The inheritance

Peter Ackroyd

I had been asked to write an article about tattooing — a difficult subject and one not quite to my taste, but I needed the money. The research, as always, was dreary: telephoning for appointments, trudging around tattoo parlours, thinking of new 'angles' and new questions, trying vainly to listen to the answers, 'Why did you choose this particular emblem?' Why torture yourself by having a crucifix Picked out on your skin?' All I could drag out of the old scarred men, the tattooists, the pale teenagers were a few embarrassed grunts and monosyllables. I was beginning not to care.

One afternoon I was in the tattoo parlour of an operator known in the 'trade' as Happy Harry, He was trying to impress. 'There is one man who could help you, but he'll never see you. No one outside is supposed to know about him.' Harry's knowing look was beginning to irritate me. This is an important bloke, he just comes in for a session and then he's off.' The tap in the sink was dripping, Mixing the garish residue of colours. The air was musty; it smelt of dyes long impregnated in the walls. I wanted to get away. 'So why is he so important?' I've never seen anything like it. His whole body's covered with them — portraits, snakes, women, the lot. But you'd never know — you'd have seen him in a suit.' Harry's face had a look of infinite craftiness when he emphasised the last word. When would I have seen him?"Oh, you would have seen him.' Harry winked — it was a kind of 'us' as opposed to 'him' wink. I didn't quite know what to make of it. 'Famous, then, is he?' Ask no questions and hear no lies'. The knowingness was becoming over-bearing. I made the ritual excuses and left.

Happy Harry phoned me a few days later. 'Listen, I've got a really good case coming to see me. He wants to have his tattoo taken off — and it's big one. It'll take all morning. Do you want to come and have a look?' Well, at least this was a new slant on what I now considered to be a rather sordid business. 'By the way, that gentleman I mentioned. He's very interested in what you're writing. He said he looks forward to reading it.' And what is this gentleman's name, so I can thank him for his interest?' You're not going to get me that way, my old mate. I'll see you next week.'

* * * Happy Harry's parlour is in Borough, down the Marsha'sea Road. I had read that some workers on a building site had just unearthed a Roman temple there, full of strange artefacts, but that isn't really my kind of thing. Whatever it once was, Marshalsea Road is now just another old, dark London street — a trucker's stop, a betting shop, a gym and some tenement housing. Harry's parlour was next door to the local social security office, one of those small government buildings which casts a shadow over its vicinity just as surely as if it were a cemetery. Harry greeted me, as always, with a slightly false smile. 'Well, old son, come to have a look, have we?' Harry's client was a man in his mid-fifties; he was stripped to the waist, and his back was decorated with a large portrait of the Virgin Mary. The image had worn badly and had faded in parts; Harry was going to strip it off entirely. It is not a pleasant process, with all the tannic acid and caustic pencils, but Harry enjoys his work. He slowly covered the Virgin's face with white paste. He didn't like to be disturbed during these long and delicate operations, and so the parlour was formally closed. Such procedures take a long time, and are accompanied by the unconscious noises of those who are wholly engaged in what they are doing — a low whistle from Harry, and grunts of pain from the enamelled victim. There was a tapping on the store-front window, 'Tell him to fuck off, will you?' Harry was absorbed. I went outside; a white-haired man had his back to the large window, and appeared to be studying the traffic which drove loudly past. 'I'm sorry, but the parlour's closed for the morning'. He turned around; he looked elderly and conventionally 'distinguished', and the face was familiar. 'Oh, you must be the journalist. Harry has told me all about you. I'm very pleased'. So this was the man. The famous man in the suit. I smiled; he smiled. He walked past me and into Harry's 'operating' room. 'Good morning, Harry, we won't disturb you. We'll talk in the front.'

He led me through. His manner, despite the strange circumstances of our meeting, was perfectly easy. We sat down on a cheap modern sofa, beneath various photographs of Harry's more colourful clients.

'Well, Mr Lambert, I hear you are writing about this peculiar subject.' He gestured at one of the pictures on the wall above us. 'You may think an industrialist is out of place here. Do you?'.

'No, not particularly. No more than anyone.' I knew now why he seemed familiar — the man was Alistair Hardy. He was the chairman of a large nationalised company, a familiar 'face'.

'Tattooing is a strange pastime, and it has many strange adherents. I suppose you could say that I was one of them.'

There was a television dealers across the street, and from Harry's shop-front window the same scene was displayed, in varying degrees of garish colour, on 15 or 16 screens.

'Did you come here to talk especially to me, Mr Hardy?'

'In a way yes, and in a way no.' The tone again was familiar, confiding, want to talk to you privately, if you understand me. I don't want to be mentioned in anything you care to write, but I may be able to help you nonetheless.'

Hardy was wearing a dark silk suit, the cuffs of his white silk shirt hovered just below his wrists, perhaps just inch too low. His plain tie had been carefully knotted. What had been Harry's description —`portraits, :snakes, women, the lot'? Hardy was saying something about the need for concealment, propriety. I had been looking at him, but had not listened to what he was saying, 'And so will you join me for lunch, Mr .Lambert? Harry is happier working alone.'

I am not at my best in restaurants. It is difficult for two people to find each other sufficiently interesting for an entire meal. I drink too much, and smoke other people's cigarettes. But Hardy's ease was infectious. We had gone to a rather seedy Italian restaurant just south of the Thames; the waiter was watching a small television set in the corner of the 'bar', and paid us little if any attention. '1 was first tattooed at the age of 14 — it was a small butterfly — although I can remember being interested in such things from much earlier on. It seemed such a natural thing to do, to decorate my body. My mother saw the device and was horrified; my schoolfriends laughed at me, Only then did I realise that it was something I would have to continue in secret, my only audience myself and, naturally, the tattooist. I suppose it would now be called an "obsession",' he used the word as though he had extracted it from some alien vocabulary, tut every tattoo I acquired seemed to call forth another, needed to be complemented. From the age of 19 I decided I would acquire one new tattoo each year. I am now 58, but I've kept to it'. I noticed that he pulled at his cuffs as he spoke, but this seemed to be a theatrical rather than a nervous gesture. He wasn't tense, he wasn't even diffident, he was addressing me in a curiously parental, affectionate manner. He talked about his public career, and the need for him to conceal the designs which now covered his entire body. Only his wife and his doctor, outside the tattooing fraternity, knew. Only in death would he be revealed, and the prospect seemed to please him.

'I don't know how you feel about such things, Mr Lambert, but I have never believed that human beings are confined to one life. You know this too, don't you? I look upon my double nature as a kind of test. I suppose I have been initiated'. This is not the kind of thing one tends to hear from industrialists, and I must have seemed a little surprised.

`You know, I have never discussed this with anyone before.' He seemed to be continually offering me something which I could not yet grasp, a gift which was as yet invisible.

'Neither have He laughed; it was the kind of laugh which acts as a signal, and we both rose. The Italian waiter grudgingly abandoned some 'television soapopera, and showed us out into the dank streets of South London. hardy left me by an underground station, but not before another of his bland surprises, 'I have a small flat in London, where I stay sometimes. I would like you to see my collection before you write your article. It might amuse you.'

Hardy telephoned me three days later. 'Are you free on Wednesday evening?' I wasn't, but he made it sound as if that was the last and only day which he could manage. I agreed to visit his flat, or hide-away, to witness the unveiling of his `collection'. He lived off the Kings Road — which seemed an appropriate enough place to see Hardy's secret, or at least covered, life. There is something wilful and uncaring about that part of London, and it could harbour Hardy's mysterious collection just as easily as it could encompass the smiling public man.

He lived on the top floor of a rather grand Georgian house. The flat itself was small but uncluttered: a few magazines, some stereo equipment, some innocuous looking books. Hardy looked as though he had just come out of a board meeting — the carefully pressed suit, the silk shirt and tie, the same rather engaging briskness. He was not very interested in small talk. 'Not even my wife has seen this collection, Mr Lambert. It has taken me some years to build, but in its way it is the best of its kind in the world.' He moved towards a small ivory cupboard, in a corner which I had not noticed, which had fierce-looking gargoyles carved on its sides. He unlocked it, and behind the white doors were a series of compartments or drawers — each of these,Itoo,was locked. He opened them, painstakingly, and handed me a number of files and transparent packages — containing engravings, photographs, drawings.

It was an extraordinary collection; quite how extraordinary I was not to know until later. Even at first glance I could see that here was a record of tattooing on a scale I could not possibly have envisaged. The backs of natives were emblazoned with the marks of the sky and the planets, there were portraits of kings and queens with tattoos (on their arms, their thighs) of extraordinary obscenity, engravings of corpses with cabbalistic tattoos so fresh that they could have been painted at the point of death, of unnamed men and women mapped with religious emblems, of scarred children. It was as if I had wandered into a planetarium, and seen the stars in the middle of the day. 'Perhaps you can understand something of my fascination with the subject, Mr Lambert,' — Hardy was looking at me with an expression of intense interest — 'and how, in a way, it has taken over the whole of my private life'. And, in a sense, I did understand: tattooing, I could see from the engravings themselves, was a secret art which could bless or maim its devotees. I imagined that Hardy thought himself blessed.

We talked for a while. It turned out that Hardy devoted a considerable amount of time to the study of the uses of tattooing in 'primitive' religion. The North Library of the British Museum was as private as his flat, and he could pursue his researches unnoticed and undisturbed. But, time, because of his public duties, was limited. He looked at me as though demanding some kind of response; I got the impression that time was the one thing he didn't have enough of. The rest of his conversation was unfathomable. The body of the tattooed man is in some way free from fault, according to ancient practice. By undergoing external suffering which transforms the physical body, the tattooed man receives blessings when he passes into • another life. Of course, you know, Mr Lambert, that life goes on — in one way or another. But I have discussed this with you before'. I remembered the engravings of the corpses, tattooed with hieroglyphics. 'And now,' he said, 'I'm afraid I must leave you. There are some people I must see'.

And yet there was still one question which I wanted to ask him. 'I believe that you are, yourself, elaborately tattooed.' I have been told so, although I'm hardly up to their standards' — he gestured toward the ivory cabinet. 'But you are, all the same, something of a rarity nowadays, aren't you?"Yes, I suppose you could say that.'

It was then, finally, that I understood. the joint interest which had brought us together. It was something which neither of us had cared to say, until now. 'May I photograph you? After all, your face needn't be seen.' I had been taking pictures to accompany the article, but nothing (as I thought) on this scale. 'Yes, Mr Lambert, I believe you can.'

That night, I dreamed that I was participating in a ceremony, the nature of which was mysterious to me. All I knew was that it must not end — not because it was enthralling but because the final act, the culmination, would be too dreadful to witness. I found myself behind some gates. There were many people on the other side, walking away across a bridge. my hands could just fit through the metal railings of the gate, but it would not open. I stood there like a suppliant, my white and unmarked hands on the other side.

Hardy phoned me a couple of days later. 'Well, Mr Lambert, where are we going to indulge your hobby?' His tone was famil" iar although hardly ingratiating. It was as if we were old acquaintances, fixing a date for dinner. I had felt slightly ill at ease about photographing Hardy, but his tone dispelled my anxieties about the whole business. We agreed that, since I had a certain amount of photographic equie` ment which might have to be used, he should come to my flat. We arranged to meet the following evening, for, as it were, the final unveiling. I had by now almost forgotten the article I was preparing — Hardy had taken over. I was intrigued (more than intrigued) by the fact that he had secretly marked his bodY over a great number of years: a private system of signs with their own internal coherence, a coherence, I hoped, which my camera might disclose; but somehow I doubted it. The ease with which he accepted my request to photograph the tatoos suggested that he did not expect their mystery, if that was what it was, t,0 be vouchsafed to me or my lens. But 111 this I was to be proved wrong. It was the early afternoon and in 11.1 eagerness, or nervousness, I was alreaq preparing for that evening's encounter., was shifting the furniture around the mall room of my flat when the front-door he rang, It was Hardy. He was leaning against the wall, his face was flushed. 'I feel very hot,' he muttered, almost to himself, as he walked in, 'This is a very hot day.' He seemed preoccupied, and paid very little attention to his surround ings or, for that matter, to me. He sat down on a chair by my desk. 'Did you want to be photographed now, Alistair?'

It was the first time I had used his Christian name. 'Yes, yes, can you do it now? I must get on with it.' I was a little alarmed by his behaviour; it was as if he were taking part in something with which I had nothing to do. 'I am very hot.' As if preparing for the photographs, he took off the jacket of his suit and let it drop to the floor. I took out my camera, and began adjusting it. He looked out of the window, started to remove his tie, and then stopped. He stared out of the window for a minute or more. I pretended not to notice, and carried on with my preparations. 'Why is it so hot?' He seemed to be addressing himself to the sky. I didn't answer. And then, quite suddenly but at what seemed an infinitely slow speed, he toppled onto the floor and lay there in a crouched position.

For a moment I thought he had fainted — his tie was half off, and his hands folded together. I knelt over him, felt his pulse, and there was no movement. His heart, too, had ceased to beat. I was surprised, now, by my own reaction, how calm I felt. He had died, I imagined, of a heart attack — how and why,! didn't know. It would be necessary to call an ambulance, although he was already dead. Would it be necessary to call the police? And, if so, what story would I tell them? Perhaps just the truth — that he had come here to be Photographed. And then something else struck me — why should his death prevent me from completing our task? He had made his way to me in the last moments of his life — he had entrusted me with his secret, had befriended me, and had now died in my presence. Surely such things are done with a purpose. I recalled the Pictures, in Hardy's collection, of the Chieftains in death, their bodies emblazoned with ritualised marks and sym bols.

I removed Hardy's tie altogether, and unbottoned his shirt; his chest was dominated by the tattoo of a plant, or bush, Which was also a human face. His arms Were covered with branches, which were also snakes. I turned him over with some difficulty. On his back was depicted a s.cene of three women, who seemed to be In mourning, and beside them was a casket picked out in gold. I undressed Hardy completely, and began to photograph his body — as one !nage, and then in sections. I knew that I had very little time, and that I would soon have to call for help. It was all over in a 'natter of minutes. It took some time to dress him again, to order his tie and trousers so that they looked relatively intact. I then called an ambulance and ran down — taking care to appear breathless — to rouse the porter. I knew what to say to the police: that Alistair Hardy had come to be interviewed, that it was to be 'off the record' and in the relative privacy of my flat. I hoped that they would suspect nothing (indeed there was nothing to suspect) — and, so it proved, I was right. The ambulance-men came within a few minutes, tried to revive him but, predictably, 'failed. They removed his shirt, as I had done some minutes before, but they seemed quite uninterested in the tattoos beneath. In any case, faces look curiously impersonal in death and they did not connect this particular body with the public figure of Mr Alistair Hardy. The next morning two policemen came. They had already found my name in his appointments diary, and were satisfied with the explanation I gave them. It seems that he had had a massive coronary attack — unusual at his age, but not unknown. They did not mention the tattooing. I next saw Hardy's face in the obituary columns.

I phoned my editor and, with appropriate apologies, I confessed that I couldn't make any head-way on the proposed article. Perhaps on some other occasion... By now, however, I had developed my photographs of Hardy; they showed him as relaxed in death as he had been in life. I had not, under the circumstances, done a bad job. — the tattoos themselves were clear and sharp. But they still puzzled me — they seemed to represent a code which I could not quite decipher.

Five week later I received a letter from Alistair Hardy's widow. It was to the point: 'My late husband left instructions that you should inherit the photographic collection which he kept in London. I have instructed our solicitors to act accordingly.' The cabinet arrived a week later.

I opened it at once and went through the material, but there was too much to comprehend in one session. I looked again at my own photographs of Hardy, and understood what had previously eluded me; they were indecipherable in themselves. The tattoos had puzzled me because they were incomplete. They belonged with the collection. It would take many years to collate and interpret the wealth of material which Hardy had presented me at the point of his death, and in any case the secret which he offered me might still be beyond my power to grasp. The only thing to do was to begin at the beginning. I looked through the pictures one more time, and then phoned Happy Harry. I suggested the design of a tattoo which I wished to have placed on my chest. He agreed to work on me the following morning