Breaktime (4 page)

Some Truths About Ditto

In the past few hours a number of things have become clear to me. Reaching this understanding has been painful. It is not comfortable being honest with oneself. I have no intention of reliving the painful self-examination, nor of plodging about in a self-pitiful discussion about the things I have come to realize. Instead I shall simply enumerate the Truths.

1. I find myself both loving and hating my father. This appals me and I wish to do something about it. Yet I know that tonight’s catastrophe is likely to be repeated—with even more terrible results—because neither of us can cross the barrier of our self-created antagonisms. We cannot, to be plain, talk to each other openly and honestly. And we both fear to show the love we have for each other. Why, I do not know. But struggling to know has decided me about:

2. I must somehow get away from home, for a few days at least. The distance is necessary to help me sort out where I am. More: what I am. I feel this as a bird, perhaps, feels the need to migrate. A compulsion. Do it, or die. It is as though home were making me impotent.

3. Which brings me to Helen. I know now, looking back, that the frustrations bred by her letter, my randy desire unsatisfied, spawned the irritation which spoke at supper and consummated Dad’s anger. I want to have it off with Helen, I know. But do I fear the act? If not, why have I not? Starkly, the truth: yes. A truth not easily told.

4. And here around me as I scribble this laundry list of emotional dirty linen are the symbols of my rag-bag being. Last year’s toys, other people’s gimcrack. What is mine? Me? My own? I feel like a caterpillar chrysalised and about ready to slough off the carapace, that imprisoning lumber from a former life. I will not be so contained. I will not hide among the detritus of other people’s beings, or settle for childhood’s pleasures. I want more than that. And now I know I must work my muscles to get free.

5.
But
I have been too cautious. Perhaps that is why I feel so constrained now, when Morgan (so it seems to me) does not. I have not experienced enough for myself. I must set about looking for new moments. Must widen my repertoire of living.

6. So I have devised a plan: Next week is half term, seven days in convenient gift. I shall go camping. That will get me away from home, give me the distance I need to begin sorting out myself and my father. And I shall look for experience, welcoming what comes—pure sensation if that is all that’s going—for action, event, drama. I shall test my caution a little. And the main event shall be:

7. The sexy Helen. I shall invite her to go camping (ho ho) too, meet her half way, at mid-point, pointing at her mid, no doubt too, for an encounter with but one goal, one eye to bull. In short—though at pleasant length, I hope—I shall lay her, the first that ever shall be.

And all this shall be raw material to my other purpose: an answer to Morgan’s misminded Charges.

Document

Reply to Morgan’s Charges

It is crap that literature (I know: you mean fiction) is crap. I could Easily reply to you in kind. But that is not the best answer. It would only be an argument. And you, Morgan, being an activist, a doer – as there ought, by your own confession, to be many able to bear witness – prefer to be shown, a demonstration.

So shall it be: I shall demonstrate.

I intend a jaunt. What I have not recorded there, however, is that I also intend recording the events of my jaunt, as they happen (or shortly thereafter). And this record shall be my fiction, the raw material for it anyway.

But to counter your charges, my fiction shall obey certain rules:

1. It shall not be written in the manner of our logical stories. It shall take what form it cares for at any moment – which means whatever form I feel like giving it at the time of writing. I do this because you feel fiction is contrived, designed to fit certain pre-set ends. I shall use whatever styles of prose – or verse, or writing of any kind – I wish to use and which seems best for what I want to say.

2. I shall record as honestly as I can what it is I experience and wish to set down. And I shall set something down
however
insignificant it may seem at the time, and with or without connections with anything that has gone before.

3. We shall see then(to take your charges on):

a) whether the story of my jaunt is entertaining or not;

b) whether my experiences are lies, though they are certainly a fiction – aren’t they?

c) whether the ends are tied up or not, and whether their logicality is so weakening;

d) whether this game is a game at all, or a pretence; or not. Whether it is unlike your and my life or not.

Maybe I’ll surprise you.

Maybe I’ll surprise myself.

Maybe it will all be quite unexpectedly unexpected.

Who knows?

But before I begin there is a question to be answered:

Who is Ditto?

Ditto is

Thin, wiry, given to being lanky.

Brown-haired, undistinguishedly cut, worn long over the ears, fringy and thickish.

Green-eyed, tending to short-sightedness. (He ought to have visited an optician by now but loathes medical treatment of any kind, dental most of all, and is vain about the owlish effect given him by glasses.)

Slim nose, wide mouth, lips tending to thickness, above a chin that is square and juts too much for his liking.

Complexion pale. (You look a bit peaky healthy adults usually tell him.)

Right-handed. When interested in something requiring manual skill is reasonably able; when uninterested becomes manipulatively incompetent, a state of affairs he calls being psychologically spastic.

Dresses to the left—as he looks at things.

Has thin legs he prefers to conceal in trousers, rarely venturing into the machismo of showy beach clothes.

Feet, size 9 narrow.

Height, five feet eight inches (work the metric out for yourself, genius).

Total income per week: £3.00 pocket money from mother (which makes him feel guilty under the present circumstances but which he rarely refuses); £4.00 on average from work as window-cleaner’s mate, an earned income dependent on the weather and the mood of his employer as well as on the fickleness of his will to get out of bed each Saturday morning early, as:

Hates getting up in mornings and likes staying up late at nights.

Temper uneven. When discouraged tends to sulkiness. When on a high, tends to impulsive loquacity.

Generally, and when on best behaviour, much liked by mothering older women. Among contemporaries, liked by a small group of those who know him well and by everyone else, as are most people, entirely ignored. Feels no need to belong to what he calls ‘mobs of people’.

So far, if you are none the wiser you are a great deal better
informed
and may add in the space provided any other attributes you think important and which you note or deduce from a study of these pages, previous and to come:

Of course, we must not forget:

A virgin. Though, as we have seen, a virgin not without urgent desire to change his state, nor without surrogate practice in preparation for that transition when it comes, if you’ll pardon the pun.

Three Conversations

1

Hello.

Hello?

That Helen?

Yes . . . Who’s this?

Dee.

Dee?

Yes. Dee.

O! Dee! Well, hello!

I got your letter.

I’m glad
.

Got your . . . picture.

Like it?

Certainement. Très jolie.

I didn’t do it
.

Eh?

French. Didn’t do it. Not clever enough
.

O, ah . . . but beautiful.

But not clever?

Did I say that?

By omission
.

Hey, listen . . .

Can you do anything else with the telephone?

There have been attempts.

Communications pervert
.

I wanted to ask you.

That’s not possible on the phone either
.

You’re a telephonic hussy.

Spoken like a true rapist
.

Listen, Helen, I’ve got a plan. This next week is half term for us. You too?

Yes
.

Well, I’m going camping . . .

Really! Darling, you should have told me. I’d have understood
.

Stop foolin’, will ya. I’ve got only one more tenpence left. I wondered if you’d like to come along. Or rather, meet me half way?

Do you ever talk in anything but double whatsits?

Only when people don’t think in them.

Parry. I think, though, I catch your . . . shall we say, meaning?

Ach, zo. And?

Love to
.

Great. Here’s the plan . . .

2

Hello, love
.

Hi.

You all right
?

Sure. You?

Tired
.

Course.

Been home long?

Half-an-hour I suppose.

Telephoned about your dad yet?

Not since this morning.

I rang at one o’clock
.

How was he?

About the same, they said. Comfortable as could be expected. Whatever that means. Poor man
.

Don’t cry, Ma. He’ll come through.

You coming with me to the hospital tonight?

Course.

Good lad. He’ll want to see you
.

Next week is half term.

You’ll be home then
.

Well . . . I thought, if you can manage . . . I thought I might go camping.

O?

Well, it’s something for school as a matter of fact. A project, sort of.

Dad won’t be out of hospital for a few days yet. Not till I get back anyway. I’ll be back before they let him home, I mean.

I see. Probably
.

Would you mind?

You won’t be far from home, will you? Just in case
.

Same place as I went with Morgan last year. I can phone the hospital every day. And if you . . . I could get home easily.

Your dad’ll miss you
.

He’ll be all right, Ma. He’ll be well looked after. But what about you?

Me? O, I’ll be all right. I can manage. Someone has to
.

I always have
.

You go camping, love. The break will do you good. Do you good to have a change and some fresh air for a few days
.

I’ll help you with the supper. Then we’ll go and see him.

Ta, love
.

3

Hello, Dad.

Hello, son
.

Did I wake you?

No, dozing, that’s all. Nowt else to do here all day
.

Good to see you.

Aye?

Sorry I couldn’t come in with Mother. They only let us in one at a time. Ration us, you see!

Aye. Anyway, makes it like two visits, ’stead of one
.

Feeling better?

Not so bad
.

They look after you?

Fine. Fine. Not like home, you know. But they do very well
.

What about the other patients? Do any of them talk to you?

Haven’t felt much like talking yet
.

Dad, I’m sorry about the . . . the other night, you know.

Aye? Me too
.

Not much sense in crying over spilt milk, is there?

Suppose not.

Looking after your mother all right?

She doesn’t take much looking after, Dad, you know that. I just get under her feet, really.

All the same, me in here, you’re the man in the house. She’ll need all the company she can get
.

She manages very well, Dad. Really. In fact, if I was out of the way as well she’d get a bit of peace and quiet for a change.

It can’t be easy for her, me in here
.

It’s a rest for her.

She must worry. You know how she is
.

It’s a break from her usual grind, Dad. Change is as good as a rest.

She always did worry too much, your mother. A wonder she’s not in here ’stead of me
.

I brought you some grapes. Least, Mum bought them. I carried them.

Thanks
.

When she left you just now she had to go off to the social security about something or other.

Couldn’t you have gone for her?

They said it had to be her.

Bloody bureaucracy
.

Dad, I have to go away for a day or two.

Go away? What for?

I have to. Sort of school work, you see.

School work?

A project. Only a day or two.

Couldn’t you explain? About me in here. Your mother on her own
.

Mam will be fine. It won’t be for long. And it’s the last chance before A levels.

Your exams? Can’t go wrong with them. But she’ll be on her own
.