One January night, standing in the middle of the bridge and looking down into the churchyard, I saw three scraps of white in the darkness. At first I couldn’t decide what they were, then one of the scraps shifted, developing a head and arms, and in that same moment I remembered someone telling me that White People were often to be found in cemeteries. Various theories had been put forward, the most obvious being that they instinctively identified with dead people. After all, one could argue that White People were dead too. Dead in the eyes of the authorities, at least. Bureaucratically dead. As I watched, the three figures moved behind a row of yew trees, then they appeared again, their white cloaks showing in stark relief against one of the grander tombs. Thinking it might be interesting to observe them at close range, I crossed the bridge, swung a leg over the churchyard wall — the gate would have made too much noise — and stepped down into coarse grass. I wasn’t sure why I was so curious, or what it was I hoped to learn. I felt compelled, though — guided even. It was as if my body comprehended something that my mind did not.
I crept slowly forwards, crouching among the gravestones. I imagined this would be, among other things, a test of their psychic powers. Would they detect my presence? And if they did, what then? My heart beat harder, as though there was the possibility of danger. As I reached the yew trees, the moon rolled out into a patch of clear sky, and I saw them ahead of me, passing through a gap in the fence at the back of the cemetery. Now, perhaps, I could close the distance between us. I ran to the fence, then knelt in the shadow of an overgrown holly bush to catch my breath. I could hear them on the other side. There weren’t any words, just odd little grunts and snuffles. No wonder some people thought of them as animals.
I stole a look over the fence. Clouds hung before me, rimmed in silver. To my right was the bridge, the black river flowing underneath. I lifted my head a fraction higher. There they were, below me. They had removed all their clothes, and they were standing in the shallows, two men and a woman. Pale as stone or marble, they looked like damaged statues, half their legs gone, the tips of their fingers too. They began to wash themselves. They didn’t hurry, despite the fact that it was winter, and I wondered whether they had lost the ability to feel the cold, along with everything else. The river swirled around their knees with the dark glint of crude oil. I was struck by how methodical and self-contained they were. Their nakedness had no sexual overtone. In fact, they behaved as unselfconsciously as children. There was also an understated dignity about the scene which I found strangely poignant, and which gave me the feeling, just for a moment, that I was looking at a painting. These people had nothing — nothing, that is, except their freedom, the license to go wherever they pleased … As I watched them, an idea occurred to me. I wouldn’t do anything just yet, though. No, I would wait. I needed to think things through. Prepare myself.
I had been standing by the fence for about five minutes when the woman’s body stiffened. She had been bent over, scooping water on to her back, first over one shoulder, then the other, but now, suddenly, she had frozen, one hand braced on her thigh, the other still dangling in the river. Her head turned towards me. My chest locked, all the breath held deep inside. I didn’t think she’d seen me. She acted more as if she’d picked up the scent of something foreign, something that didn’t belong. Her eyes still angled in my direction, she slowly straightened up and, tilting her head sideways, wrung out the thick cable of her hair. Black water spilled from between her hands. Without even exchanging a glance, the two men stopped washing and began to wade towards the bank.
I ducked down, then hurried off through the churchyard. I wasn’t embarrassed, or even afraid exactly — Victor had always maintained that White People were peaceful and harmless, and that people only feared them out of ignorance — but at the same time I didn’t want to risk a confrontation. Vaulting over the wall, I kept low until I reached the far end of the bridge. There was nobody in the river now, and the cemetery lay quiet and dark and still. They must have fled along the bank. I glanced at the watch Clarise had given me for Christmas. Twenty-five to twelve. It had been time for me to leave in any case, or she’d start worrying. She could never rest easy in her bed until she was sure that all her boys were home.
On arriving back, I saw that the downstairs lights had been switched off. I unlocked the front door, locked it again behind me and was just making for the stairs when a figure stepped away from the banisters.
‘You’re up to something, aren’t you?’ Horowicz’s face rose out of the grey gloom of the hall.
‘I’ve been out for a walk,’ I said, ‘as usual.’
He gave me a knowing look, then laughed softly, cynically, and shook his head. ‘You can’t fool me, Wig. I’ve been watching you.’
After a brief silence, I moved past him and started to climb the stairs. When I reached the landing, he was still standing in the hall, looking up at me, his eyes glinting in the half-light like a drawer full of knives.
In recent years, Iron Vale had become home to the Museum of Tears, and it was the inalienable right of every melancholic, no matter where they might live, to have a sample of their tears stored within the museum walls. All you had to do was write to the curators, enclosing proof of identity. They would send you an air-tight glass vial, no bigger than a lipstick. The next time you cried, you collected your tears and transferred them to the vial. Some people waited for an important event — the death of a loved one being the most obvious, perhaps — but it was up to you to choose which aspect of your melancholy nature you wanted to preserve. When it was done, you sealed the vial and returned it to the museum, where it would be catalogued and then put on display, along with millions of others.
One evening towards the end of January, we were sitting in the front room, all nine of us, when Horowicz launched a vitriolic attack on the museum. He thought it self-indulgent, overblown — a total waste of tax-payers’ money. What was there to look at? Row after row of tiny bottles, each containing more or less the same amount of more or less the same transparent fluid. You could hardly call it an attraction, he said. If anything, there was something repellent about the whole idea.