Human Pages

by John Elliott

  ‘I told all of this to Joe May shortly after I’d met him. Some days later he said to me; “Come and see. I think I’ve found the widow’s mirror.” I don’t remember anything else about that evening, neither the food nor the drive home.’

  Harvard stopped reading and leafed towards the back of the book to find the relevant note. How typical of Evangeline’s mother, he thought, to call her daughter by her own name. Two Evangelines. Two pieces of the mirror.

  Medcorev’s source was ‘Interview with the Invisible Woman’ by Hilary McPherson 1970 (Alternative Business Review vol. 3 issue 9). He read the following note as well.

  It is worth emphasising from a wider perspective that Fitzhugh’s intervention had an inevitable consequence. Patrons of the home restaurants became predominantly foreign. Commercialised standardisation replaced sporadic, haphazard amateurism. The fruit withered on the vine. Today, all that is left of the phenomenon is the ailing Ten Widows franchise, whose flagship used to be in Fukuuara Shopping Mall.

  Dismayed by the turn of events, Fitzhugh abandoned the guide. He withdrew from TV chat shows and retreated to live quietly up country in Washington State. Siobhan, his youngest daughter, in time became a respected authority on Gary Snyder. She studied acting and toured the Midwest in the ill-fated production of Kerouac, The Mother and The Priest.

  Harvard looked at his watch then returned to the main text, reading the top paragraph twice before succumbing to the flow.

  The second progenitor, so-called Dog Activism, occurred from March 1951 to November 1954 at Louvain, Duisburg, Udine, Meppel and Chateauroux. Contemporaneous accounts consisted of local and national newspaper cuttings, photographs, tape recordings, eyewitness depositions, prize-cup engravings, certificates, posters, pamphlets, memento badges and other lesser ephemera. They showed, or purported to show, that the following events had taken place.

  In Louvain 18.3.51, a dog show without dogs was held at the Winter Circus. Men and women, old and young, accompanied by their handlers, were displayed, judged and awarded marks in eight dog breed categories.

  In Duisburg 4 and 5.9.51, at the municipal greyhound track, an extra race was staged after the completion of the normal card. Six male adolescents paraded, entered specially constructed traps and raced on all fours. No Pari-Mutuel betting was allowed. Two months later, 1.11.51, an abbreviated performance of Schiller’s Marie Stuart played to an audience restricted to dogs only at matinee prices.

  During proceedings at the provincial court of Udine 18.1.52, Pietro Sacromonte, 59, the accused, was found guilty of imprisoning Antonia Biagi, 17, against her will, and subjecting her to unnatural acts, one of which was using her as a truffle hound. Various denunciations of similar abuse continued to trouble the authorities in subsequent years.

  Throughout July 1953, public places in Meppel were bombarded with a poster and graffiti campaign urging ‘Bring Back Executions For Dogs!’ Crimes punishable by the death penalty were declared as follows—fouling the footpath, rubbing genitals against human legs, trailing behinds across designated non-dog areas, excessive barking, yapping and whining during dog curfew hours. The final exhortation read ‘If Your Dog Resembles You, Kill It Or Kill Yourself!’ Enraged dog lovers took to the streets in protest. Neighbourhood vigilantes organised night patrols in an attempt to apprehend the perpetrators. The then mayor had himself photographed self-consciously patting the head of Simba, a German shepherd, specially loaned for the occasion.

  Finally, at Chateauroux 30.10.54, in the Agricultural Hall, an international dog show, inspired by Louvain, but this time judged by dogs, took place. An M. Leo Junot was barked best of show. Concurrently, one Daniel Siffra, an artist, displayed rows of tinned dog shit at the Zone Gallery.

  In June 1960, Ellie Furstemburg, a Parisienne notary, stated that none of the aforementioned events had happened. Their ‘news’ had been invented, manipulated, inserted and documented by a group calling itself ‘Dog Activism’. Members of the collective had signed a sworn affidavit in her presence. From this date, she added, ‘Dog Activist memorabilia would be on sale to collectors.’

  Harvard sighed and skipped pages until he came across the names he was looking for. He shifted to make himself more comfortable and resumed reading.

  Selly Rycart and Joe May met regularly, night after night, in the Borough of Queens, New York City. Their conversations happened during long circular hikes, if the weather was bearable, or, if not, holed up in Selly’s cold water apartment above Mantli’s Deli on Sherman Street.

  Rycart had recently entered partnership with Norman Cherway at Madcap Enterprises. Joe May was the poorest young American he had ever met. May slept on the streets most of the time, foraging for food day by day. Because of his insalubrious appearance, Selly initially had great difficulty in persuading Al at Mantli’s to let him in. He passed Joe the necessary money to cover the tab when they had eaten, but, in the event, Joe went to the can and on his return informed everyone loudly that he had wiped his ass with it and flushed it down the john, leaving Selly to settle up and Al to beseech heaven.

  Selly’s unconcealed chagrin at Joe’s eccentric behaviour, however, had one positive offshoot. It triggered their ongoing debate on waste as defined in open systems theory and the key role of finance in business. The theory, using biological analogies, stressed the interconnectedness of systems in transforming input into output. It stipulated that the cost of waste had to be monitored and controlled by correct identification, minimisation, efficient disposal and the exploitation, wherever possible, of by-products. As far as Joe was concerned, waste, as such, was an erroneous concept, a flaw of a too-rigid production process overview. He argued that a more fluid, sophisticated approach would not necessarily cost waste as a deficit because it did not fit a designated product but would utilise it as a potential new input ripe for transformation. He went further and pointed out that the majority of the world’s population lived on waste. Recycled urine could be drunk by the person who had pissed it. The brand allure of an artist’s name could transform his shit into a prized commodity. This last reference struck a chord with Selly regarding an article he had seen in Investor Magazine about cans of dog shit for sale and a nebulous outfit called Dog Activism. He promised to investigate and report back.

  Over subsequent weeks, they both amassed as much information as they could unearth about the shadowy group. Selly concentrated on tracking the price fluctuations of the released artefacts in relation to their targeted and realised markets, while Joe set about unravelling the working methods and organisational links of the self-stated collective.

  A letter they sent c/o E Furstemburg merely produced a standard reply, thanking them for their enquiry and assuring them that previously unissued goods would soon be available. No further statements were forthcoming, nor did any new items go on sale. After that, the trail went cold, and they left the field to the occasional academic commentator who was willing to pick over the bones of mass hypnosis, press gullibility, European dog cults, animal terrorists and the mulch of apocrypha and modern myth.

  Joe May summed up their mutual interest, at the end of the day, by stating, ‘No matter what the truth, whether the events were planned, took place or not, a named organisation gave them meaning by grouping them together, branding them and offering a commodity that potential customers could recognise. They transformed the unlikely into reality and added value.’

  The following spring, a newly graduated Evangeline Simpson joined the Madcap partnership. Within a matter of weeks, Selly Rycart had become hopelessly infatuated with her. During one of their increasingly intimate tête-à-têtes, he told her about Joe May. She was intrigued and soon persuaded Norman Cherway, with her not inconsiderable charm, to convene an exploratory meeting. The four of them gathered for the first time at the Battery on the morning of May 11th 1963.

  ‘And the rest is history,’ Harvard muttered, as he closed the book. Time was moving on. He retrieved his wristwatch, put it on, rose and replaced Medcorev on th
e items for sale table. At the exit, he paused for a moment in front of the photo that culminated the exhibition. The great man lay crumpled on a day bed, a tartan shawl about his shoulders, his face bloated almost beyond recognition. Indeed, Wiener for one had typically claimed that this was not May at all but part of an agreed stunt to convince the company’s shareholders, employees and clients that he was a completely spent force. Whatever the actual circumstances, however, not even Wiener had been able to dispute May’s death three months later.

  ‘She’s baby to me,’ Harvard sang softly, reprising the Emily Brown song. He was alone. The electricians had packed up and left. The suite was ready for tomorrow’s audience. Another story from the Stories We Tell Ourselves came into mind. Joe May had said, ‘Wherever technology takes us, there will always be people who will solely rely on real experience.’ Evangeline Simpson and Selly Rycart, who had been with him at the time, had burst out laughing. May had not joined in. Looking at his face, which had remained set and contemplative, they had concluded that no irony had been intended.

  Home beckons, Harvard thought, when he took the lift down to tell the duty manager they had finished for the night. Home, as far as he was concerned, was only too real.

  *

  ‘Oh! How the ghost of him clings and sings!’

  ‘It was last autumn in Beijing.’

  ‘You’re like me. I can see you’re like me. You did what I would have done.’

  ‘Through my tears I thought I glimpsed his face and that we were both together again in our old house at Eltville.’

  ‘Days of boredom. Running the office alone. Hardly going out at night. Staring at the compound walls.’

  ‘He said, “Girl I don’t know you. I can’t understand you. You’re all wrapped up.”’

  ‘Literally counting the days but resisting the temptation to cross them off the calendar. Money in the bank, of course, but a prisoner, a prisoner at heart.’

  ‘It turned out he’d changed his name. Leila’d known. She didn’t let on. Jackie told me to expect the worst.’

  ‘Who knows? I got there and the only seats left were . . . ’

  Time was slowing everything around Sonny Ayza, prolonging each shake and judder, in the same way as it had cocooned the daydreams of Monica Randell, waiting behind her shop counter, in Sylvia’s story. He felt as though the tram was running on two separate parallel tracks, somehow fated to pursue its twin journeys ad infinitum. On one of them, he was condemned to go on living in a present surrounded by these same passengers, repeating these same conversations, snatches of which he would hear for all eternity, whilst, in his mind, he endlessly disinterred his long dead father’s bones, filling them with the possibility of life, only to have them perpetually enter and leave Paca’s wine shop in Llomera: a place which Manolo had probably rarely frequented in his short existence. Whereas on the other he was carried prosaically homewards to a destination where he, himself, became a ghost without memory, oblivious to the futile resurrections of those who continued to see him in the streets and squares of Greenlea or standing opposite the lycée Jean Moulin in Lyon or shaking poker dice in a string of ‘mama san’ bars in Yokohama or running away in Orias or sitting on a wall dangling his legs in Llomera.

  He shifted in his seat with an involuntary shiver. Something was sticking to the sole of his left shoe. Crossing his leg over his right knee, he prised off a wad of greyish beige chewing gum. He looked for something to wrap it in, but finding nothing, unlike the litter-strewn floor of Paca’s, he rummaged in his pocket, detached one of the Elizabeth Kerry sheets, tore a corner off, enclosed the gum and transferred it back to his other coat pocket.

  ‘I wouldn’t go. What was the point?’

  ‘But tonight’s a different story entirely.’

  A hand brushed the nape of his neck and lightly touched his shoulder as the woman behind him got up. He watched her sway down the aisle and wait at the exit doors. Two men standing beside her burst into raucous laughter. The tram stopped. They all got off, and while the tram picked up speed again he remembered the grasp of Mado’s hand when she had balanced against him, lifting her leg to inspect the broken heel of her shoe.

  The trivial, and till now forgotten, accident had happened in Rue Barème on their way back home from Parc de la Tête d’Or. Empty chestnut husks had lain in the allées where they had strolled arm in arm through the dank autumnal air, seeing the park and the suburbs of Lyon transmute into their park and their suburbs, a place where they could be with one another without thought for the future.

  ‘Anne, Anne fuis sur ton âne,’ she had quoted in his ear before moving off down the slope in her stocking feet. ‘Ô saisons Ô chateaux,’ the words of the poem came back to him now. Truly, ‘Quel âme est sans défaut?’ Not his that was for sure.

  His sister, Veri, his mother, Rosario, and now Mado, his one-time lover in the youthful days when he had quit Miranda, three women he seemed to be summoning as witnesses to his demise; one from Orias, one from the grave and one from he knew not where. His letter to Veri was at home. He had written it last night, but now the vision of her opening the envelope and holding it in her hands made him grimace and turn to the reflected smear of the street lights in the window. Better to see her as a child again and to recall childish tears, which left no lasting hurt.

  They had been playing together under the table. As usual, Veri had pestered him to join her game. She had amassed a pile of pine cones by her side and he had had to say how many he wanted, while she made up the price and waited for him to hand over his imaginary money. Her sale completed, she stretched out her arms and scooped them all back in order to begin all over again, until he had seized several himself and had refused to let go. In vain, she had tried to wrest them away, her eyes dark and alive with concentrated purpose, her cheeks puffing out with her efforts, her tongue popping out of the side of her mouth with exasperation, then, realising she could not match the strength of his grip, she had subsided into mighty, wrenching sobs, punching and kicking at him as he crawled out of reach.

  The roar of an accelerating motorcycle, gunning ahead of the tram, disrupted his reverie. They were approaching Lagran at last. The majority of the remaining passengers descended at the three stops that served the Sander Housing Project. He let his images of Mado and Veri go with them, then pressed the bell and left his seat. Once the tram had rounded the corner at the junction of Castle Street, he got off and watched it make its way to the terminus, the last one he would board.

  A sudden, biting wind made him hunch his shoulders and increase his pace when he strode uphill alongside the perimeter of the Recassier Hospital. His eyes stung in its icy blast. Through the railings, the blurred lights of the orthopaedic and geriatric pavilions were shining across the darkened lawns. The elements, at least, were providing some sensation.

  A file of cars entering and leaving the Green Elf petrol station halted him momentarily before he reached Holmoak Road. He crossed it and took his usual shortcut over the waste ground behind the Lindmoor Laundry. He passed the fence of the allotments and went into the park, which lay in an extended semi-circle round the nineteenth-century buildings of Lagran Castle. Below him, the muffled rush of a stream, its waters swelled by recent rains, flowed towards the culvert at Prospect Field Business Park.

  Five minutes later, when he reached the summit of the path, the city’s glow, surrounding scattered pockets of darkness, filled the horizon to the south. Beyond lay the black void of the estuary and beyond that the faint glimmer of the far shore.

  He had the view to himself as he went down the broad avenue lined with beeches that curved its way to the bottom gate. The clang of his footsteps echoed behind him as he crossed the iron footbridge. The grass on the other side was lumpy and partly frozen under his uneven tread. He passed the shuttered kiosk and the now derelict lavatory block. As he thrust his hands deeper into his pockets for warmth, his fingers contacted the wrapped up piece of chewing gum he had forgotten to discard when he left the
tram. At this hour, no dogs bounded towards him over the open ground. No Alsatians called Rusty or Polka Dot from the cryptic message. There had been a song whose full title eluded him: Polka Dots and something. Well, whatever the something it scarcely mattered now. He reached the gate and swung it open.

  The traffic lights on 14th May Drive were in his favour so he gained Cicely Way unimpeded and quickened his pace downhill. At the third turning on the right, he entered a short spur of a cul-de-sac with two small stone cottages, each with its narrow strip of garden abutting the road on one side and a row of lock-up garages on the other. The time had finally arrived. He was home.

  He fumbled with his key, holding it out between his index finger and his thumb, ready to insert it in the lock. Its shape and weight seemed unfamiliar as if it were smaller, yet heavier, than before. This was it. He was at the threshold. Only two shallow steps and a doorway lay between him and his lack of future. He glanced down at the iron grid of the shoe scraper, which he practically never used, and drew one foot after the other backwards and forwards over its bars. A tiny hiccup of hysteria fluttered in his stomach. Could the household gods, if they still existed, the lares et penates of the Romans, guard him from his chosen course? He noticed the venetian blinds at his neighbour’s windows were closed. He felt the need to urinate. Two steps to cross, a door to unlock, then a piss and the road to oblivion was easy. He mounted them in one stride, turned the key in the lock, opened the door and went inside.