Trawl

by B. S. Johnson

  Why do I trawl the delicate mesh of my mind over the snagged and broken floor of my past? · · · · · In order to live, the question does not need to be asked, for me. · · · · · · · · So this incident, squalid as it now seems, certainly is not as I would now behave these eight years later: but is this because doing it would bore me, because I know it would not give me release, would not be of any use that I would call use? So, this painful incident, what should I learn from its painful recall? · · · · · · · · It is now easy to see and to understand that I was too selfish: that is, I did not know at that time about enlightened self-interest, that everyone gives in order to receive, that all actions are invariably for selfish motives however much self-delusion there may be about them: and that the enlightenment is all. I took from Joan, and gave little in return. And I did not see at the time—how I could not see it is now difficult to understand—that obviously what she was looking for was security, economic and emotional security, and that I offered her nothing that she wanted, being to her only someone who came from an address he was unwilling to have known, took her for a few drinks, and then screwed her, sometimes when she did not particularly want to be screwed. · · That is clear. And that she went off with the first man who looked like providing some security, even a possibility of a home for the children to be with her. Or is that too obvious, too simple, too naïve? · · What was I looking for? Regular sex, for one thing, probably the main thing. But I did not want other women at the same time: I have never wanted more than one woman at a time, never. So I must have expected from her some sort of closeness, and I must have felt I had it to have believed myself betrayed or let down afterwards: mustn’t I? · · · · · Analyse systematically, then. · · ONE I was too demanding? Yes, probably, but she liked and wanted it, at least at first, apparently even needed it, as well. · · TWO I was too young? Yes, in the sense I was too inexperienced about relationships, and also that she must have been twenty-eight or nine, or even more, while I was twenty-two, just, then. · · THREE I brought her no security? Yes, in the nature of what I wanted, needed, I could not, did not want to marry her, as a woman, let alone a mother of three children, already, and I had little money with which to be generous, earning no more than eight pounds a week at the time, barely supporting myself, eight pounds a week at twenty-two, for this vicious asbestos firm, though I did spend money on drinks for her, and things for the children, and I did take her for one meal at least in that place in the Edgware Road · · the Edgware Road . . . can’t remember her name, from college, though, Peggy, Pauline? · · No, something odder, can’t remember, but from college, some years later, I must have been twenty-four or five by then, older than her, going later to college than most was better for me in many ways, bad in others? · · Prudence or Perdita? · · Her I shall just call her, her, she lived in a women’s hostel, students’ dosshouse, off the Edgware Road, towards the park, wonder if I thought of Joan then, doubt it, that was a different existence, oh so? Forget what brought us together, Priscilla, was it, some college activity, extramural, certainly, beyond other sorts of walls, bounds, too, ah? Aah Aah! · · No, no! Whatever it was brought us together, not so much me, I was never so keen, but it meant going to this hostel, to her little room, formal, a study-bedroom, they called it, whatever it was brought us together, ha! · · But I remember lying on a deep red, coverlet would one call it, on the bed, anyway, and fingering her, and she loved it, but she would not let me have it, and I lay on her, in situ, so to speak, and I said, Look, that’s where it goes, it’s made for you. But no, she would not, and we went out, to cool down my ardour, as I think she meant, in her middleclass way, laughable really, and had chicken liver sandwiches sprinkled with chopped egg, or perhaps saltbeef sandwiches slapped all over with mustard, or perhaps one of each, each, or both, but certainly at this Jewish nosh bar or sandwich house, on a corner in Edgware Road, it’s not there now, had gone the last time I looked, at least. · · Food again. · · I wonder I did not take her to the Marquis, Perpetua, we might have met Joan, or Renee, and that would have pleased me, the irony, at that time, I was very interested in irony, perhaps inordinately, irony, not dramatic irony, which I studied, but irony in life, I was a very ironical person, then. But She, Paula, Pegeen, what the hell, she I was sorry for, that I had to hurt her, who was not used to hurting, usually it was I who was hurt: but I saw something else, knew something else: Gwen: pursued where I would be hurt, hurt in so pursuing, in order to pursue, to be free to pursue. On purpose, that is, who knows, so that I deliberately chose to hurt her, Phoebe, Phyllis, who could not hurt me, in order that I might pursue her who could hurt me, Gwen: · · This amateur psychology. · · Ah. She said, Yes, when I said Sorry, Portia, Poppy, walking again, across Barnes Common it was, this time, that if I did not find someone else she would marry me · · · · · No, that was not it, it’s difficult to remember, here, try harder. · · We walked across the common, the sandy lane or path with the white posts beside Mill Hill, I can’t remember what I said to start with, but later it was that I did not want to marry her though I realised I might be giving up the only chance I would ever have. She said the same or similar either out of pique or truthfully, and then said jokily, We’ll meet again when we’re thirty or something and if we haven’t married others by then, we’ll marry each other. But she need not have worried, Polly, Primrose, she married a Vicar, yes, though he was only a theolog at the time, not licensed to perform births, marriages, churchings, exorcisms, and the like, not on official terms with God, so to speak, an amiable fellow, words which fit him, not like a cleric at all, really admirable for her, she need not have worried, So. · · · · · I knew something else, knew someone else, Gwen, but later, of which there is little left, of which there will soon be nothing left, that is not me, that does not, little is left of anything, for that matter, for any matter, no, all tends towards disintegration, towards chaos, I repeat myself. . . . · · When it was over I saw Petronella again, just once to talk to, really, though I often saw her at college, regretted of course when it was over with Gwen not having Perpetua, Pearl, now yes, then, rather, no, · · This grows tedious, what am I trying to think of? · · The last time I saw Psyche it was at the hostel again, I called one afternoon to collect a guitar I wanted to buy from her, very cheaply she let me have it, in the public lower hall of the hostel, the guitar that is, waiting like a visitor, as indeed I was now a visitor, and I recalled the fingering on the bed, yes, regretted I would not be lying there this afternoon, that she would not invite me to her formal study-bedroom this afternoon: she said she was busy working, but she might have someone else up there, the Vicar for a very good instance, the theolog, rather, the one she was to marry: but perhaps not, perhaps she was working, yes, she did well in Finals, better than me, yes, 2.1 to my 2.2, Phillippa, Prunella did, was perhaps working hard at that moment, and my coming for the guitar was an interruption, probably, once I had paid her, in mint tenshilling notes, I remember, but how many, I do not remember: once I had paid her, I went, was dismissed almost, without any sign of remembering the fingering, and the closeness, as though it was not meaningful, as though it had never been: and now I only regularly associate her with ingrown toenails, whenever I have one, because I had one, very painfully, when we were so close, or so close as we were, almost the whole time, with Patience, if that was her name, which it was not, and whenever I have an ingrown toenail now, or perhaps whenever I cut my toenails, I think. . . . · · What the hell has all this to do with Joan? Discipline, order, clarity, truth. · · · · · FOUR. If none of the previous three points of analysis, singly or together, completely explain Joan’s betrayal, defection, whatever, (and they do not) then the only other reason must be a character fault in me, which is unknown to me. And which I will allow to remain unknown for the moment, until I am forc
ed, perhaps by similar conclusions from other analyses of memories, if they are not too tedious, to examine, later. · · · · · As though reasons help, in any case. · · · · · What had I from it, afterwards, in the end? · · New knowledge of my body’s faculty. · · Confidence from consummation of my full intention, for however brief a time. · · · · · No lesson that I learnt well enough to avoid later painfulness.