by K. J. Bishop
‘How much, Miss Airlie, would you say this volume is worth?’
‘Oh, quite a bit, I should think. It’s in first-rate condition and very rare. Probably a couple of thousand florins.’
It was then necessary to ask, ‘And do you know whether one might be able to negotiate its purchase?’ – so that she laughed and shook her head and supplied him with the answer that was most probable. ‘I’m afraid not. The library doesn’t sell to private buyers.’
With the book in one arm, he began removing his glasses, while he said in an interested tone, ‘And you, Miss Airlie – do you subscribe to such democratic ideals?’
She frowned – having a nature which, when it suspected fault, liked to give a warning. ‘What a question, Mr Casmir. Yes, I do; of course I do. You don’t?’
He was blithe. ‘You’re a young democrat; I’m an old hypocrite. One has principles – but what a trouble to keep constant company with them. One should visit principles as if they were great aunts; with all due deference, but not too often. Don’t you think?’ As he made this speech he watched the meaning behind her frown change from disapproval to the impression that he was gaga.
She answered in a firm voice – slightly raised, since they were the only people in the library now, ‘I certainly don’t think so. I’m afraid you must have fatigued yourself, Mr Casmir. Home and a bit of rest for you! Now, may I have the book?’
He gave his head a little shake and let his features fall in the shape of regret – a father denying something to a favourite child. ‘How nice you’re being. But no, I’m afraid – I have to take it.’
‘Have to?’
‘Wrong words,’ he acknowledged, while the hand that held his glasses took out their case and opened it, without the aid of the other, which was still holding the book; however, getting the glasses into the case one-handed apparently proved too difficult, and he dropped both on the floor. He tsk’ed as he bent down. When he straightened, the glasses were out of sight and he was holding a gun.
It was not a gentleman’s gun – at least, not a modern gentleman’s. It was heavy and black and had a well-used, well-oiled look.
‘I should have said, I can’t help taking this book,’ was how he corrected himself.
‘I am disappointed, Mr Casmir. I had not thought you were a thief.’ Full credit to her nerve, she raised her hands calmly and did not gasp or tremble or do anything else to suggest that she was made of other than steel, for which he could have kissed her – it was quite right that she should be the cool and unmoved one.
‘Theft is not a habit of mine,’ he replied, with a smile brightening his eyes – ‘only an occasional indulgence.’
‘Was it a whim?’
‘Very much so.’ Still telling the truth, he said, ‘I’m sorry that I shall not be able to return. But perhaps it’s time to do something else with my Saturday afternoons.’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t think you would shoot me, Mr Casmir. But if you are a man who acts on whim, perhaps I shouldn’t try my luck.’ Now she was looking embarrassed for him. Well, he thought, you deserve it.
‘Good thinking. My trigger finger has been known to slip, and I’m getting clumsier with age. I expect you have an alarm under that counter.’
After a moment’s delay she nodded.
‘Pull the wire out.’
She pulled it out.
‘I am angry,’ she said. ‘I want you to know that. Extremely angry.’
‘I should think so.’ His left hand was working to tuck the book away in his coat, under the strap of the shoulder holster to which he then returned the gun.
He walked out arranging his muffler, passing the doorman in the foyer, who was reading a newspaper and barely glanced up. He retrieved his hat from the cloakroom, where he adjusted the strap to hold the book more comfortably, and tipped the smiling doorman on his way out.
A cool, agreeable evening received him outside. The smog was brightly lit. Coquettes were beginning to make their appearance, in wonderfully short skirts. The man of sixty felt the slither again, this time with more pep in it. Trolley-cars rattled down the street – charming! – with the windows of a wunderkammer, or indeed specimen slides parading nature’s captive secrets… he stepped out and hailed a cab, climbed in gingerly – he hoped the girl’s nose wasn’t too out of joint – really, how soft was he getting? – the book was perhaps just what he needed, it would keep him occupied if not out of trouble–
Inhaling and coughing, having in the midst of his thoughts lit a cigarette, against orders (‘because,’ the doctor had said, ‘while the prohibition is pointless now, you’ll enjoy defying it’), he felt buoyant. He farewelled ‘Mr Casmir’, thanking him for his company, telling him this was a good time to be going separate ways.
His vanity wished to remember better crimes. To hell with vanity. Alighting from the cab at an obscure square, he stood and fiddled with his clothing until the cab was off, then started walking, returning soon enough to a busy street, and hailed another cab. His heart beat against the book. He gazed at lighted windows, house after house, wondered what his mistress had done about dinner, and whether he would keep it down, and would his prick stand up, or would it be another night beginning and ending in the Bois de Gamahuche?
But out in the suburb people drew their blinds, since there was nothing to see but the neighbours, who had nothing to see but you – and other people’s houses incessantly repeated, one easily forgot how; and the wind was getting up, so that he was glad of his coat and muffler.
WHEN THE LAMPS ARE LIT
We called all night–
There was no answer from any dream,
Not even the easy one across the road,
Double-glazed and serene,
With matronly vintage fins
Tightening the counterpane
Whose reversals seemed to say a lot–
In time the flow slowed to a trickle,
Like difficult peeing;
Then it was over.
So, how about cards, or a baby?
Would a baby be an excuse
For patiently abiding, having picnics,
Letting the cutups loose?
The hard one’s gone already, though not
To die. Moss will cover all his hurts, maybe.
Reports of a unicorn in the outfield
Patterns in the corn
A miracle in the otherwise stable
Night – You, nightwatchman, what happened?
Nay, but I was sleeping like the gnomon there on the lawn;
My dreams were full of fish and spies,
I don’t suppose you saw them?
And so we have to listen to this tedious gent,
Who parted company with reason long before
All this nonsense started,
Recount the follies of a false life
Where infinite belongings were his stock in trade,
Adore the flight of the riparian bird,
Worship something found in a cave,
Tie parcels with string,
Avoid the cold heap over there,
Although it looked like Cornwall–
He woke more like Osiris than a taxpayer,
Unable to forget that he was king, once.
Nay, but I was sleeping like a kite dipped in silver.
Into my mouth swam many things
All alight, incendiary, flailing,
Came to rest in my care–
Here, this one’s yours, you can have it–
–while a tram rattles back to the depot?
You were mistaken, mein Herr. We shall have to walk
And slip like children back through the fences
Into the world of infallible dunces.
Chances? Where are your dice,
You said they were Limoges, or was it Limburger – painted
With handsome twits and twats from that erotic book your mad ancestor wrote,
What was the title – Egypt, Still Wet With Spit?
The
y are not in your handbag?
Well, that’s nothing to do with me.
You can go back and look for them.
I have to go to an opening sale,
To buy more exquisite, delinquent things than you
Or your dark bird dreamed
In chalk-cut twilight.
But we must wind down to the corner again;
By all means, we must go home
And take a turn around the question of the decorations
And your plans for a rocket.
We must get out the melodica,
Ten times blow into the dirty hose,
Wish upon the black Porsche;
Salaam the dog’s grave under the apple tree,
Do penance for violence–
Then what rompish, darksome, magic character
Might spring, high-stepping,
Out of the cobra box on the summer lino?
And then what hordes, departing through the snow,
Dressed as bears and lords,
Might draw whoever needs some convalescing
Time, or sexual leave, to holiday shores
Once painted by Watteau?
I prefer Epping Forest, or even the Augarten–
Best of all the Jardin du Luxembourg
As it was in the master’s time,
Dreaming, and silvan-haunted.
That is to say, I want to go in, not over. But look,
I would paddle a boat in the shape of a swan
For a thousand and one diaphanous afternoons
To hear one reed from the isle of Pan
Amongst the rumours bleating through the crowd
And the music blasting from the stores
Or lose my shoes once in the park, twice in the street, thrice in the sea–
And your Hessian boots, dear Excellence, and your sealed books – those too
Will have to go – and your servants, and the plans–
And yes, even you, Milord–
The diamonds you hoard in your navel, your title, your hand…
We have to part, like the red balloon and the world.
THE CRONE MEETS HER SON (ON A BATTLEFIELD)
The revolution, this time, was ‘to actualise the marvellous’.
The gunslinger
enlisted, far from sure of his part, for his weapons fired only
common lead,
not multicoloured lights or waves of kundalini. But he had,
in his dreams,
dived to the bottom of the ocean and seen the carcass of a whale,
with hagfish
at it all around like mad sperm around a dead egg, devouring
the infertile germ,
and felt his private share of responsibility, like a new organ in his body,
a harmonica,
maybe. He had always been around the edges, among the listeners,
tapping a foot,
but if he really was a boar leaping out of the sea, he wanted to know
that furious joy.
There was no commander as such to give orders, so he found
a place on the left flank
with the giraffes, and an old woman who had a tray of buttons
and a thermos
of black coffee, infinitely replenishing, which she shared around like
a suave host.
With gratitude he drank the unsweet brew in the tin cup and remembered
how, as a boy,
he’d loved the tubes of buttons in the haberdasher’s shop,
like lasting candy,
kaleidoscopes, or magic money for buying magic things
from magicians.
Perhaps, he mused, that was where his longtime love of finery
budded in tulip-stripes.
Looking back, said the woman, it’s all ravines and tempests. You’re cold,
have my coat,
he said, stripping down to waistcoat and watch-chain. It’s bulletproof,
and keeps the rain out.
Well, I like rain, but thank you, and here, choose some buttons,
son. The pearl is smart,
but please yourself. Thank you, ma’am, and in the yellow dawn he chose plastic
sections of Jupiter
and brass wafers for the charity of the poor, and pearl for the whale
and the egg,
and fake tortoiseshell for the giraffes, and fuchsia velvet domes
for sex and love
and loaded them in his old shotgun, and grinned like a fox sucking
shit through a sieve
because that’s how it’s done, and he followed the old woman, who followed
no one,
cocking her leg at every pillar, eating out of garbage cans, sniffing bums
in trousers,
her jubilant howl assuring him this wasn’t desertion at all.
NOTES
All the previously published pieces in this book have been revised since first publication – some only minisculely, others more extensively, though there are no major rewrites.
‘The Art of Dying’ was the first story I wrote and actually finished. I’d been writing nowhere-going bits and pieces for years about the character who eventually became Gwynn (after trying on a few different roles), and then the stars came right, the characters took charge and the story played out in my head. Aurealis published it in 1997, and it and ‘The Love of Beauty’ were the seeds from which my 2003 novel The Etched City grew. It belongs in time with the epilogue of The Etched City (though continuity may not be exact), as does ‘She Mirrors’. It has been reprinted with revisions three or four times – this version has more of the original in it than the others.
Both ‘The Art of Dying’ and ‘The Love of Beauty’ owe plenty to M. John Harrison’s Viriconium Nights, which amazed and haunted me, and probably more than any other book made me want to stop mucking around with writing and try to do it properly. Mona Skye and Seaming wouldn’t exist without Audsley King and Ashlyme from the novella ‘In Viriconium’. Bohemian, decadent and surreal settings, in this world or a secondary world, have always gripped my imagination and made me want to write my way into a similar place – though ‘The Love of Beauty’ turned into less of a demimonde story and more of a foray into my favourite fairy tale than I had planned.
‘We the Enclosed’ was written for Leviathan 4: Cities (ed. Forrest Aguirre). I had done some touristing in Italy and Morocco, and later on in Egypt, and was struck by the contrast between the tangible presence of history in the very old cities in those countries and the historical flatness of Australia’s much newer cities. I had also been thinking about consumer activity as questing – the shopper armed with money rather than a sword, but still looking for that special treasure with magic powers, and susceptible to bewitchment.
‘Maldoror Abroad’ is a love letter to the maddest of ancestors, the extraordinary proto-Surrealist poetic prose text Les Chants de Maldoror (1868-9) by the Comte de Lautréamont, pseudonym of Isidore Ducasse. After reading it for the first time I felt as though my brain had been rewired by a gloriously insane electrician, and Maldoror’s voice continues to echo in my head.
‘Alsiso’ and ‘Last Drink Bird Head’ were written respectively for The Alsiso Project (ed. Andrew Hook) and Last Drink Bird Head (eds. Ann and Jeff VanderMeer). For the first, the game was to write a story titled ‘Alsiso’, a word originating in a typo; for the second, contributors wrote flash fiction answering the question ‘Who or what is Last Drink Bird Head?’ – great fun in both cases. My brain seems to like writing to strange prompts. The left side shrugs and passes the job onto the right side, I think.
‘The Memorial Page’ was an attempt to write a Borgesian fable – so of course a tiger turned up. After Morocco we had gone to England, and my husband’s relatives talking about their childhoods on the outskirts of London (which had been more rural then) set off daydreams that bumped together with daydreams from places just visited.
‘Between the Covers’ was wr
itten for The Devil in Brisbane (eds. Zoran Živković and Geoffrey Maloney), an anthology of stories about writers meeting the Devil. The difficulties I had with writing after completing a novel were real; the deal with the Devil wasn’t. At least, I don’t think it was. The Mario Vargas Llosa quotes are from Letters to a Young Novelist.
‘The Heart of a Mouse’ was inspired by Jeff VanderMeer’s prompt of ‘Giant mouse-man moving through a post-apocalyptic setting, looking for a mate’ – upon receipt of which Mouse rocked up, with a different mission. It’s very much a personal story, though it owes something to Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and Daniel Keyes’ Flowers for Algernon, and of course the importance of pig shit to the post-apocalyptic economy comes from Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome.
‘Saving the Gleeful Horse’ was prompted by Aaron Hunter: ‘A man cares for a wild animal that has been injured.’ Molimus leapt – or lumped – into my mind, and I remember him telling me the story and it not changing much from the first draft. The setting grew out of memories of six months I spent in England as a child, discovering the magic of places haunted by myth and folklore alongside an everyday modern world which in itself was a bit out-of-the-ordinary to me.
‘Mother’s Curtains’ was written in response to a story, ‘Bounce’, that Alex Dally MacFarlane wrote to me in a card. Along with ‘Domestic Interior’ and ‘The Crone Meets Her Son’ it owes inspiration to the joyful experience of reading Penelope Rosemont’s Surrealist Women: An International Anthology.
I had always wanted to write a cyberpunk story, and figured it would be about hip and edgy young people, then the World Wide Web got going and I wrote ‘Beach Rubble’. The title is from a fragment of Sappho written as graffiti – ‘If you’re squeamish, don’t kick the beach rubble’ – at the start of Jonathan Littell’s cyberpunk first novel Bad Voltage, a book I loved to bits.