The World Was All Before Them

by Matthew Reynolds

  ‘. . . and this . . .’

  . . . he slapped the side of his head . . .

  ‘. . . the skull and skin that shut me in. Or that would shut me in if it were not for these . . .’

  He raised his hand to his face again but gently now.

  ‘. . . my eyes that see; and nose and mouth and ears that smell and taste and hear; and all the tender nerves . . .’

  Now he was gently touching his hands together, running finger over finger, dabbing a fingertip against a palm.

  ‘. . . all these that bring the outside in, that mean I am like a living sponge in a warm rich sea, or a jellyfish, permeated by the world around. Only it is not “the world around” it is the world all through me.’

  His arms were extended but relaxed on each side of him as though the air were water and they were floating in it.

  ‘Togetherness.’

  He put the word in the air and watched as though it too were floating there.

  ‘Togetherness must be our key. Togetherness with one another. Togetherness with the world.’

  Head lowered, arms down, all quiet.

  ‘Togetherness is a concept. But more importantly it is a feeling. To develop that feeling we need to use our bodies. We need to teach our bodies to trust. Look at me standing. I trust that the world will stay still. I trust, even though we are upon water, that waves will not tip me to the floor. And watch . . .’

  He reached out towards the weather-beaten dreadlocked guy, and wiggled his fingers, at which the guy stood up, bulky in his tapestry jacket, and then kneeled, sitting on his heels, his hands on his thighs in front of him. Ash turned so that he had his back to this kneeling bulky figure. He stretched out his arms on either side again, a crucifix.

  ‘I trust,’ he said.

  Then he was rocking on his feet, forward, back, forward, back, back, back a bit further, staying straight but leaning backwards like a mast being lowered until: there it was: the centre of gravity had gone out far enough and he was falling, so quick suddenly until – ah, the bulky man had caught him safe. Sue lifted herself from her chair a little, hands braced on knees, so that she could see the big man holding the torso of the lithe man like a baby. Then Ash’s feet slid back towards the rest of him so that he would be able to stand again.

  ‘I had to make an effort to trust this man Orpheus,’ Ash said when he was standing again, in the middle at the front. ‘I was vividly aware that that was what I was doing. I could almost feel the crack my head would get from the floor if he failed me. We must learn to feel that that is how we trust the earth. The earth, every second of every day of every year, is our saviour. And if we are to trust it . . .’

  . . . his voice sharpened . . .

  ‘ . . . we must earn its trust as well. We must stop poisoning and heating and digging and scratching and exploiting. We must care for the earth as it cares for us.’

  He moved backwards a little.

  ‘As one first small step,’ he said, ‘I would like to invite you, any one of you, all of you, to come up here, one by one, and experience this moment of trust. To be baptised into togetherness with the earth. Who would like to be first?’

  He looked here and there among them, smiling.

  ‘Who would like to take the lead?’

  ‘I will!’ – called out the blonde who had been wearing the red puffy coat. Now it was slumped in the chair beside her. She stood with alacrity. Brown tight woollen top and jeans. Perkily she edged sideways out of the row and walked freely, happily, to the front. She stood side-on. Orpheus made way for Ash who kneeled behind her. She turned her head towards the audience, grinned. Her body was side-on and her face was front-on like an Egyptian fresco. Then she turned her head back so that it was again in profile. She rocked forward briefly – and then all of a sudden she had tumbled backwards and was in a heap in Ash’s arms. Letting herself lie there, she murmured a just-audible contented sigh. Then she was scrambling up and moving back towards her place. Her face was pink and her hair was scattered across it.

  What was Sue . . . ? Philip experienced a curdling sensation in his stomach and lungs as Sue rose and turned away from him to walk the other way around the chairs to the front. She had not spoken but moved decisively as though it were obvious that she was to be next, as though it were simply her turn to do this straightforward thing that to Philip seemed so embarrassing. There she was. She was looking at the wall in front of her, the line where it joined the ceiling, the circle of the blocked porthole. She was aware of her body, the pressure of her heels and the balls of her feet through the soles of her shoes on the floor. She was aware of her head balancing upon her neck in the middle of her shoulders. She tried to imagine the space behind her, a perspective pyramid of lines drawn from the outline of her body to the place where Ash’s arms were waiting. She was still.

  Philip said to himself: ‘Is she not going to?’ but then she was wobbling, tipping, a tree trembling and creaking and then crash it was down, she was down. Now it was Philip who lifted himself from his seat, as she had done earlier, his hands braced against his knees, the better to see her lying there, her head on the shoulder of the lithe man, her forehead – he was sure – touching his chestnut cheek. But then at last she was rising and finding her way back towards him. ‘Your turn,’ she said as she sat. But he would not.

  ‘Go on,’ they heard the elderly woman whispering vehemently behind them.

  ‘I can’t. My joints,’ the elderly man replied.

  ‘Well, I will,’ she asserted; and so she did, simply and gracefully.

  Is it only women? – Philip was wondering; but then someone else from behind them came forward, a man; then someone else and someone else, until almost all the small audience had participated in the experience of togetherness. Philip felt himself become more rigid, his whole myology tensing as he resisted the atmosphere of joviality that now seemed to permeate the room.

  ‘Is that everyone?’ Ash asked, centre stage again. ‘Thank you, those of you who accepted the impulse to togetherness. And to those of you who did not . . .’

  . . . his eyes were pointed, of course, at Philip . . .

  ‘. . . I hope you soon do become able to hear the call, to allow yourselves to trust. For . . .’

  . . . phew, those eyes have moved . . .

  ‘. . . we all know that we are animals. We know we have soft skin. All of us like to feel the breeze upon it or the sun’s warmth. And yet so much of the time we shut ourselves away. In houses, upon carpets, behind double glazing, in air-conditioned offices, in cars. All the time witnessing the world outside, if we bother to lift our eyes, through glass. Which means not witnessing it at all. Which means not recognising who we are, creatures among other creatures upon this natural world. Here is a human eye.’

  Aargh, thought Philip. Then: oh, just another projected image.

  ‘Here is the eye of a rabbit.’

  Yes, that’s what it is.

  ‘And a cow.’

  Ditto.

  ‘And a rat.’

  Again.

  ‘Which would you say is the most tender? Here is a hair on the back of a human hand.’

  Indeed.

  ‘Here is a cat’s whisker.’

  Several cat’s whiskers in fact.

  ‘Here is the horn of a snail.’

  Where the eyes are, Sue thought knowledgably.

  ‘Which would you say is the most sensitive?’

  Cat’s whisker, said Philip to himself: would you like me to put up my hand? / Sue was interested: there really does seem to be a lot in common.

  ‘Here is the epidermis of an onion.’

  Cells like sandbags.

  ‘Here is the skin of a fish.’

  OK, pretty much the same.

  ‘And here is human skin.’

  Definitely not, thought Philip. Must be another vegetable. Why is he doing this? I could blurt out and say that’s not human skin. I don’t want to blurt out and say that’s not human skin. / This is, thought Sue,
actually quite good. She remembered falling and being caught in the springy cradle that Ash had made of his body.

  ‘Even the skin that wraps us up and keeps us apart from one another: even that seal around us is so much the same, so much in common. It is not just that such a lot of us is water. Not just our DNA, almost all of it shared with other animals.’

  And 60% with a banana, thought Philip as Sue began to feel that she was having an idea.

  ‘All our means of sensing, of touch. All wanting to connect.’

  There’s a lot that’s being left out here, Philip’s mind uttered like an examiner, such as for instance: disease, carnivorism, aggression.

  ‘So I say to you: sense the rhythms of the earth. Allow them to enter into you. Live according to their prompting. Notice the trilling of the turtle dove and let it lift your spirits. Enjoy the zigzag flight of the fly. Make yourself delicately responsive, like leaves bobbing in the wind.’

  Sue thought: this is definitely giving me something.

  ‘Here behind me I have nothing special. Except that in another sense they are the most special things in the world. Because everything is the most special thing in the world. In Finland, through the long months of the winter, everything is white. The sea is frozen white; the ground is covered in snow. The people there can’t bear it. So they keep little pots of grass on their windowsills so they have something green and living to look at. All of nature is reduced to this littlest of plants. That is what I have for you here. Merely a blade of grass. In each little pot, a blade of grass. Or sometimes two or three because sometimes they can’t be separated without damage. And I would like to pass them round now. I would like each of you to take one. Hold it in front of you like this.’

  His hands as though in prayer but open, cupped.

  ‘Imagine it is all there is. Feel its presence. Give it a little blow if you would like, to see it waver and spring back at you. Bring it to your lips and let it touch.’

  ‘I’m out of here,’ Philip hissed in the direction of Sue’s ear. She didn’t turn towards him. All she did was mildly nod her head.

  ‘OK then’ – he hissed again more crossly – ‘I’ll wait for you outside.’

  Then he was up, reversing sideways away from his chair into the aisle, turning, making his way with shoulders bowed, with his head bent forwards. He pushed through the shutter doors and was hit by the bright, bright light of the perfectly ordinary, somewhat cloudy day outside.

  Sue held her little black round plastic pot which held a rubble of blackish earth with a blade of grass rising out of it. Or rather a stem rising out of it which, after an inch, split: one narrow leaf to the right, one to the left, one continuing to push straight up. How long the ones on either side were, comparatively, three times as long as the one in the middle. Perhaps they were older. You could see that in the stem bit they were wrapped around it. No actually down there they formed a continuous sheath which split where the leaves divided. You could see the sort-of welding that had been done there to support the weight. Strong though, she thought, pressing on a side leaf. Odd that she could exert what must, for the blade of grass, be so much pressure, and barely feel it, despite what Ash had said. Actually she couldn’t feel it at all, even with her fingertip which was meant to be so sensitive. She wouldn’t know that she was touching it if she wasn’t looking at it with her eyes.

  The lower part of the stem was red like rhubarb. And right down at the bottom there were other blades branching off, one scrunched and curly, the other straight like the main one only growing at an angle and splitting into two not three. Shadowing the scrunched one was a brownish papery frond. A dead bit? Were they all competing? The main shoot with its impressive tripartite structure brutally trampling the bodies of blades less fortunate than itself? Or were they all a sort of family? Or actually one entity, with this wizened frond a residue of an earlier stage of life, like hair that people had cut off, like the skin we are perpetually moulting.

  You could see the spreading leaves were grooved. That must be what made them strong. They must have tubes inside them or be like corrugated cardboard. What was puzzling was why what’s his name Ash hadn’t just sent them outside to look at bits of grass, lots of them out there. Surely somewhat artificial, this having them in pots, exactly the isolationist attitude he said he was against. But maybe that was the point. Maybe you were meant to feel that. Next he’d be asking them to restore their specimens to the meadow from where they’d been so rudely ripped. Who was it who had seen the universe in a grain of sand? But that wasn’t what was happening here. Or at least, maybe that was what Ash wanted but it wasn’t what she personally was getting from the experience. Because in order to see the universe in a grain of sand you had to triumph over the grain of sand with your imagination. Explode it or expand it or make it translucent or colour it in. You were valuing it by turning it into something that it isn’t. Seeing the universe in a grain of sand is disrespectful to grains of sand! Whereas what she was doing here was just simply carefully looking at this bit of grass and seeing what it was. She was being herself and noting all the ways in which the grass was itself, understanding how it was different from her. That’s what wouldn’t have happened if Ash had made them go up into the field and try to look at the grass there: there was so much of it. That was the real problem. That was the fact of life it was so hard to cope with. There was so much of it. Especially people. She was done with her blade of grass now but how many people could you really look at and think about and get to know over a lifetime. Maybe fifteen? Maybe not even one. And yet there were billions and billions and billions of them. Of us.

  Her mind came back to where she was, in the present, on this chair, in this boat, in the company of these people. There was a noise. She looked across at the open-faced blonde woman. The open-faced blonde woman was holding her pot in front of her face exactly as Ash had directed (Sue’s pot was now neglected on her knee). The blonde woman’s brown-clad forearms inclined towards her face. The twin forked leaves of her specimen touched her lips. Her glistening stubby tongue slid out between them and one of the leaves sank down upon it. The tongue withdrew between the lips taking the grass-blade with it. The tip of the grass-blade stuck out of the mouth on the side nearest Sue; the stem of it must stick out of the mouth on the other side. There was a movement of the jaw, a bite, she was biting the grass. Why was there no scream, no denunciation? Sucked, the tip of grass disappeared between the lips like a snake’s tongue. Ash had his eyes closed, that must be why the open-faced woman escaped scot-free. Ash was sitting calm on the edge of the table, holding his pot of grass like a candle, the single slim blade making a line in front of the cleft of his chin and the middle of his mouth and the tip of his nose. Oh, he was the source of the noise, this perpetual low hum, how could he make it continuous, it was as though the air went in one nostril, vibrated his vocal chords and out the other in a continuous flow. The blade of grass wavered in the current of it. The open-faced blonde woman was stirring, standing, reaching for her coat, shifting sideways, edging out. Sue caught the impulse and rose and tagged along. The elderly couple still sat politely, watchful, waiting for the end. Other people still sat there too, holding their little pots of grass. The shutter doors were swinging, creaking; the open-faced blonde woman was gone. Sue pushed on through, and climbed the stairs. Oh there she was, on the bank already, red coat hurrying away on vehement legs. Sue’s mind saw her face again, the blade of grass disappearing into it. The look of naughtiness and satisfaction and surprise.

  Where was Philip? He was over there, standing by that patient. The skinned bit of fallen tree-trunk was near them like an enormous bone. Which meant that actually there was a scattering of enormous bones, a . . . what was the word . . . an ossuary of them. Which meant that death in the heart of life was definitely the theme of the day given how the thrusting, enormous, elegant, living tree soared triumphantly above. Where was the child? Something in the way Philip and the patient were standing made her step towards
them quickly, made her want to interrupt, to get him to look at her, to say something and have him respond. Philip’s face was angled downwards confidentially; the patient’s face was looking up in trust, beaming warmth and intentness up at him. Sue was nearly in earshot now: ‘Hello,’ she said, perkily.

  ‘Will you promise me you’ll do that,’ Philip was urging.

  ‘We’ll think about it,’ said the patient. She had an aura of power about her, of something held in reserve. ‘We will. Thank you.’ She had a strong face, high cheekbones, hooked nose. Almost masculine.

  ‘And let me know if there are any developments?’

  Philip was ignoring her and focusing on the patient. He was punishing her because she hadn’t joined him in leaving ten minutes earlier.

  ‘Yeh.’

  What was it that made that face the face of a woman? Just the eyelashes maybe. Not the thin lips.

  ‘OK. See you then.’

  At last he seemed to become aware of her and turned. His face spread into a smile, his eyes were soft. ‘Sorry.’ They were moving away from the patient and the tree-trunk. ‘Had to try to explain something for the second time.’

  ‘Where’s the little boy?’

  ‘Up there.’ He stopped, turned back. They saw the patient still looking at them, only of course she wasn’t the patient exactly because the patient was her child. Philip waved. Then he pointed. There was a little black figure standing high, high up.

  ‘Wow.’

  The light from the sky behind him must be blurring his edges, making him look slighter than he really is.

  ‘He does the first bit with a rope.’

  She could see the rope dangling from a low thick horizontal branch.

  ‘After that he just swarms up.’

  Her gaze tried to find the way up through the steep branches.

  ‘That’s partly what made me want to speak to the mother.’

  He must lever himself, feet going up a branch, hands splayed against the trunk to keep the pressure.

  ‘Did I tell you about them in the autumn, the kid with ADHD? Some of my first patients. When I started to have my suspicions about Adam Hibbert.’