Andrew Ervin - Burning Down George Orwell's House

The young Blair had suffered at the hands of the headmasters and his wealthy classmates, many of whom had estates in Scotland. This country had become the place where people of immense privilege came for shooting parties and to enjoy all the luxuries of upper crust British life — the kind of life that Blair was continually reminded he would never experience. Once Orwell attained some small financial success with Animal Farm he was able to obtain what had so far been out of reach. Barnhill served as his own privileged estate away from the hullabaloo of London’s postwar reconstruction, and in coming here he had achieved the social status denied him as a child. It made perfect sense.

There was a key difference, though, for Orwell. Instead of shooting pheasants and foxes while wearing a tuxedo, he wanted to work the soil with his bare hands. He didn’t have servants or host dinner parties — he planted vegetables and plowed the fields and sweated his tubercular ass off, all while continuing his literary correspondence and writing a masterpiece. He came to Jura in order to show up his classmates, even if only in his own mind, as the stuck-up snobs that they were.

The insight inspired a victory dance in the sitting room.

RAY DOZED OFF TO the sound of rain knocking at the windows. The wind eventually woke him and then punctuated eight and a half hours of eyes-wide-open insomnia before it yielded to a series of early morning dreams about every manner of natural and unnatural disaster. He half heard the sitting-room chair shaking and groaning beneath him while he recoiled from the sounds of automobile accidents, plane crashes, and crumbling skyscrapers. From the sickening crunch of metal against metal, the drip drip drop of broken sewer lines erupting into fountains of diarrheal waste. Naked bodies fueled a mile-high bonfire. He awoke disoriented and with the odors of kerosene and burning human flesh still in his nose. The room was strangely bright. It took a minute to figure out where he was. Outside, the sun shined upon Barnhill’s back garden.

The sun!

He opened the window to welcome the warm air in, but the smoky smell from his dream didn’t dissipate. Something was on fire.

A dozen possibilities ran through his mind: he had forgotten to blow out a candle and it had ignited the spilled whisky on the counter. Or a red ember had flown up the chimney and torched the bushes outside. A milk cow had kicked over a lantern. Whatever had started it, the odor was unmistakable. He was going to be responsible for burning down George Orwell’s house.

The smell of burning grease originated in the kitchen. He ran through the dining room with his socked feet sliding on the wooden floor. There were no signs yet of smoke, but the fire crackled and sizzled. Water. He needed a bucket of water. No! Not for a grease fire. For a grease fire, he needed … what? Baking soda? The odor grew stronger, more pungent. That pile of charcoaled bodies flickered again through his mind. If he didn’t know better he would’ve sworn that it smelled exactly like—

“Coffee’s on,” Molly said. She stood at the sink looking out the window and watching the sheep amble around the sunny garden. Their bells usually relaxed Ray, but this morning they sounded like a fleet of screaming fire trucks careening through the yard. The light pounded into his eyes. “Mind you, I can’t imagine how you Yanks drink this stuff.”

“What are you doing here?”

“What does it look like?” Her voice cracked the tiniest bit. “I’m making breakfast. I hope you don’t mind,” she said, and turned to face him.

It was called a black eye, but her face appeared more orange and purple: a horrendous masterpiece of secondary colors. A strawberry-sized lump protruded from her forehead.

“Would you mind if I stayed here for a little while?” she asked.

“Sure, definitely. I mean — no. I don’t mind.”

If he wanted to be honest with himself, Ray would have admitted that his very first thought was about the loss of his solitude. The idea of looking after an abused teenager didn’t carry much appeal considering that her murderous dad would be looking for her any minute, but under no circumstances could he turn away a girl who was getting beat up at home. “Does your father know you’re here?”

“You’re having a laugh, right? He was out drinking all night, so I made a break for it.”

“How’d you get all the way up here?”

“On my mountain bike. I brought as much as I could carry.”

“I’m not sure this is a great idea, but you can make yourself one hundred percent at home,” he said. “Take the room upstairs at—”

“At the end of the hall, aye. My things are already up there. You were still sleeping and, I should add, you snore like a beast. Now have some of this coffee before it gets cold. It’s better than that instant shite you’ve been drinking, and far tastier than Fuller’s. I swear he makes it that way on purpose.”

She almost smiled.

Sure enough, it was the best coffee Ray had tasted since leaving Chicago. Over his own moans of pleasure, he heard a sound like the release of springs in a metal can. Two pieces of white bread leapt from the toaster and poked their crusty heads out as if to see their shadows and determine how much longer he had to wait for a decent meal. She must have brought some food with her.

“How did you do that?” he asked.

“I pushed this lever down.”

“No, how did you turn on the electricity?”

“I switched on the generator out the back, dummy.”

“There’s a generator?”

“One of those silent ones at that. It’s in the stables. Are you telling me you’ve lived in this house for a month without electricity or gas? You didn’t notice the big, white propane tank outside?”

He had noticed it, sure, but it never occurred to him that it might work.

“You haven’t had any hot water?”

“I heated some pots and pans up a few times in the fireplace.”

“Are you positively deranged?”

He gestured toward her face. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

“About the hot water?”

“About your eye.”

She sized him up for a moment. “No, not really. Also, and I don’t mean to be insensitive or in any way appear less than grateful for your hospitality, but could I trouble you to put on some trousers?”

Oh hell.

He was wearing only a pair of boxers and black dress socks with gold toes. Cold pinpricks dotted his arms and legs. At least he wasn’t completely naked this time.

Ray went upstairs to put on some clean-ish jeans and a black “Oil Hogg” T-shirt. Living with a female again would take some getting used to. Wearing pants. No more pissing out back in the garden. No more drying his naked body by the fire.

Molly had breakfast ready by the time he got downstairs again: full Scottish, minus the haggis. The blazing sunlight illuminated the kitchen but also exposed a layer of grime on the counters and in the sink. He made the decision to ignore it. They sat and without delay Molly tore in to her food. Bacon, eggs, toast, tomatoes. Real coffee. She shoveled it all in with two hands. She slurped at her tea and belched into the crook of her elbow. “Have some tomato,” she said, sending bits of egg hurtling onto his shirt. Ray could’ve gone on eating for days, except that she sucked up everything in sight before he could get his fill. He would need to be quicker. Crumbs stuck to her cheek and wouldn’t budge even when she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, the fingers of which still grasped a triangle of toasted and buttered and jellied bread. She looked like a half-domesticated animal set loose on a feeding trough. Her gluttony was mesmerizing, yet also endearing. It was sweet in a strange and disgusting way. He envied her. She appeared so … healthy .