And Timothy stood in the centre of the excitement, no expression on his face, his hands trembling a little at his sides, gazing now here, now there, quickly, quickly! See everything! Banging of doors, laughter, darkness, the sound of wine fluidly poured, sound of wind, the rush of feet, the welcoming bursts of talk at the doors, the transparent rattlings of windows, the shadows passing, re-passing, whirling, vanishing.
The party was begun!
Five, ten, fifteen, thirty people! And sixty more to come!
‘Well, and this must be Timothy!’
‘What?’
A chilly hand took his hand. A long beardy face leaned down over Timothy’s brow. ‘A good lad, a good lad,’ said the man.
‘Timothy,’ said mother. ‘This is your Uncle Jason.’
‘Hello, Uncle Jason.’
‘My, my, you don’t sound very happy, nephew Timothy.’
‘I’m all right.’
‘Thanks for telling me, my boy. Perk up.’ The man buffed Timothy’s chin with his cold fist, gently.
‘And over here — ‘ Mother drifted Uncle Jason away. Uncle Jason glanced over his caped shoulder, winked at Timothy, glassily.
Timothy stood alone.
From off a thousand miles in the candled dark, he heard a high fluting voice; that was Ellen. ‘And my brothers, they are clever. Can you guess their occupations, Aunt Morgianna?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘They operate a mortuary in town.’
‘What!’ A gasp.
‘Yes!’ Shrill laughter. ‘Isn’t that priceless!’
‘Wonderful!’
They all roared.
Timothy stood very still.
The laughter quieted. ‘They bring home sustenance for us all, you know.’
Laura cried, ‘Oh, yes! Are you familiar with how a mortician works, Auntie darling?’
Aunt Morgianna was uncertain of the details.
‘Well,’ began Laura, scientifically. ‘They push little silver needles attached to red rubber tubing into the bodies, draw out the blood. They inject preservative. Most morticians flush the blood down the drain. But not Leonard and Bion, ah no! They carry it home in gallon casques for mamma and papa and all of us. Of course — Timothy. . .’
Timothy jerked his mouth, softly.
‘No, no,’ cried mother in a swift whisper to Laura.
‘Timothy,’ drawled Laura, reluctant to leave the word alone.
An uneasy silence. Uncle Jason’s voice demanded. ‘Well? Come on. What about Timothy?’
‘Oh, Laura, your tongue,’ sighed mother.
Laura went on with it. Timothy shut his eyes. ‘Timothy doesn’t — well — he doesn’t like blood. He’s — delicate.’
‘He’ll learn,’ explained mother. ‘Given a little time,’ she said very firmly. ‘He’s my son, and he’ll learn. He’s only fourteen.’
‘But I was raised on the stuff,’ said Uncle Jason, his voice passing from one room to another. The wind played the trees outside like harps. A little rain spattered on the window. ‘Raised on the stuff. . .’ passing away into faintness.
Timothy bit his lips and opened his eyes.
‘Well, it was all my fault.’ Mother was showing them into the kitchen now. ‘I tried forcing him. You can’t force children, you only make them sick and then they never get a taste for things. Look at Bion, now, he was thirteen before he’d drink b — ‘
The last word was lost in a rise of wind.
‘I understand,’ murmured Uncle Jason. ‘Timothy’ll come round.’
‘I’m sure he will,’ said mother, defiantly.
Candles flamed as shadows crossed and recrossed the dozen musty rooms. Timothy was cold. He smelled the hot tallow in his nostrils and instinctively he grabbed at a candle and walked with it around and about the house, pretending to straighten the crêpe.
‘Timothy.’ Someone whispered behind a patterned wall, hissing and sizzling and sighing the words. ‘Tim-o-thy iss — a — fraid — of — thee — dark.’ Leonard’s voice. Hateful Leonard! ‘So — mother sometimes — lets him take — a candle. You see them up and down the stairs together — the candle and Timothy’s two grey eyes just behind the flame — close to it for warmth and colour — shining.’
‘I like the candle, that’s all,’ said Timothy, in a reproachful whisper.
‘He’ll be all right. Children are children,’ said an aunt’s voice way over in the dining-room blacknesses.
More noise, more laughter, more thunder! Cascades of wild laughter! Bangings and clickings and shouts and whisperings of clothing and capes! Moist fog swept through the front door like powder from exploded cannons! Out of the fog, settling his wings, stalked a tall man.
‘Uncle Einar!’
Timothy propelled himself on his thin legs, straight through the fog, under the green webbing shadows. He threw himself into Uncle Einar’s arms. Einar lifted him!
‘You’ve wings, Timothy!’ Light as thistles, he tossed the boy. ‘Wings, Timothy, fly!’ Faces wheeled under. Darkness rotated. The house blew away. Timothy felt breeze-like. He flopped his arms. Einar’s fingers caught and threw him again to the ceiling. The ceiling fell like a charred wall. ‘Fly! Fly!’ shouted Einar, loud and deep. ‘Fly with wings! Wings!’
He felt exquisite agonies in his shoulder-blades, as if roots grew, burst to explode and blossom into fresh long, moist membranes! He babbled wild stuff; again Einar hurled him high!
Autumn wind broke in a tide on the house, rain crashed down, shaking the beams, causing chandeliers to tilt their enraged candles. And the one hundred relatives stared out from each black enchanted niche and room, circling inwards, all forms and sizes, to where Einar balanced the child like a puppet in the roaring spaces. ‘Beat your wings! Take off!’
‘Enough!’ cried Einar, at last.
Timothy, deposited gently on the floor timbers, exaltedly, exhaustedly fell against Uncle Einar, sobbing happily ‘Uncle, uncle, uncle!’
‘Good flying, eh, Timothy?’ Einar patted Timothy’s head. ‘Good, good.’
It was almost dawn. Most had arrived and were ready to bed down for the daylight, sleep motionlessly with no sound until the following sunset, when they’d jump out of their mahogany boxes for the revel.
Uncle Einar, followed by round dozens of others, moved towards the cellar. Mother directed them downwards to the crowded row on row of highly polished boxes. Einar, his wings like sea-green tarpaulins tented behind him, moved with a curious whistling and sussurus through the passageway; where his wings touched they made a sound of drumheads gently beaten.
Upstairs, Timothy lay wearily, thinking, trying to like the darkness. There was so much you could do in darkness that people couldn’t criticize you for, because they never saw you. He did like the night, but it was a qualified liking; sometimes there was so much night he cried out in rebellion.
In the cellar, mahogany lids sealed downwards, drawn in upon gesturing pale hands. In corners, certain relatives circled three times to lie down, heads on paws, eyelids shut.
The sun rose. There was a sleeping with no snores in it.
Sunset. The revel exploded like a bat nest struck full, shrieking out, fluttering, spreading! Box lids banged wide! Steps rushed up from cellar damp! More late guests, kicking on front and back portals, were admitted, and apologized.
It rained, and sodden visitors flung their capes, their water-pelleted hats, their sprinkled veils over Timothy who bore them to a closet, where they hung like mummified bats to dry. The rooms were crowd-packed. The laughter of one cousin shot from the hall, angled off the parlour wall, ricocheted, banked and returned to Timothy’s ears from a fourth room, accurate and cynical. It was followed by a volley of laughs!
A mouse ran across the floor.
‘I know you, Niece Leibersrouter!’ exclaimed father.
The mouse spiralled three women’s feet and vanished in a corner. Moments later a beautiful woman rose up out of nothing, stood in the corner, smiling her white smile at them all.
Something huddled against the flooded pane of the kitchen window. It sighed and wept and tapped continually, pressed against the glass, but Timothy could make nothing of it, he saw nothing there. In imagination he was outside, staring in. The rain was on him, the wind at him, and the taper-dotted darkness inside was inviting. Waltzes were being waltzed; tall thin figures pirouetted and glided to outlandish music. Stars of light flickered off lifted bottles; small earth clods crumbled from the handled casques, and a spider fell and went silently legging over the floor.
Timothy shivered. He was inside the house again. Mother called him to run here, run there, help, serve, out to the kitchen, fetch this, fetch that, bring plates, heap the food, be careful, don’t stumble, here now, and here — on and on — the party happened around him but not to him. Dozens of towering black shapes pressed by him, elbowed him, ignored him.
Finally, he turned and slipped away up the stairs.
He stood by Cecy’s bed. There was not a tremor in her long narrow white face; it was completely calm. Her bosom did not rise or descend. Yet if you touched her you felt warmth.
‘Cecy,’ he called, softly.
There was no response until the third call, when her lips parted a little. ‘Yes.’ She sounded very tired and happy and dreaming, and remote.
‘This is Timothy,’ he whispered.
‘I know,’ she said, after a long wait.
‘Where are you tonight, Cecy?’
After he had repeated the question twice, she said,
‘Far west of here. In California. In the Imperial Valley, beside the Salten Sea, near the Mud Pots and the steam and the quiet. I’m a farmer’s wife, and I’m sitting on a wooden porch. The sun’s going slowly down.’
‘What’s it like, Cecy?’
‘You can hear the mud pots talking,’ she said, slowly, as if talking in church. ‘The mud pots lift little grey heads of steam, pushing up the mud like bald men rising in the thick syrup, head first, out in the broiling channels, and the grey heads rip like rubber fabric and collapse with a noise like wet lips moving. And little plumes of steam escape from the ripped tissue. And there is a smell of sulphur and deep burning and old time. The dinosaur has
