Three to See the King Read online

  Three To See The King

  Magnus Mills

  Copyright © 2001

  For SUE

  1

  I live in a house built entirely from tin, with four tin walls, a roof of tin, a chimney and door. Entirely from tin.

  My house has no windows because there's nothing to see. Oh, there are shutters that can be used to let the light in when required, but they remain closed against the weather for most of the time. It stands in a wild place, my house, high up on the plain. At night it creaks and groans as the wind batters it for hour after hour, in search of a gap to get inside. Even the door has to be bolted top and bottom to stop it from being blown open. I used to worry in case one day I might lose the roof, but so far that hasn't happened and now I'm certain the structure is quite sound. The man who built it made sure of that. I found the house empty a few years ago, and adopted it for my own use. At first sight I knew it had everything I could need: somewhere to eat and drink and sleep without disturbance, protected from the elements by a layer of corrugated metal and nothing more. A very modest dwelling I must say, but it looked clean and tidy so I moved in. For a long while I was quite content here, and remained convinced I would find no better place to be. Then one day a woman arrived at my door and said, 'So this is where you've been hiding.'

  2

  She was wrong there. I wasn't hiding from anybody. My house of tin was the place I'd chosen to live. It had nothing to do with hiding, yet the way she put it made me sound as though I'd run away.

  You may ask: who was this woman? Well, I hardly knew her really. A friend of a friend I suppose you might say. The last person I'd have expected to turn up, if the truth be known, but she seemed keen on a guided tour so I invited her inside. It was the time of year when the stove had to be kept lit all the time, just to maintain some warmth. She gave a little shiver as I closed the door behind her, and then stood staring around with a sort of surprised smile or half-laugh on her face.

  'It's practically bare,' she said.

  'Yes,' I replied.

  'But you can't live like this.'

  'Why not?'

  'You just can't.'

  I think the sparseness of my existence had caught her out. I had no pictures on the walls to brighten them up, nor my oilier kind of decoration, and I suppose she was taken aback by how basic it all was. I pointed out that there was a pot of fresh coffee on top of the stove, meaning to show her that it wasn't all 'hardship', but I'm afraid she just laughed again and shook her head.

  'Looks like we're going to have to get you sorted out,' she announced.

  I realized from the amount of stuff she'd brought with her that she intended to stay around for a while. She had a whole trunkful of clothes, and a vanity case, not to mention the washstand and mirror. Fortunately there was lots of space, more than I needed really, so I told her she could use the upper floor.

  I expect you thought my house of tin was a single-roomed affair with a bunk bed in one corner and a bucket in the other. Well, as a matter of fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The man who built it wanted more than just a shack to spend the winter in. He wanted two storeys and a stairway, and a sloping roof with gutters and drainpipes for the rainwater. He built it facing west-southwest, head-on to the wind, and sound enough for any storm. It's a proper house, I tell you, not the kind of ramshackle shanty you might find on some distant seashore where they fish in the morning and sleep in the afternoon. No, you wouldn't catch me living in a place like that. Much better to be somewhere that's going to hold together for a few years, which was why I chose a building foursquare and tall, with an upper floor.

  I really thought this woman would be pleased to have a bit of room to herself, but when she saw the stairs she just took one look and said, 'They're very steep, aren't they?'

  Well, of course they were steep! What else did she expect in a two storey house of tin? Alright, I admit it was quite a struggle getting the trunk and everything hoisted up, but the way she went on you'd have thought the stairs had been made steep deliberately.

  This was what I couldn't understand about her. She'd come all this way to see me, even though we'd only met once or possibly twice before, and yet from the moment she arrived she was full of criticism. By the following morning I'd begun to think she didn't like my domestic arrangements at all. I had spent the whole night conscious of her moving around above me. She didn't seem able to settle down, and it turned out that the wind had kept her awake. I didn't ask her about her sleeplessness directly, of course, because it wouldn't have done for her to know I'd heard her every movement. When she came downstairs, however, the first thing she did was complain about the noise the wind made. Here was an obvious difference between the two of us. It has always astounded me that people can object to such things as being dazzled by sunlight, drenched by the rain or, as in this case, being kept awake by the wind. Surely one of the major appeals of living in a tin house is listening to that very sound! Before this woman turned up I had spent many an hour doing little else, day and night. As I said before, the wind never managed to find a gap to get inside. Nonetheless, it searched and whined incessantly beneath the corrugated eaves, producing a tune of infinite variations. There were times when it would bring with it rain, or else great dry sandstorms that rattled across the roof and added to the general din. These chance harmonics I found reassuring, comforting even, but I'm afraid my new guest heard them with different ears.

  'What a racket!' she said, opening the door and looking outside. Then, to my surprise, she exclaimed, 'Oh, sweet!'

  Apparently she thought it was quite endearing the way I'd hung out my washing on the line to dry. Personally, I couldn't see what was supposed to be so remarkable about it. After all, clothes will dry in no time in that wind, so it stood to reason to turn it to full use. Besides, I'd already been up and about for a couple of hours waiting for her to surface, so I thought I might as well get some clothes done. The result of my carrying out this simple chore was striking. She seemed instantly to forget about the wind keeping her awake all night, and now every object she laid eyes on was 'sweet'. She even liked the shovel that I kept on a hook on the back of the door! Maybe it was the morning sun that had put a different glint on things, but whatever the reason I must confess I enjoyed this change of tone. Without her noticing I closed the door again (to prevent the sand from getting inside), and we spent an agreeable morning getting her trunk properly unpacked. Now that the initial prickliness was over I was quite glad she'd come. All the same she took some getting used to. Later I came to understand that she was capable of enjoying my company and finding fault both at the same time, but in those first few days I wasn't sure what was going on.

  Take the question of the mirror, for example. The one she'd brought with her was a full-length model, and it was still waiting to be moved to the upper floor. I put this job off for a while, then just when I was in the middle of lifting it up she announced it was probably better to leave it where it was.

  'Don't worry,' I replied. 'It's not too heavy.'

  'So you're taking it up are you?' she asked.

  'Yes,' I said. 'Might as well.'

  When finally I'd got it to the top of the stairs she came and joined me.

  'You've got smears on it now,' she said. 'Look.'

  'Couldn't be helped,' I answered.

  'You didn't have to bring it up here at all. I'd have much preferred it down by the door. The light's more natural there.'

  'Well why didn't you say?'

  'I did!' she snapped. 'Thanks very much! Now you've got smears on it!'

  When I offered to take the mirror back down she told me not to bother, so I didn't, and another three or four days went by before she mentioned it again. On t
his second occasion she pointed out exactly where she wanted it, rather than suggesting what was 'probably better' or what was 'preferable'. I obliged by moving the mirror with good grace, taking care not to get any more smears on it. In this way we managed between us to smooth relations over, and most of the time we seemed to get on quite well together.

  Even so, I couldn't work out what exactly she'd come for. I mean, there was nothing to keep her in my house of tin. She was very welcome to stay as long as she liked, of course, but I'd have thought she'd be better off living somewhere where there were more people, instead of here amongst a few scattered individuals on a wild and blustery plain.

  Each night I heard her moving restlessly around on the upper floor, disturbed by those very elements that for years had been lulling me to sleep. The trouble was, now I couldn't sleep either. Every time the building creaked and groaned in the autumn gales I felt a wave of guilt, as though it was me personally who was keeping her awake. Still, I tried to make the best of it. Each morning I rose early, took the shovel and cleared away the drifts of red sand that were beginning to gather on the windward side of the house. At least this would save her from being blocked in if she decided to leave. As the weather continued to deteriorate, however, this seemed increasingly unlikely. Having established herself on the upper floor she now started to make incursions into the area around the stove. Anyone with a house of tin will tell you that, given a good coal supply, the stove is always regarded as the engine room. The heat needed for cooking, washing and generally keeping warm makes it the natural centre of operations, and this woman grasped the fact very quickly. Within a week the seat by the stove had become hers, whether she occupied it or not. Needless to say I was allowed to use it in between times, but only in the sense that I was borrowing it from her. This was fine by me because mostly I was engaged with tasks that kept me on my feet. I'd decided to check the outside of the house to make sure none of the creaks and groans were due to structural weakness. I'm pleased to say they weren't, and that the sounds we heard in the night were mostly those of expansion and contraction.

  The mirror, in the meantime, had gone through a trial period in the place she'd suggested near the doorway. This had proved satisfactory, so one afternoon I gave it a permanent fixing, which seemed to please her. On the rare days that the weather was mild and still, she would stand with the door open examining her reflection full-length in the natural light. I have to admit to being fairly impressed by the trouble she went to over her appearance, considering there was no one else present apart from myself. Once or twice she would catch me watching as she made adjustments to her waist or hemline, at which point she'd give me a very pleasant smile.

  The trunk on the upper floor seemed to contain an endless hoard of clothing, which she never tired of trying on in various combinations. This was in direct contrast to my own wardrobe. I had two sets of clothes which I alternated when they got dirty, and that was that. Fortunately, she didn't ever go on about my choice of attire. In many respects she was content for me to continue my life just as it had been before she arrived, without any interference. Which was fair enough when you think about it. She was only a guest, after all, and there was a limit to what she could or could not influence. Indeed, I'd even started to notice that the bouts of criticism were becoming rarer. We passed the time fully aware of one another's presence, and went to every effort to avoid friction when possible.

  Then one day she said, out of the blue, 'So what became of your great plan?'

  'What great plan?' I replied.

  'You told me you were going to live in a canyon.' 'Oh that,' I said. 'Well, it never quite came to fruition.' 'But how can it have never come to fruition?' she asked, 'when you had such hopes and aspirations? You told me all about them. One day, you said, you were going to make a voyage, the culmination of which would be your discovery of a canyon, deep and wide, and cut through the reddest of earth. Then, when you'd surveyed it from end to end and found the perfect site, you were going to build a house entirely from tin.'

  It turned out she was referring to some conversation we'd had when we last met. I remembered none of it, but apparently she could recall in detail almost every word I'd said. As a matter of fact, she seemed to know quite a lot about me, about my tastes, about my interests, and even about my future plans. I soon began to wonder exactly how much information she'd managed to glean from that one exchange. For my part, all I knew about her was her name.

  3

  As she reminded me of my scheme in all its detail, I pondered on how I could have come to abandon it so easily. What had distracted and led me on such a different path? The answer, I soon realized, lay in the moment I'd stumbled upon my present abode. With one look I had allowed myself to be seduced by its grace and solidity, by its warm stove, and by its shutters that could be closed against the weather. Oh yes, it was a house of tin alright, but instead of being in a canyon, it was situated high up on the plain!

  I opened the door and gazed out across that vast expanse, asking myself if I'd left it too late to resume my search. It was the afternoon of a desolate winter's day, and as I stood there a savage gust of wind warned of the hardship that such a life would bring. Quickly, I stepped back into the warmth.

  There probably isn't even a canyon,' I said, by way of explanation.

  'How far did you look?' she asked.

  'Quite far.'

  'And you found nothing?'

  'No.'

  'Well, I suppose it hardly matters really,' she remarked. 'As long as you've got a roof over your head.'

  Maybe so, but I was curious as to why she'd raised the subject in the first place. At no time had she questioned my desire to live in a canyon, and seemed only concerned with my obvious failure to do so. At first I assumed this was simply another criticism to add to the current list. After a while, however, I began to suspect there was more to it than that. Nothing else was said about my unfulfilled plans, nor did she mention them again over the next few days. Instead, she adopted a strategy of silence, during which I couldn't help thinking that she was waiting for me to do something. Over and over again I felt her eyes on me as I carried out some domestic duty in the house. When I brought some extra pillows to the upper floor, for example, she sat on her bed watching while I struggled to get them into their covers. She didn't utter a single word, but instead looked at me as if to say, 'You're wasting your time doing that: there are much more important things to be getting on with.'

  This unsatisfactory state of affairs continued for almost a week, and at last I could stand it no longer.

  'Right,' I said, one cold, bright morning. 'I'm going out.'

  'Where?' she asked.

  'To look for a canyon to live in. I might be gone a while.'

  'But I don't want to be here on my own,' she protested.

  'Don't you?'

  'Of course not.'

  'Very well,' I said. 'I'll sort that out first.'

  I put my boots on and went over to see a neighbour of mine called Simon Painter. He lived a couple of miles away to the west, in a tin house of similar construction to my own. This Simon Painter moved into the vicinity round about the same time as me, and I suppose you could call him a friend. To tell the truth, though, 'half-friend half-nuisance' would he a much better description. The trouble with Simon was that he tried too hard to be sociable, frequently turning up at odd hours of the day on so-called surprise visits which generally involved exchanging unnecessary gifts. These calls were fine so long as they were also short-lived, but unfortunately he had a tendency to outstay his welcome and often needed to be shown the door. For limited periods, however, he was a good companion, and for this reason I knew he could be relied on for what I had in mind.

  I should mention that Simon Painter was not my only neighbour, but he was by far the nearest. Living beyond him were Steve Treacle and Philip Sibling, and strewn around the area were two or three others whom I'd never met, all separated by intervals of several miles. The only thing we had
in common was that we each lived alone in a house built from tin. We rarely saw one another because we preferred it like that. So went my understanding of the arrangement anyway.

  The last time I'd laid eyes on Simon was when he came over to tell me he was planning to hoist a captive balloon above his house. Did I have any objections, he wanted to know. Well obviously I didn't, and I realized he'd made the journey simply as an excuse to visit somebody. I had no doubt that he'd also called upon each of the others under the same pretext. The idea of this balloon, apparently, was to make his residence more easily identifiable. I knew for a fact that it was already equipped with a flagpole on the roof and a bell that chimed whenever the wind blew. This proposed new addition confirmed an opinion I'd held for some time, namely, that Simon Painter was trying to attract attention to himself. Why he'd chosen to live in such a remote setting I couldn't understand, because he seemed to spend his days seeking the fellowship of other people. I'd lost count of the many occasions (when the wind was in the right direction) that I'd heard his bell clanging forlornly in the dead of night. If I could hear it at such a distance, then surely it must have kept him wide awake, which seemed a high price to pay.

  Of course, it wouldn't have done to question Simon's presence on this wide and deserted plain. He always swore that it was the place where he'd found contentment, and he would have denied any suggestion to the contrary. Nevertheless, I wasn't entirely convinced.

  As I approached his house the first thing I saw was the balloon anchored above it. Large enough, at a guess, to support the weight of two or three men, this balloon swayed gently at the end of a long rope. Next I saw his flag, brightly coloured in a combination of orange and purple, flapping at the top of its pole, and indicating that Simon Painter was 'at home'.

  Drawing nearer to his house of tin, it was odd to think that I wasn't the only person to occupy such a dwelling. Recently I'd spent so much time in or around my own place that I'd come to believe I was unique; that there was no one else in the world with such an interesting existence. My visit to Simon Painter reminded me that there were, in fact, several of us. His walls and roof gave off a dull gleam in the morning sunlight, and for a few moments I could only stand and stare at such a perfect spectacle.