Autumn Read online

  Ah, the neighbour said. Right.

  But does the name Elisabeth still mean that thing even if it’s spelt with an s not a z? Elisabeth said.

  Oh yes, indubitably, he said.

  Elisabeth crossed to the same side of the road as the neighbour. She stood a little distance away.

  What does your name mean? she said.

  It means I’m lucky and happy, he said. The Gluck part. And that if I’m ever thrown into a pit that’s full of hungry lions I’ll survive. That’s the first name. And if you ever have a dream and you don’t know what it means you can ask me. My first name also designates an ability to interpret dreams.

  Can you? Elisabeth said.

  She sat down on her own piece of kerb only slightly along from the neighbour.

  Actually I’m extremely bad at it, he said. But I can make up something useful, entertaining, perspicacious and kind. We have this in common, you and I. As well as the capacity to become someone else, if we so choose.

  You mean you have it in common with my sister, Elisabeth said.

  I do, the neighbour said. Very pleased to meet you both. Finally.

  How do you mean, finally? Elisabeth said. We only moved here six weeks ago.

  The lifelong friends, he said. We sometimes wait a lifetime for them.

  He held his hand out. She got up, crossed the distance and held her own hand out. He shook her hand.

  See you later, unexpected queen of the world. Not forgetting the people, he said.

  It is just over a week since the vote. The bunting in the village where Elisabeth’s mother now lives is up across the High Street for its summer festival, plastic reds and whites and blues against a sky that’s all threats, and though it’s not actually raining right now and the pavements are dry, the wind rattling the plastic triangles against themselves means it sounds all along the High Street like rain is hammering down.

  The village is in a sullen state. Elisabeth passes a cottage not far from the bus stop whose front, from the door to across above the window, has been painted over with black paint and the words GO and HOME.

  People either look down, look away or stare her out. People in the shops, when she buys some fruit, some ibuprofen and a newspaper for her mother, speak with a new kind of detachment. People she passes on the streets on the way from the bus stop to her mother’s house regard her, and each other, with a new kind of loftiness.

  Her mother, who tells her when she gets there that half the village isn’t speaking to the other half of the village, and that this makes almost no difference to her since no one in the village speaks to her anyway or ever has though she’s lived here nearly a decade now (in this her mother is being a touch melodramatic), is doing some hammering herself, nailing to the kitchen wall an old Ordnance Survey map of where she now lives, which she bought yesterday in a shop that used to be the local electrician’s business and electrical appliances store and is now a place selling plastic starfish, pottery looking things, artisan gardening tools and canvas gardening gloves that look like they’ve been modelled on a 1950s utilitarian utopia.

  The kind of shop with the kinds of things that look nice, cost more than they should and persuade you that if you buy them you’ll be living the right kind of life, her mother says between lips still holding two little nails.

  The map is from 1962. Her mother has drawn a red line with a Sharpie all round the coast marking where the new coast is.

  She points to a spot quite far inland, on the new red line.

  That’s where the World War II pillbox fell into the sea ten days ago, she says.

  She points to the other side of the map, furthest from the coast.

  That’s where the new fence has gone up, she says. Look.

  She is pointing to the word common in the phrase common land.

  Apparently a fence three metres high with a roll of razorwire along the top of it has been erected across a stretch of land not far from the village. It has security cameras on posts all along it. It encloses a piece of land that’s got nothing in it but furze, sandy flats, tufts of long grass, scrappy trees, little clumps of wildflower.

  Go and see it, her mother says. I want you to do something about it.

  What can I do about it? Elisabeth says. I’m a lecturer in history of art.

  Her mother shakes her head.

  You’ll know what to do, she says. You’re young. Come on. We’ll both go.

  They walk along the single-track road. The grass is high on either side of them.

  Can’t believe he’s still alive, your Mr Gluck, her mother is saying.

  That’s what everybody in The Maltings Care Providers plc pretty much says too, Elisabeth says.

  He was so old back then, her mother says. He must be more than a hundred. He must be. He was eighty back in the 90s. He used to walk up the street, remember, all bowed with age.

  I don’t remember that at all, Elisabeth says.

  Like he carried the weight of the world on his back, her mother says.

  You always said he was like a dancer, Elisabeth says.

  An old dancer, her mother says. He was all bent over.

  You used to say he was lithe, Elisabeth says.

  Then she says,

  oh dear God.

  In front of them, slicing straight across a path Elisabeth’s walked several times since her mother came to live here, and blocking the way as far as the eye can see no matter which way she turns her head, is a mass of chainlink metal.

  Her mother sits down on the churned-up ground near the fence.

  I’m tired, she says.

  It’s only two miles, Elisabeth says.

  That’s not what I mean, she says. I’m tired of the news. I’m tired of the way it makes things spectacular that aren’t, and deals so simplistically with what’s truly appalling. I’m tired of the vitriol. I’m tired of the anger. I’m tired of the meanness. I’m tired of the selfishness. I’m tired of how we’re doing nothing to stop it. I’m tired of how we’re encouraging it. I’m tired of the violence there is and I’m tired of the violence that’s on its way, that’s coming, that hasn’t happened yet. I’m tired of liars. I’m tired of sanctified liars. I’m tired of how those liars have let this happen. I’m tired of having to wonder whether they did it out of stupidity or did it on purpose. I’m tired of lying governments. I’m tired of people not caring whether they’re being lied to any more. I’m tired of being made to feel this fearful. I’m tired of animosity. I’m tired of pusillanimosity.

  I don’t think that’s actually a word, Elisabeth says.

  I’m tired of not knowing the right words, her mother says.

  Elisabeth thinks of the bricks of the old broken-up pillbox under the water, the air bubbles rising from their pores when the tide covers them.

  I’m a brick under water, she thinks.

  Her mother, sensing her daughter’s attention wandering, sags momentarily towards the fence.

  Elisabeth, who is tired of her mother (already, and she’s only an hour and a half into the visit) points to the little clips placed at different positions along the wire.

  Careful, she says. I think it’s electrified.

  All across the country, there was misery and rejoicing.

  All across the country, what had happened whipped about by itself as if a live electric wire had snapped off a pylon in a storm and was whipping about in the air above the trees, the roofs, the traffic.

  All across the country, people felt it was the wrong thing. All across the country, people felt it was the right thing. All across the country, people felt they’d really lost. All across the country, people felt they’d really won. All across the country, people felt they’d done the right thing and other people had done the wrong thing. All across the country, people looked up Google: what is EU? All across the country, people looked up Google: move to Scotland. All across the country, people looked up Google: Irish passport applications. All across the country, people called each other cunts. All across the count
ry, people felt unsafe. All across the country, people were laughing their heads off. All across the country, people felt legitimized. All across the country, people felt bereaved and shocked. All across the country, people felt righteous. All across the country, people felt sick. All across the country, people felt history at their shoulder. All across the country, people felt history meant nothing. All across the country, people felt like they counted for nothing. All across the country, people had pinned their hopes on it. All across the country, people waved flags in the rain. All across the country, people drew swastika graffiti. All across the country, people threatened other people. All across the country, people told people to leave. All across the country, the media was insane. All across the country, politicians lied. All across the country, politicians fell apart. All across the country, politicians vanished. All across the country, promises vanished. All across the country, money vanished. All across the country, social media did the job. All across the country, things got nasty. All across the country, nobody spoke about it. All across the country, nobody spoke about anything else. All across the country, racist bile was general. All across the country, people said it wasn’t that they didn’t like immigrants. All across the country, people said it was about control. All across the country, everything changed overnight. All across the country, the haves and the have nots stayed the same. All across the country, the usual tiny per cent of the people made their money out of the usual huge per cent of the people. All across the country, money money money money. All across the country, no money no money no money no money.

  All across the country, the country split in pieces. All across the country, the countries cut adrift.

  All across the country, the country was divided, a fence here, a wall there, a line drawn here, a line crossed there,

  a line you don’t cross here,

  a line you better not cross there,

  a line of beauty here,

  a line dance there,

  a line you don’t even know exists here,

  a line you can’t afford there,

  a whole new line of fire,

  line of battle,

  end of the line,

  here/there.

  It was a typically warm Monday in late September 2015, in Nice, in the south of France. People out on the street were staring at the exterior of the Palais de la Préfecture where a long red banner with a swastika at the top of it had just coursed down the length of the front of the building and was settling itself against the balconies. Some people screamed. There was a flurry of shouting and pointing.

  It was just a film production unit filming an adaptation of a memoir, using the Palais to recreate the Hôtel Excelsior, where Alois Brunner, the SS officer, had had his office and living quarters after the Italians surrendered to the Allies and the Gestapo had taken over in their place.

  The Daily Telegraph reported next day on how the local authorities were apologizing for not having given enough notice about the film unit’s plans to people who lived in the city, and how public confusion and offence had soon shifted to a mass taking of selfies.

  It ran an online survey at the end of the news story. Were locals right to be angry about the banner: Yes or No?

  Nearly four thousand people voted. Seventy per cent said no.

  It was a typically warm Friday in late September 1943, in Nice, in the south of France. Hannah Gluck, who was twenty two years old (and whose real name wasn’t on her identity papers, which stated that her name was Adrienne Albert), was sitting on the floor in the back of a truck. They’d picked up nine so far, all women, Hannah didn’t know any of them. She and the woman opposite her exchanged looks. The woman looked down, then she looked back up, exchanged the look with Hannah one more time. Then they both lowered their eyes and looked down at the metal floor of the truck.

  There were no accompanying vehicles. There were, in total, a driver plus a guard and a single quite young officer up front, and the two at the back, both even younger. The truck was part-open, part-roofed with canvas. The people on the streets could see their heads and the guards as they went past. Hannah had heard the officer saying to one of the men at the back as she climbed into the truck, keep it calm.

  But the people on the street were oblivious, or made themselves it. They looked and looked away. They looked. But they weren’t looking.

  The streets were bright and splendid. The sun sent shockingly beautiful light off the buildings into the back of the truck.

  When they stopped up a sidestreet to pick up two more, Hannah’s eyes met again the eyes of the woman opposite. The woman moved her head with near-invisible assent.

  The truck jolted to a stop. Traffic snarl-up. They’d taken the stupidest route. Good, and her sense of smell told her, the Friday fishmarket, busy.

  Hannah stood up.

  One of the guards told her to sit down.

  The woman opposite stood up. One by one all the other women in the truck took their cue and stood up. The guard yelled at them to sit down. Both guards yelled. One waved a gun in the air at them.

  This city isn’t used to it yet, Hannah thought.

  Get out of the way, the woman who’d nodded to Hannah said to the men. You can’t kill us all.

  Where are you taking them?

  A woman had come over to the side of the truck and was looking in. A small gathering of women from the market, elegant women, headscarfed fish-seller girls and older women, formed behind her.

  Then the officer got out of the truck and pushed the woman who’d asked where they were taking the women in the face. She fell and hit her head against a stone bollard. Her elegant hat fell off.

  The women in that small gathering on the side of the road moved closer together. Their hush was audible. It spread back across the market like shadow, like cloud-cover.

  It was a hush, Hannah thought, related to the quiet that comes over wildlife, happens to the birdsong, in an eclipse of the sun when something like night happens but it’s the middle of the day.

  Excuse me, ladies, Hannah said. This is where I get off.

  The body of women on the truck huddled aside, let her through, let her go first.

  It was another Friday in the October holidays in 1995. Elisabeth was eleven years old.

  Mr Gluck from next door is going to look after you today, her mother said. I have to go to London again.

  I don’t need Daniel to look after me, Elisabeth said.

  You are eleven years old, her mother said. You don’t get a choice here. And don’t call him Daniel. Call him Mr Gluck. Be polite.

  What would you know about politeness? Elisabeth said.

  Her mother gave her a hard look and said the thing about her being like her father.

  Good, Elisabeth said. Because I wouldn’t want to end up being anything like you.

  Elisabeth locked the front door after her mother. She locked the back door too. She drew the curtains in the front room and sat dropping lit matches on to the sofa to test how fireproof the new three piece suite really was.

  She saw through a crack in the curtains Daniel coming up the front path. She opened the door even though she’d decided she wasn’t going to.

  Hello, he said. What you reading?

  Elisabeth showed him her empty hands.

  Does it look like I’m reading anything? she said.

  Always be reading something, he said. Even when we’re not physically reading. How else will we read the world? Think of it as a constant.

  A constant what? Elisabeth said.

  A constant constancy, Daniel said.

  They went for a walk along the canal bank. Every time they passed someone, Daniel said hello. Sometimes the people said hello back. Sometimes they didn’t.

  It’s really not all right to talk to strangers, Elisabeth said.

  It is when you’re as old as I am, Daniel said. It’s not all right for a personage of your age.

  I am tired of being a personage of my age and of having no choices, Elisabeth said.<
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  Never mind that, Daniel said. That’ll pass in the blink of an eye. Now. Tell me. What you reading?

  The last book I read was called Jill’s Gymkhana, Elisabeth said.

  Ah. And what did it make you think about? Daniel said.

  Do you mean, what was it about? Elisabeth said.

  If you like, Daniel said.

  It was about a girl whose father has died, Elisabeth told him.

  Curious, Daniel said. It sounded like it might be more about horses.

  There’s a lot of horse stuff in it, obviously, Elisabeth said. In fact, the father who dies isn’t actually in it. He isn’t in it at all. Except that him not being there is the reason they move house, and her mother has to work, and the daughter gets interested in horses, and a gymkhana happens, and so on.

  Your father’s not dead, though? Daniel said.

  No, Elisabeth said. He’s in Leeds.

  The word gymkhana, Daniel said, is a wonderful word, a word grown from several languages.

  Words don’t get grown, Elisabeth said.

  They do, Daniel said.

  Words aren’t plants, Elisabeth said.

  Words are themselves organisms, Daniel said.

  Oregano-isms, Elisabeth said.

  Herbal and verbal, Daniel said. Language is like poppies. It just takes something to churn the earth round them up, and when it does up come the sleeping words, bright red, fresh, blowing about. Then the seedheads rattle, the seeds fall out. Then there’s even more language waiting to come up.

  Can I ask you a question that’s not about me or my life in any way or about my mother’s life in any way either? Elisabeth said.

  You can ask me anything you like, Daniel said. But I can’t promise to answer what you ask unless I know a good enough answer.

  Fair enough, Elisabeth said. Did you ever go to hotels with people and at the same time pretend to a child you were meant to be being responsible for that you were doing something else?

  Ah, Daniel said. Before I answer that, I need to know whether there’s an implicit moral judgement in your question.

  If you don’t want to answer the question I asked you, Mr Gluck, you should just say so, Elisabeth said.