Clowns At Midnight (31 page)

‘Pity. That’s the one truth I
keep
coming back to. But you’ve been the perfect acolyte, David. You’ve worn women’s clothing, you’ve had honey wine, you’ve been courted by a young woman in a swing, you’ve even seen the old god’s image in a ship-cart.’

‘I’ve what?’

‘On the road the other day. Someone sitting in the back of a boat, yes? And you’ve been baptised.’

‘Baptised? Oh, in pigs’ blood.’

‘Pigs’, are you sure? There are goats and sheep around here too. Goats’ blood would be very fitting. So would women’s for that matter.’ She gave her wonderful smile.

‘You’re not serious.’

‘
Non importa
. You managed well.’

‘Since you mention it, was all that with Madame Sew necessary? The sewing dummy? The performance in the attic? The images on the disks?’

‘
Scusi
, David, the what?’

‘The things at the house. At the Rankins’.’

‘Nothing was done at the house. A mamuthone visited once. Just that and the maze today. What is this again?’

I could only smile. Gemma! Gemma as Zoe, though how could I be sure? How had she managed it? I’d heard more than one voice in the forest calling Iackhos.

‘Midsummer’s eve,’ I said.

‘Close enough. And very soon the festival of St Anthony in Mamoiada. David, you will stay?’

‘I’m your wounded man. How could I be anywhere else?’

She squeezed my arm. ‘Be strong. You are at the beginning of something.’

And she walked off towards the tower to join her friends.

I’d spoken simple truth. I had to stay. Imagine going, being at home and knowing this was happening.

And there was the hope of Gemma. Still.

Hope denied. If she were there, I could not see her, could not hear the voice, the distinctive bray, though that signature mannerism could have been set aside as easily as I’d said. The people laughed and mingled, went in and out of the tower, finally—how much time later, I couldn’t tell—started wandering off home, to children left with babysitters, to last-minute chores and early rises.

I did not see Carlo and Raina go. There were none of the expected goodnights and farewells. One moment there were dozens of people, then fewer, then hardly any, just five or six remaining, who finally called goodnight to each other and went their ways.

Still I waited. I stayed. Hope of Gemma, Zoe, something, kept me there.

By 11:05 there was just the imago in the glade, its robe lifting and flaring in the night wind. Just me and the god in its pool of light, with insects swarming in the overhead spot. Summer having its way. Not even gods immune.

I expected theatrics, some new surprise from the tower or across the glade, a sudden arrival at the last minute, whatever minute I made the last by turning away.

There was nothing.

Just this. Anticlimax. Feeling bereft.

But someone would come to turn off the light, surely. That would be it. And before midnight, if I wasn’t mistaken. I would wait.

Then realised that
I
was that someone. Without asking, without a word, they had left it for me. I would go over and shut it down, or walk down the hillside and throw the switch in the laundry.

Last one out please turn off the light
.

I was furious. I laughed. It was perfect.

You brought us this
.
You finish it
.
Turn off the light
.

I stood for a while, then went to do just that, started towards the spotlight when, suddenly, it switched off, plunging everything into darkness. Comparative darkness, for the coppery moon was well clear of the trees now, the original nightlight, night-sun.

Hah! Someone
was
there! The rest of it.

But no. There was no one. It had been on a timer.

Got me. Last trick. Last one from the dance. Hope denied.

I could see the god’s robe stirring, shifting, imagined the sheen of the oiled face, the deep nothing of the eyes, the knowing fig-wood smile, brought here, made here, replicating the smiles of countless statues and masks in all the museums, quiet parlors, antique stores and private collections across the world, all those other bits of knowing. Remembering.

The wind sighed around the tower, stirred in the trees. Moonlight marked the door. I had to know. I was doing well too, barely into quarter-clown, if such terms even applied now. There were new calibrations on the David Leeton scale, new defaults.

I crossed to the tower, grabbed the ring and turned it.

It was locked.

And just as well. Enough had happened. I stood watching the imago’s robe stirring in the moonwind, starwind, the old world’s breath, then turned away.

Time to go. Let it go. I headed down to the driveway, finally reached the house. Nothing all the way. Just night and the wind and the Night Sun riding golden and high. It took that long for the truth to sink in.

You are at the beginning of something
.

Glib, obvious and always true. You spend your life trying to force life to your will, even when the lesson is that it never does, never can, never should.

I readied for bed, even lay reading a while, listening for something, anything. A Iackhos cry, just one, the smallest shiver of bells.

There was wind in the trees, insect sounds, hints of bird-call. Old night.

And the lesson.

PART FOUR

‘All things that are, are lights.’

—Johannes Scotus Eriugena

CHAPTER 22

Then morning, empty and full. A wall of heat, more plumes on the ranges, but parts of something constant, gentler, death and renewal (Jack Carlyle’s and David Leeton’s Zen 101: you know you’re still growing when clichés are profound again).

I showered and dressed, had a quick breakfast, and reached the tower by 10:50. The stulos was bare, of course, all traces of the festivities gone. Only the cherry-picker stood to one side, shimmering in the heat, a weathered, off-white unit, its swan neck and basket still aloft, bearing the aluminium cone of the spotlight. The words Jayco Rentals and a local phone number were stencilled on the side, a fitting pragmatic touch.

I tried the tower door again, but it was locked. Locked again. Raina the maenad, the priestess, had no doubt been here, cleaning up, taking care of business.

I made myself check the stulos. Only the slightest rush of clown-fear today; perhaps the summer-night magic still worked. There were traces of scented libation oil smeared on the wood, barest hints that it had truly happened.

Finally I went through the screen of trees out to where the bottle-trees had stood a lifetime, another world ago.

A white truck was turning in at the gate. Someone in blue overalls got out, opened, drove through, closed, then continued up the hill, turning off at the high point to approach the forest, then swinging around to back up to the tree-line. The words Jayco Rentals and the phone number were on the driver’s door.

The truck finished reversing and stopped. I waved to the driver.

‘Hi!’ he called, getting out, a good-looking young man with curly brown hair and an easy smile. ‘I’m here for the cherry-picker.’

‘I’m Dave Leeton.’

‘Art Fisher.’

We shook hands.

‘Another scorcher, ay, Dave?’ Art said, shading his eyes, taking in the view.

‘Sure is. You need a hand?’

‘Shouldn’t do. It’s power assisted.’

‘Right.’ We moved back through the trees. ‘Art, could you do me a favour? I’m minding the Rankin place and I’d really like to get a look at the top of this tower. It’d really help with something I’m working on. Save me getting a unit in.’

Art calculated the height, rubbed his chin. ‘Don’t see why not. Have to make it quick though. Got a booking out at Fairy Hill this arvo. You been on one before?’

‘Never have.’

‘Well, just make sure you hang on, okay? I’ll send you up. Just holler when you want down. You okay with heights?’

‘Yep. There are controls in the bucket?’

‘Sure, but let me do it. The insurance, see?’

‘If I fall, I’ll say I fell out of a tree.’

Art grinned, swiped at a fly. ‘Make it quick, okay?’

‘Promise. Can we get in close? I need to see how the brickwork is fitted at the top edge.’

‘Sure thing. You an architect, Dave?’

‘Just doing a piece for a magazine. Old buildings.’

‘That right?’

Art went to the picker’s controls and powered up, brought down the bucket and detached the spotlight, then wound the cable around the shell and set it on the grass. That done, he steered the unit out of its spot back in the trees and angled it in next to the wall.

‘Should do it,’ Art said. ‘Anytime you’re ready.’

I mounted the double step, climbed into the bucket and gripped the hot metal side rails, then let Art send me aloft. It was a smooth enough rise through the hot morning air, with only occasional slewings, giving a totally different perspective on this remote
nuraghe
and the glade where it stood. I could see Edenville Road, the Catleys’ place, Summerland Way, so many bits of my world, all set differently.

After a few final adjustments, Art had me at the top of the tower. There was a parapet, sure enough, and what looked like a flattened conical roof beyond.

‘Another foot, Art!’ I called down. ‘I need to take measurements!’

Art was standing by the machine, shading his eyes, grinning up. ‘Righto! Hang on!’

I did. The bucket jerked once, twice, then steadied.

‘That’s it!’ I called.

‘Ten minutes!’ Art called back.

I looked down, saw him taking the spotlight and cable out to the truck. There was time. I turned back to the tower. The low stone roof angled from its conical top down to the inside edge of the parapet. A dozen or so drainage holes had been drilled through the wall there, but at two points amid the build-up of leaves and twigs were two larger openings at twelve and six o’clock—no, at nine and three o’clock: they were positioned east and west.

I knew I could squeeze through.

What Art thought I was doing I couldn’t say. I didn’t dare look over the side again. I’d said I was taking measurements. Maybe he was having a smoko, even a nap, leaving me to it.

Steadying myself, I climbed over the warm hard stone of the parapet onto the roof, scrambled on hands and knees to the nearest opening and looked down.

There were more leaves and twigs on a stone floor barely a metre below the opening, but something else as well. A mirror was fixed there, angled on the floor so sunlight entered whatever space was below.

I didn’t hesitate. I worked my legs and waist through the skylight—whatever it was meant to be—and dropped into a cool shadowed chamber, a large low room two metres high near the middle where the blunt conical roof pitched up. The mirrors at each opening brought in light, illuminated the two amazing artefacts within.

I felt an immediate prickling on the back of my neck, other symptoms right there, hard and familiar.

Set nearly two metres apart at the room’s centre, facing each other, were two large stone masks, beautifully made, each the size of a car door. They stood as high as my shoulder on thick wooden posts fitted below the chins into low stone plinths, set so they regarded each other across the intervening air.

The mouth of one curved in a slight smile, its eye-holes shaped to give a composed, even gaze. A stylised laurel wreath was carved on the forehead. The other face had a grin, utterly joyful, wide delighted eyes and a vine-leaf wreath on its brow.

I worked at my breathing, hating, loving what I saw.

No mistaking who they represented. Day Sun and Night Sun. Apollo and Dionysos regarding each other, eyes and smiles touching as eyes and smiles only ever could, across time and life, days lived and shared, within the passing on and the calling back, smiles empty, full and knowing.

I made myself stay, made myself know it all.

Aligned with each face on the circular wall was a hole to the outside world: two holes in perfect alignment—there was no doubting—each as round as my arm, holes you could never see from outside unless you knew where to look, holes that would let sunrise through for one, sunset for the other, to strike the backs of the masks at that special time of year, strike mouths and eyes and let light fill the space for just that time, that part of some ordinary, eternal day.

I imagined being here for such a thing, seeing it happen.

But I didn’t need to be here, didn’t have to stay. Just knowing, just imagining was enough. I had no doubt that it happened, that it had been crafted to happen. All of it. Everything in its place.

I made myself do the rest, forced it in a mixture of fear and delight, with crushed breathing and sweats and sheer determination.

I touched first one face, then the other, had to, felt the good hard stone.

Then turned and fled to the nearest skylight, was about to haul myself up, but stopped.

You are at the beginning of something
.

Any moment now Art would honk his horn, call me down. But not yet. Not yet. There was time.

For what?

I looked back at the faces, the masks of day,
all
of day, light
and
dark. Reason and rapture.
Arete
and
athesauriston
.

But what?

Of course. Of course. Completed here, Carlo had said. A final test. Someone uninitiated, wild and natural, completing it.

You permit it?

And Raina’s words were there too: we understand more than we know and know more than we understand.

I made myself go back, went across to the faces, old adversaries, old polarities and totalities. Could they? Completing the great equation of the world, bringing it here to finish it.

I told myself it was just stone, shaped stone, and fixed in place. But maybe not. I grabbed the sides of the Apollo mask and began forcing it, finding the strength, all I could manage. It began shifting with a deep grinding sound, moving on its short wooden pin. It did turn. It did, without toppling, without the pin breaking; the mask began to angle round, resisting all the way, but rotating, turning away from its grinning counterpart.

The Dionysos face then, just more shaped stone—and not! I seized the sides, forcing it around too, making it swing out and round, another deep grinding in the stone throat.

Done. It was done. They were facing away from one another.

No longer two. One. The same. A Janus face. With sunrise and sunset through eyes and smiles into something shared. Life between, as ever it was.

Now God is come to worship us!

Completed.

My task in whatever this was. A task, at least.

Then, only then, did I let myself go, hauled myself up out of the chamber, steadied myself on the parapet as I clambered into the bucket, leant over to call down.

There was no truck. No sign of Art.

‘Hey, Art!’ I called across the warm air. ‘Art, are you there?’

But there was nothing, just cicadas sounding, just light and distance, the plumes curling, asking, always asking, this much of forever.

The bucket was easy to operate. Power was on; the Down button lowered the swan neck, took me smoothly to the ground.

But no Art. No truck. An emergency call, a toilet break? Maybe a smoko somewhere else?

Or part of the show.

Of course. Art Fisher.
Artifice
. Such a name.

I could go back up, check the faces, the completion. There was time.

But no. It was done. I had a novel to finish, an article to write, a life to live.

Unless.

You permit it?

I turned my back on the tower and the stulos, on the cherry-picker angled hard in against the warming stone, hurried through the trees, out onto the slope.

I should have known. I laughed, just threw up my arms, my head back and laughed. Why not? After all this, why not?

I started walking. My heart was pounding with the drumbeat of summer riot, winter storm, enough of the old dread, but mostly, wholly joy. My smile was fixed, no choice in that, my walk steady enough, muscles still trembling from turning the faces.

But all things considered, never more ready. I began singing
Holy Meg
as I strode along, sending up the chorus as I went down to where Gemma—and
zoë—
were waiting at the front gate.