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I shook my head.
‘Oh.’ She didn’t attempt to hide her disappointment.
There was an easy excuse to hand, and I grabbed it. ‘We shouldn’t leave valuables down here. You can keep your camera bag here and I’ll look after it.’
The offer melted the frown on her face. ‘I’ll just take mine.’ She fished out the battered camera and scooted off in search of the stairs. She moved at a fair pace with slightly knocked knees. I was once again tempted by the idea of painting her, despite my dislike of portraits.
I ate a buttie. I was living on biscuits, garage shop sandwiches and, in the evenings, tinned soup, which I heated on a gas ring. The farmer, probably thinking I was destitute, gave me bacon rashers for breakfast and mentioned something about a local charity for the homeless. I didn’t correct his misunderstanding. I had recounted the small episode to Robyn to illustrate how artists are always expected to be stricken with poverty, and she had latched on to it to tell me her own minor stories of misunderstandings.
While I had picked a spot for my easel, which I now realised was a poor choice, she had gabbled away about her experiences of B&Bs. I had smothered a grin as she recounted the discomforts, not so much the physical ones, but the awakening of innocence to a world she had barely seen. Death and sex, two necessities of life, and she seemed surprised by them, as if they had no place in the privacy of somebody else’s home. Yet, she had remarked that her current guest house lacked personality and she missed the gentle elderly couple at Bamburgh. I suspected they reminded her most of her own home, the parents of whom she had fondly spoken, who lived in the town she thought was a dead end but where her friends waited for her to return, and where normality would resume after this digression into her ideal world of escapism. I understood, I got the same vibes out of travelling.
I had nothing to say, though. I had never lived on a quiet street.
She had reached the top of the tower. Up there, she was a dot, buffeted by the wind, and she clung onto a handrail, or something, and leaned her head over the side. Gradually, her upper body lifted, and for a second, I thought she was about to tumble over the top. I jumped to my feet, ready to shout, hoping my cries would echo upwards. Abruptly, she stilled, then slowly slipped downward and out of sight behind the parapet. The nature of that retreat was unnatural, alarming almost. I glanced at all the equipment – mine was not of great commercial value, but hers was, I couldn’t leave it. I picked up the camera bag, admiring her strength as it wasn’t lightweight, and hurried to find her.
Twenty-Four
Having left Joseph behind, and while on route to the upper ramparts, I crossed the great hall. Like Kenilworth, the pillar stubs were lined up in the middle of the ground, but any other similarities ended there. While Kenilworth was exposed and well-lit by daylight, in Middleham’s keep the sun was banished to the highest parts. At ground level, the only sunlight sneaked through the empty window slits. Where the beams struck, the walls were smothered with grey moss and lichen. Medici wasn’t interested in the hall; his preference was the chapel tower, and the remnants of kilns and ovens in the outer chambers of the castle, practical stuff illustrating functionality, like the latrines, and windmill, the essence of his architectural treasures which I had obediently made crisp and delineated with my zoom lens.
I nearly made it to the wooden stairs, reconstructed for the benefit of visitors, when I heard a mumbling of voices. I spun, expecting to find somebody behind me, but there was nothing there. I turned several times, and each rotation sent me spiralling back in time in the hope of discovering the origin of the sounds. My vision was unfocussed and only sounds broke through: laughter, repetitious rhyming, blended singing; the odd burst of applause, and in the midst was the shrill voice of a child.
Bombarded in all directions, and feeling slightly nauseous, I closed my eyes, and then it happened, the unfolding of my imagination like the pages of a well-thumbed book.
Colourful banners, painted with symbols and scenery, hang from the walls. A theatre is installed, the decorated, raised platform stretching across one end of the Great Hall, and tumbling across it numerous acrobatic bodies. A girl, no a boy, with a high-pitched voice, warbles joyfully and laughs.
Somewhere he stands in the audience, at the front, in the best position. The rough end of the crowd standing behind him strain to see over the heads of the privileged ones.
Musicians stamp their feet, while drums and pipes fight to be heard over the clapping and cheers.
There is a smell, though. One that doesn’t belong, and it grows stronger.
The pungent aroma of burning incense reaches to the back of the hall, and stifles the air. The scene shifts, the child falls silent, the banners collapse to the ground and darkness reaches every corner of the vast space. The room is bare and still.
I opened my eyes and heard only a soft wail.
The sound came from above, and I followed it, climbing the steps, panting in my haste to catch up with the noise. The cries were of a woman, and they drew me to the apex, and the iron railings placed there to protect the visitors.
I gripped the bars tightly, struggling with the overload of information. The raw heat of the sun on the nape of my neck was unable to compete with the icy metal beneath my fingers. The bout of dizziness was overwhelming. I leaned into the railings and embraced the vertigo, hoping it would be swift. Throughout the battering of my senses, the heart-breaking cries of grief, a woman’s lamentation, echoed all about me, but they seemed now to be below me.
I shrank down to the ground, covered my ears in vain and silently begged her to stop.
‘Robyn?’ The hoarse voice breached the weeping.
I jerked, believing for a moment that somebody from the past had bridged the gaping chasm of time and found me. The connection, though, was physical, the grip under my arms strong and forthright; I had little chance to protest.
‘For God’s sake, if you don’t like heights, why come up here?’ Joseph said. He hauled me towards the stairwell. ‘I thought you were about to fall off.’
I wriggled out of his grasp. ‘I’m fine. It was just a brief attack of vertigo. I got out of breath from the climb.’ The excuse came easily.
‘Let’s go down before it happens again.’
He stepped cautiously, my camera bag wrapped around his body, and kept his gaze locked on the flagstones rather than appreciating the spectacular view of fields, church tower, and roofs. The wind picked up and howled softly, reminding me how high up we were. We stood abreast on the top step. I heard footfalls below. We would have to give way to others.
Joseph froze, his grip on the handrail unyielding and white-knuckled.
I nudged him. ‘Joseph,’ I hissed. ‘Budge over.’
He started, as if woken, and moved to one side, pinning his back to the stone wall. I recognised the reason for his paleness and the beads of sweat on his brow. While my vertigo was induced by the intrusion of a vision, his was more commonplace. Given his heavy breathing and the panic etched into the lines of his face, he was terrified. However, to save him from embarrassment, I wasn’t going to comment on his neurosis.
