( I am still trying to use ‘close third person’ narrator and glitches remain here. But the kernel of a tale remains and time will tell if the tale will linger on in the future).
Everyone found the heat of that late May irresistible except Daniel Hawthorne. Heraldbrook’s museum would fall empty by 4pm, as staff and visitors hurried home to undress. A little later, after checking through the empty rooms and turning on sophisticated alarms, a fully clothed Daniel allowed himself to return upstairs, so he could gaze upon the silent pots. He liked being motionless with them, appreciative of their patience. They waited for him at this time, he knew that. Each evening he would select an ancient piece for his special treatment. Daniel never knew quite why he singled out one pot from their companions, but he told his mother it was as if they had a secret light about them.’ They call me to me,’ he said.
Once he knew the identity of the lucky piece, he would begin to walk around her (all the pots were female he was certain) in a clockwise direction. When his walking gained some momentum and rhythm, the air would start to change all the shapes in the room and his skin came alive. Writing would appear on his arms and each word sang to him. Daniel called this this their greeting time and asked his mother to make a note in the journal.
‘I feel as if I am walking myself into a special salutation with the past. Of course, it usually takes me a few moments over here, and I have to be patient as I am rousing up the sleeping spirits over there.’ (Daniel trained his mother to listen with her eyes only, so he watched her, drinking in his words). ‘The problem is I have to settle everything back into trust again each day -do you see?’ Mrs Hawthorne risked a nod, and this time Daniel wrote down the words by himself, underlining them in dark purple ink.
But the real magic Daniel shared with his mother was that once things had settled into their greeting time, once trust had been rediscovered after the noisy summer visitors clambered back into their coaches, then the chosen pot could begin to tell him a regular tale. Regular tales were Daniel’s key:’ I can let myself in now.’ They soothed his mind and took him down to a safe place. This happened and then that happened and so on: safe tales, orderly words, regular stories. He wrote this down too.
Daniel found he breathed more slowly under the influence of regular tales. He breathed different air and this made everything inside him seem to leap up higher like a jaguar too. ‘Yaguar’ he wrote in large letters, deciding to tell his mother about this another time. ‘Yaguar’ again for good luck.
The trick, Daniel had realised, was to be as still inside his head as his favourite urn, whilst walking in a clockwise direction. This took practice, but he was diligent. ‘I work hard ’he said to the faces in the canteen, and no one tried to contradict him.
As a reward, when he got it right, he could hear the voice of his old teacher again. ‘Sequences, Daniel Hawthorne, are the universe’s way of directing us to truth. Pay attention to sequences, for they lead us beyond this complacent world.’ And so, even though Mr Groves died without explanation the year before, Daniel could still listen to him. The truth was that the hoarse voice of Mr Groves seemed as real as anything else in Daniel’s life.
Somehow, somewhere, Daniel corrected himself, Mr Groves with his pale, definite face, had made his best student fall in love with the world’s past, and always with a regular tale.
After Mr Groves died, Daniel applied for a summer job at the small museum at Heraldbrook, because it advertised three exhibition rooms entirely dedicated to Antic- pottery. It was Daniel’s gift to his old teacher.
At interview he learnt that the museum was being refurbished. ’We need to make our museum kinaesthetic’. Rumours abounded about the new curator, who might appear at any time, so Daniel spent his days clearing up, brushing floors, helping anxious staff to prepare for the change.
In the meantime, Daniel loved the way each piece of pottery told their own tales in spite of their design. They are all unique he informed George who worked in the grounds. Daniel called this uniqueness their spirit and wrote several pages in his journal under the heading The Secrets of Urns. Some pots, he argued, held onto their stories more possessively than their rivals, they teased him, but this was ok. Some just gave up their story generously, in one blast of colour and bold ink. And this was fine too, because when you think about it, don’t we all thrive on regular tales?
If romantic love disappointed Daniel, then the museum restored him. In his pocket he carried a piece of amber though he was not exactly sure why. Amber baffled him and for once Daniel failed to find a regular tale to rescue him.
In one of the rooms, all human speech was banned as an educational experiment. Visitors could read the word ‘silence’ in six different languages. Daniel shared this with his best friend Clara who regarded speech as largely unnecessary anyway because she was building a private cathedral.
Daniel sensed his own cathedral at Heraldbrook. He adored how in this room, the tranquil pots were all held together in a circular cabinet and bathed hourly in a turquoise light. George had installed these electrical devices all by himself. He told Daniel on his induction day that the room had been officially opened by a short Italian Professor who wrote books about lost people. Professor Marinetti wrote all morning apparently and then made sculptures in the afternoon, which she would later damage, to remind her followers that life and art were transient and beauty both a temptation and a blight.
‘Do you think she was trying to tell us something? Asked George.
Daniel shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
One evening, escaping the shy stare of Emily from the main office (she needed to finish some work), Daniel climbed the stairs to this last room of the Ancient Pottery Suite. He opened the heavy door and inhaled its shimmering turquoise air. Another of Mr Groves’ favourite sayings came back to reassure him. ‘Stories give us stability they give us secure shape. ’
For a change, (maybe it was the amber’s fault) and without waiting for any sign or greeting, Daniel started to walk around the entire room in his clock wise way. He walked faster. ‘I must be patient, I must accept.’ He tried to hold himself back but failed, for something else had just arrived in the room.
Mr Groves fell silent, cowed by his protégée’s courage.
Inspired, Daniel now began to walk the other way. He called to the listening spirits in the room: ‘Yes, I have loved your regular tales, but now tell me something different because you can. I know you can. Tell me Daniel Hawthorn, an anticlockwise tale. ‘
And the spirits listened and began to speak.
Great stuff – do we get to hear the anti-clockwise tale?
I’m eager to hear one!
Looking forward to more,
Sally