Chapter 22: Letters
Pan, Herne, Osiris, Priapus
Ba'al, Dionysis, Apollo, Lugh...
The road to Church Cottage was busy with a throng of people in long robes, flowers and leaves in their hair, and singing and clapping to a beat from several drums as they walked towards the circle:
Pan, Herne, Osiris, Priapus
Ba'al, Dionysis, Apollo, Lugh...
the men chanted, and the women sang in reply:
Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate,
Demeter, Kali, Innanna...
‘I see the pagans are arriving’ Shen said, ‘Wolf will be pleased if they stay for the protest.’
‘Why else would they be here?’ Con asked.
‘I don’t know. It’s not a full or new moon. A Hand-fasting, maybe?’
The stretch of road near the church, however, was deserted, and as the noise of the chanting faded Shen and Con entered the cottage.
‘Was it a coffee or tea?’ Shen asked.
‘Coffee, please.’
‘Well go through to the sitting room and I’ll bring it through.’
A few minutes later Shen re-emerged from the kitchen.
‘Have you always been nosey?’
Conall, who was standing with his head tilted to the side perusing the large wooden bookshelf, looked back to where Shen was leaning against the kitchen door, two mugs of coffee in her hands.
‘I always look at people’s bookshelves.’ Conall said. ‘…says a lot about a person, what they read, and then what they choose to put on show.’
‘And if they have no books?’
‘I make my excuses and run.’ Conall winked. Shit. He was slightly more drunk than he anticipated.
‘And what do you mean by ‘Put on a show’? Isn’t a bookshelf just a bookshelf?’ Shen laughed.
‘God, no! You never done it? When you know someone you like is coming round… depends on the person… you know, if they’re intellectual you make sure you have some weighty tome by your bed, like a John Cowper-Powys. Or poetry – Whitman or Coleridge I find works, maybe a bit of Gary Snyder to be a bit edgy and ‘beat’; and something kind of quirky or humorous to show you’re not dull…oh, and a kid’s book to show you’re not too dry and boring… Moomins, or Susan Cooper…’
Shen was shaking her head, though whether in mock horror or not, Conall couldn’t tell.
‘That’s subterfuge. It’s deceitful.’ There was a twinkle in her eye as she said this. ‘It’s pretending to be something you’re not to lure someone in.’
Conall snorted.
‘Bullshit!’ he said. ‘Maybe if I’d not read the books, then yes – but it would be a pretty stupid thing to do if you hadn’t! It would be so easy to be caught out!’
Shen bit her lip to hide a smile.
‘You’re being very bolshie.’ She said. ‘Someone spike your drink?’
‘I don’t know, did you? And anyway…’ he continued, feeling spurred on at the challenge in her voice ’arranging books is no worse, and arguably a damn site more honest, than wearing make-up and push-up bras and hold-it-all-in-knickers’ he said, and laughed out loud.
She continued to shake her head, but still smiled.
‘What is it Hamlet says?’ he continued ‘"God gives you one face and you paint yourselves another". At least I have read the books I’m placing about my room – they won’t disappear with some cotton wool and make-up remover, or turn out to be an illusion of good corsetry.’
Though, if he was honest Shen was one of those women who did not require clothes or make-up to enhance her dark beauty; he remembered one evening the previous year, when he’d met her in the pub, and she’d come in a dark blouse and long-black coat, her hair straightened and her eyes lined; a black-ribbon about her throat; and he thought that he had never seen anyone more beautiful in his life; she had stunned him almost to silence.
‘You’ve the devil in you today Conall Astor!’
And she was right. For a moment, it seemed, the clouds had retreated, but for how long, he wondered? He was on borrowed time. The ancient serpent within was being allowed a brief time in the sun before his liver had removed the alcohol from his system and his civilised outer cortex woke from its numb slumber.
‘So what can you tell about granddad from his bookshelves then?’ Shen challenged.
‘Are these books his? I’d assumed they were yours.’ He said, pulling out a gaudily coloured paperback on the tarot.
She smiled. ‘Okay – mostly his!’
Conall turned his head to the side again and read the spines, stopping to pull out a couple without covers, only to return them.
There were books on Blackfoot mythology, culture, and beside them a small section on other Native American tribes and beliefs, including some volumes on Mesoamerica – the Maya and the Aztecs.
‘Were these your granddads?’ he asked.
‘Some – the early Blackfoot ones; the other ones are mine. Stop looking at the new ones!’ she laughed.
He skipped over the gardening and cookbooks – then he stopped and pulled out a faded hardback. His face had changed from wry amusement to something that could almost be taken for concern. He slowly opened up the cover and then turned to Shen slowly.
‘Your granddad was Alfred Mac Govan-Crow, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Fuck me, Shen! This is a first edition copy of The Hobbit, with a dedication in the front by Tolkien himself! “To Alfred Mac Govan-Crow, on the occasion of your second Christmas, 1937. Best wishes J R R Tolkien”’
‘Yeah, it’s cool isn’t it?’ she said nonchalantly, sitting down at on the sofa with her coffee.
‘Cool?’ Christ! This is worth a fucking fortune, Shen!’ He wasn’t joking, either. First editions of the Hobbit passed hands for many thousands of pounds – but an inscribed one…
The cover showed the dragon Smaug flying over the mountains of Erebor; Con thought of the serpent brain within –guarding its primal memories like the dwarf-lords’ gold – if one could only venture in and steal that knowledge for the conscious mind - if one could integrate the entire brain without resorting to booze…
She walked over and took the book from him. ‘Look at this…’
She took the book out of his hand and turned to the inside back cover. Here, neatly enclosed within the fold of the dust jacket, were a number of yellowed handwritten pages.
‘Letters by Tolkien, to my great-grandfather, George - Alfred’s father.’
‘About what?’ he stammered, eyes open in shock.
Shen smiled, then laughed. ‘No idea. I’ve never read them properly – always meant to; have you seen the handwriting?!’
Conall looked into her smiling eyes, holding her gaze a little longer than he would normally have dared. She returned it, and it was Conall who looked away first, his pulse racing.
‘How did he know Tolkien?’ he asked, leafing through the thin handwritten sheets – there were, indeed, letters here addressed to George, but also one addressed to an Edith, and several sheets of what looked to be notes, with certain phrases underlined, including small diagrams which Con immediately recognised as sketches of some of the stones of the circle, and a swiftly drawn map of the entire site.
‘Tolkien stayed here for a few days when my Granddad was still a baby; my great-grandfather put him up as a lodger here. And C S Lewis, and Owen Barfield.’
Con looked at her in disbelief.
‘Here? At this house? Who’s Owen Barfield?’
Shen picked up a copy of a book that sat alongside The Hobbit - ‘He was one of the Inklngs – Tolkien and Lewis’s literary group; The Silver Trumpet’ -he wrote this – this is inscribed to Alfred too.’
‘I’ve not heard of Barfield. I can’t believe this, though. Tolkien stayed here? Seriously?!’
‘Seriously. And to say thanks he sent this signed copy of The Hobbit – that first letter there came with the book – I’ve read that one. Some of the others are to Tolkien’s wife, but there seems to be a few pages of notes; I don’t know why they’re there. Granddad couldn’t really tell me much; obviously he was too young to remember anything.’
Con was trying to read the neat, fussy handwriting, faded now. He began to read out loud.
‘My Dear George, it is with immense pleasure and gratitude that I am able to send with this letter a copy of my ‘fairy-story’ which I have inscribed for Alfred, which though he is too young to read, one day yourself or Mrs Mac Govan-Crow may do me the honour of reading to him, to make up for the occasions when this enthusiastic stranger reduced him to tears through my nonsensical prattling!’
Con mumbled some more lines before turning the page.
‘The ideas I had surrounding the landscape at Avebury have taken, I am sad to say, somewhat of a back-seat for the time being, but I am trying to fit some of the insights I gained, thanks to you, concerning the great antiquity of these stories into something new I am working on, a time-travel book, which delves back into the distant past, and to the ‘Atlantis’ legend we talked of.’
Con looked at Shen. ‘What book is that?’
‘None I know of. Maybe he never finished it.’
Con nodded. ‘Yes, listen to this… “although my publishers are already suggesting I begin another ‘Hobbit’ book, as the reception to the book, in some quarters, has been very good.”’
‘The Lord of the Rings!’ both Shen and Con said together.
Con skimmed a bit more, then stopped and began to read aloud again.
‘As I write I can just make out Sirius over the Oxford rooftops, and it takes me back, on what is a cold winter’s night, to last spring in your wonderful county, and to the river of the ‘bright-dog’ of which I’ll always be reminded when I look at its companion in the sky.’ He paused. ‘What does he mean by river of the bright-dog?’ Shen shook her head.
‘You’re welcome to borrow them.’ She said. ‘Just don’t lose them, or sell them.’ She smiled.
‘Thank you. Thank you!’ but he was already reading again.
He looked at Shen, a shocked grin on his face. She was looking at him, her head on one side, smiling.
‘Conall Astor wakes up again!’ she said. ‘Do you think one day you’ll be able to be enthusiastic about real things again, like people?’
‘Hmm?’ he said, looking up again from the letter, but only briefly.
Shen shook her head. ‘Don’t forget your coffee – I’m going to chuck you out in a bit as I’ve got housework to do, and I hoover naked.’
‘What?’
‘Just checking you’re listening! I mean it – take them with you. If there’s anything interesting in there let me know, or maybe write them out in a readable script!’
‘Okay. What are you up to later?’ he asked. Shen shrugged. ‘Hayden’s working today so he’s probably staying at his tonight – give me a call later.’
‘Tell you what. Get some credit and send me a text if you’re free.’ He laughed. She leant over and closed the book, forcing him to look up.
‘It’s a deal, if you don’t bring the book.’
Pan, Herne, Osiris, Priapus
Ba'al, Dionysis, Apollo, Lugh...
The road to Church Cottage was busy with a throng of people in long robes, flowers and leaves in their hair, and singing and clapping to a beat from several drums as they walked towards the circle:
Pan, Herne, Osiris, Priapus
Ba'al, Dionysis, Apollo, Lugh...
the men chanted, and the women sang in reply:
Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate,
Demeter, Kali, Innanna...
‘I see the pagans are arriving’ Shen said, ‘Wolf will be pleased if they stay for the protest.’
‘Why else would they be here?’ Con asked.
‘I don’t know. It’s not a full or new moon. A Hand-fasting, maybe?’
The stretch of road near the church, however, was deserted, and as the noise of the chanting faded Shen and Con entered the cottage.
‘Was it a coffee or tea?’ Shen asked.
‘Coffee, please.’
‘Well go through to the sitting room and I’ll bring it through.’
A few minutes later Shen re-emerged from the kitchen.
‘Have you always been nosey?’
Conall, who was standing with his head tilted to the side perusing the large wooden bookshelf, looked back to where Shen was leaning against the kitchen door, two mugs of coffee in her hands.
‘I always look at people’s bookshelves.’ Conall said. ‘…says a lot about a person, what they read, and then what they choose to put on show.’
‘And if they have no books?’
‘I make my excuses and run.’ Conall winked. Shit. He was slightly more drunk than he anticipated.
‘And what do you mean by ‘Put on a show’? Isn’t a bookshelf just a bookshelf?’ Shen laughed.
‘God, no! You never done it? When you know someone you like is coming round… depends on the person… you know, if they’re intellectual you make sure you have some weighty tome by your bed, like a John Cowper-Powys. Or poetry – Whitman or Coleridge I find works, maybe a bit of Gary Snyder to be a bit edgy and ‘beat’; and something kind of quirky or humorous to show you’re not dull…oh, and a kid’s book to show you’re not too dry and boring… Moomins, or Susan Cooper…’
Shen was shaking her head, though whether in mock horror or not, Conall couldn’t tell.
‘That’s subterfuge. It’s deceitful.’ There was a twinkle in her eye as she said this. ‘It’s pretending to be something you’re not to lure someone in.’
Conall snorted.
‘Bullshit!’ he said. ‘Maybe if I’d not read the books, then yes – but it would be a pretty stupid thing to do if you hadn’t! It would be so easy to be caught out!’
Shen bit her lip to hide a smile.
‘You’re being very bolshie.’ She said. ‘Someone spike your drink?’
‘I don’t know, did you? And anyway…’ he continued, feeling spurred on at the challenge in her voice ’arranging books is no worse, and arguably a damn site more honest, than wearing make-up and push-up bras and hold-it-all-in-knickers’ he said, and laughed out loud.
She continued to shake her head, but still smiled.
‘What is it Hamlet says?’ he continued ‘"God gives you one face and you paint yourselves another". At least I have read the books I’m placing about my room – they won’t disappear with some cotton wool and make-up remover, or turn out to be an illusion of good corsetry.’
Though, if he was honest Shen was one of those women who did not require clothes or make-up to enhance her dark beauty; he remembered one evening the previous year, when he’d met her in the pub, and she’d come in a dark blouse and long-black coat, her hair straightened and her eyes lined; a black-ribbon about her throat; and he thought that he had never seen anyone more beautiful in his life; she had stunned him almost to silence.
‘You’ve the devil in you today Conall Astor!’
And she was right. For a moment, it seemed, the clouds had retreated, but for how long, he wondered? He was on borrowed time. The ancient serpent within was being allowed a brief time in the sun before his liver had removed the alcohol from his system and his civilised outer cortex woke from its numb slumber.
‘So what can you tell about granddad from his bookshelves then?’ Shen challenged.
‘Are these books his? I’d assumed they were yours.’ He said, pulling out a gaudily coloured paperback on the tarot.
She smiled. ‘Okay – mostly his!’
Conall turned his head to the side again and read the spines, stopping to pull out a couple without covers, only to return them.
There were books on Blackfoot mythology, culture, and beside them a small section on other Native American tribes and beliefs, including some volumes on Mesoamerica – the Maya and the Aztecs.
‘Were these your granddads?’ he asked.
‘Some – the early Blackfoot ones; the other ones are mine. Stop looking at the new ones!’ she laughed.
He skipped over the gardening and cookbooks – then he stopped and pulled out a faded hardback. His face had changed from wry amusement to something that could almost be taken for concern. He slowly opened up the cover and then turned to Shen slowly.
‘Your granddad was Alfred Mac Govan-Crow, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Fuck me, Shen! This is a first edition copy of The Hobbit, with a dedication in the front by Tolkien himself! “To Alfred Mac Govan-Crow, on the occasion of your second Christmas, 1937. Best wishes J R R Tolkien”’
‘Yeah, it’s cool isn’t it?’ she said nonchalantly, sitting down at on the sofa with her coffee.
‘Cool?’ Christ! This is worth a fucking fortune, Shen!’ He wasn’t joking, either. First editions of the Hobbit passed hands for many thousands of pounds – but an inscribed one…
The cover showed the dragon Smaug flying over the mountains of Erebor; Con thought of the serpent brain within –guarding its primal memories like the dwarf-lords’ gold – if one could only venture in and steal that knowledge for the conscious mind - if one could integrate the entire brain without resorting to booze…
She walked over and took the book from him. ‘Look at this…’
She took the book out of his hand and turned to the inside back cover. Here, neatly enclosed within the fold of the dust jacket, were a number of yellowed handwritten pages.
‘Letters by Tolkien, to my great-grandfather, George - Alfred’s father.’
‘About what?’ he stammered, eyes open in shock.
Shen smiled, then laughed. ‘No idea. I’ve never read them properly – always meant to; have you seen the handwriting?!’
Conall looked into her smiling eyes, holding her gaze a little longer than he would normally have dared. She returned it, and it was Conall who looked away first, his pulse racing.
‘How did he know Tolkien?’ he asked, leafing through the thin handwritten sheets – there were, indeed, letters here addressed to George, but also one addressed to an Edith, and several sheets of what looked to be notes, with certain phrases underlined, including small diagrams which Con immediately recognised as sketches of some of the stones of the circle, and a swiftly drawn map of the entire site.
‘Tolkien stayed here for a few days when my Granddad was still a baby; my great-grandfather put him up as a lodger here. And C S Lewis, and Owen Barfield.’
Con looked at her in disbelief.
‘Here? At this house? Who’s Owen Barfield?’
Shen picked up a copy of a book that sat alongside The Hobbit - ‘He was one of the Inklngs – Tolkien and Lewis’s literary group; The Silver Trumpet’ -he wrote this – this is inscribed to Alfred too.’
‘I’ve not heard of Barfield. I can’t believe this, though. Tolkien stayed here? Seriously?!’
‘Seriously. And to say thanks he sent this signed copy of The Hobbit – that first letter there came with the book – I’ve read that one. Some of the others are to Tolkien’s wife, but there seems to be a few pages of notes; I don’t know why they’re there. Granddad couldn’t really tell me much; obviously he was too young to remember anything.’
Con was trying to read the neat, fussy handwriting, faded now. He began to read out loud.
‘My Dear George, it is with immense pleasure and gratitude that I am able to send with this letter a copy of my ‘fairy-story’ which I have inscribed for Alfred, which though he is too young to read, one day yourself or Mrs Mac Govan-Crow may do me the honour of reading to him, to make up for the occasions when this enthusiastic stranger reduced him to tears through my nonsensical prattling!’
Con mumbled some more lines before turning the page.
‘The ideas I had surrounding the landscape at Avebury have taken, I am sad to say, somewhat of a back-seat for the time being, but I am trying to fit some of the insights I gained, thanks to you, concerning the great antiquity of these stories into something new I am working on, a time-travel book, which delves back into the distant past, and to the ‘Atlantis’ legend we talked of.’
Con looked at Shen. ‘What book is that?’
‘None I know of. Maybe he never finished it.’
Con nodded. ‘Yes, listen to this… “although my publishers are already suggesting I begin another ‘Hobbit’ book, as the reception to the book, in some quarters, has been very good.”’
‘The Lord of the Rings!’ both Shen and Con said together.
Con skimmed a bit more, then stopped and began to read aloud again.
‘As I write I can just make out Sirius over the Oxford rooftops, and it takes me back, on what is a cold winter’s night, to last spring in your wonderful county, and to the river of the ‘bright-dog’ of which I’ll always be reminded when I look at its companion in the sky.’ He paused. ‘What does he mean by river of the bright-dog?’ Shen shook her head.
‘You’re welcome to borrow them.’ She said. ‘Just don’t lose them, or sell them.’ She smiled.
‘Thank you. Thank you!’ but he was already reading again.
He looked at Shen, a shocked grin on his face. She was looking at him, her head on one side, smiling.
‘Conall Astor wakes up again!’ she said. ‘Do you think one day you’ll be able to be enthusiastic about real things again, like people?’
‘Hmm?’ he said, looking up again from the letter, but only briefly.
Shen shook her head. ‘Don’t forget your coffee – I’m going to chuck you out in a bit as I’ve got housework to do, and I hoover naked.’
‘What?’
‘Just checking you’re listening! I mean it – take them with you. If there’s anything interesting in there let me know, or maybe write them out in a readable script!’
‘Okay. What are you up to later?’ he asked. Shen shrugged. ‘Hayden’s working today so he’s probably staying at his tonight – give me a call later.’
‘Tell you what. Get some credit and send me a text if you’re free.’ He laughed. She leant over and closed the book, forcing him to look up.
‘It’s a deal, if you don’t bring the book.’