Mushroom.Man

by Paulo Tullio

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘look at that in the wall.’

  I walked up to her and looked into the ditch. At the bottom of it a large granite boulder lay on its side, forming the base of the wall. It had to be from the circle.

  ‘There’s another one.’ She pointed a few yards further on.

  I hate having my ideas pre-empted. Now she gets the credit for the discovery, even though checking the ditches was my idea. I turned to her and said: ‘I had a feeling we might find them in the wall. They couldn’t have moved stones that big very far.’

  We moved vaguely toward the middle of the field. I was uneasy about the circle and my previous vision of it. This woman made me feel uncomfortable as well. How did she know that I’d seen the stones, however briefly, just now? A guess? Also I’d just spent a half hour or so in her company, despite feeling annoyed at her rudeness. Just because she was a bit attractive I was wasting time with her, sharing personal visions unwillingly. She was invading me, that was it, invading a private part of me. Invading private parts. I would, if she’d let me. God, how I hate this stuff. Like a mental, internalized version of Tourette’s syndrome. Smutty mind in a ravaged body. Mens insana in corpore insano.

  There’d been no woman in my life for four months or so, and I missed that. A German hitch-hiker had taken up residence with me for a couple of months in the spring and early summer. One morning I found her packed. She thanked me for letting her stay, gave me a kiss and said it was time that she went home. Said she’d be in touch, but I never heard from her again. Like a re-run of Jane’s goodbye. Maybe I’m not what women want for a long-term partnership. A summer with my right hand and fantasies for company.

  ‘Can I see your house?’

  ‘What? Yes, yes of course. I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

  A cup of tea? What a dumb offer. What should I have offered? A drink? Warm up in front of the fire. That’s it. Get her warm; she’ll take off that lumpy coat. See what she looks like. We walked up the path to the house.

  ‘Move the cat and make yourself comfortable. I’ll just stoke up the fire.’ I put on some dry logs and pumped the bellows rhythmically. A flame. She had the cat on her lap, stroking it. I went into the kitchen to put on the kettle.

  ‘Milk and sugar?’

  ‘Neither, thanks.’

  Figures. Plain tea. I took mine with no milk for once, but I put in sugar. I gave her a mug and took off my coat, hanging it behind the front door. I sat down opposite her, Sirius lying by her feet. I dismantled my gun and started to clean it.

  ‘Can’t you do that later? I hate guns.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  I put the gun on the wall. Why am I saying sorry for doing something in my own home? Some people’s sensibilities are bloody demanding. I remember most of Jane’s friends were vegetarian. When they came to us for a meal I had to eat brown rice. When we went to their house I had to eat brown rice. I always wanted to say ‘I gave you your rice and lentils, where’s my bloody steak?’ I sat down again. She was intent on the cat. She had taken off her boots and was sitting with her legs stretched out. Her ankles didn’t look thick through her long socks.

  ‘So when are you thinking of moving down here?’

  ‘Today. I’ve moved.’

  ‘But the mill’s a ruin. Where are you going to stay?’

  ‘I brought my tent. I’ll set it up down by the river and get a roof onto the mill. With a bit of help.’ She looked up and smiled at me. Oh, now I see. I’m supposed to do the work in exchange for a winning smile. What am I? A white knight?

  ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea? We’re coming into winter. It gets cold, wet. It snows. A tent won’t help much.’

  ‘If it gets bad maybe you’ll offer me shelter.’

  ‘I suppose. But it’s not much of a plan. I mean you don’t know me. I don’t know you.’

  ‘I know quite a lot about you.’

  ‘How? Telepathically?’

  ‘No. From Dave.’

  ‘Dave?’

  ‘Dutch Dave.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘I was married to him, I’m Clair. He’s told me quite a lot about you. I was curious when I found out my ley went right through your house.’

  ‘Ah.’

  That was the best I could manage. I nodded, trying not to look stupid. She’s known who I am since we were standing on the bridge. I wondered if I’d ever told Dave about my vision of the stones. Maybe she knows about that, too. I didn’t know Dave was married, or had ever been married; he’d never mentioned a wife or a Clair. She stood up.

  ‘Mind if use your loo?’

  ‘No, of course. Straight through.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  This wasn’t an invasion of privacy, this was a full-scale premeditated D-day assault. She wants to stay here while she may or not do up the mill. Probably wants me to do all the work anyway. Suppose I had crossed to the other side of the bridge, not looked at her, perhaps I wouldn’t feel so entangled. Stupid dog let her stroke his belly, got me into a conversation. She came back into the room.

  ‘Nice, your house. Not much on housework are you?’

  Is that what’s on offer? Do the housework? Judging by the state of her car it wasn’t much of a bargaining position.

  ‘It’s not the most important thing to me.’

  ‘Obviously not.’

  I went to the mantelpiece and took my tobacco.

  ‘You want a roll-up?’

  ‘No thanks. I’d prefer if you didn’t. I don’t want to inhale your smoke.’

  There’s an obvious reply here that I should have, but didn’t, use. Step outside then, while I smoke in my house.

  ‘OK.’ I put the tobacco back.

  ‘It’s bad for you, you know.’

  You’d have to have lived on another planet for the past twenty years not to know that. It’s my choice; bad maybe, but mine. Like killing rabbits or taking sugar in my tea. My choice. She stood up and took off her coat, throwing it over the back of the sofa. A bulky sweater made just as good a job of hiding her shape as the coat had done. It was beginning to get dark outside. I turned on a light

  ‘Turn it off. The fire-light’s lovely.’

  I did as I was told, but I could feel rebellion growing in my belly. I looked at her in the growing dimness, flickering light playing over her. She looked up.

  ‘Sorry, I’m being demanding. I’m used to getting my own way.’

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘Turn on the light if you want to.’

  ‘No. You’re right. This light is fine. You want another mug?’

  ‘Please.’

  I was being weak. She was manipulating me shamelessly. Instead of offering to walk her back to her car before the light went, I was offering her another mug of tea. Another half hour of hospitality by which time it would be dark. I began to realize that instead of me luring her into my house for some vague, undefined hope of sex, it was she who had set the stage and choreographed every step. Whatever deal I made now was the one I was going to live with. Full testicles were leading my reasoning one way; good sense pointed in an entirely different direction. I brought her in another mug of tea and sat down, warming myself at the fire. It was a good blaze, and I threw on a few more logs.

  ‘It’s getting dark.’

  ‘Yes. Would you mind if I stayed here tonight?’

  This is it. It’s out; spoken. Can’t be recalled. Make a deal, and make it good.

  ‘Sure. I’ve only got one bed, though.’

  ‘I’ve got a sleeping bag in the car.’

  ‘It’s a long walk in the dark.’

  She smiled. I could see the corners of her mouth twitch in the soft light.

  ‘You’re right. I’ll get it in the morning. I’m hungry. What have you got to eat?’

  ‘Pheasant or rabbit.’

  ‘I don’t eat dead animals.’

  ‘I don’t eat living ones.’

  ‘Got any rice or potatoes? Beans?’

  ‘Pota
toes I think. Sirius and me will eat the rabbit.’

  ‘Do you have to?’

  ‘Yes I do. I’m hungry; so’s he.’

  She got up and went to the kitchen. I watched the flames. So it was agreed. She’d live here, with the fiction that she’d be going to do up the mill. I wouldn’t smoke in the house, she’d help with the house-keeping and sleep in my bed. I would continue to eat meat, but she wouldn’t cook it. Would it work? Only time would tell; anyway I was reasoning no further than tonight. An end to four months of celibacy. The future could look after itself.

  We worked in the kitchen together, in silence except for the odd request as to where things were kept. I casseroled the rabbit, she made a vegetable stew. We ate at the kitchen table, unspoken questions hovering in the air between us.

  ‘Dave says you were married.’

  ‘Actually Jane and I never got married. We lived together for eight years.’

  ‘Why did you leave her?’

  ‘I didn’t. She left me.’

  ‘Oh. Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. She married now; she’s got two kids.’

  ‘I see.’

  After we ate we sat by the fire and listened to music. I went out for wood and sat on the wood-pile, watching the odd star through breaks in the clouds and smoked a roll-up. I could see Clair’s shadow through the window moving around on the wall. I wondered what she was doing. When I went in she had the cushions from the sofa laid out, like a bed, in front of the fire.

  ‘I could sleep here, if you prefer.’

  ‘No, you’ll get cold when the fire goes down. Sleep in my bed.’

  She put the cushions back while I placed the fire-guard. I thought we’d decided the sleeping arrangements. We went into the bedroom and a little self-consciously started to undress. I got into bed first and watched her. She removed everything except a tee-shirt and got in beside me.

  ‘It’s lovely and warm,’ she said, pulling the covers up tight to her chin.

  ‘Electric blanket.’ I said.

  I lay, supported by an elbow, looking at her. Her eyes met mine.

  ‘Do you want to have sex with me?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Look, you can use my body for sex, but I won’t be contributing. I mean, don’t expect anything from me. And no kissing. OK?’

  I’d have agreed to anything. It wasn’t what I wanted, but it was better than nothing. Women have to be clever about sex. They have to know exactly how to ration it. Give a man too much, too readily, and he loses respect. Give him too little and he’ll look elsewhere. It’s all in the dosage. I don’t think they teach it in schools, but I’ve never met a woman who doesn’t understand it perfectly.

  ‘Take off your tee-shirt.’

  She sat up, and like women always do, took her arms out of the sleeves before she pulled it over her head. She lay back and I looked. Wide shoulders, long neck, small breasts with prominent nipples, a small mole between them, flat stomach with a slightly protruding belly button. I pulled the covers down. Big bush of pubic hair, even on the tops of her thighs. Long thighs, soft skinned. I stroked them. She lay immobile, letting me explore her body, but without reaction. I stroked her nipples and bent over to kiss them, she pushed me away gently. No kissing.

  ‘Get on top of me.’ I said, hoping that she would.

  She sat astride me and I tried to have sex with her, but I couldn’t. She was dry and tight and the harder I pushed the more it hurt me. The pain eventually made me lose my erection. I said nothing, and she simply got off and lay down with her back to me.

  ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  I turned off the light and slept.

  Phallus impudicus. The Stinkhorn.

  4–10 inches high. White with black slimy head.

  Disgusting-smelling when mature. Attracts flies from miles away.

  Grows on rotting wood. Summer to late autumn.

  Edible when immature, but not tasty.

  Said to be aphrodisiac, probably because of its shape.

  ten

  The second e-mail of the same week continued the story of Clair’s arrival in his life. I was in no position to judge the mushroom. man’s odd relationship with her, since my own personal life was virtually without human contact. But the mushroom. man that had the relationship he was describing seemed oddly at variance with how I had imagined him to be. To be blunt, anyone who hoped to control an internal universe really ought to be able to modify the excesses of someone else’s behaviour – especially if you’re sharing a house with her. This was, however, precisely the sort of topic that I never discussed when e-mailing him: I felt that if I became too intrusive he might simply cease to communicate.

  None the less what he had sent me was a profoundly personal description of a relationship that seemed to be recent. If it was recent, then the mushroom. man was still able to manage his life with some degree of competence – although by any standards it was eccentric. What was becoming clearer to me now was the link between his mushroom world and the world of his everyday life.

  I was still looking for evidence of schizophrenia in his writings; specifically anxiety, emotional instability and inappropriateness of feelings. The classical definition of schizophrenia – believing that the self and the world are unreal – was obviously one that fitted the mushroom.man like a glove. It was already plain to me that he regarded reality as something that was essentially fluid rather than fixed. This in itself was insufficient for a diagnosis of schizophrenia, but it was certainly a pointer.

  It was at this stage that I finally decided I would write a paper to support my thesis that prolonged use of psychedelics could cause schizophrenia. I began to collate my ideas and drew, wherever I could, on some of the mushroom.man’s more bizarre writings as exemplars of poor reality contact among chronic abusers. His relationship with Clair seemed to me to be a good example of his inability to deal with reality.

  Detachment and dissociation are common in habitual users of illicit drugs. It’s possible that the drugs are not the cause, but that rather it is the personality types that seek out the drugs that are already inclined to disorganization and have poor connections with society at large. Either way this self-destructiveness can be found frequently among users. A typical, textbook profile of hallucinogen users would be artistic and intelligent people who have limited contact with ordinary society. In a sense this is a pointer toward a predisposition to schizophrenia, the limited contact making connection with ordinary reality vague and amorphous.

  I mentioned this to one of my students, who pointed out that the dissociation of which I was speaking was similar in many respects to certain forms of ecstatic religious experience. That Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross or Joseph of Cupertino inhabited a reality that differed from that of their peers cannot be in doubt. Yet to a Christian their ecstasies are examples not of lack of reality contact, but rather of communion with the sublime.

  The mystical notion of detaching the body from the world has also been a part of the Christian tradition. Christ himself exhorted his disciples: ‘Take therefore no thought for tomorrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.’ It’s a piece of advice that seems as apt for a junkie as is it for a disciple. The next e-mail confirmed much of this for me.

  Attn. mushroom.seeker.

  Subject: more history.

  5 September.

  I was in the kitchen sterilizing Petri plates in the pressure cooker. Clair walked in and watched me.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Sterilizing plates.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I culture spores on them. They have to be sterile or I get contamination from the airborne spores in the house.’

  ‘Why bother?’

  She walked out the room and put Joni Mitchell on loudly in the sitting room. I shut the door, but could still hear the music. I’ve been through this ritual of cleansing plates hundreds of times; it’s a purification ceremony that I’
ve always done in silence. It’s not important, not part of the ritual, it’s just that I’m used to doing things in that way.

  I took out the Petri plates and transferred them to my sterile box. I began the sterilization of the Mason jars filled with rye medium. Clair pushed open the door and stood in the doorway.

  ‘Can’t you stop doing that? You’re steaming up all the windows. I can’t see out.’

  ‘I’ll be finished soon.’

  ‘Jesus, I wish you would.’

  She walked out again, leaving the door open. I pushed it shut hard and went back to the range. Growing cultures on agar is time-consuming. It demands concentration. If you hurry it and make mistakes, then your punishment is contamination and hence wasted time, medium, and spores. Doing it well pleases me, I really enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done. Besides, the result of the work is the fruit of my labour and the fruit of knowledge. Years ago Greg had sent some photostatted pages of instructions on growing psilocybin mushrooms. Although they grow abundantly in the wild they don’t grow all year round. The process of growing mycelium on agar and then inoculating a rye medium means that fresh specimens are available to me all year round. I get pure, clean mushrooms, untouched by slugs, maggots and flies. I know the strength of the culture that I use. I like to stay close to ten milligrams of psilocybin; that’s a couple of ounces of my home-grown fresh ones. Clair opened the door again.

  ‘Are you finished yet?’

  ‘Nearly.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  A draught came in, blowing dust about. She shut the door and then I heard the front door slam. She was not easy to live with. Like Jane she had no time for my mushrooms. No interest in the worlds to which they led.

  She’d been staying for about six months and life wasn’t easy. She was increasingly demanding and increasingly ungenerous. A couple of weeks before, she’d moved out of my bed and onto the sofa. Sex between us had reminded me of having sex with a hooker – except Clair didn’t even attempt to fake an orgasm. It made me feel sordid for using her body; in a way I was grateful she wasn’t beside me any more at night for my hormones to overcome my sense. But I was angry.