C Fletcher - A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World

I found a bigger compass that unfolded and had a round mirror and a kind of sight on it. It was designed for walking, I think, because it hung from a string you could put round your neck. The kitchen had knives, and even better, a sharpening rod that looked like a pencil that would fit in my pack without adding weight. Because of weight, I only took two knives, one made from a single piece of stainless steel, with black dimples bored into the handles for grip. In the study, I found a drawer with folding knives in it. I took one with a chequered dull silver handle which had a red shield and a white cross on it. It wasn’t as good as my Leatherman, but it was great. It had a saw and a spike and a screwdriver as well as a blade and it was scarcely tarnished. The blade took a good edge when I sharpened it. I also found a really powerful pair of binoculars. They had “Trinovid” stamped into them and the lenses were still clear and uncloudy, which was unusual. I took them to the window and they made the distant trees leap forward almost into the room itself. I was pleased to have them because of the power they gave me over distance, to see where I was going. I didn’t know they would be the root of my downfall.

And then there were the books. There was a room lined with bookshelves from floor to ceiling next to the one with the music box in it. John Dark wasn’t interested in it, because the books weren’t in French, but because the room had been dark and dry and sealed they were in great shape. I made a mask out of a square of material tied round my face and began to explore the shelves. Book dust seems to be the worst kind of dust in my experience. I didn’t want it in my lungs, making me cough all night. I found a few books I knew which was like meeting old friends in a strange place, amid a multitude that I didn’t know. In another life, if I had not been on my way to get my dog back, I think I would have stayed there for a long time, just reading books and listening to music and eating pesh .

There was a book on the shelves whose title caught my eye. It was called Surprised by Joy . It was partly the title that reminded me of my lost sister, and partly the name of the author whom I recognised because he had written books Mum had read to us when we were little. They were the kind I had liked, about a group of people on an adventure—children who went through a wardrobe and found a land of magic and talking lions and an evil ice witch. This didn’t seem to be that kind of book, not a story but a memory about the writer’s own life. But it had a poem inside it which had the same title as the book. I can remember the first lines as they gave me a pang of extra familiarity:

Joy had always been in a hurry, trying to catch up with our older siblings, determined to do exactly what they did even though she was much younger. And the wind had taken first her kite and her over the cliff at the back of the island where the water was certainly a deep and silent tomb. I read it several times because I don’t quite have the way of poetry in my head and also because when I come across a “thee” in a book I know it’s old words and probably not written for me in the now, so my brain seems to wander off, but the rest of the poem unravelled itself. In the end, I realised it was about mourning someone and being betrayed by a second of happiness that makes you forget your loss for a moment, and then feeling worse because that unthinking instant of happiness ends up feeling like a betrayal of the lost one.

We made a fire in the fireplace and sat with the windows open, watching the light die on the landscape below. The music we found ourselves listening to was like the house itself: just the right thing at the right time. The label said it was called “The Overture” from Tannhäuser . I remember the second a had those two dots over it. Must be a foreign name. And wherever Tannhäuser is, I bet they have fantastic sunsets, or maybe dawns, because the music fit them both. We sat—eating pesh and fire-roasted boar—and played that record again and again until it was dark. It started very slowly and confidently, building a gentle but quietly powerful tune, and then a different instrument, I think a violin, maybe more than one, swirled slowly in and seemed to ask a kind of mournful question answered by more violins steadily building and then the whole thing developed into a kind of strong upward cascade of sound that had rivulets of violin tumbling down out of that building cliff of noise, in a way that reminded me of the hundreds of tiny burns and streamlets that sprang down the slopes of the island after a heavy rain. Half the music swirled you upwards, while the other bit tumbled away in sharp, ordered fragments. That won’t make sense unless you ever heard “The Overture” from Tannhäuser and know what I mean, and since you don’t exist anywhere except inside my head, I suppose it just doesn’t make sense to anyone else except me. And maybe you too, I suppose, since you’re the one I’m talking to, trapped inside here with me.

Watching the red sunset glow and then fade to blue over the great forest with this music playing again and again is something I will not forget. I don’t know what the birds and the animals all around made of the noise. They were probably as startled as we were. None of them would have heard anything like it either.

We slept in the music room, with the fire playing shadows on the ceiling. And when I woke, the red was back in the sky and I played the disc one more time, and that is how I know it works even better as the sun rises. It had more hope in it. I took that as a good omen.

As I went out to check on the horses, I heard John Dark put on some different, faster music, and when I came back I caught her doing a kind of jigging up and down and shaking her bottom which stopped as soon as she heard me. She turned and her face was young and her smile not a bit embarrassed.

Dance ay , she said, beckoning me. Dance ay, Griz. Say bon .

And so there in the house that I was already calling the Homely House, John Dark and I danced. As we danced, Jip came in and began to prance around us, barking. His tail was wagging, but I don’t know if he was joining in or telling us we had gone a bit mad. We danced to something called “Tiger Rag” and then we danced to someone called Louis Jordan and then I must have overtightened the crank because it wouldn’t play, and that was when I took the player apart a bit. I was terrified I’d turned the spring too tight, maybe broken it, perhaps trapping all that music back in the disc, never to escape again. I had a horrible cold feeling of guilt as I sat and used my new knife and the Leatherman to unscrew the top and tilt it so I could see the mechanism. I jiggled and poked and nothing sounded broken, and then John Dark, who had been sitting and watching me with interest, disappeared and came back with a little can with a spout and a plunger.

Wheel , she said and pressed the plunger. A little drop of golden oil appeared and fell to the floor. She handed it to me. I used it to make the mechanism slippy again, and worked some into the hole where the crank handle went. And then I put it all back together and by a miracle it worked again.

We didn’t do any more dancing though. I looked at the sky and saw it was towards midday already. I didn’t want to leave, but I knew staying was a trap. A nice trap, and well meant by the people who had lived here and sealed it all up so as to preserve it as a haven for those who might come after. But a snare all the same.

I made it clear I wanted to leave.