Polly Samson - A Theatre for Dreamers

We wait while panting Patrick draws his water. Jimmy and Leonard lean against a wall smoking and talking about the poetry scene in London. ‘Whenever I hear that a guy writes poetry I feel close to him. You know, I understand the folly,’ Leonard says, and though I’ve heard him use those exact words before, it gives me pleasure to hear Jimmy purr.

Patrick stands so close to Charmian he might be trying to breathe her in. A button hangs from a thread of his jacket, its tweed giving off a scent of old bonfires and disappointment. ‘George told me you’d be here. I reckon he didn’t want you clambering about with only the charming Canadian for company,’ he says, his voice even more brandied than usual. ‘But now I see you’ve already gathered extra disciples of your own.’

Charmian tries to ignore his innuendo and checks again that we each have our offering of water, reminds us not to drink it on the way up the mountain. Edie and Janey don’t have torches of their own so they skip ahead with Jimmy and Leonard who both have new batteries in theirs while I wait with Charmian and the inconvenient Patrick.

‘I’m surprised Jean-Claude Maurice isn’t tearing up here in hot pursuit,’ Patrick says. ‘I mean,’ and he gazes pointedly from Charmian to me, ‘with one notable exception he relishes his filet pleasantly mignon .’

Charmian springs away from him. ‘Really, that’s too spiteful.’

Patrick is rambling. He sounds neither sober nor sorry.

‘Oh Jesus, has Jean-Claude got an inkling of the nasty surprise George has got coming for him in that despicable book of his?’ he says and she gives him an exasperated shove.

‘Patrick, if you don’t mind, I am not in the mood to discuss this.’ She storms up the winding steps, pulling me behind her.

The path narrows. I keep my grasp on her hand. ‘What does he mean by George’s despicable book?’ I say and she calls a halt.

She shines her torch from face to face. ‘Shhhh, all of you,’ she says. ‘Remember, if we are to do this properly, this is a silent pilgrimage.’

I stomp as I climb, become careless with my feet. The path zigzags unrelentingly past tumbledown cottages and upwards towards dense-shadowed pine. The only sound is our footfalls on the shale and our breathing, the only light our torches. I hadn’t for a moment taken on board the silent nature of Charmian’s ceremony. I see again a flicker of laughter passing between her and George.

Charmian leads the way, the silence dark between us. She’s always ahead of me, I’m always in pursuit. I know she’s keeping secrets from me, I see them jumping behind her eyes whenever I get close. Why won’t she tell me what she knows? I’ve told her I’ll only think worse things of my mother than she can possibly reveal. I’ve told her the mystery of it all is what’s killing. And this hill is just getting steeper, there are insects that rise up in the halos of our torches and Edie shrieks at the scaly tail of something that skitters.

And no wonder George was so keen, and the way she gets all flirtatious around Leonard I can’t say I blame old George for his jealousy. And what is it about that one that’s making everyone go weak at the knees anyway? Leonard’s not even tall, but Charmian’s like a kitten and it seems every woman, every girl, even surly Kyria Soula at the fish stall in the market, has fallen under his spell.

I am caught in the beam of Charmian’s torch. She lifts the tartan blanket, gestures for me to come inside and we walk for a while arm in arm through the velvet night and my bitter thoughts become swamped with the scent of juniper and pine and blanket and longing.

There was a time when we were lost in the woods. I have just the briefest vision of our mother, an ash-white panic on her face as we stand in a clearing. The foliage is thick and the earth beneath our feet is gnarly with roots, the day darkening and scented with danger. It’s just the three of us, Bobby and me ready to protect her with our stick guns, and Mum’s face is very stark above the fox fur of her collar. I guess it was one of the times when our father was in hospital, there were some woods in the grounds, but I don’t know what had happened to make her so frightened, only a sense that something hung on the brink. When we found the path it led to an unknown cobbled street with warm lamplight and we stopped at a tea shop and I started crying and hid in the folds of Mum’s coat because I’d sensed that my twig of a gun wouldn’t be enough to save us and her hand shook as she poured the tea from the pot.

Charmian pushes me ahead as we start to climb the steeper rock, feeling our way beneath low branches as pine turns to scrub and the scree becomes treacherous with loose footings. We stop to rest and, wetting our mouths, gaze across the starlit gulf.

I’m missing Bobby, though even in the dark I can tell that Edie couldn’t care less that he’s chosen not to join us. I can see her smile as Leonard so gallantly lends her a hand. Now he’s waiting while she rewinds and reties her dramatic black scarf. Edie always seems to dress as though for a part; I’m surprised she hasn’t gone the full wimple. I just don’t have a gift for it. I’ve had to put a twist in my belt to stop my trousers falling down. My puppy fat has dropped away, and when I lie flat I’m surprised at the triangular bones at the peaks of my hips and the hard round balls of muscle at my calves. I’ve become slim enough for Mum’s clothes, a thought that brings with it an unpleasant memory of my father, in what feels like another lifetime, and still I flinch. He dismisses my figure with a glance as we pack her fine things for the poor box.

I regret letting go of the rose silk slip. For as long as I can remember I’ve an image of her wearing it, or at least one very like it, with a frill of darker lace along the straps and where it plunges at the front. She’s sitting at her dressing table pressing loose powder along her collarbones and between her breasts with one of those amazingly pink and fluffy powder puffs that bring to mind boudoirs and courtesans. She hasn’t noticed me come into the room. The talc glitters in the soft beam of her dressing-table lamp. She sees me in the mirror and swivels in her seat, her mouth a lipsticked ‘O’. Some of the powder has dusted the dark lace, the straps hang in loops over her shoulders. She swoops down and wraps her arms around me, covers my eyes with her hands, sweeps me from her room. At the door she gathers me into her arms and carries me across the hall to my bed, soothing me for a bad dream. I fall asleep, snug as a nut in the sweet-scented folds of her body.

Whenever the path is wide enough Charmian lets me under her blanket. But now we are leaving the scrublands behind us and in some places the path has become tricky. We stop at a plateau, squat on our haunches. Across the familiar gulf the charcoal burners cluster like glow-worms. There is nothing but this rock between the stars and the tide and it’s in this bath of silence that the picture starts to develop. Mum is at her dressing table, the straps of her petticoat fallen. I smell her perfume, stumble towards her warm skin. For the first time I see him, the man in the room. I make a run for her. He spots me before she does and it’s his panic she catches in the mirror. The powder puff flies from her hand. It’s the last thing I see before she covers my eyes.

The stars are fading as we reach the peak. Somewhere below us a dog barks. The monastery at Profitis Elias glows sugar-white beyond the rocky silhouettes of land that falls away in ripples and humps and herb-filled ravines. We are as close to the heavens as anyone tonight. There’s a small iron bell mounted on rock which we long to ring though daren’t before Apollo has made his grand entrance.