Nothing But the Truth

by Sam Lock

  ‘Poor Jason,’ said Betty.

  ‘Why do you call him that, Betty?’

  ‘Why, Mrs Callow? Because I feel sorry for him – that’s why. He’s not been right, you know; ever since Jill went off with the children. I think it upset him far more than any of us realise.’

  A silence fell between the two women: then they looked directly towards each other, allowing their eyes to meet; and in a way that they seldom did, since it was a deeply intimate look and one that was held in reserve by them both.

  ‘It’s hot – isn’t it?’ said Lilian, taking out a handkerchief from beneath one of the short, cuffed sleeves of the dress she was wearing, and using it to pat her cheeks and her forehead.

  ‘It’s August,’ answered Betty. ‘There’s thunder about. There was this morning.’

  The silence between them then returned, and Lilian rose to her feet. Then she moved across the room to the windows, and to the view beyond them of the garden that she had tidied and weeded earlier; and where the last, faint glimmer of daylight tipped its trees and bushes with gold.

  ‘Jason is in trouble,’ stated Lilian, without turning. ‘Something is wrong, Betty. Something is – I don’t know – not right.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Callow. I believe so,’ said Betty with quiet, sober authority, as she was about to leave the room; and as Lilian, who had not looked at her again, turned away from the windows and recrossed towards her chair.

  ‘Lilian. Did you speak?’ asked Edgar Callow. ‘Did you say something?’

  ‘No, dear. Betty and I were just gossiping.’

  ‘Oh,’ answered Edgar, going back at once to his book, unconscious of the brief moment of anxiety that had just been shared by the two women; and believing, as he always preferred to do, that the life around him was untroubled.

  ‘I think I’ll go to bed,’ said Lilian. ‘You will close the windows, won’t you, Edgar?’

  Edgar looked up at his wife, his screwed-up features betraying that he had not taken in what she had just said.

  ‘The windows, Edgar,’ Lilian repeated. ‘You will close them.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Yes, of course. Don’t worry, Lilian. I’ll close them. I’ll see to them.’

  Lilian crossed swiftly to her husband and stooped to kiss him upon the forehead, then quickly said her goodnights to him and took herself off to bed.

  In London that same night, and in the bedroom of their top-floor flat in South Kensington that had been converted from rooms once used by servants, and that was tucked beneath the heavy, mansard roof of what had been a wealthy, Victorian mansion, Arnold’s friends, John and Billy, were finding it difficult to sleep.

  ‘Billy, move over,’ said John, giving his friend a playful push.’ ‘You take up too much room.’

  ‘I do not,’ said Billy, who was lying with his hands clasped behind his head.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ said John, slipping a hand between Billy’s legs, and gently stroking his groin.

  ‘Stop doing that!’ protested Billy.

  ‘Stop doing what?’

  ‘That. You’ll get me going, you will.’

  ‘And what’s wrong with getting you going?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s just not what I want, that’s all. Not at the moment, at least. I just want to lie. I just want to think.’

  ‘Think! Some hope of that, you old queen.’

  ‘John! Just stop that talk; always making me out to be an imbecile or something. I was thinking about that man – the one at Arnold’s; who lives above him. You know who I mean. We’ve seen him several times – on the stairs.’

  ‘And in the street as well,’ added John.

  ‘Yes. We did yesterday.’

  ‘So what about him?’

  ‘What about him? Well. I don’t know. I was just thinking about him; wondering if he’s queer or something.’

  ‘Queer? Him? That bearded one?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t you think he could be? I mean, the way he looks at us. He’s never exactly hostile, is he?’

  ‘Look, Billy. All people – all men – who aren’t queer, aren’t necessarily hostile. You need to know that. My brother isn’t, for one. Like me, he thinks the world of you. He thinks you’re wonderful.’

  ‘Oh, don’t start giving me that sort of talk. I know what that’s for … No, seriously, John. I mean it. If he’s not queer, in the sense of – well, “queer” – then there’s something about him that is definitely what I would call peculiar.’

  ‘Anyway, he’s married; or so Arnold says.’

  ‘I know, but he’s separated – or divorced, perhaps.’

  ‘And he’s got children.’

  ‘Yes, but so had Oscar Wilde.’

  ‘All right – so he left his wife, or she left him, because he’s got peculiar tastes in sex – in bed. So what, Billy, is interesting about that?’

  ‘I don’t know. It just is. People interest me. All people.’

  ‘You mean, you’ve got a crush on him – is that what it is?’

  ‘John, don’t be bloody stupid. Don’t be –’

  John had now slipped his hand up to Billy’s stomach, and was gently stroking it – occasionally flicking a finger into his navel, which he knew that Billy enjoyed.

  ‘Tell me now. Do you fancy him?’ asked John, teasingly, slipping his free arm beneath Billy’s shoulders, and pulling himself close to Billy’s body, which, though small, was much more muscular than it gave the impression of being when he was dressed in one of his suits.

  ‘No. I do not.’

  ‘You do, you know,’ John teased. ‘You fancy him.’

  ‘I do not,’ insisted Billy, as John now played with Billy’s genitals, then took hold of Billy’s hand and drew it towards his own penis, which was erect, and of which he was justly proud.

  ‘You don’t?’ said John. ‘So who do you fancy, then? Me, for instance? This, for instance?’

  ‘Oh, stop being so bloody crude: so bloody filthy.’

  ‘Crude? What’s crude about it?’

  ‘Get stuffed,’ answered Billy with a laugh.

  ‘That’s what you’re going to be, if you aren’t careful,’ said John, pressing himself close to one of Billy’s thighs.

  ‘Dirty old man,’ said Billy, drawing up his knees, and pressing them against his lover’s stomach.

  ‘Dirty young man, you mean.’

  ‘Dirty old young man,’ said Billy, slipping an arm around John’s waist, and then stroking the base of his spine. ‘You like that – don’t you?’ he teased in return. ‘Don’t you, John?’

  ‘Little monkey, you.’

  ‘Big gorilla, you,’ said Billy.

  ‘Big one?’

  ‘Yes. Big one!’

  ‘Better than man with beard on staircase?’

  ‘I expect so,’ answered Billy.

  ‘What do you mean – expect so? Say you know so.’

  ‘I know so,’ said Billy, submissively.

  ‘Say it again. Say “I know so” again,’ demanded John.

  Billy repeated the phrase and then gave his lover a kiss; which they both took as a sign that the talking between them should cease, and that their love-making should now deepen; the animal side of their natures suddenly asserting itself, and making them seem much simpler and more noble than the nervous, cautious character of their timid, daytime selves; as if they needed and used a mask of defence against the world; one that showed them as being not ugly exactly, but certainly plain and shy and careful; and much less strong and sure, and much less beautiful than they really were; and which was a side of their personalities they never revealed in public: only secretly, to each other: and only at night and when in bed.

  And perhaps there are a great number of couples of whom this could be said to be true. Perhaps people are more shy of their deeper, animal natures than they are aware – or more shy of disclosing them in public, at least. And perhaps masks of a kind, such as the ones that were adopted by John and Billy, are a necessary feature of modern life, when, due to the int
ensity of its pressures it would seem that anyone, at almost any time, can so easily become the object of another person’s projections.

  Whatever, these two young lovers now enjoyed themselves; and with the weather being so hot, were glad to be rid of sheets and blankets for a change; and to be able to make love beneath the stars, as it were, with their bedroom window wide open; and with the huge thunderclouds of August passing slowly towards the West; and with the early throb of traffic, that had now begun in the Cromwell Road, where people were already on the move; either driving into the city from the suburbs, or out towards the airport and beyond.

  A while later, at Arnold’s house in Chelsea, after John and Billy’s love-making had ceased, and after they had at last fallen asleep, Jason again awoke with a start, believing, as he had done the previous night, that someone had stepped into his room and was standing close to his bed.

  This time, however, no voices could be heard, since Arnold was alone, not having arranged to have another of his little ‘gatherings’ until the evening of the next day: which was to be late – ‘gone ten’ – as we know, and after Billy and John had been to the theatre, to a revue at the Royal Court; which is the very last place where one would expect to see such a type of entertainment today; but where, in the nineteen-fifties, there were occasionally smart, witty revues of an extremely sophisticated kind, in which songs were sung and jokes were made about all sorts of fashionable people; including, as one recalls, jokes about Benjamin Britten.

  Nonetheless, if no voices could be heard, there was an unfamiliar light flooding up from the garden below, which Jason thought must be coming from the windows of Arnold’s apartment – who, he imagined, might not have bothered to draw his curtains and had fallen asleep in a chair; both of which were things that he had done occasionally in the past, and which caused Jason concern, thinking, as he always did, that Arnold could easily be unwell – or, indeed, could possibly be dead.

  This latter thought was an over-dramatic one, of course, and Jason was aware of it. But he knew that Arnold was older in years than he said, and certainly older than he looked; and he knew as well that even if he had been taken ill, he would have been too proud to call for help. ‘If I have to go,’ he had been known to remark, ‘they’ll find me in the morning.’

  In those days – in the nineteen-fifties – it was the habit of the majority of men to wear pyjamas when in bed; either thin cotton ones in the summer, or thicker, perhaps partly woollen ones, during the colder months of the year. But in this respect, Jason was quite modern in his ideas, in that he usually slept in the nude; or if not in the nude, then at least in only his underpants. And in the event of his feeling cold at all during the night – when he went to the lavatory, for example – he kept a dressing-gown close by him that he usually had draped across his bed.

  Now, with it being August, and with the weather being so hot, he was glad that he was naked; and he felt no need to reach for his dressing-gown as he hauled himself out of bed: thinking only that he really must do something about Arnold: that he must either go down and call at his flat, or he must try to speak to him on the telephone.

  Because of the glow of reflected light that was spilling gently into his room, Jason had switched on no light of his own; and as he went to collect his shirt and his trousers from where he had left them the night before, he caught sight of himself in a mirror.

  As was said at the beginning of this book, Jason was reasonably tall, and had he been fit, and had his body been trim, one would have said too that he was a decent-looking, quite imposing figure of a man. Instead, however, he could now see in the glass that whilst his shoulders weren’t at all hunched, and were still quite decently shaped, there was a truly ugly tyre of fat around his middle; and his thighs, which he thought of as being still muscular and firm, were also showing signs of excessive flesh; so that above his knees, which in themselves appeared to be swollen, there were hints of loose, ungainly folds that drooped towards his kneecaps.

  Perhaps because no light had been switched on, and because he was exposed to only a half-light as a result, Jason drew closer to the mirror in order to obtain a better view of himself; and as he did so, his legs and torso moved swiftly out of focus, and it was only the uppermost part of his body that he now found himself confronting.

  Could it be, he half wondered, that there was a curious twist in his face?; as if one half of it had been lifted up, and been placed at a higher level than the other? His beard at least was trim – or was reasonably so. For some reason, he was able to attend to that. But his dark, auburnish hair was even more unruly than usual, and to the left of his head, and therefore to the right of it in the mirror, a quick, savage thrust of mane made him appear to be unbalanced. Even more curious were his eyes. In spite of his skin being sallow, it was a little pinkish at the same time, and he now noticed what appeared as a thin blue or greyish line, that seemed to follow the edges of his eyelids and then push towards his nose; and from there to curl beneath his nostrils. And the eyes themselves looked tired. Circling the deep marbled green of their pupils, the whites were marked with a network of scarlet veins; and there also appeared to be yellow, or lemonish patches on his cheeks, and a few similar such patches on his forehead.

  ‘Probably the drink,’ Jason muttered to himself, knowing that he would do nothing about it, and that the nightly bottle of wine, combined with the glass or two of spirits that he drank earlier each day, had become a necessary feature of his life – a built-in feature of it, that is; as the eating had done, and as had the lack of any vigorous form of exercise.

  It was therefore not with a shrug of indifference exactly, but one that simply said ‘so be it’, that Jason finally left the mirror, and the new picture that had been given to him, and swiftly began to dress; pulling on a shirt and slacks, and slipping into a pair of lightweight summer shoes; then collecting his keys from a bedside table before quickly leaving his rooms in order to descend to the first-floor landing; intent upon discovering why it should be that the light from Arnold’s windows was spilling into the garden; and hoping against hope, as they say, (for Jason disliked all moments of high drama) that it would be for no different reason than that Arnold had fallen asleep in a chair; having left his lights switched on; and having forgotten to draw his curtains.

  IV

  Whether or not an author should be expressing philosophical thoughts and ideas in a novel, is perhaps open to question, since the purpose of it – of novel-writing – is the telling of a tale, or of a story – the constructing of a narrative, that is – that will draw the reader into another world; one in which he or she can become lost for a few hours, and so removed for a while from the world of daily life. Or that will surely be most people’s idea of such a book; and will be the reason, no doubt – or will be the main reason – for their purchasing works of fiction. Indeed, quite recently, some writer said on the radio (this was quite a well-known writer, one might add) that not only did they not care for, but they actively rejected and despised, what they spoke of as ‘think bits’ in a novel (by which one presumed they meant reflective comments and asides); but which does away, alas, with vast stretches of modern fiction; with a great deal of Proust’s writing, for example, and with the work of a great many other writers besides.

  Yet surely there has to be room for such things in a novel. If not for ones that are of a philosophical nature exactly, then surely there has to be room for psychological ones, at least; since the novel has so much to do with the character of people – or, to be more precise, with the character of characters (for they are never ‘real’ people, are they?); and also because the psychic or subjective world that lies beneath the mask of daily life, and in which all action appears to be rooted, and from which it all inevitably springs, is now such a part of modern-day consciousness that it would be quite the opposite of modern if one were to exclude such comments entirely.

  And in any case, they – meaning such comments and asides – can add perspective to a tale; can
supply the narrative with subsidiary routes and byways that can help the reader to gain a better view of it. For example, a word-picture has been painted here of Jason Callow that shows him as being a man under considerable strain, and who appears to be cut off from, and so out of touch with, some aspect of his being that had begun to become unruly, as if it might be protesting at its neglect. But on the other hand, one hasn’t yet ventured to say (although it would certainly add perspective to the story if one did) what exactly that protesting part of Jason’s nature might be.

  This, unfortunately, is partly because (as has already been said) it is only Jason himself who could have told us what went on inside his head – or went on inside his mind, rather. All that one has been able to do is to show just a few of what one might speak of as the outer symptoms of his distress, and how the ripples caused by that disorder (and which, as we have seen, had begun to disturb him) were also beginning to affect and disturb the people around him in his life: Joseph, his painter-friend, for example, who thought that Jason was going ‘real bonkers’: his landlord, Arnold, who was concerned about his walking the streets such a lot and spending so much of his time alone: Billy, who was definitely of the opinion that Jason was what he would call ‘peculiar’; and also, of course, his parents, who hadn’t heard from him – or hadn’t heard his voice, at least – for weeks; ever since he had been to visit them on his birthday.

  It is true that at one point – and this was another example of creating perspective – one did risk saying that because of his age (meaning, because of the time at which he had been born), Jason’s moodiness, combined with his compulsive intake of food and of drink, could possibly have their roots in certain of the messy leftovers of the Victorian age – the psychological ones, that is: but this was said just to offset any assumptions that may have been made that Jason’s problems were only personal ones; as opposed to ones rooted in a collective source. And one did that – said that – because there is such a lot of that type of thinking today, that believes that the roots of all mental disorder can be traced back either to the years of our early childhood, or to things that happened to us in puberty. And whilst it is obvious that there are certain truths that may be arrived at through that type of reductive thought (in that we are all inevitably partly formed and partly moulded by things that happen to us when we are young), it seems to be equally obvious that there is something else, something that has nothing to do with worldly experience whatsoever, that is at play upon our lives: something of which we are at first completely unaware; but which, as time goes by, plays itself out through us, so to speak. As if every person – as if each individual had his or her story to tell; or not ‘tell’ exactly, since that sounds as if we are inventing the story ourselves; but that wants to tell itself through us, whether we like the idea of it or not.