My Life With Eva

by Alex Barr

  “Hello Adam,” said a voice—a small voice, not the one I’d just heard, but just as melodious. More amazingly still, what felt like a warm belly was pressed against the back of my head.

  “I’m supposed to introduce myself.”

  I was too scared to turn and look.

  “What design are you? Pragmatic? Iconic?”

  She laughed, which made her belly tickle my neck.

  “So it’s true about your upbringing. Oh well, Mummy told me to humour you.”

  “Who’s Mummy?”

  “Your Granny, actually. Which technically makes me your auntie, but let’s leave consanguinity issues aside for now. I’ve heard you’re good at names. Want to give me one?”

  She sounded a bit clever for my liking so I thought I’d impress her with a long one, especially since Daddy wasn’t around.

  “We don’t want too arbitrary a relationship between signified and signifier, do we? As it’s evening I’ll call you Eveningdescendsineden.”

  “Ridiculous. Find something shorter.”

  I thought, Got a mind of her own. Could be trouble. But I didn’t care, because she leaned over me, long hair spilling over my shoulder. She smelt like blossom, with an undertone of something rich and exciting.

  “What’s that thing?” she asked. “A mushroom growing on you?”

  She was right, it was growing.

  Romey and Jullit

  It is with a sense of both awe and fulfilment that the author submits the one hundred and ninety-ninth annual report of Project Random. The body of the report follows this brief introduction.

  The author’s enthusiasm is not intended as undue influence on the Committee. As in previous years the bulk of our subjects’ output is of what has traditionally been called ‘baseline quality’, though the author prefers the word bêtises. A short extract from Text No. 5985/0393PY will suffice as an example:

  38re9fdnmrck,.vc,.,.b,xsdislotrilundod.,nutfbibiuwk,fbv, mbaf[Ofk

  Our world vocabulary database is of course being scanned for elements such as ‘bibiuwk’ and ‘Ofk’, but I think the Committee will agree that there is little here to advance our thesis.

  Subject 6177 is but one among very many. Nevertheless, the past year has seen a sense of restrained excitement up and down our normally hushed and sober corridors, especially since the output can hardly be other than random. The subject, an Amazonian howler, is of lower intelligence than many of our other subjects (see table, Appendix One), and was born out of captivity. Initial domestication consisted of being tied by a long rope to the corner-post of a hut in which manioc was processed: not an ideal beginning. The subject is an assiduous worker, enjoying the simple rattle of the keyboard and the movement of the cursor across the screen, and (unlike Subject 6003) has not attempted to access and re-file sensitive project data. It is, nevertheless, too soon to reach a definitive analysis of the output, and the author here presents a mere summary.

  Our attention was first drawn to this subject’s output by Text No. 6I77/0693BG, titled (by the subject) RO, NJO. Although consisting almost entirely of bêtises this text, it was noted, had a similar length to the target text. The final lines read as follows:

  RO. tomnvpk.,wel.,ansd?

  JO. Methinks ‘tis so.

  Here the text ends. The subject became unnaturally excited, and the computer malfunctioned. A soft aromatic fruity substance was found jamming Drive A. Nevertheless, researchers felt a breakthrough had been achieved.

  Texts Nos. 6177/0893EV and 6I77/0893XM soon followed, titled respectively RUM AND JOLT and RAM, EO, AND JRIORNSV. Each had a BI (bêtise index) of less than fifty per cent. However, the author prefers to move quickly on to Text No. 6177/0993ZQ. Here for the first time we are able to apply the language of literary criticism as well as that of statistical theory.

  In this short and highly intelligible text, titled ROMM AND JULIE, recognisable elements of the target text abound. It consists entirely of one extended scene, in a room in the city of Vorn. As fighting is heard in the streets outside, two six-year-old children, Romm and Julie, are berated by their fathers, Mr Monty and Mr Calpott, for some unspecified crime. A sense of doom and guilt hangs over this scene. The children, egged on by a friend, McCuty, have conspired together, therefore their fathers (aided by various middle-aged uncles, priests, and nurses) will conspire to punish them. The scene ends inconclusively, with only the vaguest hints as to either crime or punishment, but with, if anything, an intensification of mood.

  A further text, No. 6177/1093WW, made an even greater impression on the researchers. Titled ROMU ON J’JILLA, it is set in clearly recognisable milieux. (It is difficult, at this juncture, to remind oneself that one is dealing with purely random outcomes, and that any impression of an evolutionary process is spurious.) On first reading it was assumed that the title hinted at some sexual encounter, but the eponymous lovers of the title never meet.

  Mist and haze dominate the piece. (140 references to ‘mist’ or its synonyms were recorded.) The characters are melancholy and unfulfilled. J’Jilla, a girl of twelve in Veroni, wanders the streets with her nurse, who tries to interest her in the Scalligger tombs, the bridge on the River Adage with its ‘merillons’, and the towering shape of the Castelvacuum. But J’Jilla is dreaming of marriage—not to County Harris, to whom she is betrothed, but a dim figure wearing ‘armour like a lobster’ and ‘a mask with a horsehair moustache’.

  Meanwhile, in the city of Edy, a young ‘sammeree’ warrior dreams as he rides along by the seashore. He imagines a young girl in a strange white flowing dress, whose singing in a strange language, and whose free, spontaneous dancing (so unlike the controlled movements of his city’s ‘gashers’), touch his heart. After a series of battles he ends up on a small island, stranded and wild.

  Back in Veroni, marriage has failed to cure J’Jilla, who is eventually declared mad by her husband and locked in a tower on his country farm in the Venuto, from which she looks down at pigs and chickens, and out at the swirling mist on the horizon. The author’s satisfaction in perusing this text (BI only 5.332 per cent) was somewhat tempered by the wistful sadness it (of course accidentally) conveyed.

  Text No. 6177/1 193PP comes even closer to the target text. REMERE EN JELEET opens with an unfamiliar motif: Remere, a young man on horseback, is handed a cup of ‘Eisenbräu’ by a girl of sixteen, Jeleet. The location is not specified, only ‘North’, presumably Northern Italy. Remere’s hand shakes as he takes the cup and some of the brew is spilt.

  The setting moves to the familiar balcony scene. Remere sings Jeleet a serenade expressing his desire for her. She throws down a flower with purple petals. The scene is inconclusive. Remere does not ascend to the balcony but at length drifts homeward, where (one presumes in his imagination) the scene is repeated, this time with an erotic outcome.

  The final scene takes place in church as Jeleet is married to the County Pyrus. There are vague references to stained glass. In a strange anachronism, a greetings telegram of many pages is received from Remere, now ‘across the sea’, justifying at length his actions in the two previous scenes. The style of this document is excessively cerebral, and all dramatic interest is thrown away by this turgid intrusion. The piece ends before we are told of Jeleet’s reaction.

  Average word length in the ‘telegram passage’ is 11.732, and required reading age would be 17 years 3.2 months. In a human subject one would be able to state unequivocally that this degree of complexity represented a major step. In the case of Subject 6177 it is, of course, spurious to attribute developmental qualities to what, according to our thesis, is an entirely random process. Nevertheless, it was necessary to issue a firm reminder on this point to all research staff, including temporaries and part-timers.

  This brings the author to the final and most recent text dealt with in this report, No. 6177/0194AA. The title is ROMEY AND JULLIT. Length is almost identical to that of the target text, being shorter by a factor of 0.9999346. BI is low at 3.73 per cent. The output m
ay be summarised as follows.

  Although the opening scenes are close to those of the target text, the fight scenes between Monandrogues and Copulets have a dreamy, insubstantial quality. Furthermore, there are strange intrusions from related (non-target) texts. For instance, reference to one meeting ‘upon the heath’ and to another ‘or here, or at the Capitol’. In a further scene Romey, from the balcony (for here the setting is his own apartment), soliloquises that he loves Jullit ‘not wisely but too well’. Jullit appears, he lets down a ladder and she climbs to the balcony. Unity of time is observed as the couple consummate their love offstage, interest onstage being provided by the unlikely entrance of peasants in festive attire, who perform a dance.

  Jullit opens the shutters to the morning sun exclaiming, ‘if that be love, me-thinks love be o’erpraised’. It soon appears, however, that she is with child. The opposition of the two families is strangely muted in this version, and the couple choose a home. In this passage elements of J’Jilla’s tour of the city from ROMU ON J’JILLA are re-used, or, one should rather say, coincidentally reappear, with Romey rather than the Nurse as her interlocutor.

  The text now diverges even more from the target text. In a scene with Jullit’s Nurse, Romey expresses restlessness and dissatisfaction with married life. The Nurse seduces him. Jullit learns of this betrayal with understandable horror, and in her distress turns for advice to her old friend and counsellor Mr Lawrance, a former priest. He in turn seduces her.

  A series of street fights now ensues, but in this version it is Romey and Jullit who head the opposing factions. The older generation side with Jullit, the younger with Romey. When his friend Meriticio is killed Romey loses heart for the fight and sues for peace. The Nurse commits suicide; Mr Lawrance is exiled.

  One is tempted to say that the final scene ‘fails to learn the lessons of the dramatic failure of the end of REMERE EN JELEET’, but to talk in such terms is, of course, nonsensical. The scene in question consists of an intimate, extended, rambling, and dramatically inconclusive dialogue between Romey and Jullit, interspersed with scenes of what can only be described as sexual experimentation: impossible to stage, in the unlikely event that one would wish to do so.

  The text concludes with what has presented the research team with something of a dilemma: a series of bêtises presented as dialogue. A colleague has suggested that these are ‘intended as animal grunts’. It was of course pointed out that to present the possibility of a creature such as Subject 6177 exhibiting ‘intention’ (other than that of achieving the basic satisfaction of rattling keys) is mere anthropocentrism. Nevertheless, the author apologises in advance should any such tone appear to have affected the above summary, and assures the Committee that the apparent use of the language of dramatic criticism is used merely to illuminate the character of the text.

  Full copies of all texts are available on request. Appendices will be found towards the end of the report. A photograph of the author together with Subject 6177 appears on the inside back cover.

  The Fan

  She had caught him out in an affair, and now they were starting again. They walked through the woods talking of travel. The woods were a tame strip between houses and a golf course, and down by the brook, where new sewers had been laid, new saplings were just beginning to add height.

  She said, “We could go to Canada for a year. You could work there.”

  She thought it would be a relief to be far from the other woman. Even now the woman’s husband would phone her to ask angrily why she hadn’t prevented it. She tried to explain that she and her husband had no authority over one another, that she could never be sure what he was thinking.

  She repeated, “Do you fancy Canada?”

  He thought of the song The Green Fields of Canada, the young Irishman’s farewell to his home, and a tear came into his eye. He wiped it away hastily, as if it were an insect, so she wouldn’t notice. He said, “Possibly. I thought of somewhere more exotic.”

  “Where?”

  He didn’t know. Somewhere with stars he could lie and look at, without street lights. Where he could lose himself in a profound blackness, the earth warm under him. A desert perhaps. He knew if he said this his wife would say, “All right, a desert,” and he’d have to list possible names, consult the atlas. So he said nothing.

  She said, not one to give up easily, “Canada’s interesting.”

  “But what would you do?”

  “Get some kind of job. Anything. The children could easily go to school there.”

  They walked in silence for a while. Over their heads a squirrel leapt from one tree to another, showering ash keys. She took his hand and rubbed it, as if trying to bring him back to life. Since he gave up the other woman he’d been empty of feeling. She too was empty now, her anger all burned out. She held his hand against her hip as they walked, and he felt a quiver of desire, as if his skin ached. He would have liked them to slither halfway down to the brook and make love among the rhododendrons, but he feared she’d ask whether he’d been here with the other woman. He had not. They walked on.

  She asked, “What do you think?”

  “I’d really imagined going abroad alone.”

  She kept hold of his hand because that had become part of the rhythm of the walk, but her chest and stomach felt suddenly cold, encapsulated, as if she were a vacuum flask.

  He never expected the affair to work. He knew it was doomed, that there would be much more pain than pleasure. But without pain there would be no art, no Tosca, no Tristan and Isolde. He’d read only weeks before, as if fate were preparing him for the encounter, about the ‘unassailable soul of the warrior’, and elsewhere, about following love whenever called, ‘even though you know he will wound you’. When he stood in the school orchestra pit that smelt of old timber and dust, and the woman, sewing in the wings, looked down at him with smouldering eyes, he could not deny himself to her.

  He was conducting his Opus Three, Overture and Incidental Music to TheReal King Arthur. The play, comparing history with legend, had been written by his daughter’s English teacher. The woman, whose children were also at the high school, had designed the costumes.

  Biting a thread, she joked, “Only Opus Three? At your age?”

  “I’m a late starter.”

  “Well at least you won’t peak too early.”

  He found that his daughter considered her smarmy and overbearing. By this time they were starting the affair, and as his daughter suspected nothing he thought it tactically wise to agree.

  The affair was brief. His wife was more perceptive than he’d realised. He thought she’d fail to notice his extra hours at rehearsal, and he was right. But he hadn’t allowed for her noticing his erratic changes of mood, the hours he sat dreamily at the piano. In the messy aftermath, his wife and the woman’s husband picked through the rubble like fire investigators. The woman asked him to pretend to give her up but go on seeing her in secret. He refused. He also refused to hide from his wife the fact that she still phoned him. The woman cried, but respected him. But when she heard of his daughter’s remark, and his full agreement with it, she felt betrayed and her respect evaporated. She wrote to say she detested him, his way of life, and most of all, his music.

  She receded into his past, a ghost he sometimes saw when the coach returned their children from school trips. The pain from such sightings, from the knowledge of what she now thought of him, he bore almost with pride. He’d prepared for the worst. He had the unassailable soul of the warrior. Besides, the suffering would feed his art. The woman was his Mathilde Wesendonck, his wife was his Cosima. Of course, the comparison with Wagner was inexact. For example, Wagner would have scorned the school orchestra pit as acoustically disastrous.

  What was harder to bear was his wife’s pain. The way she scraped and scraped at the wood of cupboards for hours to strip them, then collapsed into a chair, too drained even to watch TV or put on music. It was a dull, uninspiring stoicism. He preferred the blazing anger she�
�d shown when she first found out and they fought like animals, she tearing at his face and lunging at his testicles, he pinning her wrists and roaring at her. These encounters would often end with their pulling each other’s clothes off and making love with intense relief. But when, soon after the walk in the woods, a kind of fog came down between them, he felt oppressed by their life. There was nothing noble about it. Their quarrels were trivial, about spilt jam, socks the children lost.

  In the library of the college where he worked was a handbook of the world’s higher education. He began to browse in it after work, and write letters asking for one-year appointments. His wife, who in the past had not noticed discrepancies in his timing, now thought he might be seeing the woman again. She wondered how to be sure. He seemed withdrawn and preoccupied, but that could be work, or her own shut-down state. It wasn’t in her to spy, go through his pockets, or wait and watch, on her days off, in the café across the road from his department. Besides, she’d rather live with uncertainty than know the answer, because if the answer was Yes, it would be the end.

  Nevertheless, she couldn’t help commenting on his lateness. He said, “I’m just spending time in the library.”

  “Doing what?”

  He was unwilling to tell her about the applications. If they came to nothing he’d feel small in her eyes. “Research.”

  “On what?” Not meaning to test him now, simply wanting to be reassured that they could still talk. About anything, the more down-to-earth the better. If he wanted to let off steam about work, that was fine, then she could do the same. Except that there was no steam inside her, only ice. She smiled wryly at the image, his steam melting her ice.

  He asked, “What are you smiling at? Don’t you believe me? I’m researching the life of Wagner.” He thought that a convenient subject, since he already knew so much, and she wasn’t aware how much he knew.