When they had had their tea, Wilkinson discoursed at great length on the Christmas tree, where and when he had bought it and how much it had cost. It turned out that he was later going to donate it to a Children’s Hospital. He also spent a long time discussing the incidence of burst pipes in cold weather.
Around eleven o’clock Mark and Lorna got up. She had clearly enjoyed her evening. She was in good spirits and her colour was good.
“When are you expecting the child?” she asked Mrs. Wilkinson.
“About a month or so. Last time my husband was in a terrible state, ringing the hospital at all hours of the night. Mind you, they’re very nice here. You can go and visit any time you like, practically.”
When Lorna and Mark were walking down the road they passed the lakes where the two swans had been. It was now frozen over.
“I wonder if swans migrate,” said Mark. “I suppose they do. Even Leda’s swan,” and he burst out laughing.
Lorna’s face looked very pale in the reflected snow and starlight.
“You didn’t tell me about that friend of yours,” she said.
“Oh, the one who deals with the delinquents? I’m sorry, I forgot. You should meet him, he’s very interesting and he writes damn good books.”
“To hell with his books,” said Lorna suddenly. “To hell with him and his books.”
“What are you so angry about now?”
“Well you want people to tell you the truth, don’t you? That’s how I feel, that’s all. And I’m telling you.”
“All right, all right, so you’re telling me. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?”
“No, we won’t leave it at that. Did you notice how warm that house was? Our house always seems to be so cold.”
“They’ve got better heating. Wilkinson gets up and stokes it in the morning before he goes to college.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“You shut up,” he said, putting his arms around her. Her face enclosed by the furs was diamond like and clear, like a pearl of dew.
“My beautiful Lorna,” he said, “what is Mrs. Wilkinson to you? She is three thousand feet below you. She is on the plains and you are on the mountains. She is a bloody swamp devouring old Wilkinson. You are worth three million of her. Three bloody million.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Lorna in a small quiet voice. “I’m not so sure.”
10
When he got on the train (having bought a Statesman at the bookstall to read on the way) there was no-one in the carriage but himself and a coloured man who had a case beside him, as if he had been selling clothes. The carriage contained a large number of seats of soft cushiony green stuff and tables and Mark sat down in a corner seat near the door. Outside, it was cold and the roads were slippery: he could imagine that not many people would wish to come out. However, there was no snow falling and the air was dry.
He began to read the Statesman and to think about his coming adventure with a certain excitement. He wasn’t quite clear in his mind about what world Hunter might show him, but he expected that it would be at least interesting and unusual. He wasn’t frightened in any way, merely curious, for though he had read much about violence he had never come into contact with anyone who had committed it. In fact he expected that the people he might see would be quite pleasant to him: after all, he himself was an egalitarian and he had no preconceptions against them.
From his corner seat he could see the head of the coloured man leaning back against the green cushiony seat as if he were tired. The bulging case beside him was strapped tightly as if he hadn’t succeeded in selling much. He wondered idly how coloured men reacted to the bitter cold December and why they remained in such a cold country when they could go back to their own. Did they expect more than they got when they came and then refuse out of stubbornness to return? Presumably they were tired and dispirited walking street after street with their cases, being greeted contemptuously by people from an alien culture. He wondered how he would feel himself if he went to India or Pakistan, a stranger, to walk from village to village, house to house, selling goods which perhaps nobody really wanted. Sitting in the carriage he had an immense intuition of loneliness, of the loneliness of the black man in front of him, of a life lived in utter loneliness, when one had in common with other people neither a language nor a culture nor even a gesture. As the train hummed on he turned this idea over and over in his mind, as a jeweller might examine a stone, looking at it from all angles in the slant, slightly flawed air. It would be as if one were at a certain angle to the universe, hanging upside down in a world without gravity.
As he studied the head (he couldn’t see the face) he noticed that the hair was turning slightly grey. He had never noticed a greying coloured man before, or rather the greying head of a coloured man. It was leaning back against the green stuff as if the man were tired, as if he did not even know that there was any observer in the carriage, as if, even if there were, he didn’t care. He didn’t turn his head at all, not even to look out of the window to see if there was any interesting scenery or to study the names of the stations. Perhaps he had sold nothing all that day: this might even be his form of communication, and to sell nothing would be a criticism of himself. Perhaps selling something involved a kind of love which he was missing, and, missing that, he had nothing.
Mark was amazed and made uneasy by the thoughts that the head of the coloured man brought into his mind. Perhaps if he could see his face the thoughts would go away and he might even see a jolly happy face unwrinkled by the cares of the day. After all, coloured people were often joyful and vivacious: one had only to think of people like Louis Armstrong, holding the trumpet to their mouths. But this was probably not a Negro: he would be an Indian or a Pakistani, and no-one knew what they were like; at least he didn’t.
As he was thinking these thoughts, the sliding doors at one end of the carriage slid open and two tall youths strode through, shouting loudly. They walked quickly down the corridor and opened the door next to him and went into the next carriage. He had a quick glimpse of skin-tight blue trousers and belts and then they were gone, leaving the door beside him open. The draught began to blow against his shoulder and he sat up and pulled the door shut again. He tried to go back to his New Statesman, where he was reading an article on economics.
In a short while the door behind him opened again and the two youths strode, singing and shouting, down the corridor again. This time they stopped just before they reached the door at the far end and looked back. As they did so he looked down quickly at his Statesman. He felt suddenly chilled as if there had entered the carriage a strange scent of the beast of prey, a vulpine air, as if he himself were crouching down behind the Statesman like a small creature in the undergrowth, hoping not to be noticed, but scenting the rank smell of death all around it.
They were however not looking at him: they were looking at the coloured man. In unison, like a caricature of dancers, they wafted towards him and stood looking down at him, impersonal as neon light, or warped scientists examining something on a slide. One of them lovingly touched the top of his head. The black head did not stir but presumably the face stared ahead of it, without winking, an object which knew its place, or which had learned that to give offence by moving was to attract the lightning. One of the youths delicately stroked the head as one might stroke the head of a dog, lovingly, carefully, as if the youth had found something of unexpected value which he must not lose. They looked at each other. Mark looked at them askance.
“Coon,” said one of the youths in a wondering voice, “a coon. A nice wee coon.” The other one smiled angelically, his fair hair framing a cherubic face. “A coon,” he repeated. Still the head remained motionless, and the mouth speechless. The first youth patted the head possessively, and they walked on towards the door and through it. There was a silence in the carriage: the black head all this time hadn’t moved. But the silence in the carriage was the silence before thunder, the silence of a heavy day with a coppery sky wh
en one waits for something to happen. Mark felt a constriction at his heart. He felt as if he were being slowly squeezed to death. He thought: I will get up and I will go and sit beside the coloured man. I shall sit there beside him and then they will have to attack me as well. But he sat where he was. The train sped on.
The door opened and the two youths came back. One of them (the one with the fair hair and the cherubic face) stood above the coloured man and said gently, but loudly enough for Mark to hear, “We’re going to do you, coon.” His voice was infinitely gentle, infinitely patient. He might have been a doctor reassuring a patient that there was nothing wrong, he might have been a lover whispering to his loved one. “When you get off at the station we’re going to do you, coon.” Mark could see no black face, only a head that didn’t move, and the head was a target in the middle of concentric groves that receded and advanced, receded and advanced. It was strange that the head didn’t move at all, not even towards the youths. It was as if it expected these things to happen to it continually as stones expect the rain. It leaned there against the green, the face staring straight ahead.
“Where do you come from, coon?” said the youth leaning towards the face. “When did you wash yourself last, coon? When did you, coon? Don’t you like me, coon? Say something, coon?” He put his arm around him as if he were cradling a child. The train sped on, making little sound, neither jerking to the right nor to the left. “Tell you what, coon, we’ll be behind you when you get off at the station. There’s a lavatory there. That’s where we’ll do you, coon. Do you get me, coon?” The face was infinitely gentle, the voice was infinitely patient. Mark was almost lulled to sleep by it, till he tried to imagine what the face of the coloured man looked like, till he tried to imagine what he must feel, till he tried to imagine the coloured man thinking of the lavatory at the station, the darkness of it, the scrawled obscenities, the large tiled whitenesses.
He looked out of the window. They sped through another station and no-one boarded the train. He could imagine most people sitting by the fire, by their Christmas trees, preparing for their festivities, drawing in from the outer cold. At one station a man with a wheelbarrow waved to them and one of the youths waved back, out of his largesse, his satisfied leisure. He had pleasure ahead of him, the world was pleasant and opulent.
The three people in front of him had fallen silent, waiting there as in a frieze, the black man sitting, the fair haired youth half-sitting beside him, and the other one standing, looking down. A trinity. An obscene trinity. A companionship which was very close, so close that they could sense each other’s blood ticking. The train hummed on.
If I were to pull the communication cord, thought Mark, then surely someone would come. He looked at it, and, as he looked, one of the youths looked back at him and smiled but made no move towards him. He dropped his eyes. He stared at the Statesman but he didn’t read anything. The youth came along and looked down at him. “It’s a coon,” he said. “Do you know what a coon is?” There was a long silence. “It’s a coloured man, isn’t it?” he heard himself saying. The youth seemed satisfied. “You’re right,” he said, “dead on. Dead on.” He moved back down to where the coloured man was. The train sped on, accelerating. It seemed to be stopping at fewer stations now. He clenched his hands thinking, “I hope we don’t pass through any tunnels. I hope we don’t pass through any tunnels.” He imagined the blackness and he was frightened. He was terrified. His hands sweated, his spirit sweated. But it was broad daylight all the time and the fairhaired youth seemed to be crooning to the coloured man, seemed to be singing a lullaby to him, his most precious possession, his own, his child. And the black head did not move. It waited. It perhaps thought but it did not speak. It was greying.
It will go on like this forever, thought Mark, forever and forever. If only the man would say something, if only he would protest. If only he would shift his head. If only he would look at the two youths. But the train hummed on, picking up speed, rocking from side to side. But it did not shake that head. It was set in the gap between two wedges of cushiony green. It was fixed. And then the terrifying feeling swam into Mark’s mind: perhaps there is only the head. Perhaps there is no body. Perhaps there is no suit, no tie, no trousers, no shoes, just the head that has been suffering and fixed since time began. The two youths were almost asleep, bringing home their coloured head like a trophy that a hunter might bring home after a long day in the woods with his gun, searching, and then by pure chance, by radiant opportunity, coming across in a clearing a gift as if from the heavens themselves, a victim, a deer.
The train approached the station, decelerating, passing large wooden warehouses, negotiating a spider’s web of rails, shining, icy. The platform sped towards them. There was a long release of air as if somebody had sighed, and the train stopped.
“Come on then, coon,” said one of the youths. “Don’t forget your case.” There was a long silence. No doors seemed to be opening, and there was hardly anyone on the platform. One of them took his case, and they got him up out of his seat. Mark noticed the scuffy shoes, one heel lower than the other, and the brown baggy trousers, with a patch at the back. He saw the short squat baggy figure moving forward between the two youths who were supporting him as if he were a drunk or a sick man whom they were helping along. He heard a loud thin silent scream coming from inside himself as he watched the three walking along. The scream was like cloth being ripped. He touched his lips as if he felt that blood was coming from them. Behind him the steam sighed and hissed, freezing as it touched the air. He half stumbled out past the ticket collector into the square, standing there for a moment staring unseeingly at the statue of Kitchener and the stone lions below the suspended yellow sword.
In front of him he saw a pub and entered, ordering a whisky quickly. He drank it in one gulp and ordered another one. In a short while he would go to Hunter’s house and they would go to wherever Hunter was taking him. He stared at a girl perched on a bar stool, her short skirt hitched about her thighs. She stared back at him angrily and he swivelled his eyes away. A Negro was sitting on one of the stools with his arm around one of the barmaids, telling her a joke in a loud voice. Then he burst out laughing, hands slapping his knees, an animated child. The middle aged barman said, “Sexy bugger, aren’t you?” The Negro laughed again and said something to his friend who was reading a newspaper. They both laughed.
Mark got up and went out into the cold day. He felt strange, almost lightheaded, as if some bubble were rising in his head, as if the world itself had been transformed into a bubble, transparent, slightly odd, drifting.
He made his way in the direction of Hunter’s house, which he hadn’t visited before. He asked directions from a number of people who didn’t seem very clear about where it was. Eventually he came to the close and stood staring up at it, thinking. The white stairs faced him, looking empty and clean. A drunk man wove past singing. The harsh wintry light rebounded from the stones: ahead of him he saw a large glassy structure. He waited. Then his feet started to move, away from the close. He didn’t want to see Hunter after all. He walked unsteadily along till he came to a cinema which was showing a Scandinavian film. He climbed the plushy stairs to the circle and sat down in the expensive seats at the back. The large figures on the screen swam towards him, moonily. They were dancing in the twilight by a white expanse of lake, and the air seemed full of symbolism. They had large naked lunar buttocks rounded as the luminous tent in the background. He couldn’t concentrate on them at all, he couldn’t imagine what the story (if story there was) was about. The fragments of conversation seemed ridiculously trite though apparently intended to be profound. Soon there were two of them lying down in a birch wood in the variegated moonlight and another two were diving into the water. Lips approached each other, hands fumbled at flesh.
He thought of something Hunter had said and the words swam into his mind as if they formed a subtitle to a foreign film.
“They are incapable of affection.” The words beat i
nside his head drumlike. “They are incapable of affection. They don’t like to be touched.” And then Lorna saying, “What do the birds do? Do they just take off?” As if in a film he saw fragmentary pictures, himself saying, “Intellectual honesty is everything.” The lovers swarmed about each other. “You’re a spiritual tourist.” He saw himself bending down towards the picture in that small village and the legs of the two youths, stiff and tall above him. He saw himself working at his thesis and above the thesis he saw the picture of the hermit, unshaven and taut faced. He left the circle and went downstairs to the lavatory. His face looked white and shocked as if prised out of wrinkled cement.
“Oh my God,” he thought, “she’s left me.” And he knew quite clearly that she had left him, he knew that her dance the night before had been a farewell to the house. He knew that he had destroyed himself. As he went outside, the neon lighting seemed to be flashing out quotations, a script for his life, his literary life, “Have you ever been alone, truly alone?” someone seemed to be saying. “Have you ever been truly, really, alone?” He seemed to be suddenly at odds with the universe. When was the next train back? He rushed now to the station. Another hour. He waited in the waiting room.
As he waited, more and more pictures cut into his mind and hung there straight in front of him. A voice seemed to be saying to him, “You are a mediocrity. You didn’t know anything about yourself. You didn’t know reality. You thought it was like literature.” He thought of Wilkinson and his wife ensconced in their warm room with the Christmas tree. He thought of him entrenched behind the battlements of the possible.
“They are incapable of affection.” The words came at him like knives out of the greying air. “They don’t like to be touched. They are fighting not you, you are just an excuse, you have got in their way.” He stumbled into the lavatory. There was blood on the floor and he stared at it as if at something which he ought to remember about, something he ought to know the origin of. But there was no-one at all in the lavatory. If only the black man were still there. But there was no-one. He saw the scribblings on the wall and recognised them not as the script from an exciting world but as the infantile fantasia of the impotent. He could himself write something there, “We are incapable of affection.” He could write it in blood, his own blood.
My Last Duchess Page 15