1982 Janine (23 page)

He set fire to a corner of the pound note, dropped it on the desktop, quenched the flame after a minute with the flat of his hand, placed the charred fragment of paper ceremoniously in front of Agnes then went back to his own desk shivering and making an ach-ach-ach sound like a parked lorry in bad condition with the engine running. I feel fine. These pills are definitely harmless, there is nothing at all wrong with me. All the changes of heartbeat and temperture, the cold and hotsweatcetera were causeby nothnbut funkan, but funkanan (you gibber) THE SWEATS WERE CAUSED BY NOTHING BUT FUNK AND (GOD HELP ME) FUNKANANANANANANANANANAN
HYSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTERIA
good to see you again folks thought we had lost you back there just
as things were getting interesting. “But Momma,” says the
Doctor, “the committee feels that a change of role may do you good.
Of course at first you will not enjoy it, nobody ever does. But that
phase is temporary. You have helped many girls through it. Do
what our new director suggests!” “You are out of your mind if you
think I'm taking that crap from you,” says Momma shakily and
walks to the door, it jerks open, she squeals for who comes in but
coalblack naked sixfootsix ME with this huge erect dong and I

 

 

boa?

All over
equally aching
in what feels like every nerve muscle bone
every part of me except the teeth.

But I will live,

And I'm not sorry either.

And I am completely clean! Not a drop missed the basin.
A miracle.
Thank you mother.
Thank you father.
Early training counts.

Turn on taps, flush down mess.
Complex mess.
White pills, green peas, diced carrot.
Rest of dinner indistinguishable but all there.
My stomach must have gone on strike quite early tonight.
It knew something bad was on the way before I did.
Wise old stomach.
I won't be so nasty to you again.

But what a typical piece of human daftness, to poison myself in a fit of despair because I could no longer stand work that I hate, work that was killing me! Idiocy.
Typically human.

Some scum still sticks, scrape loose with fingers.
Swirl away, whirl away down plughole.
Wash fingers – dry fingers.
All clean. Good. Stop tap.
To bed. Lie down. Slip under sheet.
Good.

Ache. Ache. Ache. Ache. Yahoohay. Ache.
Slip asleep?

Yes.

Slip,

slip aslee

burning? No heat, no smoke, no burning here. Another dream then.

I sat in an open sportscar speeding over the small wooded hills east of Glasgow between Twechar and Kilsyth. It was
a clear cold sunlit autumn day, the colours inexplicably bright. The sky was pure cold cold blue blue blue, the leaves on the trees a yellow like none I have known, leaves like steady flames undimmed by the sunlight, too yellow to be golden but dusted a little with gold in the distance. The best yellow. And under the yellowleaved branches grew mild green pure dewy turf between orangebrown clumps of bracken, crimsonbrown and purplebrown drifts of fallen leaves, khaki carpets of withered grass. The car, veering and twisting between the treetrunks, followed no track but went smoothly by going very fast. It skimmed through bracken-clumps and crossed ditches and hedges without the slightest jolt. I felt recklessly happy, recklessly sure of the driver's skill. She was driving dangerously but well, I knew I would laugh aloud and still love her if the car crashed. Which happened. Bang! we struck a tree. I was flung through many screens of yellow leaves and came down flat on my back in an open field. I lay looking at a small high white cloud in the huge skyblueness and suddenly a voice near my elbow, speaking so distinctly that it woke me up, said, “His room is burning.” It is
not
burning yet these words seemed, still seem very hopeful. I don't know why.

Awake again with less than an hour till daylight, more than two hours till breakfast. What shall I do with my mind? What story is left for me to tell?

It behoves a man every so often, from time to time, now and again, to speak out and inform the world (that is to say, himself) just what his game is; and if (having been carried by the prevailing current up shit creek after mislaying the paddle) he has no game of his own and finds life pointless, it even more behoves him to tell truthfully how he reached this pointless place in order to say Goodbye to it and go elsewhere. If he wants a change. Which I do.

The story of
how I went wrong
is called From the Cage to the Trap and describes events which took place in my eighteenth year of life during certain months of 1953, particularly those three months and three weeks when I was richer and happier than kings presidents millionaires etcetera, for my talent and personality were recognised – I had a good
friend – I enjoyed the only true wife of my body – became one of a noble community which depended upon and honoured my genius – and at last captured the bride of my fancy, a glamorous and enchanting actress. Unluckily these months also contain my meanest and most cowardly actions, actions I have been trying to forget ever since. But as a radical friend once said to me in a voice shrill with conviction, “Those who forget their own history are condemned to repeat it – as farce.” She was quoting Marx but I don't care who I get helpful hints from. Only socialists refuse to learn from their opponents. I don't mean the ordinary corrupt socialist politicians, I mean faithful hopeful innocents like my father. The pureinheart socialist believes he can learn nothing from his opponents because these will shortly vanish since they are WRONG and therefore somehow, even now, a thing of the past. Why am I into politics again?

Funk, of course. I am postponing the moment when I start telling my story in the difficult oldfashioned way, placing events in the order they befell so that I recall the purchase of my new suit before, and not after, I seduce Denny in it. This had better be done, though it will be hard. When we cannot see our way in the world of course we circle circle circle until we stumble on a straight stretch of it, but then, even though that stretch was left behind years ago, let us use it to go
forward
for a change. Straight movement leads to pain, of course. As a leader of the Scottish Educational Authority once said to me as I moved toward his desk on trembling knees, wondering if he was going to belt me, and how much, and why, “To travel hopefully, Jock, is better than to arrive.” But if we prolong hope by circling round and round the spot which was once our destination hope dies of its own uselessness. We have avoided the disappointment which comes from finding out about a place, but also the regret, the delight, the renewal of departure. I once said a very witty thing to a man who asked what I got from work which made life worth living. After thinking for a while I said, “The travelling expenses.”

He laughed and said, “Well, I suppose you see more of the country than the rest of us, but is that all you get out of life?” I said, “It's the main thing, but it also gives me security. I
am heavily insured against several very nasty possibilities.” And being a bit of a Bolshie this man said slyly, “Are you insured against the collapse of the insurance system?”

I said, “Of course! I vote conservative, like most of us.”

I am travelling in circles again. But it
should
be possible for me to tell a straightforward story. I have been practising since the age of twelve and perhaps earlier.

Perhaps earlier. When I was thirteen or fourteen or fifteen Mum suddenly said, “Why do you never talk to me now?”

“What about?”

“What you're thinking.”

I did not say, “I can't do that because half of it's obscene,” I said, “I'm sure I talk to you as much as I ever did.”

She sewed a few more stitches then said quietly, “You've forgotten.”

“Forgotten what?”

“The stories you told me. You imagined that queer little people lived behind the grate and inside the furniture. The ones inside the cooker were the chefs and made the food turn out properly, and the ones inside the lavatory pan were the dirty ones and you had fits of the giggles when you told me about those. I didn't always know what you were saying. The ones inside the wireless set made up the news and played the music, and the one inside the clock made the hands go round. He was called Obby Pobbly and he told the others what to do. You were very keen on that clock–” she nodded to the electric clock on the mantelpiece – “because it didn't go ticktock like the one in the parlour but made a grumbling noise which is a bit like Obby Pobbly. But you've forgotten all that, it seems.”

I could not disagree. If I had not completely forgotten Obby Pobbly I wanted to forget him for I had started telling myself stories about a very free attractive greedy woman who, confident in her powers, begins an exciting adventure and finds she is not free at all but completely at the disposal of others. As I aged that story grew very elaborate. The woman is corrupted into enjoying her bondage and trapping others into it. I did not notice that this was the story of my own life. I avoided doing so by insisting on the
femaleness
of the main character. The parts of the story which came to
excite me most were not the physical humiliations but the moment when the trap starts closing and the victim feels the torture of being in two minds: wanting to believe, struggling to believe, that what is happening cannot be happening, can only happen to someone else. And I was right to be excited by that moment because it is the moment when, with courage, we change things. Why
should
Janine feel helpless when she realises Max has lied to her and is abducting her? He is driving a fast car along a motorway, his hands are occupied, if she removes one of her ridiculous shoes and threatens his eye with the heel he will certainly stop or change direction if he sees she is serious. But she is not used to acting boldly, she finds it easier to pretend Max is honest and decent, hoping her act will make him more so, and thus he drives her into the mire. My fancies keep reliving that moment of torture for Janine because I have never fully faced it in my own life and I am travelling in a circle again.

Telling a straightforward story is like cooking a meal, hard to do thoroughly if you are doing it for yourself alone. I must use my imagination again, deliberately this time, to conjure up a suitable audience.

God?

You've gone very quiet. You were raving away goodstyle back there, I was too excited about other things to hear the words before you told me to put three fingers down the gullet but I recognised the wee voice. You've been here for a long time, sabotaging my exotic sexdreams with old memories of the homely facts, upsetting my arguments with awkward questions slipped in among them (so to speak) between brackets. You sounded more like Groucho Marx or a critical housewife than the Universal Frame-maker. Which is all right by me. I hate Big Daddies. What I need just now is what we all need, the unprejudiced ear of someone too wise to be chilled by wickedness or softened by suffering. My wickedness and suffering are average for a middle-aged man in these parts, so if you curse, forgive or bless me you will be committing a serious irrelevancy. I need to see myself clearly. Guilt, self-pity, self-satisfaction will equally prevent this. Your old book says you are the source of light – help me become less mysterious to myself.