Mantissa

by John Fowles

  Nurse Cory, who has sprung to her feet, opens her mouth to scream; but the merciless guitar is whipped to point at her, the steel strings are viciously slashed again. She too, pretty brown arms, blue-and-white uniform, astounded eyes, vanishes instantaneously into thin air, leaving nothing but a flutter of falling white typescript. Whang, wheeze, whang, goes the abominable guitar; into nothingness goes each sheet of paper.

  Nemesis glares at the patient on the bed after this ruthless and lightning St. Valentine’s Day massacre, her eyes burning, still consumed by some maenadic fury. She less speaks than explodes.

  “You bastard!”

  Miles Green scrambles off the bed, hastily clutching at the rubber sheet and using it as an improvised apron.

  “Now wait a minute. I think you have the wrong ward. And word.”

  “You fuckin’ chauvinist pig.”

  “Steady on.”

  “I’ll give you steady on. Christ!”

  “But you can’t…”

  “I can’t what?”

  “Language like that.”

  Her jet-black lips curl in a ferocious sneer. “I can use any bleedin’ language I bleedin’ like. And I bleedin’ well will.”

  He retreats, holding the rubber sheet tight against his stomach.

  “That gear. It isn’t you at all.”

  She takes a menacing step or two nearer.

  “But we do just happen to know who I am.” The lips curl again. “Despite the gear? Right?”

  He would back farther away, but realizes he is against the padded wall.

  “It was just an idea.”

  “Like hell it was. You lyin’ sod.”

  “A little tryout. A first sketch.”

  “My arse.”

  “I thought I was never going to see you again.”

  “Well you’re bleedin’ well seein’ me now. Right?”

  He attempts to escape sideways, along the wall, but then finds himself at the corner, backed against the schoolgirls’ breasts and faced with the threatening guitar-neck. She gives him a vitriolic stare, then suddenly stabs an outraged finger at his face.

  “You realize what you done? You ruined my best bleedin’ gig in years. I had sixteen thousand kids screamin’ blue murder every time I hit a chord.”

  “I can believe that.”

  “You think I got nothin’ better to do than piss around rubbin’ out porn, you’re out of your tiny mind.”

  “I have a feeling we don’t quite share the same register of discourse.”

  She surveys him from head to foot, with a total contempt; but then her face twists into a mock grimace.

  “Oh sure. I forgot. Plus the usual” – her mouth sags sarcastically sideways – “deeper levels of meaning. Yuck.” She glowers, as if more than half inclined to spit in his face. “You’re pathetic. You don’t even know where it’s bleedin’ at anymore.”

  “If you don’t mind my mentioning it, I think you’re rather overdoing ‘bleeding’ in the stichomythia.”

  “And you know where you can bleedin’ well stick that!” She gives him another scorching look. “Honest, you make me bloody vomit. Dr. A. Delfie. That’s not a pun, it’s a dog’s turd. And Nurse Cory. Gawd save us. Stinkin’ elitist crap. I s’pose you think the whole soddin’ world still speaks Greek.”

  He throws her an oblique look, half dubious, half imploring.

  “Don’t say you’ve gone political.”

  She shakes her head at him, in a new fury.

  “Decent writin’, i.e., non-bourgeois writin’, was always political. ’Cept to middle-class zombies like you.”

  “But you used to –”

  “Don’t you dare tell me what I used to. It’s not my bleedin’ fault if I was a victim of the historical male-fascist conspiracy.”

  “But the last time we –”

  “And don’t give me that one!”

  He looks down, then tries another tack.

  “Lots of people would never have realized.”

  “Screw lots of people.” She taps her thumb angrily back against the pistol on her T-shirt. “You don’t kid a sister. Not for one moment. All you are’s a typical capitalist sexist parasite. You been nothin’ but bad news, ever since I was stupid enough to give you the time of day.” He opens his mouth, but she jumps on. “Tricks. Games. Always tryin’ to have it both ways. But that’s the last time you do it with me, you bugger.” She kicks backwards at the bed. “Givin’ that cardboard cut-out my face, my body.”

  “It was only a very general description.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “We used to be such friends once.”

  She mimics his voice. “ ‘We used to be such friends once.’ ” Her head shivers forward at him. “I seen through you years ago. All you ever wanted out of me was a quick lay.”

  “You’re confusing me with Walter Scott. Or James Hogg, possibly.”

  She closes her eyes, as if counting up to five; then her scathing eyes sear into his.

  “God, if you was only a character too. If I could just rub you out along with your piddlin’, pansy, paper puppets.”

  She wipes her mouth angrily with the back of her wrist. He leaves a little silence.

  “You realize you’re behaving just like a man?”

  “And what’s that s’posed to mean?”

  “Instant value-judgments. Violent sexual prejudice. To say nothing of trying to hide behind the roles and language of a milieu to which you do not belong.”

  “Oh belt up.”

  “For a start you’ve completely confused the uniform of three quite different subcultures, to wit, the Skinheads, the Hell’s Angels, and Punk. They’re three rather different things, you know.”

  “Will you shut up! Christ!”

  Her eyes are like black fire again, but Miles Green senses that he has, at last, made a small counterhit; for suddenly she turns away from him in his corner, lifts the strap of the guitar over her head, and throws the instrument petulantly down on the end of the bed. For a moment she stands with her back to him. The rear of the black jacket is emblazoned with a white skull, under which are the words, in Nazi-Gothic capitals, DEATH LIVES. Then she turns, once more with an arm and finger out.

  “Now just get this. From now on, I make the rules. Right? You ever again… kaput. End of gig. Is that clear?”

  “As your native sunlight.”

  She stares at him. “Then get lost.” She folds her arms, and jerks her head sideways. “Go on. Out.”

  He raises the rubber sheet an inch or two.

  “I’ve got nothing on.”

  “Great. Now the whole friggin’ world can see you for what you really are. And I hope you catch your death.”

  He hesitates, shrugs, and takes a step or two over the old rose carpet towards the door; then stops.

  “Couldn’t we at least shake hands?”

  “You’re jokin’. You must be ravin’ mad.”

  “I do feel this is a bit of a verdict without a trial. I was simply trying to comment lightly on –”

  She leans forward. “Look. Ever since I got into serious liberation, you been takin’ the mickey. I got your number, mate. You’re the original pig. Numero Uno.” Her eyes flash at the door, and once again the skull-like head with its marionettish shocks of white hair jerks sideways. “Out.”

  He takes a further step or two, backwards now, like a courtier with ancient royalty, since the rubber sheet does not quite reach around his midriff, then once again stops.

  “I could have made it far worse.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Had you swanning soppily through the olive groves in a transparent nightie or something. Like Isadora Duncan on an off day.”

  Her hands go to her hips. Her voice becomes a hiss.

  “Are you havin’ the soddin’ gall to suggest…”

  “I’m sure it had its points. In its time.”

  She stands legs astride, arms akimbo. For the first time there is, beneath the anger, a glint of somet
hing else in her eyes.

  “But it’d only make us giggle now, right? Is that it?”

  He gives a modest shrug.

  “It did always seem a touch absurd. Now you mention it.”

  She nods at him, several times, then speaks between her teeth. “Go on.”

  “Not of course as a purely literary sort of concept. As part of the iconography of Renaissance humanism. Botticelli and all of that.”

  “But cock?”

  “I wouldn’t dream of using such an ill-bred expression. Myself.”

  She folds her arms again, and surveys him.

  “Okay, let’s have it – what would you use?”

  “Daft? Wet? Slightly dotty?” He goes hastily on. “I mean, heaven knows you can look terrific. That slinky little black number you wore last time we…” Her arms drop, their fists clenched. He adds, rather weakly, “Sensational.”

  “Sensational?”

  “Absolutely. I’ve never forgotten it.”

  “And we all know what a great bleedin’ judge you are. Specially when it comes to degradin’ women by turnin’ us into one-dimensional sex-objects.”

  “I think two would be –”

  “Oh belt up.” She eyes him, then turns and picks up the guitar from the bed. “You think you’re so soddin’ clever, don’t you? ‘Iconography of the Renaissance’ – Jesus. You don’t know nothin’ – you don’t even know what I really looked like when I started. I’ve been through more bleedin’ Renaissances than you’ve had toast for breakfast.”

  “I realize.”

  “Oh no you don’t. You been askin’ for this for years. And now you’re bleedin’ well goin’ to get it. You smug bastard.”

  Her right hand begins to pick a scale, a remote one, the Lydian mode. The transition is melting rather than instantaneous, yet extraordinary. The hair starts to soften and lengthen, to suffuse with color; the hideous makeup drains from the face, the color from the clothes; and the very clothes themselves begin to dissolve and modulate into a tunic of pure white samite. It leaves both arms and one shoulder bare and reaches to mid-calf. It is gathered at the waist by a saffron girdle. The material is not quite opaque where it is stretched. The boots vanish, she is barefoot. The now dark hair is bound up, in Grecian style. Around her forehead appears a small chaplet of pinkish-cream rosebuds among myrtle leaves; and the guitar has become a nine-stringed lyre – on which, metamorphosis concluded, she now plays the same remote Lydian scale in reverse.

  It is the same face, but it seems younger, as if she has lost five years; a honeyed golden warmth now in all the skin, enhanced by the clinging white fabric. And as for the overall effect: faces that launched a thousand ships are nothing. This one would make celestial motion itself stop, and look back. She lets the lyre fall; and lets him stare, open-mouthed, at unmistakable and immemorial divinity. But after a few moments her free hand rises to her hip. Some things, it seems, have not changed.

  “Well… Mr. Green?”

  Her voice has also lost its previous, and not entirely secure, accent and intonation.

  “I was totally wrong. You look stunning. Out of this world.” He seeks for words, or appears to do so. “More childlike. Vulnerable. Sweet.”

  “More feminine?”

  “Incontestably.”

  “Easier to exploit.”

  “I didn’t mean that at all. Honestly… a dream. Just the sort of girl one would like to take home to meet mother. Even the rosebuds.”

  Her voice is suddenly suspicious.

  “What’s wrong with my rosebuds?”

  “They’re from the hybrid tea Ophelia. I’m afraid it wasn’t bred till nineteen twenty-three.”

  “That’s just typical. You’re such a bloody pedant.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It happens to be my favorite rose. Since nineteen twenty-three.”

  “And mine.”

  She raises the lyre. “And you can see an identical one to this, or what’s left of it, in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Before you start quibbling about that as well.”

  “It looks undeniably authentic.”

  “It is authentic!”

  “Of course.”

  She gives him a resentful look. “And while you’re about it, for goodness’ sake stop staring at my breasts in that crudely obvious way.”

  He stares at her bare, and exquisite, feet. “Sorry again.”

  “It’s not my fault that the bra wasn’t even invented then.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “That monstrous chain upon true womanhood.”

  “Hear hear.”

  She contemplates him.

  “I don’t mind an occasional casual glance. That’s another of your faults. You never leave anything at all to the imagination.”

  “I will try.”

  “Not here you won’t. I’ve only done this to show you what you’ve missed. Not that you seem to appreciate it.” She turns away. “If you must know, most decent men fall to their knees when they first see me. As I really am.”

  “I am on my knees. In spirit. You look ravishing.”

  “By which all you mean is ravishable. You forget I know you through and through. And your miserable little monomaniac mind. All I’ll ever be for you is just another bit of bird.”

  “Not true.”

  “Of course I don’t expect you to compose hymns and odes and pour libations to me and –” she raises the lyre a fraction and lets it drop against her side – “all that. When the world was still faintly civilized… I’m perfectly well aware it’s too much to expect from anyone in a crassly materialist age like this.” She throws him a half-angry, half-hurt look back over her bare shoulder. “All I ask for is some minimal recognition of my metaphysical status vis-à-vis yours.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, you’re too late.” She looks slightly upwards, as if addressing a very distant mountain range. “This last outrage is the final straw. I can overlook much, but not having my essential modesty of demeanor so grossly lampooned. Everyone knows my true nature is shy and retiring. I will not be turned into a brainless female body at your beck and call and every perverted whim. What you forget is that I am not something in a book. I am supremely real.” She looks down at the carpet, and speaks in a lower voice. “As well as being a goddess.”

  “I’ve never denied it.”

  “Oh yes you have. Every time you open your stupid mouth.” She puts the lyre down on the bed, and folds her arms, avoiding his eyes. “I think I’d better warn you that I’m seriously thinking of bringing all this up at our next quarterly meeting. Because basically it’s not just me who’s being insulted, but my whole family. And frankly we’ve had enough. There’s far too much of this about these days. It’s high time someone was made an example of.”

  “Truly sorry.”

  She eyes him, then looks away again.

  “You’ll have to find a more convincing proof of it than that.” Now she raises her left forearm and glances at it, evidently forgetting, in a momentary absentmindedness, that like the rose Ophelia, the wristwatch had not existed in classical times. She looks irritatedly around at the cuckoo clock. “I happen to have a very busy schedule today. I give you ten more sentences to make a full, proper and formal apology. This is your last chance. If I deem it acceptable, I am prepared to delay a decision over having you blacklisted. If not, you must take the consequences. In which case I should in all fairness strongly advise you to keep away from isolated trees and houses without lightning rods for the rest of your life. Especially in stormy weather. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, but it’s not fair.”

  She gives him a sharp glance. “It is not only fair, but incredibly lenient in the circumstances. And now stop arguing.” She turns and picks up the lyre, then draws herself up slightly. “You can start by getting on your knees. We can skip the kissing the traces of my footsteps bit, as I’m in a hurry. You have ten sentences. No more, no less. Then out.”

  Hold
ing his improvised apron firmly in position, he descends rather awkwardly to his knees on the carpet.

  “Only ten?”

  “You heard.”

  She stares into the far corner of the room, waiting. He clears his throat.

  “You’ve always been my perfect woman.”

  She raises the lyre and plucks a string.

  “Nine. And sickeningly trite.”

  “Even though I’ve never understood you.”

  Another pluck. “You can say that again.”

  “Completely.”

  “Seven.”

  “That’s not a sentence. There wasn’t a verb.”

  “Seven.”

  He stares at the sternly averted profile.

  “Your eyes are like loquat pips, like Amphissa olives, like black truffles, like muscat grapes, like Chian figs… hang on…”

  “Six.”

  “I hadn’t finished!”

  She sniffs. “You shouldn’t have made such a meal of it.”

  “There’s never seriously been anyone but you.”

  “Bloody liar. Five.”

  “I can understand how you drive men mad.”

  “Four. And women.”

  He leaves a pause, searching her expression.

  “Honestly?”

  She gives him a quick glance down. “I’m not going to be sidetracked.”

  “Of course not. I just wondered.”

  She addresses the wall. “If you must know, that poor old bent teaspoon on Lesbos never got over seeing me undress one day for my morning swim.”

  “Is that all that happened?”

  “Of course it was all that happened.”

  “But I thought –”

  She throws him another impatient glance. “Look, among the fifty thousand other things you’ve never realized about me is the fact that I wasn’t born yesterday.” She looks away. “Of course she tried all the usual dyke tricks. Wanted to photograph me in my bikini, and so on.”

  “Photograph you in your…?”

  She shrugs, quivers her head. “Whatever it was then. Sculpt me or something. I can’t remember every tiny detail. Now for heaven’s sake get on with it. You’ve got three sentences left.”

  “It was four.”

  She breathes out. “Very well then. Four. And they’d better be an improvement on the others.”