The Limits of Vision

by Robert Irwin

  ‘I will speak out!’ I cry.

  ‘Why, Marcia! Whatever is the matter? You have been in such a brown study! Speak out about what?’

  This is Stephanie, who is looking up at me in an amused fashion.

  I do not know how I will be able to speak to them politely. Here they sit in my sitting room, exchanging bits of trivia that they have been fed by the newspapers, their husbands or the new vicar, while I am engaged in a struggle against dirt that ranges across all time and space.

  Here they sit all cosy with their feet up. Their proper work is quite forgotten and they are grinning and chattering like a gang of Chinese coolies on the skive. The sand is filling the trench that we have dug today and the camels have still not been unloaded. As I watch, the scene around the camp fire is turning ugly. The insects on the stick have stopped fighting and one is mounting the other. The chief cameleer, who has staked much on this combat, whips a knife from out of his jerkin. Pere Teilhard sees me reapproaching and signals me away. Back along the road, the path, the door with blistering green paint.

  ‘Come on, Marcia. What is it? Say it.’

  I simulate a vagueness, a bashfulness I do not feel. It all comes out in long jerky breaths:

  ‘No, what I want to say is that here we sit talking about big things that are false to our experience of life – you know, art, religion and so forth, things that really belong to men. Whereas all day, every day, what I am actually doing is folding blankets, washing up and things. I mean the amount of time I actually spend thinking about the role of the woman artist, Steph, is negligible compared to these other things and I’m sure that’s true for the rest of us. Even Rosemary’s novel takes her less time than the housework.

  ‘Don’t all look at me like that. You know perfectly well what I’m getting at. I reckon that I have spent most of my life doing things like watching some gobs of washing-up liquid cut through the grease on a plate and marvelling how that is done and wondering which of the gobs will get to the bottom of the plate first and things like that. So, I just want to say couldn’t we please talk about things that we actually know about, like for instance how long it takes a fish-finger to go brown under a grill?’

  Silence. The silence lengthens. I look imploringly from face to face. Are they trying to force me to go on and thus fill the silence myself? The silence passes the point up to which one could have pretended not to have noticed anything socially awkward. (Oh, the shame of it!)

  At last:

  ‘Well!’ Griselda gives a little laugh. ‘You could certainly cut the atmosphere with a knife.’

  Mary sniffs. ‘Excuse me for breathing. Do you want us to go, Marcia? Is this one of your bad days? Is that it?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Actually, no sooner are the words out of my mouth than I realize that that is what I want – for them to go. The force of Darkness is gathering, not just here in my house, but in the houses of all these women, and we sit here sipping coffee and strewing crumbs all over the carpet. It’s no use talking to them. They will remain blind to the dangers until Mucor or one of his allies – soot, excrement or grease – actually strikes.

  Nevertheless, I reply, ‘No, of course not. I just wanted to testify about how I see my life, that’s all.’

  ‘My, we are evangelical today!’

  Then Steph intervenes with characteristic vigour.

  ‘Oh come on, Marcia! All that daily-beauty-of-domesticity crap is just a role foisted upon us by men.’

  ‘No, Steph. No really. There is something there which they can’t see. Actually I wonder if it can really be true that you can’t see it either. What do you think about washing up?’

  ‘Whaddya mean, what do I think about washing up? It’s boring, messy and it makes my hands come out in rashes.’

  Murmurs of agreement all around.

  ‘Oh, can’t you see? Can’t any of you see? Come on into the kitchen all of you. I’ll show you. Follow me.’

  And they do follow, coffee cups in hand and whispering amongst themselves.

  Now I realize that it is providential that I did not get around to washing the breakfast things earlier. How often previously have I stood here at this sink, doing the washing up and imagining to myself that I was demonstrating my skills here and being admired for them. I have imagined an invisible observer – one who perhaps is initially sceptical of the truths I am trying to teach. And now I have not one invisible observer, but a real circle of baffled housewives. At last it is really happening, my fantasy come true! All it took was courage.

  My coffee morning friends stand behind me like the chorus of an ancient tragedy. Red-nailed and raven-locked, the seeress, I look into the waters and prepare to prophesy. The men are away at the wars and a mysterious darkness hangs over our homes.

  Streaks of silver run down from the taps. As the hot water begins to come through, tongues of steam lap over the limpid surface. I reach for the power that is mine at the press of a finger. The jet of green spreads through the water in oriental smoke-like curls and then, as I dabble my hands in it, and feel my soul seeping out through my fingers into the water, iridescent bubbles appear seemingly from nowhere, and bubble mounts on bubble. The whole surface of the washing-up bowl is covered with bubbles, all except the patch where I have been dabbling my hands. And when I remove my hands and look down into the bowl, I see this patch as the pupil of an eye looking back at me. The water gurgles, the bubbles wink, and I am filled with joy.

  ‘Would you like me to help with the drying up?’

  ‘No, I just want you to watch.’

  The order of things is terribly important. Glasses first, while the washing-up water is still free from grease. I make a couple of glasses thresh in the hot soapy water, rinse them in cold and then dry immediately. It does not do to let glasses drain. They should be brought to a polish immediately. Now I spin round, glasses in hand to show them.

  ‘You see!’

  There is complete silence.

  Of course I am not really a seeress and I cannot read people’s minds. But I do think that one can tell a lot from a person’s posture. Stephanie stands erect with her arms folded. She is so erect that she is almost leaning backwards. This means she is above any arguments that I may produce. Her arms are folded against my words. Rosemary sits on one of the work surfaces, her legs wide apart. This posture tells me that she is not at that moment expecting a sexual attack by any male aggressor. (Why it wishes to tell me that I cannot guess.) Griselda on the other hand sits with her legs crossed, showing that, like Stephanie, she is closed to any arguments I may produce – or perhaps I am getting my signs muddled and it is that Rosemary is open to my arguments while Griselda is expecting a male sexual attacker? Only Mary gives me hope. Sitting on the kitchen stool, she is tipped slightly forward and her outstretched hand covers most of her face. An ambiguous sign. It may be that she fears me and what I am doing, that she is shielding herself against it. On the other hand it may be that what she is trying to cover with that fanning hand comes from within her, for I know and she knows that it is socially taboo to allow excessive emotions, such as awe and reverence, to show publicly. Perhaps in Mary I have found my true disciple.

  It could be. There she is, drawn in upon herself, considering … Washing up is one of love’s mysteries. Now she may see that there is no need to deny one’s humanity and become a robot when one does the washing up, for every action may be done with loving attention. I am utterly alert to what I am doing as I plunge the greasy dishes into the almost scalding water. (The water has to be really hot. I am very tough about this, like that scene in the film where Lawrence of Arabia snuffs out matches with his bare fingers.)

  Now I spin round to display two plates.

  ‘You see?’

  Both dishes shine, but whereas one dish is lustrous from soap and water, the other is still mottled with the false shine of grease. I turn swiftly back to the sink to give my audience time to reflect. Clammy bits of food that have been scraped from the bottom of the pan
flap at my hands under the water, and the ghostly smell of an old breakfast rises from the sink. I too am brooding. I need a disciple, for what can I do, a weak woman and alone, against the power of Mucor? If only I could make Rosemary understand it too, then she could put me and Mucor in that novel she is supposed to be writing about middle-class life-styles and adultery in South London. But then as I try to imagine myself at my sink in her novel, I realize how I would feature there.

  Marcia’s breakdown. Her husband is so often away on business that she is to all intents and purposes living alone, and as her horizons shrink to the kitchen sink she is going hysterical. Then, early on in the novel, there is this scene with the ladies’ coffee morning, where Marcia starts raving on about how she loves washing up and how she wants to tell everyone in the world about it. Only one person in the group recognizes the seriousness of Marcia’s plight, and that is Rosemary. No, wait a minute, the names will have been changed. Rosemary is Rachel, Marcia is Sally, and Philip is Quentin. Later that same day Rachel/Rosemary rings Sally/Marcia up and invites her to come round. Sally does and it is the first of many meetings. With great subtlety Rosemary Crabbe shows how, through the ministrations and advice of Rachel, Sally the dull little housewife is initiated into a way of life that she had not even dreamt of before.

  She changes Sally’s hair-style, takes her to smart parties and introduces her to Mark. With great subtlety, too, Rosemary Crabbe’s first novel shows how the relationship between the two women changes, for as Sally becomes more sophisticated she becomes the dominant one in the pair. Sally begins an affair with Mark, initially with Rachel’s blessing. Then, as the affair becomes more serious, Rachel begins to show signs of uneasiness. Mark is a Roman Catholic and tortured with guilt, but what exactly is the source of his guilt? Quentin/Philip sees what is happening, but he is inarticulate and unable to intervene. At a New Year’s Eve party in Camberwell, Rachel appears with a young man called Joachim, her brother. That same evening Mark tells Sally that he and Rachel are married but separated, and a little later Sally on her way to the loo stumbles past Rachel and Joachim making love on a sofa. A collage of scenes – wrestling limbs, a picnic laced with barbed dialogue, a fight in a pub, the ride with Quentin in the ambulance after he has taken an overdose of pills, a flashback to the childhood of Rachel and Joachim by the seaside, Sally’s flight from Mark and her hopeless attempt to find again the illusory contentment that, she believes, housework and coffee mornings formerly gave her, Rachel’s visit to Sally in the mental home and the final Gothic dénouement when Mark takes Rachel and Joachim with him on a visit to his old Oxford college. The men are shown as responding to woman’s new liberated role by taking refuge in either impotence or belligerence. Rosemary Crabbe’s observation of her characters is deft, and her handling of them compassionate.

  I must admit I would like to be in it – for, during the whole long period while I am having an affair with Mark and puzzling over the mystery of Rachel’s relationship with Joachim, I don’t do any housework, and neither Mark nor Quentin/Philip gets his shirts washed and yet no one seems to notice. That is the new relaxed middle-class life-style for you. But anyway it is all escapism and in real life I shall not leave Philip, and after Rosemary has put me in her novel, she will stop coming to see me because she is embarrassed about it, and Mucor will make her pay for having neglected her housework to write novels. She will pay heavily.

  Again I turn. This time both plates are lustrous and, caught in the kitchen’s light, their highlights reflect off one another and their mutual reflections seem to me to be a sort of image of infinity and endless mutual devotion.

  But now Mary’s hand has fallen from her face and I am just in time to detect a hastily disappearing smile. I am furious.

  ‘You are not taking me seriously.’

  ‘Taking what seriously? You are a bloody good washer-up, I’ll give you that. Any time you want to come round and do my washing up you are welcome.’

  ‘Oh, that’s not the point, Mary. Don’t any of you want to communicate? To – to talk about the little things in life, those little things that are so important?’

  Their eyes are lowered as if they are looking for little things on the kitchen table. (Well, there are some breadcrumbs there, but I am getting pretty shirty about their unresponsive attitudes.)

  Then Stephanie says, ‘OK, Marcia. What is it that you want to tell us about them?’

  ‘If you really don’t know there’s no point in me saying.’

  ‘No, come on, Marcia.’

  ‘We’re really interested; I am, anyway.’

  A deep breath.

  ‘Oh well, it’s things like – like when you go to the lavatory and you’ve flushed it, have you never tried to race against the noise of the flushing and get out of the bathroom and down the stairs before it has finished, because if you don’t the lavatory eats you up in your imagination? Or have you looked at the detergents you are using – how some of them eliminate the dirt, really kill it, while other detergents lift the dirt off from the fabrics, separating but not actually killing the muck? It has quite a psychological effect on me which one I use. It’s really interesting. Or how about when you are going to bed and you’ve switched the standard lamp off in the sitting room and then you are lying in bed and the thought comes to you that you haven’t switched that light off and though you know for certain that you have really you have to go down and check because now you have had that thought it must have a purpose, which has to be fulfilled, even if that purpose is making you get out of bed for no reason? Or what about when you are doing the same work, day in day out – washing, cleaning, ironing, shopping and cooking – have you ever thought that every day could really be the same day and it’s just that Tuesday gets called Wednesday and then Thursday and so on?’

  (A lot of good topics for discussion there, I should have thought. We can get on to Mucor later.)

  Complete silence.

  I falter, ‘Be honest. Haven’t you even enjoyed racing drops of water, like these two running down the plate here?’

  They stir uneasily like a herd of cattle before a thunderstorm.

  Stephanie says, ‘You have given me a lot to think about, Marcia. I really must think about it. At our next meeting we must have it all out and discuss it.’

  ‘Yes, this is getting kind of heavy. I think it’s time I was going’; and Griselda goes out to look for her coat. The others all troop after her.

  ‘Well, thanks for the coffee and scones, Marcia. I only hope I can produce something half as good when it’s my turn.’

  ‘And a very interesting demonstration of how to clean dishes.’

  They all nod agreement.

  At the door I ask Rosemary, ‘Am I going to be in the novel you are writing?’

  Rosemary looks embarrassed.

  ‘Writing novels isn’t like that. The novelist doesn’t put real people in what he or she writes. One takes a gesture from one person, a way of talking from another and the physical features of a couple of other people, say. So it is really a composite character and, of course, there is a lot of the novelist in that character, and then in the course of writing the character develops a personality of its own. So the character is truly fictional and something that is entirely personal to the novelist.’

  Liar! I’ve watched her watching me this morning, mentally noting down my every word and action.

  But now they are all gone and I am alone again. Alone, that is, with Mucor.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Well, that’s them gone. I am shaking with anger. I go back into the kitchen fuming. The washing up isn’t even quite finished yet. One leaves the pans until last and I have real horror to deal with, a saucepan whose bottom is layered by burnt risotto with a covering of last night’s cold greasy water. It is very important to give anger, its outlet. I know how it can build up. I am going to defuse it in the saucepan. Washing up is a combat situation.

  The burnt black stuff at the bottom of the pan, charred stumps, ma
kes me think of a forest in wartime – the Ardennes in 1944 perhaps, and the greasy water lying over it could be dense fog which stops the Allies getting forewarning of the coming German offensive. This scurvy ring higher up the pan could be the level of cloud cover. (It is actually where the rice boiled over – something which should not happen with a risotto.)

  Right, I have got this saucepan nicely set up, bending over it like a staff officer in the map room. Let us study this forest. It could be a South-east Asian jungle; then my detergent could be the defoliant the Americans were using. But no, that was an inglorious war and I propose to fight a triumphant campaign. First thoughts were best – it is the Ardennes. The Allies were taken by surprise by the German counter-offensive, as I was when my rice boiled too high and for too long. We now have to re-deploy. The charred rice at the bottom does for the forest – blasted oaks and scorched woody scrub – and also for the German units picking their way through what remains of its cover. Those fragments of rice that have remained white can be seen to be patches of snow turning now to slush in the heavy rains.

  There is an odd area in the middle which is a bit greasy, but where the rice has not stuck. That stands for Bastogne. Brigadier McAuliffe is holding out there with the 101st Army Unit. He is saying ‘Nuts’ to the surrounding burnt risotto. As for me, I am with General Patton’s Third Army Corps, hastily moved from the Saar to the relief of Bastogne. Patton is very much a lady’s general, I like to think, with his ivory-handled revolvers and his polo ponies, his dash and his swagger – oh yes, and his determination that at all times his men, whether in the Tunisian desert, the dusty Sicilian hills or the Ardennes, should be smartly turned out. Patton had no time for slovens. Not that I knew Patton, of course. He died at the end of the war.

  This may all sound silly; I’m sure it does. But I’m a great believer in what some of the magazines I read call ‘role models’. They are talking about pop stars and trend-setters in the world of fashion, but I am thinking about the people I read about at school: