by Gavin McCrea
She had already picked out those children who were likely to have good trips and those likely to have bad. It gave her little pleasure to see her predictions borne out, though she felt no remorse either. Everybody had to die sometime; the children might as well get it over with early so they could come back as somebody else; if they were not ready now, they would probably never be.
Her mother’s cue for coming back on stage had long passed. In the play, she was meant to re-enter as soon as THE PEASANTS danced out the door. Alone on stage, she was meant to survey the mess made by the revellers, and, aware that she herself might look a mess having just come from a tryst with her father’s valet, fix her own appearance in the mirror. It was then, while her mother was powdering her face, that Iris was meant to come on, taking over Eric’s role as JEAN. Iris had learned the part. Every line. If her mother did not do what she was meant to, Iris would not get to do what she was meant to, which was to act. It was awful to have to depend on her mother like this; awful to want to act, and awful to rely on her mother’s actions for it.
While on stage the children, like inmates in a miniature asylum, continued their deranged ballet, Iris glowered across at her mother in the wings. Her mother remained trapped on three sides: by the flats, by Keith and Sunny, and by Eva. Her only way out was to come back onto the stage. But — her arms folded, her chin raised proudly — she was spurning it.
In different parts of the auditorium, seats were banging up. People were leaving.
—Enough of these horrors! a woman cried as she went.
The majority, though, were sticking it out. Like most audiences, they were more interested in watching the actors than the play, so they were not overly concerned that Miss Julie was being ruined; more interesting to them was the chance to witness actors in trouble, failing, being mortified. Somewhere in the distant heavens, someone began to clap. Others then joined in, and it spread down into the balcony and stalls, and took over the entire theatre: not an ovation but a taunting clap-pause-clap-pause-clap-pause-clap.
Eva put her hands over her ears and shook her head frantically. Iris could see her lips move: Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up—. Their mother saw her chance and tried to slip round the outer edge of the flat, so as to escape into the wings stage front without being seen by the audience. Eva immediately sensed their mother’s absence, and reawakened. Newly furious, she caught the back of her mother’s blouse and launched her sideways into the lights.
Acid usually allowed only limited space for memory. Almost never did the visions Iris saw while tripping remind her of her own past. Reality was altered but remained unshakably itself, untainted by what once had been. Sober now, she was looking from the other perspective: things were as they were, and that was full of memories. An extraordinary image of her mother had materialised in the world — pitched headlong onto the stage, and now falling down onto her hands and knees — yet playing alongside this image, over it, in it, were memories, ordinary memories, of the kind as might occur in the course of an average day. Her mother teaching her to sing at the piano. Her mother checking her homework. Her mother accompanying her on the train to boarding school. Her mother accompanying her on the train back. These recollections caused Iris to feel the horrendous burden of her mother’s criticisms. Stop drifting away. Don’t fall down. Clean yourself up. Have sympathy. Be good. Make friends. Read more. Analyse it. Speak up. Sing higher. Choose better. Which one do you want? No, not that one. Are you crazy? Do you want to be like everyone else? And, in the same instant, they caused her to act: to step out of the wings and onto the boards.
Her mother was crawling on her hands and knees towards the stage edge, intent, it seemed, on climbing down into the stalls.
—Help! she was saying, Help! Call the police. Someone, please. I don’t know who these people are. I don’t know what they want. I have nothing to do with this.
Nothing?
Iris shot the gun for the second time. Aimed it upwards like before; without looking for a target, just pressed the trigger. The bullet struck a theatre lantern. Glass and bits of metal and plastic rained down onto the back of a child who was lying on the boards facedown. A section of the stage lost brightness. The cameraman ran out of the wings and pointed his camera up, to record the damage. The audience’s clapping ceased. To be replaced by yells of panic, and whimpers, and loud cracks, and groans as people dived down behind the seats, or climbed over them, or crawled under them to try to get out.
Her mother, legs dangling off the edge of the boards, about to jump off, turned back to face the stage. What she saw — Iris was happy to mount this scene for her — was her daughter bringing the gun to her own temple. Pressing the muzzle into her skin hard enough to leave an imprint.
Seeing this, her mother froze.
Seeing her mother freeze, Iris smiled and took the gun from her head and pointed it at the green exit sign above the central doors.
The crowd began to protest, then choked on its own breath.
Iris drew a line in the air with the gun — dead slow, the slow that is the spending of all force to hold back all force — until its sight found the centre of her mother’s forehead, her third eye.
A crack formed in her mother’s hard, white resistance; she blinked.
Iris rubbed her finger along the trigger.
Act, woman.
Her mother’s jaw unfastened, her lips parted.
Am I to obey you?
Iris cocked the hammer.
For once. For your sake, I beg you.
Eva
1968
xviii.
At last the group arrived at the London Carlton. Eva saw Doris following the breakaway cell onto Cecil Court. Doris was supposed to be staying here with the main group, and it infuriated Eva that she was not sticking to the plan. Eva could endure anything — right now, for instance, on the verge of committing acts of vandalism and violence, she was on the extreme edge of herself, but controlling it, holding it, hysteria flickering in and out of her gestures without taking them over — but she could not endure Doris’s refusal to submit to her control. Listen to me for once, I beg you.
A few minutes later, Doris re-emerged from Cecil Court, accompanied by the cameraman who had gone with her. Relieved, Eva conducted the children into their final dance formation, then gave the other collective members the signal that they should prepare themselves for entering the theatre. Joshua arranged the children into two lines, one on either side of the door.
Turning back towards Doris with the intention of urging her to hurry up, Eva saw that the cameraman was now coming back this way, but that Doris herself, separated from him, was going the other way, down St Martin’s Lane towards Trafalgar Square.
Eva grabbed Álvaro.
—Here, take this, she said, giving him the bell. Keep the children in order. Don’t make a move until I get back.
She ran after Doris:
—Doris, wait! Doris! Doris!
Doris pretended not to hear until she could no longer pretend; then she twisted her neck round.
—Where are you going? said Eva.
—Look, I’m sorry.
—For what?
—This is your happening. You don’t need me around any more.
—You’re leaving? Now?
—Go back to the group. See it through without me.
—Don’t do this, Doris. Don’t run away like you do from Papa.
—Go back, Eva, or you’ll be too late.
A little further down the road, a cab was parked with the engine running. A male figure inside opened the door.
—What’s going on, Doris? said Eva.
Doris offered her a hug which she did not accept but was powerless to reject.
—I won’t be coming back, said Doris. Sorry. You’re amazing. I won’t forget you.
—Where are you going? Back to Papa? I don
’t get it. You’ve been blanking him since you got back from Paris, and now all of a sudden you have to see him? Can’t he wait a bit longer? Stay and help us finish this.
—I’m sorry, Eva. I’ve gone as far as I can go with you.
—We’ve just got started. Please, stay. We do great work together.
She waved dismissively back towards the theatre:
—Much better than this, I promise. This is only a test. In the future there’ll be better things.
—Keep making good work. Don’t give up.
Tears flooded Eva’s eyes.
—What am I supposed to do?
—Go back to the group. Do what you planned.
—No, about the other thing I told you. What am I to do about that?
Eva let out a terrible sob. That she had ever talked to Doris about Álvaro cut her with shame; that she had brought Álvaro up again now, as an act of desperation, would haunt the entire rest of her relationship with him. This need she had for the people she admired to convince her that it was right to marry him, it would never go away.
She had to press a closed fist against her mouth to force her feelings back.
The cab’s horn honked, and Simon’s head emerged through the open door:
—What the bleeding hell is keeping you?
Seeing him, hearing him, Eva’s hand fell from her face. The tears ran down her cheeks, unfelt, for their provenance was in emotions that had passed into shock.
—I don’t believe it, Eva shouted after her. Tell me this is a joke!
So she was with him now? Simon was the reason Doris was not going back to her father? Impossible. Doris was using Simon merely. For what, only Doris could know, though it was unlikely to be for anything other than her art, the advancement of her career. Did Simon love Doris? If he was capable of love at all, which Eva doubted, then maybe. Maybe purloining his brother’s love was precisely how he understood love, and the closest he would ever get to it.
Doris trotted away towards the cab.
—It’s not what it looks like, she called back as she climbed in.
As she settled into the rear-facing seat, her hand remained on the door handle, keeping the door open as an invitation for Eva to join them. Eva took a couple of steps, then rushed forward, getting as far as the rear bumper before — slam! — the door closed, and Doris shouted through the open window:
—Don’t pity your father. He ain’t an innocent party in any of this.
Eva watched the cab splutter to the end of St Martin’s Lane, then tear left onto William IV Street.
Before returning to the group, Eva fixed her red helmet, which had tipped back on her head while running, and wiped her face because it felt dirty after crying. The black shoe polish came off on her fingers. Wiping it on her boiler suit, she felt consumed by a sense of loss.
Back outside the London Carlton, the children had come out of line and were shifting about. Scratching their limbs and talking to themselves. A couple were sitting on the ground. One was convulsed in laughter. Another was gazing fixedly at a point on the pavement directly between his feet. An older girl called Mary appeared to be in a trance and stared at Eva without seeing her. Several lanterns were on the ground; one was tipped onto its side, being knocked about by the shuffling of the children’s feet. Suddenly furious, Eva swiped the bell from Álvaro.
—What bullshit is this? she said.
—What’s your problem? Álvaro said.
—My problem is you. I leave you with one measly job—
She shook the bell hard, and it pealed out its terrible sound. But it did not have the desired effect. The child who was laughing began to cry. Another started screaming. A third ran away and had to be chased after and dragged back. The rest had to be physically pushed back into position.
—Where did Doris go? Álvaro said.
—Who fucking knows, Eva said. She’s been doing this to Papa for years. It’s her habit. She leaves. No warning. Then she—
—Comes back?
—Yeah. And all is forgiven.
After the failure of The East Wind, Doris’s career had progressed in parallel with her mother’s, if on a different scale. As Doris, the body artist, moved up from warehouses to galleries, her mother, the actress, went from rooms above pubs to large West End theatres. At the same time that Doris began to be featured in art journals, her mother began to appear in Sunday supplements and on television. Eva kept a close watch on the paths taken by the two women, and what she found was, she did not envy her mother, with the larger fame; she envied Doris, with the smaller.
Eva envied Doris for whatever it was she possessed which impelled everyone — her father, Max, Simon, the world — to pick her. To want to look at her. To work with her. To love her. Eva envied Doris for having been chosen from nothing to be something, and for having dedicated herself to becoming that something without dropping all of her principles in the process, as her mother had done.
It did not matter that Eva was not entirely taken in by the art that Doris produced. That she thought it self-absorbed in spite of its extroverted veneer. That its political power was vastly overstated by the critics. What mattered was that, between surpassing her mother or surpassing Doris, she would have chosen the latter without hesitation. She might not have been fanatical about Doris’s art, she might have thought it inferior to anything a group could achieve, yet she would compare everything she did in the future against it. And, in this, she would be just like her mother too.
Shortly after their wedding in nineteen-seventy, Eva and Álvaro would go to Doris’s big show, The Proletarian Cultural Revolution Will Be Eternal, at the Whitechapel Gallery. The show would consist in its entirety of photographs of Simon. Simon asleep. Simon in the bath. Simon smoking at the kitchen table. Simon opening a can of beans. Simon naked on the couch with an arm over his eyes. Simon frying an egg. Simon tying his shoelaces. Simon turning on his radio. Simon with his war medals. Simon with his memorabilia from Italy. Hundreds of them, taken over a two-year period (the same two years of Eva and Álvaro’s suspended prison sentence). Most of the images would be taken in the same flat, and Simon would always appear alone, though he would sometimes be seen interacting with Doris behind the camera: talking to her, or smiling at her, or, in one, giving her the finger because she had just come in on him sitting on the toilet. With the photographs printed in varying sizes, the images would cover the walls from floor to ceiling, room after room: Simon — his ugliness — everywhere. For that would be the true star of the show, its real focus. His ugliness would be what the camera seemed most interested in, what its lens seemed intent upon. Even when his ugliness would not be at the centre of a picture, still it would be at its centre; when it would be hidden, still it would be there.
Standing in front of an image of Simon’s stump poised above a chess piece as if about to move it or topple it over, Eva would say to Álvaro:
—What do you think?
Álvaro would shrug and say:
—Not my thing.
Eva would feel her hand in Álvaro’s hand, and the cheap wedding band pinching the skin of her finger, and say:
—Mine neither. Who’d want it on their wall?
But the truth was, given the choice, she would have given up Álvaro there and then, if it meant being able to go back to that night outside the London Carlton and to climb into that cab with Doris and Simon, if it meant her name being stencilled on these gallery walls beside Doris’s, if it meant her own image filling these rooms until they became something more than her.
Why had Doris not chosen her? Was it because she believed Eva had not suffered as Simon had? Was Eva too intact? If so, what injustice. What wilful blindness. If one took the whole of someone’s life, no one was clean. Marks were left by whatever one saw and did; it did not have to be war. Even a privileged life like Eva’s took its toll.
A thousa
nd wounds and a hundred holes.
Giving up Wherehouse and entering into the marriage system had done nothing except bandage these wounds over. How hard it was to have so many injuries and not have the opportunity to let air to them. Wifehood would have been easier if Eva had always wanted to be covered up, or if her love for Álvaro was such that this covering up did not feel like a sacrifice. But, as it was, waiting for a chance to undress was a torture. With Álvaro, she was but a mummy. Wrapped up in her defeat.
When will a call to nakedness come?
In the theatre foyer, the ushers had been watching the children’s street performance through the glass of the door. The three of them, two male and a female, all over fifty, were nudging each other and laughing up their sleeves. On Eva’s nod, Joshua, Jay, Stewie, and four of the older children pushed the door open, slipped in and formed a tight circle around the ushers. By linking arms, the Wherehouse members locked them inside the circle, then together they sidled to the right; caught like flies under a glass, the ushers were forced to move with them.
Once the way was clear, Barbara opened out the doors, and the rest of the children poured in. Inside, Eva, Glen, Eggie, and Per divided the two lines of children into three and put one line to stand in front of each of the auditorium doors. Barbara locked the main door with a bicycle chain, then ran to the booth, where the ticket seller, encased in glass, was speaking into a telephone. Barbara put the muzzle of her fake gun against the glass and said:
—Put down the phone, now.
The ticket seller’s mouth began to gape and grind.
—Speak into the device, said Barbara.
Without taking the telephone receiver from her ear, the ticket seller leaned into the microphone:
—The money’s in a safe.
—We don’t want your money, said Barbara. What we want is for you to put down that fucking phone.
On the other side of the foyer, Joshua was negotiating with the ushers.