The Tree and the Well

PART I

1961

I came across a photograph of myself at a reception. It must have been forty odd years ago. It was the photograph that made me think of writing my memoirs. I mean, why not? Forty years in the film business. Hollywood in its heyday. Not to mention the theatre. As an actor I led a busy life. I learned my lines. I did my scenes. I drank a lot and loved a lot.

But now I’m seventy and my best days are over. No-one sees my films anymore. They’re never on television. My name is never in the papers in the way it was. See a photo of me and you wouldn’t have a clue who I was. I’m washed up. Directors no longer want me. Women no longer love me. No-one, in fact, shows any interest in me because I’ve got nothing to offer. What I do have is plenty of time on my hands. I have decided to publish my memoirs.

Why? Well, it would put me back in the public eye. And besides, it would give me something to do, it would take my mind off things. If I could write my memoirs, I could die comfortably.

But if I’m going to write them, I need space to reflect, to reminisce. I couldn’t write in my horrible little room with the girl upstairs playing her records, and Oliver coming and going at all hours of the night with his latest female companion. I need somewhere secluded. I want to be like George Orwell on Jura writing Nineteen Eighty-Four. But without the TB, naturally.

And so I gave up the tenancy on the room in Fulham and rented a farmhouse in Wales. I chose Wales because it was near enough to London to get back easily, and because I remembered childhood holidays on the Gower, long sunny afternoons on Rhossili beach, with the light glittering on the waves.

The farmhouse was in the Brecon Beacons. Loneliness and the wilds were what I needed. I already had the loneliness of course, but it wasn’t much good without the wilds. I already knew, had a strange sense, a premonition if you like, that being out there in the mountains would do something for me. It would rough me up, soak me to the skin, peg me out to dry. But I hadn’t expected it to happen in the way it did. And I certainly wasn’t ready for what I was to find there. I don’t think anyone could have been.

I arrived in the early evening, just as it was growing dark, turning off the B road and down a rutted track. It was as bumpy as hell. The Land Rover lurched and slid in the mud as I made my way downwards. And then I caught my first glimpse of Heol Nunlle - a dark house under the overhanging lip of a mountain. So beautiful! So romantic! It stood entirely alone and seemed to be sitting there waiting for me. I drew up outside it and switched the engine off.

Silence. Such a perfect silence! I opened the door and got out. It was a square unremarkable house, solidly built, but without any decorative flourishes. Four windows, two on the ground floor, two above, a chimney at either end. A front door under a hooded porch. There was a hawthorn tree that grew in the front garden.

I went in through an old iron gate and walked around the side. The wind blew. The air had a fresh, damp feel to it. It was very beautiful. Very mournful. When I turned the corner I saw there was a barn. It had a curious tower, like a bell-tower in a church, but without any bell. I decided I’d explore the barn later. For now the rain was coming on again and I needed to get inside.

The door swung open onto a dark, musty smelling hallway with red floor tiles. I felt around on the wall for the light switch but there wasn’t one. Of course! No electricity up here! Something the letting agent hadn’t told me. I closed the door and the sound of the wind died. But it was very dark. To the right was the kitchen. And on the table was an oil lamp. I lit it and trimmed the wick.

It was not fully evening yet, but the sky had clouded over. Through the window I could see the barn. The kitchen had an old stone sink, a gas stove, a few ramshackle cupboards on the wall. And that was pretty much it. I crossed the hallway again and went through the door to the left. This was a sitting room. It had an open fireplace with a pile of ready-cut logs next to it. A ghastly red tartan sofa. Everything had a damp unused feel. Through the window I saw the hawthorn tree in the garden and the long shallow valley with a stream running through it. There was not another building within sight.

The stairs were uncarpeted and creaked loudly. At the top were two bedrooms. The one on the left had a double bed and a tall wardrobe. The other had nothing in it but a rolled-up carpet. I didn’t dare touch it for fear there might be something living in it.

When I went downstairs again, I saw the door was wide open. That was strange. I was sure I’d shut it. There was a light rain spitting in and spotting the tiles. Perhaps the lock was faulty and the wind had blown it open. I tested it, but it seemed all right. Maybe I hadn’t shut it properly. I closed it again.

I got a fire going in the parlour, using some of the logs and a newspaper I’d bought on the way here. I was very pleased with my efforts. I sat in front of the blaze and made a few lazy notes for my memoirs, which I’d begin work on the next day. Silence all around. No hooting of traffic. No rumble of tube train underfoot. Silence so deep it was slightly eerie.

That night I slept soundly. I hadn’t expected to, I must admit. The bedroom was cold and draughty and the bedsheets felt a touch damp. I boiled a kettle and filled a hot-water bottle. When I finally retired to bed at about midnight, wending my way up the creaking stairs, I found the bed was actually very comfortable, and the silences around the house so peaceful that I fell into a deep sleep, the kind I normally only get with sleeping pills.

I woke up in the best mood I’d been in for ages. I hadn’t bothered closing the curtains since there wasn't anyone to look in, and now the sunlight was pouring in across the low beamed ceiling. Normally I’m a late riser, but I felt particularly energetic that morning. I turned back the blankets, hopped out, and threw open the window. The air was cold, sharper than I’d expected, but there were birds singing in the hawthorn tree in the garden. And I could hear sheep bleating somewhere up on the mountain behind the house.

I went downstairs, boiled my little camping kettle and made myself some instant coffee, fried a couple of rashers of bacon and a few tomatoes, and ate breakfast in the little kitchen. When that was done, it was time to start work on my memoirs.

There was a side-table in the sitting room. I swept the dust off it and dragged it over to the window where the light was good. I sat and looked down the valley, trying to compose my thoughts before putting pen to paper. The wind rushed ominously around the house, but within the house itself there was only a deep silence. Outside, the hawthorn tree bent and bowed in the wind, like a thing with a life of its own. I was alone. Utterly alone.

Or so I thought. But then I heard a creak overhead, as if someone was walking on the floorboards. I looked up, but of course there was nothing to see. I sat with my pen poised and listened. After a long moment’s silence, I decided it must have been the wind. I went back to work.

But as soon as I did, I heard another creak, louder and longer than the first. This time, I put my pen down and went out to the hallway. The creak must have come from the second bedroom, the one with nothing in it but the rolled-up carpet.

I stood at the foot of the stairs and called up. ‘Hello? Anyone there?’

There was no answer. I knew there wouldn’t be anyone there, but I had to check, just in case. I climbed the stairs. On the landing I stopped and listened. Not a sound but the wind blowing about the house. I put my head round the doorway, and found the room empty, just as I’d expected. I went over to the rolled up carpet and gave it a kick. I don’t know what I was expecting, but all I got was a puff of dust. My bedroom was empty too. It must just have been the old wood in the house expanding and contracting.

Satisfied I didn’t have any intruders, I went back downstairs and carried on with my work. There were no more creaks from upstairs, no disturbances of any kind. I wrote until the light was fading, then I made myself a meal, ate it by the fireside, and read a book. At a little after ten I went up to bed and passed another peaceful night.

Where do I begin my memoirs? At the beginning. As far back as I can remember. Mama. Papa. Little Charlie in a sailor’s suit and cap. My father was a shiftless character. He was sacked from his job at the bank, due to what they called ‘financial irregularities’. Soon after that he left mother and myself, to take up with another woman. That was how he was. Couldn’t sit still, nor stay in one place, in one job, with one woman, for very long.

That’s the truth of it, but it won’t do for my memoirs. No, in my memoirs Papa will be a captain in the army, with a glittering military career. We were always on the move: Singapore, Burma, Rhodesia. Wherever you like, really. As long as it sounds exotic. In reality mother and I never left Bournemouth.

I soon got into the swing of things. Much of it I was making up as I went along. Typing away like mad! After a long while my back and neck got stiff, so I sat back and drank the last dregs of my coffee, which had gone cold. I saw to my surprise that a mist had crept up the valley and almost reached the garden wall. I had never noticed!

I was thinking it would soon be time to light the oil lamp, when a movement outside the window caught my eye. I hadn’t seen anyone since I’d got here. Not even the postman. But a shadow crossed my line of vision. It made me jump. I got up and went to the window and craned my neck to see what it was.

It was then that I caught sight of her.

There was a strange girl in the garden.