Sheer Blue Bliss

by Lesley Glaister

  ‘Yesterday, I think.’ With the tip of his tongue pinched between his teeth, Barry rings the purchases into the cash register and packs them into bags. The door jangles as the driver comes in to buy more cigarettes and help Connie carry her shopping out to the car. As they jolt along the unmade road and the sea blinks at her in the mild sunshine, Connie’s spirits rise. Soon she will see the roof of her house. And that is a high point for her. Coming home.

  THREE

  At last I come to the heart of my achievement – I allow myself to make this claim despite the fact that ultimate perfection still eludes me. The progress of this memoir has overtaken the progress of my researches and the development of my system. I will however attempt to explain – in terms suitable for the layman – how my Phytosophical Principle can be put to practical use in order to enhance the life of mankind.

  Before I do so I must interrupt myself to say that one of the sadnesses of my life is the lack of recognition I have received for my work. I can only conclude that such a system as mine – derived from the higher consciousnesses of our fellow green beings – is too sophisticated for the common human mind to grasp. I have not only received no recognition during my lifetime, but my ideas have very often been greeted with contempt and derision. It is commonly the fate of the pioneer into human consciousness to be ridiculed and the mark of the higher mind to take this ridicule in its stride, to refuse to be deflected from its greater purpose by the stupidity of those that surround it.

  My last humiliation I regret deeply because by implication it directed scorn on others engaged in similarly directed research. My public demonstration of plant psychic life was ill-conceived, I fully admit, due to a factor I had neglected to take into consideration. The audience contained an element whose hostile and negative emanations upset and confused the philodendron which was thus unwilling or unable to co-operate in its normal manner and sat dumbly in its pot making me the butt of much ridicule.

  I repeat that I deeply regret the backward step this represents in the progress of understanding, especially where it also reflects on the work of other vegetal scientists and psychologists. For this I apologise unreservedly. I believe the philodendron itself was also contrite: in subsequent private experiments it never regained its former vigorous level of response and soon perished.

  Here, finally I offer to my reader:

  THE SEVEN STEPS TO BLISS:

  A LIFE-TIME’S SYSTEM

  Being for the gradual achievement of perfection,

  peace and enlightenment.

  (Note: Plants hold the key within them to the perfection of human experience on earth. In my earlier teachings I preached that mankind might look to plant life as a model of behaviour. I am not too proud to retract, in part, that advice which isn’t in all cases practical and applicable. I suffer, like many thinkers, from being taken too literally. However, I do still assert that plants are of a higher consciousness than man. Within each single plant cell there exists a sensitivity and awareness of the cosmos far in advance of the purely subjective and limiting partial experience given to man with his five crude senses.)

  By extraction, by a method secret, a spiritual essence from a variety of plants, the species of which must likewise remain a secret, plants which have been nurtured in an atmosphere by turns meditative and sexually charged, I have been able to manufacture a series of seven potions. I over-reach myself, I have manufactured six of the series and it is my life’s ambition to complete the system which is as follows:

  THE SEVEN STEPS TO BLISS:

  Being SEVEN ELIXIRS with effects on a continuum, ONE to SEVEN drops to be taken, WARNING: promiscuous and unsequential use of these potions may result in DERANGEMENT or DEATH.

  The system:

  POTION 1: PLEASURE: will ease physical and mental pain and induce a feeling of contentment.

  POTION 2: HARMONY: will remove physical pain, ease mental suffering, induce harmonious and pleasurable feelings.

  POTION 3: HAPPINESS: will induce a feeling of mental sharpness, physical well-being, strength and intense happiness.

  POTION 4: JOY: problems that seem insuperable will dissolve like Scotch mist, the body, intellect and mind will be bathed with light-heartedness, laughter, joy.

  POTION 5: ECSTASY: will induce feelings of utter physical balance and strength, mental agility, spiritual well-being. The physical world will appear suffused in a golden light.

  POTION 6: EUPHORIA: will induce feelings of physical and mental perfection, spiritual enlightenment, possible spontaneous orgasm.

  POTION 7: BLISS: feelings of extreme physical, mental and spiritual bliss, spontaneous and prolonged orgasm.

  (WARNING: When the seven-drop stage of the seventh stage of the system is reached the orgasm may be intense and so prolonged that the individual experiences temporary freedom from the mortal restraints of his physique which may be distressing if witnessed by the uninitiated.)

  Tony closes the book and puts it down. His hand has crept to his crotch and he snatches it away. All this talk of spontaneous orgasm. Gets up. ‘I’m here,’ he says to Patrick, ‘look at me, here.’ And soon Benson will be here, too, and she will show him the way, give him the stuff. Course she will, why not? And then the quest will be complete. He punches the air. Yes! But cool it. Take a deep breath. Cool, now, cool.

  He stands back to admire the table. Sun slants through the window, smeary and speckled with salty sand, but he’ll get that sorted later. The table is set for one. Not just set, arranged for one, arranged. Tony has scrubbed the table, scoured it, bringing up a greasy froth of grey, and now the surface is golden, light seems to shine up from the grain of the wood. The plate is blue. In a yellow jug he has arranged some wild flowers – yellow spiky things. He has washed a glass, found a blue-and-white-checked napkin and folded it beside the plate. It looks like a painting, or an advert for something. And the room is warm with the smell of cassoulet. Cassoulet, beans and herbs, sausage and strips of belly pork, bought in Brixton and carried down in his rucksack, recipe copied from a book. Decided against soufflé in the end, it needed to be something that could cook a long time and wouldn’t spoil. Soufflé needs an audience for the moment of its entrance. Ta-dah! He’s opened a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon from the village shop, fortunately they do have booze – dicey moment when he realised he’d forgotten it – a dusty bottle, the label wrinkled as if it had long ago got wet. But still, it’s decanted into a jug so it can breathe and be ready for the welcome. He sloshed some of the wine into the pot and drank a small glass, just a taste.

  Christ, how he enjoyed the cooking. Hasn’t enjoyed anything so much since … can’t think. Maybe never. Cooking is always good but cooking for someone else, someone you want to nourish and impress … that is total. He was absorbed, that’s it, his mind on nothing else but the slicing of the mild white onions; the crushing of the garlic with salt; the colours of the carrots, white beans, green; purple sausage, pale damp fatty pork. Just as well he thought to shop before he left London seeing what’s in that village shop – and that poor tosser behind the counter. Christ!

  His stomach growls. Pours another mouthful of wine. Wishes he knew when she’d be getting here. What if it’s not today but tomorrow? or the next day, or what if it’s not for weeks? But no, she’ll want to be home, she’ll be here and the food will keep, its flavour will improve.

  What is it he feels as he surveys the warmth and colour in the room – crazy place, sea-shells stuck all round the doors and the window like a sort of frame – as he inhales the smell of his own cooking? Can’t quite place it, not a customary feeling – it’s benevolence or something like – beneficence, that’s it. Not a common word but then he’s not common, Tony. He appreciated Patrick right from the beginning, not like the ignorant, common people who couldn’t understand, who only mocked. What common guy would have had the initiative not only to get here, not only to dare to seek his fortune but have the imagination to prepare this feast purely as an act of … homage – there
he goes again – for a woman he had never met? Homage on Patrick’s behalf. She’ll get a bit of a shock when she gets here, he’s prepared for that, prepared for a hiccup while she takes in the news that he’s here, as a sort of disciple of Patrick’s, guided here by Patrick himself, and she is not alone any more.

  He’s searched everywhere for the elixirs, little dark bottles they’ll be, or phials, each one numbered. But there’s no trace. No panic, no need to turn everything over. She’ll tell him where they are, or hand them over. It’s a dump, this place, nothing but a glorified shack. And Patrick lived here? Dark old bedroom, mushroom-smelling, a lurch to the floor if you step too hard. Toilet out the back, no bathroom let alone a shower and he takes that hard. A cake of Imperial Leather on the draining board studded with crumbs and hairs, a stiff and tatty flannel hanging on a pipe by the sink shows she washes there. Disgusting to wash your body where you wash your plates.

  But this room, lived-in kitchen, is OK and upstairs, well up that ladder, is the room, the room in Lisa’s article. You’d never believe it, dwarf-sized – the ceiling maybe five foot at most, sloping away to the floor. Patrick must have had to crawl. But it’s full of brightness. There’s something right about it, about the room, about his being here, a feeling that after all he’s been through at last he is home. Like that game, cold, warm, warmer, hot! Very very warm now, almost scorching himself on what he’s after. Almost there.

  There’s a faint whiff of old pipe smoke and a little clay pipe like something from an archaeological dig. And dead insects on the floor, wasps mainly, flies, moths. Why so many bugs? And boxes of photographs. Treasure. Patrick inside and outside. Patrick with his flowing beard looking like a fucking prophet. Patrick naked in one, dripping, like Neptune just emerged from the sea. Hung like a frigging horse, well, he would be. Patrick and Sachavarelle, Patrick and other people, Patrick with a girl, slim, dark with a straight look. Benson! She’s hardly changed, except for the change from girl to old woman – that look is just the same as the one she gave him in the street, chin lifted, sort of brave. Prickly, alert, sharp. She couldn’t be other than clever with a look like that. And thinking of looks, eyes … holding the picture of Benson, Tony sits down, wedges his hips into the tiny armchair. Those other eyes suddenly assault him with their openness, their lack of guile. Lisa. It strikes him suddenly like an insight – though really it’s obvious – that Lisa is lovely. That if he wanted a woman, was capable, Lisa would be the one. But he is not capable or safe and when that comes back to him, it comes with such anger that he screws up the photograph in his fist.

  Gets up and goes down the ladder. Sees the table – set by some fucking fag by the look of it. Takes the flowers from the vase and crumples them, wrings them between his hands. Swigs from the jug of wine, spills a long red splash down his white shirt. Shit. Kicks the leg of the table and a glass topples to the floor but it doesn’t smash. Wants a smash. Presses his foot down on the glass. Hard. Leans his weight on it, why won’t it fucking smash? and then it does, feels through his trainer the crack and give and scrunch of broken glass.

  Then he’s out of it, legging it down the path, running awkwardly through the shifting sand of the dunes to the flat wetness where there is no one now and where he tries to scream but a scream won’t come, only a kind of sob.

  FOUR

  Here is the house, settled and complete. Her own place. At long last. Oh it is grand to be home. No place like it, cliché or not. The tyres of the taxi grate on the gravel. The driver carries her luggage and shopping to the door. She tries to unlock it. The key turns but the door won’t open. She struggles the key in the lock, turns it again and it opens. Funny. Surely it hasn’t been unlocked all that time? It’s warm and welcoming inside. She’s proud to have the driver see it, bright in all its colours. He puts the bags on the table, her suitcase by the door.

  ‘Good to be back?’ he says and she looks up at him, has a shocking thought. He’s got a ring in one ear, she does like that in a man, and stubble on his chin, a sort of jaunty set to his shoulders, long legs. Good gracious, it’s been an age and she feels odd, experiencing a surge of something, something almost forgotten, something very like lust. Yes, it is lust. She bites her lip. What would he think if he knew? It’s been years since she’s felt that, surely, years. All that jolting about in a taxi must have brought it on.

  He hangs around a bit and she realises that it’s a tip he’s after – the journey itself was paid for in advance. She takes a fiver out of her purse, feeling flush, Miss Benson, hands it over. He stuffs it in the pocket of his jeans, tight jeans that cling to his narrow hips. ‘Ta,’ he says. ‘Well, I’ll best be off-ski.’ She watches him walk to his car, get in and drive off, too fast down the rutted track.

  Something is strange in her. Yes, that old strange achy heat. But no, that’s not all, something else is strange. The place has been empty and yet – it is not cold but warm, it’s too welcoming – and too clean. The table clean. And something else … no … a smell of food. She goes to the cooker and puts her hand on the white enamel. Warm. She steps back, her heart doing a funny flip in her chest. And white. Cleaning the cooker is not something she does, but it is white. She comes over queer. Goes back to the door, shoves it open for the fresh air.

  Someone has been in her house. She looks back at the room, takes in the changes. Nothing bad. Come on, Con, be rational. Someone has been here, that’s all, someone has been here and cleaned the table and the cooker and … she goes back to the cooker and stoops to open the door … and cooked her a meal. The heat hits her, the thick meaty smell. The old casserole dish is in there, she can hear whatever’s inside it bubbling. She closes the oven door quietly so as not to disturb it and sits down on a chair beside the scrubbed table. She takes off her hat.

  So, someone has been in. But not to be alarmed. Not a burglar or an ill-wisher, or a breaker and enterer, because nothing is broken. She has only been entered. Nothing, as far as she can see, has been taken. What is there to take? The only valuable thing she possesses is Patrick’s portrait, which she sees with a start is back, is propped up against the wall. Someone must have brought him back and unpacked him. He looks all wrong there, shadowed and low down – but still he’s home, undamaged.

  Nothing to be afraid of. Some kind person has been here and cooked and cleaned. A well-wisher, not an ill-wisher. She digests this. Who on God’s earth could it be? There are no neighbours and she doesn’t know people in the village, not properly, only to nod, smile, exchange a word, a Christmas card to Barry and his mum. Barry’s mum? No. Someone from a distance then. The man Barry directed here? But who? Nobody knew when she was due back. It should have been tomorrow, she could have stayed another day, planned to do the Tate for old time’s sake, but couldn’t bear another single question, another single night suspended above the roaring streets. Not that she didn’t enjoy the luxury …

  Who then? Who has been in the house? There’s some squashed ragwort on the draining board. Most peculiar. If it’s meant to be some sort of message she doesn’t get it.

  She goes outside and lifts the flowerpot by the door. The key has gone, of course. Too obvious, she’s been told, that’s the first place a burglar would look. But her answer: I’d rather they opened the door with a key than smashed the windows or the door down, makes sense, doesn’t it? She prowls round touching and checking. Her feet crunch on broken glass and she stops. Some breaking then. But only an old glass. Probably an accident. The sink has been cleaned, the enamel which has been dark brown for as long as she can remember is cream swirled with scratches. Even the tap has been polished, she sees a distortion of herself as she peers at it. There’s something different about everything. She exchanges a shadowed glance with Patrick. It’s as if everything has been moved and put back in not quite the right place.

  She climbs the ladder, stopping halfway up, suddenly afraid that someone might be up there, waiting. She pauses a moment, listening, her head just below the level of the trapdoor, then dares to
rise, her voice stuck in her throat ready to call out to … to greet or … she doesn’t know. She turns her head to survey the room, relief slowly settling in her because no one is there. No one is waiting for her to emerge. Not even Patrick, who she will bring up here later, return to his rightful place. She climbs up and in. Turns once in the golden light, her arms outstretched, it is good to be home – then freezes when she sees her photographs strewn on the floor, carelessly fanned out, face-up, face-down, the black-and-white, the sepia, the coloured.

  She sits down on her little chair, which surely has moved. On the floor is a screwed-up photograph. Oh dear. She picks it up and smooths it on her knee and meets her own eyes. Has a sudden start, remembering the moment, Patrick’s voice: I’ll steal your soul, and how it had made her shudder. Only a girl, then, where? After Sacha?

  Yes, it was after Sacha’s long illness, after the funeral. They’d gone to Cornwall for a few days and taken lots of pictures as if to confirm that they were there, they were still alive. Connie had felt awful to be enjoying herself, swimming, dancing, making love, had felt awful about the unworthy thought. He’s all mine now, because Sacha had never been an obstacle between them. And she had loved Sacha like a kind of sister/mother/teacher.

  Patrick had asked her if she wanted to get married and she’d said no. Not because she didn’t love him, but they had been together so long by then, what was the point? All right then, you little witch, Patrick had said, snatching up the camera, then I’ll steal your soul. She remembers the start his words gave her, remembers raising her chin to the camera feeling a small tug at something in her chest. What they used to call heart-strings. Thinking, How I love him but he cannot steal my soul.

  Why this photograph? This one screwed up? A horrible stupid thought, feeling. That Patrick is here. Patrick has cleaned the cooker and made a stew, just what he would do. Patrick screwed up the photograph in which he tried to steal her soul. Connie’s lips are dry. She licks them. She looks at her own clever face in the photograph, scored now with crumples and cracks. Don’t go gaga now. Someone has been in the house – why probably a journalist – someone like that – someone looking for secrets, that woman who wants to do her biography? Yes that, of course, that. Not the other thing, stupid. But why screw up a photograph, any photograph, why this – the soul one? No. It is not Patrick returned. Think like that, you daft bat, and you’ve had it.