In the mornings, from my bedroom window, I observed how strange bright-eyed Carl went trotting off, hopping along the goat path, waving to the harvesters, returning in an hour or two with a package or a basket or no more than a bulge in his pocket, which mystery would be delivered up the stairs, across the chute, knock knock, and greeted with exclamation either of triumph or reproof.

He had the most extraordinary hands, Carl, so long and thin you might think he needed another set of knuckles. Sumper treasured this boy. He called him Genius and Spirit and other extravagant expressions that led me to believe that it was with those unworldly hands that Percy's machine was being constructed.

Without looking up from her darning needle Helga said: "Show him our new post box, M. Arnaud."

"Directly," Arnaud replied, but then he wandered off. I was still in that same room at supper when he finally returned.

After the remains of the meal had been cleared away, I announced that I would leave to find the post box by myself.

The fairytale collector leapt to his feet.

"Do you have your letters ready, Herr Brandling?"

I saw that the wretch was now dressed "for town," with waistcoat and breeches of dark green velveteen, stout boots, and a broad leather belt which he now took in a notch around his narrow waist.

"I do not have stamps," I said.

"We have stamps in beautiful colours," said the fairytale collector. "It is for England that they are required. Two letters I think?"

You have known this all day, I thought. Soon it will be dark.

"We will need a lantern."

"No need."

"There will be a moon?"

"I have the eyes of a cat," the queer man said. And we descended into the spray and chaos of the gorge.

When, minutes later, we emerged, the world was alight with golden straw. One could hear the birds again, the light clink of the chain that tethered three dwarf goats beside the stream.

"My mother was a cat," said the fairytale collector, as if he had made the most common observation.

I made no riposte but in truth I have a horror of fairy stories not because I believe them but because I cannot stop myself imagining the evil stepmother, say, being forced to dance inside her red-hot iron shoes. What cruelties we humans practise every day.

The village turned out to be very near. I deposited Percy's letters in an iron box with golden ta.s.sels like a General. Then we turned the corner of a lane and I beheld the quaint houses pressed together, the pointed roofs with their projecting eaves, the wooden staircases, and, drenched in the last rays of the setting sun, a glorious yellow inn, now glowing golden.

"The inn is not too far, Herr Brandling," he said shyly, and I finally understood why he had made me wait all day.

THE COLLECTOR OF ANCIENT cruelties was a mere smidgen, a tiny creature, with a ma.s.s of curling salt-and-pepper hair. At the sawmill he had not seemed any more eccentric than anybody else, but at this village inn he cut a most unusual figure, soft-skinned, half man, half child, with his head in perfect proportion to the whole.

At the sawmill he had been completely at his ease. At the inn he was as nervous as a bird, its heart always pattering as if everything, even a single grain of wheat, might pose a mortal risk. Perhaps he saw the possibility of violence in the schnapps bottles, or perhaps it was his Protestant bones in a Catholic atmosphere, or the excessive smoke, or the fearsome physiognomies-Jews and Germans playing cards, arguing, in too many languages to count.

The mistress of the inn, a stout bustling little missus like you see in the old engravings, greeted M. Arnaud very fondly, found him a table, and brought us cheese and small beer before we had a chance to ask. I said how very nice she was.

Arnaud leaned close toward my ear.

What did I know of Herr Sumper? Why had I brought my plans to him? Why had I not commissioned a Karlsruhe clockmaker where the sort of work I wished could have been more surely done?

I thought, whoa Dobbin. I did not need my confidence undone.

I asked him how he came into Sumper's circle.

He spilled some volatile oils onto a handkerchief and dabbed at his cartilaginous nose. In the candlelight his nostrils seemed alight with blood.

Why, he demanded, had I not asked Sumper for letters of reference?

I was perhaps naive but I saw where the road was heading: he was saying that I had made myself the quarry of a gang of criminals. He would rescue me, for a price.

As he spoke, he leaned forward, but looked down in the manner of a hen who spied a likely worm.

Had I not been troubled to learn how Herr Sumper had fled the village years before?

He did not look at me. He sipped his beer fastidiously. He said he had not taken me to be the reckless type.

I a.s.sured him I was not.

Just the same, he said, as if excusing me: Herr Sumper was a big man. People were frightened to say a word against him. It was very, very hard to find the truth.

He darted a glance across his shoulder as if he was in danger of being victimized whereas, in fact, his sole purpose was-surely-to have me as his prey.

Was HE not frightened?

Oh no. Fairytale collectors were accustomed to the most dangerous situations. It was these violent types, here, in the inn, who were frightened of Sumper. On the clockmaker's return from England he had been "opinionated." He had claimed to be "better qualified" which astonished those who had not previously imagined that a man would be "qualified" to be a clockmaker, no more than ride a donkey or void their bowels.

A less brutal man would not have survived, but Herr Sumper was Herr Sumper. He never went to a dance without first stuffing into his long pockets a dozen of the heavy iron axes-Speidel they are called-used for splitting wood, and so even the notorious quarry men kept out of his way. Sumper's greatest happiness was to dance for twenty-four hours without stopping, or rather to stop only so long as there were pauses between the dances. During these opportunities he drank unceasingly, quart after quart of wine.

In order to know what he had to pay, he tore off a b.u.t.ton each time, first off his red waistcoat, and then off his coat, and redeemed them at the end of the evening from the landlord.

As this was the man I had commissioned to save my Percy, I did not wish to hear that the site of the old sawmill was the most "backward" part of the district. The fairytale collector perhaps sensed this for now he said there could be no more perfect place to perform advanced work in secret. It was already believed that Sumper had used his isolation to hide his secret trade in blasphemous cuckoo clocks.

This did not comfort me at all. I asked him what such a thing would look like.

M. Arnaud could not guess. But it would be, he said, totally consistent with the clockmaker's irreligious nature. As for his technical abilities-whenever Sumper's conversations touched on matters with which Arnaud was well acquainted-metallurgy for instance-he had found Sumper to be in no sense primitive. Indeed the opposite.

Was he as "advanced" as he boasted?

Arnaud did not answer me.

Instead he told me that Sumper's old father had been as ignorant as any saw miller and was as violent as his son. His chief pleasure consisted in rolling up into b.a.l.l.s the tin plates used at dinner at different inns.

On the most notorious occasion, he ordered the younger Sumper not to go dancing at a wedding but to attend to the business of the sawmill instead. I would have noticed, at the mill, the logs had not been floated, but that was only because Sumper had now let the mill to Proudhonists and they could not agree on anything. Those logs should have been sent floating down the river weeks before my arrival. They would then have const.i.tuted rafts one hundred yards long-nine logs wide at the stern, three logs wide at the bow. It was in order to supervise the construction of such a raft that the father had sent Heinrich Sumper home from the wedding.

This was when the son decided to "step aboard" as the saying was. As far as anyone could gather young Sumper never said goodbye to his father or mother, and rather than guiding the raft to any customary destination, he (according to the police report) rode it down into the Rhine (which was, I soon realized, geographically impossible). He stepped ash.o.r.e somewhere, with what money no one knew, and somehow made his way to England, which is where he claimed to have received his exalted education.

It was still not forgotten that logs had been stolen and his parents were left the poorer. Perhaps he repaid them with his English gold, but who can say? Later a letter from London was seen at the post office. Naturally this could not be opened by anyone but his parents, and when they both died ten years later the lawyer could not find a letter, only a will which had never been amended.

Thus the unfilial son inherited the sawmill.

During our conversation Arnaud continually ordered whatever dish he liked. He cut white cheese into exceedingly thin slices and I watched him nip them with his small rat-catcher's teeth.

Arnaud said that no one was in a better position than himself to help me. He intimated that he was far more powerful than he might appear.

So, I thought, as he ordered one more small beer, he is a spy for some Baron perhaps. He began to whisper about Frau Helga. Well, let him gossip if he wished, although I told him frankly that the woman was of no importance in my life. But yes, it was Frau Helga's foolish husband, M. Arnaud revealed, who had taken little Carl to witness the "victory" of the workers in their so-called revolution. Thus he was shot dead before her very eyes and the bullet, before penetrating the husband's heart, severely injured the baby's leg.

Being a member of that cruel race of fairytale collectors, he was very pleased by this disaster. He pursed his lips. He sliced his cheese. I was so angry that I could not pay attention to the story until the mother and orphan came to Furtw.a.n.gen where she had an uncle who had once been kind to her. Unfortunately, the fairytale collector said, on the day before her arrival, the uncle dropped dead in the middle of the town square.

Unfortunately? I thought. But is this not exactly the type of nastiness valued by your guild? The child is orphaned. The child dies. The child is lost in the forest. The child walks with a limp forever.

Small men are the cruellest. He told me how Helga had been given shelter by the priest, and I thought, good heavens, thank the Lord at least for that, but of course the priest then threw her out.

I thought, you are a miserable little dung beetle, forever collecting the misery of the poor.

Then or soon thereafter I thought, to h.e.l.l with you. Do not presume that I will pay the bill. I walked out of the inn and of course I went out the wrong door and then had no idea where I was. Lost again, lost always. Great buffoon. The little fellow found me and led me home, his mother was a cat. What will happen when we die? Who will ever tell the truth?

Henry & Catherine.

I WAS A RICH MAN, Henry Brandling wrote and Catherine read, and therefore attracted the usual pests. And yet my past and present fears and agonies were nothing in comparison to those suffered by this poor German woman.

Catherine understood that Henry was referring to Frau Helga.

She and I, wrote Henry Brandling in 1854, both knew how a child could sing to your soul and twist your veins and fill you with continual dread and trepidation. I had seen her lay her hand upon Carl's shoulder, cup her hand around his golden head. This was something M. Arnaud could not know.

What conceit, thought Catherine Gehrig, in London, 156 years later, off her face with rage and cognac. How truly pathetic, his pompous discrimination: the love for a child is better than the love for an adult. How could it be?

The poor dull blind posh fool had never guessed his reader would be a woman with no children. Please don't tell me that I don't know love, or that the love I know is of a minor kind. I am eviscerated by love.

I threw the book across the room. It flew into the kitchen, its acid paper pages shattering like dead leaves.

Let Matthew see what he has done to me.

After the catastrophe with the book, the only undamaged paper was a receipt in which Sumper was t.i.tled Monsieur Sumper. It recorded the purchase of a large amount of silver.

It was intolerable that these crooks should rob Henry in this way, but also it was offensive, if understandable, for Henry to go on with this nonsense about children. He did not quite say that parental love was superior to other loves, but it was clearly his a.s.sumption. Of course I wished him no unhappiness. I pitied him. But it is true, in general, that these child lovers make themselves deaf and blind to the likely conclusion of these relationships which so often end in heroin, suicides, boredom or estrangement. All those awful fights are waiting for them, when all the poor dears wanted was a perfect love.

When I saw men Matthew's age and older, I hated them for being alive. Yet I had never expected we would live forever, the opposite. Each morning I was given Matthew I held him, contained him like a prayer, filled my lungs with him, his leg between my legs so I brushed him-what other word to use?-to be clearer would be vulgar-brushed him ever so gently and he would rest his nose just by my eye, just there, adjacent those intensely complicated factories, the tear glands, I love you, I love you, I love you every morning, every night.

I had seen my father die. When you have spent days in intensive care you do not easily forget how the body works and how it fails. Afterwards you easily imagine the oxygen-rich blood, the colour of the fluids which swim all around you, inside me, inside him. I had seen Matthew's eyes narrow in pa.s.sion, the beloved face, the tall rough tender body, the hard silkiness of him, I would have drunk him dry.

We both were conceited about our ecstatic pragmatism. We had no souls but we were in the moment, like an ocean wave, like animals we would have said, how perfect we were, we thought, glowing with our love. How unfair we had no souls.

Near Beccles, in the summer, with the silver early light playing off the insulation foil, he would want me from behind and then he would cup his hands around my stomach and I would think, he wants me to be pregnant.

He had his own children all safely tucked in boarding schools where he could write them love letters. Sometimes I lost weekends, when he brought them up to the stables to work with him, two precious days excised from my life. I loved him for how he loved them, but sometimes I would think they were spoiled brats. When the mathematical son complained he was bored by Beccles I was indignant, but very, very happy I could have my place again.

Perhaps, I thought, Matthew's love for his sons was a superior love, sometimes. But there is no end to what I thought. For instance, I had dreams there was a woman's body buried underneath the floor of the stables. In my dream I had murdered her and then forgotten.

I should never have thrown Henry Brandling's notebook across the room. No one, not Matthew, particularly not Matthew, would believe me capable of it. No one would believe any conservator in any situation would ever do such a thing. It launched into the air, fluttering, beyond the reach of technical salvation, breaking apart even as it flew. It died in mid-air and when it hit the floor it became like the wings of so many moths and I cried, knowing what I had done, not as a conservator, but as a poor drunk woman in a rage with a decent man.

I found the vodka where I had hidden it from myself. It was probably after midnight, I thought. I wished I had cocaine. I would have liked to half destroy myself with rot and pleasure and as I drank the vodka I thought Herr Brandling has not bothered to explain the copper cables and I may never get to the end of them. But then I thought, Henry you are thick as a brick. Really, what an extraordinary man to come to a sawmill in the Black Forest and to describe COPPER CABLES like tent ropes, going from the roof into BOXES on the earth and not once (not so far) had he asked a soul what these cables were for.

I remember you, my Matty T. I remember making love with you. I remember your grey eyes, slitted at first then opening so wide, and the pink lovely tunnel of your mouth. You had not one single filling. My mouth was filled with black amalgam. I remember your cries pulsing inside my body. I remember you held me on the station at Waterloo while I sobbed and shouted. I remember you made me still and calm. I remember you left me in the taxi and I thought that I would die.

I forget you are dead. I forget Henry Brandling is dead. I sweep up his crumbling ashes in the clever little Oxo pan. I thought it so beautifully designed. What a ba.n.a.l life I have lived, being happy about a dust pan, never knowing that I would use it to sweep up Henry Brandling's bones and ashes and dump them in the bin.

HERE IS ALL THAT remains of Frau Helga's history as relayed to Henry Brandling, as arranged on my kitchen table in north Lambeth in April 2010.

Frau Helga had not been working at the inn two days when the priest (said) she could not stay under his roof any longer be(cause) she was a barmaid. But if the priest had any memory he would know he had not behaved exactly as he should. Accidentally she had scratched his face.

The mistress ... let her sleep in the kitchen of the inn. The other barmaid was a divorced woman who had run away because her husband ...

The other barmaid suggested to Frau Helga that they should live together at Sumper's Mill which was abandoned.

The mill ... wind blew all manner of machinery clanked ... groaned ... the other barmaid returned to her husband ... alone ... someone dragging furniture around the floor ... Helga's baby sleeping ... an iron poker and go down the stairs ... a man ... dancing ... falling down drunk.

She stayed hidden in shadow ... she would have to kill him ... throw the body in the river ...

Give me the poker, the stranger said to her. Then he took the solid iron poker and bent it across his knee like a celery stick. He bent the iron bar and his face was red and he showed his big teeth in the middle of his beard. Do not be afraid he said.

That was all I, Catherine, could retrieve. I fell asleep at the table, awoken by a knocking on the door. I thought, Matthew. It's how he came, not often, sometimes. I was terrified, stock-still and sweaty, mouth dust-dry, throat adhering. The blinds and window were open to the garden so anyone could see.

Then he-whoever-was in the area going through my recycling. I heard bottles clinking and was actually, incredibly, ashamed. I crawled on my knees into my bedroom and left the kitchen lights ablaze.

My sick leave was a horror. In the morning I knew I could not use it. I ate dry toast to cushion the painkillers and, having left the shameful jigsaw on the kitchen table, got myself to the tube where the claustrophobia tried to crawl back in. I thought, I cannot do this job. I thought, I have no choice.

At Security my physical destruction provoked bonhomie. I thought nothing but a shot of vodka is going to make me plausible.

I shared the lift with the tiny sporty lesbian from Ceramics-Heather, I think. She was so bright and filled with life. She had bicycled to work and I could see it took everything to stop her running on the spot.

"Bit rough?" she asked me.

I thought, she has such lovely perfect skin. She has no idea she is going to die.

"Did you fly through the volcano?"

If I had seen a newspaper I might have known there had been a vast eruption in Iceland, that the airlines of the world were grounded, but I did not need to read the Guardian to get the joke. She meant I was hungover. I had been slaughtered, legless, trolleyed, slashed, shedded, plastered, polluted, p.i.s.sed. I thought, I do love my country's relationship with alcohol. How would I ever exist in the United States? I suppose I would have grief counselling instead.

My ID card had no idea of my chemical condition. It opened two high-security doors as if I were completely sane and sober. My own studio, of course, was quite unlocked, unlockable.

I thought I will feel like this forever.

It was just on nine o'clock when I donned my rubber gloves and examined the first of the gla.s.s rods which it was absolutely not my job to clean.