Authors: Nigel Dennis
Well, young lady (if such you are), I said to myself: you’ve got into the lion’s den all right. I then opened a large wardrobe in the bedroom and was astonished to see hanging from the door-rail a black beard exactly like Violet’s father’s, with hooks to go over the ears. Equally interesting was a wide range of men’s suitings – cut, I must say, with just a touch of effeminacy; but how else, in view of the contours,
can
one cut a man’s suit to fit a woman? They ranged from plus-fours to very distinguished evening-dress, including a concertina hat and an opera cloak. There was also a choice of swagger-canes, knobkerries, and blackthorn walking-sticks; and there were shoes without number, mostly the sort of brogues that men nowadays find too heavy.
I might have dallied for hours, fingering these coarse stuffs and these trim appurtenances of a man-about-town, had I not decided to explore the second, smaller wardrobe. I gave such a gasp when I opened the door, because a wave of scent poured out and I found myself staring at a row of expensive dresses and nightdresses, with a bottom rail fairly hidden by sparkling high-heeled shoes, wonderful open-toed sandals, and slippers of every kind, from sleek to furry. It was simply too much
for me: without a second thought I whipped off my jacket and trousers and tried on an absolutely ravishing evening-dress.
I say ‘tried on’; but put-on would be the better description. For no sooner had I got it over me and was tripping gaily to the long mirror to fall in love with myself (which is what try-on really means) than I heard the terrifying sound of a key turning gently in the living-room door.
I knew it was not Violet: I would have heard her thunderous steps. Who was it, then? I stood, my mouth warbling little moans of terror, the back of one palm pressed against my lips. Infinitely slowly, the door opened; at last, a terrifying feline face was poked cautiously into the room. On seeing me, it gave a scream of rage, burst in, and without a word of explanation ran five sharp finger-nails down each side of my face. ‘So you’re the one, are you?’ it screamed, grasping me by the hair (which fortunately was navy-cut) and attempting to throw me into the fire: ‘Oh, what I’ll do to you, you sneaking little harpy, you two-timing little chorus-girl, you little female ant, you runty little slip, you smirking snippet off a Chiaparelli march-past! And in
my
dress,
my
own sea-wave taffeta! Oh, oh!’ She began to rip it off me, leaving me exposed in my woollen combinations and striped suspenders, the sight of which seemed to add to her rage, causing her to scream: ‘Oh, a double-harpy, a witch in man’s pants, a little Violet’s monkey, a suspendered copy twice removed!’ At this, I found my voice – which, much to my surprise, emerged almost in a deep baritone. ‘You get out of here, you beastly girl!’ I bellowed: ‘do you think I can’t defend myself? How’s that, and that …?’ and, oh dear, I gave her a good old one-two with the left and right, and when I had her rocking seized one of Violet’s heaviest brogues and went at her with it, roaring like a bull. But next minute she was gone: I heard her squeals ringing down the stairs. For a moment I stood panting, brogue in hand; then in response to an angry cry from an American corporal on the lower floor: ‘Hey, you guys! A little less—noise if you don’t mind!’ I slammed-to the door and fell back into my chair.
Now, my tears began to flow again; I touched my poor scratched cheeks with my palms and lamented my miserable condition. If this is how dogs behave, I thought, I would rather be something else – and I had been saying this to myself, between sobs, for quite half a minute before it dawned on me that for the first time I was questioning a tenet
of my father’s. At this, guilt rolled over me in waves and I abandoned myself utterly to sobs and groans.
Thus occupied, rolled-up in a cocoon of self-pity and self-accusation, I did not hear the door open – only a man’s squeaky voice saying: ‘Hullo, dear!
Not
idle tears?
Do
let Harold help you. Harold
loves
to help.’
He was the slimmest thing you ever saw, with blond hair like silk. You could see right through his skin to the bewitching little bones underneath: he would have made a delicious feast at a banquet of cannibal elves. His hands, which he held before him wrist up and fingers down, were limp as cheesecloth, and instinct told me that his purpose in thus displaying them was to let them precede him into a strange place and give advance evidence of his utter harmlessness. I saw at once that I must take a strong masculine line with him, so I stood upright and said sharply: ‘What are you doing here, you shrimp? Did Violet not tell you to stay away?’
He giggled like anything and answered: ‘No, dear, you know
quite
well
she didn’t. But of course you are absolutely right to suggest she did. It shows that although you don’t know
her
one bit, you do understand
me.
And understanding is
so
much more important than knowledge, I always think.’
This put me on my guard. People who can deliver this sort of talk at a moment’s notice are always able to take care of themselves, no matter how limply they may dangle their hands. Clearly, my visitor was disguised. But as what? I couldn’t imagine.
‘I really think,’ he said, looking at me tactfully under his long eyelashes, ‘that you should put a little more
on.
But not on my account. On the contrary, if woollen combinations are your preference, nothing, absolutely nothing in the world, would persuade me to utter the smallest criticism, let alone the least
reproach.’
I was now in a quandary. What, if anything, should I put on? Skirts or trousers? I am no fool, and I saw very quickly that this naughty little fop was attempting to shame me into declaring my sex. So I replied very coolly: ‘Thank you, I prefer to remain as nature made me. May I ask your business?’
‘Such an
awful
old fright,’ he answered, ‘isn’t he?’ and pointed at Violet’s father. ‘It simply gives me
gooseflesh
to look at him. One can almost
see
him
wielding
the knout. On some bare slave.’
He shuddered, and gave me a very appealing, humorous look. It melted me a little because it suggested that poor buttercups like ourselves do manage to keep up our spirits with little jokes about the boots that crush us. So I asked him: ‘Are you a friend of Violet’s?’
‘I’m not sure that
friend
is
quite the word,’ he replied fussily, working his little face through a series of grimaces and leaving little lines and wrinkles behind which he carefully smoothed out again with his finger-tips. ‘There now, look what you’ve done: you’ve given me crows-feet,’ he said petulantly, glancing into a little mirror which he drew from his pocket. ‘No. I
adore
Violet, but friendship is rather
different.
I never think of Violet at all, never give her a second’s thought, until I am feeling dispirited and crushed. Then, I have a sudden vision of those refectory-table legs, those square hips, that crimson face, and that hair like pig’s bristles. I rush to her for mother-love. One glance at her is enough to reduce me to sheer jelly. I never leave her without feeling that there is more hope and serenity in the outside world than there was when I fled from it. But this time, oddly enough, I have come to ask her
advice.
’
‘It seems odd to me,’ I said tartly, ‘that you should come for advice to one whom you don’t credit with much intelligence.’
‘But, dear, she
has
no intelligence. She
lay
on it ages ago, like a
sow,
my dear, and
crushed
it, absolutely
drove
it into the mud of her sty. It made her feel
vulnerable.
After all, let’s be
fair
to Violet: what does she
want
with intelligence?
All
she wants is people to prod her respectfully in the hams and say: “There’s a prize boar if ever I saw one.” That’s really the trouble nowadays, you know. God forbid that I should object to the sexes having changed places, but I do think sometimes that the women are going a
little
far. Let them be men by all means; I gladly abdicate
that
exhausting role. But must they be Visigoths? Do they have to
look
so repulsive? Do they have to carry imitation to the point of
parody
?
I, for one, am never amused by Violet’s famous parlour-trick.’
‘To which of them do you refer?’ I asked cleverly.
‘I mean the one with the policeman. I simply
crawl
under the table … But never mind. I suppose I’m old-fashioned. Today, I had hoped to consult her about my play. There’s a part with two Amazons fighting over a captive. I simply can’t imagine what to make one of them
say in the heat of a particular moment. Perhaps that depends on the sex of the captive.’
‘So you write
plays?
’ I asked, rather pleased to have the conversation on a higher level.
‘Only
a
play. It’s one I’ve always had.’ He sighed. ‘It really is going to astonish people when it’s performed. It is so entirely new.’
‘In what way?’
‘Well, you see, it’s an interpretation of contemporary life disguised as a tragedy of the age of Pericles. It starts with a porter coming on and saying how corrupt everything is in Athens and that if the king doesn’t take propitiatory steps immediately, there’s bound to be a seven-years’ famine. The chorus takes up this theme and goes on about famine for a long time. At last the king comes on, with his advisers and mother and so-on, and they decide there’s simply no doubt any more; they
must
get a directive from the oracle. The chorus are very pleased and chant a long time about the wisdom of this decision, but you can tell by a rather malicious grimness in their tones – you know what choruses
are
– that the king’s in for a nasty shock. And
how
right they are, my dear! The oracle looks-up some gizzards and tells him that the only way he can save the city is by sacrificing the first person he meets when he gets outside.’
‘Surely there is nothing new in this?’ I said. ‘I seem to have read it all my life.’
‘Oh no you haven’t, dear. Who do you think is the first person the king meets on leaving the oracle?’
‘Someone he is very fond of, of course.’
‘Exactly. Well –
it’s
his
mother.’
He stared at me with a look of maniacal triumph. But when he saw that I was unmoved, even puzzled, he began to explain desperately: ‘You see, she was so worried about what the oracle would say that instead of staying in
bed
as her son told her to do – she has a weak heart, you see – she secretly hobbled to the temple. In fact, she listened at the keyhole. So when he comes out with his sword drawn, she proffers her naked breast. It’s going to be
the
most dramatic moment since Oedipus screamed – and
so
much more up-to-date. Every thread of life as we live it today, every vital question, will be drawn, as by invisible wires, to this incredible, unanswerable, unresolvable moment. The king must choose between his mother and Athens: that is to say, between
mother and
art.
It’s sheer horror! Don’t ask me which he plumps for. Every time I think of his agony I cry so much that I can’t go on writing. That’s why I’m just concentrating on the odd bits
pro
tem.,
like the Amazon battle.’
‘Is his mother an Amazon?’
‘Oh, my dear,
yes
!
In her prime she’s been
something
– sacrificed and eaten most of her children, castrated Herakles, netted and boiled four husbands. The chorus sings a
complete
account of her career while she has her ear to the keyhole. But I see it’s all far above your head. You don’t grasp it at all. Not that I do, myself. I would much rather not write the play at all.’
‘Then why not drop it?’
‘How can I, dear? Don’t be
too
obtuse. I must know who I am, mustn’t I?’
‘Surely your own play isn’t going to tell you?’
‘Of course not, dear; it’s the critics who’ll tell me. At the moment I don’t exist; I don’t even know what to
become.
But once my play’s done, I’ll know. One critic will say: “Harold Snatogen reveals himself as an embodiment of the fashionable anti-Moon Goddess revival.” Another will say: “In Snatogen we see what Hegel called …” and then he’ll tell what Hegel called. After that it will be quite simple: I shall become the most flattering definition. You see, nowadays you can’t hope to do
everything
yourself.
You
produce the little boys, as it were, and the critics tell you what you’re made of. Once you’ve been told, you just sail ahead, being yourself. It’s the first little boy that matters.’
‘So you are another who insists on being defined,’ I said angrily. ‘I seem to be the last of the liberal humanists. You are nothing but an inverted Philistine.’
‘Not
really?
’ he exclaimed excitedly, seizing my hands. ‘Oh, if only you were an expert in such matters! If only I could trust your judgement! But I need a more authoritative definition than yours. And it has to be
printed.
Speech is
useless.’
We sat in silence, he sadly stroking away his wrinkles, I plucking ridges in my combies. The gap that separates defined men and women is as nothing to that which stands between two inhabitants of the
demi
monde
who are not agreed on a common centre. I felt that no matter how long we sat there – talking, sympathizing, exchanging views – we
would never be anything but strangers, sharing nothing but a common twilight. It was a relief to both of us, I think, to hear Violet’s boots clumping up the stairs and the crash of her hips against the banisters.
‘I thought,’ she said, ‘I told you to let nobody in.’
Harold did not wait. With a burst, he shot under her arm and vanished down the stairs.
‘Don’t blame me,’ I replied hotly. ‘What about that girl who has a key? Look what she’s done to me.’
Violet stepped forward. She looked at the scratches on my face. She ran her eyes down my combinations. She looked at the ripped taffeta on the carpet. Then she drew back her left fist and smote me.