Eating People is Wrong

by Malcolm Bradbury

  ‘I shouldn’t have thought you were a dancing man,’ continued Viola. Louis by now had realized that he hadn’t a chance of coming out of this alive; you knew he had said his prayers and left his flageolet to his next of kin. Nor was there any stopping Viola. (She turned to Treece and murmured: ‘Have you ever seen this man’s birth certificate? I swear one of his parents was a rhinoceros.’) The hunt was on, and every one knew it. ‘Grey suit and everything,’ went on Viola. ‘It might be worth investing in a new tie, though?’ ‘I haven’t much money, you know,’ said Louis with a touch of defiance. Viola had known he would say this, even down to the defiance, and she went on: ‘Well, perhaps we could have a whip-round for a tie for him, Stuart?’ Stuart, on whom the fact that this was as much at his expense as Louis’s was not lost – and this precluded his intervention – said: ‘You mustn’t say that, Viola.’

  ‘You see how concerned he is for your feelings?’ said Viola. ‘Much more concerned than you are, I’m sure; he imagines that you’re ultra-sensitive. I keep telling him, I keep saying, “Mr Bates isn’t sensitive at all, you do him an injustice.” You’ve been through the mill, as they say, haven’t you? Didn’t you once teach in a convent, or something?’

  ‘It was at a girls’ school, yes,’ said Louis. ‘I did have to work to get here, you see. Lawrence used to work in a factory that made artificial limbs, you know; I worked in a school. For the same sort of reasons, I believe.’

  ‘You feel an esprit de corps with Lawrence, then?’ said Viola. ‘Do I mean esprit de corps?’

  ‘That’s when you have a body of men,’ said the Ford Foundation lecturer.

  ‘Well, put Lawrence and Mr Bates together, and it seems like a body of men. I saw you in town the other day, Mr Bates, but I don’t think you saw me.’

  ‘Did you?’ asked Louis.

  ‘Yes; you were waiting for a bus. You fell backwards over a wall into someone’s garden. I felt quite concerned for you. You weren’t hurt?’

  ‘No,’ said Louis. ‘I’m very clumsy like that.’

  ‘What time is it, Stuart?’

  ‘Nearly midnight,’ said Treece.

  ‘Time for bed,’ said Viola.

  ‘I’ll telephone for a taxi,’ said the Ford Foundation man.

  ‘No, let’s ask Bates to do it for us,’ said Viola. ‘You’ll do that, won’t you? Wait a minute. You haven’t any money; you’ll need some pennies. Here we are. One, two, three . . . it is threepence, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, fourpence,’ said Louis.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Viola, who knew. ‘Give Louis a penny, Stuart.’

  Everyone dispersed to collect their coats. Treece and Emma both had one like thought in their minds: it was not to go home with the person who seemed intent on taking them. Treece knew that he could not face Viola in this mood, and to stay the night with her in this spirit would be, for him, masochism. He therefore detained Emma and said: ‘Do you have someone to see you home, Miss Fielding?’ Emma, likewise, felt an immense relief at this offer, and took advantage of it at once; she could not face the thought of having to fight off Louis at her door.

  Viola came back and said: ‘You’re seeing me home, Stuart, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Viola, but I’m already seeing someone home. Miss Fielding has no one with her, so I said I’d see her safely back.’

  ‘I’ll go and get my things,’ said Emma.

  Louis reappeared and conducted a short, whispered conversation with Emma, to one side; he emerged from it looking furious.

  ‘I wanted you to take me,’ said Viola to Treece.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Treece.

  ‘You’d better be,’ said Viola. ‘You realize you’ve cut out your protégé Mr Bates?’

  Treece went into the foyer to wait for Emma. She came down the stairs and he went to meet her. They took a final look into the hall and saw Viola exchanging some last gibes with Bates, while the Ford Foundation lecturer looked on proprietorially. ‘This tune they’re playing is the one Carey Willoughby’s novel is named after,’ said Emma.

  ‘Oh, what is it?’

  ‘It’s called “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”. It’s a very appropriate title.’

  ‘For tonight, you mean? I think it’s rather warm.’

  ‘No,’ said Emma. ‘For his novel. It’s about this young man, who is an outsider, excluded from the ordinary life of the world because he isn’t in the class system, and in the business world, and doesn’t share the common values . . .’

  ‘Please,’ said Treece. ‘I’d rather not hear about it. Modern novels depress me so much.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose they might,’ said Emma.

  ‘What’s this tune about, then?’ asked Treece. ‘Is that a modern tune too?’

  ‘Oh, no. I don’t think these things filter down into popular culture that quickly,’ said Emma. ‘And it’s quite an old tune. It’s a sort of duet, you see. He’s asking her to stay the night, because it’s cold outside. She’s saying she must go. I think it ends with his proposing, so that she can stay inside in the warmth for good.’ She laughed with a long husky ripple of laughter. Laughter always affected Treece, strangely, because it betrayed a kind of possession of the world that he lacked. Looking now at the bright line of her teeth and the intimate cavern of her mouth, he found himself encompassed by a warmth and delight. This impression went with what she was saying, and suddenly the licence of the evening conveyed itself to him and he felt a real growth of affection. He looked at her and said, ‘Shall I get a taxi?’

  Something of his point conveyed itself to Emma; she paused, as if surprised, and then responded, a little uncertainly, as if she felt she had detected something that might not be there.

  ‘No, look, if it isn’t cold outside, shall we walk? It isn’t far. Actually, you don’t have to take me at all; I simply had to get away from Louis Bates. And I owe you an apology for dragging you off to that terrible party the other night; you can’t have enjoyed it a bit.’

  ‘Please don’t worry about that.’

  ‘But I shouldn’t be dragging you into the mess I make of things. I do, you know. I’m the untidiest woman – emotionally, I mean – that I know. And then Louis threatening to pull your ears off.’ She laughed again, a furry, animal laugh, and Treece joined in. ‘It was funny, after all, and he didn’t mean it. It’s a bit of phatic communion that he’s picked up. All Louis’s conversation is phatic communion. In conversation he never says anything. He thinks that conversation is a very imperfect form of communication, you know. It’s true, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ said Treece, amused.

  ‘He didn’t mean any harm. You won’t hold it against him, will you? I’ve been wanting to ask you this. He doesn’t mean any harm; that’s what makes it so hard; if only he did. If only you knew that he was out for trouble. But he isn’t. He almost seems as if he wants to be hurt, or blamed, or disliked. He invites it. And yet I feel so sorry for him; when Dr Masefield behaved as she did, and made him get their taxi, for instance.’

  ‘She was playing him off against me, because she thinks I permit him too much,’ said Treece.

  ‘Yes, and it was sexual as well, wasn’t it?’ asked Emma. ‘You don’t mind my saying that, but it was so obvious, to a woman at least. The trouble is that he is the sort of person, too, that you do play off. I’ve done it, without wanting to. Someone once said about him to me, “That young man is the sort of person everyone wants to use.” There are people like that, that you use but don’t want.’

  ‘Viola was a bitch,’ said Treece. ‘Honestly, you know, women!’

  ‘It amuses me, you know, the way you seem to see women. You think of them as sort of loose-fitting men. I mean, you don’t realize that we’re made different because we are different, or the other way round.’

  ‘I was always grateful for that,’ said Treece. They were outside now, in the park: the Town Hall was very happily situated. Whenever there was a dance one had practically to queue up for the use of the
benches. Every bush rustled and swayed.

  A light wind was blowing, catching at the hem of Emma’s dress and coat; noise came in ebbs and bursts from the dance. The night was clear, bright, filled with stars. The sky was lit up from beneath, just above the rooftops, by the glow of the street-lamps, a translucent blue that shaded off into colours, darker and richer and then finally matured into a black flecked with little stars, burning deep and white and remote. The great bare trees arched over them; it was the beginning of winter, when everything began to be crisp and hard. They could see across the town; great patterns of light were set out in the blackness of the facing hillside, great whorls and curves described by the street-lamps and rows of houses. A furnace glowed red in the dip. Suddenly – it was midnight – whole series of the street-lamps would be extinguished, as the day’s life officially ended, and the intensity of the blackness increased. ‘It’s an immense sort of night, isn’t it?’ said Emma. ‘One sometimes has this feeling.’ ‘Are you cold?’ asked Treece solicitously. ‘No, not at all,’ said Emma. ‘Miss Fielding . . . may I kiss you?’ asked Treece. Emma considered for a moment: ‘Yes. I’d like you to,’ she said cogitatively. They stopped under a tree.

  ‘One shouldn’t do that with a student,’ said Treece after a moment. ‘I’m happy that you did,’ said Emma; ‘and it puts you in no sort of difficulties with me. You owe me no favours. I admire you because you’re so honest; it’s something I wish I was more, and you are.’

  ‘You know, if anything, it’s the reverse that’s true. I’m really an old puritan. To me you are a good woman. You’re not the sort of woman who needs constant entertaining, perpetual juggling tricks and sleight of hand. For you I don’t have to stand on my head. You look at everything with a clear and civilized eye, as if it were all in a contest and you were judging; and so few women can do that. Think what love would be from a person like that. You’re a fine and virtuous woman.’

  ‘No,’ cried Emma; there were tears in her eyes. ‘No, I’m not. Don’t say that. I’m not virtuous, not sexually or in any other way. Only children can be virtuous. It’s all right when you aren’t out in the big, wide world. But I’m not the sort of woman you think I am. There’s nothing about me, Professor Treece.’

  ‘Yes, Emma, there is. Look, I’m always making you cry.’

  ‘No, no. One needs money, one’s allotment of friends and possessions, confidence and charm, before one can practise virtue. You need to be free of the world. You need an access to a richer culture. But there are no rich cultures left, are there? It’s a seedy world.’

  ‘I’m sorry to have upset you so much,’ said Treece. ‘Look, we’re here at your door. Can I see you tomorrow?’

  ‘No; I’m going home tomorrow,’ said Emma quietly.

  ‘Oh, yes; it’s the end of term. I’d forgotten,’ said Treece, and he looked disappointed, and deeply intense, as if he were trying to communicate some truth to her which words did not express; and Emma reacted suddenly. ‘You could come up, if you really and absolutely certainly wanted,’ she said.

  Treece looked at her. ‘I really and absolutely certainly do want to. But are you sure?’ he asked. ‘Yes, very,’ said Emma, ‘but you must take your shoes off, because I’m not allowed to take anyone in after eleven.’

  He took his shoes off. Emma unlocked the door; she was shivering. The truth of it was that it was really a very cold night, no matter how they denied it. But it was warm indoors. They went inside, out of the cold, and crept up the stairs.

  7

  I

  COMING BACK to University for the new term was, to Emma, for the first time an enjoyable experience. It was Emma’s theory that the only time one ever acted – that is, acted so fully and positively that one’s character was altered or developed – was in moments of diminished responsibility, or under special duress: in liquor, when one was tired, or ill, or at war, indeed at any time when one was rid of that murderous, inhibiting, civilized pause that always came before the fact of action. Looking back on that night of the Christmas Ball, when Stuart saw her home, and then stayed, she would have said that she was drunk; but it wasn’t true. There was simply a willing suspension of disbelief in things, a lifting of control. She couldn’t go on as she had been doing; that was clear enough; there was no real solution. Something had to come from outside. The great pleasure came from not withholding any more; it is sometimes harder to withhold love than to give it; but it is only by this kind of violence to oneself that one does come to the final acceptance. There is a point at which one sits back and sees what happens. The answer to the prevailing question – can one lead a good life in this world, without retiring too much outside it? – had come haphazardly, but it had come; being rich, private, and apart from things, in an ideal state of innocence – all this sensation of herself was gone from Emma. And from here on she began to form a character for herself, she began to bathe herself in the world. This was Mrs Bishop’s own thought, of course; her concern with sin was not that it should not exist, but that people should know it for sin, and being upper middle class and civilized and believing Emma to be much the same, but apostate, she had no qualms when she began to suspect that an affair had grown up between Emma and her professor. In fact she was rather pleased, because there was so clearly nothing vulgar about it. For Emma too the rewards seemed greater than what was lost, for there was at last a sense of identity. She had never before felt pretty; ‘I may not be as pretty as Mona Lisa, but I bet I can spit farther than she could,’ she once protested wryly; now she felt as pretty. Her mother’s contention – ‘No one will ever marry you, my girl, you can’t do anything’ – no longer hurt her, and now, when her mother asked her on her arrival home, ‘When are you going to settle down and do something?’ she thought to herself for the first time that she had settled down and done it. ‘You’re a splendid woman, Emma; other women always want praising and flattering and amusing; but you’re content.’ A splendid woman, a good woman.

  But the life one leads cuts out all the lives one might have led; one is never a virgin twice; events engrave themselves. Life is a unity to the soul. We meet events halfway; they are part of us, and we part of them; and nothing is incidental. Ahead comes the point where all events exist at once, and no new ones are in sight, the point on the edge of death, which is a reckoning point. It is the motion towards this that one tries to halt by crying, ‘Do you love me? Respect me? Will you always remember me?’

  These were the sentiments that filled Emma’s mind when she returned for the beginning of term. If she did not see him again, this would be enough; but she hoped that she would. He had not written to her; there had been an ordinary, noncommittal Christmas card. But as soon as she arrived and was carrying her suitcase upstairs, Mrs Bishop came out of her room with a smile, and said that Treece had telephoned, and had asked her to call him back. That evening he came and stayed. They were in a poor state for receiving visitors when there came a knock on the door and ‘Miss Fielding!’ cried Mrs Bishop’s voice. Emma hastily buttoned up her blouse and pushed some underclothing under a chair. ‘Miss Fielding!’ ‘Oh, come in,’ said Emma. ‘I just wanted a word with the Professor,’ said Mrs Bishop. ‘Professor, I bought your book today and I want you to sign it. I feel you should. There ought to be some of these about in the world when you’ve gone, you know.’ She proffered the Housman book. ‘I’m not very proud of it,’ said Treece. ‘Oh, really,’ said Mrs Bishop, noticing with interest that Miss Fielding had removed, or had had removed, her brassière. ‘You must be. To have published a book. It must be so pleasant to be so fecund.’ He signed it and away she went; they returned to the bedroom.

  This in a sense set the seal of Mrs Bishop’s approbation, and he began to come to the flat quite regularly through the cold weeks of February and March. The curious gap of five weeks after their first night together had excited his curiosity about her, and he began the new term with the sense of missing her deeply. Indeed, their first meeting after the vacation had been almost a di
sappointment, for she was simply a person, with freckles on her face, a few hairs on her top lip, and disappointing too was the satisfaction she was able to give him. As he lay on the bed, later, listening to the running flush of water that preceded her return, his attention was drawn to himself, and to his commitment; he feared that he was allowing himself to be possessed. It seemed to him that he had not been the prime mover in the affair; she gave ground only when she wished, with him following, having no choice, possessing nothing and simply being possessed. And then, with the scrupulous fairness with which he ordered everything, he thought of those long five weeks when he found himself looking for her in places that she could not possibly be, in restaurants and cinemas and trains, sometimes thinking that he had seen her, or sometimes noticing some action that reminded him, in some other person, different except for a smile or a haircut, of her. He knew that he always expected too much and would never be satisfied in this human world; the simple truth was that he would never do better, and his dissatisfaction was painful to him, for it was there in all things and so disorientated him in the world that he wondered if it were psychotic.

  Whenever he came, he always began by walking slowly round the room, inspecting its contents, reading the titles of books, as if he had never seen them before, or was trying to reconstruct some experience. She always felt uneasy at this: ‘Sit down and talk to me!’ she would say, and he would sit down in the armchair near the gasfire, and in conversation they would do the same thing, walking around each other, starting again. Only then, when he had smoked several cigarettes and they had talked for a while in a distant, untrusting way, would she come and sit on the floor beside him and take his hand, saying, ‘Well, how are you?’ Then, laying her head upon his lap, she’d throw her arms around him, crying, ‘Oh, oh, why don’t you trust me more?’ ‘What is it, dearest?’ Treece would say; she did not answer. He never quite knew, and he was somehow reassured by these dull cries, this unspoken hint of her need for him; it stirred him each time. He’d put his arm round her shoulder and tilt her head up to kiss her. Then her hand would come round his waist, pull up his jacket and shirt, and run over the warm flesh at the small of his back. Meanwhile, he sat stiffly, while she lay twisted on the floor close to him, her hands running over him. Status-wise, it seemed like sacrilege, but what was so peculiar about Stuart was that he had no status, or could not accept the terms of the one he had. If his helplessness was attractive, for she perceived him to be helpless, it was also not good enough; you couldn’t go on like this, you had to reclaim some pieces of the world for yourself. Why didn’t he learn to cook properly? – at least, that was one way of subduing the objects of the world about him, and objects were an image of the soul. In his view, man had simply no territory to walk on and call his own; there was nothing reclaimed from the jungle.