I’m here, said Sister’s knee.
I hate you, said Kleinzeit’s knee. You’re so healthy.
Do you want me to be sick? said Sister’s knee.
No, said Kleinzeit’s knee. I didn’t mean that. Be healthy and round and beautiful. I love you.
I love you too, said Sister’s knee.
Kleinzeit put the glockenspiel on the floor, got up from the wheelchair, kissed Sister.
Morrows Cruel Mock
Morning in the Underground. Footsteps and faces thick and clamorous without speech, overlapped like fish scales, echoing in the corridors, dismantling the emptiness left standing by the night upon the platforms. The motionless stairways stirred, escalated. From the tunnels lights shot forward and the black cried out, woke Redbeard in STAFF ONLY.
Redbeard performed his morning toilet, had breakfast, packed up, came out of STAFF ONLY. He dropped sheets of yellow paper here and there, took a train to the next station, dropped more paper. He took another train, went on leaving yellow paper in tube stations well into the morning. From the last station on his route he worked his way back over the same ground looking for the sheets he had dropped.
He picked up the first one he found. It was clean on both sides.
I don’t have to write anything at all, he said to the paper. Or I might write an Elizabethan love lyric. To Phyllis, maybe.
Morrows cruel mock, said the paper.
I told you I was tired of that, said Redbeard.
Bad luck, said the paper. Morrows cruel mock.
I don’t want to, said Redbeard.
Let’s get this straight, said the paper. It isn’t what you want. It’s what I want. Right?
Right, said Redbeard.
Right, said the paper. Morrows cruel mock. That’s all for now. I’ll be in touch with you later.
Prothalamion
Congratulations, said Hospital to Sister.
Why are you speaking to me? said Sister. We’ve never spoken before.
It never occurred to me before, said Hospital. Now it has occurred to me. Happy, happy, happy pair, eh? None but the sick deserve the fair, what? None but the pyjamaed win the tightly trousered, yes? I’ve seen you in those. I’ve noticed, zestfully. I’ve seen you out of them as well. Oh aye. None but the middle-aged pick the juicy young plums, hmm? Ho ho, ha ha. Barrumphh. Tsssss. Yes. Ahem.
Don’t kill yourself over it, said Sister.
Not at all, said Hospital. I thrive, I flourish, I am increased. Harf. Gurf. Ruk-k-k. Ah!
Good, said Sister. You must have a great deal to do, a great many demands on your time. You mustn’t let me keep you.
On the contrary, said Hospital. I keep you.
This is where I earn my living, you mean, said Sister.
No, said Hospital. I mean I keep you, your fairness, your firmness, your tightly-trouseredness, your plumpness, all of you. He doesn’t get you. It’s not on. You’ve met Underground?
I’ve been in the Underground, said Sister.
But not met, said Hospital. There is a distinction. One day perhaps you’ll meet Underground. Let us say at this moment, just for the frivolity of it, that I have some connection with Underground. At other moments I’ll say other things no doubt. That’s what I say at this moment. If I said think of Eurydice that would be interestingly allusive but far-fetched, would it not.
Yes, said Sister.
Hospital became high, remote, great. Its Victorian knee-braced ceiling soared like a cathedral ceiling, its grey light rose unattainable.
Think of Eurydice, said Hospital. Call to mind, said Hospital, Eurydice.
Short High
The world is mine, sang Kleinzeit. Sister loves me and the world is mine.
Cobblers, said Hospital. Nothing is yours, mate. Even you aren’t yours. You least of all are yours. Listen.
Tantara, said the distant horn. Coming closer, love. Wham! A to B with fireworks and shooting lights. Hoo hoo, called a black hairy voice offstage.
See what I mean? said Hospital.
That was a short high, said Kleinzeit.
Asymptotes
Kleinzeit, dreaming, looked back at A. So far away! Too far ever to get back to. He didn’t want to arrive at B too soon. Didn’t ever want to arrive at B, in fact. He tripped over something, saw that it was the bottom of B. So soon!
He woke up as the Flashpoint/fat man bed took on a new passenger. He was an old man hooked up to a system of tubes, pumps, filters and condensers so complex that the man seemed no more than some kind of junction fitting, secondary to the machinery in which he was only a link in the circulation of whatever was being drip-fed, pumped, filtered and condensed. Again a monitor. Very slow blips.
This time I’ll start right, thought Kleinzeit. I don’t want to lose another one. He waited until he was sure the old man’s machinery was running smoothly, then introduced himself. ‘How do you do,’ he said. ‘My name’s Kleinzeit.’
The old man moved his head a little. ‘Do,’ he said. ‘Schwarzgang.’
‘Nothing serious, I hope,’ said Kleinzeit.
‘Ontogeny,’ said Schwarzgang. ‘Never knows.’ He seemed too weak for complete sentences. Kleinzeit filled in the gaps.
‘One never does know,’ he agreed.
‘Hand … too soon,’ said Schwarzgang.
‘And on the other hand one may very well know all too soon,’ Kleinzeit agreed again. ‘Oh, yes, ha ha. You’re quite right there.’
‘Matter,’ said Schwarzgang.
‘Of course it’s no laughing matter,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘You mustn’t get me wrong. Sometimes one’s got to laugh, you know, or go mad.’
‘And,’ said Schwarzgang.
‘Laugh and go mad,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Right again.’ He poured himself a glass of orange squash, picked up a morning paper, immersed himself in a photograph of Wanda Udders, 17, winner of the Miss Guernsey Contest. ‘“No matter how heavy the going might be,”’ Wanda was quoted as saying, ‘“I try never to lose my bounce. I’ve always known there were big things ahead of me.”’
Wonderful spirit, thought Kleinzeit. Stop hugging me, he said to the bed.
This moment is all we have, said the bed, all we can be certain of.
Don’t talk rot, said Kleinzeit. Leave me to my thoughts.
Today is the day, said the bed. Bach-Euclid results. It’s the waiting that’s so awful. They mustn’t take you away from me, it mustn’t end like this.
NUDIST PRIEST FROCKED, read Kleinzeit, and went on reading the whole story to jam the bed’s transmission. I’m no better off than that chap with the barrow full of rocks, he thought. I wrote him and there he was. Nothing behind him and rocks ahead. Wanda Udders has big things ahead but she’s seventeen. How long have I got? Maybe Dr Pink will be sick today, maybe he won’t show up. I could run away. No job. I’ve got the glockenspiel. I have to be brave, that’s part of it with her. There’s still time to run away.
‘Well, Mr Kleinzeit,’ said Dr Pink. ‘How are we this morning?’ He smiled down on Kleinzeit. Fleshky, Potluck, Krishna, the two nurses and the day sister all smiled too.
‘Very well, thank you,’ said Kleinzeit. All right, he thought, this is it. At least something definite. If he draws the curtains it’s bad news.
Dr Pink nodded to one of the nurses, who drew the curtains around the bed. ‘Let’s have your pyjama top off.’ said Dr Pink. ‘Lie on your stomach, please.’ He kneaded Kleinzeit’s diapason gendy. It lit up in brilliant colour, like a part being talked about in an educational animated film. Pain shot from it in all directions. ‘Feel that a little, eh?’ said Dr Pink. Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna took notes. The nurses and the day sister smiled impartially.
‘Sit up, please,’ said Dr Pink. He prodded Kleinzeit’s hypotenuse. Kleinzeit nearly fainted. ‘Sensitive,’ said Dr Pink. Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna took notes.
‘Had any trouble with your asymptotes before this?’ said Dr Pink.
‘Asymptotes,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘When did they come
into it? I thought it was just the hypotenuse and the diapason. What about the Bach-Euclid Series?’
‘That’s why I’m asking,’ said Dr Pink. ‘I’m not worried about your diapason. That sort of dissonance is quite a common thing, and with any luck we’ll clear it up fairly soon. The hypotenuse of course is definitely skewed, but not enough to account for a 12 per cent polarity,’ Fleshky and Potluck nodded, Krishna shook his head. ‘On the other hand,’ Dr Pink continued, ‘the X-Rays indicate that your asymptotes may be going hyperbolic.’ He felt Kleinzeit here and there warily, as if sizing up a combatant hidden in him. ‘Not too happy with your pitch.’
‘My asymptotes,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Hyperbolic.’
We don’t know an awful lot about the asymptotes,’ said Dr Pink. ‘They’ll certainly bear watching. A Shackleton-Planck Series wouldn’t be amiss, I think.’ Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna raised their eyebrows. ‘We’ll just put you on 2-Nup for the time being, damp the diapason a bit. We’ll know more in a few days.’
‘I seem to be getting in deeper,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘When I came here it was just the hypotenuse and the diapason. Now it’s the asymptotes as well.’
‘My dear boy,’ said Dr Pink, ‘these things aren’t up to us, you know. We have to take what comes and cope the best we can. At least you’re not showing any quanta so far, which is a bit of luck, I can tell you. Whether an asymptoctomy’s on the cards remains to be seen, but it’s nothing very much if it comes to that. We can have them out in no time at all, and you’ll be up and around in four or five days.’
‘But I was up and around before we started this whole thing,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘You said you were just going to run a few tests.’ He was alone, he realized. Everyone had left some time ago. The curtains had been pushed back.
‘Goes,’ said Schwarzgang from among his tubes, pumps, filters and condensers.
‘Yes,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘that is how it goes.’ He was suddenly worried about Schwarzgang. He hadn’t even noticed when Dr Pink had stopped at the old man’s bed, hadn’t heard a word said to or about him. ‘You all right?’ he said.
‘Be expected,’ said Schwarzgang. His blips seemed no slower than before and just as steady. All the machinery seemed to be working properly.
‘Good,’ said Kleinzeit. He checked all the connections of Schwarzgang’s machinery, made sure the monitor was plugged in firmly.
The day sister appeared again. ‘You’re to have three of these twice a day,’ she said.
‘Right,’ said Kleinzeit, swallowed his 2-Nup.
‘And stay in bed,’ said the sister. ‘No more excursions.’
‘Right,’ said Kleinzeit, took his clothes to the bathroom, put them on, and disappeared via the fire exit.
Seven Fruity Buns
Kleinzeit went into the Underground, took a train, got off at one of the stations he liked, walked about in the corridors. An old man was playing a recorder. Kleinzeit didn’t like his manner, gave him 5p anyway. He walked among the walls and footsteps, sometimes looking at people, sometimes not.
He saw ahead of him the red-bearded man he had once dreamed about. He saw him drop a sheet of yellow paper, saw him drop another, followed him into a train, followed him out into another station, kept following him into and out of trains and corridors, saw the red-bearded man begin the return journey, pick up a sheet of yellow paper, write something on it and drop it again.
Kleinzeit picked up the paper, read:
Morrows cruel mock.
He put the paper in his pocket, hurried to catch up with the red-bearded man.
‘Excuse me,’ he said.
Redbeard looked at him, kept on walking. ‘You’re excused,’ he said. His accent was foreign. Kleinzeit remembered that in the dream his accent had been the same.
‘I dreamed about you,’ said Kleinzeit.
‘There’s no charge for that,’ said Redbeard.
‘There’s more to be said.’
‘Not by me.’ Redbeard turned away.
‘By me, then,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Can I buy you a coffee?’
‘If you’ve got the money you can buy one. I don’t say I’ll drink it.’
’Will you drink it?’
‘I like fruity buns,’ said Redbeard.
‘With fruity buns then.’
‘Right.’
They went into a coffee shop selected by Redbeard. Kleinzeit bought four fruity buns.
‘Aren’t you having fruity buns too?’ said Redbeard.
Kleinzeit bought a fifth fruity bun and two coffees. They sat down at a table by the window. Redbeard put his bedroll and carrier-bags in the corner behind his chair. Both stared into the street while drinking coffee and eating fruity buns. Kleinzeit offered a cigarette. They lit up, inhaled deeply, blew out smoke, sighed.
‘I dreamed about you,’ said Kleinzeit again.
‘As I said before, no charge,’ said Redbeard.
‘There’s no use beating about the bush,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘What’s all this with the yellow paper?’
‘You police?’
‘No.’
‘Bloody cheek then.’ Redbeard stared hard at Kleinzeit. His eyes were bright blue, intransigent like a doll’s eyes. Kleinzeit thought of a doll’s head lying on a beach, elemental like the sea, like the sky.
‘I picked up a sheet of yellow paper a couple of weeks ago,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘On it I wrote a man with a barrow full of rocks.’
‘Harrow full of crocks,’ said Redbeard without looking away.
‘“Morrows cruel mock,”’ said Kleinzeit. ‘What’s it mean?’.
Redbeard turned, stared out of the window.
‘Well?’
Redbeard shook his head.
‘You show up in my head,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘and you say, “Don’t come the innocent with me, mate.” ‘
Redbeard shook his head.
‘Well?’ said Kleinzeit.
‘If I dream you that’s my affair,’ said Redbeard. ‘If you dream me that’s your affair.’
‘Look here,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘don’t you come the innocent with me. You and your flaming pretensions.’
‘What do you mean, “pretensions”?’
‘Well, what else is it, I’d like to know,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘when you go about dropping yellow paper so that barrows full of rocks come out of my typewriter and I get sacked.’
‘Harrow full of crocks,’ said Redbeard. ‘You keep on interfering with me and I may yet have to sort you out.’
‘I interfere with you!’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Flashpoint’s dying words were “Arrow in a box”. I bought my glockenspiel at YARROW, Fullest Stock. There was never anything of that sort before your yellow paper.’ He gave Redbeard a cigarette, lit it for him, lit one for himself. Both smoked, stared out of the window.
Redbeard showed Kleinzeit his empty cup. Kleinzeit bought two more coffees and two more fruity buns. ‘Fruity buns, for that matter!’ he said. ‘The fat man ate fruity buns. What’re you, another ullage case?’
Redbeard stared at him while he ate the buns. ‘You!’ he said when he had finished chewing. ‘You’re no better than a little sucking baby. You bloody want answers to everything, everything explained, meanings and whatnot all laid on for you. What’s it to me what the yellow paper does to you? Do you care what it does to me? Of course you don’t. Why should you?’
Kleinzeit had no answer.
‘Right,’ said Redbeard. ‘There’s nothing to say. We’re all alone, those of us who are alone. Why do they have to lie about it?’
‘Who? About what?’
‘Newspapers and magazines. About how it is. Harry Solvent, for instance.’
‘The one who wrote Kill for a Living?’
‘Right,’ said Redbeard. ‘In the Sunday Times Magazine you see photos of him in his Robert Adam mansion.’
‘Pompwood.’
‘Right. There he is in the photos having a bath in a tub which is one of Tiepolo’s smaller chapel domes inverted, it’s about twenty fe
et across. The frescoes have been coated with perspex to make it waterproof. The drain plug, carved of pink coral, is fitted into Venus’s right nipple. The dome is set in a base of Parian marble blocks weighing twelve tons, from a temple of Apollo at Lesbos.’
‘Yes,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘I saw the photos.’
‘The caption under the picture of Solvent in his bath is: “Alone at the end of the day, Harry Solvent relaxes in his bath correcting the proofs of his new novel, Transvestite Express”’
‘Yes,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘What about it?’
‘He isn’t really alone, you see,’ said Redbeard. ‘Why can’t they say: “While the eighteen members of his household staff are variously occupied elsewhere in the mansion, Harry Solvent, in the presence of his agent Titus Remora, his solicitor Earnest Vasion, his research assistant Butchie Stark, his secretary and p.a. Polly Filla, his flower arranger Satsuma Sodoma, his masseur and trainer Jean Jacques Longjacques, his boyfriend Ahmed, Times photographer Y. Dangle Peep and his assistant N. Ameless Drudge, and Times writer Wordsworth Little, sits in his bath with proofs of his new novel Transvestite Express”? There’s a difference, and the difference matters.’
‘I’ve often thought the same,’ said Kleinzeit.
‘It’s bad enough in books,’ said Redbeard. ‘When Kill is alone in the submarine trapped on the bottom by Dr Pong’s radio-controlled giant squid …’
’He isn’t really alone because the giant squid is there,’ said Kleinzeit.
‘He isn’t really alone because Harry Solvent is there to tell about it,’ said Redbeard. ‘What I say is at least let Harry Solvent not be reported as being alone when he isn’t. That isn’t much to ask. It really is not much to ask at all.’
‘An entirely reasonable request,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Seemly in its moderation.’
‘What’re you sucking up to me for?’ said Redbeard. ‘I can’t do a bloody thing for you. Ordinary foolscap, eh?’
‘What about ordinary foolscap?’
‘I wasn’t born here, you know,’ said Redbeard. ‘Read a lot of stories from here as a child. Often a young man in the stories lived in a bare room, rough white walls, one peg for his coat, plain deal table, ream of ordinary foolscap. I didn’t know then that foolscap was a size, thought it was some kind of coarse rough paper that dunce caps were made of. Asked for it in shops, they didn’t know.’ He was talking louder and louder. People turned their heads, stared. ‘Got it into my head that rough A4 yellow paper might be foolscap, used to buy it with my pocket money. Even after I found out I stayed with the A4 yellow paper because I’d got used to it. Now I’m a yellow-paper freak. There bloody isn’t any bare room. Empty rooms yes. Bare ones no. You ever seen a bare room? Curtain rods and clothes hangers jingling in the cupboard. Plastic things with that special kind of dirt that plastic things get on them. No end of gear. Carpet sweepers with no handles, plastic toilet-brush holders. Ever find a plastic toilet-brush holder in a plain deal table story? Try to make a room bare and in five minutes three-year-old cans of dried-up paint leap into the larder. From where? You’d thrown everything out. Old shoes you’ve worn one time fill up the cupboard, jackets you’re too fat for. Your arm grows weak sliding things along the bar that you’ll never wear again, and they won’t go away. Move out and they flop along after you tied up with string. Not alone like the young man at the plain deal table with the ordinary foolscap. Bloody awful really alone with yellow paper, tons of rubbish. And you think you’ve got answers coming to you. What a baby. You and your Ibsen and your Chekhov. Maybe the revolver in the drawer’s for another play, you ever think of that? You think your three acts are the only three bloody acts there are? Maybe you’re the revolver in somebody else’s play, eh? Never thought of that, did you. It’s all got to mean something to you. Do I ask you to explain anything to me? No. Because I’m a bleeding man and I’ll take my bleeding lumps and get on with whatever it is I’m getting on with. Got enough answers for your fruity buns?’ He began to cry.
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