Madame de Gaulle's Penis

by Herbie Brennan

  Fifteen hundred, I told myself firmly, was a long way from hunger. To prove it, I walked bravely into a tea shop and bought myself coffee and a cream bun. It was a ridiculous gesture, but the symbolism must have reached my subconscious for I calmed down a little. What I really wanted was a drink, but the only lounge I really. liked was The Peacock, a trendy establishment full of wood and twisted neon much favoured by Beeb types, none of whom I particularly wanted to meet just now. So I ordered another cream bun instead and ate it wondering what the waitress would look like stripped down to a G-string. My mood was so gloomy, it did not even occur to me to worry about the emergence of my sexual obsession at a time like this.

  When the waitress went away, depriving my fantasy of its physical foundation, I began to speculate how Seline would take the news. All that emerged was the realisation that, after fourteen years, I still did not know my wife well enough to forecast her reaction confidently, although I strongly suspected she would at least remain calm. So I began instead to weigh the chances of another job.

  The trouble, of course, was that the BBC had an absolute monopoly on radio in Britain. This has changed now, I believe, with the emergence of many local independent stations, but then that’s how it was. But the Corporation’s old monopoly on television had been broken and while Beeb types like myself scorned the Independent Television Authority as an umbrella over populist froth like Bruce Forsythe, I’d long fancied myself as a television personality. In fact, my original application to the BBC had been for an opening in that department. I went through a couple of screen tests on a closed circuit video system, after which they shunted me into sound radio without a word of explanation. But maybe now I’d made something of a name for myself, things would be different. Did I have what it took for telly? Only time would tell, but it was a possible route back to civilisation.

  Having reached this conclusion, my self-confidence abruptly nose-dived. I had a snowball’s chance of making it on telly and I knew it,. The reason why nobody said anything after my screen tests was that they didn’t need to. I’d locked myself into a straight jacket of nerves and blazed out of the screen with all the panache of a ventriloquist’s dummy. Radio was different. The tiny soundproof studios wrapped around me like a womb so that I was as relaxed as in my own home. Besides, the bland approach is tailor-made for listeners. It puts viewers to sleep in their armchairs.

  Which, I decided, was where I should be now. I needed familiar things around me. I needed the comfort of a loving wife. I needed to wallow in my misfortune. At some level I must have realised men need to play Hamlet from time to time and this was my golden opportunity. I left a small tip for my topless waitress and went outside to find my car had been stolen.

  The police were less than sympathetic, probably because I had stupidly forgotten to lock the damn thing. But they were optimistic, which was something.

  “Most of the car thefts round here are just kids joy riding,” the sergeant told me. “They drive it around until they run out of petrol, then dump it. We should pick it up again for you in two or three days - a week at most. Now if you’d left it down the East End, that would have been a different story. They’re all professional villains down there. Strip your car to the bearings and sell it off for scrap and parts. But up here all you need worry about is a kid wrapping it round a lamppost. And even that’s not very likely - most of them are better drivers than I am.”

  On that note I left him, fully intending to walk the few blocks to the tube station. But I must have been more shaken by the twin disasters than I realised for I found myself, blank moments later, staring at a glass of gin in some convenient hostelry. I was almost alone with my sorrow. This was, you appreciate, only a little after four in the afternoon, which is not the rush hour for the pubs. The only other patrons were a youngish couple identically dressed in very new, very trendy denims. I glanced at them, idly wondering what it would be like to watch them copulate. The barmaid, thank God, was a motherly old bat. If she’d been ten years younger, the stimulation might have been unbearable.

  I sipped the gin to discover it had been expertly mixed with tonic. I had, perhaps, already drunk a glass or two, for the shell of psychological bullshit with which I habitually surrounded myself seemed to have cracked a little. I was no longer thinking at the level of where and how to get another job, but had gone deeper to ask myself a more important question: what did I really want out of life?

  I was not, even then, entirely lacking in intelligence, or insight. One of the first things I did was examine the possibility that I had spent a lifetime conning myself. This was not a new idea. I had gone over essentially the same ground, phrased somewhat differently, with Van Rindt. But then it had been an academic exercise, a game played between patient and analyst, with neither of them emotionally accepting the possibility there might be anything in it. The trouble was, Van Rindt’s values were essentially similar to my own. He drove a fat car - one of the larger Rovers - had his suits hand tailored in Saville Row, lived in a plush house and was probably well on the way to his first yacht. In other words, he was into the consumer ethos. Whatever Freud may have taught him, what he really believed, deep down, was that the more comfortable you were, the happier you became. Which, of course, was exactly what I believed. The only real difference between us was that, as a fashionable, hence wealthy, shrink, Van Rindt was further down the road to nirvana.

  Our joint belief, my gin-soaked insight and intelligence told me, was the natural outcome of cultural conditioning - the same dynamic Van Rindt claimed would make me guilty if I started wife-swapping. I had been brought up to believe that the purpose of a man’s life was to ‘make something of himself’, which roughly translated meant grabbing a load of loot. I knew the poor were unhappy. You only had to look at them to realise that. So I had concluded the road to happiness was the simple avoidance of poverty. Which was not all that difficult for me since I sprang from a middle class background and had the benefit of a good education.

  Thus I set forth on the golden road to economic stability and security. And somewhere along the way, it must have occurred to me that I would like a bit of fame as well - hence my slide sideways from the security of industrial middle management to the security of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Some security. All it took was a few words from a clapped-out old tango-dancer and I was out on my ear.

  Which brought me, rather more quickly than I had anticipated, to my present situation. What did I really want? Incredibly, I did not know. (Incredible then, that is, seated staring blearily into my g&t. Now I know most people haven’t a clue what they really want - and don’t even have the cop to realise it.) I tried to concentrate, an exercise made difficult by the fact that another young woman had now joined the couple in the bar and my mind was desperately trying to visualise how she would look in rubber. This in itself was a new development. I had never before exhibited fetishistic tendencies.

  I dragged my mind back by its leash and concentrated on the things I really wanted. With the job gone, I wanted security. But not - a small step forward this - the security of employment. What was the point of joining a company when all it took was a growl from the former President of France and you were surrounded by the ruins of a promising career? Nor did I fool myself that the Affair of Madame de Gaulle’s Penis was a unique misfortune unlikely to arise again. Employment could be terminated by any boss, for any reason, at any time. Even if you avoided crossing the boss, any company remained capable of a plunge into bankruptcy. In other words, the essence of security was outside your control if you were an employee.

  I thought fleetingly of becoming a millionaire. I would dress in cloth of gold and spend my days surrounded by a harem of naked women. The picture was hauntingly familiar.

  I also thought fleetingly of assassinating de Gaulle and the naked women vanished from my head. It amazed me how strong an emotion the idea generated. Like everyone else on earth, I had read Fr
eddie Forsythe’s thriller The Day of the Jackal and consequently knew that even an experiences assassin had failed to top de Gaulle, but with the old bastard retired his security would surely not be so tight. Then it occurred to me that if I was planning to waste anybody, it should be Madame de Gaulle. She, after all, was the real author of my misfortune. The notion had not the same romantic appeal as gunning down her husband, but she would probably be a damn sight easier to get. It was, perhaps, something I should discuss with Van Rindt. At least it would make a change from my sexual fixations.

  “Another one, dear?”

  Apparently I had signalled the barmaid without conscious effort. I nodded and said, “Yes, another would be very nice.” It came out more loudly than I intended, so that the cosy threesome down the way glanced in my direction. I ignored them. If, after all, I was going to murder the de Gaulles (by now I had decided to do them both in: what the hell!) I had some serious planning to do.

  Chapter Four

  There can’t be many human occupations as ridiculous as lying on an analyst’s couch. What made it worse was that I’d got there by false pretences.

  I left the pub in a state of high euphoria, determined (a) to slaughter both de Gaulles and (b) to tell Van Rindt my plans. Since it wasn’t the day for my session, I found a phone box and called to see if he could fit me in. His secretary, a slim, cool , blonde girl who must have looked stunning in the nude, told me he had no free time at all that afternoon. I countered with the information that I was suicidal, so that she relented and promised he would squeeze me in if I came after six. I didn’t thank her. I assumed that after six the rates would be higher.

  Unfortunately, by the time I was firmly seated in his waiting room, the gin in me had died. From my new viewpoint of sobriety, I was very well aware I would never murder de Gaulle or anyone else. Consequently I had an emergency appointment with my analyst to deal with a problem that had ceased to exist.

  To make matters worse, Van Rindt himself seemed untypically edgy, probably because he was growing hungry. He had once mentioned he habitually ate at seven, believing late dinners to be a sign of decadence, and my appointment would obviously have thrown his schedule out of gear. I noticed he watched me very closely as I came in, presumably wondering if the emergency call indicated the beginnings of a complete breakdown. The word suicide had slipped from my lips with the thoughtless ease of a born manipulator, but if his secretary had mentioned it, he wasn’t to know I hadn’t meant it seriously. I smiled warmly to reassure him, but it didn’t seem to help.

  As I lay down on his couch, I said, “I was fired today.”

  “You were fired today?” he asked. He was big on echo psychiatry when he had nothing else to offer.

  It had occurred to me that he might just accept the sacking as sufficient trauma to warrant a suicide threat, so I persevered. “I sniggered at Madame de Gaulle’s penis.”

  Van Rindt frowned. “I’m sorry?” He sounded startled.

  I realised I’d phrased the sentence awkwardly. “Madame de Gaulle used the word ‘penis’ while I was interviewing her and I sniggered. It was a stupid thing to do and the BBC fired me.”

  “I see.” I should mention, I suppose, that Van Rindt was one of the most distinguished looking men I had ever known: a darkly handsome, athletic fifty, with grey wings in his hair. He dressed immaculately. At £10 an hour, working an eight hour day five days a week, he was pulling in about £1,600 a month. He could afford to dress immaculately. He coughed, I thought nervously. “How has your wife taken the news?”

  “I haven’t told her yet. It only happened this afternoon.”

  “I see. You came straight here?”

  “More or less,” I said. I felt he could live without knowing about my plunge into the gin bottle - not to mention the two compensatory cream buns.

  He seemed to relax a little. “Go on.”

  “I don’t have another job,” I told him. “Frankly, I’m wondering what the future might hold.”

  “Ah,” he said. You might be wondering at this stage how anybody, however distinguished in appearance, could command vast fees for nothing more constructive than Ah or Go on, but this is to miss the essence of the psycho-analytic process. Psycho-analysis is based on the premise that the patient should get to know himself, which is to say his unconscious self, that aspect of the individual destined to be forever hidden unless you have ten quid an hour to spend on digging it out. The analyst facilitates this process not through comment, wisdom, understanding or, God forbid, intervention, but through encouragement. He provides a ‘safe space’ - the words are Van Rindt’s own, quoted from our first encounter - in which the patient may engage in self-exploration. The term safe space, I quickly discovered, meant Van Rindt would never utter a critical word to me however stupid my utterances or outlandish my behaviour. He was like a priest without the penances. I could - and was encouraged to - say anything to him, anything at all. This freedom is so unusual in human relationships that idiots are prepared to pay almost any money to experience it - I certainly was.

  “I found the whole thing rather traumatic,” I told him, referring, in case you’ve now forgotten, to the loss of my employment. Van Rindt said nothing. I now know there are psycho-analysts who are prepared to intervene. They belong to what’s known as the Directive School and will tell you how to lead your life at the drop of a hat. I suspect Van Rindt was far too lazy to become a Directive. Either that or he knew a cushy number when he saw one.

  “You see,” I said, looking at a small crack in his ceiling,” the only thing I’m qualified for is radio and the BBC has a monopoly on that.”

  “I thought you told me you had qualifications as a management executive in the steel industry,” Van Rindt said calmly. There was nothing wrong with his memory.

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  “Then you could surely return to that,” he pointed out.

  I moved uneasily on the couch. “That’s true.”

  There was a lengthy silence. l’d developed a headache from the effects of the gin and what with the tension of the day, I felt remarkably tired. What, I wondered, would he do if I simply dozed off on the couch? I pulled myself together. At £10 an hour, it was odds on he would happily analyse Rip Van Winkle.

  “You didn’t come here to tell me about the job,” Van Rindt said suddenly.

  “I didn’t?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  I should have known it would never satisfy him. Job worries figure nowhere on the trauma lists of Freudian analysts. I sighed. “You’re right.” But how could I tell him it had only been a passing fancy to murder de Gaulle?

  “I assume it’s the sexual problem?” he suggested.

  I grasped the straw without the slightest hesitation. Truth had little place in my analytical sessions. “Yes.”

  “I suspect it may be growing more acute?”

  He was right, of course. “Yes. Much more acute.”

  “What are the symptoms?”

  I rolled over on the couch and propped myself up on my elbow. “I keep imagining how women would look nude.”

  “And in their underwear?”

  “Yes,” I said, wondering why he considered that important.

  “What sort of women?” Van Rindt asked.

  I thought about it briefly. “Any sort of women. When I phoned earlier I imagined how your secretary would look nude.”

  “My secretary?”

  “Yes.”

  “Miss Sandford?”

  “Yes.

  “All this is fairly normal, you know,” Van Rindt said, “Most men fantasise about naked women. Especially a physically attractive woman like Miss Sandford. I’ve done it myself on occasion.”

  “Have you?” I asked. “Have you really?”

  “Of course. It’s a part of the normal male sex dr
ive. Psychiatrists are no more immune to that sort of thing than anyone else.”

  It was a mildly interesting revelation. “But you don’t do it all the time, do you?”

  “No,” he admitted. “Not all the time.”

  I lay back on the couch. “That’s where we differ, Doctor. I do it all the time.”

  “Which, as we’ve already agreed, points to a root problem of a sexual nature.”

  “Yes,” I said. The process of analysis is a good deal more tedious than most people imagine.

  “Let’s go back to your ideas about wife swapping,” Van Rindt suggested. “Have you progressed any further on that score?”

  “Progressed?”

  “Discussed it with your wife, for example.”

  “No.”

  “I think you’re wise. I doubt if Seline would agree to it.” He had met Seline socially on two occasions to my knowledge and already he was better equipped to judge her reactions than I was. Of such small things are inferiority complexes compounded.

  “I expect you’re right,” I said. “In any case, I can’t think of anyone to swap with.”

  “That’s usually a problem, I understand.”

  “Have you ever considered murder?”

  I was still looking at the crack in the ceiling and though the voice was undoubtedly mine, I was quite surprised to hear the words it spoke. More accurately, I was frozen. Having successfully avoided the subject so far, why was I bringing it up now? More important, what would Van Rindt think? The last thing I needed was for my psychiatrist to conclude I was nuts.