Jonathan Barnes - The Somnambulist

That is all I can tell you for the present. I shall write again as soon as I am able.

Your affectionate sister,

Charlotte

I have long believed the city, the country, indeed the world at large to be run by precisely the wrong kind of people. From the government to the great financial institutions, the peerage to the police force, our lives are controlled without exception by the stupid and greedy, the venal, the rapacious and the undeservedly rich. How much more comfortable would it be if the rulers of the world were not the cognoscenti of the bank balance, the ballot box, the offshore account, but were drawn instead from the ranks of the everyday — honest, kind, stout-hearted, commonplace folk.

In the course of this narrative we have encountered few such paragons. Mrs. Grossmith, perhaps. The Somnambulist. Mina the bearded lady. To that list we may now add one other: Miss Gillman, the mild-mannered sage of Highgate.

When Moon and the Somnambulist arrived on her doorstep, she and the giant took to one another immediately, sensing perhaps that they were kindred spirits of a sort, that they shared the same benign outlook on the world at large.

But the Somnambulist was confused. He had to struggle hard to resist the urge to scratch his head — in part from genuine befuddlement, in part because his wig itched abominably. He was a little comforted, however, to note that Miss Gillman seemed every bit as bewildered as he. And as was so often the case, the only person who understood what was going on was Edward Moon.

“Miss Gillman,” he asked, as their hostess sipped her tea, “do you recognize this?” He pushed into her hands the slim black book Barabbas had given him in Newgate, his copy of the Lyrical Ballads .

The old lady flipped back the cover and read the dedication within. “It’s mine.” She sounded surprised. “Do you know, I’d thought it lost forever.”

“The dedication… It’s for your father?”

“How did you come by this?”

“It was a legacy,” Moon lied fluently and without compunction. “I believe its last owner acquired it at auction.”

“Really? I must confess I never knew you were such a lover of poetry. Your reputation precedes you, of course, but this… this is most unexpected.”

“It’s a new interest of mine. Recommended to me by an old friend.”

“I’m afraid I’m rather at a loss as to how I can help. It’s a great pity my father is no longer with us. He would have been of so much more use to you than me.”

“Tell us what you can. Tell us about Coleridge.”

“It was so long ago,” she said doubtfully.

“Of all those who had the honor of knowing the poet personally,” Moon said, slapping the Somnambulist’s hand as the giant reached out for his ninth digestive of the day, “I understand you’re one of the last still with us.”

Miss Gillman gave a watery smile. “I suppose that’s a distinction of sorts. Of course, I was still a girl when he died. Did you know he’s buried close by in our little churchyard? He was a kind man despite it all.”

“I understand he stayed with you here?”

“Oh, he lived upstairs for years. I’d be happy to show you his room. My father cred for him there until his death, paid, I believe, by some sort of stipend, though I think he did it mostly out of love. Mr. Coleridge was one of the family. A second grandfather, if you like. He had stopped writing by then, almost entirely. His best work was long behind him. And as you know, he had become a slave to that disgusting opiate. It was a great source of pain to us all.”

“Go on.”

Miss Gillman spoke for the best part of an hour, happy to relive her memories of the remarkable man with whom she had shared her childhood. She told them how, abandoned by his wife and child, fugitive from an unhappy love affair and disowned by his friends and admirers, the poet had come to Highgate to live as a lodger-cum-patient in the Gillman household, where it was hoped he might heal himself and extinguish his addiction. He stayed, as it turned out, for the rest of his life.

Moon listened politely, the Somnambulist made short work of the remaining biscuits and time flowed by in a stream of anecdotes and reminiscences. They were in a bubble there, the giant thought, far removed from the world outside, and on hearing Gillman speak, he felt as though someone else’s story, some other narrative, were impinging itself, suddenly and without warning, upon their own.

“There was the boy, of course,” the old woman said. “At the end.”

Moon looked up. “Tell me about him.”

“He was an apprentice, still a child, not more than nine or ten. He used to bring the old man his prescription up to the house. Prescription — that was the word he used. We never liked to actually name the thing out loud.”

Moon urged her to continue, peculiarly convinced of the importance of her story.

“He was a delivery boy. That was how he first came to us. But Coleridge became fond of the lad. Took him on walks, read him poetry. My family used to own a house in Ramsgate where we’d spend our holidays and I remember he even visited us there once. They played together on the beach. Relations with his own son had always been strained, so Ned became a kind of surrogate for him. ‘Ned’s my heir,’ he used to say. ‘My successor.’ ”

“Ned?”

“That was his name.”

“And his surname?”

Miss Gillman finished her tea. “Love,” she said. “Ned Love.”

Moon and the Somnambulist stared back in slack-jawed astonishment.

“Oh,” she said. “Does that mean something to you?”

Politely refusing further rounds of tea, biscuits and nostalgia, they took their leave of Miss Gillman soon after. Before they went Moon gave her back the book.

“I think this belongs to you.”

“Are you sure? It must be valuable.”

“I’ve no need of it now. Please. Take it.”

Gillman looked doubtful.

“I’ll be offended if you don’t.”

She took it, of course, and sent them on their way with her blessing.

Despite his myriad faults, Moon was occasionally capable of feats of good nature, which peered out from beneath his carapace of misanthropy like a splinter of sun glimpsed through clouds.

They departed Miss Gillman’s cottage and walked the half-mile or so to Highgate Cemetery. The Somnambulist — still yawning, replete from his multiple breakfasts — repeatedly asked the purpose of their journey, but Moon would give nothing away, marching ahead at a punitive pace, a marathon runner nearing the end of the race and hungry for the finish.

They arrived at the church and waded through the tall, unshorn grass of the graveyard, amongst crooked ranks of crucifixes, stones and slabs, many of them askew and at oblique angles, as though they had been displaced by some crazy ruction of the earth. There was no sense of peace there, of gentle rest well earned; rather, there was a neglected, minatory air. They paused before a nondescript grave. The inscription read:

HERE LIES

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

1772–1834

Out of the depths I cry to thee

The Somnambulist bowed his head, oddly reverential, as though by having heard so much of the man who lay in the ground beneath them he felt an inkling of grief for his passing.

Moon showed no such sentiment. “See here,” he murmured as he squatted beside the tombstone. Gently he tugged away at the grass which lay on top. The turf came up easily in his hands, unfurling in precise, regular strips, the soil beneath it freshly turned over.

The Somnambulist felt confused for the third or fourth time in as many hours.

VANDALS

he suggested hopefully.