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The Microcosm

Page 21

by Maureen Duffy


  ‘Oh I don’t know. The signs are there. I think we’re on the move. Besides it’s no good giving up. You have to keep trying even if you are banging your head against the same old brick wall. I reckon with the progress in psychology …’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about them. I was listening to a programme the other day where they were talking about this new cure they reckon they’ve got where they give you an electric shock and make you vomit every time you have a pleasant thought about another man, and it made me sick just to listen to them. I mean how can you do that to a human being. You must be very convinced you’re right to use a thing like that.’

  ‘Who’s God for this week? The trouble is you can use the same method to make anyone do anything for a time: make criminals out of honest men, inverts out of normals, communists out of American soldiers, so where are you. You haven’t really established the validity of such a cure and any results you may get prove nothing except that the human mind can be made to respond to stimuli associated with certain states of feeling regardless of the value or possible morality of those feelings, which we knew anyway. It’s the kind of method they use to train an octopus to only take food out of the trap when the light comes on.’

  ‘Most of the time you don’t feel you’re sick, you kid yourself you’re part of society doing an honest job and your private life is your own. Then you hear something like that and you realise that there are a whole lot of people in positions of importance who regard you as no more than an animal to practise vivisection on.’

  ‘The funny thing is when they read about German doctors doing experiments on living people in concentration camps they all throw up their hands in horror but this kind of tampering with the mind they hear about while they’re eating supper and never turn a hair.’

  ‘Hey you lot, pack it in will you. This is supposed to be a jolly evening and you’re sitting there telling horror stories giving us all the jumps. What’s the matter with you anyway tonight Matt?’

  ‘Not enough alcohol in my system I suppose. I’ll get better as the evening progresses.’

  ‘While I remember Matt, can I borrow Rae for an evening this week?’

  ‘What is it, firm’s dinner and dance come round again?’

  ‘That’s it. Thursday, should be a good meal this year; they’re trying somewhere new.’

  ‘They’ll be asking you soon when you two are going to get married. Don’t they think you’re a bit slow?’

  ‘They think I’m a dirty old man and bloody lucky to get away with it. All the married men wish they could do the same. I tell them about the parties I go to, the weekends away, the holidays abroad with just a bit of embroidery here and there and their eyes are popping out of their heads. I suppose that’s one of the compensations; we enjoy ourselves more.’

  ‘The psychologist’d tell you you’re immature. You ought to be happy sitting at home with the baby in the evenings instead of gadding off out with us lot.’

  ‘What happens when you’re too old to enjoy it?’

  ‘I don’t reckon we’re any worse off in old age than anyone else. In fact if anything the record evens up a bit. I mean if you’re normal married your children have grown up and left you by then whereas we’ve learned to do without them. We’ve got our jobs like everyone else and we’ve got more friends than most because we live a more social life than other people. We might be frightened of the wrinkles but then hundreds of marriages haven’t got much more than companionship by then if that. How many happily married people do you know.’

  ‘Two or three couples for at least a dozen who aren’t but who rub along somehow.’

  ‘So you don’t reckon we’ve got it so bad then?’

  ‘It’s alright for you; you’re not illegal. Still there’s a few here who’d miss the excitement if they were. Might even make them normal.’ David looks across at the opposite tables filling rapidly with the regulars who will perform for us later. The compère is already beginning to fuss over his opening number, trying to persuade a boy in a smooth grey suit to follow him. But the boy is unwilling. It’s too early in the evening. He hasn’t got into the mood. Who’ll hear him. His best song, almost the International of the gay world, would be wasted on this handful.

  The talk swings predictably to and fro like a captive stoolball. Matt has heard it all before and will hear it many times again for there is nothing new under the all-seeing eye that can be said on the level of polemics about the problems of minority groups, the poor, the sick, nothing that will convince either side since they both speak from their own needs their own stage of development, rationalised experience and until they are ready to go further golden words fall on their ears like lead. The same questions and answers, the same for and against are repeated all over London in flats, round dinner tables, in clubs and pubs, in homes and restaurants until the mind thrusts them off into a no-mans-land, the ears continue to hear but the brain no longer receives. Yet they will be given because they must be given, the messages are still sent even if the earphones have been laid aside because apart from the facts that must still be stated until they become commonplace, something in us needs the release of this kind of conflict as an affirmation of our stated selves.

  He looks at Rae fingering her glass and wincing at the too-loud voice of the hearty young man who has been reared on community singing and is inviting the world to consider itself at home. ‘You don’t believe in all this do you; this discussion, argument call it what you like. To you it’s immature, a waste of time.’

  ‘I can only see a lot of people exhibiting their egos, each trying to shout the others down, and I just won’t take part in that sort of thing. That’s why I keep quiet. People are themselves and that’s what you love them for.’

  ‘Have you two had a row or something?’

  Matt laughs, knowing he has to. ‘No, it’s just that we don’t agree. I don’t even mean that really. I just don’t understand, let’s put it that way. I keep on hammering at the same point with all the reasons, the abstractions, the isms and ologies while Rae just steps straight into it, and deeper, lives it all and beyond, leaving me still shouting about, finding a system, a scheme that’ll fit it all in. It’s the old, the traditional difference, I suppose between masculine and feminine ways of approach, both necessary, complementary but irritating to each other. You think I can’t see. It’s so easy to you. You simply get on with it. The problem of whether it’s right or wrong, a good life or a bad one doesn’t even occur to you. It is, it exists. I can see all that but at the same time I know these things have to be said, made articulate, otherwise how will anyone else ever know about them. And people suffer unnecessarily because of a lack of knowledge. It’s all very well for the little groups of people with their own private vision living it out in their own lives but there are millions wandering around in a half light, scared and often ill. Don’t you see it’s not good enough? We all have to rise in the end, not just one or two who were smart enough, had will enough for their own salvation but all the halt, the maimed and the blind of us which is most of us.’

  ‘I know, I do know.’ Pained by his attack she takes up this strange weapon of words to defend herself whose normal speech is through hands, through understanding, through a hundred simple acts and gestures. At the same time she doesn’t resent the attack, admits his right to make it and the validity of it.

  ‘Do you always let Matt cross-question you like this?’ Steve asks bending forward to deaden the noise of the band.

  ‘Oh yes. Why shouldn’t I? I know she’s only trying to get at the truth, to put things clearly in order, and I should be able to answer.’ She turned towards him where he sits listening, the muscles of his forehead clenched to make two deep vertical lines from the bridge of the nose. ‘I can only see two problems: first that parents don’t realise the tremendous effect they have on their children and that if there is any blame to be attached to anyone for the ultimate result then it must be largely theirs, second is the attitude of our society which
makes them feel as if they’re doing something wrong.’

  ‘And neither of these are fundamental problems but things that can be changed by time and more education in the real sense.’

  ‘That’s it. There are dozens of problems, divorce for instance, but the people involved don’t sit down in a group of only divorcees and complain about their state, and ask each other whether it’s God’s fault or their parents’ or their own. Everyone has problems but they resolve themselves gradually.’

  ‘Surely we’re more like a different race?’

  ‘Negroes in America you mean? Even that’s only a matter of time. Look there’s young Eddie just come in, up at the bar buying a slimming tomato juice but which of us thinks, “She’s Jewish,” as soon as we see her? She’s just Eddie, a nice kid, and the fact of her Jewishness is just an extra something interesting like David being from a Welsh mining valley. A generation ago that wouldn’t have been so and you can still see its effects on an older Jew so that I know one of our friends who doesn’t even let it be known because her father had his windows broken before the war and she’s never forgotten it. Then there are the ones who still want to play the sad, sensitive Jew and can’t get on with the Israeli because they’re so extrovert and vigorous but it’s all passing, as Rae says, a matter of time. I think Eddie’s even better adjusted to being queer because of it.’

  ‘You won’t get people to change as quick as that.’ David looks down at his hands fighting off the impulse to crack his knuckles, the bones showing whitely through the thin skin. ‘How do you get a change like that?’

  Steve laughs a little then, ‘My father could give you an answer. Through suffering, he’d say, accepted and comprehended suffering like the Jews have done, and the Negroes are now.’

  ‘Is he queer?’

  ‘I think so. We’ve never discussed it.’

  ‘You must admit the attitude of organised religion has improved a lot quite recently.’

  ‘Well, so many of the parsons were queer themselves they had to do something about it. I mean, let’s face it, the oldest joke in the book is the one about the vicar and the choirboy.’

  Rae sees Steve’s face withdrawing behind its accustomed mask. ‘Eddie’s coming over, find her a chair David.’

  The evening is filling up. Tommy the compere begs for more quiet for the singers but the conversations continue, punctuated with jerks of laughter, drinks are downed more quickly. Then all at once focus is on the stage. Suggestions are thrown from the thickest press of standing young men, whistles, catcalls. The singer pitches a voice to a ringing falsetto.

  ‘When I have a brand new hair-do,

  With my eyelashes all in curl,

  I float like the clouds on air do,

  I enjoy being a girl.’

  His gestures and expressions take on a coy, provocative effeminacy yet seen in repose at work or walking in the street he would pass as a handsome boy, a good catch in the marriage stakes.

  ‘You’d never think to look at him …’

  ‘Oh that one, she’s all bitch.’ David answers delightedly. ‘You should see her husband, a great thumping Irish navvy.’

  ‘Animus and anima

  Agreed to have a battle

  For animus said anima

  Had spoiled his nice new rattle.’

  The words parody up and down Matt’s head. For all my talk there’s something in me that doesn’t quite accept or accepts only certain aspects, jibs at, cavils over and yet who am I to question. It’s just a way of not looking at myself. As long as we can find a mote who sees the beam as I expect Steve’s father would put it. There’s a love hate relationship if you like. She can take the mickey but don’t let anyone else touch him. Rae saw it too; that’s why she changed the subject. Who are the two over there I wonder. I’ve seen him here before I think but she’s a new face. Looks very young and scared to death. Trying not to show it but daren’t look up or round. What’s she drinking? Half of bitter. Intelligent face but rather white and strained, anxious yet defensive. What do you do about people like that? Anything? He’s looking this way, saying something to her. Lifts her head for a quick glance. Down again. Seen me staring. Mustn’t stare it’s rude, besides you’ll frighten her or she’ll think you’re interested and she’s an obvious butch, so far anyway though she might change later when she gets into the swim more. She’s young yet. Funny how I couldn’t fancy her physically but there’s an attraction there. Narcissistic I suppose; myself when young about eighteen. The exchange of like minds. Carl. Carl? No answer. Only that once and what was it called you up then? The place or my need. Never before or after. All is changed, changed utterly; a terrible sameness is born. Supposing I went over and spoke to them? Isn’t that Jill over there with a little group I don’t know? Just come in, working her way forward, looking for someone. Me? What comes next?

  A young man with shining cheeks and hair slicked back like a baby after its bath mounts the stage attended by an acolyte whose face is seamed with concern, the vicar’s warden bearing the trappings of the ritual. It is the fire-eater. Loud applause. He sweats a little under the lights as if he has already sucked fire into his belly. Drums and piano play softly in a Persian market. The drinkers are quiet now watching. The acolyte stands beside him holding the tray with the lighted candle, paper torches, heaped white drift of cotton wool which the magician begins to stuff into his mouth, sometimes lighting it at the candle flame, snorting and blowing to keep it smouldering in his cheeks. The music builds him to his climax, he throws back his head and vents a dragon breath of sparks and smoke. We hear the flames crackling deep inside him where the banked furnace must be. The drum rolls, the piano crashes a final chord, the audience laughs with relieved delight and applauds. Next he takes paper torches from the tray lights them and passes the roaring flames across the bare flesh of his forearm as a cook singes a leg of pork. He treats the fire with complete disrespect, licks it like a child with an ice lolly, bites off a piece and chews it down. The audience are leaning forward caught like children at a Punch and Judy show, gasping in the incredible. Now he will walk on broken glass for us, the cruel blades prickle the soles of our feet, make the air gay for us with strings of bunting flown from his mouth, swing full beerglasses high above his head and return them without a drop spilled, hack a rope in pieces and join it again with a pass of his hand. He is our shaman, taking the edge off our fears, freeing us from the compulsion to play with fire and sharp toys, to wound ourselves in secret drawn by the nature of the thing itself to dare it to prove ourselves. There is nothing to it. It is so easy as he does it that we no longer need to try. But his body is not like other men’s stuffed with animal entrails, shambles, viscera, organs that beat and contract and secrete: his body is a vast dark cave, half-lit by smouldering fires, the floor strewn with cut glass, the living walls hung with pennants.

  We deal in illlusion. Matt looks round at the children’s bewitched faces.

  ‘Whatever must it be like going to bed with a chap like that?’ David wonders.

  The fire-eater is bowing and smiling now. The acolyte fussily arranges the spent remnants of the dream. The magician becomes simply a very pleasant young man with a boy’s smile. But for Matt the mood is unbroken; not having succumbed to the enchantment, the end brings him no release. The others are gayer, the talk rises higher, someone gets up to sing and they join him in the chorus but Matt feels the evening closing about him.

  ‘Hallo then.’

  ‘Hallo, I saw you come in. Who are you with?’

  ‘Don’t look directly or it’ll know we’re talking about it. You see the very good-looking one in the black sweater. She’s marvellous, really it this time. Ring me up and we’ll have a drink and I’ll tell you all about it. Must go now. Very jealous. I’ve told her all about you. Give me a ring, don’t forget.’ The crowds part for a moment and then close again absorbing her. He sees her reappear beside the unknown group and stand waiting for a crumb beside the tall figure in black.

&nbs
p; It was right of course and inevitable. He had known it would come and that he must be freed from the tentacles of their past, that he must go on and create again, bend his mind and will to it, but he was tired, needing the touch of illusion which was no longer possible for him since he was no longer a child or even an adolescent. It was he who had grown old on their failure not Jill. He would always love her as they had been. It wasn’t something that could be wiped away. He couldn’t say no it never was so, I was deceived or I deceived myself. He must admit to himself that what had been had been and what had been true then was always true. He knew the danger period was near with Rae, saw all the signs in himself, the urge not to face the problems of adjustment, the transmutation of physical passion into something more, but to go out and look for some new diversion, he felt the old restlessness, the roving eyes and then he looked down the months and then years at the misery, the anguish and deception that would follow. Not again, he said to himself, not all that again. Where would it ever end? It has to be done this time. It has to be done and she wants it too. He looked across the table to where she talked with David. She looked tired, older. That too is my fault, he thought. I only bring destruction. He stood up.

  ‘What would you like to drink? Have something different. Something special. I did well on the tips today. Have a Tia Maria if they’ve got one.’

  And this deprived fringe-life he asked her to lead didn’t help. It doesn’t help, he thought pushing his way to the bar, not that we starve but the spirit starves all because of some besotted clinging to a principle that begins to seem pale, without substance even to me. It’s not so much that I earn far less than I would if I even made some attempt to get into my field, it’s the never seeing anyone, the never doing anything, the lack of contact with minds that aren’t circumscribed by this one problem; no pleasure, no real pleasure in the Wordsworthian sense, that’s it.

  The feeling that he had pinned the thing down at last even though it did not mean a solution or even a respite, cheered him a little. He found himself half consciously joining in the singing, grinning at the compère, able to look across to where Jill hovered at the elbow of the black sweater without feeling it a total denial of all they had professed. Indeed he hardly felt at all finding himself more and more drawn towards the two figures he had noticed earlier. ‘You see those two over there,’ he leant across to Rae and David. ‘What do you think?’

 

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