by Adam Thorpe
A chill. I feel a chill. I shouldn’t be talking about her like this.
Listen, you see her how you want. You will, anyway and whatever, even if she reared up in gloves right at this moment and walked across the party suite knocking over your glasses with her trail of silk net and had you all running for the door because deep down you’re kids and you’re terrified of ghosts, especially ghosts with white gloves up to their elbows.
Because deep down everyone sees what they want to see.
Hrrrrrm. I keep screwing the action. My analyst says I have a projective personality, that I’m in love wid my mother, that I’m one of those really overbearing and deeply insecure jaw-crackers she can go to sleep through but she can’t wait to see my backside in her doorframe so she can hoover the couch. She doesn’t say this to me, of course. She says this to her sister, who is Zelda’s godmother. Zelda is very close to her godmother. Zelda found out about me before she went out with me briefly a few years ago and then got into chastity and Kyoto and then thank God into weatherbeaten time-challenged wise men who made her chuckle and I’m the only one around here right out to the Staked Plains or someplace who fits the bill, so she’s back. I like the power I have over my analyst. I mean, I could shop her at any time for professional indiscretion, hm hm. I like to lie there and eat my crackers and talk into her silence knowing she’s about as authentic and true as a disgorged peanut. I mean, Zelda’s godmother just sits there on the other end of the phone and shrieks, hiya, what whackie-crackies did’ya have today, honey? And honey, alias Moira Kahn, the most respected analyst in all of the Deep South, spills the jelly beans all down her front till she gets real sticky, the prize bitch. Use it, Ossy. Use it.
The Washington Post, not the bloody Sun.
I call her Ghengis, to her face. It’s not funny, but it helps.
How’s the Mongol? I say. How’s Ghengis?
I get the feeling you’re all sick of me. It’s me or the dancing girls. You prefer the dancing girls. Bring on the dancing girls.
Not yet. We have a lot of complicated action. We have some history to get through. We have sex and violence and some deep things. She’s still reading Mr Swinburne. I can’t push her. I can’t make her do what she didn’t do, can I? The clock ticks, I’m a fraud, I was in love with my mother or maybe my great-aunt and I used to dream about my father getting run over by the 49, I used to dream I was pushing him under but he was laughing too much and Stevie Smith was driving, she’s a terrible driver, she swerved every time and missed him and ran over the pea instead. What a mess. Cor. Thank you, Richard. That’ll be 150 bucks. Hey, Moira, it’s gone up. I must desire you under my loathing. It’s normal, Richard, excuse me, I’m being paged.
Holy shit.
You know what Zelda says? She says I ought to shut up and receive. She says I ought to open up my channels and receive instead of emitting all the time. Actually, I’m nervous. I’m nervous because this is the really big action beginning and I’ve been putting it off for years. All the avenue stuff was just glorified crowd scenes, really. I mean, no one actually had to say anything. They just had to move or gawp or think about breakfast. But this is nitty-gritty close-up jaw-jaw time. This is sensitive performance time. This is the real thing, not on ice. I’m whispering. Why am I whispering? I’m whispering because I’m sitting next to my great-aunt and she’s concentrating and the floor’s cold and waxy. It’ll mark my Levis. I still wear Levis? I still wear Levis. I’ve got to think what it’s like to wear spats. I’ve got to think what it’s like to wear the equivalent of my wardrobe all at the same time and even in summer and not have spray-on deodorant. And I’ve also got to handle the deep stuff. I mean, I can’t be thinking how they wore spats and how they went to the lavatory with a corset on and stuff all the time. I won’t git nowhere fast, at that rate. I don’t know why I took this damn thing on. It’s too big for me to handle. I’m a fraud. You’re rumbling me. Hey, she’s mouthing it. She’s whispering the words, kind of. She has the most delicate ear I’ve ever seen in my life. She smells of lavender and – I think it’s petrol. Why the hell does she smell of petrol? It’s sort of petrol. Maybe the maid’s crap. Maybe the maid used too much petrol on the wine stain. For always thee the fervid languid glories allured of heavier suns in something skies, thine ears knew all the wandering watery sighs or maybe skies where the sea throbs round lesbian promontories, the barren kiss
Holy shit.
She’s paused on kiss. She’s looking up at nothing. The fern’s just a green blur, a cat’s-cradle of greens and shadows, there’s a glisten of spittle on her lower lip, the tongue comes out to catch it in, she blinks, she doesn’t sigh, I really thought she was going to sigh, she’s not thinking what I thought she was thinking, she’s thinking the lines through, she’s fucking learning them, she’s not even thinking of a guy, or lesbians, or creamy surf bashing a cliff, or anything deep I could use as a handle for the whole scene – she’s just learning the fucking lines!
Shut up, Ricky. Just shut up. Just let the whole thing roll on its own. Trust it. Dare. Just be a little bit daring for once. Just imagine that you can stop hugging the rock for a minute and stand like a grown-up.
I have bad vertigo, Zelda.
Shut up, OK? Or I’ll whack you with my keisaku stick, twice on each shoulder, like they did to me at dawn in Kyoto.
At dawn in Kyoto? That’d make a great title, Zelda—
Youch. OK, OK, I’ll shuddup. Shurrup, as my dad—
YOUROOCH!!
Pssst. I’ll be quiet as my analyst.
Yow.
Uncle Kenneth thrusts his face into the fern. The greens and the shadows become Uncle Kenneth’s face. It’s a shock, she didn’t even hear him come in. The barren kiss.
Hallo, Uncle Kenneth. Hallo, Aggie-Mags. (Yukoos. Ssssh!) He purses his lips and flickers his tongue. It makes a noise like a helicopter, only he doesn’t mean that because helicopters have only appeared so far in Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks. Agatha puts the feather back to mark the page and shuts the book. (She had this feather, I forgot to mention it. It doesn’t matter, Ricky, just shut your mouth, I’m trying to listen for Chrissake. Zelda, you’re the best thing that could ever happen to a man. It was a dove’s feather, by the way. Youch.) Have you had tea, Uncle Kenneth? Uncle Kenneth does a bit more of this rotor-blades-before-their-time thing. Agatha blinks. She doesn’t sigh. She ought to sigh, it would relax her. What have I got? says Uncle Kenneth. He’s actually finding this head position uncomfortable, because the fern’s got sharp blades and he’s bent awkwardly, but he’s got to keep it up because he’s that sort of person. He has these little acts and this little act isn’t over yet. He spends most of his time trying to jolly Agatha up. It’s heavy. She’s heavy. He feels it’s his duty in some way. He feels sorry for her. He feels sorry for her because his brother is a selfish cad and his sister-in-law is just frightful. He’s wearing spats, by the way, but they’re odd, as in not a pair. He’s odd and he’s a pear. He smells of vinegar. His jacket has a broken belt thingy at the back and food stains. His big rump’s sat on something white. We’re looking at him from the back. His elbows pump in and out because he’s rubbing his hands and the whole fern shakes. The mirror on the left wall repeats it. We could watch the whole thing in the mirror. Same difference.
(Hey, William is on his way back. He’s on the train. They don’t know this. Mr Boulter hasn’t telephoned yet. He’s still trying to get HP off his back about Philips. There’s lots of time to telephone. The clock in the London room strikes ten-thirty. Sorry, I just needed to say that.)
Or maybe I didn’t. Maybe I jumped the gun. Maybe—
OK, OK. Zazen. Zzzzz.
Agatha stands up. She smooths her dress. She’s chill, she needs her shawl, her dress is too light, she’s trying to keep the summer going long after it’s gone. Three guesses, says Uncle Kenneth. Oh, I can’t, I can’t, says Agatha. Her head is full of lesbian promontories and barren kisses and she has her period. I can’t, she says again
, tucking her hair back behind her left ear – just a stray curl, because generally her hair stays where it should, there are a lot of pins and stuff, it’s Edwardian or OK Georgian hair and because this is now meaning then there are no concessions, it’s pure, it’s – I mean, think of how everyone in The Forsyte Saga looks like Engelbert Humperdink and you know what I’m saying. Uncle Kenneth gives up and his head comes out of the fern. Agatha steps out from behind the fern, out of her little cosy corner, the fern brushes her shoulder and she gives Uncle Kenneth a peck on the cheek. I’ve looked at this room, I’ve rung the bell with the photos of this room in my hand and the drunk who now rents that bit of the house didn’t mind, didn’t mind at all, olt chup. There was no cornicing and stuff, no fancy plasterwork, no crockery, no piano, no antimacassars. There was some terrible furniture families kill each other not to inherit and some kit pine stuff and a big swanky speaker with an ashtray on top where Agatha read Mr Swinburne. It was a junky feeling, standing in there. You wouldn’t have known. The drunk had slippers on with pom-poms. He was Polish, Hungarian, I forget which. An ex-violinist. Probably brilliant until Auschwitz. He thought I was trying to sell him something but he liked it. His carpet had so many ripples in it I felt seasick. It was brown, once.
I’m getting thwacked. By Zelda, it’s nice.
(We’ve just ended up laughing so much we had to make love behind the photocopier. Zelda wanted to do it on top and photocopy us like in that book but the weird student was around. He came over to photocopy this huge book and we had to time our grunts. A pity, I’d have really liked a color photocopy of Zelda’s flattened cheeks. She says it’s sensational, it’s warm, you get pressed against this warm glass plate and everything’s shunting and flashing away under you but I don’t fancy a copy of my behind, I’m really anal about this, I’m sorry.)
Hey, we haven’t missed much. You gotta live. You gotta live in the now. The now meaning now. Cor, blimey, blow me down. The much we haven’t missed wasn’t Uncle Kenneth and Agatha having some phatic Edwardian communication with each other – hey, it was just Pinter with spats on. While I was fumbling at Zelda’s Levi buttons she made me swear I wouldn’t say anything more out of order until the end of the scene. I swore. I wanted to say what’s out of order and what isn’t out of order or define your terms if you want to be hinterlekshul about it but I just swore, I swore blind – I was fumbling with Zelda’s Levi buttons and she doesn’t wear panties when it’s hot and it’s mainly hot in Houston. I’m a weak man. I’m Plywood John. As she sank on to me I nearly swore I wouldn’t ever do anything she didn’t want me to do ever again but thank the Lord Hallelujah the weirdo student came over humping his book right then and it came out as a kind of ultra-violet grunt. OK. Sssh.
This, my dear, is the Wheel of Life. I know, says Agatha. Uncle Kenneth’s crest falls momentarily but he’s a great recoverer. A zoetrope, to be strictly accurate, my dear, and accuracy is the handmaiden of intelligence, is it not? Probably. Certainly, my dear.
He gives the zoetrope a little flick and it revolves slowly on its brass-cornered base. A what? A Zoë who? A zoetrope. There’s an open drum with slits on top of a brass-cornered base. It cedunks around and comes to a stop. It’s really black, except for the brass bits. All in the eye of the beholder, says Uncle Kenneth. The zoetrope is on one of those wobbly little tables with rat’s feet in front of the bay window but for some reason it’s not wobbling. Maybe they didn’t wobble in those days. Maybe a wobble comes with age. Ssh.
The Wheel of Life, says Uncle Kenneth. What a fine name, heh? What a perfectly fine and charming name. And look. He taps a little brass plate on the side. Agatha bends and reads it out loud. Hapworth and Sons, Bristol, 1859. Uncle Kenneth is excited. Agatha can’t understand why he’s so excited, she actually had about ten toy versions of these but they all got walked on in the nursery and wouldn’t spin. The significance, my dear! The significance, repeats Agatha. The Wheel of Life, my wheel of life, my dear! My great-aunt is not slow but she’s still standing on her lesbian promontory. Uncle Kenneth holds her shoulder. He can feel the thinness of it under the silk. It is no longer a girl’s shoulder, one outflung region of him thinks to itself while the metropolis speaks. My birth day, dash it! he cries. It’s as old as you, says Agatha. The door opens. It’s the maid, the new one. Oh, the new maid says. She has a duster in her hand. She sees the funny gentleman who smells with his hand on the young lady of the house’s shoulder. Her sister warned her that things would be going on. Her sister told her not to show you’d seen, never to look surprised, never to look surprised were it to be ever so queer, our Mill. The maid has been here one day. Everything has surprised her after her previous five thousand and something days passed in Worksop. Her face has done nothing but strive to look not-surprised since she arrived at the station more thickly greased with smuts than when she puts the washing out, and that’s saying something. Oh, she says again. The duster is wrapped tightly round her hand. She can’t remember whether you must never ever dust a room with someone in it. There are so many never evers she gets them tangled up. Uncle Kenneth is stretching his arms wide. There’s a pack of cards in one hand and a black cloth in another. I’ll bet you’ve been wondering why Agatha hasn’t wanted to look into the zoetrope. I mean, it’s the first thing you or I would want to do. Simple: there’s nothing in it, she can see that, she can see inside because the drum’s got no top and you know why it’s got no top? Because to see something you need light, and the light has to be natural for this antique. I don’t want to get technical.
Ah-ha! says Uncle Kenneth, his arms stretched out. The maid takes a step forwards instead of backwards, it was her mistake, her legs are unpredictable at times like these. Ah-ha, repeats Uncle Kenneth. A big dray goes by loaded with beer-barrels. It darkens the room. I had to mention it because these vintage-hire people charge a fortune and a big dray did go by just then and also now. Let me tell you there’s quite a lot of authentically-costumed people out there on the street and there’s even a horse and dust-cart coming up soon and you haven’t noticed the clop-clops, the gigs and landaus and stuff, the two vintage motor cars that have already rattled past, have you? And beyond that there’s more, there’s the whole of London, there’s countryside with rakes and no motorways, there’s sea with 1913 ships and boats on and there’s China and India and America and stuff, every one of them looking as they are supposed to look at this now, then. There are no helicopters, there are no sneaky jump-jets, there’s not even a vapour trail way up. There’s not a hair out of place. If you can’t imagine what, I dunno, say, Bolivia looks like in 1913 that’s not my darn fault, is it? Because it’s out there and a lot of care and Steves went into setting it up. Zelda’s advancing towards me. She means business. Uncle Kenneth is gesturing to the maid to advance, which means she takes two steps back. She hits the wall. Oh, she says again. This ah-haing and ohing is ridiculous, but life’s like that. Agatha is thinking about her mother getting back soon. She’s staring out the window and thinking that. You first, my dear, says Uncle Kenneth to the maid. I don’t know what your name is, I’m afraid. Milly, shouts the maid. She didn’t mean to shout it. It’s like a penny dropped in her slot and she worked. She looks around as if someone else had shouted it. Milly, says Uncle Kenneth, come and have your peep first. Uncle Kenneth is slightly peeved at Agatha’s total indifference. She’s so difficult to jolly up. Uncle Kenneth gets on with the lower orders, the commoners, the ones who serve the ones who don’t as much. This doesn’t mean he pays well. He doesn’t. But he has no airs. He treats them like they have as much right to exist as he does. This causes a lot of trouble. The maid advances because she wants to do the opposite, she’s trying not to look surprised because this is probably the ever-so-queer thing her Sis went on about. She’s gawping at the uncle, her mouth is open, she shuts it, she advances until she’s at a respectable distance. There’s a never ever about a respectable distance, but she can’t remember whether it’s five inches or five feet. One’s too close by
half and the other’s too far by half. Maybe it’s not five anything. She should have writ it all down. So she just stops when she can smell him, which is not very close. Up in Worksop they get so close to each other they have arms around shoulders and kissing and that. She didn’t know how close to stand to the memsahib when she was being welcomed, yesterday. It wasn’t really being welcomed, more examined, but it was called being welcomed. She nearly said memsahib instead of ma’am which is her brother’s fault. He’s in the army and he’s been out in Inja. He would keep on about it. His back’s a broom-handle. Yes ma’am, ma’am, ma’am.
Yes ma’am, she says. Uncle Kenneth’s eyebrows go up. His hair is long. It’s just conceivable he is a bearded lady. The maid flushes. Oh, she says. Ma’am would like you to give you the honour of a peep, jokes Uncle Kenneth in a dead serious voice. But first, close your eyes, both of you. The maid is really confused. This is definitely an ever so queer. She glances at the zoetrope. The duster is like a knuckle-duster now. She scratches her nose with it and practically suffocates. The house towers above her and all around her. She’s tiny in it, she’s like a speck of dust and the duster’s wiping her away. She’s new, says the young lady of the house, she’s new. The maid looks across at my great-aunt. The maid feels all shiny all of a sudden, all new and shiny, like she’s just been manufactured, like the pans and cutlery and brooms and soap and stuff that issue forth from the factories in Worksop and get crated up to be dirtied and ruined and chucked, eventually. She even feels her spots go away as that word she can never remember, like granted but it isn’t, granteteed. Even the blackhead above the left nostril which she knows intimately seems to vanish. Dr Colthrop’s Unique Remedy. It comes of scrubbing too much. Nay, it comes of scrubbing not enough. Coal and tar. Coal tar soap. Grease and smuts and smoke. Not enough o’ what they fancies, Sis says. Tha cheeks have a shine after it. A bit o’ drippin’. Nowt at all till you cotton on. Like pokin’ your head out in th’train to view. Lose it. Zelda says this is getting to sound like Ulysses. You bet, I say. Any more compliments? Lousy film. Sssh, Zelda. Thank you. You know why my great-aunt said that the maid was new, by the way? First, because she was being nice. Second, because she didn’t care too much for herself and the maid being lumped together as Both Of You so she was kind of establishing the maidness of the maid. That’s not so nice but, cor blimey guv, who’s one hundred per cent nice?