The idea, of course, has been done to death by my good friends here in the sanatorium. Although I do not feel remotely privileged, I even have precedents for what I am about to relate in Maupassant, and further back in Hoffman. But allow me to give you something of my background.
My father met my mother on leave from the merchant navy. When he came into his inheritance (his uncle’s farm) as Mussolini was flexing his muscles in Abyssinia and Europe lurched towards war, he asked my mother to marry him. I never knew him, but there was just the one picture on the dresser in my mother’s room. Once I took the back off; scrawled in a blue fountain pen was the date 1939: Reginald in his uniform. Over the years I imagined my mother falling in love with his tales of adventure. One story she told me of a huge whale attacking his boat. It seemed that it wanted to defend its young. Another, he was attacked by pirates. To defend themselves they had to let off flare guns. Sometimes I saw my father in the adventure books I read as a child.
My father I was led to believe died in the war, and I am sure, in point of fact, he did. Somewhere in a chest of drawers in our house I remember coming across his death certificate and the letter that was sent by the navy saying he had died an honourable death ferrying merchant ships across the Atlantic as the German U-boats closed in. Both my mother and I believed it, which is no doubt why she chose to remarry. And how could one blame her? After the war, she must I think have been rather – perhaps desperately lonely. When my father went away, my mother could not manage the farm on her own. She married T in 1948 or 49 when I was about seven. I was not present in the registry office, but I remember the party afterwards. The short, slightly podgy stranger (in contrast to my father’s dark looks – his thick eyebrows) dancing with my mother in her yellow dress around a room full of clapping guests.
I cannot pretend that I hit it off with my stepfather, T. T after all had supplanted me in my mother’s affections. I do not remember resenting this, but it seems to me that T did not know how to speak or relate to me. It was a moment in my childhood when I used to take off over the hills. If I remember anything of that time, it must be the sea. Our farm was on some hills that overlooked the Dorset coast. The view was quite captivating. Over a style, on the other side of our land, was a ruined chapel. For some reason my mother discouraged me from going there. I can only assume because there were some loose bricks; she told me it was dangerous. Nevertheless, this place was impressed on my childish mind. Indeed, I think I thought it had something to do with my father. But, anyway, it remained casually associated with their courtship; did he not propose to my mother in that ruined place? Did they not promise each other the sound of pattering feet?
Being the sort of child with what everyone described as a vivid imagination, I even at one time, or so I am told, had a secret friend. I have no recollection of this, but it seems I made no secret of my friend, and I was happy to share him with anyone who cared to pay attention. While my mother was tolerant of my fantasy world, my stepfather must have thought it all a bit childish and silly, and no doubt it was.
My stepfather always treated my mother well, but in our relationship there was always a degree of tension. As I got older, I found his line in facetious remarks unbelievably irritating. I was at pains to hold myself in for my mother’s sake. But I was not always successful. I remember, one day, we had a stupid argument, one day, about some butter and a loaf of bread. This was the nineteen fifties: the so-called scarcity years, but remember we were living on a farm. Butter and milk were staples of our diet!
Meanwhile, I went to school. At this time I knew a girl who lived in town (Dorchester). Jenny was the daughter of one of my teachers. We were becoming fast friends. Jenny’s parents had a collection of jazz records. Count Basie, the Glenn Miller Band, things like that; songs of course that do not interest me now, except in a purely nostalgic way.
One day, towards the end of the summer term, I invited her out to the farm. I took her to the ruined chapel so that we could kiss and make out. I stopped. They had recently remade the windows in the chapel. It was a perfect place for a tryst. At the window I saw a figure, or rather the face of a child. The child it seemed was looking down at us. The child’s expression was benevolent; I was nevertheless alarmed. I told Jenny, who also became alarmed. You’re frightening me, George, she said. I’m sorry, I said. I did not mean to scare you. She pulled her jacket back on; I was very disappointed… One of my hands was working up between her legs; the other was fishing around her bra strap.
The following night, or perhaps a few days later, I remember I had a nightmare. In the nightmare I was again with Jenny in the ruined chapel. I saw the face of the child when I looked up from our lovemaking, the child it seemed to me had this evil older face.
Around this time my attacks began; I was declared unstable. They say I hit my stepfather with what? – If I remember correctly, it was one of the logs from our outhouse. We were chopping up the wood, and I had had enough of his facetious remarks. I remember saying take that, you heathen. – Why heathen? – I can only assume for my vivid – indeed warped imagination.
I was put in the asylum. Although my mother forgave me, she was still very upset. My stepfather had been taken to hospital. He had five stitches on his forehead. We never spoke again.
Years later, I found out, whilst reading a back issue of the local paper, left in our reading room, archaeologists had come to excavate the chapel. There they found the skeleton of a child; they estimated by carbon dating that the bones were more than a hundred years old.