And these visions of Joanna they keep me up past the dawn…
Dorothy had watched the rain falling outside her bedroom window since early morning and it was now mid afternoon. It hadn’t bothered her much as there wasn’t anything in particular she wanted to do outside. True, it was the summer holidays and normally she would be out on the beach or walking the path along the tops of the cliffs, watching the gulls swoop and glide between the pillars of grey and purple stone that fell away from the land like great slices of multi-coloured cake. That was how she saw the landscape, lots of slices of cake that someone had cut into at crazy angles, squashed down, pulled up out of the sand and then twisted in different directions. Sometimes, when she stood on the cliffs at Hartland, looking up and along the coast, she found it almost impossible to believe that they could stay up on their own. They looked like they should have collapsed into the sea thousands of years ago.
When she was much younger her Uncle David had told her in a straight forward ‘adults know about these sort of things’ voice that they were held together by a special glue that needed to be applied every hundred years. The recipe, he told her, had been stolen by some Cornish men during the reign of Queen Elizabeth the First, because they were jealous that visitors always admired the cliffs of Devon over those in Cornwall.
She had asked him why they hadn’t fallen down if no one knew how to make the glue to stick them together. He had told her that a very smart witch from Tiverton had spent all winter sitting in a cave just south of Hartland Point until, through fasting, spells and great concentration she had summoned an ancient dragon from out the sea. She asked for its help to find the thief and had struck a deal with the dragon. The dragon, true to its word, had told her where the formula was hidden. She had travelled with her two brothers & the dragon to Cornwall and, after many difficulties and dangers, had retrieved the magic formula.
Dorothy had asked David what the deal was that the old hag had made with the Dragon.
He had laughed “Who said anything about her being old hag. Witches aren’t ancient hags with gap teeth. They’re powerful beautiful women who know things that the rest of us have forgotten. Anyway, nobody apart from her and her two brothers know what the deal was with the dragon from out the sea. Though some say…” and here he would lower his voice.
“They say it had something to do with the lost kingdom of Lyonesse that lies out there buried beneath the waves beyond the edge of the Western horizon. Others say that he made her and her brothers immortal, that they are alive to this day. She is still living amongst us. The last witch of Devon, perhaps the last real witch of all. But these are just tales and who knows what the truth is?”
That had been a long time ago. She had been young enough to believe what David had told her. At 16 she was less gullible and more realistic in most things, with one notable exception.
“Odd” she thought “How you believe most anything when you’re young”
There was something about the story that had stayed in her mind. It wasn’t the magic formula and the glue that stuck the cliffs together, even as a child she had found that difficult to believe. Nor was it the dragon, though stories of dragons had always fascinated her. It was the witch. The Last Witch of Devon. Maybe the only real witch left in the whole of England, perhaps the world. And maybe immortal....
The rain was still falling. She opened the door from her bedroom and could hear the sounds of the computer keyboard from downstairs. David was working. Maybe she better not disturb him. Susan had said something about approaching a vital point in his calculations. That the work was coming to a head. An important breakthrough.
Dorothy had tried to understand what was so crucial about the work they did. Her knowledge of mathematics and physics was good for someone of her age but she found it difficult to follow David or Susan for more than two or three minutes. They had explained to her the meaning of the symbols, numbers and equations that they worked with, but she could never quite accept that these bits of writing on paper bore any relation to the world of objects and things. She knew that for David it wasn’t just ideas, it was his dedication to the memory of his sister Joanna, her mother, that kept him going.
“All this” he would tell Dorothy “All this work that Susan and I are doing is based on her ideas. Without her brilliant brain none of this could have happened. I wish she were still around to help us. It would’ve taken half the time to get where we are now but……la lutta continua. We’ll get there one day.”
‘There’ was some theoretical point, a set of equations and symbols representing a basic truth about the nature of reality and the physical world. Something about the sequence of prime numbers and the universal constant. That much Dorothy understood. What they would do with ‘it’ once they had completed their investigations was not altogether clear. Susan had indicated that if the work they were engaged in reached the point they believed it would then Einstein, Heisenberg and the rest of them were “just kids playing in the nursery”.
All this seemed highly improbable to Dorothy but she respected them and their work. It was what they did. She was grateful to them for having her to stay every summer. For giving her and her father a good long break from each other. She still loved him passionately but as she grew older she liked him less and less. Ever since her mother had died or as he preferred to put it ‘vanished’ Shaun had entered a slow decline.
The most obvious sign of this was his drinking, which was turning into serious alcoholism. Susan had recently confided in Dorothy that she was worried about the amount Shaun drank. It was the main reason why she found these visits to Devon such a relief, an escape from her father’s constant round of drink and drunken friends, both male and female. Waiting to hear his footsteps sliding along the corridor.
“Sorry I’m so late babe. Ran into a few friends in town……we got talking and one drink sort of led to another. Look I think I’ll just go and lie down for a bit”
That summer Susan had asked her if she wanted to move to Hartland and live with them permanently. Dorothy had said it wouldn’t be possible. She couldn’t change schools now with her exams only a year away and, anyway, Shaun needed looking after.
“Why don’t you take some time to think about it?”
“No thanks. It’s really kind of you. Just so long as I can keep visiting”
“Of course my lovely. You know this is your home too. I always said that to Joanna. Anytime you want to be here”
It was odd that. How close they had all been, her father, her mother, David and Susan. Yet David, who in many ways was even closer to her mother than Shaun, the way brothers and sisters sometimes are, had quickly accepted Joanna’s death. It had been the difference between her uncle and her father. One accepted his sister’s death, the other still held onto the belief that somehow the woman he loved so totally could not be dead. One day she would walk back into all their lives again. She’d heard him and Shaun one night just after the plane crash.
“Listen Shaun, you’ve got to face it. We’ve both got to….God man she’s dead. She’s really dead!”
“No David.” A cold control in his voice “She’s not dead. No-one has found the plane. She’s just vanished. That’s all. Not dead. Vanished”
They were still trying to come to terms with what had happened. The plane had been missing for over a week and it was unlikely it would be found or if it was that anyone could still be alive. The jungles of Sumatra are deep impenetrable places.
“Not dead. Vanished”
In a way he was right. The plane she had apparently been travelling on was never found and to add to his crazy optimism it would seem that she had been on a charter flight from Bali via Singapore. No passenger list had ever been produced and after a month of silence everyone, except for Shaun, accepted that wild, clever, sexy Joanna was gone for ever.
She had been returning from a conference in Australia, had stopped over in Bali for a week, something about looking into the ‘wayang’. Dorothy still remembered the last words her mother had said to her.
“After all those scientific theories, male posturing and ego massaging I’ll need some total relief. Stop off in Bali for a few days and catch some wayang. Shadow puppetry sweetheart. Beautiful stuff. You know there’s more to light and shadow than meets the eye”
Joanna always talked to her straight. Never treated her like a child.
“Take care of each other. I’ll see you in a couple of weeks. I love you both”.
She had hugged her, kissed Shaun long and passionately and disappeared through the swirl of bodies, faces and luggage into the departure lounge.
Why had she let her go so easily? So certain they would see each other again.
“Oh mum I miss you. What happened in that plane? Did you….”
“Hey Dorothy. Are you going to sit up there all day or do you want some lunch? Fried rice and omelette. How about it?’ Susan’s voice rising up to her, as she found herself still standing at the top of the stairs.
“Sounds great. I’ll be down in a minute”
Thoughts swirled around her. For a moment she had felt so close to her mother again. Maybe Shaun was right, maybe they shouldn’t give up on her. But you couldn’t live like that. You had to let go, like David had said one wet autumn evening while they were eating chips in Bideford.
“Listen Dorothy, I loved my sister, she was the most amazing person. If there is any way I could believe she was alive I would. Honestly. But she wouldn’t believe it. Known facts, concrete evidence. That was her whole approach. Everything about the workings of the universe can be expressed in symbols, equations, propositions and formulae. Now somewhere there may be a collection of numbers and probabilities demonstrating that her plane didn’t crash into the forests of Northern Sarawak or wherever. But I don’t have that information. The only equations I can read about her point to…..well you know what I’m trying to say.”
And her Dad. He read different signs in the bottom of his whisky tumbler. Half imagined memories of her. Visions of Joanna – that Bob Dylan song he would play sometimes late at night when he thought she was asleep.
“Ain’t it just like the night
To play tricks
When you’re trying to be so quiet
And those visions of Joanna
Are now all that remain”
What did he see in those early morning hours when the alcohol fumes swept through his brain like a demented forest fire of the mind? Did he see her walking through the door? Her short auburn hair framing her mischievous face, dressed as always in greens and yellows.
“Hiya Shaun. Sorry I took so long. Got lost in the jungle. What a journey!”
Or half burnt. Face mouthing through the flames of some DC 10’s window.
“Jesus it’s at least 290 Celsius in here. Where’s the thermometer? I need to get a more accurate reading”
But the scientist and theoretician wasn’t all there was to her. A few months after her disappearance, Dorothy had been sorting through her desk full of letters, notes and formulae, mostly indecipherable. Amongst the chaos of her paper life she had come across a carefully folded piece of paper. Written on it in neat hand writing she had read
She shivered. Stop thinking about it.
“ Hey Dorothy. Are you ever coming down or shall I feed this stuff to Red? She seems pretty interested.”
“Right. I’m coming”
The memories pushed to the back of her mind as she walked down the open staircase into the living room.
A large irregular space with a big wood burning stove in the fireplace at the other end, keeping the room and most of the house warm. A big french window to its right opening the garden. Low black painted beams and rough white walls. The desk with it’s Apple computer, monitor, printer and scanner set back against the wall on the left side of the room surrounded by notebooks, CD ROMs, DVDs, files and folders. Carpets, rugs, bookcases, a doorway through to the kitchen. A small window above the desk with a view onto the road. Shelves and low tables covered in papers, ornaments, stones, plants, crystals, sticks and shells from every part of the planet’s surface. Whenever she came in here, she felt good, as if it was the first time she’d entered the room, like her life and everything about it had meaning and purpose. A sense of belonging to something much bigger.
The lamp over the desk was on. Susan sitting on the big brown leather couch in front of the stove. A plate of steaming fried rice balanced on her lap. Long black hair tied back. Eating her food from a fork in one hand while turning the pages of a notebook with the other. There was no sign of David.
“I thought you two were working. That’s partly why I stayed upstairs….and the rain. I didn’t want to disturb you….you know, what you were saying to me yesterday, about it nearly being there and all”
“Mmm. I think it may take a few more lifetimes yet”
“Where’s Davey?”
“He got sick of looking at that thing” she tossed her head towards the computer and screen.
“He’s just left. Got his board and driven down to the beach to get up on the waves. I asked him if he’d take you but he said he needed to be on his own. Try and clear his head a bit. I put your rice on top of the stove. You better get it quick. Red reckons it’s for her”
Sitting in front of the stove, gazing intently at the plate of food is a large cat. As Dorothy crosses the room the cat turns her head and watches her with bright yellow eyes. A long sleek body. A sharp pointed face topped with large elegant ears. Long graceful legs with her tail curled round her front paws. She sits upright and watches Dorothy approach. A presence of total composure and self assurance. Her colour was unlike any other cat Dorothy had seen or heard of. At first sight she appeared black but in bright daylight the perfect sheen of her long fine hair was unmistakably red. Not brown or auburn but red. A burnished coat, always kept immaculately clean and groomed.
Shaun had once jokingly remarked, to Dorothy’s horror, that some people would give hundreds of pounds to a have a fur hat made of her skin. He had been rather drunk and had withdrawn the remark when Dorothy had shrieked
“You miserable bastard! How can you say such a thing? It’s not even fucking funny. Why did I have to get you for a father?”
Even Shaun, who had got used to her outbursts against him as she had entered her adolescence, was surprised by the vehemence and fury of this particular attack. He had underestimated his daughter’s passionate friendship with this unusual creature and from then on had been careful, even when extremely drunk, to always refer to Red with great respect.
Dorothy had friends at school who were mere acquaintances compared to the attachment she felt for Red. Her closeness to this animal had deepened as she grew older.
The cat had first appeared a few days after her tenth birthday. They had all been staying in the house in Hartland, doing some last minute renovations and decorations in preparation for David and Susan moving in, when the cat arrived one late September evening at the back door. Joanna had opened it to find her sitting there, quietly washing herself. She had looked at Joanna, rubbed her head against her bare legs and walked straight into the kitchen. In spite of enquiries in the village and a notice in the post office no one had either claimed her or knew where she came from. It was obvious from the cat’s behaviour that she believed the house was where she belonged. She had settled in immediately, preferring to spend most of her time in the garden, only coming in to be fed or in winter when the weather was really dreadful. Even then, while the west wind howled and the rain streaked in off the Bristol Channel she would sit under an old apple tree in the garden unconcerned by the downpour and, somehow, always managing to stay dry.
The cat and Dorothy had developed an instant communication and affection for each other. This wasn’t in itself unusual, children and animals often have a strong affinity for each others company, though sometimes the child’s interest in experimenting and exploring the thresholds of pain as a means of communication can lead to unfortunate results for their animal companions. But Dorothy had never shown a great deal of interest in dogs, cats, canaries, tortoises or hamsters. Joanna had the attitude that animals should be left to their own devices, and her father was too busy earning a living to have any interest in pets. Dorothy’s friends had pets, but they had never provoked any desire in her for similar creatures in her own home. In fact from an early age she had found the idea of ‘keeping animals’ rather odd.
She would spend hours watching birds in the park near her parents’ house endlessly fascinated by their songs, patterns of flight and interactions. Trying to understand why they behaved the way they did. Zoos and wild life parks, museums of dead stuffed animals bored and disgusted her, though there was something tranquil and seductive about the silent dance of fish in aquariums. She felt instinctively that they would be better off outside those glass walls swimming free in ocean or river, but would occasionally wish that she had an aquarium in her bedroom, something she had never mentioned to Joanna as her response would certainly be along the lines of “Fish swim free in rivers and seas. Plants are the only living things that are usefully kept in glass houses. But if you want to keep some fish trapped in an aquarium….”
So her relationship with this new arrival came as a complete surprise to herself and the adults around her. She had always preferred cats to dogs. It wasn’t that she actively disliked dogs, some of them were interesting to watch but it was easy to see what motivated them. Cats were in a different class altogether, though they too could be motivated by simple response and reaction patterns, they had a selfishness and determination about them that appealed to her, and this one was certainly different. There was an intelligence and understanding behind those yellow eyes that had immediately made the skin at the base of her neck shiver with excitement and given her an odd presentiment.
David and Susan had no problem adjusting to its arrival in their home. Susan had pointed out that it seemed a little weird after all the time they’d been coming there for weekends and the months they’d spent doing work and decorating that it had never been around, and now that they had moved in so had the cat.
Dorothy had been against giving the cat a name, it seemed at best unnecessary and at worst insulting. She told David that as it was the only cat living in their house it didn’t need a name, it was obvious which cat they were talking about. It was probably inevitable that it would get one and a few months after it’s first arrival, when Dorothy and her parents visited Susan and David in Hartland, she found that the cat was now referred to simply as Red. In spite of her earlier insistence, this hadn’t offended her in the least and she too had taken to calling her Red, so Red she had been ever since.
“Hungry? Here have some of this”
“I wish you wouldn’t do that. Cats use their tongues for all kind of things. At least put some in her bowl.”
“It’s OK Susan. Red and I have been eating off the same plate for the last six years and I’ve survived to eat again”
“I know you have but I would still rather you didn’t do it.”
The sounds of eating. Tongue rasping against plate. Fork on plate, in mouth and out. Chewing, thinking, swallowing.
“Susan”
“Mmmm?”
“What’ll happen to dad if he keeps on drinking and can’t get it together to go to work any more? Hey Red I wanted that bit of omelette!”
The cat looks up at her for a moment and then carries on eating.
“I don’t know. Maybe it won’t come to that. He may just pull himself out of it”
“You’re joking aren’t you? He’s drinking more all the time. Like a fucking fish”
“Dorothy that word has a very specific meaning which has nothing to do with how much alcohol a finned creature with gills can drink. The English language has enough exciting swear words without using a term that refers to an extremely pleasurable form of sexual activity as a phrase of abuse”
“You use it”
“I know, but I try not to”
“You’ve not answered my question. Hey Red where are you going?”
The cat, having eaten as much of the food as she wants is walking towards the kitchen.
“I’ll be out in a minute. Looks like it stopped raining. We’ll go for a walk Red”
The cat stops for a moment in the doorway leading to the kitchen, turns, looks back at them both, then continues through the kitchen and out through the open back door. The rain has stopped and she sits on the doorstep washing herself, waiting for Dorothy to join her.
“You’re right of course. It’ll probably get worse and when it reaches the stage that you can’t handle it any longer for…”
“I can’t handle it now. I…..The thing is…..”.
Is this a betrayal of her father? Can she bring herself to tell Susan what she had been thinking and feeling more strongly over the last year?
“What sweetheart? You can tell me”
Susan can feel the intensity of Dorothy’s emotion. Sense it in the way she is rubbing the tips of her fingers together as she talks. A certain sign that beneath her calm exterior she is in a state of agitation.
“I really don’t like him any more. I think I still love him. I just don’t like him. It’s getting so I can’t stand to be near him. I feel an awful sense of loyalty…..it’s not to him really….it’s something about mum. It’s her. Oh shit.”
Susan is sure she’s going to cry. She doesn’t. She sits on the floor in front of the fire gazing at the carpet, as if she can see things in the patterns and colours. Lines and movements in her life.
“Dorothy”
Susan gets up, walks across the room and sits beside her. Arms round her shoulders. Gently rubbing her back.
“Shaun’s a grown man. I know he’s your father but if he wants to destroy himself, he will and you can’t stop him. There is no point in letting him drag you down with him. There may be nothing you can do to help him except love him as much as you can. If that’s too much……don’t let him destroy you too.”
She looks at Dorothy. What a strange child she is. No, that was wrong. She had lost the rest of her childhood when Joanna was taken from her. She had become an adult overnight. She was now in her mid-teens and…..an awful thought suddenly occurred to her.
“He doesn’t hit you does he, beat you up or…”
“Of course not. He wouldn’t do that. Anyway” she laughs “I’m bigger and stronger than him. No, even when he’s very drunk he’s never….”
The sentence hangs unfinished between them.
It was true. Dorothy takes after her mother. Long elegant legs and body. Nearly six feet tall. Thin face with hazel eyes and an aquiline nose revealing her Spanish ancestry. She had taken up aikido and kick boxing while still a child. Whereas Shaun is small, skinny and just over five foot six. A standing joke about him being that in high heeled boots on tip toes he could just about dance the tango with Joanna.
“Remember what I said darling, if you want to come and live here we’d love to have you.”
“Thanks Susan. Not quite yet. It’s really good being here but I keep thinking it’ll get better, that he’ll change. Just like that. One morning I’ll get up and the flat’ll be clean and tidy. He’ll have washed the dishes and got to work on time. There’ll be a note on the kitchen table. ‘Dorothy lovely, have a good day at school. I’ll cook supper tonight and afterwards we’ll do at least ten wonderful things together and, oh yes, thought you’d like to know, I’ve given up drinking for good’. All the empty bottles will be gone and there won’t be some hung over friend asleep on the couch or in his bed…..“hi…uumm…I’m Janey and your dad and I got really hammered together last night though I don’t think we did sex together cos’ we were too wrecked……do you know where he keeps the coffee honey? I need at least 2 cups….black and strong”. That’s why it’s good being with you two. I can forget all that shit. It seems so normal here. Gives me strength”
She leans over and kisses Susan on the cheek.
“I’ll be OK. No point in feeling sorry for myself. It doesn’t sort it out. Kind of makes it worse”
She unwraps Susan’s arms from round her and gets quickly to her feet, standing over her for a moment.
“I’m going out for a walk. I’ll wash the plates when I get back”
“Shall I come with you?”
“No thanks. Red’ll keep me company. I think we’ll walk down through the village and out towards the point. See you later”
She shouts these last words over her shoulder, grabs a couple of apples out of the bowl on the table, takes her green anorak from the back of one of the wooden chairs in the kitchen and is out the door with Red running beside her heading for the path through the woods that leads down to the cliffs.
Slow track to follow Dorothy and Red running out the back gate and then pan round and up to reveal Susan watching them out the kitchen window until she moves out of frame.
Bring up sounds of Bach piano concerto and slow fade to black.