Instead, the story below was written as an exercise for Writers in the Rafters. We were given photocopies of three pictures to choose from and asked to write about it. This is the painting - Reflections on the Thames by Atkinson Grimshaw. My story idea came from a comment by my husband Terry: 'Why are there no hands on the clock?' he asked...
Standstill
A cold night, crisp, darkness looming and the Thames green
under green skies twisted by filaments of foggy night air with a crazed, hazed
moon riding the wreaths of mist.
Westminster Bridge stalks over the surface of the
slow-slurring waters, a multi-limbed, improbable creature reaching from bank to
bank, seeming to lie in wait for the approaching string of boats, coupled
together like so many beads in a necklace floating, drifting with the current
towards the maw of the bridge’s arch.
From where he stood on the broad spread of paving, Cobb
could see the sweep and curve of the new electrical lamps delineating the
contour of the river down towards the bridge and the Houses of Parliament;
there were people about, a woman with a basket struggling towards him, another,
better dressed, leaning over the wall looking out to the string of boats. Sad,
she looked, and he debated approaching her, telling her of the place near
Southwark Bridge which was perfect for suicide, where the waters opened to you
and enfolded you like the arms of your mother and clasped you down the dark,
drowning bosom of eternity… but then a dog appeared at her heels, nudged her,
and she reached an absent hand down to stoke it… no, the woman wasn’t debating
dying, not tonight. You don’t bring your
dog with you if you’re about to end it all.
Nearby, hunkering over an easel set up between Cobb and
where the sad-faced dog-woman was leaning over the parapet, a dark-dressed man
worked feverishly at a canvas, painting with quick, sharp strokes and filling
the rectangle in front of him with patches of colour, light on dark, dark on
light; curious, Cobb was about to wander closer to look over the artist’s
shoulder, but abruptly, with a dissatisfied headshake, the man
straightened up and stared intently in the direction of the clock tower
before shoving his brushes into a canvas
roll. He packed away his paints, disassembled the easel and, holding the damp
canvas gingerly by its frame, stalked off with careful haste towards
Westminster Palace, muttering and glancing up at the clock tower repeatedly as
he did so..
Cobb, his breath coiling and clouding visibly as it condensed
in the brittle night air, followed the artist with his eyes. What had caused him to hurry off like
that? What had he seen?
Cobb turned his attention to the Houses of Parliament,
looking the building over.
Something felt… wrong, somehow. But what?
The artist had stopped some hundred yards or so ahead and
was staring up again, his head slowly turning from side to side as if in
disbelief; Cobb set off towards him. As he got nearer, he faltered,
stopped. Just for a moment, he thought
he’d had it… No.
The artist glanced over his shoulder, saw Cob, and waved him
over.
‘Did you see? Did you?’ he demanded.
‘I… thought…’ Cobb’s deep voice was slow in coming.
‘The clock!’ the artist exclaimed.
‘Yes. Something…’
Something…
Juts briefly, it had seemed as if the hands on the clock
face had vanished. But that was
ridiculous, outrageous, they were there now, most certainly, showing the time
as steadily as ever.
And then the gas lamp just behind them flickered and
died. Then the line of lights on
Westminster Bridge all began to fail. The lamp next to them was next to snuff
out, and all along the curving line of the parapet, out, and out, and out…
As the two men stared at the clock face, its hands once more
vanished… the fog, perhaps, hiding them? But no, the edges of the tower were
clearly defined, even as the darkness grew and swelled around them. And when
Cobb looked again, there the hands were, once again – or still – in position.
The last lamp failed.
Darkness, then.
And the moon edged out from cloud cover and dripped silver
illumination on the scene. Cobb heard a
gasp from the artist, echoed it himself.
The clock hands had once more gone.
A frozen moment.
The clouds stopped in their sky-sailing, the bead-boats
stuttered still on a river suddenly flat and lifeless as the artist’s canvas. Behind him, Cobb saw the dog-woman’s dog, its
wagging tail paused in mid-swish; only Cobb was free to move.
‘What the…?’
Well, Cobb and the artist…
They looked at each other. Horror on the artist’s face
mirrored the disbelief on Cobb’s; nothing else moved, no-one. The moonlight lay like shards of mirror on
the river, dripped like spilt milk from the rooftops.
‘Why us?’ Cobb asked in his strong, slow voice. In the
petrified streetscape, it sounded like the bones of the earth stirring. ‘Why only us?’
The artist shrugged expansively, turned towards Cobb. The
moonlight lay on his face like a blue-bright stain.
‘Who knows? Who can say? Maybe we were the only ones looking
when it happened…’
‘It’s still happening; it’s not finished yet…’
Black shapes arced through the sky like the wings of some
gigantic, dark angel. Sheets of impenetrable ebony slapped silently over the
blue and white of the moon, folded down over the clock tower, the Palace,
Westminster Bridge, eating up everything until only Cobb and the artist
remained in a little pool of not-quite-darkness.
And then the black wings swept over them like death and
sightlessness and Cobb knew no more.
Time, Cobb believed, passed.
At least, he counted the beats of his heart as it thudded and banged and
slowed to its proper rhythm. There was nothing else in the world except for his
heartbeat; the blackness pushed against him, muffling any outside sounds... of
course, he remembered, there weren’t likely to be many outside sounds; only he and
the artist had been able to move, speak, see…
He tried to call out, but he felt as if his throat was full
of darkness.
And then, with a silent snap of bonds breaking, Cobb could
move, feel, see again; in the sky, the moon swooned towards the horizon – time
had passed, then, at least an hour of it.
The artist was staring wildly up at the clock tower; the hands were back
in place, as solid and real as before.
‘I suppose you can finish your painting now,’ Cobb ventured,
as much to hear the sound of his voice as to hear the artist’s thoughts on the
matter.
‘Well, now…’ The artist scratched his head. ‘It’s one of our big questions – does one
paint what one knows is there, or what one sees..?’ He nodded fiercely towards Westminster
Palace. ‘I think I paint what I saw, in
this case. Not that anyone will believe, or explain this night, eh? But as a reminder. Look at them!’ he exclaimed with a sweeping
arm gesture at the other people in the area. ‘Dazed, perhaps. A little
confused; how have they been out all this time and not noticed? But we are
wonderful creatures, sir, amazing creatures! We have the talent of forgetting
anything that makes us uncomfortable and getting on with things as if they were
normal. Normal! Ha!’
He gathered up his scattered belongings and, taking firm hold
of his canvas again, stalked off towards Westminster Bridge as if it had
personally offended him.
Cobb sighed again.
Once more, his condensing breath curled and plumed in mist. He glanced up at the moon and thought, just
for a moment, that he saw great, dark wings swoop across its face.
An odd evening; probably atmospherics, Cobb thought. Still, he’d be glad to get home.
What time was it again? As late as that? He really had no idea how it was that it had
got to be so late…
No comments:
Post a Comment