Excerpt: Infinite Monkeys

Dog Star

In a small village, with only a few choices of social space, what was available developed its own atmosphere and regular visitors. Of course, there was the church (strangely, about a mile outside the village), the school, the library, the community hall, etc – but the traditional meeting places remained the pubs.

There had been a third pub, called The Goat and Compasses, but that had closed many years before, and now the village remained divided between the two remaining.

The locals, the older residents, and the more wealthy of the ‘newcomers’ (with their second homes) tended to use The Freemasons, whereas the younger people, tourists and visitors, outsiders and away teams and such – seemed more attracted to The Saracen’s Head. There were no hard and fast rules, and people sometimes migrated from one clique to another, or managed to feel welcome at both. Most people retained their loyalties, and you could assess most people by finding out where they went to drink or meet their friends. To some, it was as important as the distinction between Protestant and Catholic in Northern Ireland.

So when Phil invited Dog to come over to The Freemasons, he felt a little uneasy. When living on site, even his smartest gear would no doubt appear scruffy to the residents. So he braced himself, and approached the forbidden (or forbidding, at least) door. He stopped briefly, and standing on one leg, with the other leg bent behind, he polished the toes of his shoes on the back of his trousers – first one, then the other, like a little dance.

As he went up the three steps, between the two pillars, he looked up to the keystone over the door, which had a rather worn coat-of-arms carved in it, slightly indistinct, but he could make out the letter G in the middle, and what looked like a pair of compasses, and, in a scroll beneath, the words “Audi, Vide, Tace”.

“Bloody Latin!” he mumbled under his breath. To Dog, Latin remained the language of the oppressors, from the Romans all the way to the Normans and their fancy French ways. And the Catholic Church had kept Latin as its secret language, only understood by priests and lawyers and doctors and such. The common folks used the short, blunt Saxon words, like the Brits before them. Latin was merely obscure, and the Latinate languages fancy and evasive. Still, modern English had deep roots in the language, so he had a guess at the meaning. He knew he was merely delaying entering.

Audi – got to be hearing; Vide is seeing. Tace, tace, tace…hmm tactile? Touch?? Dunno.

Beneath the Coat of Arms was a more modern sign, a slim blue board, engraved with gold lettering: Proprietor: R.A.Webster.

Accepting the fact that he could delay no longer, he pushed through the door into a kind of foyer. To the right, through a glass-panelled door, he could see a rather grand room, with candelabras, and posh folks around tables, some eating, some drinking, and he felt immediately repulsed, as if by an invisible force – the force of class and style and wealth. He had the uncanny feeling that if he did open that door then some Guardian of the Threshold would discretely arrive to challenge his entry, and either eject him, or at least politely indicate that he did not belong, and should seek elsewhere.

So he turned to the left, where he could see a room which looked more like a pub. Fussy, to be sure, with some kind of flock wallpaper with fleur-de-lys patterns, and pseudo-candles on the walls, which made the horse-brasses (horse brasses!) hanging each side of the fireplace twinkle and glitter. Still, the people looked more relaxed, the chatter sounded friendlier, and he could see at least one person under 50, a pleasant looking woman chatting animatedly with a ‘jolly uncle’ type with a rather splendid grey moustache, and what looked like a yachting blazer (he turned out to be captain of the bowls team).

Dog pushed the door open, and no-one even looked up, or turned their heads, so he had time to take in the fact that even the floor had carpet (he was used to pubs that wouldn’t dare put carpet on the floor) in another vivid pattern (it was rather a busy-looking room) which seemed like a slightly Escheresque kind of tile pattern or chequerboard of Necker cubes. He’d have preferred to look at that when stoned, but for this meeting he had deliberately stayed straight as a die, so he lunged towards the bar, to grab an equaliser. The range of beers wasn’t as good as at The Saracen’s (by his standards) so he settled for a bottle of Tanglefoot decanted into a glass, which he clutched as a reassuring anchor and prop while hovering back into the room looking for somewhere to settle.

He ended up by the fireplace. It was a fairly humble hearth, not lit now, of course, and the wrought-iron basket had a vaguely artistic pile of bits of nature, twigs and heather and such – taking the place of coal and logs. The horse brasses did seem slightly more authentic and lived-in that the usual tat that he had seen around London. Perhaps they really had seen a working horse?

He placed his beer on a mat on the mantelpiece, next to a small brass set of the Three Wise Monkeys.

Huh, he thought. See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil. What kind of a philosophy was that? Pretty good if you had witnessed a murder in Chinatown (it reminded him of Manuel’s “I know nothing!”), but probably more suited to people with property, pensions, savings and investments, who didn’t want to know about the relative poverty of others that this involved – slamming their hands over their ears whenever he brought the subject up, saying at the top of their voice “I can’t HEAR you!”

Dog was only vaguely left-wing, more anarchic, but he still carried a fair deal of cynicism about the way of the world, and certainly felt uncomfortable in these surroundings.

He looked across at the rather straight-looking, but attractive, woman, still deep in conversation with the jolly toper. She felt his eyes on her and glanced up, without breaking her flow. She noticed a sheepish young man, uneasily standing by the fireplace, and he glanced away the minute she raised her eyes, staring at those damned monkeys.

What a lot of nonsense, she thought. As bad as ‘children should be seen and not heard’. Shut your senses to all that surrounds you. “I can’t look!” “I am not listening!” “Whoops, did I say that?” The body language of the monkeys so familiar that she could have asked her class of five year olds to mimic the monkeys and they could do it without being prompted. No problem.

She turned her attention back to her conversation. The old gent with the ruddy cheeks, kind eyes, and resplendent moustache followed her eyes, and glanced over his shoulder, then looked back at her and smiled.

A rather scruffy youth, but pleasant enough, he thought, she must sometimes get bored with an old duffer like me as her only company.

They had been talking about her planned treasure hunt, and how best to set it up.

“As long as it doesn’t involve trampling around on, or digging up, the bowling green,” he said, “I’m all for it. Get them out of the school-room and into the fields.”

She had sought his advice because she knew he did crossword puzzles really rapidly, and rumours had it that he hadn’t been military exactly, but something to do with intelligence and cryptography. She had always been too polite to delve into that side of his past, but this now seemed an opportunity to glean just a little of his experience, and perhaps even get a glimpse of what he had really been up to. He didn’t give much away. He was a past master of the evasive conversation – but she liked him, unlikely some of the slimy types that came to the Freemasons, the nouveau rich with their second homes, the county set with their attitudes of superiority, he seemed on the level.

“I want them to have to use maps, and their ingenuity, to follow a trail. I don’t just want hidden Easter eggs, or one big prize that someone might stumble over too quickly or anything. I also don’t want them to end up envious about someone getting a big reward, and all that. I prefer the idea that everyone is a winner of sorts, even if some of them complete the tasks quicker, or more easily”. She still hadn’t clarified in her mind exactly what she had planned.

“Hmm.” He said. "What you need is a series of drop-points, with cut-offs and clues – so the kids might take different routes to the same goal. They need a series of steps, so they all get some sense of achievement. They need to find a balance between co-operation (sharing what they’ve learned) and a certain self-sufficiency (trusting their own judgement, and keeping their own counsel, and learning to keep a secret). Nothing wrong with a little competition to get the old adrenaline pumping,” he wheezed a goat-like laugh, “but you don’t want them fighting about it, or cheating, or removing, changing or destroying clues for people who come after them…”

“I knew you were the person to ask.”

She glance up. She could see that the young guy with the long hair had half overheard their conversation, but he was trying to look as though he wasn’t listening. Again, he blushed slightly, and turned to examine the monkeys more closely, even picking them up for inspection.

He started, and she noticed him flinch slightly, then look puzzled, place them back on the mantelpiece, and place his cupped hand on his chin as if in deep thought. She knew he was vaguely conscious (even now) of being watched, and that each gesture had become slightly stylised and emblematic. He raised his eyes as if seeking inspiration, dropped his hand from his face, picked up his pint, and finally his eyes returned to hers, only to find her still watching, amused. He smiled back, why not.

Again, the old man looked over his shoulder, to see what was distracting his companion.

“I’ve not seen you around before, young fella,” he said in a loud but modulated voice, like an actor, or someone used to public speaking, “what brings you to these parts?”

“Um, I am working on an excavation in the park, of what we think is a Templar farm.”

“Aha, yes. I know a little about that. Here, come and sit down, get comfortable, you might even be able to help us with our treasure hunt.” He twinkled.

Dog grabbed a 4-legged stool with flowery and padded upholstery and perched across the table from the two turned towards each other, sitting at each end of a sofa covered in the same elaborately designed material as covered his stool. Every surface in this room seemed decorated in some way.

“We aren’t hunting treasure,” he began, “but information.” This was the party line for archaeologists, who always get greeted by farmers with “found any treasure yet?” Locals suspect that the hoard in their field will either get thieved by these city folks, or declared to the tax man, and grabbed by The Crown as treasure trove. And many of them suspect archaeologists of grave-robbing, and stealing their inheritance – just as not all give permission for metal detector enthusiasts to prowl cross country with their alien devices.

“Aha,” said the old geezer. “Just information, eh? I heard you dug up a body.”

“Ah, oh, well, yes,” said Dog, unclear if this perceptive old bloke mean that he personally had found a body, or that ‘the archaeologists’ had. “We won’t know how much information we can get from it until we get it into the lab for analysis. It may have nothing relevant to tell us about the buildings, at all.”

“It’s amazing, isn’t it, how many things lie around us all the time – things just below the surface like your bones, things hidden in plain sight,” (the old man gestured towards the mantelpiece, and Dog looked around involuntarily), “undiscovered treasures, which could lie undisturbed for centuries, or millennia, or till the end of time, but which we could stumble over at any moment, discoveries that could transform our lives – whether because of the wealth they bring us or the information they provide. A wealth of information, in fact.”

He paused, and sipped his elegant glass of red wine. Dog enjoyed listening to the mellifluous and slightly hypnotic voice, the voice of an actor, and hung on his every word.

“George is a mine of information,” said the woman. “Hi, I’m Sarah, the art teacher at the local school.” She leaned over and shook Dog’s hand.

“They call me Dog,” he replied, going for the laconic Clint Eastwood cool.

“Aha, the backward god,” said George, which startled Dog slightly.

“Don’t mind George,” she said, “he enjoys wrong-footing people, but he means no harm.”

“No problem,” said Dog, to show what a good sport he was.

There was a pause.

“So, as I was saying,” began George, “you want to incorporate some of the signs and symbols around the village, get them a bit of exercise, get them to open their eyes to what is around them, what has surrounded them since birth, which they may never have noticed. To see things in a new light.”

“That’s exactly the sort of thing I meant,” said Sarah. “I knew you’d understand.” She grinned, and sipped her pint, before replacing it gently on a mat on the polished table top.

“It’s part of what we do, when we get to a new place,” said Dog, getting into his role as archaeologist (unqualified though he was). Look at the dry stone walls to see if we can spot bits of Roman tile incorporated, a good sign that there may be villa remains in the field, with bits ploughed up, and added to the wall as handy material. You can find all sorts of clues. For instance, I’ll be going down to the church at some point, to look at the stonework, because it was likely done by the same man as the one who built the farm we are excavating. Only the farm fell into disuse, and the church is still functioning.”

He stopped, having felt that he had started a monologue.

“So you know why the church is so far outside the village, “said George. “Not because we don’t went Christians to get too close!” he guffawed, and Sarah gave him a friendly slap on the knee.

“Don’t start,” she said, looking around to see if anyone’s sensibilities had been offended by the wicked old man. The had all turned a deaf ear and a blind eye.

“It doesn’t offend me,” said Dog, “I was born and raised by atheists.”

“Oh-ho,” said George, “and are you an atheist too?”

“Well yes.”

“I only asked. Not everyone follows their parents blindly”

“Well, I don’t think I have just accepted their values without thinking about it. I spend quite a lot of time looking at religions, and magic, and stuff.”

“Stuff, eh? Hmmm. Well, don’t get upset by an old man’s prying questions. Excuse me a moment.” He lurched to his feet. “What was that you’re drinking?” he indicated the nearly empty glass that Dog was nursing.

“Oh, er, Tanglefoot, sir” he said.

“And the usual for you, my dear?” he raised his eyebrows at Sarah.

“Yes please, George, that’s very kind.”

“Think nothing of it.” He meandered to the bar, placed an order, left a note on the counter, and disappeared out the back, presumably, thought Dog, to the Gents, which he might have to find himself, at some point.

The sat, and smiled at each other.

“So you’re an art teacher?”

“Yup.”

“Is it fun?”

“Well, I think so. I think the school here was a bit stuffy, but I have come to stir it up and get the kids thinking outside the box, and feeling able to be creative, and maybe dream of something different from just working as their parents did, and all that…”

“Sounds great!”

“Hmm. Well, yes, but there is quite a gap between what I would like to do with them, and what I am allowed to do with them. And there’s very little money for materials, of course.”

“A lot of art is about improvisation, though, isn’t it?” said Dog, trying to open out the conversation, and sustain it.

“Yes and no. You sometimes need good tools, and great materials to work with. Using what comes to hand is certainly part of it, though,” she said, obviously not wanting to dismiss his idea out of hand.

George had returned with two pints, which he was about to place down when he realised they were in the wrong hands, so he crossed his arms like a juggler or magician, placing Sarah’s ‘usual’ and Dog’s Tanglefoot, in front of the appropriate person. He then did another expedition to the bar for his own glass of red wine. He returned, and eased himself back onto the sofa, and back into the conversation.

“So, we have to make the kids look at things afresh!” he said. “And we need mysterious codes, they love codes. Not too difficult, but demanding a bit of research, especially as they have computers these days. Rather than put up signs, we should use what we have. Found Objects. Objets Trouvés.”

Again, he seemed to have picked up on their talk of art, even when he was out of the room.

“I saw a mysterious sign just now,” said Dog. Over the door of the pub. I think it’s Latin. ‘Audi, Vide, Tace.’ Any idea what it means?”

Sarah turned to George with an inquiring look.

He raised his eyebrows and wiggled them.

“Well,” she said, “I know from the school motto about video and audio, but what is Tace?”

George sighed. “I forget that your generation don’t learn Latin”, he said, “it can still prove very useful, especially in your line of work,” (he looked at Dog), if you are going to come across Romans and the like. It’s pretty useful for learning Romance languages, too. So perhaps you can make a guess?”

“Well, I thought it might have something to do with tactile, touch, etc.”

“Hahahah, Listen, Look, but Don’t Touch!” said George, much amused.

He pointed to the monkeys on the mantelpiece.

“They might give you a clue.”

“Don’t Look, Don’t Listen, Don’t Touch”, said Sarah, “it sound pretty Victorian to me. Who knew the Romans were prudes.”

“Ah, but you may have got some of the word roots right, but not the parts of speech. You really should look again,” said George, patiently.

“Funnily enough,” said Dog, “before I came over to join you I noticed that the monkeys are not the way I remember them, or that is a very unusual set.”

Sarah shaded her eyes with a hand to her brow, and peered at the indistinct little model on the shelf, so common as to be overlooked, dismissed, but she couldn’t make them out.

“In what way are they different?” She asked.

George looked at Dog enquiringly, and cupped his hand behind his ear with a smile, waiting to hear his answer.

Dog smiled, and put one finger to his lips, in the universal gesture of the librarian.

They both laughed.

“Come on you two,” said Sarah, “I don’t want to have to get up. What’s the secret?”

“We just did them,” said Dog. “None of them are using both hands, as in the usual model. The first has one hand cupped behind its ear, and one arm resting in its lap. The second one has its right hand raised, shading its eyes, and peering out into the room. The third monkey (that’s me) has one finger to it’s lips, inviting silence.”

“What!”

“Honestly, it puzzled me too, at the time.” Sarah remembered his hand cupping his chin, and his brow furrowed.

“And so,” encouraged George, “Tace means…?”

“Be Silent. Shhhh. Hold your peace,” said Dog.

“Exactly. From ‘tacit’, and ‘taciturn’ (like your Clint Eastwood impression).”

“So the monkeys match the Latin over the door?”

“Right again.”

“Listen. Look. But don’t say anything.”

“Uh-uh.”

“Oh,” Sarah, “I like it. That’s much nicer than all that nonsense about shutting out the world.”

“I think so too,” said George gently.

“And why, or how…” began Dog.

“Well,” again eliciting information like Socrates and the slave, rather than handing it out, “what’s the name of the pub?”

“The Freemasons’ Arms” chorused the younger folk.

“And one of the mottoes of the Freemasons, who may have gathered here once, (if they don’t still), is "Audi, Vide, Tace". The philosophical little monkeys are a reminder to those in the know, and completely overlooked by people who think they already know what the monkeys are indicating, and don’t look at them twice. Hidden in plain sight, like I said.”

“George, you’re a genius. That’s exactly the sort of thing I need, to make the children realise they have to forget their habitual way of looking, and really see what’s there.”

“Amazing,” said Dog. “So what about the monkeys we normally see. Where do they come from?”

“Ah,” George pulled out an empty pipe, raised his leg across his knee, and tapped the pipe on the sole of his shoe. He drew a couple of looks from people on the far side of the room, but contentedly puffed on an empty pipe.

“It’s my dummy,” he added. “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” he said in a louder voice, to his stern and silent critics, waving the object in the air.

Again, Sarah gave him a playful slap. “George, don’t do that!”

“When I was in Japan I went to the Nikki shrine where the original monkeys are carved over the stables, and apparently they would guard the horses, or something like that. Yes, before you ask, the originals do use both hands, clasped over ears, eyes and mouth. But they have Buddhist origins, and do not simply mean ‘shut out the world’. Far from it. They seem to mean something more like ‘do not allow your system to be contaminated by evil’. Perhaps along the lines of the argument that young people see too much violence on television, hear too much bad language (or loud music), and shouldn’t be exposed to such things at such an impressionable age.”

He sipped his wine.

“Am I boring you?”

The two shook their heads simultaneously.

“Well, I think it comes from Confucius, and the Chinese tradition, and it became manifest as monkeys just because of a Japanese pun. There’s some sort of play on words, but my Japanese is weak. You’d have to look it up. Archer Taylor wrote an interesting paper on the folkloric connections, back in the 50s.”

He settled back into his corner of the sofa. They all smiled at each other.

George,” said Sarah, “you never cease to amaze me.”

"Audi, vide, tace, si vis vivere in pace", murmured George, thoughtfully, and half to himself.