suspect that being a prisoner had triggered something inside him that would have remained dormant otherwise. But in any event, all I was ever told about the situation was that Granddad had “episodes” which called for his being carted off for a “nice countryside holiday” every now and again. I can't remember any specific details about these episodes, as my grandfather died when I was ten. But I do remember that they always began with some fierce and frightening banging about, followed by my grandmother weeping, and my grandfather shouting “You're no son of mine” at my father as they took him away.

They? you ask me. Who are they?

The goblin people is what I called them. They looked like anyone else on the street, but their bodies were inhabited by snatchers of the soul. Dad always let them into the house. Gran always met them on the stairs, crying. And they always passed her without a word because all the words they had to say had already been said more than once. They'd been coming for Granddad for years, you see. Long before I was born. Long before I watched from between the stairway balusters, crouched there like a little toad and frightened.

Yes. Before you ask, I do remember that fear. And something else as well. I remember someone drawing me away from the balusters, someone who peeled off my fingers one by one to loosen my grip and lead me away.

Raphael Robson? you're asking me, aren't you? Is this where Raphael Robson appears?

But no. This is years before Raphael Robson. Raphael came after the Peabody House.

So we're back to the Peabody House, you say.

Yes. The House and the Gideon Legend.

19 August





Do I remember the Peabody House? Or have I manufactured the details to fill in an outline that my father gave me? If I couldn't remember what it smelled like inside, I would say that I was merely playing a game by my father's rules to be able to conjure the Peabody House out of my brain at a time like this. But because the scent of bleach can still transport me back to the Peabody House in an instant, I know the foundation of the tale is true, no matter how much of it has been embroidered upon over the years by my father, my publicist, and the journalists who've spoken to them both. Frankly, I myself no longer answer questions about the Peabody House. I say, “That's old ground. Let's till some fresh soil this time round.”





But journalists always want a hook for their story and, limited by my father's firm injunction that only my career is open for discussion when I'm interviewed, what better hook could there be than the one my father created out of a simple stroll in the garden of Kensington Square:

I am three years old and in the company of my grandfather. I have with me a tricycle on which I am trundling round the perimeter of the garden while Granddad sits in that Greek-temple affair that serves as a shelter near the wrought iron fence. Granddad has brought a newspaper to read, but he isn't reading. Instead, he's listening to some music coming from one of the buildings behind him.

He says to me in a hushed voice, “It's called a concerto, Gideon. This is Paganini's D major concerto. Listen.” He beckons me to his side. He sits at the very end of the bench and I stand next to him with his arm round my shoulders, and I listen.

And I know in an instant that this is what I want to do. I somehow know as a three-year-old what has never left me since: that to listen is to be but to play is to live.

I insist that we leave the garden at once. Granddad's hands are arthritic and they struggle with the gate. I demand that he hurry “before it's too late.”





“Too late for what?” he asks me fondly.

I grab his hand and show him.