Paper Cuts

by Stephen Bernard

  Fogarty died. He took with him my chances of vengeance, but my work told me of the meaning of reputation. I would leave judgement to his God, but disgrace him in the eyes of the world. I would soil his grave, and deny him the bleaching agent, the power of a posthumous existence in the world. I excoriate and denounce him. Now, for ever.

  *

  There was at this moment in time the deliberate heaviness of a metal gate closing on my past. Fogarty had had his chance in this moral world and lost it to the throes of a logic which I could not understand. At times, I tried to understand it, its perverse, mind-altering alienation from all that is right. But that understanding was beyond me, I could only ask for redemption.

  I have a voice now. I speak only the truth, and the truth is the overarching logic of unconditional love, free for all, free from the ensnaring aggression of an abusive, forbidden, penile passion.

  *

  Anne Repton. Annie Repton. Dr Annie Repton. A truly good character. Not moral like Didi Eisner, but good. Whole. Entire unto herself. I met her at Christ Church and have lived my life with her, shared my life with her ever since. She is my controlling angel. A pure voice telling me what it is to be a good person in a naughty world. The chronicler and editor of Charles and Mary Lamb. She lives with the Romantics, with whom I have no, can have no intercourse, in a world of the intellect and imagination which is beyond me, which I cannot understand. It is my greatest failing as a student of English literature that the Romantics of the first and second generation are lost on me, to me. There is something about their emotional register which I feel alienated from. No, give me the peace of the Augustans any time.

  *

  I am aware of a noise, slight and muffled somewhere near me. I look up. I look around. There is someone settling down at the desk beside me in the library and, suddenly, I am aware of something else. Something has happened, somehow. I am beside myself. Literally beside myself. Some inches to the left of me, I am seated at this desk. I catch the thought in my mind. What has happened? This has happened to me before, I know. I have had the sense of being beside myself. What time did I take the medication? An hour or so ago.

  It is as though there were two copies of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man placed on top of each other, but not quite on top of each other. That is the sensation I have. I know this is a psychotic sensation, not being quite oneself. Something has happened in my mind. It is not even a thought, although it is manifesting itself as a thought. Somehow my self has been set at one remove from my body. I am aware of myself, sitting some inches to the right of me, of my mind. I am aware of my body, being there, not there.

  Where am I? (I think). What should I do? The man beside me lays out his book on the desk and I feel almost on top of it, of him. He is not aware of this, but I am very aware of this. Of this odd sensation. It will pass, as it has passed before. It just takes time for the medication to work, to flow through my body, into my mind. But for the moment, for this moment in time, I am aware of being beside myself.

  Maybe if I walk around it will stop, this psychotic experience. I get up. I can feel my body moving and me moving with it, but for the moment I am not in my body, but some inches to the right of it. It is awkward, uncertain, being beside myself, but I manage to control myself, to get from the desk to the door, from the door to the stairs, from the stairs to outside.

  I breathe deeply and cross the great court of the Library, stepping out into the street. All around me the world is busying itself with its business. I can see myself reflected in the windows of Hertford College opposite. I am indistinct in the nineteenth-century glass, which looks corrupted, an idea of perfection not quite realized. I am clearly not beside myself, although that image of a man, of me, seems to me to be only part of the truth, of the truth of what is taking place at the moment.

  I take out a cigarette and try to feel my way back into my body as the smoke courses down my throat. Breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Where are you now? In your body, but no longer beside yourself (you think). No longer feeling that psychotic thought. It lasted a while, but now you are entire again, for the moment at least. Go back into the Library. You have work to do.

  *

  It is early evening and my day’s work is far from done (I think). The light outside fades, is fading. I am the light inside, fading. I stare at the half-bright, half-electric screen before me in the dusk-touched library and start again.

  the publication of the twenty-nine-year-old poet’s precocious Works in 1717 was to establish him as a bookseller of considerable importance in the creation of the English literary canon ….

  *

  When I decided to go to the police I was addicted to benzodiazepines, my old friends from former days, with whom I was too familiar. Over time, I found I needed their support, until their support became unsupportable. I had given up diazepam some months since, and the loss was keen. Now they were only permitted to me in emergency situations and then not for long. I needed them now. Doctor Fortescue would call each day in the week before I attended the station and ask my mother how I was coping. The truth was: not very well. I knew that the coming labour would give birth to a new me and I was edgy at the thought.

  The one thought that had sustained me over the years was this: that I did not tell the truth. The whole thing was a massive, problematic lie. Now was my moment to place the truth on the petri dish of legal enquiry and find if it would be found wanting. On the Saturday morning I was to attend on the police at the station in Chichester, over the other side of the South Downs, I decided to make a point. I wrote out three times on three Post-it notes the statement:

  We have been brought up to love one another and to tell the truth.

  I do not think that my mother and sister expected that with their breakfast. We passed over it lightly, after taking a moment to think that this was the birth pangs of a protracted labour.

  *

  I’m outside the police station. I have taken more diazepam than I should. Under my arm, in a feeble plastic bag I have my statement. Twenty-seven pages of facts, motivations, incidents, times, places, people. I ring to gain entry. It is a fine summer day in Chichester, a Saturday. My appointment is for nine o’clock and already the city is coming to life. I know that I have a hard day ahead of me and cannot be distracted by other people’s lives. My uncle is a policeman and has told me what to expect. The police will be very understanding and will believe me, he says. But I do not believe that; as yet I am not sure I even believe myself.

  For years I have waited for this moment, to set out my accusations. It is in black and white in my small plastic bag, ready to have its day in court. There will be no day in court, this I know. Fogarty is dead, and all the deeds of his life, all blame, all responsibility has died with him. I speak in the empty court of posterity. Today I shall state the case for the prosecution.

  It is over surprisingly quickly. It takes a little less than an hour, and two cigarettes, and thirty milligrams of diazepam, to get the truth out in the open. Not so very far away the body of Fogarty rests, in the graveyard where we took my father’s body to be cremated. I feel them both with me now. Outside, I wait for my mother. Furtively smoking cigarettes while I wait for her distinguished black car. I had sent her away from this shameful place. So much that is so bad is brought to bear on the people who work here: rapes, abductions, murder. Today I have murdered the reputation of my rapist. I do not know then what I know now, that this was the moment of the creation of the English literary canon.

  *

  Dr Richard Gipps is a doctor twice over, an extravagance of learning. He is a doctor of philosophy and a doctor of psychology. If he has a ‘school’ I do not know of it. He speaks as he finds, with a gentleness affording a dignity to his patients. I first met Dr Gipps – only when my father died did I dare once to call him Richard – when he was appointed my mentor. Bipolar disorder is a messy general, prepared to sacrifice a lot of men. It was decided that I needed a marshal for my thoughts, that Dr Richard Gip
ps could be that man. Over the years his good sense has matured into a common ground, a keenness that I make the best of myself and the best of the hand I have been dealt in life. When my father died something changed in our relationship.

  A calamity had occurred to Dr Richard Gipps. His child had died, young and suddenly, with his partner, tragically; in the worst possible circumstances. This death brought out the best in Dr Richard Gipps, gave him a wisdom beyond his forty years. Death opened up new avenues for him and for me and gave us a common purpose, a loss, such absence, gave birth to a joint venture, the need to make the most of life.

  After all these years, Dr Richard Gipps could see that the truth’s destructiveness was a cancer in my being. We tried to discuss my childhood, but I did not have the words to express what had happened to me. A thought was a victory, a sentence almost an impossible thought. I started with the heaviness at my back, and of the boniness ‘in’ me. Two physical sensations which gather up in their essence what had happened to me, the violation. I thought at first that Fogarty had only been in me physically, but gradually realized that he had been in me mentally and psychically as well. What a rape that was! What perfect thoroughgoing thoroughness. Oh, the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

  I had been mastered by my Latin tutor, taught a new language of debasement and self-annihilation. From 8 September 1987 I had been no longer master of my being, of my soul indeed. What, I began to feel, had allowed this to happen, to happen to me? I did not know. I thought about this a great deal. It was important to me to understand. I thought about cultural relativism, that in another, say, ancient Greek society the love of a boy was not unknown, and did not need to be unknown. But that was the wrong way of thinking, getting things the wrong way about. It was not the physical and psychological act of penetration which afforded me no refuge. It was the shame of it all. In another culture, where shame is not associated with the act of love between a man and a boy, there is no violation. Unless it be the act of abuse, of forcing himself on the boy-lover, there is no disgrace. I felt disgrace, and as a good Catholic, guilt.

  I have not yet explained the confessional. For many years the act of confession took place in a sparsely but politely furnished study beneath the room in which the sin which I confessed had taken place. It was many years before I ventured into the confessional again. I obtained – again and again, as the hart pants for the stream – absolution for ‘his’ crimes, for His crimes, but not release from the shame and the guilt. Behind the grille of the confessional I always heard the same words:

  ‘How long has it been since your last confession? Tell me your sins, that I may absolve you of them in the love of the risen Christ.’

  I have not mentioned yet the music. Oh, the music! Fogarty instilled in me a deep love of music. Always, insistently, there was music, seeping into my young, fertile, febrile mind. Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Britten – the wonders of their ages. Fogarty had a vast collection of recordings and one day gave me his vinyls and a machine to play them on. Unthinkingly, I allowed them into my house, my home, my bedroom. My mother would ask what I was listening to. I did not say the soundtrack of my disgrace, of my despair.

  The records have long gone, banished to the attic of my mother’s house, to the attic of my mind. My collection of music lies unheard on my shelves in my flat, songs of another time. Will I ever listen to music again – O magnum mysterium – I hope so. But hope is only an audacity of recent times. I am learning not only to speak, but also to hear.

  *

  I sit down at high table. There is scarcely anyone in tonight. Pip Jasperson at the end of the table. It must be Tuesday. Guest night. No, I remember it’s Thursday; hence few guests.

  We stand for the dual amphonic grace.

  Scholar: ‘Benedictus sit Deus in donis suis’

  Response: ‘et sanctus in omnibus operibus suis …’

  I look around the table. There is a neat foreign man opposite.

  ‘… Deus det vivas gratiam, defunctis requiem: Ecclesiae, Reginae, regnoque nostro, pacem et concordiam: et nobis peccatoribus vitam aeternam.’

  ‘Amen, men.’

  The glittering begowned table is seated; opposite me the stranger. I’ll give him a welcome. I know what it is to be a stranger in this place.

  ‘Good evening.’

  He looks up.

  ‘Good evening.’

  ‘I’m Stephen Bernard.’

  He takes this in.

  ‘Hello … Karol Mlynar … Charles. A friend of Daphne’s.’

  I don’t see her.

  ‘She’s running late … A student.’

  Quiet understated conversations start around the table.

  ‘What brings you to Oxford?’

  He looks gratified and humoured.

  ‘Oh, you can tell I’m a stranger.’

  ‘The accent. Czech?’

  ‘Yes. I’m here for the Malone conference.’

  I don’t know him.

  ‘Oh?’

  A beat.

  ‘Fascinating man, Malone …’ he says.

  The steward brings round the soup.

  ‘Yes.’ Pause.

  ‘Fascinating because fascinated. Perhaps?’ says the Czech.

  I think. Perhaps.

  ‘Indeed,’ I murmur.

  A pause again. He adjusts his napkin.

  ‘What brought you to Malone?’

  I think too for a second.

  ‘Dryden,’ I say flatly, although the answer’s interesting enough, enough for this.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘His letters.’

  He knows this. I see the knowledge alert in his eyes, reflecting the candle light.

  ‘So many letters …’

  I eat some soup. He continues.

  ‘All found by Malone … He was keen. He knew where to look. Where no one had.’

  Suddenly a door slams and there’s a commotion in the far end of the hall. A man, the homeless man from this morning, is there. I recognize him without his greatcoat. Even at this distance.

  The presiding fellow speaks.

  ‘What’s going on?’ He looks down the hall. ‘Can you see?’

  I see it is the homeless man.

  ‘It is a homeless man. I saw him on Broad Street this morning.’

  ‘Really …’

  The presiding fellow lifts his gentle hands from their resting place on the folds of his gown. He thinks for a quick minute. Then turns,

  ‘Oh … Simon?’ He speaks to the attentive, attending steward in his faded white college butler’s jacket. The steward steps forward.

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  The presiding fellow gestures.

  ‘See that young man down there? See that he is fed.’

  Pause.

  ‘Then tell the porters about him. Ask them to phone St Giles. See if they can find him a bed for the night.’

  Poor man. Conversation turns back to the supper. The commotion passes. Karol – Charles – is nervously charming throughout dinner but unmemorable; soon I pass into the night.

  *

  It is a spring day at the clinic. The needle goes in, easily, as it has so often before. You know that the hour is full of promise for you, beckoning. You relax on the bed. A blueish light.

  A few moments pass. There is a metallic taste, something with an edge to it. And distinct edges to the things around you, a vibrancy to them. A nurse passes and nods. She seems kind, efficient.

  The light changes. You think for a second, catch your thoughts thinking themselves.

  Then it comes. It comes now, on a sudden. This is not a thought (you think). It is a revelation. Everything you think. That can be thought. Is intricately connected to everything else. The simple complication of it. This sudden revelation, revealing. This wonder, wondering.

  Like a fugue in the mind. The complexity has a clean beauty to it. Tessellations of thought. Thought upon thought. Thoughts reaching out to each other, perfecting each other in a pattern that delineates and completes
itself. The mind, this simple thing, perceives it all, encompasses the universe. This. This is it (you think). Now I understand.

  You look across at the window, the light playing as it falls across the room. There is a scheme to things, to everything, of which you are part, and now are party. The mind luxuriates in the complexity, this happening.

  This thought, which is unique to you. This thought is urgent, needs communicating. You look around, but there is no one to communicate it to, and in fact the words will not come. You want to shout it, but your clamour is stifled in your weakened throat.

  You trace your thoughts in the air around you. See them clearly, dancing, but indistinct, losing distinction.

  The air from the window opposite is cold. So cold! You feel the chill of ages entering the room, gradually embalming the world in an ice age. Aeons pass. Time is slow (you think).

  The nurse looks up at you. You see her, but doubt now her intentions. You see the needle in your hand. You wonder at it, why it is there. That chill! You see the liquid ketamine seeping into your vein. That. That is the cause of this, of these sensations.

  You look at your watch. Fifty minutes of the hour have passed. When? You did not notice them. But something has changed, has changed for you in this world. You saw it, had a revelation. All time was there, was here, was now. The rest of your life you will search on the empty steppes of Oxford for it.

  You pause in this quickened, quickening room for a moment. You think, are alone with your thoughts. A few minutes pass. You feel tired, like the day has beckoned you but you could not come. Cannot today.

  The anaesthetist comes with a bright hello and asks if you are well. You wonder. He takes the needle out. In a minute you will still wonder, at the wonder of it all.

  *

  I look up. I’m back in the Library. It’s deserted after dinner. I must get on with this essay. It’s gone eight thirty; the Library closes at ten.

  *

  From the TLS last year:

  The title of Cormac Murphy-O’Connor’s memoir forms one cardinal’s salute to another. In July 1852, John Henry Newman preached at Oscott, near Birmingham, to a gathering of England’s recently restored Roman Catholic hierarchy. The country’s best-known former Anglican – and its most renowned theologian in 500 years – left some of his hearers in tears by recalling the centuries-long winter through which Catholics had been a despised remnant. Now, he urged, the situation was transformed. His co-religionists were witnessing renewal amounting to ‘a second spring’. Though widely deplored in the Church of England as triumphalist, the term was misconstrued by those who missed Newman’s careful gloss: ‘Have we any right to take it strange, if, in this English land, the spring-time of the Church should turn out to be an English spring, an uncertain, anxious time of hope and fear, of joy and suffering – of bright promise and budding hopes, yet withal, of keen blasts, and cold showers, and sudden storms?