“Put on the shoes.”
“I can’t put on the shoes. I can’t bend down in these clothes, I can’t even sit.”
“I’ll help you.”
Momma leaves the desk. She kneels and carefully fits and buckles on to Superb’s foot one of Janine’s shoes murmuring, “You won’t need to sit. For the next three hours you’ll be flat on your back.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m only joking, honey, don’t you know that?”
She fits and buckles on the other shoe then stands back with legs astride astride astride and hands on hips like an artist considering an unfinished painting. Superb now stands higher on tiptoe than she ever imagined possible, legs pressed tight together, terrified of falling. Her calves ache, she wails softly, “This hurts!”
45 HERE COMES THE BOSS
“The effect is worth it. You look irresistible. But you don’t need that.”
Big Momma reaches forward, strips off the skirt and casts it aside.
“Nor this either, I was mad to put you into it.”
She tugs down and rips off the blouse, drops it, then embraces her gently and warmly, kissing her unresisting tearwet mouth and whispering, “Shoes and stockings, that’s all you’ll wear from now on. Unless the Doctor orders something different. O forgive me, honey, I don’t want to give you to any man atall.”
And watching Superb with a look of sad longing she backs toward the desk, lifts the receiver and says into it, “Get me the boss,” and after a moment says, “She’s ready for you. Forget the identity parade. If you don’t come quick I’ll take her myself.”
And as Momma puts the receiver down Superb is trembling.
A strange thing is happening. In spite of the pain in her legs, the suspender-belt cutting her waist, the prickle of the tears drying on her cheeks, her body is aroused, she wants to open and be entered, grasped, held tight by, who is the boss? Who is coming?
Me. Not Max, Hollis or Charlie but me. This bed suddenly rises up like a magic carpet, soars through the ceiling, zooms out of the cone of the earth’s shadow into bright sunlight over the Atlantic and, California here I come! But just as the bed is descending on America it doesn’t. It suddenly stops still. The mattress widens and hardens into a floor, the floor of the gymnasium with a mat in the corner where Superb is spread on her back like a starfish, a great pillow under her hips so that the rosy heart of her naked sex is completely exposed. Momma has caressed her into excitement, she needs me now and as I clasp and slip warmly into her I am entering Jane Russell the editor Janine Sontag Big Momma Helen forget her forget her and I am at home again. At home again. At home again. No. No. No. No I am not. I am not. I am alone. Alone. Alone. I am absolutely alone.
46 THE SLOUGH OF DESPOND
O hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL I lost control, I lost control.
4:
I AM NOT A BAD MAN, I AM A GOOD MAN.
I did what my mother wanted, what my ex-wife wanted, what her father wanted, I once had a friend who liked me and now National Security Installations are perfectly content with me. My salary proves it. I contribute to Oxfam, the Salvation Army and Cancer Research although I do not expect to benefit from these organisations. On crowded trains and buses I offer my seat to cripples and poorly dressed old women. I have never struck a man, woman or child in my life, never lost my temper, never raised my voice. Since the age of thirteen I have not shed a single tear. Surely, inside the privacy of this body and the secrecy of this skull I have earned the right to enjoy any woman I want in any way I can? But
But I should not have answered Big Momma’s telephone call. I should have sent in Stroud, Hollis, Charlie and Max wearing silk dressing-gowns and masks, and before they did anything to Superb I should have switched my attention back to Janine. There is a male tradition that women enjoy rape but that is wishful thinking. Nearly all bodies can respond to another with a few spasms of automatic pleasure but that is not enjoyment. I have been raped and it was pleasant at the time and afterward I felt like a miserable nothing, I wished I was dead. What depressed me was the impossibility of gratitude. When forget her and I were not lovemaking or asleep we lay merely holding each other, amazed and grateful to be holding each other. I wish we had never left that bed. When dressed she did not look ordinary, like the editor, she looked poor and messy stop. Stop. When dressed, I thought I was smart in that suit but no I looked prim and dull which is why I chose GLAMOUR, chose Helen. Liar. Helen chose me oh, I will gnaw the fingers of this hand to the bone.
48 RAPE AND THE EDITOR
Ouch
That hurt. Calm down. Where was I? Thinking about rape.
I wish I could sleep but people who dream with open eyes don’t need much sleep. Three hours a night is the most I can manage though I doze a lot in trains, planes and taxis. There is something in rapid movement which lets the mind relax. It’s a common experience nowadays. Apart from a few frightened old women we all believe that if we travel fast enough something in the future will stop us falling down. But this bed is standing still so I must think about rape. After Superb had been thoroughly raped in my absence I had meant to return and prepare her for other sorts of astonishment, but alas I did the job myself and now I feel like a miserable nothing. The editor made me feel like this whenever we made love. We had to be drunk first. Each knew what the other wanted but was terrified all the same, terrified of not giving pleasure, terrified of not receiving it. I first met her on a matter of business, the second time by accident in the street and both times she asked me to her flat for coffee. After coffee came sherry and when that was used up we finished her whisky and all the time we talk talk talked. She probably found that as boring as I did but we were hoping for something better. At last I stepped out for ten minutes to buy us another bottle of whisky so I cannot remember who made the first pass. It was probably me. The man usually does. We did it on the hearthrug and there was always a stocking or suspender-belt I never managed to remove from her. Afterward I wanted to sleep of course and so did she, but she always told me to leave the house first.
49 THE EDITOR AND HELEN
“What will the neighbours think if they see you leave here in the morning?” I told her I would lie low till noon before leaving. Her neighbours were a divorced friend, a one-parent family and two elderly homosexuals. And this was in a period when casual sex was supposed to be common, but no, “Leave! Leave now! You must leave me now!”
She wept and grew hysterical until I left without one farewell kiss, without her even seeing me to the door. The second time I quietened the hysterics by making love to her again, but afterward she drove me out in exactly the same way. So I went slowly through the streets to my empty bed and lay on it all night and most of the following day. I felt too empty and feeble, too raped to even go and buy another bottle of whisky.
Of course I know why she had to chuck me out like that. If we had slept sweetly in her bed, and made love again in the morning, which is the best time, and she
had seen me to the door, and we had parted after a farewell kiss, I would have made her feel a miserable nothing by not arranging to see her again. I was not sure I liked her enough to see much of her. Two people can come together with the most delightful intentions and continue out of mere habit. My marriage was like that. So the editor raped me three times to stop me raping her. Helen raped me once when she was getting ready to leave.
For nine whole years (I can hardly believe this now) for nine whole years we shared the same bed without making love. Then she joined a drama group (I’d been nagging her to do that for a long time) and starting looking beautiful again and coming home around midnight. She said that after rehearsals the club members went to somebody’s house for a drink and a chat. One night she came back between three and four in the morning. As she undressed and got into bed I pretended to sleep but she must have known it was a pretence. At last I said, “I know what time it is.”
She said nothing. I said, “That drink and chat must have turned into a regular party.”
50 END OF A MARRIAGE
She said, “What are you suggesting?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you suggesting I’ve been unfaithful to you?”
“No.”
“For one night in all our years of marriage I sit up late discussing the theatre with a couple of friends who appreciate me and at once you accuse me of being unfaithful! Do I complain about your collection of disgusting magazines?” I said nothing and suddenly she embraced me like in the early days, embraced me so warmly that my whole body came alive again. I made love too quickly, and no wonder after all those years, and when I wanted to start slowly and gently again she drew away and wept and told me she was in love with whatsisname. A boy in the drama club. They had made love for the first time that night and he wanted to marry her. I stayed silent. She said, “You hate me, I suppose.”
I felt stunned and stupid but I certainly did not hate her. There was no evil in Helen. There is evil in me, which is why I deserve whatever pain I get. She said, “I can’t promise not to see him again. If you try to stop me I’ll have to leave at once.”
I said in a tired voice, “Take your pleasure wherever you can find it, Helen,” and reached to embrace her, but she switched the light on, dried her eyes and said, “I’m sorry but we mustn’t do that again. I’m going to sleep in the spare room.”
I should have offered to go there myself but could not move. When she left the bed it felt like the loneliest place in the world. I had not realised how much I had been nourished by the mere warmth of her body. I’ve been insomniac ever since.
Did Sontag ever rape me? Only intellectually. “This combination of brothel and police station which you have devised is not, I hope you realise, a fantasy. A form of it exists in all nations except perhaps Scandinavia and the Netherlands.”
“Nonsense, Sontag!”
“Are you aware that the Parisian police commissioner has publicly advised raped women not to take their complaint unaccompanied to a police station, since they are in danger of being raped again? Are you aware that in Germany –”
51 REAL WOMEN PRISONERS
“Don’t talk about the concentration camps!” I commanded, my fingers above my ears.
“I will not, but you have read of the death by hanging of the Meinhof girl in that strangely insecure German maximum-security prison. Did you know that the official investigators found dry semen between her thighs? Did the warders fuck her then hang her, or hang her then fuck the corpse?”
“The official investigators decided that she hanged herself.”
“They had no explanation for the semen. They did not deny the medical evidence, or explain it, they ignored it, and the television reports ignored it too. Beria, the head of the Russian secret police, had women who attracted him arrested and taken to jails where he abused them as he pleased. Then they were executed for treason. There are equally selfish men with far too much power in America. Of course the system they manipulate is a different one, but this forensic research club you have invented almost certainly exists, though it is probably more frequent in South America than the North.”
“There is nothing like it in Scotland,” I said desperately,
“nothing like it in Britain.”
“In Ulster–”
“Don’t talk to me about Ulster!” I shouted, my hands over my ears again.
“Very well, I am perfectly aware that recently on the main British island only men have been kicked to death in police stations. However, a girl I know was arrested on suspicion of being friendly with a terrorist – on suspicion, mind you, for she was not. They locked her naked in a London prison cell, a very cold one, and kept her under surveillance by male warders for three whole days.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“You sound like a Conservative sometimes.”
I nearly smiled.
Sontag thought I was some kind of socialist because she knew my father had been in a trade union. She did not know that in Britain almost everyone of my income group is Conservative, especially if their fathers were trade unionists. Not that I have totally rejected the old man’s Marxist ideas. The notion that all politics is class warfare is clearly correct. Every intelligent Tory knows that politics is a matter of people with a lot of money combining to manage people with very little, though of course they must deny it in public to mislead the opposition. The bit of Marx I reject is the prophetic bit. He thought that the poorly paid would eventually organise themselves and overpower the moneyed people. I’m sure they won’t, and I’m not going to join a gang of losers. This is selfish of me and probably wicked, but like everyone else I would rather be thought wicked than stupid. A man with money in the bank who speaks out for the poorly paid always sounds stupid or a hypocrite. I heard one, once.
52 WHY I’M A TORY
I was at a meeting of Scottish businessmen and we were relaxing afterward in the bar. A fairly young man asked the head of a big brewery firm, which also owned a lot of pubs,
“How much do you pay your bar managers?”
The head told him. The young man said, “How can you get dependable men for a wage as low as that?”
The head said, “We can’t, but we do very well with un-dependable men.”
The youngster wanted to know more. The head said, “The managers increase their income by keeping down the wages of the barstaff. The barstaff increase their takings by cheating the customers. If a customer complains loudly about short measures or watered whisky we sack the manager and get a new one. There is never a shortage of willing managers, never any shortage of customers.”
The youngster said, “That strikes me as a thoroughly rotten system.”
The head said, “I’m inclined to agree with you. But it is a profitable system, and perfectly legal.”
“So you like this system.”
The head shrugged and said, “Not particularly, but my likes play no part in the business. To pay higher wages I can reduce profits and drive away the shareholders, or raise prices and drive the customers into the pubs of our competitors. In either case the firm is swallowed by those who have continued to pay their employees as little as they can.”
53 A FUTILE PROTESTER
The younger man said, “But you own more than just the brewery and the pubs.”
At this moment I noticed he was intensely agitated, perhaps drunk. The head of breweries said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand the relevance of that remark.”
“You own a lot of farming land, and half a TV company, and a highland grousemoor, and a house in London, and a Greek island.”
The head said, “That is not strictly accurate. I am a director of certain companies which own these things. The only things I personally own are my houses. But accurate or not I fail to see how this connects with our previous topic, which was the wage of the average Scottish barmanager.”
The young man said, “Yes, I’m sure you fail to see that connection,” and
turned to walk away. The head of breweries reached out a hand, gripped a piece of the young man’s sleeve and did not let go. The head was a big man of the type who keeps himself fit by some kind of sport. His face had gone slightly pink but his voice stayed quiet, clear and steady except when he said son. He said, “Listen, son, maybe you prefer the Russian system where all land and all business belongs to the Communist Party, which is nothing but a large limited company without one single competitor. Allow me to inform you that Russian bosses also have their town house, their country estate, their holiday home in a more comfortable climate. And they are a lot less tolerant of kids who go about shooting their mouths off. And I doubt if the pubs are any better than ours. Go away and think about that.”
He released the young man and was left with the head of a firm which marketed catfood and with the security expert, who was me. The two bosses smiled at each other (I admire how cool these people can be) but I saw that inside they were rather ruffled. The brewery man said, “That young chap has a lot to learn. I’m referring to his manners.”
1982 Janine Page 7