Getting it in the Head

by Mike McCormack

  THE LILLIPUT PRESS

  DUBLIN

  To my family and Noelle Donnellan – for keeping the faith

  Contents

  The Gospel of Knives

  The Stained Glass Variations

  A is for Axe

  Old Man, My Son

  Thomas Crumlesh 1960-1992: A Retrospective

  The Angel of Ruin

  Machine, Part II

  Materials Grant

  The Reach of Love

  Oestrogen

  Dead Man's Fuel

  The Terms

  Blues for Emmett Ward

  Amor Vincit Omnia

  The Occupation: A Guide for Tourists

  Getting it in the Head

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  When I opened the door and saw her standing there like an effigy, draped from head to toe in some fashion paraphrase of a chador, my mind flamed with a single, sordid thought: I wanted to get down on my knees before her in that sweetest of all acts of sexual worship and lick her out good and proper. I could see from her face – the swarthy skin, the too-even set of her teeth, the retroussé nose – that this was a woman of pent-up desires and trammelled passions and I fancied that I was the man to rectify all that. I glowed with confidence. Here was easy meat and it was as much as I could do to stop a predatory grin from spreading over my own teeth. However, when I invited her into my room and she spread out her collection of knives on the table I knew that I had made one of the bigger mistakes of my young and now bitter life.

  ‘I’m a seller of knives,’ she said needlessly, arranging the gleaming pieces on the table, ‘and I’m here to sell you one of these.’

  I swallowed heavily, eyeing the array of steel which had so quickly covered the table. I would never have guessed that there were so many variations on the single theme of the blade.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I stammered, ‘but I’ve got all the knives I need. I’ve got a bread knife and a set of steak knives and a short blade for peeling. I live on my own, so you can see then that I’m not exactly in the market for a new one.’

  ‘No,’ she said quietly, ‘I think if you look closely at the circumstances of your life you will find that there is ample room in it for one extra blade. No one’s life is so complete that they can afford to do without one of these knives.’

  ‘I thought you were selling encyclopaedias or you were some kind of a Jehovah’s Witness,’ I said plaintively.

  ‘No, I’m a seller of knives. My work is to spread the Gospel of Knives because in the beginning was The Knife. All other versions are fiction. My job is to spread the redemptive word of The Knife. Answer me this, what is the greatest of man’s inventions?’

  ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me it’s the knife.’

  ‘Of course, there is no other answer. Taken unawares, most people say it’s the wheel or fire. But they are wrong because the knife is at the source of all. When man picked up his first knife and started cutting and sawing and slicing it was the opening moment of his humanity, the instant of his divinity. Now in all my years in this ministry I’ve never met a man who did not need a knife. I’ve met men who have denied God’s word out of face and I’ve met men who couldn’t sign their name and they’ve all managed without any noticeable handicap. But all these people were bound together by their need for knives. And do you know why? The simple answer is that it is impossible to go through life without cutting or slicing: it wouldn’t be human. If I met a man who didn’t need a knife I’d just pack up my bags and walk away because it would be a sure sign that I had met someone who was less than human and a waste of words. But you’re human, are you not?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘Well, then it follows that you need one of these knives, it’s unavoidable.’

  ‘I’ve already told you that I’m full up with knives.’

  ‘Have you a lover?’

  ‘Yes,’ I lied.

  ‘Good, because every lover needs a knife. I knew of a man once who woke up beside his beloved and saw for the first time how ugly she was, the scales had finally dropped from his eyes. And even though she was sleeping on his arm he was so panic-stricken he started to chew his own arm off, gnawing and tearing at it like a snared animal. And it took him so long that eventually his beloved awoke and looked at him. He got such a fright that he went into shock and couldn’t move. She couldn’t move him either and he died there in the bed within fifteen minutes. Now if he had one of these,’ she held up a short, double blade, smooth and serrated, ‘he could have had that arm off in two minutes and made good his escape. You wouldn’t want to end up in a situation like that, now would you?’

  ‘That’s a ridiculous story. Besides, it could never happen, my sweetheart is very beautiful.’

  ‘All beauty fades but with proper care and attention a good knife will last forever.’

  ‘I heard a story once of a child philosopher who couldn’t get his penknife sharp enough and he spent all his time honing it until one day the blade disappeared altogether.’

  I will never know why I made up that story.

  ‘That’s the story of a fanatic,’ she said coldly. ‘The story of a man looking for irreducible truths. It wasn’t the knife which failed him but his imagination. The knife was probably perfectly good within its set application. What he should have done was get another knife. There is no danger of that happening with these knives. Have you ever been to prison?’

  ‘No, I live a virtuous and God-fearing existence.’

  ‘And is your life so blameless that you are utterly without fear of reckoning?’

  ‘The truth is that I have no life. I have no qualifications or work. I have no future and I’m not old enough to have a past. Occasions for sin are severely limited.’

  ‘Nevertheless, the world is full of treacheries. One day you might find yourself incarcerated, walled up for a crime you didn’t commit, mass concrete and iron bars between you and the blue sky. You might have exhausted all words and petitions and found no succour in prayer. Then these are the knives for you, they are absolute knives. This one can cut through any substance known to man, it has never been known to fail.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ I retorted.

  ‘Knives are sacred,’ she replied, ‘I would not defile them with lies.’

  ‘You’re serious about all this?’ I said incredulously.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Because these are serious knives.’

  By now any notion of sexual conquest had fled my mind completely. Her unspeakable beauty dominated the room like a caryatid from some distant, ruined temple and her smile filled me with dread. I could almost hear her mind whirring through a set of instructions, sizing up the options before her face committed itself. It did not help either that my table was now laid out and glittering as if for some terrible, total surgery. I wanted my room emptied now, bare and empty as I had always loved it.

  ‘I know everything there is to know about knives,’ she continued. ‘Anything I don’t know about knives is a lie. Look at this one.’ She took up a short, curved piece and juggled it neatly from hand to hand. ‘This is a survivalists’ knife, special army issue to the SAS, the US Navy Seals and other elite anti-terrorist units. It’s a tungsten alloy laid over with Teflon. It’s hafted by a brass tang to an ebony handle. It’s the sharpest knife in creation, strictly under-the-counter material and rarer than most gems.’

  Suddenly she hopped forward on one foot and her arm swung down like a scythe. The knife split the air and buried itself in the door at the other end of the room. The walls resonated with the terrific impact. She withdrew the blade cleanly and handed it to me.

  ‘Now bid for it,’ she comman
ded.

  ‘I’ve got no money, I’m on the dole. I can’t afford to go throwing away money I don’t have on things I don’t need.’

  ‘Who said anything about money?’

  ‘You’re a saleswoman,’ I said. ‘Money is what you deal in.’

  ‘You’re being presumptuous again, you’ve been that way from the moment you opened the door. I prefer to think of myself as a kind of beneficent society, like the International Gideon Society for instance. I leave people their knives and I walk away. I’ve left knives in hotel rooms and houses all over the world. Sometimes, however, I have to go door to door and get some remuneration, I have to keep body and soul together also.’

  ‘But I have nothing to give. Look around you, I’ve only these four walls and these four limbs. I have nothing to give.’

  ‘That is not true. When I opened the door you wanted to possess me, you wanted to get down on your knees and worship. We could settle for that. One knife against one loveless act of sexual possession. A fair exchange is no robbery and since I want you it would be an honourable transaction.’

  I almost squealed in horror. ‘I can’t,’ I said, a dense wave of nausea swelling through my body. ‘It’s crazy. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. Why can’t you just leave me the knife and go?’ I could feel myself being reduced to a caricature of despair. I was on the verge of wringing my hands.

  ‘I’m not a charity,’ she said coldly. ‘I want you and you need this knife, I really don’t see any problem.’

  ‘I told you before I don’t need the knife. Jesus, do I have to go on and on repeating myself?’ Tears were beginning to well behind my eyelids.

  ‘You’ve just told me that you own nothing. Ten minutes of sexual humility and you will own the finest knife in creation. What is there to be afraid of?’

  I was suddenly sobbing, my whole body jerking like a string puppet, tears coursing down my face. Some nacreous light seemed to have spilled in the room and the walls had taken on a tremendous slant. She was now standing before me, sphinx-like and implacable.

  ‘Are you being wilfully ignorant or do I have to spell it out for you? That knife-throwing trick is the least of my talents. I do not think you want to see my full repertoire.’

  I felt my legs collapse beneath me and I was suddenly on the floor, watching my tears spill onto the carpet. When I looked up she was hauling my face up by the hair, standing over me with her legs apart and holding her skirt up with her free hand. She was smiling down on me now without humour, flashing those perfect, too-even teeth.

  ‘That’s it, boy, on your knees. Be witnessed in the true faith of The Knife.’ She pulled my face in closer. ‘This is going to stay with you for the rest of your life. Like a good sharp knife in fact.’

  Meats for the belly and the belly for meats;

  but God shall destroy both it and them.

  – I Corinthians 6:13

  Oh, my mother, not again. Tell me it is not my time come round again. Tell me that I can stay here within you, cowering down, letting the whole thing pass over my head. Tell me you will protect and instruct me, bring me news about the world, its trials and convulsions. Tell me you will keep it at a distance from me, something abstract and objectified, never allowing it to touch me. That would make me happy. This time, all seeing, would be the perfect spectator, casting a cold eye from the margins, suffering none of its humiliations and pains. Yes, that is the way I want it this time.

  Oh, Mother, tell me it is a mistake, a momentary flaw in the structure of things. Tell me that if I close my eyes and hold my breath time will pass me over it and I will be able to consign it to those black pits of memory where we keep those dark and unspeakable things. And tell me also, Mother, that for fear of waking it we would never speak of it again.

  Oh, my God, who am I trying to fool?

  She knows that if she can eat the Christ Child this terrible obsession will be at an end. That is why, in the darkness and humidity of this summer’s night, she is up on the western nave of the cathedral, next to the canal, working on the window with her pliers. This is her second time here this night. On her first visit her nerve failed her and she was afraid to touch the Christ Child. She took instead a few of the pieces that surrounded Joseph and Mary, featureless squares that were tight up to the stonework. They were background pieces without detail and when she returned home with them, she knew that they would be useless; there would be no fulfilment in them. So now she has returned again and this time she knows that she will have to prise the infant from Joseph’s arms.

  Already she is nearly done. The seven white and amber pieces that make up the image of the Child have been worked from the lead strips and she has now only to crawl along the ledge, climb down and walk home. Her thin body is vibrating from within with the energy of neurosis and starvation. On the ground, in the shadow of the buttress, she hunkers down like an animal to collect herself. Despite the narrowness of her obsession she has been careful. She has worn dark clothes and has kept to the shadows. She has made sure to wear something with pockets; she can hear the broken image rattle around in it now. She has been careful in her choice of pliers: it has long jaws like a surgical instrument, its inner surfaces have been milled for grip. Some of this knowledge she has researched – the pliers for instance and the structure of stained glass windows. But other details – the dark clothes, the pockets and, oddest of all, the ability to climb the down-pipe on the cathedral wall – have been pure inspiration. She knows now that this is the knowledge of the violated – one part received wisdom and two parts black inspiration. She gathers herself now to walk homewards through the still city, hands deep in her pockets. She takes one last look up at the window and she sees that Joseph is left clutching a dark hole in his abdomen where once was the Child. Dimly, she remembers a biblical text: whosoever eats of the flesh of the lamb will have eternal life. In the darkness she is not too sure why she should remember it and less sure what it means.

  Walking through the silent city she remembers how this horror began one week earlier. At lunch hour that day she had walked into the city square already looking like a maimed thing. She had crossed the grass towards the one vacant bench that faced directly into the sun. She moved cautiously but with speed, threading her way among the coiled lovers who lay on the warm grass.

  Already she was beginning to regret having come here. The whole place, the sun, the grass and especially the lovers made her feel alone. She reached the bench and sank into it with a feeling of relief. This too was a mistake. The sun, so bright, seemed to have singled out this one bench for special attention, falling upon it like a white blade. She would have liked to move but there was no other bench free.

  All dowdy looks and no confidence, she had neither the nerve nor the style to sit and eat on the grass. And she knew it too. She was now on the verge of tears and she felt bad enough without blighting the air, filling up the beautiful day with the grey substance of her loneliness. My God, she thought, why does it always have to be like this? Once, just once couldn’t it be different?

  She started. A thin man had loomed up before her. She hadn’t seen him arrive.

  ‘Greetings, favoured one,’ he said.

  Greetings. What a strange word, she thought. He placed his thin frame on the bench beside her and she appraised him. He was a startling old man, thin beyond belief and even on this hot day he carried a beige mac draped over his shoulders. But what was really amazing was that although he was undeniably there beside her with his legs stretched out before him, he projected not the clear lineaments of an identity but the mobile and blurred contours of a confusion; he looked like someone whose true identity had one day been smudged. She thought she could dimly make out a clean-shaven hawk-like face with pointed features but she could not be sure. She felt that maybe deep within him there was some truer and stronger identity with sharper delineation biding its time until it saw the moment to come forth. He was a man who gave the impression of looking unlike himself, not out of s
ome perverse desire to deceive but simply because this projected confusion was itself his true and inscrutable identity. Despite all this and the added fact that his presence beside her was a negative one, an absence, like a vacuum scooped out of the air, she was not afraid. She suspected he was one of the many vagrants about the city, one who at any moment was going to tell her that he was down on his luck, going through a rough patch, and had she a pound to spare to get him a cup of tea.

  ‘Today is a beautiful day,’ he continued. ‘The sort of day which justifies the world.’

  She persevered with the smile.

  ‘I suppose you’re on lunch-break,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘I’m a librarian. I have to return at two.’

  ‘Nice work I’d say, clean work. I haven’t worked myself in twenty years.’ He was grinning now, well pleased with himself ‘Imagine that, twenty years and I haven’t done a stroke.’

  She liked him now and was well glad that he had sat down beside her. She flourished one of her sandwiches but he waved it aside.

  ‘No thanks. A man of my age need only eat a couple of times a week. You’re a growing girl, eat up.’

  She liked him now and she relaxed. ‘What did you work at?’ she asked.

  ‘I worked in a circus,’ he said proudly. ‘Was born into it and worked in it for the best part of thirty years.’

  She remembered the circuses of her childhood and her interest quickened.

  ‘What did you work at? I’ll bet it was the trapeze; you’re very thin.’

  ‘No, not the trapeze, I had no head for heights. Guess again.’

  ‘Clown?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ringmaster?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Knife thrower or animal tamer. They were my favourites.’

  ‘No, none of those.’

  He was smiling at her now, having teased her along like a favourite child. In all this there was something benign, something protective about him.