Bardon Wash Part One

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A.
Crowther
Film I
The lm had already begun. As Dieter Hundert made his way up the rickety aluminium steps to the mobile studio he could feel the light of the images displace the moonlight and begin to dominate his attention. He had no idea why the lm had begun to play in his absence. Perhaps, he had pressed rewind and the play button had kicked in automatically. Perhaps, he had left it running. Who knows?
Dieter, after being so secluded for so long from the rest of the production
crew, more easily gave himself over to some metaphysical pondering and wondered if the lms were already playing in some discrete universe, just as they lay in wait to show on this screen, through that magical process of computer processing, so they were spinning through space in electronic waves at various points of manifestation. At once playing and paused, depending upon how one looked at it, the lms were there before him.
The events, both physical and mental, only conrmed his suspicion of
the size of the project he had begun. That is, that he had given to himself. He had given himself all this! He looked at the seemingly endless bank of DVDs, VHS tapes, and, on the screen, the folders containing further video les. He shook his head and laughed at the absurdity of the scale of the task.
Dieter clicked stop on the mixer skin that controlled the lm and then loaded
a new le, a le simply numbered and only made meaningful by the le root, Helicopter Trafc Camera. He then clicked the mouse with his long elegant nger
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and watched yet another grainy black and white image light up the screen. The clock in his mobile studio continued to whirl around and around as he made his way through the images that lit the room. The transport camera zoomed down rather shakily to a line of trafc, a trafc jam, that was revealed nally as being caused by a broken down tractor. The trafc was making its way to the Stately Home of Sir Frederick Cellus as it was a bank holiday, hence the amount of vehicles on such a small country road.
Dieter enjoyed the graininess of the black and white images, they reminded
him of the German Expressionist lms he had studied in the Gymnasium in Stuttgart. He icked the memory from his mind with the tiniest of nods of his head as if he were icking ash from a cigarette. He dug down in his seat and buried his mind in the passing images. He was struck by some familiarity. He couldnt quite place it. Maybe, the area was a place he had passed through in the studio, which was highly likely. But then he noticed a car. It looked like the Telligers car. A black Passat making its way down a vale road. He watched it, looked at the date on the screen, yes, it could be them as they arrived some two weeks before he did and the crew. Early August.
The car was moving fairly erratically, waving one way and then the other, and
then, suddenly, it veered off the road onto the grass verge. What on earth? Intrigued, Dieter watched on. The camera, fairly naturally, zoomed in on the incident. Some workers in the eld looked over with some suspicion and, perhaps, concern and made their way over to the car that was pointed at an acute angle to the road. After a few moments, a woman, Cara, no doubt about it, got out of the
Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther
passenger seat and herded Louis out of the drivers seat and then back into the car on the passenger side. The car then drove off toward the town of Bardon Wash.
How curious. Dieter took out a pack of cigarettes from the top pocket of his
leather jacket and a lighter from a side pocket. He made his way out of the studio, climbed nimbly down the metal steps and lit up. The night air poured cool onto his face and livened up his whole body. He had been working for some ve hours on this session. He had traversed some acres of footage from CCTV cameras, transport cameras, police cameras, at least, what they had released to him, and some local footage supplied by the council in order to aid the project, An English Composer: An English Village, produced by none other than the Telligers.
Perhaps they had had an inspirational moment and suddenly realised they
could make a project of the area and of Cellus? Perhaps, it was just an accident. Funny, they had never said anything about it even bringing it up in conversation. The date on the camera lm was some two weeks ago, before Dieter and the crew had arrived.
Dieter looked up at the blue night sky and thought about his work. He had
been working to the principle that lm, and images were produced by a culture therefore his role was to put them together into a sequence of his choosing. If he did lm something himself it would be what is around him with no articial lighting or effects. This had caused great consternation to the producers and directors he had worked with as he constantly battled for his approach, mainly opportunistically, on the basis of cost, time, and then on aesthetic grounds which never won out in
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English productions. In this case, he was very lucky to be given the directorial role as well as camera man for the Telligers had wanted something done quick and dirty.
The images he had amassed were images of chaos, of disorder and left to their
own momentum would simply pour down the drain like tap water, seep away into nothingness. After all, the difference between art and reality was that art constructed reality into another order. What made the trafc lm art was the construction of those images into a new order, a better order, yes, he would dare to think, a better order.
Trawling through the images made Dieter think that lm was horizontal and
reality vertical, as were texts and paintings, when you thought about it. They were all capturing reality horizontally. Although not convinced by his basic thesis, Dieter liked the idea. He liked the idea of a horizontal slab that contained reality. A Talmud of art. Something that revealed art as distinct from reality.
Chapter 1 Hearing Music
We start where we must on Mount Olympus, For there, with the Gods, We always begin with our origin. Cellus, The News
The pale lm of morning mufed the sound of birthing and of mourning calls, and the people of Middle England, moving between things and nature, seemed to be trapped in a white silence, a cultural static.
By the power of their magic (or some other supernatural force), the people and their
things woke into life. The hum of the saw, the whir of an engine, the buzz of the camera, the shouts of mouths, revealed the world of day. Things and people began their life, starting what they knew would end one day. The morning lm slowly evaporated and the day began to develop. Workers emerged to tend cattle, to mend and x, to build and soothe.
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Some workers were harvesting wheat under the great shadow of a combine
harvester, standing like a red metal lobster on the owing yellow wheat. Crop waving its goodbye before succumbing to the greedy claw. The whole event was a gargantuan effort, a process of tremendous power, combining the power of the most sophisticated of technologies with the wisdom and cunning of men and women folk; forces rendering this rich sea of yellow crop into an innite series of mouth sized morsels buried in an innite series of yellow cardboard boxes. It was as if the workers were reducing the multiplicity of all things to one, for each eld had its own colour, its own crop, that was being similarly entombed.
A buzzing sine wave emerged from the symphony of found sounds, that had
collected in this English vale, this green rose bowl, like drips of rose water from some secret perfumed plants. The sine wave wavered like a y passing ones face. Growing louder, it suddenly revealed itself as a car speeding downward into the vale. The workers, one by one, raised their faces to the hungry salutation. They each saw the car slide down what was called Vale Road before moving on to North Harbour Road at great speed.
Inside the car, Cara and Louis Telliger were yawping and carooning to the digitized
music lling the car. Inside his soul, Louis Telliger dared to feel good. He dared himself to predict, without any countervailing superstition, that taking a holiday break from the tensions and stresses of his work, was the right thing to do. He ignored the black crows that rose from the engines torment, he turned away from the sickening rabbit at the side of the road, he didnt see what looked like a weeping cow. He chose to focus on the green shoots of his growing hope, the feeling that told him he was beginning to free himself from the malevolent power that had been controlling his life. He heard this intimation of
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happiness, and he let it ll the experience of carefree coasting through Middle England, along its highways and bye ways.
Louis Telliger, in short, was giving birth to a new self. A more cheerful relaxed Louis
Telliger seemed to be emerging. At the same time, the passing of the older self confused him. Should he mourn the passing or was he to celebrate its achievements, while recognizing its many failures? He noted the label of incompetence, that had been emblazoned on his self like a fake designer label curling into a dog eared useless piece of litter, now following him like a stray dog whose teeth had fallen out.
Telliger glanced at the line of shadow drawn from Caras outline, it raced across the
car and he then mentally noted how it sliced him in half. He smiled at his old and new selves battling over this line of light and dark. He tried turning the car slightly to encourage the line of light to fall across him more, but the speed he was travelling and the winding road made this a dangerous manouever. His heart leapt as the car veered slightly beyond his control.
So, it came to pass, that on this ne, late summer morning, as Telliger careered the
car through the villages and hamlets of Middle England, he came to a bend in the road and without being able to help himself edged the car into the light. He felt the warmth of the sun, glanced at the giant bales of straw and the huge combine harvester spitting out dust like a snorting beast. And at that moment, Telliger caught the sweet smell of Caras perfume and the leather of the car in his nostrils, he felt himself getting turned on by the fusion of scents. Turning to look to his right he saw a skylark making a black mark in the sky, as if a pen had fallen from heaven and scored the blue sheet of the world. His eyes took a snapshot of the bird in ight, freezing it against the background of an icy white sun.
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The sound of Celluss The Hymn of Peace lifted from the cars music system, the sound rising up like a sonic wave, rising up through the air, past the skylark, over some agging crows and pigeons, before suddenly dashing down on to the harvester and the harvesters. The deep soothing chords, like the murmurings of a woken god, seemed to envelope all and demand some sort of devotion. Suddenly, his eyes swung back to the road and at an approaching horse cart. His face opened in horror. Turning the wheel the car slid from the road, over the grass verge, through the hedgerow, bounced over a small ditch and hopped onto a crop eld.
Telliger felt a huge swelling egg of upset in his chest, along with stings and bruised that began appearing around his body like a swarm of hidden insects. He began to weep, as if leaking sadness. He crossed his hands on the driving wheel and hung his head. Cara, shocked and angry, stole him a glance and pushed open her door. She stood outside of the car for a few moments and then took a cigarette from her bag, lit it, and icked at the cigarette before it could turn to ash. Finally, a decision made, she ushered him out of the car and into the passenger seat. She drove the car without saying a word. Lips tightly pressed, she drove toward a town signposted as Bardon Wash, none other than the hometown of Cellus whose symphony had accompanied their accident.
When they reached the town, Telliger, looking as if his body was empty of soul,
could only manage the most obvious of bodily intentions, aspire to the most simple of actions. Sat in the passenger seat and watched the world pass him by. He noticed a feeling of dizziness and then nausea. He hoped they would stop soon. Cara managed the car through the tiny lanes of Bardon Wash before nding an Inn called the The Owd Barn, standing off the road and nestled in some trees. She manoeuvred Telliger through the giant wooden doors and found herself confronted by a young girl at the reception desk
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dressed in a retro Edwardian black and white outt. Cara told the girl, whose name Lisabeth was announced on her badge, that her husband had been involved in a car accident and that they needed a room. The young girl took in the information, and the situation, without hesitation and, apparently, with remarkable ease, perhaps because her experiences were greater than her years, or the information had own over her head like a ock of paper. She turned without speaking, reached for some keys, and then held them out. Exasperated at the lack of reaction to her tale, but accepting the outcome, Cara swept the keys from the young girls pallid hand, snorted at the impassive face, and ushered Telliger up some narrow stairs that coiled away from the tiled oor like a wooden snake.
Thank you, Lisabeth, she added acidly as an afterthought.
The key gave the room as being on the second oor, room 3. The room stood at the
end of a long, thin, dark hallway lled with prints by Hogarth and Punch. In the gloom, any myopic historian worth his salt, could easily make out a history of England shaped by hunts, gin houses, and cynical politics. A parade of ruling class leisure past times and working class inner withdrawal that left the rulers spoiling the peace of nature and the workers spilling gin and idling in the public realm like broken clockwork mice.
Once inside the room, that was inside the Inn and inside Bardon, Cara led Telliger
to the bed and laid him down. He was clearly oblivious to all about him. Cara placed him on the bed like an over sized ventriloquists dummy then returned to the car where she retrieved a small valise. She came back into the room without saying a word and then busied herself in the bathroom, reappearing after a good thirty minutes, fresh and clean. She noticed in the dressing room mirror, as she plied her make up, that Telliger had fallen asleep with mouth hanging open, drool spilling on to the pillow, his limbs splayed out like
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an odd jigsaw piece, like his inevitable swastika of sickness. She tutted and turned back to her reection seeking to improve the surface of things.
After a further hour, Cara studied the broken gure on the bed, and felt a rare
conict of feelings made up of pity and unease. She was surprised at the cocktail. He looked ugly, tired, beaten by life. There was no harm in following the rule book; sighing, she covered him with a jacket.
After a few whiles, consisting of smoothing her cheek and neck, of combing her
hair, of straightening her clothes, Cara, made tea in the pot for one and then unpacked her valise as the tea brewed, turning the water into a smokey brown. She looked out at the beautiful assortment of trees and elds through the window, poured the tea, added the milk, and then, delicately, sipped the brew from the small cup that captured a collection of owers that were to be found nowhere, but were known everywhere.
Telliger emerged into a glockenspiel of clinking pottery, metal spoon and silver
teapot. Cara stirred her cup of tea in the dawdling light of late afternoon. Telliger held out his arms like a sick child. She placed her cup down carefully, pushed aside a novel that she had taken out to read and, making sure she did not lose her place, placed an advertising leaet into the book, then turned to Telliger. She reached out and held his hands as if not knowing what else to do. They remained like that for a cumbersome moment, a porcelain pair that had been oddly xed together by an amateur potter. After a moment, Cara, rested his arms on the covers of the bed, brushed his hair from his forehead, and smiled weakly. Telliger sighed at the motherly gesture. He felt small again, but wanted.
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Cara told him that he needed to calm down and get a grip. She didnt know what
had happened, but it was clearly psychological, and not medical. All he needed was a rest and some fresh air in the lovely surroundings. Its a beautiful day out there, she noted as if he was suffering from nothing so much as boredom or a mere sense of ennui. It was clear, she went on, he needed to forget about himself for once, stop feeling sorry for himself, act like a man. Telliger, took the bitter medicine, and knew that virtually any response, verbal or non verbal, would be met with some distaste, interpreted as an affront to the advice, that is, truth, he was being given, and would be felt, even more acutely, as a challenge to the monologue that wrapped about him like a tourniquet.
The advice was clear and prognosis obvious to Telliger. If Telliger did not recover
and get himself over this emotional crisis, that is, if he did not rise up from the bed, shake himself down and declare this episode to be an inexplicable blip that would not recur; that is, if he did not recover to enjoy their holiday break, go back to work and rise up through the echelons of the giant media conglomerate Corp, then Cara, herself of all people, could catch this contagion of failure, of breakdown (the worst state one could be in today). Narrowing the prognosis down further, if Telliger did not recover and take her out for a meal tonight then their life together would have clearly and explicitly shifted its centre of gravity to weakness, to Telligers weakness. Her remonstrations to Telliger to pull himself together, put things in perspective, stand on his own two feet, were therefore premised on her own devotion to a notion of health that she believed she shared with most people as fortunate as her.
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Film II
Following the chronological time of the trafc cameras, Dieter, fast forwarded the images until something new appeared. The speeding cows ran into the elds through the billowing mist, then, after furiously twitching, raced forward and backward all day, until disappearing into the barns driven by some sort of sprinting Olympian in the guise of a farmer accompanied by a blur called a collie dog. The men span around like marionettes contemplating something in the air apparently, then resorted to digging or harvesting. The did this for a seemingly innite number of times until they clambered into what looked like a spacecraft and promptly exited, running away as if frightened at what they had found as night approached. Perhaps because night approached. The lm of night sped into day which Dieter read as progress as lm was black and nothingness white, the end of the lm. He found a boiled sweet in his jacket pocket and twisted it out of its translucent wrapper. He eventually found his mouth with the sweet which left a sticky substance on his ngers that would ensure his ngerprints could never be erased for some time.
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On the screen, greater confusion was added to the images as the workers had
returned to the blackness and began working at night. They were using giant lamps on the harvesters, Dieter presumed, to see their way through the elds. Balloons of dust, presumably orange, blew up and then quickly deated a thousand times, as the work went on and on.
Foxes sped through the action as nimble run on parts, aided and abetted by
badgers who added to the farce by dressing like police in black and white and ambling around at great speed, as if investigating a murder in the wood. At times, Dieter, let out a laugh at the absurdity of this hidden life, this alternative to the quotidian world, the speeding cows, men and dogs seemed to be showing a secret life. The gods were truly among us, but in their ancient morphed forms.
Now and again, Dieter would click on play just in case he might miss
something, but it was pure luck if he did come across something. Once he saw a deer being hit by a car and he copied the footage to his project folder thinking it might be used at some point. This time, he presses play and sees two gures, young men, in their twenties he would say, walking on the road to Bardon. They walk up a small hill and then back down. Dieter zooms in on the images, which causes the gures to be blurred, so he cannot make out their exact features. Both have rucksacks and T shirts, jackets and fairly baggy trousers. One seems to have long hair, plaited hair. He is taller and thinner than his companion who tends to walk behind.
The two gures move up the road and pass the workers who glance at them.
Then, the taller gure takes out a book from his rucksack and goes over to a
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burning brazier the workers have lit and throws it in. They carry on to Bardon and the workers ignore the deed.
This is it, the chaos in the world, the hidden ow of sense, spinning out of
control. No one knows what this small deed accomplishes, not even the gure throwing a book into the re. What reason would one have for throwing a book into that re at this time? The companion appears to hesitate and then move on, no shared feeling about the act then. The workers ignore it as an insignicant act. So, this gure, what does he think he is doing? Why bring the book in the rucksack then? If he had nished reading it, why not throw it away earlier? Why now?
Its not that these questions have any particular answer to them, nor is there
any wish to really have them answered, for that is not the point. The point is that no one knows what all of the collected, or individual, acts of people mean. Not fully, not adequately. Not adequately, in a sense that is more than the everyday thoughts and assumptions about them. Thoughts that would simply see the burning book and the fact that so and so threw it in. But that is not how a detective would see it, not how an artist would see it, not how a psychoanalyst would see it, for any act has the numerous meanings that can be attached to it.
Intrigued by the image of the book burning, Dieter, lets the image play. He
rewinds it a number of times, getting some pleasure from the repetition of image and the number of meanings he can put on it. He reects on it. So, nished the book or, at least, is nished with the book. Burns it. Maybe, the rucksack is getting heavy. Burn the book, it weighs me down. Just remembered that book I wanted to get rid of, Ill put it in the brazier there is no bin around. I dont want anybody to nd this
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book on me when I get into the village. Destroy it. I dont want to nd this book on me when I get into the village. Destroy it.
On perhaps the twenty-sixth take of playing the footage of the book burning,
Dieter, notices the aring embers from the book y up like little stars and then descend like a rework onto the ground. The embers burn, glow, and then produce some sort of luminous pattern on the earth. How strange! They appear to form a gure of a person. Head, torso, arms and legs. The luminosity slowly disappears and the image is lost to the earth. The camera moves on, for it is also part of the chaos and cannot be controlled. At least, not from its functions in the everyday world.
Dieter saves the le and phones for a takeaway. It is going to be a long night.
What else may he nd? What else might he construe? He thinks of writing a journal, a further secret history of the secret world he had found. This has nothing to do with the Telligers project, they are immersed in the commercial world, the world of contracts, money and, more insidiously, the rules by which one can create, be free. The rules that strangle the muses like the snakes of the hydra, that is, the original muses of ritual, voice and memory, those who constituted the rst creative act, the rst moment of the state as a place, the rst sacrice.
Dare we remember? Dare we voice our memory? Dare we observe the ritual?
The screen faces Dieter and asks him to answer these questions. You are the
memory. You are the voice. You are compiling the ritual.
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Chapter 2 Finding Middle England
Giants and Gods fought for us, for us; Yet, here we stand, none trust us, With wares for the weal we make our way Hoping that another day will bring what is ours as well as yours. Cellus, The News
Dele and Collie hitched their way from South England through East England, with its tall, thin people. Their destination, Middle England, was known by all, but few had gone there. Few bothered with the hamlets and villages speckling the Middle England countryside, like the punctuation of an ancient language it was missed out or forgotten as to its use or meaning. The endless trafc on the giant roads and skyways left it to its memories (what it called the present) and sleep (what it called waking) only recalling it on holidays and in the festive chants of the churches and the current vogue for Cellus, royal composer and resident of Bardon Wash, the centre and ancient capital of Middle England.
For Dele and Collie their pilgrimage from Brightsea was one that had a purpose for
each and yet the same joint aim. They sought Julia each in their own way. Julia, who, for Collie, was his soul mate. She had befriended him while at Brightsea University and had introduced him to her student friends, to her art, to her beauty. Collie needed to ensure that her hasty leaving from his house was the anxiety of her exhibition and nothing else. Though his Dad thought she was not with bothering with and too sensitive by half.
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Dele, for his part, had held something back from Collie. He knew, in his heart of
hearts, that Julia was really for him and that, after her exhibition, their joint adventure into art would eventually lead to a life of success and fame. Dele thought that Collie was one of those shipwrecks of men that Julia would tend from time to time, a beached man o war that no longer had any ght left.
Amongst the sound of the trailing seagulls that had followed them from Brightsea
Dele could hear Collie saying, its too far for us, we must turn back. As if to prove the point, the ock of seagulls turned away and left only one seagull remaining, quietly swirling in the warm thermal currents of the edges of Middle England, unsure of whether to join its companions who were now headed back to the blue waters of Brightsea, ready to oat above the white cliffs like guardians of the isle. Dele chose to ignore Collies operatic melodrama and keeping his head down, moved in the opposite direction like a soldier of fortune the wind swept around him turning his long thin coat into a sail. Eventually, just a few hours later, they saw a sign dancing in the heat. Middle England, it said. They had travelled for seven days from Brightsea, through the South and East, taking a further four days of travel in Middle England itself before they reached its heartland, Bardon Wash, where Julia would be exhibiting her art in an event that was growing in popularity each year and now stood alongside the literary festivals as the place to be. During the summer.
The day of their arrival was not like any other. It was morning, but it was as if the
morning greeted them. The white sun shone a strange light over the earth, the glare hitting the rising mist, creating the impression of a frozen white shell that hovering above the ground. Dele and Collie breathed in the coolness of the air which, in keeping with the character of the sentinel sun, was also white. They walked through the light mist, mildly
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disturbed by the esoteric opacity of this world but, simultaneously, excited at its hidden promise. They were no longer in the quotidian world of works, shops and clocks, no longer even in the familiarity of time and space, no longer in the fold of life, but oddly free. Everything they knew, or thought they knew, was lost in this thick white spirit that hung on their coat tails, and caught, seemingly, every word they uttered for the silence of this spirit was deafening.
As the sun warmed earth and turned water to spirit, then spirit to the translucent air
of a summers day, Dele and Collie felt alive, almost new born. New sounds and colours struck their senses, new varieties of insect and mammal ew around their heads, across their feet, trying to cling on to cloth, skin or hair. Amazed, and taken aback at the abundance of life, of being, they smiled at one another. The months and years of frustration, of anger, of disappointment, were now left behind. Just beyond this white world, this evaporating shell, a new future was beckoning them.
Dele put his arm around Collie, laughed, and said, lets go to the centre of it all.
Collie looked up, his big bright brown eyes took in Deles countenance, he could almost perceive a glow emanating from Dele. A halo of hope surrounding him. He smiled to himself and felt his friend understood him, that this trip would show how they belonged together. Suddenly, they heard a horn deep in the forest and Dele shouted Wagner! They both laughed until their laughter was absorbed by tree and grass, by leaf and mist.
After some time, the wood allowed them to exit its world. Unsure of which direction
they were going they peered for something human, for a shelter, a bridge, or dwelling. Eventually, after treading a thin path that led out of the wood, and then a neatly laid road whose surface warmed their feet, they saw a road sign that stated Cellus Estate and then
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a brown national heritage sign that gave Stately Home to their left, a further road sign gave Bardon Wash and indicated to their right. They took their cue and began walking toward Bardon Wash. After walking for some twenty minutes toward the town, the ancient capital of Middle England, they came to a little hillock that was set back from the road. They made their way up its steep incline and turned back to discover the impressive view they had shaped. It revealed where they were. They could see that the slow winding road which had led them this far continued on to a seemingly white town garnished with orange, green and black roofs. One or two chimneys gave out wisps of smoke even on this bright summer morning, tracing black trails through the hanging mist that still hugged the surrounding dales and valleys. Over to their left, on the far edge of town, past the green lines of the Estate fencing, was an area of development, of new builds that had been formed from barns and outhouses. Deles and Collies eyes ran around the scene, which was, at rst glance, simply a beautiful landscape, but the setting created associations in their minds that called up art works, sketches, history lessons, lyrics, hymns even.
On the farm land that lay next to the ordered pastures of the Estate they saw
workers toiling in the elds. The green fencing ran like a horizontal stave around the workers, around the town, waiting for notes, for pieces of music to accompany the ancient strips of tithed land. They walked down from the hillock and sauntered past the workers. Suddenly, Dele, reached into his bag, raced back to the burning workers briar and threw into it his copy of Crow Babies that he had carried with him from Brightsea University. The book turned in on itself, blackened, squealed, and folded into its fate. Collies shocked face turned to Dele and looked into his eyes that stared at his own deed.
The black ashes suddenly ew like crows from a burning nest and, unseen by eye,
unheard by ear, crackled into pale ash, into white dust, until, nally, leaving the distorted
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shape of a gure on the fertile soil of Bardon Wash. Not that Collie or Dele observed this uncanny event for they had witnessed enough. There was no more to say.
Dele and Collie found their way to a local pub, The Magpie and Fox, and asked
about lodgings and work. Dele made some inquiries at the bar and left Collie to sup his beer in the snug bar.
He approached the landlord with a relaxed air. Hi, Im an artist visiting the art
festival in a few weeks and wanted to know if there are any places me and a friend could stay in? Wed like some workplace space as well to make some stuff to sell. ! Another artist, eh? Were getting a few around here of late. Still, to be expected, I
suppose, with the festival coming around again. Getting bigger each year, you know. ! ! ! ! I bet said Dele, then added, we know one of the artists this year, Julia Goodhill. Place to stay and workshop? You dont want much do you? Dele smiled. You know what us artists are like. The landlord smiled back. Names John Peabody, and you need to speak to ol
farmer Fred. He owns North farm and all of the workshops out there. Cottages as well to rent. Not saying theyre new mind. ! ! Thanks. Well have another couple of pints of Badge. By the way, thats Fred over there. The landlord nodded at a gure of human
rusticana sat at the bar, he had a grizzled shape and appearance that could have been barnacled to the bar. ! ! ! Excuse me said Dele to the gure. Ay? Me and a friend are looking for a place to stay with workshop space to make some
art works for tourists and visitors to the festival.

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! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Ay? We were wondering if you had somewhere? Ay? Wed need somewhere tonight, if possible. Ay. North Farm tonight. You mean thats ok? Ay, said so, didnt I? Sure. Er. Thanks. Well be over about six. Ay.
Dele went back to the snug with a puzzled look on this face. He saw Collie, gave
him his pint and raised his eyebrows, well, we got somewhere!
Film III
After days of collecting footage for Louis Telligers project on Cellus, Dieter Hundert retired to the mobile recording studio that was parked near the top of the vale. It was a fair walk, but it offered a panoramic view of the local area. Dieter liked to work alone and had suggested the location for the mobile. He reached the studio and, taking one last look at the green surroundings, entered the studio. Inside, it looked like the internal organs of some amazing beast. The banks of technology resembling rows of internal organs, while the entrails of wires suggested an even more fantastic promise to the creatures organisation.
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Dieter opped into the worn black leather swivel chair. It had two smaller
chairs on either side. He placed himself before the switches and screens as he had thousands of time before and became one with the technology. His ngers icking at switches, gently squeezing dials and delicately punching in some instructions on the keyboard. The screens broke into life and a constellation of lights moved from red to green and orange. Unseen motors whirred as if bringing life and Dieter disappeared into the joint purpose of man and machine.
He felt as though he was at the beginning of some mighty project. That he was
about to record and produce a truthful representation of Middle England that nobody else could have access to, for everything that could be recorded would be recorded and all superuous material would be deleted. Only his version would remain.
He got up and piled the DVD collection that had sliced portions of life from a
various sources onto the surface by the chair and dropped himself once more on to the seat. He began with the disks from the CCTV footage as they were marked Bardon Wash Council Property. He called each DVD episode a lm and numbered them off as he played them. He had not seen the material, nor had their dates, so had no awareness of their chronological sequence. In some ways, he liked that idea. He did know that the lm of the interview, and the surrounding town and its inhabitants, would make up some twenty-four hours of material, but as to when they were lmed he was unsure, but it was unimportant in his mind. For the lm that he had to construct the real chronology did not matter, it was about how he put
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it together. The permanent drama of Middle England was about to be played, even though it had lost the plot.
The CCTV footage ran into thousands of hours. This was added to the footage
from two xed cameras that he had set up; one focused on the Village Green and the other on the caf. There were also recordings that local people had sent in from their video cameras. He would be here a long time while life went on about him. Even when he went out and joined them he knew that his main purpose in life now was to leave the people he knew and complete his project.
He anticipated grainy black and white pictures from the CCTV cameras; the
eyes of an absent author xed to a corner of concrete or the branch of a tree. The open eyes of the dead. The real ghostwriter with a zombie lm crew, that was instilling paranoia and submissiveness on to the population.
He lit a cigarette, turned of the smoke alarm, and pushed a DVD, marked red
for some obscure reason. He wanted to see the images that lay at the heart of all things.
He pressed play.
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Chapter 3 Recovering from a musical accident
We shall wait, we shall see, as rst the sky and then the sea. We shall breathe, we shall live, as they that die and they that give. Then you and I will turn to stone and bone, Like statues of the living and symbols of giving. Cellus, The News
The Telligers somehow made it through that dreadful time that the English have between four thirty in the afternoon and seven in the early evening. Cara, sometimes reading through the assortment of brochures left for guests, at other times browsing the TV channels while, now and again, patting Telliger, encouraging him to feel better and try some air. Telliger, tossing and turning, murmuring about musical sickness and the malady
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of commercial opera. Finally, he sat up, seemingly more awake and aware of his surroundings. He paused in mid-gesture, as if wondering how to present himself. Although his body had woken, he still had to recollect where he was and why. Had there been an accident? Had they been hit by another vehicle? He then remembered the music and his face squirted into a vanishing point of distaste. What was it that he had been listening to? The Hymn of Peace, that was it. He knew the track fairly well, the sweeping chords, the Alleluias, the Oboe playing a sparse and haunting phrase, making up the motif of the piece. Telliger caught himself sinking back into the sickness, he almost threw up at the memory of the sonorous chords and haunting motif. Never want to hear that again, he whispered to himself. ! ! ! ! What was that dear? Cara asked. Oh, nothing. Telliger hoped that would be the end of the enquiry. No. Tell me. What is it? I just said that I didnt want to hear that music again, Telliger said with great effort.
What music? Caras expression for suspect thoughts was a raised eyebrow and
down-turned mouth. As she did not have many facial expressions, one could have easily have imagined that she had borrowed this from someone else, or seen it in some glossy advert. ! The music in the caryou know, when it...when it happened. He nally let out the
thought like exhaling poisonous gas. ! Oh, I see. Cara stood up, turning the conversation. Would you like some tea or
would you rather go out now? ! ! What time is it? asked Telliger, with no real interest in the answer. Its just coming up to seven. Do you feel like going out? We passed a quaint pub on
the way in. Do you remember? I could drive us or we could walk, if you fancy. Cara looked
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at herself in the mirror and tidied her perfectly coiffured hair, that had already had more attention than anything else she had busied herself with. ! ! Lets walk then, Telliger said in a resigned tone. Put on a thick cardigan or light jacket, there will be a chill in the air later. Telliger
stood up with a touch of dizziness, paused and collected himself. The invisible river of blood surged on leaving his consciousness like some oatsam on the shore. Telliger went over to his case. Flipping it open, he lightly pawed through his various tops and selected the most comfortable to his touch. He placed it on the bed, then went into the bathroom to freshen himself up. He caught sight of a stranger in the mirror, a dark curly haired executive type. He smiled grimly. The face was thin and worn. Forty years old and feeling over the hill. What a life. He threw some water on his face. Dabbed it with a towel. He let out a sigh that seemed to express pure nothingness; that nothing mattered, that he was nothing, that what he did or said meant nothing. He returned to the room taking the emptiness of the bathroom with him. He had the odd thought that he would like to be in an empty room, that there was a sort of comfort in the idea of all the empty rooms that were now in the world in this instant. He knew it was an insane thought that gave him an insane peace, but he couldnt rid himself of the thought that there was something right about it. Why are rooms built to be empty for most of their time? Are there enough rooms for everyone on the planet? Is there such a thing as a perfectly empty room? No insects, no dust, no paint? He couldnt think any further. He noticed that Cara was ready. She looked rened and elegant. He felt shambolic beside her. He picked up his tan coloured jacket. ! Ive got the keys. Come on, lets go. Cara informed him and led the way out.
They went down the small winding stairs, onto the foyers parquet ooring, clicking
passed the articial owers and memorabilia of another take on England, this one preserved behind glass and showing the letters and personal effects of people who had
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visited the Inn. I wonder if they will have bottles of coke, ipods and leaets, in there one day, thought Telliger? There will be a time when we wont need such reminders, memos from the past, relics, memories, his mind tumbled on like a tumbril encapsulating his own personal revolution. Half the stuff is in our houses now anyway, he smirked to himself. A rare expression.
Once out through the revolving doors of the Inn, Louis immediately felt the thinning
summer air, the cool breezes, almost painfully stroking his face. His nose picked up the scent of the mown wheat and rapeseed. Harvesting. He was always elated and saddened at this time of year. The display of crops and fruit at harvest time reminded him of his schooldays at Chappells High School. The huge wooden stage lled with foods from across the land. The surfeit of food to be given seemed to be a huge waste, emerging from some reservoir of production, and yet the harvest festival was also a model of human relationships. His young mind tussled with the dilemma for many years. Who would get this stuff? Why did they not get any, they didnt have much food themselves? There was an invisible network of relations that he was not privy to, messages he did not understand about famine, earthquakes, and poverty, about the goodness of god, about the richness of South England. ! ! Cara snapped him out of his reverie. Look, up there, Louis! That white house with
the huge glass windows. Amazing. ! Telliger snapped out of his daydream and looked up. Ah, that must be Celluss
house. It must be. He didnt know whether to feel interested or disgusted by the association. ! Its a Corbusier inuence, noted Cara.
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Yes, there was some controversy when he turned to what he called retro-
modernism and built it. The odd thing was he never lived there. He had a breakdown around that time and stayed on in the family home on the Estate. ! ! Why dont you do a documentary on him Louis? Why? I only know a little about his music and life. Im not really qualied for it. I
could commission something. Maybe. ! Be brave! It could make your fortune! Get a crew up. Interview a few people in the
town and Cellus himself. ! ! He doesnt do interviews. Never has. Im sure I could get an interview, Cara said with an air of ambition that suffocated
Telligers own feeble notion of the future and what might it contain. Remember, you need to prove yourself at 2Corp. This could end all of your worries and depression. You wont need any recuperation breaks if you get some success, mark my words.
After a short while, and ignoring the memories of his failures at 2Corp, he replied, I
doubt you could get an interview. Anyway, Im not sure I want to think about it. Im not sure I want to hear his music again or anything about him. ! OK. OK. Cara turned away and continued walking.
They passed buzzing hedges, humming grasses, and after some ten minutes,
reached The Yeoman Pub and sat outside. From the pub garden and, over to the right, the white house of Celluss could still be seen on the side of a hill. Huge glass windows reected the blue sky and green vale. Over to the left was a large wood, and, in the dip of the vale, a collection of outhouses, barns, and working buildings. ! We could visit the local craft shops tomorrow, Cara noted, before I phone Cellus.
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Telliger sighed fatalistically. Sure. Sure. Do you want me to get the drinks? he
asked weakly, as Cara sat down. ! ! ! ! ! ! G n T please, replied Cara. Mm. Oh, Louis! Yes? Make sure you bring back the food menu will you. Sure.
On his return, they opened the menus and found the food was a variety of English
staples with odd references to the continent. They both settled for Sea Bass and country salad. The meal was a quiet affair, with Cara testing the speed of Telligers recovery. Much to her satisfaction, the food and drink seemed to dispel his depressed mood and he started to relax and even laugh at his musical encounter as he began to call it. ! That will teach me to download tracks and drive through the village of the
composer! He laughed, almost to the point of crying which, for a slight moment, reminded him of his sadness and of something he had lost. ! Its a curse! Cara laughed, icking ash off her cigarette onto the grass. They
nished their drinks, made their way back to the Inn, and, after turning on the TV, they stared blankly at it before turning it off. They kissed and turned away to face their own darkness, shutting their eyes they looked for sleep in the most unusual of places.
Outside, Bardon Wash did not sleep. Poachers and game endlessly teasing each
other. Nature letting out its multitude of secrets to anyone who cared to listen, and so the shrill of night spread about the town like an aural folly.
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Film IV
In some faraway town an audience sit down in the dark to watch Dieters lm. Dieter looks about him sick of being feted and, at the same time, criticised for exposing peoples private lives to the public. Displaying his mettle he might argue that it is was in the public interest to reveal the lost libretto of Cellus, he might say that Louis and Cara were up to no good with their blackmail and fraud, he might say for gods sake there is a case of murder, not to say mystery with BalmoralJohnsons enigmatic presence. What more do you want? I, for my part, simply want to produce a lm. The tenth muse...is it not right?
He turns to his latest twenty four hour model-looking girlfriend and notes her
ability to rise above the hub-hub. Somebody comes over, a young man in his twenties who asks for his autograph, more important is my cinematograph, Dieter shrugs and scribbles his name on the folded programme. He decides that he will leave at the rst break. The lm runs for twenty four hours with eight breaks of
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thirty minutes. It is now 6pm so the lm will nish at 10pm Saturday night. Dieter has attended premieres in Cannes, New York and Berlin. He has no intention of sitting through the whole thing again. The creation is over. He has no need to pay any further homage to the work. That is for others, if they wish.
The lm begins with the sequence that is at the heart of the mystery of
Bardon Wash and the lm that unfolds. Even now questions still persist about the nature of this scene. How was the scene shot? You said the lm was all from footage and from cameras with no special effects and no editing, yet, here, we see a Sopworth Camel crash. Are you really telling us this is what happened? Are you not being disingenuous? Please come clean and admit this crash is taken from some other lm somewhere. And, after all, what is wrong with that, it is a work of ction, so, tell us, please!
But Dieter will not relent. He cannot. It is how it is, he answers. This is how I
found it. I have no reason to doubt that somebody else has corrupted the lm or passed on to me some obscure footage from elsewhere. I tell you, in all good faith, this lm is shot from the xed camera on the Town Hall. It was there before we arrived and it is still there. Please check the records of the camera footage and you will see that they are correct. And, anyway, to be honest, I am not concerned about that. My concern is with the work as a whole. I am more concerned about the real death that occurs here. The real tragedy that the lm depicts, unbeknown to me at the time. For that I am regretful but, even so, will let the lm be screened because that is how I see art as encompassing life and death. That is my sense of naturalism. I do not fabricate anything, other than what the lm distills, that lters life, that orders what is already ordered, but in a distorted form.
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So I am not concerned about the ctional ghost that is talked about. I
understand the intrigue and welcome it for the discussions it has generated, but it is not the clue we seek. It takes us to the conspiratorial character of humankind, to the view that we must remain a distorted gure in our own eyes. I contend that what we discover here is the tragedy in life and art can only reveal this, as well as it can reveal joy, humour and love. It, art, is not a part of your conspiracy.
The curtains draw back and the lm begins....
A xed camera placed on the corner of the Town Hall turns to the outlying
countryside and picks up the image of a Sopworth Camel diving into a corneld. The plane dissolves at the point of hitting the earth. A great mist appears like a ball of soft paper and a gure emerges, clearly confused, possibly suffering from concussion. A strange white light surrounds the gure and then fades. The gure walks toward the line of crop and track. The plane has disappeared as if its encounter with the earth had not buried it but rather dissolved it.
The sound of a giant wind or of a page being turned disturbs the calm.
From out of the white mist a gure in a white suit emerges. It is Balmoral-
Johnson. He looks about and is unsure of where he is. He seems to take an arbitrary road that will lead to the lodge house that stands on the border of the grounds of Celluss Estate. It houses the servants quarters during the summer. It has now been emptied as the late summer landscape decrees for there are no functional chimneys in the lodge.
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Chapter 4 Parkins Tale
Walking along the harbour wall our eyes stream as the sea disappears, we are the lonely gures that still guard English fears. We externalise the infernal for it now sounds in our pale and crumbling ears. Ceaselessly, we talk of absence, our faces resemble thin strips of gauze. Tripping up on names and blurring faces, we make mistakes, of course. Cellus, The News
Bardon Wash bubbled with excitement. Voices leapt into the air from the chattering classes, arms were swung by unruly children on a forced day trip, only appeased and behaviour frozen by ice-lollies. The gaily coloured clothes of the visitors matched the bright awnings and displays of the curio shops. Smiles met grins, and everybody was happy, excepting Parkin, who drove a green van emblazoned with Estate Manager: Cellus Estate in mustard yellow italics. The beginning of the art festival month was not something that appealed to Parkin. For one, there were people. For two, he had to be around them.
The Estate, which ran over three hundred acres, had a small farm with the requisite
farm shop, a gift store in the old Stables, which also contained a caf, old bookshop and an outdoors clothing store. Parkins ofce was located in the corner of the stable yard. It had the uniform green painted door and the sign Estate Manager xed on to it. Inside, was what he liked to think of as operational headquarters.
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The Estate went back to the Seventeenth Century and had been known since under
various place names: Baton, Baden and, in modern times, Bardon, and nally, in the town planning of the 1960s, Bardon Wash. Parkin had joined the Estate around the time of the Queens Silver Jubilee, he had taken this as an omen for he had worked his way from horticultural college to land management and had never believed he could attain such a station coming from a lowly background. When he arrived the Estate was suffering from a lack of investment and care, which he had helped put right by his modern management methods consisting of constant surveillance of everything and everyone. He now felt that the Estate was as much a part of him as it was Celluss, for he was its eyes and ears.
He drove by the workshops, hearing the clinks and clanks of new things being
formed into sellable products. He turned the van up the track above the nook and cranny cottages, pulled the vehicle to one side, turned the engine off, and looked down on the cluster of dwellings.
As he looked down on the idyllic scene, his eyes narrowed in a way that suggested
he had perfected this display of looking at the world and reached for his sandwich box, that lay in the glove compartment of the car. Nimbly, he opened the plastic clasp of the box with his long, thin ngers and drew out a cucumber sandwich made with Tescos farmers bread. He bit into the soft white synthesis of nature and chemical and quickly turned it into a pasty crud. As his teeth pulped the shapeless, tasteless, putty he felt the bread glue onto his back molar which had begun to crumble into a black hole in the middle of the tooth. His nose caught a whiff of bad breath from this orice. It was nasty, but it also had a strange sense of comfort, of being his breath, and it conjoined with the bread and cucumber as if giving it an added novel avour. Parkin recognised the message of age and death that it
34
gave. He was getting older, his hair balding, his mouth turning down to the grave, and his eyes no more than slits as if fearing the worst. He turned his gaze to the parked vehicles below and supped some tea from his ask. His thin face munched its way through the sandwiches, drawing itself up and down like a ventriloquists dummy, not really tasting, not really sensing any pleasure. His hair, as a seeming afterthought to the mechanical masticating jaws, kept time with the munchmunch by throwing wisps of hair onto his forehead. He had recourse to pushing the hair away every third munch which not only annoyed him further, but eventually individual hairs conspiratorially latched on to his ngers and worked their way into his sandwiches, sending him into paroxysms of fake anger. His pale worm like body packaged in a dark green coloured set of overalls reddened slightly in its extremities as he threw the sandwich down. He reached for another sandwiched and nished off the last of the sandwiches with some relief. He poured out a cup of tea from an old thermos ask, polished off a Coxs apple, and thinks of those things that bring disorder into his world. He turns the ignition key and drives off.
Parkin drives to his ofce, his rounds done for the morning, and stands at his desk,
pen in hand. Before him lies a number of spreadsheets containing property titles, rent fees and members of households. The sheets comprised an effective census of the Estate that Parkin checked each month. He spreads the papers out, smoothing the surface. Satised, he takes up a mug of tea which he has made, leans over the desk, and studies the spreadsheet as a general might study a war map. The spreadsheet, like all such tools of human measurement, breaks down space, time, people, and resources, into a series of momentary glances. Tiny monastic cells lled with numbers that deliver a cosmic order, a secret that could be endlessly copied.
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The horizontal axis showed the weeks of the year, and the vertical axis, the name of
the dwelling. These were cross referenced to a further spreadsheet that gave the names of those occupying the residencies and their status as either employees of the Estate, holiday lets or rented premises. The information also gave the resources that were currently being utilised such as electricity, water, gas, loan of Estate equipment, and vehicles.
Parkin had made the spreadsheets in order to secure order on the Estate. He
believed, on the basis of this model of managing, that every point in the known universe could be plotted on such a model of a Y-axis and X-axis, or longitude and latitude, if you wished to apply to geography. In his own small way, Parkin took part in the great Enlightenment project to map nature and all who came into it or went out of it. The Estate, the country, the world, the universe itself, could all be mapped by the same method as employed by Google Earth or Satnavs. Parkin, though, was more of an observer of events and properties that could be better deemed as accidental or contingent, for he didnt just want to know what was there, he wanted to know what should be there or why something was there but shouldnt.
Two weeks ago, Parkin, had come across a mystery that he had become engrossed
in solving. For, in these two weeks, sightings had began of a man, sometimes just a gure, who appeared in the woods and around town. He was always seen in the distance, at dusk or dawn, just when the light can confuse the eyes, when a hedge could be a person in a thick rounded coat, or a cluster of owering leaves could be a peering face with a white cap on its head. Such sightings were concerning enough, but there were also the breakages of farm machinery, the moving of cattle, and visitations in homes with things disturbed from their usual places, such as food and drink, but sometimes CDs were left
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playing (a variety of classical, but also some vaudeville) and, on one odd occasion, a photograph of a young soldier from the rst world war. That there was no apparent danger to people or acts of violence gave a comedic aspect to the mystery for some, but not for Parkin. He regarded the trickster as a common or garden vagrant, a trespasser and an accident of nature. Parkin needed to solve this problem so that the Estate could return to a state of order, of necessity. He could do this only by eradicating the contingent and accidental. Over the last few days the sightings had become more frequent and it was beginning to irritate Parkin and his sense of cosmic order.
The mystery was also compounded by the apparently chameleon like appearance
of the visitor. That is, the various forms that the gure had appeared as, that is, if there was just the one gure, for the role call would read: smart suited manager, aristocrat, dilettante, bedraggled drunk, or gentleman of style from an earlier period sporting boater and bow tie, meandering tourist kitted out in long shorts, smart trainers, pork pie hat and sunglasses.
This list of seemingly arbitrary phenomena resulted in a pulsing muscle in his left
arterial vein which began to tick, usually, during late afternoon or in the evening. Nervously, he rubbed his chest. He hated appearing comic or weak, and he had overheard some of the Estate workers making jokes at his expense, at least, he assumed this from the way their laughter stopped when he was around. He studied the spreadsheet more intently, there must be a clue here, accidents had to disturb things and so reveal themselves. He pushed his left eye with his left thumb twice as if he was pressing an off button, but it didnt alter his apprehension, nor cure the itch he felt. His breathing increased slightly as his thoughts began to cloud with the mystery. He gave more attention to the spreadsheets, pulling himself out of the dive that would lead to further anger and stress.
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He took out some coloured ags from his desk drawer. He reached out for a brown paper envelope that had arrived on his desk from a friend in local government (it cost him two pheasants a month and a rabbit on bank holidays).
Parkin slid his thin ngers into the fold of the envelope and pulled out a printed list
of all the householders and dwellers on the estate. The list also informed him who was drawing benet and who was not. Parkin regarded this information as part of his covert operations brief and so accepted the onerous nature of his duty to Middle England. There was no defence against benet fraud, not human rights or condentiality of information. If people were innocent then they wouldnt mind sharing everything, including their rights, he reasoned. However, he had a hard task in convincing Sir Frederick of the implications for the Estate of this latest mystery. Cellus was more concerned about not drawing any publicity about his private life. He was deeply annoyed at the media intrusions into his life, and his breakdown in the 1970s, which he had put down to media obsession with his being the royal composer and his close association with the Princess Royal.
Nevertheless, Parkin would not give up, especially as the rst sightings had been
two weeks ago, the same time as those two young lads had rst entered Bardon and rented a cottage and workshop from Fred Morpworth. There was nothing for it but to pay Cellus another emergency visit.
These things can be plainly told, but not clearly seen. Parkin offered his imaginary
sovereign over afternoon tea at Sir Celluss home. ! ! Yes, my dear fellow, but to what harm? To what harm? Parkin stood in disbelief at this response and then suggested. Why, Sir, its the
harm to the Estate that I am concerned with.

38
Im sure you will manage it Parkin to your satisfaction. I, for my part, manage things
of the air, not the land. Cellus, was plainly in one of his meditative moods. ! Well, thats just it, Sir, I dont know if this gure is of the land or air. I just know hes
about and I cant catch him. Cellus gazed at Parkin as if he were a rogue English horn in his orchestra. ! I am condent in your abilities, Parkin. Now, please, have some fruit cake with that
tea. Cellus leant back on his woven chair, enjoying the sun that beat down on the large patio. Parkin was placed back among the furniture of the Estate to Celluss eminent satisfaction.
That was as far as Parkin had got with Sir Frederick on the issue. But Parkins
xation to end this challenge to his authority would not be assuaged. Parkin had overheard the local poacher in The Yeoman tell of a giant gure wearing a toga on the outskirts of the village. Parkin was willing to forgo transgressions of the poacher for more information on the mysterious gure. With a nod and a wink, he sidled up to the poacher and asked him about his sighting. ! Well, not much to tell, said the poacher, one Trevor Liddle, ironmonger by day and
hunter by night, who couldnt hide his amusement at the Estate manager wanting information from him. ! ! Did you get a clear view of him? Parkins incessant tone intrigued the poacher. At that time of night? I was just taking Jack, my terrier, for a walk, so I wasnt really
watching what was going around me, you know. ! Of course, Parkin eased up his chase, nevertheless, you might have noticed what
he looked like? Pint? ! Aye, Ill have a Badger for sure, for sure. Cheers. A glint in the poachers eyes
clearly revealed he liked this game. He went on: What he looked like, you say? Well, it
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was odd it must be said. I thought it was somebody wearing a bed sheet, playing the fool. But as I neared him, I could see it was one of those Indian costumes, a Sari or something. ! Parkins face lit up. A dhoti, you mean? It was typical of the trickster, thought
Parkin. Go on, he urged Trevor Liddle. But Trevor Liddle was more interested in receiving his pint and making light conversation across the bar. He turned back, laughing, to face the stony features of Parkin. Parkin could be his worst enemy if he made the chase too difcult, he reminded himself. ! Erlet me see. No, thats all. He had a long, owing robe, wrapped around the
waist and shoulders. As you say, a doughnut. ! ! ! Any car nearby? No. Nothing else to tell Im afraid. Youve been a help said Parkin, but keep off the estate until the pheasants are
released or Ill have you. A glint returned to Parkins int like eyes and the poacher slipped back into his habitat through the throng of tourists and pub regulars caught up in their alcoholic maze. Parkin wandered from the pub, his job done, and made his way back to what he thought of as home.
Balmoral-Johnson took his cue from Sir Frederick Cellus, more specically, The
Hymn of Peace. At least, he rose to consciousness humming one of Cellus pieces. He wasnt sure which piece had brought him to earth, but it would come to him. His soul wrestled with this body, born again from the deepest of ink black sleeps. Remembering, remembering, trying to remember Cellus. Trying to remember last night, remember everything. Yes, try to remember, everything. He felt a white nothingness surrounding him, and a pain that fractured his being, but he couldnt feel any physical injury.
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His soul sludged into his stomach. He was hungry, famished. His body entered into
space and time and made its way to the giant silver toaster that could hold up to ten slices of bread. Balmoral-Johnson was evidently well off and liked to eat. He looked down at his bulging stomach. He felt, if feeling was the right word, fairly healthy.
He looked out of the small metal framed window and saw a tractor trailer full of hay.
He smiled. First harvest. The rst sight of Earth terra rma is always like this at rst harvest. His mind began to fade into the crops sensing their destiny, the earth denuded, revealing the many living creatures that had taken to the maze of crop growing. A cataract of sound broke Balmoral-Johnsons attention. Gun? Propellor starting up?
He needed to eat, of course. Focus on this life now. He listened intently, there were
no more sounds of gunre. He placed bread in the toaster amazed at the speed with which his consciousness could pick up the rules of what felt like a new body. His hand, his right hand, reached out and adjusted the temperature of the toaster, took a plate from a nearby cupboard, grasped a knife like a knife-thrower and, magically, placed a third slice with a polish of honey on its surface into his gaping mouth. Mouthing food, eyes widening, and brain shaking with the intake. At last. A third hand, seemingly, tested the kettle for water and icked on the current to heat the kettle. To the side of this activity an Agar stove sat cold and sad. He noticed it. It had not been on for some time. It was seven am little wonder. Where was? Where was? Agatha, yes Agatha. Where was Agatha? She should have put the stove on by seven. He looked about, yes, still late summer.
Balmoral-Johnson sat himself on a wooden kitchen chair and seemed to wrap his
body around his soul. This would be a ne day on Earth he thought. Of course, it was one thing to believe in having a soul, quite another to have one. That would explain his feeling
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of distance from the world about him. It wasnt just the sleep, this feeling of being apart, it was deeper than that. A waking sleep, a white night that came between him and the world, the only escape would be to what? For some reason a feeling of wanting to y a plane came over him, as if that would make sense, give him some purpose to his life, to his being.
Bemused Balmoral-Johnson chomped heartily on the thick buttered toast and
slurped some ne English tea trying to let his stomach make some sense of the world about him.
Parkin resisted the itch on his nose as he drove to the Estate ofce the following
morning. Finally, he succumbed, and scratched his nose, then ran his digit nger and thumb around his nostrils, cleaning out the built up mucous that had gathered in the large red nose. He wiped his hand on his trouser leg and gripped the wheel with both hands. Parkin slowed the car, he noted Jeffrey and Flat Cap hauling some fencing onto a trailer. ! Hey! Where you taking those? Shocked the two workers looked around as if
hearing a voice dubbed over their actions. ! What? Oh, Parkin, sir, were just building up the fences around the show jumping
arena for the Saturday Fayre. ! Aye. Fine. Replied Parkin, on your way then.
Inside the ofce, his breathing increased, and he took out a giant board with his set
of spreadsheets attached to it from behind an old bureau. The board almost ran the length of the table. A geographical map of the Estate was revealed under a number of regular squares drawn with a thick black pen. He took a handful of coloured ags from a bag marked scrabble and placed red ones where rent was due in the old tithe cottages in
42
Nook and Cranny, green ones where maintenance was to be needed, yellow ags for emergency work, and white ags for vacant properties. He reserved blue ags for those on benet who did not work for the Estate, but who, for some archaic reasons, had managed to stay on. Parkin knew who received benet as all mail had to go through the Estate post room and he, personally, inspected all mail to ensure that he knew as much as he could know about anything and everything. He double checked this against the list he received from his friend in the local government ofce.
Finding nothing to awaken his morbid curiosity for trouble, he sat down a little fed
up and picked up the racing paper. He made some notes in pencil on future runners and rested his feet up on a small wooden stool. He slid into a doze.
Parkin awoke from his blackness with a start. He pushed the paper away, leaving it
to fall onto the stone oor. He found the pencil still in his hand. Rubbing his nose, and scratching the grit from his eyes. He was in a dark, bare, stone room; the late, morning light, creeping on to his skin, which had the pallor of pavement. He resumed his seated position on the armchair by the empty replace. Finally, a thought occurred to him, and he left the ofce.
It took him barely six minutes to drive to the cottages. The curtains were mostly
drawn and milk was left going off on the doorstep at number 6. Tutting, he unlocked the small gate of number 6 and rang the doorbell. No answer. He rang again. No answer. He banged with his st. He went around the back of the cottage, ready to argue with anyone about his right to be there, and peered in through the windows.
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Bardon Wash
Inside, he could see an artists easel, propped up with a painting of what looked like
a giant white egg. What on earth is that? Parkin, cast his eye around the room. There! A handbag and a long embroidered scarf! Its a woman. A woman. So Dele or Collie is hiding a woman in the cottage.
Parkin wandered around by the front gate for a few moments. There was nothing for
it; he had to tell Sir Frederick about this.
Parkin returned to the Estate and went to the house kitchens. He met Drury, the
Butler. Is he in? he asked in a forthright manner, not wanting conversation, the time of day, the latest on the shenanigans in the house, or Celluss latest mistress. Is he in the drawing room? Drury nodded. He is, good. Ive got to see him. Is it a good time? Drury nodded. Right, Ill make my way up. ! Very good, sir. Drury said and moved into the background.
Parkin went up the stone stairs and reached the oak door at the top. Cellus had
made one of the turret rooms into a drawing room where he often meditated on his work, sketching out compositions in the mornings downstairs, before trying his ideas out on the piano in the turret room in the afternoons. He was an impressive size when at full height; his shape was that of a younger man of around forty. In his later years Cellus was still the playboy of the classical music scene. An aristocratic background enabled him to have the fortune of leisure and resources to pursue his past time, which he did admirably well. His passion for all things devotional was leading him to an ever more esoteric musical vocabulary that had the aim of a conguration that would match the emotional state of Middle England. He had no heed for the charges of obscurantism and eccentricity and, indeed, welcomed them. How else would somebody be described if they discovered the
44
relation between music and people and could also apply it? The two portraits on his wall, one of Richard Wagner and, the other, an artists impression of Adrian Leverkuhn.
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Parkin knocked, bravely. He heard a chschh and his cold blood went a little colder. What? the Oak door said, impassively. Sir, Parkin replied to the door. What now? shouted the door. Im so sorry Sir, but I do need to speak. Speak, said the door, becoming bigger, and more solid, in its frame. Can I come in Sir? What? Can I come in Sir? If you must! The door nally gave way and opened. Well then, what is it? Parkin knew he had to make this as dramatic as he could. I believe, he said slowly,
that we have a trickster on the Estate. Celluss eyes did not inch, his hand did not move from the door handle, and he remained in a slightly bent posture. He was clearly waiting for the punch line. And.. er.. I need to report that the Estate could be entangled in serious matters, unless, that is, we do not act urgently. ! What on Earth is this about, Parkin? Celluss spine unfolded, his hand left the door
handle to take up residence on his hip, his right hand held a quill pen. ! ! ! Sir, I have reason to believe said Parkin. Reason to believe what? I have reason to believe that we have squatters on the Estate. Parkin paused, to
see the effect this statement had on Cellus. ! Celluss eyes lit up at this phrase. Not on your life, not here, ever!
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! down. ! ! ! !
I quite agree, Sir, hence the urgency. I need your permission to hunt this gure
Yes, yes, get on with it. Do you know who it is? No, Sir, I am at an early stage in my inquiry. Tchah! Well, get on with it Parkin. Work to do. Yes, of course, Sir. Thank you. The door wished him goodbye with a loud slam.
On his way out Parkin made a point of informing Drury that he expected food and
refreshments for the Estate workers to be available throughout the Saturday Fayre, even though Drurys duties were related to the house, not the general Estate, and certainly not the workers. Nevertheless, it was easier to agree with Parkin than disagree.
! ! !
He then went to check on Cellus. He opened the door with a nonchalant air. Sir? Ah, Drury, could you watch Parkin? He is completely mad. Yes, sir, as you wish.
Balmoral-Johnson wandered through the buildings and doorways of the large house
like a troubled spirit. He ate up the air and became infused with the place, the dust, the spaces between the furniture, between the rooms, the small odd doors leading to who knows where and the attic trapdoor that held all the charm of a childs nightmare. Blowing a whispered version of one of Celluss refrains, Balmoral-Johnson, sounded like a huge bagpipe about to expire.
He wanted to go out, but it wasnt time. The harvesting was picking up pace. The
line between crop and non-crop was becoming less clearly delineated. Which side was
46
he? He smiled. Musing, he felt that he had done this for thousands of years. Transxed by the crop lines, a bizarre thought came into his head, the cutting down of life for life.
Moving on from the window he entered a porched doorway and left the house. He
noted that his brogue shoes crunched the gravel and, now and again, snail shells. A crow sounded like an old wooden door letting guests in. Cut crop stuck to his shoes.
He was becoming thick with the world. The porous nature of his being began to ll
him up with a satiated joy. He smiled, almost drunkenly, his soul dancing on the surface like a sprite. In these ordinary things, a wonder was being rekindled. He couldnt help clapping his hands and laughing at the nonsense of it all. What oh! He was known by no one, not even himself, and he was overjoyed. Peace at last, in this white nothingness, this white spirit they call air. ! ! He had treaded around this place for some weeks now trying to uncover clues from
the houses of the local inhabitants. Gently inquiring as to where he was and what this place was. Bardon Wash, it did seem a familiar name, but he couldnt say why. He did recognise some of the landmarks though, but they appeared jumbled and out of context. The large stately home, for example, should be nearer the wood and there was no aireld. Yet, he had a strong pull to the planes that traversed the sky which he felt were wondrous and magical. Maybe, he was a pilot of some sort who had suffered amnesia and had found his way home to Agatha, the name felt right but he could put no face to her. On the other hand, he may be a spy and have forgotten his mother tongue, just left with this alien tongue which seemed so sharp and unwieldy. Not that the people about him acted as though there was a war on, they seemed more troubled by making money and getting on with their lives as if nothing else mattered. They did not appear to have souls, for they did
47
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not say or do anything that showed a real appreciation with anything but themselves. This was, of course, the complete opposite if you have a soul, for a soul has no bounds. It is connected (the language was a real problem here) with everything else.
The trouble was this feeling of not being at home here and of having a soul created
a real anxiety in him. As if he should be the one with the problem! He was the one who was with nature, who was with the life of all things, and yet he was the odd one out. He couldnt help but feel a dread for this situation, whatever immortality a soul may bring it could not defend him from the senselessness of things around him and, anyway, having a soul did not mean that he was in control of it. Just the opposite - he still had to live in this body and live the life of this body, his soul was for other things. Perhaps, to simply be the place of communion with the rest, with everything.
48
Film V
The cold morning air creeps into Dieters consciousness. Pulling his jacket collar up only forestalls the inevitable. He nally rises from his cramped position lying across the rack bed behind the drivers seat and slowly clambers over the seats and gets out through the mobiles passenger door. He stretches in the thin lament of cold and sees his breath puff into white air. There is an early frost. He looks at his watch ve am. Shrugs and lights a cigarette. Putting his spare hand in his jacket pocket he stamps the ground to ward off the stiffness and the growing cold. The orange ball in the sky foretells of some warm later.
He nishes his smoke and returns to the mobile to make some coffee. Dieter is
used to working alone and does everything he can to make it that way. But just as the sun rises so Simon and James will make their way up to the mobile for a coffee and a chat. He folds out a table for his cup and notebooks and sits himself facing the vale. He notices a local paper within his notebooks and pulls it out in. Inside, he nds that a local art exhibition is to start. He looks a the date of the paper, it is a few days old and he has lost track of time himself, but the exhibition should be on soon, if not already started. He turns to the list of artists, locations and works and sees an entry that catches his eye Egg by Julia at The Barn, North Harbour Hill, Quill. She describes her work as a total work of art, which interests him greatly. She wants to immerse the art in the artist and reveal the deep subjectivity of modern life. Intrigued, he decides to make a visit.
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The clock turns to just past 9am and Dieter plugs in the exhibitions
administration number into his phone and asks about Julia Love. I think you have the wrong number, comes the reply. He insists he hasnt and cannot think what the problem is with the inquiry. He tells the administrator that he is working on a lm project on Cellus and the local area and that the art exhibition will add a nice touch of context and period. Im particularly interested in the work by Julia Love and her installation Egg. The administrator takes all of this in and says that he had better put him through to someone who knows about the exhibition. Dieter blows out throw his lips and repeats the inquiry to somebody who knows about the exhibition. Ah, yes, comes the reply. I do know about the exhibition, but not about the artists themselves. You need to contact the artists catalogue for that. It gives details of their contact numbers and agents, sponsors and so on.
The phone begins to feel uncomfortable in his hand. He presses the red phone
and discontinues the call with an abrupt thanks. He does not hear the commotion about impolite tourists and bad manners in the ofce that his radio signal has just left. He phones Simon and asks him to bring a catalogue up from the town.
What catalogue? There is a catalogue containing contact information for artists who are
exhibiting in the local exhibition, could you pick a copy up from somewhere in town? Like where? That is the favour Im asking. If I knew Id say go and pick a catalogue up
from the Town Hall. The Town Hall? Ok, Ill try there.
50
Good idea. Try the Town Hall rst and then perhaps, a news agents or tourist
information ofce. Dieter has gradually worked out the English aversion to help while remaining polite. He is astonished at the range of variations that people can use if they wish to seem helpful, but, actually, are not. The xation on taking an example one might use is a classic option of creating a problem when there isnt one. It might explain the success of the Enigma Variations, he thinks in his more idle and wasteful moments.
Surprised, he greets Simon and James at 9.30. Wheres your lovely coffee,
then Dieter? Ill pour you some out. Have a seat. Im surprised to see you here, I thought
you were going to pick me a catalogue up from town? I found one in my overnight bag. Good. Well, thanks anyway. What do you want it for anyway? There is no music in the exhibition. There is an artist I want to interview. Her work and views may give a glimpse
of the period the project is set in. Neat idea, Dieter, says James. Who is it? What? asks Dieter. The artist, who is it you want to interview? Dieter looks over at Simon and
they lock glances. Julia Love. She is doing an installation that looks quite impressive and her
concepts about art are insightful.
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Lets see, Simon icks through pages that have the artists in alphabetical
order. Ah, yes, Julia Love, nice name, oh, oh! and nice face too! Look at this James, a real looker. Simon shows James the tiny picture of Julia and James whistles. Are you sure this is business and not pleasure, Dieter? asks James. Im sure. Simon breaks in I do think you will need an extensive sound check. and some lighting tests, adds James. They are both smirking. Dieter keeps
his cool and says that he just wants to talk rst to see if a record of her work will benet the project. Talk, eh? adds Simon. Dieter gets fed up of the continual banter and goes to
make some more coffee and bring out some Danish pastries which deects James and Simon from their endless of deferral of why they might be on earth.
52
Chapter 5 Making Objets dArt
The big poets have left us, but here are their words in stones and notes, in a language forgot, Now doctors and lawyers replace them and we strive to collect Each memo from memory, the advice from vice. All jotted and lightly dotted we feel noted and knotted, Our slippers are tight, our pensions secure, we move to the end as a force majeure. Cellus, The News
Birds. Raising their voices, trilling, warbling and whistling, trying to remind the inhabitants of Bardon Wash that there was more to life than what appeared. But, if you did focus on their noise, you could hardly hear yourself think. Perhaps the cause of their musical upset lay in the activities of the men who were working with a thin sense of public duty, but determinedly cutting down hedgerows and trees as if their life depended on it.
The path being constructed would encourage a gentle stream of tourists and
walkers to ow into Bardon Wash from the neighbouring town of Quill which was famed as the home of the greatest English writer, although no one knew who he was. The inhabitants of Bardon Wash were all for the path, as long as it was in the traditional Old English style, for they needed customers to sell their ancient simulacra to, to charge full price (to cover ones costs), and to pay tax (when necessary, for defence purposes, that is).
53
Bardon Wash
The wares were sold in the old workshops, in the Heritage Centre, the newly built
Smithy Forge, in a renovated barn called Strawberry Mill and the Olde World Shoppe (full of country cheese and farmers bread). Behind the counters, like some uttering exotic species of humanity, were those who rented out holiday lets, who disappeared in almost weekly migrations and returned sunburnt and relaxed, who complained they had no money, who thought you could hardly go wrong in having your own business. All of them had discovered the magic formula of Middle England: buy and sell on.
Wares were also sold by those who were trying to make ends meet, in any way they
could; those who rented a stall, or even a shop, from the owners. The problem was that in making ends meet one has to nd their beginning. Dele and Collie, nomads from Brightsea, each in their own way a spectacular failure, had joined this pilgrimage to the mysterious haven of Middle England.
Dele and Collie had settled in one of the nook and cranny cottages, along with
twenty or so others, that banged and clattered every day in the workshops like a new generation of amateur Nibelungen. All either preparing for the festival or maintaining their summer trade. The festival was some days off and Dele couldnt help thinking about Julia, but then again, neither could Collie.
The row of cottages that they stayed in were a relic of some feudal plan that gave a
dwelling to those who had worked the land in ages past. Now, they stood in a singular row, away from the growing centre of Bardon Wash and were a town planners nightmare, for they belonged to ancient agreements and contracts and, ultimately, were tied to the estate of Cellus. Added to that, they lacked general amenities and road access. They seemed to
54
be closer to nature than to society, but their quaint wooden beams and thatched roofs created a place of rapture for the citizens of Middle England.
The walk from the cottages to Bardon Wash was some fteen minutes. Those who
could afford to live in Bardon Wash were the owners of land or, those who owned the micro businesses, or those who commuted to the university town of Quill. To the right of Bardon Wash stood a small tourist trap called The Wash which contained The Inn, a renovated triumph of bad taste, and a variety of curio shops. To the left stood the workshops were Dele and his friend Collie now produced, over the weeks, their art wares from the detritus of modern living, skips, hedgerows, streams, yards and donations from the residents who wanted rid of an appliance, a piece of furniture or some odds and ends.
Dele, busy working on his latest creation in the workshop, tried to focus on the task
in hand and forget about his real purpose for coming to Bardon Wash, Julia Love. He turned his mind back to the creation that, whatever it ended up as, would, hopefully, equate to money one day. He bent forward over the workbench, his twisted, mattted hair dangling over his working ngers; varnished by the savouring of too many joints and rolled up fags. Trapped in a vice on the workbench was a small brick and metal artifact. It was a hybrid being and had a style common to Deles work.
What is it? A small voice escaped from the gloom that made up the back of the
barn workshop. It was a voice that often appeared in the background of Deles consciousness. This time he turned to it.
Dunno, said Dele, but the naks will love it. An ironic smile fractured a face that
some tide had left behind. The naks were no fellow tribe, no exotic migrants, they were
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Bardon Wash
the anoraks in spring and autumn, the tweeds in winter, and the shorts in summer. They had an orchestrated set of beliefs that revolved around an all powerful god, who demanded the right tributes, at the right time. Bric-a-brac in summer, furniture in spring, gifts in winter, and art works in autumn. Dele often thought they were building a huge nest somewhere, a vast den of the unhurried things of life such as watches, cushions, canes and old cracked pottery. He gazed at his work, the brick-metal thing, took it out of the vice, turned it around in his hands and peered into some arcane realm. Needs something, he muttered to his consciousness.
Collie, who half-listened to everybody for just such moments, sped into Deles
consciousness again, crashing into any old ideas and notions with his mental tractor. Why dont you paint it different colours on each side? You know, like purple on one side, and blue on the other? Maybe green as well? I know its a lot of colour, but itll make an impact, I bet. Collie was the master of the superuous which wouldnt have been a problem, if, Dele, had not been a master pedant. He looked up from his piece of work with a touch of sympathy, a rare thing for Dele, but also, with a hint of boredom, noted by the slight widening of his eyes but, perhaps, the sum of it all, was a sense of frustration at Collies remark. Well, well see. The words were precisely measured as if he had a micrometer for each vowel and a sliding gauge for each consonant. ! Ive got some rubber piping from an old dishwasher Dele. You could run it round the
brick and ! Maybe, he answered quickly, in the hope that some supernatural force had a
voodoo doll of Collie and was, at that moment, about to paste selotape over the mouth. He smiled grimly to himself and stayed silent, a hunter of peace. Not wanting to encourage any further interaction, any display of his presence that would invite more verbal origami from Collie. But it wasnt to be.
56
Hey Dele! Ive got a radio transistor circuit board over here that could be really
interesting. If you want, Ill swap it for that tin of paint you found? ! So, let me get this straight, I should put the circuit board onto this? His mouth
smacked out the syllable. ! ! be? ! ! Be? Be? The emphatic tone squashed Collies growing condence as an interlocutor; Yeahwhynot? Yes, why not? That is a fair question, but not helpful. For instance, what would it
he shut up.
Collie, who was a wispy oppy thing, but slightly taller than you might imagine, hung
back as if waiting for the mood weather to depart, but, after a few moments, this did not seem likely. He dug his head into his body a little further, as if realising that he was too far from his burrow. He then uttered a reply, a dangerous reply, precisely because it was a reply. Why, nothing. Wouldnt be anything. He felt the lashing cold and grimaced. It was all beginning to feel unfair and that made him upset. He was being put on the spot, but he was just trying to help. He pleaded innocence. He wanted to say he didnt do it (whatever it was); that he had not been there (wherever it was); that somebody told him to do it (whomever it was), that he had no idea what it was all about, and that he was confused. In short, I, Collie, am innocent of all charges that may be brought against me.
He then threw out mental lifelines for some help, his eyes felt wet even though they
were dry to his touch. His stomach churned, he thought of those people who liked him, who said he was bright. Julia often said, youre bright you know. She said this, and she had red hair and bangles. She had got a rst in Art. She came from an afuent family who
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lived in Hampshire. And his mother, who lived in Spain much of the time, with a bottle of sherry and his father, had said, you clever boy once, but he couldnt remember why.
! !
Eventually, the grueling silence was broken by Collie, Jus trying to help. Okay. Put the kettle on, lets have a cuppa. Dont worry, well have all this stuff
ready for the Fayre. And weve got all of that bric-a-brac as well from the courtyard shops to put out. ! Pleased at the new conversational topic, Collie smiled and got the tea.
58

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Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A.

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Chapter 1 Hearing Music

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Thank you, Lisabeth, she added acidly as an afterthought.

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Chapter 2 Finding Middle England

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

art works for tourists and visitors to the festival.

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Chapter 3 Recovering from a musical accident

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

So I am not concerned about the ctional ghost that is talked about. I

The curtains draw back and the lm begins....

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Chapter 4 Parkins Tale

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

harm to the Estate that I am concerned with.

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Bemused Balmoral-Johnson chomped heartily on the thick buttered toast and

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

it; he had to tell Sir Frederick about this.

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

concepts about art are insightful.

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Chapter 5 Making Objets dArt

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

Bardon Wash A Novel by N.A. Crowther

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