Varying Degrees of Hopelessness

by Lucy Ellmann

  For, very late one night, it had become clear that my flat-mate was IN LOVE with me.

  I had always intended to help Pol with her love-life, but not in THAT way!

  It was very embarrassing.

  But I knew that, with time, she would probably get over it.

  Meanwhile, I was thankful for the fact that she was out a lot.

  I was left in peace to ill-attend myself.

  I went into something of a decline.

  I wore my dressing-gown all day, and buried myself in my work.

  In the evenings, I watched TV and drank gin and tonics.

  I felt more disgusted with myself than usual, and dealt with my bodily functions in carefully timed stints.

  I planned all such embarrassments in advance and avoided them if possible.

  As always when down-hearted, I said to myself that my work was the only thing that mattered.

  Art History is romantic enough in itself.

  And I had to prepare for my lecture engagement.

  Dr Cragshaw had arranged for me to give a talk to the Workers’ Educational Association in Lewes.

  It was the sort of thing tutors did at the Catafalque for favoured students.

  It was nothing grand, but for someone without as yet an actual degree in Art History, it was quite an honour.

  This had warmed me to Dr Cragshaw.

  It made up for his not having yet looked at that picture of my mother’s.

  Neither of us had actually mentioned the picture for over a year.

  But I simply attributed this to his rather formal manner.

  During my preparations for my lecture in Lewes, I began to develop a theory based on Dr Cragshaw’s enlarged details of brushstrokes.

  I discovered that the delicacy of Chardin’s still lifes was counteracted by the Master’s strong, wild and passionate handling of the paint.

  There was a definite contrast between the density of the paint and the transitory illusion it created.

  Lightness and heaviness, the rough and the smooth.

  The forceful, the penetrating; the pliant, the receptive.

  It was clearly the male and female principles in action.

  All of heterosexuality was embodied there.

  Of course I was too embarrassed to expound my theory to Dr Cragshaw, who would only have said it was nonsense.

  But I had found the subject for my lecture.

  Bad Eyesight

  El Greco had bad eyes.

  That’s why he elongated the forms in his paintings.

  That was how he saw things.

  This I found out by going to a momentous evening lecture at the Catafalque, given by a guest speaker.

  It was momentous not only because of El Greco, however.

  It was momentous because the guest speaker was none other than the man I’d once met in peculiar circumstances, having mistaken his flat for a book-shop.

  He stood manfully at the podium.

  It made him look authoritative.

  It made him look commanding.

  Demanding.

  It made him look less American.

  It made him look aristocratic.

  Also, his accent was softened by the acoustics of the room.

  Or perhaps it had been softened by time.

  Perhaps I too had been softened by time, I thought.

  His name was Robert.

  A name to conjure with.

  A name that matched his stiff bearing.

  He moved tentatively, as if he had been tied up with invisible thread.

  Like a perplexed Houdini.

  He looked like he needed a mother’s love.

  His stiffness gave him a stillness which I found very attractive.

  After the talk, Pol insisted on going up to meet him.

  She had no idea I had already done so.

  She just wanted a drink and waddled up to the most eligible companion in the room.

  And took me trailing behind her.

  It was all part of her lessons for me in How To Live.

  I was so embarrassed, I could have died.

  I hoped he wouldn’t recognize me.

  When we got to the pub, he volunteered to get the drinks.

  But Pol insisted on buying them, saying that he must be tired after his lecture.

  Well, then I knew something was up.

  Pol was usually happy for somebody else to buy the drinks.

  While she was away from the table, an intriguing thing happened.

  He looked at me quizzically and asked, ‘Haven’t we met?’ and then laughed.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  For, in that split second between his quizzical look and his laugh, I had fallen madly in love.

  I transferred all my allegiances, or the bulk of them at any rate, from the Splendid Young Man to Robert in a matter of moments.

  It was momentous.

  One of the advantages of unrequited passions, I find, is that there is no need to worry about infidelity.

  One can fall in love with a new person every day and hurt no one except oneself.

  No recriminations, no sulking, no painful divorce.

  I was an old hand.

  I was always getting crushes and getting crushed.

  If only Robert and I had met sooner, I could have been spared all that.

  For I knew he was The Man for me.

  Everything seemed right about him.

  I even altered some of my original criteria to accommodate him.

  He was not tall, dark and handsome.

  He was sometimes one or two of these things, but not all three at once.

  I hoped in return that he would make allowances for my physical defects.

  We were getting along rather well actually, until Pol came back.

  She started talking about El Greco and some mad times she’d had in Toledo, bull-fights and toreadors and I don’t know what else.

  I said I didn’t approve of bull-fighting.

  After that I couldn’t think of anything else to contribute.

  Which was quite unusual for me.

  I had finished my gin and tonic and I felt hungry.

  I needed some tea and toast.

  Fast.

  I sat in abject misery while they talked and talked.

  Robert paid no further attention to me.

  Perhaps he was fearful of betraying his affections in public.

  Finally, Pol said it was time to go.

  He came with us, somewhat to my surprise.

  On the way to the bus-stop, we were startled to see a drunk veering towards us.

  As he came nearer, he began to aim himself at Robert.

  It was clear he intended to beat Robert up.

  I was frozen with horror, as the drunk speeded up into a run.

  Just before he reached Robert, however, he was intercepted by Pol.

  She just stuck her arm out.

  He ran straight into her arm and immediately collapsed.

  She hadn’t watched all those bull-fights for nothing.

  She did not hesitate.

  Robert thanked Pol profusely for this service.

  I thought it rather unladylike myself.

  We decided to take a taxi at this point.

  Robert said it would be easy for him to walk home from our place, and he wanted to see us safely home.

  I found this somewhat awkward, as I am not used to having the object of my affection at such close quarters for so long, and I was developing the usual stomach ache.

  In the end, he accompanied us straight into the flat.

  And he did not leave that night.

  As I went to sleep, I heard the customary clanking of the bed in Pol’s room.

  Clanks and moans.

  Why does the reproductive act have to sound so tragic? I wondered.

  I was feeling rather tragic myself.

  How could Robert sink to Pol’s level?

  How could he settle for second-best?

&nb
sp; And there was something else bothering me too.

  Pol was supposed to be in love with ME.

  I’d been trying to be kind to her on that account for the whole of the last month!

  And now …

  CLANKS AND MOANS.

  My Hands on the Wall

  I lay in bed.

  Morose.

  Clanking I could bear.

  Moaning.

  Laughing.

  But I could not understand why he’d chosen Pol instead of me.

  She was not perfectly beautiful.

  Nor was I, of course.

  I, with flakey skin on my heels and an old stain on my eye and knobbly knees and hardly any breasts to speak of and moles in places no polite person would mention, AND allergic to nuts.

  I, who find it necessary to rearrange food in supermarkets if it’s out of place.

  I, who even rearrange matches inside their box so that they’re all pointing in the same direction and more or less level.

  But at least I was of a more normal size.

  She was all flesh.

  All wobbling flab.

  And spirited bawdy talk.

  She was just a Good Time Girl.

  She was a lot of fun, yes, but how long can that sort of thing last?

  I would have married him!

  A virgin bride.

  I would have had his babies.

  I could envisage the scene.

  Our children would have been beautiful, because we loved each other.

  But my imaginings were interrupted by the sound of Pol moving about in the kitchen.

  How disgusting, I thought.

  She was always hungry after a night of love.

  She was always having nights of love.

  I don’t know which disgusted me more.

  Then I heard Robert yawn in the next room.

  Just beyond the wall.

  He was lying there.

  Sleepy and stretching.

  Robert, my love.

  I knelt on my bed and outstretched my hands to him.

  I put my hands on the wall in the place that I thought he might be, and left them there.

  Feeling the wall in my hands.

  Splutters to the Rescue

  I was rather cold towards Robert at breakfast.

  I was in no condition to be civil.

  I was proud and aloof.

  But I could not help noticing Robert’s breakfast manner.

  It was impeccable.

  Somewhat less impeccable when Pol was sitting on his lap, however.

  But that was understandable.

  Given the size of her.

  I finally admitted to myself that she was fat.

  FAT, FAT, FAT.

  And because she was on his lap, I had to reach for the marmalade myself at one point.

  Luckily, my dressing-gown was done up tightly.

  Even at times like these, I take care over such matters.

  I have my pride.

  Of course, I could not eat a thing.

  But I made a brave show of preparing to eat.

  I had in fact eaten very little in the last twenty-four hours.

  At the Catafalque that morning, I nearly fainted.

  I longed for eleven o’clock, when tea and toast could be obtained in the cafeteria, and the Splendid Young Man could be gazed at.

  Although by now I was in love with Robert, primarily.

  I liked Robert’s stiffness at the breakfast table.

  There was something manly about it.

  His stiffness made him sit still a lot, looking meditative.

  His unbendability made him spill his tea at times.

  His elbows needed a lot of room, as they were incapable of adjusting to a tight spot.

  It was charming.

  His stiffness.

  And now all was lost.

  Pol recognized no seniority in my position, no prior claims.

  She did not even know I HAD BEEN IN HIS STUDY.

  She was probably in it now.

  They were probably lying together among his books, in the very room where I had first met him.

  Considering this possibility during Dr Splutters’ Kant class, I burst into tears.

  Though he was well-known for conveying the sentimental aspects of his subject, even Splutters did not believe I was crying over Kant.

  After the class, Splutters insisted on taking me to a café and buying me a cream cake.

  He was so kind, and so pathetic, as always, that I managed to give him a brief account of my troubles whilst eating the cream cake.

  It did not take long, as I left out names and any reference to sex, and I was kept busy trying to eat the cream cake demurely.

  When we walked back to the Catafalque, Splutters put a fatherly arm round my shoulders.

  Although, never having had a father, I could only guess at what fatherliness involved.

  Then he kissed me on the cheek.

  This was too much.

  My cheeks were sacred.

  I was saving them for my husband.

  I backed away.

  He began to splutter on about how he’d long admired my eyes and my arms and what a joy it had been for him to have me in his classes these many months.

  It was all very embarrassing and clearly no longer fatherly.

  It only confirmed how strongly I felt for Robert.

  I wasn’t going to settle for second-best.

  I ran towards the Catafalque.

  Splutters ran after me, but to my relief he slowed his pace when he saw Sir Humphrey Basilisk coming out.

  In Pol’s Drawers

  I soon became used to having Robert about the flat.

  It was tantalizing.

  For at any moment he might come to the conclusion that he and I were made for each other.

  I often wondered if one day I might find him on MY bed, maddened by passion.

  In fact, I checked the dark room for ghosts and for Robert every time I entered it.

  I often thought Pol’s men friends were using her.

  They only wanted her for sex.

  And as a companion to take to pubs and discos.

  That was all they did together.

  It seemed a pointless existence to me.

  It was against my feminist principles.

  It was against my feminine principles.

  She was going to end up with some disease, despite the many varieties of condom she claimed to have in some drawer.

  As well as in her handbag.

  As if she might meet someone at any moment and need to go to bed with him there and then!

  I didn’t see any future in it for her.

  Here she was, almost finished with her degree, and still no prospects of marriage on the horizon.

  She was going about it the wrong way.

  She was too easy.

  She did not earn men’s respect.

  And she had so many men!

  Why did she need mine?

  This time it was the opposite problem: SHE was using HIM.

  After a few weeks, she told me Robert was boring.

  She wanted to get rid of him.

  The next time he came round, I was supposed to tell him she was out.

  The 33-year-old Woman’s Selflessness

  Robert came over quite early one morning, hoping to catch the worm.

  I had always enjoyed his company at breakfast, so I invited him in.

  Even when nervous, I can always produce some tea and toast.

  Even in my dressing-gown.

  We talked about Pol for some time.

  When the question came up, I reported that she had stayed the night elsewhere.

  And hinted that she must therefore be interested in someone else.

  I felt it was best to warn him against wasting any more time on her.

  He was simply being USED.

  It was pure selflessness on my part.

  I had no hopes left on my own account.

  It
was obvious enough that he did not love me.

  I was just doing my job: Pol had told me to get rid of him.

  He seemed somewhat crestfallen after this news.

  So I made more tea and toast.

  But now that he was no longer involved with Pol, I was feeling more jittery with him.

  I started dropping things.

  The toast, as if responding to my mood, popped high out of the toaster.

  Suddenly I felt exhausted.

  I was pooped.

  It reminded me of my mother, slaving away to make a man happy.

  I was relieved when he left.

  Still Life with Cragshaw

  The Splendid Young Man and his tennis court had galvanized the student body at the Catafalque Institute. Convinced of the merits of the scheme, they had decided to stage a pro-tennis court demo in the Gardens, and were already flattening the allocated spot with their posteriors.

  Cragshaw, peeping from behind a blind, witnessed the gathering hordes. The prevailing winds were against him. He was outnumbered, outmanoeuvred – they were going to see him off the premises without a doubt. But they were going to have to kill him first. He could not bear being at home with his wife all day. Where would he sit? There was no room there for another slide. And somewhere in Cragshaw glimmered the knowledge, wise and irrefutable, that he himself was the only person in the world he didn’t severely irritate.

  No, it would not do. He would barricade himself in his quarters and see how they liked it. The newspapers would enjoy the scandal: ‘Eminent Art Historian on Hunger Strike’. He could no longer concentrate on his work. After pinning a note to his door cancelling all classes for the day, he lay down in glum stupor under his table. There he noticed a small painting. He had no idea where it had come from but it looked rather like an early Chardin.

  Our Heroine Makes Some Suppositions

  I was hurrying towards Dr Cragshaw’s rooms one day, in order to discuss borrowing some slides from him for my lecture in Lewes.

  It was months away but I was already getting nervous about it.

  And since my destiny was to love, but to love always tragically, I was determined to divert all my energy to my work.

  I was about to knock on the door when I suddenly saw the two men in my life, Robert and Lionel, talking to each other beside a hedge.

  I was extremely startled, and huddled against the wall until the two men in my life had wandered on.

  I succumbed to day-dreams.