The People in the Castle: Selected Strange Stories (2 page)

The Power of Storytelling: Joan Aiken
’
s Strange Stories

Joan Aiken once described a moment during a talk she was giving at a conference, when to illustrate a point she began to tell a story. At that moment, she said, the quality of attention in the room subtly changed. The audience, as if hypnotised, seemed to fall under her control.

“Everyone was listening, to hear what was going to happen next.”

From her own experience, whether as an addictive reader from early childhood or as a storyteller herself, learning to amuse a younger brother growing up in a remote village, by the time she was writing for a living to support her family, she had learned a great respect for the power of stories.

Like a sorcerer addressing her apprentice, in her heartfelt guide,
The Way to Write for Children,
she advises careful use of the storyteller’s power:

“From the beginning of the human race stories have been used—by priests, by bards, by medicine men—as magic instruments of healing, of teaching, as a means of helping people come to terms with the fact that they continually have to face insoluble problems and unbearable realities.”

Clearly this informed her desire to bring to her own stories as much richness, as many layers of meaning, and as much of herself, her extensive reading, and her own experience of life as she possibly could. Stories, she said, give us a sense of our own inner existence and the archetypal links that connect us to the past . . . they show us patterns that extend beyond ordinary reality.

Although she repudiated the idea that her writing contained any overt moral, nevertheless many of Joan Aiken’s stories do convey a powerful sense of the fine line between good and evil. She habitually made use of the traditional conventions of folk tales and myths, in which right is rewarded and any kind of inhumanity gets its just
deserts
. Her particular gift, though, was to transfer these myths into richly detailed everyday settings that we would recognise, and then add a dash of magic; a doctor holds his surgery in a haunted castle, and so a ghost comes to be healed.

What Aiken brings to her stories is her own voice—and the assurance that these stories are for you. By reading them, taking part in them, not unlike the beleaguered protagonists she portrays as her heroes—struggling doctors, impatient teachers or lonely children—you too can learn to take charge of your own experience. It is possible, she seems to say, that just around the corner is an alternative version of the day to day, and by choosing to unloose your imagination and share some of her leaps into fantasy you may find—as the titles of some of her early story collections put it—
More than You Bargained For
and almost certainly
Not What You Expected
. . .

One of the most poignant,
hopeful,
and uplifting stories in this collection—and hope, Aiken believed, was the most transforming force—is “Watkyn, Comma.” Here she uses the idea of a comma—in itself almost a metaphor for a short story—to express a sudden opening up of experience: “a pause, a break between two thoughts, when you take breath, reconsider . . .” and can seize the opportunity to discover something hitherto unimaginable.

In the course of one short story our expectations are confounded by the surprising ability with which Aiken generously endows her central character—to see something we would not have expected. By gently offering t
h
e possibility of previously unknown forces—our ability to develop new capacities, the will for empathy between the many creatures of our universe, our real will to learn to communicate—she leaves us feeling like the characters in the story—“brought forward.”

Aiken draws us into a moment of listening—gives an example of how a story works its magic—and invites us to join in the process of creative sharing, believing, asking:

“Could I do this?”

And hearing her answer:

“Oh, never doubt it.”

Aiken is perfectly capable of showing the dark side of the coin, of sharing our dangerous propensity to give in to nightmares and conjure monsters from the deep, but at her best and most powerful she allows her protagonists to summon their deepest strengths to
confront
their devils. In the story of this name, born from one of her own nightmares, even Old Nick is frustrated by a feline familiar called
Hope.

This collection of stories, taken from her entire writing career, some of which I have known and been told since I was born, form a magical medicine chest of remedies for all kinds of human trials, and every form of unhappiness. The remedies are hope, generosity, empathy, humour, imagination, love, memory, dreams . . . Yes, sometimes she shows that it takes courage to face down the more hair-raising fantasies, and conquer our unworthy instincts, but in the end the reward is in the possibility of transformation. The Fairy Godmother is within us all.

Lizza Aiken 2015

A Leg Full of Rubies

Night, now. And a young man, Theseus O’Brien, coming down the main street of Killinch with an owl seated upon his shoulder—perhaps the strangest sight that small town ever witnessed. The high moors brooded around the town, all up the wide street came the sighing of the river, and the August night was as gentle and full as a bucket of new milk.

Theseus turned into Tom Mahone’s snug, where the men of the town were gathered peaceably together, breathing smoke and drinking mountain dew. Wild, he seemed, coming into the lamplit circle, with a look of the night on him, and a smell of loneliness about him, and his eyes had an inward glimmer from looking into the dark. The owl on his shoulder sat quiet as a coffee-pot.

“Well, now, God be good to ye,” said Tom Mahone. “What can we do for ye at all?”

And he poured a strong drop, to warm the four bones of him.

“Is there a veterinary surgeon in this town?” Theseus inquired.

Then they saw that the owl had a hurt wing, the ruffled feathers all at odds with one another. “Is there a man in this town can mend him?” he said.

“Ah, sure Dr. Kilvaney’s the man for ye,” said they all. “No less than a magician with the sick beasts, he is. “And can throw a boulder farther than any man in the land.” “’Tis the same one has a wooden leg stuffed full of rubies.” “And keeps a phoenix in a cage.” “And has all the minutes of his life numbered to the final grain of sand—ah, he’s the man to aid ye.”

And all the while the owl staring at them from great round eyes.

No more than a step it was to the doctor’s surgery, with half Tom Mahone’s customers pointing the way. The doctor, sitting late to his supper by a small black fire, heard the knock and opened the door, candle in hand.

“Hoo?” said the owl at sight of him, “who, whoo?” And who indeed may this strange man be, thought Theseus, following him down the stone passageway, with his long white hair and his burning eyes of grief?

Not a word was said between them till the owl’s wing was set, and then the doctor, seeing O’Brien was weary, made him sit and drink a glass of wine.

“Sit,” said he, “there’s words to be spoken between us. How long has the owl belonged to you?”

“To me?” said Theseus. “He’s no owl of mine. I found him up on the high moor. Can you mend him?”

“He’ll be well in three days,” said Kilvaney. “I see you are a man after my heart, with a love of wild creatures. Are you not a doctor, too?”

“I am,” answered Theseus. “Or I was,” he added sadly, “until the troubles of my patients became too great a grief for me to bear, and I took to walking the roads to rid me of it.”

“Come into my surgery,” said the doctor, “for I’ve things to show you. You’re the man I’ve been looking for.”

They passed through the kitchen, where a girl was washing the dishes. Lake-blue eyes, she had, and black hair; she was small, and fierce, and beautiful, like a falcon.

“My daughter,” the doctor said absently. “Go to bed, Maggie.”

“When the birds are fed, not before,” she snapped.

Cage after cage of birds, Theseus saw, all down one wall of the room, finches and thrushes, starlings and blackbirds, with sleepy stirring and twittering coming from them.

In the surgery there was only one cage, but that one big enough to house a man. And inside it was such a bird as Theseus had never seen before—every feather on it pure gold, and eyes like candle-flames.

“My phoenix,” the doctor said, “but don’t go too near him, for he’s vicious.”

The phoenix sidled near the end of the cage, with his eyes full of malice and his wicked beak sideways, ready to strike. Theseus stepped away from the cage and saw, at the other end of the room, a mighty hour-glass that held in its twin globes enough sand to boil all the eggs in Leghorn. But most of the sand had run through, and only a thin stream remained, silting down so swiftly on the pyramid below that every minute Theseus expected to see the last grain whirl through and vanish.

“You are only just in time,” Dr. Kilvaney said. “My hour has come. I hereby appoint you my heir and successor. To you I bequeath my birds. Feed them well, treat them kindly, and they will sing to you. But never, never let the phoenix out of his cage, for his nature is evil.”

“No, no! Dr. Kilvaney!” Theseus cried. “You are in the wrong of it! You are putting a terrible thing on me! I don’t want your birds, not a feather of them. I can’t abide creatures in cages!”

“You must have them,” said the doctor coldly. “Who else can I trust? And to you I leave also my wooden leg full of rubies—look, I will show you how it unscrews.”

“No!” cried Theseus. “I don’t want to see!”

He shut his eyes, but he heard a creaking, like a wooden pump-handle.

“And I will give you, too,” said the doctor presently, “this hour-glass. See, my last grain of sand has run through. Now it will be your turn.” Calmly he reversed the hour-glass, and started the sand once more on its silent, hurrying journey. Then he said,

“Surgery hours are on the board outside. The medicines are in the cupboard yonder. Bridget Hanlon is the midwife. My daughter feeds the birds and attends to the cooking. You can sleep tonight on the bed in there. Never let the phoenix out of its cage. You must promise that.”

“I promise,” said Theseus, like a dazed man.

“Now I will say good-bye to you.” The doctor took out his false teeth, put them on the table, glanced round the room to see that nothing was overlooked, and then went up the stairs as if he were late for an appointment.

All night Theseus, uneasy on the surgery couch, could hear the whisper of the sand running, and the phoenix rustling, and the whet of its beak on the bars; with the first light he could see its mad eye glaring at him.

In the morning Dr. Kilvaney was dead.

It was a grand funeral. All the town gathered to pay him respect, for he had dosed and drenched and bandaged them all, and brought most of them into the world, too.

“’Tis a sad loss,” said Tom Mahone, “and he with the grandest collection of cage-birds this side of Dublin city. ’Twas in a happy hour for us the young doctor turned up to take his place.”

But there was no happiness in the heart of Theseus O’Brien. Like a wild thing caged himself he felt, among the rustling birds, and with the hating eye of the phoenix fixing him from its corner, and, worst of all, the steady fall of sand from the hour-glass to drive him half mad with its whispering threat.

And, to add to his troubles, no sooner were they home from the funeral than Maggie packed up her clothes in a carpet-bag and moved to the other end of the town to live with her aunt Rose, who owned the hay and feed store.

“It wouldn’t be decent,” said she, “to keep house for you, and you a single man.” And the more Thomas pleaded, the firmer and fiercer she grew. “Besides,” she said, “I wouldn’t live another day among all those poor birds behind bars. I can’t stand the sight nor sound of them.”

“I’ll let them go, Maggie! I’ll let every one of them go.”

But then he remembered, with a falling heart, the doctor’s last command. “That is, all except the phoenix.”

Maggie turned away. All down the village street he watched her small, proud back, until she crossed the bridge and was out of sight. And it seemed as if his heart went with her.

The very next day he let loose all the doctor’s birds—the finches and thrushes, the starlings and blackbirds, the woodpecker and the wild heron. He thought Maggie looked at him with a kinder eye when he walked up to the hay and feed store to tell her what he had done.

The people of the town grew fond of their new doctor, but they lamented his sad and downcast look. “What ails him at all?” they asked one another, and Tom Mahone said, “He’s as mournful as old Dr. Kilvaney was before him. Sure there’s something insalubrious about carrying on the profession of medicine in this town.”

But indeed, it was not his calling that troubled the poor young man, for here his patients were as carefree a set of citizens as he could wish. It was the ceaseless running of the sand.

Although there was a whole roomful of sand to run through the glass, he couldn’t stop thinking of the day when that roomful would be dwindled to a mere basketful, and then to nothing but a bowlful. And the thought dwelt on his mind like a blight, since it is not wholesome for a man to be advised when his latter end will come, no matter what the burial service may say.

Not only the sand haunted him, but also the phoenix, with its unrelenting stare of hate. No matter what delicacies he brought it, in the way of bird-seed and kibbled corn, dry mash and the very best granite grit (for his visits to the hay and feed store were the high spots of his days), the phoenix was waiting with its razor-sharp beak ready to lay him open to the bone should he venture too near. None of the food would it more than nibble at. And a thing he began to notice, as the days went past, was that its savage brooding eye was always focused on one part of his anatomy—on his left leg. It sometimes seemed to him as if the bird had a particular stake or claim to that leg, and meant to keep watch and see that its property was maintained in good condition.

One night Theseus had need of a splint for a patient. He reached up to a high shelf, where he kept the mastoid mallets, and the crutches, and surgical chisels. He was standing on a chair to do it, and suddenly his foot slipped and he fell, bringing down with him a mighty bone-saw that came to the ground beside him with a clang and a twang, missing his left knee-cap by something less than a feather’s breadth. Pale and shaken, he got up, and turning, saw the phoenix watching him as usual, but with such an intent and disappointed look, like the housewife who sees the butcher’s boy approaching with the wrong joint.

A cold fit of shivering came over Theseus, and he went hurriedly out of the room.

Next day when he was returning home over the bridge, carrying a bag full of bird-mash, with dried milk and antibiotics added, and his mind full of the blue eyes and black hair of Maggie, a runaway tractor hurtled past him and crashed into the parapet, only one centimeter beyond his left foot.

And again Thomas shuddered, and walked home white and silent, with the cold thought upon him. He found the phoenix hunched on its perch, feathers up and head sunk.

“Ah, Phoenix, Phoenix,” he cried to it, “why will you be persecuting me so? Do you want to destroy me entirely?” The phoenix made no reply, but stared balefully at his left leg. Then he remembered the old doctor’s wooden leg full of rubies. “But I’ll not wear it!” he cried to the bird, “not if it was stuffed with rubies and diamonds too!”

Just the same, in his heart he believed that the phoenix would not rest satisfied while he had the use of both his legs. He took to walking softly, like a cat, looking this way and that for all possible hazards, watching for falling tiles, and boiling saucepans, and galloping cattle; and the people of the town began to shake their heads over him.

His only happy hours were with Maggie, when he could persuade her to leave the store and come out walking with him. Far out of town they’d go, forgetting the troubles that lay at home. For Maggie had found her aunt was a small mean-minded woman who put sand in with the hens’ meal and shingle among the maize, and Maggie couldn’t abide such dealings.

“As soon as I’ve a little saved,” said she, “I’ll be away from this town, and off into the world.”

“Maggie!” cried Theseus, and it was the first time he’d plucked up courage to do so. “Marry me, and I’ll make you happier than any girl in the length and breadth of this land.”

“I can’t marry you,” she said. “I could never, never marry a man who kept a phoenix in a cage.”

“We’ll give it away,” he said, “give it away and forget about it.” But even as he spoke he knew they could not. They kissed despairingly, up on the moors in the twilight, and turned homewards.

“I always knew that phoenix was a trouble-bringer,” said Maggie, “from the day when Father bought it off a travelling tinker to add to his collection. He said at the time it was a bargain, for the tinker threw in the wooden leg and the great hour-glass as well, but ever after that day Father was a changed man.”

“What did he give for it?” Theseus asked.

“His peace of mind. That was all the tinker asked, but it was a deal too much, I’m thinking, for that hateful bird with his wicked look and his vengeful ways.”

When he had seen Maggie home, Theseus went to the Public Library, for he couldn’t abide the thought of the doctor’s house, dark and cold and silent with only the noise of the phoenix shifting on its perch. He took down the volume OWL to POL of the encyclopedia and sat studying it until closing time.

Next day he was along to see Maggie.

“Sweetheart,” he said, and his eyes were alive with hope, “I believe I’ve found the answer. Let me have a half-hundredweight sack of layers’ pellets.”

“Fourteen shillings,” snapped Aunt Rose, who happened to be in the shop just then. Her hair was pinned up in a skinny bun and her little green eyes were like brad-awls.

“Discount for cash payment,” snapped back Theseus, and he planked down thirteen shillings and ninepence, kissed Maggie, picked up the sack, and hurried away home. Just as he got there a flying slate from the church struck him; if he’d not been wearing heavy boots it would have sliced his foot off. He ran indoors and shook his fist at the phoenix.

“There!” he yelled at it, pouring a troughful of layers’ pellets. “Now get that in your gizzard, you misbegotten fowl!”

The phoenix cocked its head. Then it pecked at a pellet, neck feathers puffed in scorn, and one satiric eye fixed all the while on Theseus, who stood eagerly watching. Then it pecked another pellet, hanging by one claw from its perch. Then it came down on to the floor entirely and bowed its golden head over the trough. Theseus tiptoed out of the room. He went outside and chopped up a few sticks of kindling—not many, but just a handful of nice, dry, thin twigs. He came back indoors—the phoenix had its head down, gobbling—and laid the sticks alongside the cage, not too close, an artful width away.

Next evening, surgery done, he fairly ran up to the hay and feed store. “Come with me,” he said joyfully to Maggie, “come and see what it’s doing.”