It was on a curiously mundane Monday morning when the calm of Eastry Street was almost disturbed. Primly and properly, Mr Payne-Pick came to his doorstep to retrieve his paper promptly, as always, at 8.36am. With dressing-gown folded about his person in a comfortably conservative manner and with spectacles in hand, ready to be demurely positioned onto the point of his nose to allow the crossword to be pondered with precision, Mr Payne-Pick opened his front door; and on the path, in a crumpled heap unfitting and inappropriate in a street such as this, of clipped hedges and neat borders, next to a pint bottle of semi-skimmed milk and nearly on top of his newspaper was a strange unconscious creature of the most unnatural appearance.
Mr Payne-Pick puckered his lips together and pulled his eyebrows up to meet his hairline; such was his shock – no – such was his discomfort at seeing such an odd thing lying on his path, in his front garden.
Swiftly his spectacles found his nose tip and he leaned in, not letting his slippers leave the safety of his doorstep. Such was the strangeness of the being lying motionless between the lawn and the nasturtiums that it warranted a dignified sliding of the spectacles, pushed by one finger, up the bridge of his nose. Behind the lenses, Mr Payne-Pick’s eyes grew larger.
If you had been around at that time that morning – if you had lived at number 28, opposite, and had gone to collect your milk at 8.39, then you would have seen nothing out of the ordinary – but if you had opened your front door at 8.38, there in the doorway of number 27 you would have seen the pastel-coloured-clad couple of Mr and Mrs Payne-Pick bundling a slim, almost golden figure into their hallway, before snapping the door shut, after a flick of the eyes either way up and down the street. For, of course, it is distasteful, never ‘prim’ nor at all ‘proper’ to have a strange creature of unexplained origin, indefinable lineage and abnormal appearance on ones doorstep for the neighbours to see.
On my arrival at the Payne-Pick household all that differed from the norm was a scattering of pale feathers that crawled over the lawn in the gentle breeze, as though a cat had caught a grounded bird – and the closed blind in the generally vacant skylight of the sloped roof.
At entering the house, I was offered and provided with the mandatory cup of tea in the best china, essential for any guest. Even biscuits were arranged to an almost professionally intricate degree on a small doyley, on a small plate, on a small tray. I was no friend of the Payne-Picks – I was the chosen trusted-neighbour.
Awkwardly, after the routine talk of weather, the post office, traffic and gardening, the true matter was broached – An incident had occurred, they said, though they knew not exactly the cause of such an incident, and as a result, without their intent or choice, and utterly beyond their control – for, you see, they insisted, they did not usually associate purposefully with such irregular matters – as a result there now resided in their upper room an inhuman creature not fit to be asked to leave. It seemed I was to help decide for them, over tea and biscuits, whether this creature should be offered dinner or have a taxi called for it.
With tea cup in hand, we ascended the stairs, crossed the landing and approached a door left ajar. Within the room shone a pure natural light, like candle-light enlarged. We entered, Mr Payne-Pick in front, Mrs Payne-Pick bringing up the rear with the tea tray, complete with sugar cubes and spoon. In the corner was a bed; in the bed lay what must have been the so-called ‘creature’. Mr Payne-Pick whispered to me; its name was Stephen.
Stephen was what appeared to be a young man, though his face seemed almost iridescent against the gingham sheets tucked up around his chin. His face was almost feminine in its delicacy and Mr Payne-Pick experienced much discomfort in trying to explain, without overstepping any lines of propriety, how distasteful he found referring to such a feminine-looking creature as ‘Stephen’. It seemed that, as the Payne-Picks found it improper to refer to the village vicar by his first name rather than ‘Reverend’, thus it was improper to use a male signifier to refer to this creature of oddly ‘feminine’ beauty.
Tucked up in the gingham sheets, Stephen laid with his eyes closed, but he lay uncomfortably on his back. It was as though he were in pain, as though his back was arched or deformed in some way, or as if he lay on something painful. He had a radiant face that seemed physically unharmed, such was the vivid life denoted by its luminescence. I took a step forward to loosen the covers a little from his throat – but instantly Mrs Payne-Pick leapt to throw a crochet blanket over the gingham, insisting that it was a cold night – the gingham and the blanket clashed terribly. I took a sip from my tea.
Two minutes passed as Mr Payne-Pick asked his wife if she had been to the greengrocers yesterday and she tried to remember if she had brought radishes.
When the word ‘radishes’ had been said for a third time in thought, suddenly Stephen opened his eyes. They were blue, open and instantly pleading.
In a second, my hand had been grasped, as a suppliant clings to their potential saviour, and as I gazed into the pools of his blue eyes I heard him begging. He reeled off a list of items he needed and I listened. I felt I was compiling a shopping list: parcel tape, or black tape, in fact any type of tape, brown paper, perhaps some type of glue, string, cotton thread and a needle. All the while he spoke he held my hand, pressing my palm with his fingertips firmly. One shoulder had burst free of the bedspread when he had first reached out, making Mrs Payne-Pick, for an unknown reason, agitated, causing her to stare at the edge of the blanket as if wishing it to recover him. The golden skin of his sculpted shoulder almost glittered in an utterly inhuman way; but a shudder went through his chest as his speech came to an end. He did not groan, but his eyes closed with lids as smooth as marble and he exhaled a breath as smooth and thick as honey. I finished my tea and left.
The next day I returned and dropped off a box of the items required. The feathers from the day before had all been blown from the path and now nestled in the ground-scraping branches of the boxy shrubs. As I was explaining to Mrs Payne-Pick of my lack of success in finding brown paper, and my decision to include some sheets of newspaper in the hope that this would ‘do the trick’, the sound of a heavenly voice began to drift down and I glanced up to notice that the skylight was unusually, oddly, strangely, for some reason, open. I say ‘heavenly’ for the voice did not fall down to us as though from one source, but it was as though the entire garden resounded with it. The nasturtiums apparently agreed or at least approved of the melody as they vigorously nodded their tender heads. As I was admiring the little orange faces crowded at my feet, as I and they listened to the song quizzically, the box was snatched from my hands, the door clapped closed and the window in the roof snapped shut. The nasturtiums and I stood still, a little taken aback, in the silence.
My third visit was on the Friday. I had spent the week contemplating the stranger and felt induced by some unexplained desire to check on him – and I pressed so much on the Payne-Picks in their doorway, being anxious, concerned, curious, dubious and a little confronting at times – far too confronting for one to be when on another’s doorstep, in full view of passersby – so much so that they eventually relinquished, allowing me in. They offered me tea; but there were no biscuits this time.
Stephen was still in the upstairs room, though it seemed darker this time; I could not remember how the weather outside differed from before though I was sure the Payne-Picks and I had discussed it at length. I recognised on Stephen’s face the grey smears one gets from handling newspapers. It seemed that he had unfortunately created a grey paste from smudged newspaper ink and glue that now tainted much of the glorious skin on his hands, wrists and face. There were also small cuts on his hands, as though he had been handling scissors while unsure of how to use them. I could judge little from his appearance as my eye was captured by the broad black jacket that Mrs Payne-Pick had been pulling over his shoulders like a cape as I had entered. At seeing me, he had pulled it round himself further. I could not fathom if it was merely the shape of the ill-fitting jacket, but it seemed that on his back was a notable hump…
They had dressed him also in a pair of white cotton trousers, which looked like cheap pyjama bottoms. Under the jacket he was shirtless and, sitting cross-legged and stooped on the gingham bed as he was, his toned golden stomach was folded into creases. Before, he had had pale curls cupping his face, but now his hair was strangely ruffled and spiked on one side, as though he had absentmindedly pushed a hand through his hair, forgetting his fingers were covered in glue. His lips were heavy it seemed. That is all I could say of his appearance. The radiance may or may not have still been there under the jacket and under the grime.
As Mrs Payne-Pick was busy methodically organising the items I had collected, putting them one by one back in place into the cardboard box, Mr Payne-Pick explained to me the mechanism of the skylight, extraordinary because of the size of the pane of glass and impressive as it allowed for the window to be opened wide, letting much air into the room; I expressed appropriate admiration. Mr Payne-Pick tilted the window, opening it wide for me to fully appreciate its merits. It had grown dark outside and so the glass appeared black, which perfectly reflected the room behind me, enabling me to see without being seen seeing. In the centre of the reflection was Stephen. He was bent down so that his cheek almost pressed against is stomach, his torso twisted so he was curled up under the jacket-cape to one side, and he was doing something to something hidden either to his side or directly behind him; He seemed to be sewing.
As I turned, he snapped the thread and returned the needle to the box in front of him.
Was that a glimpse of feathers that had been briefly revealed when the jacket shifted, when he leaned forward to the cardboard box?
A fuse blew. The lights went out.
Only the glint of moonlight on the slanting black glass shone in the darkness. I think Mr and Mrs Payne-Pick said something about getting candles or torches or matches, or something; but I know I heard the rustle of feathers. I think I thought a bird had flown in through the window; but in fact, when the light sprung back to life, there was no bird: the room was empty, but for a small piece of thread, a shred of newspaper and a couple of feathers fluttering down to rest in the middle of the floor. The jacket lay in a crumpled heap on the bed.
From downstairs the unaltered, strangely normal voice of the proud and practical Mr Payne-Pick rang out, calling to his methodical and organised wife: “The Reverend’s here! Fetch the tea!”
katie jane fiction 