Her

Last night, as every night of late, I sat in my chair in the summer room, poring over papers, analyses and tweets. I find the requisite silence there in that place. There are no disturbances save the occasional hoot from an owl. The cantilever floor lamp shines only on my work, so the rest of the room seems packed with darkness. The solitude is necessary, vital perhaps. As the chronology ticks by so events become deeper engraved on my brain; dates and links, photographs and videos, guile and deceit. I stop only to wipe my spectacles and sip from a cup of invariably cold tea.

This toil is a heavy one. Each night for the last year has been Sisyphean. Just consider all the things that weigh down our hearts and lives: death, loss, sickness, angst, politics, financial hardships, grief, guilt, marital tension, traumatic events. Each a stress that we carry on our shoulders. Many of these burdens are inevitable and entirely outside our realm of control. Yet this weight seems heavier than the lot. I think of Frodo’s ring, of Joseph Merrick, of Prometheus having his liver munched daily by an eagle.

It is a burden I could drop but I cannot drop. It has become a purpose, a calling, a gnawing cancer for which no pill but slog exists.

And every night she sits there in her long, Victorian smock. She is radiant yet demure, powerful yet vulnerable, close yet distant. She never utters a word nor exchanges a glance. I tried to speak to her, but my words were stifled like Echo’s.

She dresses humbly yet she is the boss and the client. Unquestionably, I work for her not her for me.

I know it is pitch black beyond the illumination from the lamp and yet I can see her clearly. She looks like Adele Block-Bauer in Klimt’s Kiss. She is attractive, upright and ladylike. I sense a wounded pride. Such endless abuse and torture she has suffered but she has not grown the skin of an elephant to cope. She is wounded by every word. Her aura is saintly, her presence an apparition like at Lourdes or Medjugorje.

I am honoured by her presence, wondering, why me? Is this a chance at redemption for my most human of souls? Did the spirit of my late father or a Housemaster send her? Could this be Damascene? Or mere Tantalus?

She does not distract me although occasionally I look up to admire her beauty. I am used to her by now and she must be used to me. Once the cat saw her when she sneaked into the summer room behind me. Mouse – the cat – paid little attention to her but sniffed her well-worn boots, and she did not flinch, smile or grimace. She neither checks me like an invigilator nor forces me to slave.

I will look up for her towards the end of my night shifts with my papers – when the yawns escalate. And she will be gone. No sound. I have never seen her go. I imagine she vanishes with an ethereal puff – a light switching off, protons firing through a wall. Then she is not there.

Of course, I know her name.

I do not know if she knows mine.

I have come to love her, in a Platonic kind of way. Her presence is an accolade, a joy – amidst war.

I must treasure these nights. For in weeks they will be gone, as will her nightly visits, I have no doubt. And she will be missed. Let’s hope not mourned.

For this is England. And however packed and potent the darkness, there is at least one fellow sat there with a cantilever lamp.