Joseph O'Neill - This is the Life

abaca

abba

I could see straight away that this was an alphabetical list. What was unclear to me was the language — was it English, or maybe Dutch, or was it a mixture of several languages? And again, I was baffled — what on earth was Donovan up to? Why was his handwriting so fastidious, like a schoolchild’s aiming for a gold star? The next page, the fourth, made things even less clear. It was dated 25 September and all it said was See Tape 1.

Tape? What tape? I searched around me, lifting the scattering of papers and pamphlets. Then, in a drawer of the desk, I found a dictaphone, and next to the dictaphone, in a purpose-made rack, three small cassettes. Quickly I extracted Tape 1 (its number was marked on it in red felt-tip), slotted it into the dictaphone and pushed the play button. Then I pressed the dictaphone against my ear.

The tape went through some preliminary crackles and I heard the recording mechanism coming on. I was tense with expectation — what was I about to hear? What revelation was at hand? — when a cough sounded in my ear, and then another cough. I did not immediately recognize these noises for what they were (the recording was unclear, there was a certain amount of acoustic distortion) and just as I said to myself, someone’s coughing, a voice started speaking.

What it said threw me completely. I had to rewind and replay to make sure that what I thought I had heard was right.

Second time around there was no doubt about it. The voice said, flatly and distinctly, ducatoon, exert, fletch, ocean, tectiform, virtuose.

I stopped the tape and closed my eyes. I tried to think. Although it was difficult to be certain, that sounded like Donovan. I had used dictaphones before, and knew they had a neutralizing effect on voices. But what made me hesitate was the tonelessness, the dullness of delivery. The words were devoid of any inflexion whatsoever, which was not like Donovan, who spoke with emphasis and vigour. The slow, deliberate voice on tape could have belonged to a teacher of English as a foreign language.

I opened my eyes and took a deep breath. It was gone half-past nine, time to be making for home. The rain had stopped, too, although I could still hear water guttering somewhere. The sensible thing would be to drive back now. I felt tired, around my eyes especially. There was no way that I could read all of these notebooks, or listen to all of these tapes, now, in a single evening. And yet there was also no way that even I, with my aversion for puzzles, dramas and the private lives of others, could leave matters as they were, up in the air.

I turned the tape back on. I’ll give it five minutes, I determined, no more. Five minutes, and then I’ll be off.

The tape scratched, indicating a pause in recording, and then restarted.

A box of mixed biscuits, a mixed biscuit-box , Donovan said twice. Then he said, Red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry at rapid speed, without hesitation or slip-up.

Tongue-twisters! He was rattling off tongue-twisters!

The sixth sheikh’s sixth sheep’s sick , Donovan said clearly. The sixth sheikh’s sixth sheep’s sick. He paused. She sells seashells on the seashore, but the seashells that she sells are not seashells I’m sure.

Donovan, the voice on the tape, started laughing. He laughed for about three seconds, then abruptly stopped the recording, cutting himself off in mid-cackle. I did not get it. What was so funny? I asked myself. Where was the meaning in any of this?

How was I to know then that, in all probability, Donovan was not drunk, or out of his mind, but simply happy? That he was laughing from simple joy? Like I have said, when it comes to cryptic clues, to inklings, I am a numbskull at the best of times. I need data, lots of data, and I need a systematic overview — my mind is not designed to take short cuts or frog-leaps. Step by step, that is how I like it, one thing at a time, a and then b followed by c. Of course I should have worked out what was going on in no time at all, I do not dispute that. I should have cracked the problem right away. But that is not my method, and besides, I was exhausted and nervous; I felt ill at ease in that house, doing what I was doing — I felt like a trespasser. It was cold and dark, my clothes were still damp, and the sound of Donovan’s voice echoing in the silence made me jumpy. The dripwater was no help either, tapping and ticking on the window-pane like drumming fingers. I started hearing noises — slamming car doors and scratching sounds like the sounds of door locks turning. What would I say if Donovan came in now?

Suddenly I became overcome with guilt. What did I think I was I doing, poking and peeping around Donovan’s private belongings? Had I gone mad? Feeling slightly sick, I covered my tracks as best I could, watering the Bushmills in the bottle and putting the tapes back in their rack. All I wanted to do was leave, quickly. When I had finished, I stood still for a moment and made myself think: was there anything else? Had I forgotten anything? No, but I did need to visit the lavatory, badly.

The lavatory was large and comfortable, with a mahogany seat and an interesting variety of illustrated magazines within easy reach; some embroidered prayers were pinned to the wall. As there are few things more tranquillizing and inducive of meditation than an easeful spell in a soundproof cubicle, I found their presence entirely congruous. I sat down with a sigh of relief and rose five minutes later feeling infinitely better — freer, less oppressed. I helped myself to a generous portion of paper and it was not until I tugged the chain that things began to go wrong: a feeble dribble of water flushed down, barely enough to soak the paper I had used. I pulled up my trousers, fastened my belt and waited for a few moments for the tank to replenish itself. There was no need to panic, a second flush would do the trick. But when I pulled the chain the gushing cataract I was hoping for did not arrive: in its place came an ineffectual trickle which made no impact whatsoever on the brown and white mound in the pool at the bottom of the basin.

The water: Donovan had switched off the water supply before he left.

This was a disaster. I had to do something, or Donovan would come home to a pile of faeces, my faeces. I ran down the stairs to the basement in a sweat. A switch, or a tap, there had to be one somewhere. Walking down a steep and rickety wooden staircase, I came into a room like a refinery, full of gurgling boilers, tanks and mechanisms. As there was not the slightest prospect of pinpointing the water tap, I activated the likeliest looking appliances that I could see. Then I ran back up the stairs.

Nothing. Not the smallest percolation. Oh no, I thought. Oh no. I picked up the toilet brush and tried forcing the material under water, down along the curved swan-neck of the bowl and out of sight. This met with only partial success: parts of the excrement disintegrated and floated back up to freckle the surface. Now the water had an unmistakable brown colour. There was only one thing for it.

The scoop was in a broom cupboard downstairs. It took me half an hour to pour the lavatory’s soiled contents into a bucket, and then to pour the contents of the bucket out of a window into the garden. The paper I put into a plastic bag which I planned to dump in the first wastebin I saw on the way home. It was a horrible, dirty job, but it was almost wholly effective. Someone had taken the precaution of stocking the lavatory with a whole range of odorizers, and aerosol cans with redolent names waited on a pine shelf: Fragrances of the Forest, Alpine Breeze, Meadow Sweet. I sprayed a fresh aroma into the air and wiped the seat clean. With luck, Donovan would not notice a thing. Then I went back down to the cellar and moved the levers back to their original positions. I washed my hands in a drop of tapwater and in my relief poured myself a final whisky for the road.