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‘What are you going to do?’ said Dee-Dee, all anxious.
‘Do? I’m going to live there.’
‘That’s wild,’ said Tessa.
‘Like Geoffrey … and there’s money, too, that furniture of his, it’s valuable, it’s not rubbish … and the paintings … Hetty and George got the best things, two Stanhope Forbes and a Morrisot, we thought they were sold years ago …’
‘Oh, Don, what are you going to do?’ said Dee-Dee again.
‘Anything, anything I like …’ and his face took on a familiar far-away look.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_2bf202fc-0a8a-505d-a896-1d0ce3ca1c72)
So, Don went to Suffolk and Tessa and Dee moved into his flat. It was a satisfactory arrangement, for Notting Hill was the centre of the underground universe. Here were crash-pads for drop-outs, the Electric cinema and a macrobiotic restaurant. Here were happenings, music everywhere and enough marijuana to ensure everybody was stoned. Life at the flat was unscheduled, unrestricted. They woke and slept as they pleased and there were always people, thumping bongos, strumming guitars, dancing, reading poetry and smoking dope. To Tessa and Dee-Dee this was freedom.
Don led a nomadic life between London and Suffolk. He bought a van to ferry Geoffrey’s furniture to sell in auctions. He was trying to raise money to restore St John’s. The builders had started re-roofing, re-plumbing. What he was going to do with the place was a source of endless discussion; a hospice for the dying? ‘but Geoffrey wouldn’t have liked that’; a museum of Eastern Art? That idea lasted two days; a free school ‘where children learned through their own experiences in the here and now and adults could change their perceptions of reality …’ But somehow anything to do with schools meant regulations and planning permission. The idea that was most consistent was to ‘fill the Hall with interesting people all sharing and co-operating …’, but St John’s was only slightly more than a ruin.
The following August, Tessa, Dee-Dee, Jeremy and a person called Edgar Bukowski from New Orleans all attended the Festival of Communes at the Roundhouse. This was ‘a big informal information-exchanging and food-sharing meal and meeting for Communes and people interested in Communes plus (perhaps) chanting and other signs of togetherness plus (perhaps) Quintessence and Third Ear Band’. In long dresses, loons, beads and bare feet, they danced, drummed and laughed, experiencing togetherness and being and felt it was as important as Woodstock. Don was there too, conspicuous with schoolboy hair and brown polished shoes, talking avidly to long-haired anarchists, but his communal ideas were hardly being clarified.
The sixties were over. Hendrix was dead, Janis Joplin was dead, the Beatles had split up, the Isle of Wight was a muddy memory. Uncertainty and doubt were creeping into the earthly paradise. Tessa and Dee-Dee in Don’s flat were restless. Previously their constant moving had satisfied a need for change, a feeling that if they stopped long enough to accumulate possessions and familiarity with a place then they would be settling down, or, worse still, be straight. They feared acutely normality as displayed by their parents’ uneventful lives in deepest Middlesex. But in the year that the old money was abandoned and in came tinny decimalisation, they began to wonder, ‘What now?’
Dee-Dee, Jeremy, his flute and an alarmingly small amount of money hitch-hiked to India to find the truth. They went after an all-night party on a damp November morning. Tessa stayed behind. She felt there was nothing she could find in India she couldn’t find in Notting Hill; after all, India, the Taj Mahal and everything were just places. The real truth was inside. Her restlessness was spiritual; she became inert. The crashers at Don’s flat were inert too. They lay on the floor to music, usually stoned or, more usually, tripping. Edgar Bukowski was now a permanent resident. He was a chunky six-foot with long lank hair in a ponytail. He claimed to have met Bob Dylan in a jazz bar in New Orleans. He said, ‘Hey, Bob, I love you,’ and Bob said, ‘Man, that’s cool.’ It may not have been true but it gave Edgar Bukowski kudos. He and Tessa were lovers. There were other people who were Tessa’s lovers, both men and women, but during that winter Edgar had precedence. Together they blacked out all daylight in the flat, consulted the tarot, read Alistair Crowley, listened to the Doors and Captain Beefheart, and embarked on an inward journey to darkest parts. Here, the Queen of Swords was a fiery red and sliced the air with her weapon, the unforgiving chariot crushed them underfoot and the dogs of hell bayed to the moon as crayfish crawled out of a primeval slime. The walls of Don’s flat shook, grey-faced half-dead once-people moaned, Edgar’s face crawled like the crayfish and they made love, but it wasn’t love but something like hate, deadly and punishing.
A spring morning; Tessa pulled away the black cloth over the bathroom window. She had just been sick. The light came in cold and slicing. She didn’t know what day it was. Avoiding her reflection she stumbled back to where six or seven people were on the floor. There was no sound, the air was foetid. She pulled away the black cloth from all the windows but even harsh daylight couldn’t wake them. Then someone rolled over snored.
Angry, she began to kick them.
‘Hey, man, wha’s happening?’
Other people woke. ‘Cool it, what’s the problem?’
‘Get up! Get up! Get up!’
‘Heavy games, lady.’
‘Cool it.’
‘It’s a raid,’ shrieked Tessa.
At these words there was instant panic. They scrambled for the door, falling over each other. ‘Beat it, it’s the Fuzz,’ and they crashed down the stairs and into the street.
Tessa watched from the window and laughed. They ran down the road like surprised rats, not even noticing a complete absence of policemen.
Now she was alone. Edgar was not there. She vaguely remembered he had gone at some point in the night, but she didn’t care. She locked the door, which was something that had never been done before.
Feeling sick again, she hauled herself to bed. ‘Oh shit … oh Christ … oh God … oh Jesus …’
Some days passed. There was a knocking at the door. Tessa thought it must be Edgar and stayed put under the grimy sheets. She blocked her ears. Edgar was six foot plus, he could kick down any door. She waited.
But it couldn’t have been Edgar; the noise was weak, almost scratching, like a wounded animal that had crawled home.
‘Tessy, Tessy, where are you, where are you? Let me in, Tessy, please let me in.’
Tessa sat up. It was Dee-Dee.
There was much hugging and tears. ‘I thought you’d gone away, Tessy, I really did.’
‘Here I am, sort of … did you go to India?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Wow, and was it amazing?’
‘I don’t know … I suppose it was … it was weird …’
‘Where’s Jeremy?’
‘He’s in Goa playing the flute.’
Dee-Dee was very thin. Her eyes looked huge, like a lemur’s.
‘I had enough, I thought I’d come back …’ She began to cry. ‘Tessy, it was awful, it was worse than a bad trip, and we had no money, we had to beg, but there’s so many beggars … and I got sick, I don’t know, I ate dahl off a stall … I got sick in Afghanistan too, but that wasn’t too bad … Afghanistan’s great, the people are tribal and the women wear veils and you never see them … and the deserts … I mean I saw a real camel and a mirage. I did.’
She blew her nose on her skirt.
‘But India was so full and they’re all dying, even the babies.’ And she dissolved into sobs.
‘So you didn’t find a guru, then,’ said Tessa after a while.
‘Everyone in India’s a guru.’ Dee-Dee was hardly ever bitter. ‘We were supposed to be going to an ashram near Poona but I wanted to lie down all the time and then we went to Goa. I was pretty flipped out by Goa. It was like paradise, and we got sort of stuck … then I was in hospital, and when I came out I just couldn’t get into it any more … Jeremy kept phoning his mum to send him more money, but I didn’t want to do that, I’d rather beg … so I went to Delhi and met some Australians.’
‘Did you see the Taj Mahal?’
‘The Australians took me, they had a minibus, and the Taj was really magical and special, I wanted to stay. We waited for the moon to rise, and we saw a deserted palace called Fatehpur Sikri … Then the Australians took me to Kabul, they were called Rod and Mike, they were great …’ She sighed. ‘They wanted to see the inner land and the great statues but I wanted to get home. I met a lorry driver called Dick and he was going to Manchester so I took a lift.’
‘And here you are.’
‘I’ve just come back from Manchester. We were in a hotel. He wanted me to stay, but he was married, Tessy, he had kids, and, I mean, he was sweet and all that, but he was so straight …’
She lay on the bed. ‘I’m so tired, I want to stop moving.’
She gazed at Tessa’s painting on the ceiling, ‘The Awakening of Consciousness’, much obscured by smoke and dirt. ‘What about you?’
Tessa came and lay next to her. ‘I don’t know,’ she sighed too; ‘I just kicked everybody out and locked the door. I’m sick of hash and acid and junk … and people dossing … and Edgar … he’s heavy, he’s on junk, anyway, I suspect he’s trying to score …’
‘What shall we do, Tessy?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know any more.
They might have slept for a whole day or it might have been two. When Tessa woke it was very early morning and the sun was beautiful and the birds were singing, and she felt clear and pure.
‘Wake up, Dee-Dee, wake up.’
‘Tessy, what is it?’
‘Listen, wake up you mug, I know what we must do, I’ve just realised … we must live here and make it beautiful, like when Don was here. I’ll paint it and we can get pretty things.’
‘Oh, Tessy!’
‘And flowers and everything. We’ll clean it and it’ll be ours and we won’t have dossers …’
‘Oh, Tessy.’ Dee-Dee had started to cry.
‘There won’t be any Edgars or Jeremys laying heavy trips on us, it’ll be our space, we’ll do what we like.’
‘I could do knitting …’
‘And I’ll paint, and we’ll cook real food, not rubbish, and get strong and powerful … We’ll do it now, come on Dee, we’ll get some food now.’
And they bought six croissants and took them to the park and ate them by the boating pond, shivering in the spring sunlight, and Dee-Dee puked hers up but it didn’t matter, and back at the flat they began to clean and clear it, and Tessa sold all her hash and they bought paint and bleach and washing powder, and they scrubbed and scrubbed and Dee-Dee cooked a big pot of stew, and after two weeks she wasn’t being sick any more, and Tessa made bread and Dee-Dee started to knit a stripy jumper.
After two months the flat was how they wanted and Dee was becoming pink again. In the evenings they listened to early Incredible String Band and wept buckets and Nick Drake and wept buckets, and Astral Weeks and A1 Stewart and Donovan and Bob Dylan and all the songs of the innocence and peace they loved and wanted to re-create.
It was early afternoon. Tessa and Dee-Dee were not doing much but they were happy. It was May. Dee had picked a branch of cherry blossom from the square and put it in a jug on the kitchen table. Then Don arrived.
‘Well, this is very different,’ he said, looking round.
‘Don, I haven’t seen you for ages.’
‘I was up before Christmas.’
‘Were you?’
‘I think you were tripping … actually I think everybody was tripping
‘Dee-Dee’s here, she went to India and back.’
Dee rushed up and kissed him. ‘Don, is the countryside beautiful? India was awful and I got sick, and Jeremy’s still there, and Edgar left and never came back, and Tessa makes bread now …’
‘Tell us about the Hall, Don.’
Don laughed and sat down. ‘Oh, it’s still a wreck, but I love it, Tess, it’s going to be amazing. I sleep in the hall by the fire and read Geoffrey’s books and I watched the spring coming in and now summer’s coming, there’s martins under the eaves and a kingfisher in the moat, and five ducklings. There’s just me, Molly’s Charlie’s not well now, so they moved to a council house in St Lawrence.’
Don was wearing a pair of Geoffrey’s tweed trousers held up with braces. His hair was longer but he looked different from anybody else they knew. His face was fresh and healthy. Dee got bread and honey and they ate thick slices.
‘Are you down in London to sell something?’ asked Tessa.
‘No, I’ve come to see you.’ He smiled. ‘The flat looks good …’
Tessa and Dee had hung old lace at the windows, ‘The Awakening of Consciousness’ was painted over white, pretty china from the antique market stood on the kitchen shelves. Dee-Dee and Tessa wore thirties print dresses and coloured scarves.
Don nodded. There was something on his mind. Any minute now he was going to say ‘I’ve got a really good idea,’ but he didn’t, he finished his bread and honey. ‘So, Edgar’s gone. I didn’t really like him.’
‘He was weird, smack wasted him.’
‘Hmmm.’
Dee put on a record, I Looked Up by the Incredible String Band. Tessa rolled a joint. They sat on the floor.
… Each moment is different from another, each moment is different it’s now, ow, ow …
‘I’ve been thinking,’ began Don, and Dee-Dee and Tessa glanced at each other, ‘About St John’s. I can’t live there always on my own, sometimes I think I’d like to, but there’s money … one needs money. Geoffrey couldn’t do it and he had more money than I, and anyway, it’s selfish, isn’t it? I feel I want to share St John’s because it’s so wonderful, but then there’s another question, with whom? I’d like to start a community, there’s some already in Norfolk and Suffolk and they seem to be going fine. I went to see one and asked them “How do you know who the right people are?” and they said “You soon find out.” But I don’t want to make mistakes. St John’s is special, it’s got something, I suppose one calls it History. It would be a waste if unappreciative people lived there … There’s enough land, it’s got to be cleared, of course, but that could be done … What I’ve seen, the most successful communities are where people work hard, like Findhorn and monasteries. I’ve just been to stay at Downside, being Catholic does have advantages … the ritual, the prayer, the work, the belief keeps them going … but what’s our creed, “The road of Excess leads to the palace of Wisdom” … do we still believe that? Must we still base our identity on intensified experiences, tune in, turn on, drop out, wait for the next high? You see, I’ve been finding this out. The days and the seasons have their own rhythms, in the countryside one really notices it. In the town, OK … it’s a fine day. It’s sunny; it’s not, it’s raining, but since I’ve been at St John’s each day is different.’
Each moment is different from another, each moment is different it’s now, ow, ow …
‘Yes, that’s it. The leaves open in the spring, slowly each day, every minute there’s a change. When the snowdrops came out I cried, I did, it wasn’t sentimental, it was joyful. Winter’s dead, spring’s here! I never felt that in London … It’s medieval. Ancient people lived much closer to nature. The winter must have been long, long and dark, then the spring and summer. Wonderful! You don’t shiver any more … God, I was cold this winter, I was bloody freezing … but now, the hawthorn’s in blossom and the elder.’
He looked at the bough of cherry in the jug. ‘… and here I am in London.’ He smoked the joint.
‘I get fed up with London,’ said Tessa. ‘Parties and people talking, doing the same things, smoking dope, getting laid …’
‘But we’ve made it nice here,’ said Dee-Dee.
When you find out who you are, beautiful beyond your dreams …
They were silent. The record came to an end. Don’s face took on a distant look, reminding Tessa of a soldier on a war memorial.
‘Listen,’ he said, and they listened, to the electric hum of the fridge, the cars on Holland Park Avenue, an aeroplane, people outside …
‘What I hear at St John’s is timeless, it’s been heard since forever; wind, lapwings, ducks on the moat. Must I be the only person to hear it? … Come back with me, we’ll be the beginning, we’ll find more people. “Why may we not have our Heaven here and Heaven hereafter too?” Why not?’
They had not expected this at all.
‘Yes, you two, you’re prefect, I can see it … it’ll be hard work, but you don’t mind about that …’
They stared at him.
‘We’ll clear the land and grow vegetables. There’s two acres, we could be eating our own food.’
‘Oh,’ said Dee-Dee.
‘Come on then.’ He stood up.
‘Now?’
‘Yes. Why not? I’ve got the van outside. All this—’ he glanced around ‘—Bring it. It’s yours, isn’t it?’ he began to unplug the record player.
Dee-Dee and Tessa in the middle of the room faced each other. Dee-Dee was becoming tearful. ‘Tessy, what shall we do?’
