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 Tales from the Morning Room

Et in Arcadia Ego

This novel will be published one chapter a month.
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX

FOREWORD

In its day the Great Northern Metropolitan Cemetery had been one of the finest cemeteries in Europe. For some eighty years it had grown in grandeur as it fulfilled its purpose to be a fitting resting place for the dead. Fine tombs were built, mausoleums the equal of any in the world; the finest architects were employed in its design; the organisation and administration undertaken with dignity and efficiency. To the Victorians it was a symbol of the value they gave to their lives.

In time the cemetery became full and it was at this point that it attained its highest perfection. The trees had matured, time had given a patina of age to the monuments, the paths were well-kept. Most of all, those who were buried there still had families living. These would come - to lay flowers on the graves, to be silent, to pay their respects. In its melancholy beauty it gave hope that there was peace in death.

Sadly, this was not to continue. With no income from further burials yet with an obligation to maintain the grounds, the cemetery company found itself in serious difficulty. By 1910 most of the staff had been paid off and the little money remaining was barely sufficient to retain a small number of workers. When the War came, even these workers went away and the cemetery was formally closed.

By the 1930’s the Great Northern was in such a state that the local council took it over but they too had little money and the neglect and decay continued. In those years the cemetery was not entirely lost; people still visited the tombs, lamented perhaps the growth of vegetation and the lack of care but were still secure in knowing that it was a place set apart for the dead.

In the late 50’s and throughout the 60’s a more sinister development took place. The cemetery, now a wilderness, began to attract grave-robbers, magicians and vandals.

For the most part the vandals were just children, teenagers on the rampage. Yet the damage they did was irreparable. Graffiti were scrawled on the tombs, gravestones were pushed over, monuments defaced. The grave-robbers were worse. Drawn by the lure of the jewellery the Victorians had buried with their dead they hacked open doors, disturbed the coffins, fled in the night leaving the dead exposed to view. Worse still were the magicians, the necromancers, who with deliberation and intent carried out dark rituals of desecration.

At the end of this time the cemetery presented a dark and sinister appearance; half the tombs had been broken into, magical signs were scrawled on doors, graves were lost under a tangle of weeds. In the afternoon silence it was a lonely and eerie place; in the evening and at night it was a place of dread and horror.

It could not continue. Local people campaigned the authorities, demanded a stop be put to the desecrations, demanded the cemetery be maintained. As a result the council decided to appoint a caretaker, a labourer who would live on the grounds and be responsible for its security and maintenance. A 23 year old unemployed graduate in Social Psychology called Michael Edge was forced by circumstances to take the job.

I was standing at the gates of the Great Northern Cemetery waiting to be met by a bloke from the council who was to see me settled in. He was half an hour late already but with the S.S. on my back I just had to wait. It seemed typical; I had to be up at six to travel halfway across London to be on time but he could come whenever he wanted.

The interviewer had said the place was derelict but I’d had no idea just how derelict. It looked terrible, an absolute wilderness of trees and bushes run riot. The dull white of gravestones and monuments could be seen, half-hidden by the tangled foliage. The monumental gates were badly rusted and dead leaves and twigs had gathered at their base. Everything was dead or decaying - even the flowers seemed dead. Flies were everywhere.

There was a wood opposite, thickly planted, so that I couldn’t see through to the far side but further up the road it thinned out and gave onto some waste ground beyond which were a few houses, though they were at least a mile away. Back down the road there was nothing but the wood on the far side and the high cemetery wall on this. It was very isolated. What worried me more than anything was that I couldn’t see the lodge; the thought of being stuck right in the middle of the place was quite upsetting.

A car was approaching, a white bulbous Vauxhall Wyvern that slowed down as it neared the entrance. The driver was a short, red-faced balding man with an absurd moustache: the type that was always a foreman, or a clerk in the social security.

He got out of his car and looked sourly at me. “Edge ?“ I nodded.

“Right. Name’s Alcott. Area Supervisor of Parks. Follow me.”
I picked up my things and followed him through the gates. As we went through he ordered me in a brusque manner to get them fixed, as if it was my fault they were in such a state. Without waiting for a reply he set off at a brisk pace.

As I followed I felt unease grow in me at the sight of the cemetery. Every few yards minor paths took off, their outlines lost within feet under tangled bindweed and brambles that grew across them to entwine in the centre. Shafts of sunlight broke through the tree cover here and there, puddling on the ground, causing a tomb to loom brighter in the dimness, illuminating the swarms of midges and individual insects that were responsible for an ever-present humming. It was suffocatingly hot.

At first there were few tombs, only some small headstones by the side of the path, much overgrown by the weeds at their base, and glimpses of larger monuments seen through the trees but as we moved deeper into the cemetery so the graves grew larger and more numerous. We passed a series of broken columns set on plinths with, here and there, figures of sorrowful angels burdened by an urn. With their downcast eyes and weather-streaked faces they gave the scene a desolate melancholy air.

Up till then the tree cover had been thin and light had got through but now we entered upon a wide avenue where the trees formed a dim mysterious tunnel of convoluted foliage within which, like the abodes of ancient gods, were a number of larger tombs. It struck me then that I had strayed from the old familiar world of bedsits and cafes into one that was immeasurably older and which knew only its own laws.

The first of the tombs was in the Graeco-Egyptian style, an ominous building of now weathered Portland Stone set on a low plinth with pillars in front of heavy doors and girdled by a rusted and broken chain. To my distaste the doors of the second tomb were open and then with growing unease I noticed that most of the vaults had been broken into. Only those with doors of iron were still intact though even these were scored and dented as if by axe or hammer blows.

I was lagging behind with the heat. The man marched on, his bald head bobbing up and down and the shining seat of his trousers visible where his jacket was splayed open at the back. Every now and then he barked at me to hurry up.

I glared at his back and, not for the first time, cursed having ever taken that stupid degree in Social Psychology. Three years at University with sociology all the rage and then the great sociology bubble had burst and I was one of thousands competing for a handful of posts. Social Psychology was worst because the only posts were in universities and clinics and my degree wasn’t good enough. Friends of mine were lecturers or doing PhD’s and here was I stuck behind this character.
We walked deeper into the oppressive atmosphere. It was incredible how cut off one felt: it closed in on you, behind you. I wiped the sweat from my face, I didn’t like this at all.

There was a clearing about fifty yards ahead which Alcott seemed to recognise for he grunted and walked slightly quicker. My heart sank as an evil looking building came into view. I stared with apprehension at the boarded up windows and door, the grotesque chimneys and gothic arches and gables, the patches of ivy growing on the walls. Alcott forced his way through thick tangles of bramble and rosebay willow herb to the porch.
“You don’t expect me to live in this,” I demanded.

He scowled at me.“You’ll just have to. Comes with the job. Now get those planks off the door.”

I found a piece of metal which speeded things up although he made a great show of impatience which irritated me. When the planks were down he produced a key which, to my surprise, worked, although the door needed a good shove to get it open. I peered apprehensively into the darkness but could make nothing out. The place stank of dampness.

I fumbled on the wall for a light switch but there was nothing. Higher up, however, there was a gas light like the ones used in old railway stations. I pulled the long cord that hung down but there was no tell-tale hiss of gas.

“That’s your problem, sonny. You’re the one that’s got to live here. Nobody asked you to take the job.”

He snorted. “You won’t last a week, sonny. I can tell. Your type - lazy, no good.”

“Right then,” he said, giving a glance at his watch, “you know what to do; the gates and the path at the entrance. I’ll be back on Thursday to inspect your work and it had better be good; understand? I’m having no layabouts working for me.”

I frowned. “At my interview they said you were just to meet me and then make sure I got all my supplies. There was nothing about working for you.”

His face went red. “Oh no, son. This is my cemetery. You work for me. Understand!”

After a long glare at me he stomped off. I stared after him. I was sure he wasn’t in charge; the interviewer had made that clear. Another thing was that he was to have got the lodge ready for me to move in and yet he clearly expected me to start work right away.

The only thing to do was check it out with my interviewer but when, after a long walk I phoned, I found that he was on holiday till Wednesday and then he’d be tied up all day; the speaker couldn’t help as it wasn’t his section.

I was worried for if Alcott really was in charge he’d sack me for not working on the gates and yet I just had to work on the lodge otherwise I’d have nowhere to sleep. Telling myself not to be ridiculous, that it was perfectly reasonable to get the lodge into order I went back to the cemetery.
I returned by a different route so as to avoid that main avenue with its rows of silent tombs. The path went straight on for a hundred yards and the appearance was less oppressive, though bad enough. My feet crunched in the gravel and instinctively I found myself listening for other sounds in the deathly silence. And yet there was a sound - the humming of innumerable insects, so constant I hadn’t been aware of it: bees, dragonflies, bluebottles, even butterflies. They flitted from tomb to tomb, from flower to flower, sometimes in sunlight, sometimes in shadow but ever-present.

For a while I was lost: the paths looked alike and seemed to go nowhere but at one point I got a good view of the south of the cemetery though most of it was obscured by the trees. I was right about the size: the south-west corner, still bounded by that grey stone wall must have been three-quarters of a mile away. There were the outlines of major paths to be seen in the rows of trees and these radiated from a centre four hundred yards from the south-west corner. There was also a main path that went north from this centre but its course was hidden behind some trees. Beyond the wall on the west side was a railway line which gladdened me, though I hadn’t heard any trains yet. It was certainly an impressive view but even with the sun shining on the trees it was still ominous and brooding.

At last I found the lodge and walked round it to get some idea of its size and layout. There were six rooms on the ground floor and seven above with possibly other rooms though with so many corners and angles to the roof it was difficult to tell if there was a third floor or if they were attic rooms. There was a side door from what, judging by the pipes, must have been the kitchen; it was built out from the house, and round the back what seemed to be French windows.
Close to, the building lost some of its fear for me: a high pitched gable might look sinister from a distance when seen as a silhouette but not when you saw the moss covered tiles, the corroded guttering, the stains of rainwater on the masonry. Overall it seemed in good condition, certainly damp but that might be easily corrected and as for the few loose tiles and the guttering, that was something the council could fix.

I started to lever the boards off the windows but it was harder than I thought and by one o’clock I’d only managed to get them off the three rooms at the front and the kitchen. Inside the light made a great difference even though it was weak with the grime on the windows. The first room to the left of the doorway had been an office for there were shelves and desks of an old-fashioned type. The next room was smaller and had a desk with a chair on either side and a large cabinet by the wall. There was also a fireplace with a mirror hanging above. A pen and inkwell still rested on the desk, even a sheet of yellowed blotting paper. It was strange to see these relics, untouched for decades.

The third room was the kitchen, still complete with pots and pans, and heavy cutlery, green with age. There was a fine set of plates and cups and a whole shelful of bottles. I tried the taps but they didn’t work.

Intrigued to see what the other rooms contained I worked hard through the afternoon but the only things of interest were a living room, cluttered with Victorian furniture and heavy drapes, and piles of musty smelling books and registers.

Upstairs I got the boards off one window after a great deal of trouble that involved climbing onto the porch above the door and leaning over a gap of four feet with nothing to hold onto except crumbling brickwork. The room was sparsely furnished with curtains, a carpet and a heavy tallboy.

It was five o’clock and I was starving. Also it had got cooler and the clouds that had formed were making the lodge look gloomy and sinister again. In the early evening silence the old house was eerie and very dark inside with the reduced light. I walked around a bit, half wondering whether to get some candles and spend the evening in the kitchen or the living room, but then my imagination got the better of me; the thought of staring out the window at the lengthening shadows, at the darkened sepulchres, of being alone in the gloomy old house was repellent. I’d get out, have a meal, buy some candles and a bottle of wine and pass the evening as best I could.

I shut the lodge up and walked down the strangely quiet path with its sepulchres and tombs, uneasy about walking through there late at night but glad at least to be out for a. few hours.

I phoned a few friends but they were either out or tied up but even if they’d been free it would have cost a fortune to get down to Earl’s Court. That was another thing; I was almost marooned up here and they were such a boozy crowd that there wasn’t much hope of them leaving the pubs in that part of London to come up and see me.

As I left the phone to search for a cafe I felt lonely for the first time I’d been in London. It wasn’t just this evening but how I’d fill in every other evening. I couldn’t imagine going to a pub on my own and I couldn’t go to the pictures every night.

The cinema: I grasped at the thought. That’d be ideal; something to eat and then a film.

There were no shops in sight but a bus was coming and I took it up past the cemetery until half a mile beyond it some shops appeared. There was a cafe open and I had a reasonable meal for five shillings and sixpence. At a nearby off-licence I bought a bottle of Redvin as it was cheaper than Rich Ruby and, in a stationers next door, a box of candles and some matches. They told me there was a cinema about a mile up the road.

I hadn’t a clue where I was. Muswell Hill, Archway, Highgate, Golders Green; I could have been anywhere. The extent of my knowledge of north London was of parties in Kilburn and Maida Vale and even then I was usually too drunk to notice anything. A slight drizzle started and there was the heavy rumble of far-off thunder. The coolness of the evening air was a delight after the oppressive heat earlier.

I reached a main street where there were plenty of people. My spirits lifted at the sight of brightly lit shop fronts, the people going into the pubs and restaurants, the queues at the bus stops, the steady stream of passing cars. Maybe I was just over-reacting about the cemetery, letting the hot day get on my nerves. So it was a bit gloomy but it was only a cemetery. Once I got the lodge cleaned up and into a routine things would be ok.

I saw the cinema up ahead and immediately cheered up. With luck it’d be a thriller or a war film.

I could have wept when I saw what was on. It was unbelievable: Dracula Rises Again and Night Horrors. The posters were dreadful, particularly the Night Horrors: - an army of fiendish looking ghouls seen against the background of a cemetery.

I walked away quickly, annoyed and certain that the images would come back at me, especially when I reached the cemetery later that night. After a fruitless attempt to find another cinema I gave up and went into a library and sat till eight o’clock when it closed. Back outside it was still drizzling and quite cold. The obvious solution was to go into a pub but I was so used to drinking in company that I couldn’t do it. Eventually I went from cafe to cafe drinking tea and remaining in each as long as I could. By ten o’clock I’d spent as much on teas as I would have at the cinema and was feeling very depressed.

Wanting to be back before midnight I started the long walk back. When the cinema came up I crossed to the other side and kept my eyes away but just the sight was enough to bring the images back. The people were coming out but they had their rooms and flats to go to, electric light and people all around them; they could switch on the radio and leave it playing all night. That damned poster of Night Horrors: I couldn’t get rid of it. Eldritch landscapes of tombs and monuments in a ghastly light, of shrouded corpses in graveclothes evilly glaring out of fell, worm-eaten faces.

A moon came up and I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. I envied the people in the street, even a down and out who was slumped in a doorway. It was hard to believe that this time last night I had been sitting in a friend’s bedsit and that three nights before I still had my own room.

There were fewer people about now and by the time I reached the shops to the north of the cemetery the streets were deserted. At length that hateful wall came into view. The trees swayed ominously in the light wind. I opened the bottle of wine and had a quick drink.

By the time I reached the gates I was a bit calmer and the bottle was still comfortably full but the sight of the dark tunnel of the path and the silvery patches on the trees made me have another drink before entering.

It was deathly still: the moonlight was weak and often obscured by cloud so that everything was in shadow yet sufficient to see the graves on either side of the path. My feet crunched on the gravel save where moss had overgrown the pebbles.

First one tomb loomed up, then another. I kept my eyes straight ahead, refusing to look through their gaping doors. All the while I was intensely alert, probing ahead, interpreting every shadow, every dark mass that looked like a figure.

At a more open part of the path the clouds moved away from the moon. In its soft light the white monuments stood eerily amidst the silent bushes. I felt sick, forced myself ahead, tried to think of anything other than what I saw.

I had known all along what would happen and it did. Those stupid posters; weird landscapes, desolate and moonlit, the monuments like the spires of an underground city breaking through the soil, and everywhere the gaping openings through which the dead could emerge. A nameless dread took hold of me. In seconds I was running, a trot at first, then faster, then a full sprint, my mind blank with terror.

In a panic I scrabbled to get the key into the door, my chest heaving, sweat running off me. It opened and I stumbled through.

I leant back on the door, catching my breath and expecting at any moment to hear scratching on the other side. When nothing happened I grew calmer, forcing myself to accept it was just my imagination.

With the door locked I felt more secure and was thankful to have the candles. Even so I was still scared: the cemetery outside looked decidedly creepy in the moonlight and the old house was full of shadows and unnervingly still.

Without enthusiasm I climbed upstairs to the room with the shutters off. It would have to do. I lit another candle and rolled the threadbare carpet into a couch, laying my sleeping bag on top. The window was so dirty that very little light came through but I was taking no chances with my imagination and pulled the tattered curtains across as best I could. With a curse at everything I climbed into the sleeping bag, struggled to get comfortable, and presently, with the help of the wine, fell asleep.

The next morning I awoke at six to a cold light filtering through the dusty window. Reluctantly I got up and looked outside. The cemetery was still and quiet. Dew gleamed on the weeds and glistened on the tombs. A crow croaked high up in one of’ the trees. The sun was well up and breaking through the haze. It promised to be a warm day.

I didn’t feel too bad considering the night I’d had. It was the posters that had done it; ridiculous to be creeping around in the moonlight thinking that a ghoul was going to fly in the window. I’d have to get a grip on myself.

As I’d been sleeping in my clothes I decided to go up to the shops where there was a public lavatory and have a wash. A down and out was in there already and his eyes lit up when he saw my razor but his stubble was so thick that the blade was ruined when I got it back. The cafe was open and I basked in the steamy warmth as I planned the day ahead.

It was just eight when I got back and already warm. With the light from the upstairs windows and the candles it was relatively simple to get the rest of the hoardings down including those on three small rooms on the third floor. Most of these rooms were sparsely furnished; the house had. been too large for the previous incumbent but there was a fully furnished bedroom with bed. It was a bit sombre for my taste, a wardrobe and chest of drawers in dark mahogany, a washstand with earthenware jug and bowl, heavy green curtains and an ample fireplace topped with a magnificent portrait of King Edward the Seventh; but sombre or not, it would be better than sleeping on the floor. Rather hopefully I tested the mattress but it was rotted and I had to throw it out the window. One curious thing was a uniform hung up in the wardrobe: black, of heavy cloth and with a cap like a railwayman’s on which was a metal badge saying Superintendent. There was also a top hat and tails: his dress suit for funerals, I supposed.

The next thing was to see if there was water. There were no valves downstairs so I went up to the attic to look at the water tank.

As I clambered over the edge there was a panicked fluttering of pigeons and starlings trying to get out into the open air. The floor was thick with droppings and twigs from old nests, even a dead pigeon. I picked this up on the end of a stick and tossed it through the skylight. Great: pigeons and starlings for company although at least I’d know where any scrabbling noises during the night were coming from.

I pulled a likely lever and, in moments, was rewarded by a deep gurgling and rumbling from within the pipe as the water rushed upwards and flowed into the tank. I waited to make sure the ball-cock was working and then back downstairs ran all the taps till the water cleared. It was fantastic really that it hadn’t been shut off at the main pipe outside the cemetery but it must just have been forgotten about. I spent the rest of the morning cleaning the windows and the floors and was well pleased with the results especially the difference it made to the light.

I was having my lunch, milk and rolls from the cafe, when I was struck with an exciting idea. If the water was still on, maybe the gas was too.

Within ten minutes I had found the main supply in what, must have been a boilerhouse, though the boiler had long since rusted away. I pulled the lever down and back inside struck a match close to the mantle of a hail light. With a hiss and a plop it came on and in seconds was casting a soft radiance into the hall. I was delighted. for it would make all the difference to being here at night.

The cooker was now working which meant I’d be able to eat here. I decided to go to the shops and get some food and various odds and ends and work into the evening. The sooner I got the place into order, the better; and the work helped to keep my mind off the graves.

I went north this time hoping to find a shortcut for I was getting fed up with having to double back. It was hillier than the southern end and the graves were set on terraces cut out of the hillside, with flights of steps joining them. It reminded me of a classical town clinging to the slopes of a Mediterranean hill.

On the other side of the path it was less hilly though sufficiently so for the designer to have created quiet backwaters out of sight of the main path. I found this out because I detoured up a path which gave onto strange vistas of little hollows with only a few graves and of tombs joined together by a heavy pediment and receding round the curve of a hill.

A little way ahead the path widened and I wondered what it meant. It proved to be twin colonnades set opposite each other and running parallel for maybe forty feet. Both were arc-shaped and set into the slopes of what was a little valley.

I entered the right hand colonnade by a wrought iron gate which was rusty but intact, an intricate complex of curves and involuted spirals, and found myself in a dismal and damp demi-monde of light and shade. On my right was a solid wall of heavy stone blocks into which were set memorial tablets from the 1860’s, all middle class families. On my left were pillars of Portland stone, eight feet high, grand in original conception but now partly obscured by creeping ivy which wound its way strand by strand spirally, eating into the stone, till at the base of each pillar was a mound of humus and mould. I tugged at a long strand that had found a foothold in the ceiling and was showered in pieces of flaking stone. The damn stuff was holding the place together.

The columns were set on a base wall at regular intervals but so thick was the ivy, bindweed and other creeping plants that one seemed to be inside a long curving chamber lit irregularly through choked-up windows from which glimpses could be caught of the sister colonnade and the weirdly sculpted tombs on the avenue outside.

A dim counter-illumination came from an opening on the right which was barred by another gate. Someone, sometime, had broken this open, destroying as they did some delicate ironworking. I peered through into a fusty passageway which gave onto an open area which yet seemed cluttered with stonework as if there was another colonnade in there. The gate opened with a screech of rusted metal and I walked through into the quiet enclosed area.

I don’t quite know how to put across the feelings it aroused; it was so far from my normal experience, it was like being in a pit out of which one could look only helplessly at the branches of trees high above. What the architect had intended I don’t know; it was a pit and therefore below ground, circular, some forty feet, with a colonnade of square heavy columns capped with rectangular stones in the centre, so that one seemed to be in a pagan temple sunk deep into the ground. Or rather, outside it; for beyond those stones and in the centre of the circle was a mysterious pool, long empty, surrounded by paving in a pattern obscured by the weeds and the leaf mould drifting from the trees above. I looked away from the central area to the outer, to tenebrous vaults open beyond railings, their occupants at rest yet in view of the spectator. It was troubling, this arrangement; as if they had been buried twice, as if to have their tomb in this enclosure was to make it the threshold of a tomb. It made me feel as if I were inside their grave.

There was a strange feature on the other side; niches cut into the stone, hundreds of them looking rather like a dovecot, and in these tiny spaces, an urn or vase containing the ashes of the dead. Many, sadly, of the shelves were empty, and on the floor were shards of broken containers and a soft dust that may have been soil blown from the ground above, yet was surely in part the remains of the long dead.

From the dates it seemed that funeral fashions had changed about the 1860’s to allow cremation and I supposed that this strange structure had been built to receive the ashes and wondered if it had been the first of its kind in the country.

I stepped through the colonnade into the sombre central area thinking that there might be some chance of cleaning the pool and getting it operational again. It was chockfull of twigs and debris but the mould clung together so that I was able to pick up large handfuls and toss them onto the paving. There was a grill at the centre of the pool where the water had drained away but after a brief attempt to clean it which got me filthy right up my arm, I had to give it up. It was probably blocked all along its length. The inlet I supposed would be at the side and after a brief search I found a carved stone gargoyle with open mouth from which water would have spouted. Sometime I’d see if I could work out the water supply.

Once outside I climbed up by the side of the colonnade to see what it looked like from above. It was surprisingly small and being surrounded by dense shrubbery and tall trees was half invisible even from a dozen yards away. I looked into the quiet enclave, so like an excavation of a classical ruin, and wondered.

There was a gap in the wall just a few hundred yards from the shops. Being short of money I had to be careful: bread, butter, jam, eggs, beans, tea, sugar, milk, sausages and a little bit of bacon. I had some condiments from my bedsit. I also bought four packets of dates at sixpence each in case of emergency, and in case I couldn’t sleep, a bottle of wine, draught amontillado as it was cheaper. The cleaning things were the most expensive, coming to over a pound but they were essential to get the place in order. These included a plastic basin for one and six at a second-hand shop and some rags which cost two shillings as I had to buy them as items of clothing. Most important of all was a fair mattress with a pillow and blankets for ten bob and a transistor complete with 9 volt battery tied to the outside of it for five bob.
I had to dump the smaller items inside the cemetery wall and return for the mattress but eventually got everything to the house. The mattress was too small for the bed but it would do.

It was about quarter to five and not being particularly hungry I first collected wood scattered around and lit fires in every room and then continued with the cleaning. The sinks proved very difficult being caked with hardened dirt, and the taps being black with verdigris. The windows also were black with over half a century of dust and smog filtered through the boards but the liquid soap defeated the dirt. Part of the window frames had rotted but that was something for the council to look after.

I must admit I’d got rather lazy in the fifteen months since leaving university except for some stupid temporary jobs where you were expected to work like a slave for seven or eight pounds a week. This paid little more and I was working just as hard but the difference was that I was enjoying it; mainly because I was deciding what to do although part of it was to keep my mind off the cemetery.

I ate at seven to the sound of the transistor. The kitchen, now fairly clean, looked cheerful and I ate the bacon and eggs with gusto. There was a bit of life in the place now: light, for the gas lamps were on; sound because the Light Programme was blaring out; and warmth, because there were fires blazing in all the rooms. I washed the plates in hot water and went to check the fires. There was still a musty smell in the living rooms but I’d pulled the divan and chairs over to the fire and with luck they’d be dry by morning. The office fire also was blazing away nicely, casting flickering shadows against the walls and curtains even though the sun hadn’t set. The desks looked as if they were waiting for the clerks and clerkesses to come in in the morning and carry on business as usual,

I pottered around for the rest of the evening, cleaning and tidying and by ten o’clock was exhausted. The gas lamps made a great difference - the darkness had been half the trouble last night.

Upstairs the room looked almost normal and the bed was warm and inviting. I locked the door, reassured by the large lock and, fairly relaxed, settled down to the sound of the crackling fire and the radio, and soon fell asleep.

Two days later, Thursday, I was expecting a visit from Alcott. As usual I lit the fires and was happy to see the improvement the heat was making though it tended to make the wallpaper billow out from the wall. I had breakfast and then looked out a scythe for I intended to have a go at the clearing outside. In fact I’d see if Alcott could come up with some paint and other odds and ends I needed.

By ten I’d made good headway having got into a fair rhythm with the scythe and could look with satisfaction at the swathe cut through the willow herb and dandelion though I’d avoided a few shrubs which would have dented the blade. At least Alcott couldn’t say I hadn’t been working.

I raked all the cuttings into a huge pile and put a match to it but the stuff was wet so I continued with the scything trying to make a neater job of it. I was attacking one of the uneven clumps that remained when Alcott arrived.

“Morning,” I called. He didn’t answer and when he got closer I could see he was furious.

“What the devil is this?” he shouted, waving his hand at the lodge. “I told you to work on the gates and the entrance.”

It was what I’d half expected. “But I needed somewhere to sleep,” I explained. “I had to work on the lodge.”

“Come off it? Come off it? Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, Edge?”
I stared at him. This was going from bad to worse. “Yeah, but I had to sleep somewhere. Did you expect me to sleep in a bloody tomb?”

I hadn’t meant to sound aggressive but must have for he went near purple in the face.

“Right. That ‘s it,” he snapped. “You can pick up your things and go.”

“That’s your business, sonny. Go to the Social Security. They’ll soon take care of you.”

I shook my head, argued with him, finally lost my temper and stormed off to check it out with my interviewer. He shouted something after me but I didn’t listen. I’d sort him out. Talk about class inequality, social controls, misuse of power; ever since I’d left that bloody sociology course I’d been a living example of the underprivileged having to face up to people like Alcott all the time. And what if he were right about not getting the money today. I had just under a pound and the Social Security wouldn’t pay me until I had a room and I couldn’t get a room until they paid me.

It took five minutes to find the interviewer and when he came on he didn’t quite seem to know who I was. I told him what had happened and kept my voice as calm as possible as I didn’t want to antagonise him. To my delight he took my side although he put it over as a mix-up in communications, that Mr. Alcott must have misunderstood what the position was, that he was only the liaison for supplies. He promised to see Alcott and said that a squad of men would be sent over to look at the lodge.

I was elated; that pig had tried to put one over me and had lost. Probably annoyed that his head office had appointed someone without coming to him. He was still at the lodge.

I told him in no uncertain terms, then slammed the door in his face. It had turned purplish-red.

I wondered later if I’d overdone it but then Alcott was the type who’d still be out to get control even if I’d been polite to him. I shrugged it off as best I could.

Late afternoon on returning from the shops I got caught in a downpour and had to take shelter in the doorway of a tomb. With the rain the place took on a different appearance; where it had crawled with malignant life in the harsh sunlight now this was dampened down, drenched in the cold rain. I swear that I cheered up as the cemetery settled under the grey sky to the more familiar sight of gravestones dripping with rain, the open vista of trees swaying in the wind, the melancholy of cemeteries on wet afternoons.

It had a grandeur: majestic tombs, weeds growing on their bases, chains rusting, puddles formed on the paths, desolation and sadness. An angel opposite now seemed the very symbol of what it was to be dead here; alone, withdrawn, empty yet somehow showing by its presence that someone had lived.

There was the sound of footsteps on gravel: it was a man hurrying along in search of shelter. He spotted my tomb and ran over to it not seeing me till the last moment. He apologised for his intrusion.

“That’s OK,” I said. He was a distinguished looking man of middle age, dressed in an expensive grey woollen coat.

He brushed the rain off his coat and then turned his head to look at the tomb. There was graffiti on the door.

He shook his head. “It’s very sad. A lot of these children have their great grandparents buried here.” He turned away from the graffiti and sighed. “What a magnificent cemetery this must have been, one of the finest in Europe, certainly the largest. And all forgotten. It’s too bad.” He turned to me. “May I ask what brought you here?”

“The Council appointed me on Monday,” I explained. “I’m just getting the lodge into shape then I’ll start on the maintenance.”

“Ah, so you’re living here. Well the old place is certainly taking on a new lease of life.” He hesitated. “But it‘s such a huge place. How will you manage?”

I shrugged. “So long as it looks as if something’s being done, the council will be happy. It’s just a cover-up job for the papers. I’ll do what I can, of course.”

“That’s good…;” he didn’t know my name so I introduced myself and found his name was Andrew Gray. “Very good,” he continued. “It’s a position of great trust and responsibility. These cemeteries should be cared for, not forgotten or neglected. Restored they would be quiet havens of peace where we could honour the dead and reflect on our own mortality.” He looked sadly at the ground.

There was a strange sadness about the man. It showed in his face, in his gestures, in his slow and pensive speech.

We talked on for a while and then the rain stopped. Gray made an anxious examination of the sky.

“I think there’s still rain there, so I’d best head back while I can,” he stated.
He held out his hand. “Well goodbye, Michael. I wish you well with your new job, and may perhaps see you again.”

On the way back I was wondering who he was when the rain caught me in the open, and I lost the train of thought as I dashed for the lodge.

Later that evening what he had said about the dead came back to me. This was their memorial place, thousands upon thousands of people, and nothing remained of their memory except the entries in the ledgers. It was sad to think that was the only record of their existence.

I went through into the room where the records were kept and flicked through the pages of one of the books. It was a register of burials for 1872 with a page for each day and as many as ten entries on one day. Somehow it suited my mood and I sat down to study it.

I’d had no idea just how important a cemetery it was. There were entries from all over North London: Archway, Muswell Hill, Camden Town, Kensal Rise and everybody, from the lowest members of society to dukes and duchesses of the realm were buried here. The entries were in copperplate writing, sure and bold, the spacing and punctuation meticulous.

I could just imagine a clerk scratching away and fearfully holding open a page for inspection. I wondered how old he was, how much he was paid, what he did in the evenings, whether he was happy in his work. It was sad to think of a complete life with its hopes, joys and fears gone for ever, remembered only by handwriting in a register of burials.

The register gave personal details of the deceased, the lair number and the fee payable: Thomas Jackson, apothecary, age 53, 10 Temple Road, Islington, lair 1063, £6.6.0; Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Anderson, City of London Regiment, aged 60, died of natural causes, lair 161, £l57.l0.0. I read entries like these for ten minutes before closing the dolorous book. On impulse I checked the handwriting in earlier books to see when the clerk took his position. I found it in 1856 and traced it through to 1876 and there, on 5th July, was his name in another’s hand, Alfred James Hogan, Clerk of the Great Northern Metropolitan Cemetery Company, aged 49, died cancer of the bowel, £21.0.0. I wondered if he’d saved for that or if employees of the Company were expected to go out with as much dignity as the higher reaches of the Victorian Middle Class.

There were still dozens of books and files on the floor and these I surmised would contain records of employment, work schedules, accounts from local businesses and the like. I was right enough but would never have dreamed of the number of things required in the operation of a large cemetery that would have a record kept of them. Almost unconsciously I had begun to think of the work as what I had to do, security and maintenance; I had a picture of the cemetery filled up, the vegetation well established and only the minimum of inspection of ironwork and masonry and of gardening necessary, but here from these records I could see that that was only a part of the work and that there was a time when there was just an open landscape with a few monuments standing beside newly planted trees and laid out paths.

The Minutes for the very first meeting of the new company, January 21st, 1838 detailed the appointment of a General Manager and the means of funding. The second meeting reported sufficient funds for the purchase of land and a discussion of suitable sites. Three months later, out of four potential locations, the present was selected on account of its natural beauty, the proximity to highly-populated districts and the excellence of its drainage.
The Minutes unfolded their tale: the squabble with the authorities over the supposedly good drainage who claimed that this would carry putrefaction into the drinking water; the opposition from the churches who saw the idea as a secularisation of death and were dismayed at losing the income from burials; the policies formed to gain acceptance of the scheme; the visit by the Board to the great cemetery of Pére la Chaisse in Paris; the open competition for the design of the grounds and the building; the awarding of contracts for the layout of paths, landscaping and drainage, the boundary wall and entrance and other items. Then came immensely detailed discussions on its administration: bound copies of ten page minutes, month by month, year by year as decisions were taken on staff, their duties and organisation, their remuneration, the uniforms they had to wear, on equipment, on liaison with funeral undertakers across half the city, on securing the interest of the public, on fixing charges for funerals, the administration of burials ad infinitum. As to the number of staff, there had been dozens.

It was fascinating stuff but tiring to read. With a sigh I closed the book: all that complex life a hundred years ago and nothing remained. It was all forgotten, the people who worked here, who were buried here.

Later that evening with the setting of the sun I felt troubled again. The posters were hovering at the back of my mind, threatening to erupt into full consciousness. I reminded myself not to be ridiculous, that this was London in 1969 with a million people living within five miles, and to affirm this went outside. The sun was setting and the shadows lengthening. A great stillness had fallen on the place: no wind, no birds, just uneasy calm. I looked down the dark avenue at the silent shapes that stood on either side, the gothic sepulchres, the broken columns, the sorrowing angels with their wings, the urns draped with ivy. And above, I looked at the trees, menacing shapes that towered darkly against a red and violet sky. There was no use denying it: I was afraid.

Next day I found I was running out of food and money. I had to have a bottle of wine, that was a priority. But it would last only to the Saturday night. There was still a week to payday.

I had a bright idea. Why not get a sub. It would cost threepence for the call but I’d be able to get a good meal and then clear off to Earl’s Court for the weekend.

It proved an illusory hope. I phoned at nine but no one was in, and then when I did get through, couldn’t find anyone with the authority to give me the sub.

At the shops that evening I bought pounds of rolled oats to make into porridge and more dates though I hated the things. I had to keep money back for another phone call on Monday and enough for the bus fare if they did authorise the sub. Beyond that I was broke.

Rolled oats boiled in water makes a very messy dish and very hot. I ate it as the Scots do, with salt. With no milk I had to let it cool and sat there at the plain table spooning the stuff without enthusiasm. This was seven o’clock on Saturday morning and I’d a day’s work to do; there was no point in me going to Earl’s Court without any money as I already owed my friends stacks. I’d heard of hardy Scottish students a century ago coming in from their highland homes to the universities with a big sack of oatmeal on which they lived during the term but didn’t feel any kinship with them.

I stopped at eleven and reheated the porridge pan. Without sugar and milk it was vile. It was raining and impossible for me to continue outside. There was plenty to do in the house, however, and that would keep me occupied to the next bowl of porridge. The kitchen shelves caught my eye for they were filled with dirty bottles, dozens of them, some still full of their shadowy contents. I picked one up but was unable to read the label beneath the grime of half a century. Under soap and water it emerged in its pristine state - Grant’s Pickled Plums it said on its gaudy label of red and yellow with testimonials in small print. For interest I washed some more: Daddies Sauce, Braggs Gooseberry Jam, names I had never heard of and yet some like Daddies Sauce surprisingly familiar. I thought I’d be as well keeping them for cleaned up they’d add agreeable colour to the dull shelves. In all I kept about forty and threw the others, mostly ugly thick jars onto the tip outside. I cleaned the shelves and lined the jars and bottles up in impressive rows. Inspired by the slight but subtle change this made to the appearance of the kitchen I set to on the huge pots and pans long passed from fashion so that when I sat down to eat later on I could look upon the sheen of copper.

The jars kept niggling at me: I felt there was something I could do about them but couldn’t get my hands on it. It certainly wasn’t to eat: there was no mould growing inside but they all looked a deadly uniform grey, the contents bleached as if toadstools in a deadly toxic liquor. It was only when I went outside to the tip with more rubbish that it twigged. I was sitting on a fortune. There was a boom in collecting old bottles and here was I throwing them away.

An hour later found me stepping off the bus at Westbourne Grove near to Portobello Road with two bags full of the precious bottles. There were dozens of antique shops and I was sure I’d have no problem in finding one that sold bottles. The first few shops were full of Chinese vases and junk like that but no bottles. I kept looking for I was sure I’d seen bottles or old cake tins on display somewhere. And then, just a bit along, my heart jumped into my mouth: a Daddies Sauce Bottle complete with label. It was mixed up with some non-descript bottles and cake tins. Maybe this was the place I’d seen.

I went in and stood around feeling a bit shabby because the three people in the shop were engaged in an esoteric conversation about Lalique, whatever that was. At length when I saw that I was being ignored I went forward and as two of the people pointedly turned the other way asked the third, the owner, how much was that bottle in the window. And which bottle is that, he said grandly, making the sort of gesture to his audience that he had to go, some fool was demanding his attention. Hmm? he said into the air as he perambulated towards the window. That one there he questioned as I pointed it out. Oh that’s twelve pounds. He stalked back to his audience leaving me standing there. They continued their discussion, ignoring me.

I wasn’t sure. Should I produce my bottles, call his bluff? No, he had his audience. Produce one, see what he said? Look around a bit more, gauge the prices and then come back here? I must have stood for too long for he came striding over. Yes? Are you going to buy the bottle? Well no? Well then, he said, taking me by the arm and opening the door, good afternoon, pushing me through.

I was furious, a bloody stuck-up twit poncing around with his Lalique and stupid Chinese vases. I searched furiously through the bags for the bottles of Daddies Sauce, found one and stood in front of the window until they couldn’t ignore me. Having caught their attention I pointed to the label and then to the bottle in the window. The owner started forward as if he thought I had stolen his bottle. Sure of my audience I prised the cork loose and upturning the bottle let the sauce plop down bit by bit onto the pavement. A rather grand lady passing by with a poodle was nearly pulled off her feet as it spotted the mess. I could feel her looking at me, more to the point hear what she was saying about me to the poodle but my eyes were on the trio in the shop. I pulled out the intact bottle of sauce, inverted it to show it hadn’t been opened, pulled out the Vines Tomato Vinegar, the Oates Celery Sauce, a dozen others and then furious flung the open bottle of Daddies Sauce down on the pavement where it smashed.

I walked away. Damn them. Twelve quid, eh. And I’d just thrown away a full bottle of the original. Well, how much would that have cost? Twenty quid, thirty? How far would they go for a bottle of the original.

By the time I’d cooled down I’d found my way round to Portobello Road. It was now a matter of finding another shop that sold this kind of thing. Portobello Road was packed with people: trendies, tourists, hippies and the stall owners. The encounter had of course confirmed my fears about antique shop owners, fears that had stemmed from when as a ten year old I had received five shillings for a stamp collection that had a catalogue value of thirty five pounds. Would it be the same now? Offered two quid for a hundred pounds worth of bottles.

I was up at the Notting Hill end where there was a slightly higher class of shop: none of them sold bottles and the owners were the same stuck-up types as the one I had already encountered. Further down seemed more hopeful: there was an emporium consisting of individual stalls where jewellery, glassware, silver and generally smaller articles were for sale. In the upstairs part of this emporium there was a stall I thought might do; for one thing the bloke looked OK and there were a number of old bottles on display. He was interested, especially at the still unopened sauce bottles and spent a long time examining them. My hopes rose as he went from one to the other calculating how much he could offer me.

“1 can give you twelve pounds ten shillings”, he said finally, “and that‘s two pounds for the Daddies sauce”. He held it up to the light amazed that it should look so fresh.

“Come off it,” I said, I’ve just been in a shop up the road where they were selling a bottle like that for twelve pounds and that’s just the empty bottle.”

“I’d give you more if I could,’ he replied, “and anyway I couldn’t sell that bottle for more than four or five pounds. He can afford to keep things lying around for months until he gets his price while I have to turn things over very quickly.”

I thought hard. Twelve pounds ten would see me in clover till I got paid but I couldn‘t stomach parting with them at such a low price. I said I‘d like to think about it and would come back if I decided to sell.

Out on the street again I wasn’t so sure I’d find another buyer. It was now mid-afternoon and the market was at its busiest. Hippies were everywhere, very colourful with beads and bright clothes and there was the sound of pop music from every doorway. Little shops had been turned into boutiques where cloaks and capes and Afghan sheepskin coats were sold along with long cotton dresses, incense and jewellery. But no bottles. Annoyed, I decided I’d just have to take the twelve pounds and walked back up the road.

It was unbelievable but the man had cleared up for the day. Now there wasn’t a hope in hell of selling them. As a last chance I asked the next stall if they were interested. The man looked with assumed uninterest at the bottles.

“But you heard him offer me twelve. That gives you six pounds clear profit.”

‘If you’re not happy you might get a better price elsewhere,” his bejewelled wife said this in an earnest tone, we’re only trying to help you sort of thing. I didn’t bother arguing. I’d be better with six quid than with nothing. I took the money with ill grace and went out.

A little later I was more cheerful. It was after all enough to keep me going for a week especially for the drink and that had been the whole point of coming down here. I had just got caught up in the illusory hope that I could get the sort of price these antiques people would sell them for.

After a much-needed meal I caught a bus down to Earl’s Court but to my annoyance my friends weren’t at their flats or the usual pubs. There must have been a party somewhere away from Earl’s Court to which they’d gone early. I was sickened. Why the hell hadn’t they got in touch with me or even left a note, they must have known I’d be down.

It was seven o ‘clock and raining. I stood hesitant in the shelter of the station wishing I knew where they‘d gone and almost taking a gamble in going to one or two flats where the party might be held but there was no guarantee and anyway I didn’t know the people in the flats very well.

I felt quite lonely and didn’t like it. Curiously, being in that state of mind it was impossible to miss the large number of lonely alienated people who drifted along the street outside. Bedsit land, great, a gas ring, a bed and a chair. But that wasn’t my problem. Mine was to get through this evening.

The rain had turned to drizzle. I shrugged. I’d be as well walking around as anything, but it proved to be too cold and dismal and in a curious way I felt cut off from the city. In the end I made my way back, feeling tired and apprehensive. I made it just as dusk was falling, glad at not having to make the walk in darkness but unhappy at being back.

I didn’t wake till ten next morning having had great difficulty in going to sleep. It had been a bad night, full of noises and shadows and a sick strung-up feeling that verged on horror. It was the moonlight and the graves and the quiet old house; I’d kept imagining the scraps of ivy at the windows was the scratching of the dead trying to get in, every noise because unidentifiable became the slither of a ghoul or the walk of a demon and every time I checked the quiet moonlit rooms or the darkness outside I would see fresh shapes to feed my imagination.

I’d hoped to keep my mind off these things but I’d been kidding myself; the dread was still there even in the brightness of morning whereas it hadn’t really been there yesterday or the day before. My defences were starting to crumble.

In an effort to overcome this depression I went out to get an idea of the work that had to be done to the cemetery; the lodge was liveable now and I’d have to start working outside from tomorrow.

I had already decided against restoring the main gates because that was the sort of official thinking I didn‘t like; deliberately misleading the public. No. Security of the graves was the first priority but there were so many, both desecrated and untouched that it was near impossible. For a while I tussled with the idea that it was the neglected state of the cemetery that made it possible for the vandals and magicians to get away with it; if the place were well kept then they might be scared off but then that would require an even greater effort from me to tidy the place which when you were talking about several hundred acres didn’t bear thinking about. In the end I decided just to go ahead with the graves as they contributed most to the feeling of neglect.

On examining these it gradually struck home what an enormous job it was. On just quarter of a mile of path there were fifty tombs needing attention, mostly to the doors which were so large that it would take a day to do a good repair on them. I measured one door: eight feet by five, mahogany, the lock broken and two of the panels smashed. To remove the wood and bevel down the new, getting it exact, would be a complicated job and even then I’d mess it up. Then there were whole doors smashed in where I‘d have to fit new surrounds and rebuild the panels from scratch before fitting them up on new hinges. Even the weight would be a strain. On the basis of two weeks work, say fifteen tombs, I reckoned over four hundred feet of wood would be needed. Alcott would do his nut.

There wasn’t much point in continuing the survey as just this little section would keep me going for the foreseeable future. Still slightly depressed I found my way back to the main path, and coming out by the hillside of tombs, climbed to the top by a zig-zag path. It was a pleasant view, a sun dappled world of tree tops stretching to the south. I tried to identify those places I already knew but could only guess at the location of the lodge and of the main pathways. Then I frowned. Three, four hundred yards away, at the western edge of the cemetery was a low black shape, much too large to be an individual tomb and of a design and form that even from this distance looked sinister. With some reluctance I decided to investigate.

Ten minutes later I stood at the start of an avenue thirty yards wide, a processional way lined with stone mausolea, an avenue along which countless coaches drawn by black horses must have gone, a ceremonial avenue leading to a temple of death.

Vast, brooding and alien it lay, a monstrous symbol of death, a squat mindless black form that crouched at the end of life’s procession ready to devour man in its darkness.

It was over one hundred feet wide and some thirty high, built of black stone and with sloping walls. There were two stages, a heavy plinth, twenty feet high, on which rested the upper part, exactly the same shape but smaller, rising another ten feet to end in a flat roof. In the centre of the upper stage were set two bronze doors and at the outer edges of the platform formed by the plinth, pylons of twisted metal representing torches. The platform was reached by a set of great steps. It was not unlike those underground reservoirs you see sometimes in the country but there were no grassy slopes here, no blue sky; just blackness.

I drew closer, aware of the darkness that clung like an aura to this structure. This if anywhere was the heart of the cemetery. I climbed the great steps to the top of the plinth. It was a strange world up there; silent, brooding and a pervasive feeling of damp. I walked the thirty or forty feet to the doors, my steps loud or muted depending on whether I walked on moss or damp stone. The doors were set in a low porch which had sloping sides and a vaguely Egyptian look. The bronze was dulled, and dented near a massive keyhole, but still in good condition. I shivered. It was oppressive.

It was another forty feet or so to the edge of the plinth where one of the iron pillars stood, still in fair condition and, as I had thought, in the form of a torch. I walked round the side but there was nothing more to see except the steeply sloping rear wall and a tangle of shrubbery at the back. I went back round to the front.

From so high up the layout of the cemetery near this building was clear. Somehow the grid of pathways, the desolate patches of grass, the forlorn tombs reminded me of a city, a city deserted and overgrown but that from its form had once been immeasurably grand.

Involuntarily I shivered and cast a glance at the doors. There was a feeling of something being in there, something malevolent and wilful, conscious of me. I tried to shake it off but it persisted.

I ran down the steps and walked quickly away, still conscious of the presence. Only when I got out of sight of the building did it die down.

A little later I came across a few groups of people. I was puzzled at first but then it twigged: Sunday excursions by Hampstead aesthetes, all gawking at the tombs and making comments like: season of mist and mellow fruitfulness; veiled melancholy in her sovran shrine and; I say, is that majolica. I gritted my teeth and walked past the silk scarves and long dresses. What the hell did they know.

A group of two men and a woman caught my attention. They seemed to be looking into a grave. I hurried along and reached them just as the woman withdrew her head.

Unthinking I asked them what they were doing. They were startled and then annoyed.

“There‘s a law against this.” It was the first thing that came into my mind and I felt stupid as soon as I’d said it.

They looked uncertainly at each other. The man who had spoken first seemed slightly apologetic.

The woman, rather flustered, confirmed this. They said nothing further, looking a bit guilty so that I felt obliged to explain.

“I’m the caretaker, you see. Just started work.” I gestured at the tomb. “There’s been a lot of vandalism and black magic.”

“Have you seen the skull too? Do come and see. So macabre.” She was very beautiful and like an idiot I let myself be led forward, pulling up only at the last moment.

“No, it‘s all right thanks,” I said. “I have enough trouble with my imagination as it is.” She looked concerned and gave me an embarrassed smile.

A silence fell. “Oh well,” said one at last, “must be off.” He waved his hand at me. “Good luck, old chap.”

When they had gone I felt such a fool I had to walk angrily along the path for five minutes before I cooled down. This brought up the whole problem with the place: OK, it was a cemetery and ideally it should be open to the public, a place where they could come and reflect on life, maybe on their own mortality and for that reason I just couldn‘t chase everyone away. But of course they didn’t come to this place for that, they came for the gloomy atmosphere and all the open graves. The sooner I got them boarded up the better.

Another party stopped me and asked the way to the necropolis. I assumed it was the building I’d just seen and directed them there. I didn’t feel like exploring any longer and went down to Archway where I saw a mediocre film. The slight feeling of dread I’d had earlier was stronger now.

It was still light when I came out and I hurried to catch a bus. Back at the cemetery it still wasn’t dark and in fact was quite pleasant for the tombs tended to withdraw in the uncertain light and one’s eyes focussed rather on the foliage which was quite pretty. I wasn’t sure how many of the trees were original and therefore planned, or how many had merely grown by accident but overall the effect of the different types, tall limes and poplars, rows of beech and chestnut and high spiky firs with their variation in outline and colour made a pleasing sight, not unlike a public park run wild. The lesser vegetation however, was a different matter for it overgrew the paths and graves and just made for an effect of decay despite its profuse tangle. I’d have to cut it back sometime soon.

I came to a clearing and could see the sun was nearly setting. Everything was sharply focussed so that the colours of the trees were vibrant and tending to a reddish tone. Long shadows were cast but mostly into the dim tunnels under the trees. A line of Keats came to my mind:
When the faeries are chanting their evening hymns and in the last sunbeam the sylph lightly swims.
It was like that; a realm of sylvan mystery illuminated by sunbeams.

It wouldn’t be like that for long. I hurried along the path thinking of the sherry and glancing to my left at the distant sun, where there was a gap in the trees and its light had fallen across the path. A bird called out but that was the only sound apart from the faint rumble of the far-off city.

The necropolis came into view some four hundred yards away. It was a strange and sombre sight; totally black for the sun was setting at its rear yet with the avenue still alive with the colours of sunset. Long shadows lay across the avenue, cast by the spiky tombs. A strange magnificent sight, desolate yet alive. I gave one last look for the sun had hit the horizon and it would be dark in minutes. The sun caught the metal of the black torch on the northern side of the plinth and it gleamed redly as if it really were a flame.

And then with alarm I noticed a solitary figure on the plinth, motionless, appearing as if he were looking at me. How had I not seen him? But was it a figure? I focussed at the silhouette, uncertain if it was. It didn’t move. 1 wondered if I should go over to look but it would be easy enough to make a mistake in this light and I would just find myself standing beside the necropolis in the dark. I decided to forget it; it could be a telegraph pole or a tree and even if it was someone it was probably a late hanger on from the Sunday crowds who was enjoying the sunset.

When I got in I went through to the toilet. For a moment I stood petrified by the open door at what I saw, unable for a moment to recognise what I was looking at.

The ceiling had collapsed, littering the floor, the closet and the washbasin with slats of wood and chunks of plaster. Water was everywhere, streaming down the walls, out the window, puddling on the floor. For a few seconds I raged impotently at this disaster and then calmer found the valve that turned the water off. God, it was a mess; a great black hole in the ceiling and a litter of rubbish on the floor. It looked distinctly malevolent, chaotic, as if some wild animal had got loose and wrecked everything to no set purpose. There was no plan in the way the wooden slats stuck out of the lavatory bowl, no plan in the way the plaster rested by the bottom of the bowl. It was chaotic, impersonal; yet most definitely something which could break up my ordered world. I thought immediately of that monstrosity of a necropolis, certain that this had happened because of what was in there.

Apprehensively I cleaned the toilet out, holding the lantern high every time I went outside, afraid of vandals, of that figure I’d seen earlier. It amazed me just how thin a line it was between feeling alright and. being open to forces of chaos.

I sat in the kitchen for half an hour eating little and thinking of the state I was in. I kept looking inside myself, gauging my feelings, trying to find some way to buck myself up but it was useless; this was a physical thing. At length I just had to move or I’d have sat there all night getting worse and worse. I wandered through the house for ten minutes but it hardly helped. It was too early to go to bed and I didn‘t want to break into the drink or I‘d end up drunk and wide awake rather than drunk and half asleep. Then I cheered up as I thought of the radio; that should help. I switched on and let the music blare out, calming me; switching from station to station with the news on one, political commentary on another, plays, comedies, foreign stations; a whole other world.

In a while I was able to eat and indeed for a time was oblivious to my surroundings, almost as if I were back in my bedsit. But then the reality crept in: the darkness outside; the moon seen behind scudding clouds, for a wind had sprung up; and a patch of moonlight blanching the pathway just before the lodge. Irritated, I took the radio through to the living room not wanting to allow anything to work on my imagination.

I settled into the vast armchair and relaxed. It was quite dreamy with the subdued colours and the warm glow of the fire and the gas. Indeed the soft light gave to the faded fabrics of the carpet and curtains and the seats the illusion that they were new. The clock ticked quietly on the wall and occasionally the logs on the fire would crackle and splutter.

There was a play which was quite interesting and I followed it through to the end. Then came the ten o’clock news and my mind drifted away. I thought about the Superintendent; about his death, in France or Belgium, in Flanders or Alsace or Lorraine. They say the mud stank, that you could find a hand or foot inches deep in the mud, that men drowned in its foul putrescence. How had he faced death when he had been master of it for so long? Muddled by the wine I had opened, I had an image of a man in his thirties, a medical orderly, shouting at his men as a great battle raged and then surprise on his face changing to pain as he looked down and saw he had been hit by shrapnel.

I wondered then about the ease with which the place had run into decay. I’d have thought the company would have appointed another Superintendent after the war but then, as my interviewer had said, they‘d run out of money. Had any of the other workers survived the war I wondered. Had they come round here when demobbed, felt alarm that the place was closed up, gone down to the main office of the cemetery company to find new occupiers or be told that the Cemetery was closed? It was sad and strange to think of all those lives so long ago, how in a sense they were still here.

I was drinking too fast and felt headachy rather than drunk. This was the stage where I usually found myself thinking about the lodge itself, about what was upstairs, underneath. I didn’t want to collapse back into that physical unease so I forced myself to be cheerful and it seemed to work. At length the drink took hold, sherry was like that, sober one minute, flaked out the next. I basked in the drowsy warmth, relaxed in the soft glow, felt my eyes close

I woke up with a start. It was cold and the fire was dead. The gas light seemed harsh. With a sickening feeling I realised I had fallen asleep. I looked hopefully at the clock. It was only two. I hadn’t slept through the night as I’d hoped. Worse still the bottle was empty. I looked slack-jawed at the glowing embers of the fire wishing it had been morning, even four or five o’clock and failing that, that there was half a bottle left. I felt bad; empty and vile. I went upstairs, aware that I was beyond the euphoria of drunkenness and well into a sick stupor. I prayed I’d get to sleep again, if I could just get that, God I’d be thankful. But sleep didn’t come, not for an hour, not for two hours; only when dawn was showing in the sky did I drift into uneasy sleep.