Roger Stutton, his mother’s only brother had been the family’s sole significant relative; his father was an only child. For Dryden his uncle had always been a painful reminder of his mother: the same tall, slightly forward-angled frame, the soft green eyes and the same brittle grey hair, white at the edge of the forehead.
Dryden saw him now, footless through the ground mist, coming home from the fields down by the river. Overhead the sky was clearing, revealing that particular shade of Fabergé blue only possible after a mist has been burnt off by the sun. A crow called from the poplars by the house and the figure stopped, shouting Dryden’s Christian name just once, but the echo came once, twice, and a third time.
A minute later they were closer. ‘Philip,’ he shouted again, raising a hand, hiding a smile, and Dryden knew it had been too long. Another debt he’d left unpaid. They were together quickly, fumbling a handshake.
‘Mum’s stuff,’ said Dryden. ‘I should have called…’
Stutton swept the apology aside. ‘You’re busy. It’s not going anywhere, is it? The barn – the old barn,’ he added, walking off towards the house.
Stutton was in his mid sixties now, and ran a car-breaking business out of the farmyard, having sold the land beyond to one of the big salad-crop companies in the eighties. The eviscerated bodies of wrecked cars littered half an acre beyond the garden. An industrial crusher stood idle in the middle, over which scurried a large water rat. Dryden could smell petrol and rotting upholstery, and he felt a pang of loss for the summers at Buskeybay.
Beyond the house stood a half-brick barn, black with creosote.
‘Business?’ asked Dryden, trying to be interested in the answer as Stutton searched for the key.
‘Better’n farming,’ said Stutton, freeing the padlock. ‘I’ll sell up one day.’
Inside the mist had crept under the doors and hung in the half-light, a thin layer of cloud a foot above the dung-caked floor. Dryden shivered, feeling a needle shot of pain between his shoulders. The barn’s layout was simple. Two haylofts, one at either end, with a two-storey storage space in the middle. A single dormer window, covered by moss, radiated a thin green light. Dryden climbed a metal safety ladder into the far loft, followed by Stutton, who threw a switch to light a neon strip in the timber roof above. Between them they lifted aside a green tarpaulin and several dust sheets, revealing what looked like the entire contents of a cheap antiques and bric-à-brac shop. Dryden threaded his way amongst the tea-crates, crammed with nicotine-brown newspaper. He picked at the rotted paper revealing dusty crockery, rusted kitchen scales, a sickly glazed Victorian vase, some candlesticks, pewterware, a large brass wall plate. Lifting a cheap gilt picture frame he studied the scene by the flickering neon: Constable’s haywain trundled towards Flatford Mill.
‘Worth a fortune, this,’ he said.
‘And these,’ said Stutton, lifting a wooden mangle in one hand, an old Singer sewing machine in the other.
‘Is it all Mum’s? I’m sorry – I should have done something sooner. It’s been years,’ said Dryden. Four years since the funeral. He had left it too long, reluctant to sever too brutally the few physical ties which remained with his own past.
Stutton shook his head. ‘It’s not just your mum’s. All the family, really – it’s just sort of collected here.’ He cleaned the dust from the brittle glass mantel of a gas lamp. ‘Dad must have chucked this out in ’49 when we got the electric. And that’s Grandad’s,’ he said, pointing at a porcelain washbowl set in a cabinet.
They stood in silence, the dust drifting across the harsh beams of neon.
‘Are you really going to sell up?’ asked Dryden.
His uncle nodded. ‘There’s an offer. Two. Why not?’
‘We should get rid of it all,’ said Dryden. ‘I know someone who does clearances. They can auction the best. Anything you want, just take. I’m done with it,’ he added, kicking a crate, but unable to stop himself stroking the mane of a threadbare rocking horse. ‘Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll get things moving,’ he added, fingering Thomas Alder’s business card in his shirt pocket.
They climbed down and stood below in the gloom, Dryden caressing his creaking knees. He stood, feeling along a wooden post in the half-light, knowing he’d find the right switch. A single bulb flickered on, startling a dove which clattered up into the rafters.
They stood together, united in the memory. The theatre, his theatre, the perfect childhood playground: the painted cherubs, the carved pale-purple grapes, the silver-paper trumpets and the gilded vine leaves that decorated the wings, and above the crudely constructed proscenium arch, the letters picked out in wartime standard-issue whitewash: La Scala. A rustic Italianate scene was now the only backdrop, etched out in pastels on the damp-plastered wall. A temple stood in a grove of Cypress trees, a patch of damp partly obscuring a dancing girl. A rusted oil lantern hung from the rafters above, its forward-facing glass painted lime green.