In a health spa you form serious, long-lasting relationships faster than just about anywhere else. You see everyone all day long and get to know them very quickly. And each new friendship comes complete with a sense of ease and informality as if you've known each other for years. It's a wonderful feeling to open your heart to someone who seems to be opening theirs to you.
And the gloominess of a health spa, the boredom of so many days that are all the same, ensures that a new friendship is hatched each and every hour.
That evening, like every evening, we were waiting for the arrival of someone new.
Only two people came and they were very strange, a man and a woman; father and daughter. They reminded me, straight away, of characters from Edgar Allen Poe; and yet there was a sort of charm about them, a feeling of sadness. I thought they might be the victims of a bereavement. The man was very tall and thin, slightly bent. His hair was completely white, too white - for his face was still young. And there was something grave both in the way he carried himself and in his character; a grimness you would usually associate with protestants. His daughter, aged twenty-four or twenty-five, was small, as thin as him, very pale, with an appearance that was empty, tired, weighed down. You may have met people like these: too weak to handle the cares and necessities of life, too weak to get on with things, to go out and do the things that have to be done. She was also pretty, this young girl. She had the pale beauty of a ghost. And she ate with terrible slowness as if she was virtually unable to move her arms.
It had to be her who had come here to take the waters.
The two of them happened to sit opposite me, on the other side of the table, and I noticed immediately that the father had a most peculiar nervous twitch.
Each time he wanted to reach out for something, his hand described a snake's tongue, making a crazy zig-zag movement before it managed to get what it wanted. The movement annoyed me so much that after a few moments I turned my head away so that I wouldn't have to see it.
I also noticed that the young woman kept, even as she ate, one glove on her left hand.
After dinner, I went for a walk round the park that was part of the spa. It was very hot, that evening. I was walking up and down a shadowy path, listening to the casino band as it struck up a tune from the top of a hill that overlooked the park.
And then I saw, coming towards me at a slow pace, the father and daughter. 1 nodded at them, the way you nod at any fellow-guest in a health resort; and the man, suddenly stopping, asked, 'Could you, Monsieur, show us a walk that is as short, easy and as pretty as possible - if you'll excuse my interrupting you.'
I offered to lead them to the little valley where a slender river flows. The valley is deep, a narrow gorge between two rocky and wooded escarpments.
They accepted.
And naturally we talked about the virtue of taking the waters.
'My daughter,' he told me, 'has a strange illness -we don't know the cause. She suffers from incomprehensible nervous disorders. Sometimes they think it's her heart, sometimes her liver, sometimes her spinal marrow. Now they say it's her stomach. That's why we're here. Me, I'm more of the opinion that it's her nerves. In any case, it's very sad.'
Suddenly I remembered the violent twitch of his hand and I asked him, 'Couldn't she have inherited her illness from you? Don't you have a nervous condition?'
He replied quietly. 'Me? No - my nerves have always been fine.'
But then, after a pause, he went on. 'Ah! You're referring to the way my hand twitches every time I want to take something? That's the result of a terrible experience I once had. Believe it or not - this young girl was once buried alive!'
I could find nothing to say except an 'Ah!' of surprise and emotion. He went on:
Here is my story. It is very straightforward. Juliette had suffered heart murmurs for some time. We thought her heart was diseased and we were prepared for the worst.
One cold day we found her unconscious, dead. She had just fallen over in the garden. The doctor said that she was deceased. I stood watch over her for a day and two nights; I placed her myself in her coffin, which I accompanied as far as the cemetery where it was placed in our family tomb. This was in the middle of the countryside, in Lorraine.
I had wanted her to be buried with her jewels, her bracelets, necklaces, rings - all presents she had been given by me - and in her first ball-gown.
You can imagine the state of my heart and soul on returning to my home. I had nothing but her, my wife having died a long time before. I returned alone to my bedroom, half-mad, exhausted, and collapsed into my armchair, my mind empty, without the strength to move. I was nothing more than a framework of misery, trembling, flayed alive. My soul was like an open wound.
My old servant, Prosper, who had helped me place Juliette in her coffin and to prepare her for her last sleep, entered soundlessly and asked, 'Monsieur, do you wish to eat or drink something?'
I shook my head without replying.
'Monsieur is making a mistake,' he tried again. 'Monsieur will make himself ill. Would Monsieur like me to put him to bed?'
I said, 'No. Leave me.'
And he went.
How the hours slid past, I don't know. Oh! What a night! What a night! It was cold; my fire had gone out in the main fireplace and the wind, a winter wind, a frozen wind, a great wind full of ice, knocked against the windows with a sinister, repetitive sound.
How did the hours slide past? I sat there, not sleeping, weighed down, overpowered, my eyes open, my legs stretched out, my body powerless, dead and my spirit filled with despair. Suddenly, the great bell by the front door, the great bell of the entrance hall rang out.
I started so suddenly that the seat cracked beneath me. The sound, slow and heavy, shuddered through the empty house as if through a cave. I turned round to look at the time on the clock. It was two o'clock in the morning. Who would want to visit at that hour?
And then the bell rang out twice more. The servants, no doubt, were too afraid to get up. I took a candle and went down. 'Who is there?' I almost asked.
But then, ashamed of my weakness, I slowly drew back the heavy bolts. My heart was beating. I was afraid. With a sudden movement I opened the door and saw in the shadow a white form standing there a little like a ghost.
I drew back, crippled with fear, stammering, 'Who… who… who are you?'
A voice replied, 'It is me, Father.'
It was my daughter.
Certainly, I thought I'd gone mad. I was reeling backwards as the phantom advanced; I was moving backwards, making the same gesture with my hand to chase it away that you saw a short while ago; that gesture has never left me.
The ghost continued, 'Don't be afraid, Father. I was not dead. Somebody wanted to steal my rings and cut off one of my fingers. My blood began to flow and it was that that woke me up.'
And I saw that indeed she was covered in blood.
I fell to my knees, suffocating, sobbing, gasping for breath.
Then, when I had collected my thoughts a little - I was so bewildered that I barely understood the terrible good fortune that had come my way - I made her come up to my bedroom, made her sit in my armchair. Then I rang violently for Prosper to get him to relight the fire, prepare a drink, and go for help.
The man entered, saw my daughter, opened his mouth in a spasm of dismay and of horror, then fell over rigid, dead, on his back.
It had been he who had entered the tomb, who had mutilated, then abandoned my child; for he was unable to wipe out the traces of his crime. He hadn't even taken care to replace the lid on the coffin, certain that he would not be suspected by me - I who had always trusted him.
You see, Monsieur, that we are indeed two unhappy people.
He fell silent.
Night had come, wrapping itself around the lonely, sad little valley. A strange sort of fear took hold of me, making me feel close to these strange people; this dead girl back from the grave and this father with his dreadful twitch.
I could find nothing to say. I murmured, 'What a horrible thing…!'
Then, after a minute, I added, 'Why don't we go back? It's getting chilly.'
And we returned to the hotel.
5/ Laurence Staig - Freebies
The old one-eyed Chinaman who stood in the market place was giving them away. He wasn't giving them to quite everyone though. Just people who took his fancy, and who said nice things about the pile of old junk that he was selling from his stall. The old man appeared to like kids, and was acting up like some weird oriental Santa Claus.
Dad had bought a wok from him, for Mum; it was going to be a Christmas present. I'd have preferred to go to Habitat, then you knew where it'd been, but Dad wanted to be his usual 'grassroots' self and buy the thing from the people who knew, really knew, about woks.
Dad really can be a boring old fart sometimes.
I wasn't so sure that Mum would know what to do with the thing anyhow, or whether or not she even wanted one. Her mind would be on other things this year, it being the first one without Grannie.
So I ended up being dragged around Chinatown, in the middle of dirty smelly old Soho, on a busy Saturday afternoon, just to get a piece of authentic Chinese frying pan!
The old Chinaman gave me the creeps. A wrinkled prune of a face, with green teeth in a gap-filled mouth, which gasped hot stale breath when he bent down to whisper in my ear.
'Please take it,' he grinned, 'for you. It is present. For you, how you call it? A freebie. With every twenty wok I sell today, a freebie. Yes, it is good, eh?'
He had to be joking, and what a coincidence.
How'd he know about my little hobby, anyhow?
It didn't matter, I'd got another one for the collection.
I looked at the little black plastic box with the dangling chrome chain. He must have read ray mind and I could certainly read Dad's. He just groaned. You see, I had a thing about 'give-aways'. Collected them all the time, out of breakfast cereal packets, from petrol stations when we got petrol, supermarkets, anywhere really.
I just liked them, like little trophies. Freebies, as the man said.
'What is it?' I asked.
'It doesn't matter,' said Dad through clenched teeth, 'it's kind of the gentleman to give us anything at all.'
'It clever key-ring,' said the Chinaman, 'instructions in little panel, where battery go. Batteries not included. You like? I sell you packet, here. Special price to you of one pound ninety pence.'
A leathery hand unfolded to reveal a packet of digital watch batteries, produced from nowhere like a card in a magician's card trick.
Dad's face twitched. I sniggered.
'Crafty old sod,' I said to myself, 'he's just got Dad to shell out on a couple of batteries that he wasn't expecting to have to buy.'
Dad gave him what he sometimes called one of his 'old-fashioned' looks and pressed two pound coins into the Chinaman's palm.
The hand closed.
The old man wished Dad a happy Christmas, and turned to serve another customer who was interested in a wok set.
We didn't even get the change.
That Chinaman was smarter than he looked.
Dad, decided that we should walk to Trafalgar Square and perhaps take a bus or taxi back to Brixton. He still wanted to poke around in a few shops, just in case he saw something else he fancied.
'We've got to help Mary through Christmas now that Edith won't be with us this year. You know how dependent she was on the old bat -' he corrected himself, 'the old dear. Help her to take her mind off things, OK?'
He winked at me. I smiled back to keep him happy.
Hypocrite. I knew what he really thought about Grannie.
I hated it, too, when he called Mum Mary, so familiar, as though I was one of their wally 'drinks party' friends instead of a kid, and I could never get used to Grannie being called by her first name. It wasn't right. As far as I was concerned Grannie was Grannie, and she'd always been around.
'You're growing up now, Sarah,' he'd said to me once, 'you must start to behave more like an adult. I also think it's about time you stopped playing with all those stupid gimmicky toys you litter your room with.'
He always went on and on about how we were slaves of the 'consumer society' as he called it, and how I was a mindless dingbat to go along with it all.
That was a joke coming from a middle-aged bloke who thought he was really IT.
Me? I just liked freebies, that was all.
Dad hated the fact that the old Chinese prune had given me another toy. The joke was on him though: he'd bought me the batteries to go with it!
As we walked down Charing Cross Road I turned the little plastic tag case over in my hand. I wondered at first why a key-ring needed batteries, but then I realized what it was.
In gold lettering on one side was a line of Chinese letters; beneath that in English it simply said 'Chang's Quality Woks, Brewer Street, London, England (main distributors)'.
On the other side of the tag it said 'Key-Finder'.
The little yellow paper stuffed inside the base explained it all in sentences my teacher wouldn't have liked: Kee-Finder will nether let yuu down if kees yuu lose or mislay. Just whistle. If yor keys are within a 30' radios our tag will immeddiately return call with a serees of clere tones.
It was one of those lost-key locators. I was really pleased.
I couldn't wait to try it out.
Dad wanted to go into a bookshop near the National Gallery, 'Better Books'. He wanted to get Mum (or Mary) another present. I followed him in while trying to fit the pill-shaped batteries into the base of the key tag.
The shop was jam-packed. Christmas shoppers, cookery books and pictures of the Royal Family everywhere.
A lady in the shop, with glasses and a bun on the back of her hair, pinned a big round yellow badge on my coat lapel. She asked me if I liked books and wished me happy Christmas. There was a miniature book stuck in the centre of the badge, the size of a postage stamp. It opened, with pages like a real book. Above this was the message: Better books are Better!
It was a really good freebie. I hadn't seen one like that before.
Dad took my badge off when he saw it, and slapped it down on the counter. The lady with the bun glared at him.
Dad (or Jim if we're into parent-speak), was getting himself all worked up again. Mumbling about me being an easy target, a sucker for it all.
He bought a hi-fi magazine on the way out of the shop, and there was a freebie stuck to the cover with a bit of Sellotape. A Hi-fi Casebook pencil sharpener. It was clever. A little plastic compact disc with the sharpener on the other side of the spindle hole. On the way home he never lifted his head out of his precious hi-fi magazine once! Typical. He's just as much of a consumer-head as everyone else!
He wouldn't let me whistle on the bus, but when we got off at Brixton Hill I tried to get the Key-Finder to work.
So I whistled. I whistled at it, whistled in it, practically took the thing apart. Nothing.
Dad got mad, which was really ironic considering all the fuss he'd been making about the thing, said he'd a mind to go all the way back to Soho and give the man his batteries back.
I wasn't that bothered. After all, it had been free, it looked pretty and I could still put my keys on it if I wanted to.
But I had another idea, another use for it.
'Are you going to chuck it?' asked Dad as we turned into our drive, past the dustbins.
I shook my head.
Dad stopped and turned on his heels. A single finger was lifted.
I'm warning you, are you listening, young lady? You leave Dylan alone, he's got a hard enough life as it is trying to survive in the Brixton Hill gardens with all that other nonsense you've fixed on the poor little devil's collar!'
I just smiled, politely, and then shoved the key tag deep into ray coat pocket. Dad could be such a pain.
Dylan was scratching himself on the porch mat as we walked up the path.
The front do
or opened. Mum (or Mary) stood in the doorway.
She didn't look good. I sighed.
Dad (or Jim) was making caustic comments in the living-room about how the Christmas booze seemed to be prematurely lowering its level. The surface line in the large bottle of Gordon's, which sat on the Habitat trolley, was certainly nearing the bottom.
Even I noticed that.
But then again, Mum was depressed.
I spent my time out in the kitchen trying to make the key tag work, but it wouldn't give out so much as a peep. Dylan had struggled into the kitchen too.
Mum and Dad were rowing again and Dylan wanted to get out of their way.
I didn't blame him.
Dad was making the usual fuss about how she had to pull herself together, she'd a family (and him) to look after, just because Edith's number had come up we didn't have to spend the entire Christmas in mourning.
Then he threatened to re-convert the grannie-flat which we'd had built next to the garden shed. He'd always threatened to make it into an outdoor aquarium.
Ah well.
And my new freebie didn't work.
Dylan purred smugly down at me from the top of the boiler. His head was lowered from the weight of his great collection of Cat Consumables. Mum called him our 'Consumer Kitty'.
I attached the key tag to his collar along with the other freebies:
his Katto-Kipper personalized name disc
plastic Burger King bun
miniature Coca-Cola bottle
Holiday Inn room tag
MHI luggage label
Kellogg's Munchkin Man
and a Dr Who Energizer ring which wrapped around his neck.
That had been a special 'give-away' at the Arndale Shopping Centre in Croydon; he liked that best of all.