Andrew Ervin - Burning Down George Orwell's House

“This house must be torture for you.”

“I’ll admit I detected a slight plumbing problem when I came in. And you’ve been burning garbage in the fireplace.”

“That’s quite a talent.”

“A blessing and a curse, Ray. A blessing and a curse, like most things. I will be happy to give you a tour — it’s quite an operation. And it’s my job, in a way, to keep a record of Jura’s history. Now I’m going to pour one more dram and head on back.”

“You just got here.”

“Aye, but I’ve quite a long walk ahead of me. I should inquire if given your interest in our Mr. Blair, you happened to take the opportunity to speak with Singer on your way over?”

“The ferryman?”

“The very same. He may be among the last of the locals who knew Blair personally. I’m not saying they were fast friends or anything, but I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t have some good stories for you — even if they aren’t what you might call true.” Stupidly, it never occurred to Ray that he should ask the older folks about meeting Orwell. Some of the longtime residents might still remember him. “And Miss Wayward up at Kinuachdrachd. I understand that her auntie knew Blair, though she’s known to be a bit weird even for a Diurach.”

“Is there anyone else I should speak to?”

“No one that I can think of off the top of my slightly intoxicated head. Oh … Mrs. Campbell.”

“I should talk to Mrs. Campbell?”

“No! She is devout in her hatred of everything having to do with Mr. Blair, a fact that might explain why the two of you got off to such an awful start.”

“You heard about that?”

“Everybody on Jura and Islay has heard about that,” he said.

“That’s not why she hates me, though. Or not the only reason. I really was terrible to her.”

“Aye, I heard that too.”

“What’s her problem with Orwell?”

Farkas finished his fifth or sixth glass of scotch. “Well, there’s been some speculation … and it’s no more than that. One story, set somewhere between myth and reality, goes that Mrs. Campbell’s dear mother, who lost her husband in the war, took quite a liking to Mr. Blair while he was here for the first time to inspect Barnhill.”

“And?”

“What do you mean ‘and?’ You’re going to have to keep your ears open on Jura, Ray. She took quite a liking to our Mr. Blair, if you know what I mean, while everybody else on the island detested the man. She may have even spent a few weeks here at Barnhill.”

Comprehension descended more slowly than it should have. “Are you telling me that Mrs. Campbell is Orwell’s illegitimate daughter?”

“I’m telling you nothing of the sort. Rather, I’m merely reporting, for your own edification, about some of the mythologies of the Isle of Jura, like Charybdis or our werewolf.”

“Jura has a wolf running loose? I might have seen it!”

“Not a wolf, a werewolf.”

“Oh a werewolf. Of course.”

“I’m entirely serious and you would do well to hear me out. Have you not noticed anything suspicious hereabouts?”

“Well, I have been finding dead animals on my front step.”

“Aye, and who do you think might be responsible for leaving them there, the tax assessor? And if I had to speculate, I’d say the first one appeared the night you arrived. Is that right?”

“I have no problem believing that there’s a wolf or bear or something loose on the island. I’ve scraped the evidence off my stoop, and it has me scared so shitless that I feel trapped in this house, but do you really expect me to believe that at the next full moon a werewolf is going to show up at my door?”

“No, Ray, I don’t expect you to believe it, but neither your belief nor doubt changes the reality. I have it on the best possible authority that it is not an ordinary wolf, but a lycanthrope, and we don’t only appear during the full moon — that’s just Hollywood superstition.”

“What do you mean ‘we?’ ”

“Well, if you must know, I have every reason to believe that I am a werewolf.”

Ray looked at Farkas. He did not appear to be joking. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why do you believe that you’re a werewolf?”

“I have my reasons. We’ll save that story for another day. I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not insane. No more than most people at any rate. That night you first arrived, that was the equinox, if you recall.”

“I’ll have to trust you on that.”

“That’s when Gavin and Fuller and the men go out hunting, every solstice and equinox, same as they did when you got here. They don’t believe me any more than you do, so they have spent their entire lives trying to find and murder what was in your garden that night.”

“Very funny, Farkas.”

“There’s nothing funny about it, I assure you. I’ll take another wee splash after all, thank you. It’s not something I can control, and I do worry that someone’s going to get hurt, namely me.”

“All the same, I think I’d like to see the next hunt. It sounds fascinating.”

“Aye, it is most certainly that. But I’ll ask you to do me a wee personal favor and refrain from shooting me. You’re looking at me like I’m daft, which I suppose I can appreciate, but even if you don’t believe me … and I don’t expect that you do … remember that the difference between myth and reality isn’t quite as distinct here on Jura as you might believe. Now I should go, it’s a long walk. Many thanks for the whisky.”

“Any time,” Ray said. “I hope you’ll come again soon.”

“That I will, that I will. I give you my word that the very next time I feel like a five-mile stroll through a snake-infested swamp masquerading as a path, this will be my first stop. I’ll see you down at the distillery one of these days and we’ll try to sort things out with you and Gavin.”

“Should I really be worried about him?”

“I can’t say, but it will be best not to risk upsetting him further, just to be on the safe side. This money will help.” Farkas slugged back the remaining scotch and sat in the mudroom to put his boots on. From his coat pocket he produced a small stack of envelopes. “I nearly forgot,” he said. “I’ve brought your mail.”

Ray watched Farkas splash up the hill until he disappeared into the rainy night. He went to the kitchen and, seeing his own reflection again, drew the curtains closed and filled a mason jar with water from the tap. The mail included a stack of printed-out emails Bud had sent to him care of the hotel. He placed them in the fire without reading them. The papers curled one by one in the heat until whatever bullshit his former friend and boss wanted to regale him with went up the chimney.

He also received a greeting card with his mother’s neat cursive on the envelope. He tore it open. Inside, her handwritten salutation “Dearest Raymond” was followed by the printed message:

Thinking of you

and wishing you all

the blessings of our

Lord and Savior .

She had signed it at the bottom, “Mother.” Ray put that in the fire too, then regretted it. He would need to send her a letter soon. What to say?

You know what I saw today? That had been his parents’ favorite joke. Every day when his father came in from the fields or, later, got home from the plant, he would ask Ray the same question. The habit continued long after he stopped falling for it and after both of them had recognized that the son’s humoring of the father signaled a permanent and unmistakable sea change in the relationship. Yet it remained funny even now. Everything I looked at!

MOST NIGHTS RAY MANAGED to drag his unexercised body upstairs to sleep off the booze, but every once in a while the dull morning light found him in one of the sitting-room chairs, his back and neck howling with pain, at which point he either would or wouldn’t bother to heat up a mug of water before stirring scoops of crystalline coffee bits into it and starting a new day all over again. He had grown thinner than usual after two weeks of dieting on scotch and cookies. His eyes sank into their sockets while the bones in his cheeks angled forward. His beard had sprouted in uneven patches of black bristle until he found a pair of scissors and sculpted it to a semblance of evenness. When his clothes started to smell he hung them out an upstairs window and dried them by the sitting-room fire. There was nothing to be done about the sweat stains on the shirts’ white collars. He had come to Jura for some peace and quiet, but living alone sucked. He should have remembered that.