The Madness of Grief

  But this wasn’t my room. I had kept my eyes wide open and the darkness had remained undiminished, preventing me from seeing even the outline of the light bulb that hung over my bed, and because I couldn’t see it I knew that this wasn’t my room. And if this wasn’t my room, then it followed that this wasn’t my bed, nor could the warmth that I now felt beside me be Karl’s, unless Karl had only drowned in a dream…

  ‘Karl, is that you?’

  ‘No, no, no,’ said a voice that wasn’t Karl’s.

  I felt the warmth draw closer until it was burning, while somewhere in the distance I heard laughter – my father’s?

  ‘It’s me, silly,’ said the voice that wasn’t Karl’s. ‘Here, let me show you.’

  A crushing weight bore down on me until I was sinking, sinking through this unfamiliar bed as though it were quicksand, its thousand million grains of fire searing my body…

  Again the laughter rumbled in the distance.

  ‘But why won’t you pinch me?’ asked the voice that wasn’t Karl’s. ‘If you pinch me, you’ll know who I am.’

  ‘I think I know who you are already.’

  ‘You may think you know,’ said the voice. ‘But you won’t know for sure unless you pinch me.’

  ‘That’s just foolish,’ I said. The warmth had given way to the coolness of stone. We were lying on the floor under the bed. ‘And I do know for sure. I recognise the smell of your breath.’

  ‘Of course you do, I’m your mother,’ said the voice of my mother.

  ‘My mother’s dead. She’s dead and you’ve stolen her voice.’

  ‘Then how would you know if I haven’t also stolen someone’s breath?’

  ‘Stop trying to confuse me,’ I said. ‘Please, I’d like to go back to my room now.’

  ‘But wouldn’t you like to see the device first?’

  ‘The device?’

  ‘Your father designed it himself. It’s very elaborate; I’m sure you’ll like it.’

  ‘Is it far?’

  ‘We’re actually lying on it now.’

  ‘We’re lying on the floor under the bed.’

  ‘Ah, but we’re not, we’re lying on a bed under the bed.’

  ‘Is that what the device is? A bed under the bed?’

  ‘Manufactured to precise specifications. It has to be adjustable, you see.’

  ‘It’s not particularly comfortable, is it? It doesn’t feel at all like a bed.’

  ‘It’s not supposed to be particularly comfortable,’ said the voice. ‘As a matter of fact, the longer you lie on it, the less comfortable it becomes. And if you lie on it too long, you disappear. It’s designed to stop people from hiding.’

  ‘But no one really hides under the bed.’

  ‘Oh, you’d be surprised.’

  ‘You’re still trying to confuse me. We’re not really on a bed under the bed.’

  ‘I can prove it to you if you like.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Try and pinch me and you’ll see.’

  ‘I know you’re Mia-Mia.’

  ‘I used to be Mia-Mia,’ said the voice of Mia-Mia. ‘And you’re right, I still have her breath.’

  ‘Very well then, I’ll pinch you,’ I said, and after I had groped this way and that in the space under the bed, I felt right beside me the cold, slightly shivering hardness of the shell. Even before I had run all across its smooth surface the tips of my fingers, before I had felt underneath it and almost cut myself against the sharpness of its limbs, and long before it had begun to squeak, I knew it must belong to a giant bug.

  I sat up with a start, and when I looked up at the ceiling, I saw very clearly the outline of the light bulb that hung above my bed.

  I had, in the end, given in to the second, even larger slice of Black Forest Gateau - the mistake had been to look at it again after I had spoken to Karl.

  As always, saying goodbye to auntie Ada had made me feel sad, and I was hoping Mia-Mia might cheer me up. But when the telephone rang, Mia-Mia was already at the top of the stairs on her way to the bathroom, no doubt to have a shower and freshen up after her ordeal at her brother’s bed-and-breakfast in Torquay.

  ‘Jane?

  ‘Karl?’

  ‘Try not to sound so surprised.’

  Of course I was surprised. We’d had each other’s numbers for years, but it was always me who called. This was the first time Karl was calling me.

  ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘I’d say so, wouldn’t you?’

  No one could see me, so why should I have cared what colour my face was?

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘I’m calling to say sorry.’

  It had all been a mistake, he would say. We were friends, that’s all, and if he’d given me the wrong impression by asking me upstairs to his room…

  ‘Nothing happened,’ I said, dredging up the sound from somewhere deep.

  ‘Are you angry?’

  ‘There’s nothing to be angry about.’ My voice had now completely lost its breath.

  ‘Oh, but there is,’ said Karl. And after an eternity, ‘It was late. I should’ve walked you home.’

  I felt the emptiness inside me filling up.

  ‘Mami was furious when she realised I hadn’t gone with you.’

  ‘Tell Mami I wouldn’t have let you. I like walking home by myself.’

  ‘If I’d thought of it you wouldn’t have been able to stop me.’

  ‘But you’ve never walked me home.’

  ‘Last night was different.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘And I wanted to call you.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘You were right about my dad, I don’t want to be angry all the time.’

  ‘I thought you weren’t listening,’ said Karl. ‘I thought maybe you were feeling distracted.’ And when I made no reply, ‘Are you coming round later? I’ll be home after 8.’

  ‘I might do,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about you a lot. Last night I couldn’t sleep, and first thing this morning I needed to go out for a walk, to try and clear my head. I walked from home to Angel, then all the way to Old Street and then further east, but I wasn’t taking anything in. And suddenly I realised that people were giving me looks. Honestly, Jane, it’s like Dickens down there, from one street to the next it becomes a different world, run down and noisy and poor. Unsafe even in daylight, or at least that’s how I felt. So I put my shirt back on, and I ran most of the way back to Angel. And can you guess what I did next? I got lost. You know how I got lost? Looking for your house. I was going to buy some tricks for a party, so you gave me the address for Mr Magikoo’s Magik Shoppe and you said you lived next door, you remember? Anyway, I found it in the end. I’ll come and pick you up if you like. Tonight, I mean. If you’re not reading Kafka.’

  ‘It’s fine, I’ll make my own way if I’m coming,’ I said. ‘Like I always do.’

  ‘Any time after 8.’

  Exhausted by his roller-coaster call, I had walked straight back into the kitchen like a robot. And sitting colourfully erect on its plate, showing off its layers of exquisite bliss, its glazed scarlet cherry radiating on top, auntie Ada’s slice of Black Forest Gateau had screamed at me, ‘EAT ME, EAT ME!’ I had not even attempted to resist, and had paid a heavy price for my greed. Instant indigestion had led to self-disgust even before the last mouthful, the few crumbs of leftover evidence staring at me sneeringly from not just one but two empty plates. After doing the washing up, I had quietly retreated to my room. Mia-Mia was still in the bathroom.

  Being a windowless box, on a hot day like this my bedroom was actually cooler than anywhere else in the house, and I had lain down on my bed intending to distract my guilty conscience with Kafka. In the circumstances of that afternoon, In the Penal Colony, which the second part of my dream had merged with The Metamorphosis, had proved an unfortunate choice. On this particular occasion Kafka’s brilliance had not had the desired effect. It had added to my indigestion a ch
urning knot in my stomach that had threatened to make me throw up. The monotonous detail in which the Officer described to the Traveller the torture apparatus of bed, inscriber and harrow by which the waiting Condemned Man was about to have the words of his sentence cut into his body had repulsed me; probably it had reminded me of Sweeney Todd. And at the point where the Officer revealed to the Traveller that the Condemned Man was ignorant not only of the nature of his sentence but also of the fact that he had been condemned, the book had closed in my hands as though of its own volition, and I had lifted myself up to turn off the light. Some time after that I must have fallen asleep, and my dreams had indeed been uneasy.

  I remembered reading somewhere that dreams that had been dreamt had already served their purpose, and that attempting to interpret them was not only futile, it was actually counter-productive. Or perhaps I hadn’t read it; it might have been Karl who had told me, in that deliberately roundabout way he had of telling me things that made me feel stupid. Everything he said sounded plausible enough, sometimes even profound, but at the same time he often seemed to have drawn his apparently self-evident conclusions from nowhere. I could never tell for sure if he was pulling my leg. And after confusing me, in the next breath he’d be chiding me that there was so much more to life than just being clever at manipulating words. Well, I didn’t need to interpret my dream, or to imagine what the purpose of that part of it had been in which I had been helpless to save him from drowning, to know that I was thinking of Karl far too much. And I also knew why. ‘Let’s go upstairs to my room.’ After his phone call I knew he would ask me again. Did I want him to ask me again? Would I go? And if I did, how could I be sure what might happen?

  I wouldn’t know the answer to any of these questions unless we were together alone in his house. It was not yet half past five, and I would not be reading any more Kafka. What I needed was a shower. And after having a shower, I would take a little longer to decide what to wear.

  I stumbled out of bed and I emerged from my dungeon-like room to the tropical brightness of the rest of the house. The air was still heavy with moisture, and as I made my way upstairs to the bathroom feeling sticky in the clothes I had fallen asleep in, I wondered how on earth I would get dry after wetting myself in the shower. Thinking already of the pink cotton blouse I would probably pick from my wardrobe, and how it might look with the blue and white polka-dot Bermudas Mia-Mia had bought for me on one of her trips to Torquay, with my towel thrown over my shoulder I barged into the bathroom almost falling through the door, which I hadn’t thought to knock on even though it had been shut.

  Shut but not locked. Mia-Mia must have felt sticky too, and had obviously just had another shower. Reaching down to dry her feet, her long, lean figure was bent forward towards me, not very far from the door. In slow movements, she let the towel drop as she stood up, then crossed her arms over the smoothness of her chest and clutched at her neck as though about to strangle herself. It had already registered that I ought to have knocked, and that Mia-Mia was naked. But then I had become transfixed, as transfixed and mute as Mia-Mia, whose gaze I felt caressing me with kindness. A moment she had probably dreaded had passed. And I was still in the room. I hadn’t even screamed.

  ‘Oh my God, Mia-Mia…’ I finally managed to gasp.

  ‘So now you know I have a penis,’ said Mia-Mia. Her voice was different now, more natural, but not only because it was very slightly deeper.

  ‘Yes, a penis,’ I said.

  ‘Quite a specimen too, don’t you think?’

  ‘I’ve not actually seen one before.’

  ‘Well, then. I think it’s good you’ve seen a friendly one first.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ I said.

  ‘You can’t imagine what a nightmare it’s been trying to hide it, expensive and painful. I mean, look! The bulge it makes isn’t exactly discreet. But now I think you’ve seen enough.’ And picking up the towel and wrapping it around her waist, ‘Come, let’s go have a glass of something cold.’

  As we sat opposite each other drinking lemon squash with lots of ice, I still couldn’t get my head around the wet and semi-naked Mia-Mia. She reminded me of David Bowie, a young British singer whose picture I’d seen in one of the music magazines Karl’s mother had subscribed him to, and whose brand new song I’d listened to on the red transistor radio auntie Ada had given me last Christmas. It was called Space Oddity, and it probably wasn’t a coincidence that it had just been released, a few days ahead of the Apollo 11 launch that had landed two men on the moon. Even Karl had described him as “quite interesting, if you like that sort of thing”, and although this David Bowie was definitely a boy, he had a slender, tender boy/girl look not dissimilar to Mia-Mia’s. And unless there was something the world didn’t know about David Bowie, they were also both endowed with a penis.

  There were a million questions I wanted to ask, but although I no longer felt embarrassed to look, because Mia-Mia was more beautiful than ever to look at…

  ‘You’re miles away, aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh my God, Mia-Mia…’

  ‘Are you trying to make me show you my penis again?’ Her smile was full of warmth. ‘You and I, we can be friends now if you like. Or would you rather not be friends with a freak?’

  ‘But you’re not a freak.’

  ‘I do feel like one sometimes.’

  ‘Well, I think you’re beautiful, like David Bowie.’

  ‘I’m sure even David Bowie sometimes feels like a freak.’

  ‘I liked to watch while dad pinched your bottom. I even liked to listen while the two of you made noises in the bedroom.’

  ‘We should’ve been more careful,’ said Mia-Mia. ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure you were just curious, and there’s nothing more normal for a girl who’s growing up than being curious.’

  ‘I thought you knew. I was sure you’d seen me watching.’

  Mia-Mia shook her head to say no. ‘It’s no excuse, I know, but I’ve been too distracted.’

  ‘By my father, you mean.’

  ‘Not just by your father.’

  She smiled again as she reached over the table. Her hands seemed more fragile even than the rest of her somehow, but when her fingers moved, their elegance reminded me of Karl’s. I let go of my glass, and as our two pairs of hands came together, they tightened round each other before flattening themselves in a pile.

  ‘I like it, you see, this peculiar dangling thing between my legs. And apparently I shouldn’t, because otherwise I’m nothing, and everyone needs to be something.’

  ‘How can anyone be nothing?’

  ‘That makes two of us who don’t understand. So I don’t think I’ll be going back to Torquay, which is actually this hell in Shepherds Bush where they’re supposed to try and help you be yourself.’

  ‘Oh my God, Mia-Mia, do they want you to get rid of your penis?’

  ‘I’m sure they’d chop it off themselves if I let them. They’re so angry that I won’t say I hate it. “Hate it? It’s part of me and it’s a thing of beauty, so why should I hate it?” That’s what I told them. “Then you’re neither a man nor a woman,” they said, “and how can you expect us to help you if you’re still in denial?” They’re doing that, you know, in the States, making women of men by taking a snip at their penis. And if that’s really how you feel, like a woman, then I don’t suppose you’d want to have a penis. But it isn’t how I feel at all.’

  ‘Then why did you ever go to such a horrible place?’

  ‘It’s complicated,’ said Mia-Mia.

  ‘Oh my God, Mia-Mia… It was my dad, he made you!’

  ‘I told you it was complicated.’

  ‘I mean, does he know?’

  ‘Obviously he knows about my penis, and he hates it. Every time we… let’s just say I do my best to keep it out of the way.’

  ‘But does he know…’

  ‘What he doesn’t know is what I’m telling him tonight. That occasionally I like dressing up as a girl, that at work
I still enjoy being Mia-Mia, but I’ll always be a boy.’

  ‘A boy!’ I repeated the words with enthusiasm. ‘Does that mean you shave? And your body, it’s so hairless.’

  ‘It’s simple enough to get rid of the few hairs I have in the places where I’d rather not have them. And I’m twenty-five, so I suppose that must make me a man. A man who likes to sleep with other men, and wake up with them too.’ Mia-Mia pulled her hands out of the pile and ran them both together through the little that was left of her hair. ‘And there’s really nothing wrong with that. It’s hardly something new, and it’s not even illegal any more.’

  ‘And my dad?’

  ‘He just wants to be a man, who can’t admit he’s fallen in love with a boy. And to be fair, he didn’t know I was a boy when we met. He saw me with the girls at the pub after work, we flirted, I gave him the number at the salon, we met a couple of times, and when he tried to kiss me I told him. Well, it didn’t stop him kissing me, or inviting me back. And he almost talked us both into believing Mia-Mia was a girl, and that this thing between her legs was unnatural.’

  ‘This afternoon I fell asleep while I was reading. And I dreamt of you. First I dreamt of losing Karl, and then I dreamt I was with you under the bed. I could only hear your voice and smell your breath, and you were telling me this place under the bed was an elaborate device designed by my father, and if you lay in it too long you disappeared. And when I tried to pinch you, you weren’t really you any more.’

  ‘Please don’t tell me that you dreamt I was a boy.’

  ‘I dreamt you were a bug, like the cockroach in The Metamorphosis.’

  ‘I don’t think what Kafka had in mind was a cockroach. All these books you’ve been reading, maybe you should leave them for later. It might not be time for them yet.’

  ‘That’s what auntie Ada said three years ago.’

  ‘And she might’ve been right.’