The Microcosm

by Maureen Duffy

  ‘You don’t want to worry about what Feathers says about being stuck in the country. Actually she looks better than I’ve ever seen her. Who do you think it was trying to get through?’

  ‘Some part of herself I expect, something she’s suppressed or some hidden fear. She didn’t really have much of a start with a mother like that did she? I reckon she hasn’t done too badly.’

  ‘You went down well with Bill.’

  ‘Did I? How do you know?’

  ‘Oh she liked you. She doesn’t come out as much as that for many people.’

  He was pleased with this bit of information as she’d known he would be. It helped to make up for Stag, made him more confident in his own eyes, less of an unhappy little boy. ‘I feel we could get on quite well together, you know as drinking companions, something I haven’t had since Carl died.’ He said the words quite deliberately, naming his loss to pin it in perspective at last and free himself from it.

  ‘Yes I thought so.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I just knew.’

  ‘It won’t happen of course because our lives won’t cross that often but the possibility does something for me. It could be. I can’t explain. Do you know what I’m talking about? Still, why ask? You always do. Even that worries me less tonight.’

  ‘There’ll probably be a summons from Stag when we get back. We won’t make it late tonight though because of getting back in the morning. Will you do something for me?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Don’t let the antlers clash too much.’

  ‘That rather depends on her.’

  ‘It’s you I love after all. All the rest was over long ago.’

  ‘Alright I’ll try but don’t blame me if it doesn’t come off.’

  Irene met them in reception as they went in. ‘Have you had a good day?’ she smiled.

  ‘We’ve been to see Feathers and Bill,’ Rae answered. ‘They took us out to a pub where the gypsies go. Have you been? It’s rather interesting. You’d like it.’

  ‘I’ve heard of it. We keep meaning to go but somehow we never seem to get there. Kay wondered if you’d care for a farewell drink. She probably won’t see you in the morning. You’ll want to get away early.’

  The lift whirled them up to the studio where Stag was waiting beside the fluorescent bar ready to dispense confusion and forgetfulness. ‘I’d like a beer,’ Matt said, ‘if there’s any going. It doesn’t do to mix them and we’ve already had a few tonight.’

  ‘I think there are a couple of cans in the fridge Irene,’ Stag began to pour three glasses of champagne.

  ‘You’ve been to see Bill. What did you think of them?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘They’re tremendous characters don’t you think? I’ve known Bill for years even before we were in the army together. She’s a splendid person, absolutely reliable. Oh good, you managed to find them. What about some music? What would anyone like?’

  Matt took a can from Irene, punched it and began to pour, determined that he would stay sober this evening. Stag and Irene began to dance. He looked across at Rae and grinned. Then it was his turn to dance with Irene. ‘How are you today?’ he asked her. ‘You must have been the only one sober last night or should I say this morning. I don’t think I remember much after we got back here.’

  ‘You carried it off pretty well then. I wouldn’t have said you’d had that much.’

  ‘Do you remember all that happened?’ he asked her jokingly.

  ‘Oh yes. I always remember everything.’ She answered so seriously that he felt apprehensive, wondering what she might be thinking and how much he might have said. When the music finished she thanked him formally, gravely and he took her back to the bar where Rae and Stag were standing together looking down at something on top of the bar. A vase of flowers stood there, the petals beginning to drop in the warm atmosphere; hot-house roses, pink and white daisies and delphiniums. Stag had pushed the boat-shaped petals into a design which puzzled Rae but set the hairs at the back of Matt’s skull upright with a life of their own. Afterwards when he tried to reconstruct it in his mind, to say which petal had lain where signifying exactly which part of the female complex, he never could, only at that moment as they approached and Stag, taking a slim blunt unopened bud began to thrust it at the heart of the open petalled mouth below the curved delphinium spur and said softly to Rae, ‘What do you think of that then?’ he felt anger rising in him and as she turned to take up the bottle again he took two large rose petals and laid them across the white daisy lips, breaking the symbol into a meaningless design of dying flowers. For perhaps thirty seconds he had contemplated sweeping the lot onto the floor to be ground into the carpet but held himself back, knowing the action would be inexplicable and seem merely petulant. Now he was glad he’d resisted this first impulse because it was quite clear from Rae’s questioning expression that she’d understood nothing of the sequence. He would explain later but smiled reassuringly and asked her to dance. He felt stronger again as if he had beaten Stag at an invisible game that only they two had known was being played. If she had known. He would never be able to prove it. Perhaps it wasn’t a conscious gesture but something that the depths of memory threw up, a last reaching out before it let go forever and what had been sank out of sight so that like Rae she would no longer even remember what was once.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ she asked as they danced. ‘What was it all about?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ll tell you later.’ Her lack of understanding drained the last bitter anger from his blood leaving it free to run calm and warm in its narrow courses. What did it matter? They were going home in the morning. ‘Isn’t there a language of flowers?’ he said.

  Irene was leaning against the bar watching them while Stag spoke quietly in her ear. ‘You look tired Irene,’ Rae said as they finished the dance. ‘I think it’s time we all went to bed or we shan’t want to go in the morning.’

  ‘Why not a day off? You know you’re very welcome to stay here a week, fortnight if you like.’

  ‘Unfortunately we have to go back and make some money. No work, no eat as the old Chinese proverb should have had it.’

  ‘I think I’ll go and have a bath in that marvellous pink tub. I’m sorry to break the party up but I really am tired. It must be the air here or something. Feathers perhaps. I always find her exhausting. Thank you for the weekend Kay, it’s been a lovely change.’

  ‘Well you must come again when you feel like getting away.’

  ‘I’ll say goodnight too if no one minds,’ Irene said. Matt looked at her. She seemed weary, a little sad. The goodbyes formed formal patterns on the air.

  ‘What about one for the road if Rae’s having a bath?’ Stag said when Irene had gone.

  ‘Suits me.’

  ‘You won’t be too long because of the morning?’ She looked up at him a little anxiously.

  ‘No, not long. You have a nice bath. I’ll be down soon.’

  ‘What’ll you have, something a bit stronger?’

  ‘Since the road is so short, I’ll have some scotch.’ Stag half filled a tumbler. Matt helped himself to water.

  ‘You know I feel women have come between you and I and it’s a pity because I like you. I didn’t first of all but now I know you a bit better …’

  ‘Wasn’t it inevitable in our situation?’ he wanted to make it easy, to make it seem a fault of circumstances rather than the fundamental conflict of personality it had been. ‘After all it was a difficult situation for me. You having all this even though it means nothing to you. You must expect the poor brethren to be a bit touchy; isn’t it what they always say that they’re too proud, won’t be helped? Then there’s the past of course.’

  ‘Women always make trouble. Bill says the same. After all a woman like Rae, all she wants is someone to lean on and I didn’t want that.’

  ‘And Irene?’

  ‘Oh she’s absolutely faithful, always would be no matter what
happened. Besides I don’t let her get too close. That way I’d lose everything. What’s she like in bed?’

  He felt himself stagger again under the heavy hand but he refused to be angry this time. ‘Very good, excellent. I mean what does one say? It’s not something you can give marks for. One man’s meat and all that.’ He wanted to say, ‘Don’t you remember?’

  ‘Yes, she would be. It isn’t everything though.’

  ‘No. But it helps. At least it’s important to me. Still I’ve often been told I make too much of it so there we are. Once again it’s a matter for the individual.’ He was careful to play it easy not wanting an argument at this stage.

  ‘So I can’t persuade you to take this job?’

  ‘Oh I don’t think so. There are lots of things I could do if I just wanted to make money. Unfortunately lots of other things interest me more though sometimes I think I ought to earn a bit more for Rae’s sake. I don’t mind women leaning on me.’

  ‘You know I rather envy you. Maybe that’s another reason why we didn’t really meet. You see in a sense you’re all the things I’d like to be. I wanted to be something once. Rae would have helped me, did help me but it was too late. I did crazy things, went about everything the wrong way and then in the end I had to give it all up. It beat me. You could say that circumstances beat me. My mother was ill and I was confused about various things. And then I got ill. By the time I was better everything had changed. I bought this place and it went well. I have a good business sense you know, almost a flair for making things go well on that level. In a way it’s a pity perhaps. Now I have all this and nothing I sometimes think. That’s why I envy you because you still have all the possibility. You’ve managed to keep your life fairly straight.’

  ‘It often doesn’t seem like that to me. Though I do think it’s probably the only thing to do, make it all of a piece, so that life isn’t departmentalised, fragmented; try anyway.’

  ‘I’d like to be friends if that has any meaning for you.’

  ‘A lot; too much. I’m willing to try but I think your money and position will probably always get in the way. That’s as much my fault as yours of course but there it is. You see there isn’t anything I could do for you, that you’d let me do and that makes the whole relationship unbalanced. When you can come to me and ask me for a bed for the night then we might try again. I’m willing.’

  ‘I know what you mean. I do know, I can see it. We can only ever meet on terms of equality, that’s it, isn’t it? And I’m not used to that. Well here’s to us anyway.’ She lifted her glass. ‘Now we can only wait and see.’

  ‘What have you been saying?’ Rae asked when he opened the door. She was sitting up in bed, reading and smoking. He began to undress, repeating what he could remember as he took off his shirt and trousers.

  ‘That was all. I did the best I could. Look the Furies have been after me.’ He turned his back to her, pointing out the big red weals that covered his back and arms like pursed mouths. ‘Some on the back of my legs too. They itch like hell.’

  ‘What is it? How did it happen?’

  ‘Mosquito bites. Have you got any? No, there’s your answer. They had a meal off me while you and I were busy this afternoon. I think you must be in league because it was you who kept me there, distracted my attention while they got on with it. The evil eyegoddess who has her lover’s blood spilt in the act.’

  She laughed delightedly, holding out her arms to him. ‘Poor Matt, caught in the act.’

  ‘Bloody good job it wasn’t with my pants down or I might have been ruined for life and then you’d have been sorry. You’d have had to find a new one, another pretty boy all young and eager. Tell me madam, is this the way you usually dispose of your lovers?’

  ‘Come to bed.’

  ‘I don’t know if I’m safe. What am I going to do about these bloody bites tonight? Suppose they keep me awake?’

  ‘Oh I think I know what to do if they do. Come to bed.’

  GOING down the road feeling, going down the road feeling, feeling bloody terrible after a weekend of booze and talk, people, things, symbols, people as ideas to be absorbed, sucked down for the mulching, munching process to begin, things not to be taken hold of, that are only embodiments of abstractions until you are going down the road like the man in the picture, going to work all blurred and furred at the edges with too much light, bombardment of sun particles that dizzy the eyes. Stagger as a drunken man going down the road.

  Hell and a weekend like that is no incitement to the ordered life, the life of dedication, of the little man nine to five, to the years ahead looked at through the wrong end of the telescope, diminishing to a pinprick, to an itch under the wrinkled skin for what will be never, diminishing. Leaves you with muddy of emotions unsettled, cloudy so when the old man says, as he will, make no doubt of that lad, says where the red, white and blue blazes were you yesterday you must make a big effort, and an effort it will be, to answer the gentleman nicely with your pat lie, please sir I was ill sir, knowing his bite is non-existent, his bark doesn’t last for long and the mechanics laugh at him behind his back and half to his face even, the smirk averted rather than an outright insolence that would make even this worm turn.

  ‘Morning George.’

  ‘And where the bloody hell were you on Monday, to be precise yesterday as ever was?’

  ‘Had a bit of a stomach upset, couldn’t make it I’m afraid. Caught a chill I reckon.’

  ‘Chill be buggared. Boozed all the weekend and couldn’t get up. Good job for you I’m a fool, a soft simple old fool, and a good job you weren’t late this morning or you’d have been out of here quicker than say knife. You can help out on the forecourt this morning. This afternoon I want some parts collected from Newley’s at Beaconsfield.’

  ‘Not this morning?’

  ‘No. Sid’s got the truck out on tow.’

  Into the hut where Alice’ll be brewing up. Never go in to work late. Better not to go at all then they can’t prove anything, can’t stick anything on you. To be late is to be lazy, slapdash, sluttish, uncaring, reasons are only excuses and your stammered excuses give them power, the power of the employer that can make you shit your pants with fright, the sweat of an idle hand that closes on emptiness at the end of the week. Is it good for me to feel this, the fear that harries millions? Haven’t I felt it long enough so the edge is worn down, no longer has the bite to wound, become a commonplace?

  ‘Morning Alice.’

  ‘Morning. Feeling better?’

  ‘Yes thanks. Had a bit of a chill on the stomach.’

  ‘Oh we know. That bloody draughty forecourt. One thing I’ll say for this job, you’re never short of an excuse and you’ll never be so healthy again. I haven’t had a cold since I come here. Must be the wind nips them all in the bud, even the germs die of exposure. Facing the common too, that’s a big thing, all that fresh air can’t but be good for you. That’s why we huddle in here, keeping up a good fug whenever we can. Quiet this morning aren’t we?’

  ‘Don’t think I’m quite recovered yet. Toss up.’

  ‘Your call.’

  ‘Heads.’

  ‘Heads it is. My first patient. Here have you ever thought, blood transfusion that’s what we do, a shot in the arm? Makes it more interesting. Here we go. That’s the bell for kick-off.’

  A good soul Alice, salt of the earth and all that with her skinny sickly old man and two thin kids like bundles of sticks. Look at her sometimes when she isn’t doing anything except sitting there on that box, her mind gone far off, and wonder whether she’s thinking, what about, or the thoughts just lying quiescent, content to let her body go slack, her eyes cloud. Think about her body too, let my mind slip questing, finger, flicker delicately over the forehead and temples, in the sockets of the eyes where the furrows begin to crease the thin white skin, over the cheek ridges down to the mouth, the lips thin but not drawn, the soft line of chin and sweetness of throat where the tongue seeks out the hollows. And what would
the hands be doing all this time? Busy with their own world, putting aside, so gently aside the coverings, lifting and peeling away until there is only the fruit exposed ready to taste, to bite. My hands caress the ripe rounded fruit of breast and belly, smooth the curving back, cup about the silken buttocks. Mouth follows hands.

  She doesn’t know of course as she sits there, gone far away, her head full of her children running through fields, along sands in the sunlight that she pays for with her days in the cold and stink of oil. How much of the diesel reek clings in her hair, grimes her nails at night when she swings her legs into bed beside him? Not that they bother anymore now the children are there and they’ve done all that was expected of them. Thoughts like that are for the strong and the brave and they took his meagre ration of both and poured it into the celluloid figures that dance for them in the evenings. Now he no longer has to be brave or strong except by proxy, his courage and strength united with thousands of others’ to produce the superman who fights and loves on his behalf, dies in her arms and rises smiling, god-like, hymned and haloed against the sky in the last reel. Two or three times a night they can see that, seven times a week, a thousand times a year. So she never knows what I’m thinking as she sits there.

  What is it about a woman, what is the stuff they’re made of that they’re so penetrable, receiving you into their soft depths? Sugar and spice and all things nice, and their smell quite different from the manstench of armpit and spilt sperm overpowering. Every part of a woman has its unique, savour, varies with time and mood. Breathe it in mingled with her perfume, nuzzle it in her neck, inhale it neat from between the thighs, the odour of sanctity. You’re hot this morning. Got out of bed too quickly and run to work with the night sweat not cooled on your limbs. There’s the bell and a wind out there’ll chill any ideas, desires still lingering, put them in cold storage til this evening.

  ‘Yes sir?’ The touch deferential; might be a tip from this one, not much but as the old lady said every little counts, mounts. ‘Three of the best. Oil and water alright? I’ll just check them for you. Could do with a pint in here, getting a bit low.’ Poor devil looks as if he could do with a pint in himself, a shot in the arm as Alice says. What existence does to some people, don’t call it life for God’s sake. There’s only one life and this isn’t it. Ring up three gallons. Insert nozzle into hole provided and fire. Fill her up with the life-giving juice that puts fire in her belly like a long ejaculation. Withdraw slowly so’s not to spill a drop. ‘That’s eighteen and elevenpence halfpenny please sir.’ Good he’s waving a greenback.