Catastrophe Practice (37 page)

In making her mind a blank, what she had hoped would come in would be —

The woman was coming towards her.

‘Hullo —'

‘Hullo —'

‘I wondered if it was you.'

Eleanor put a hand out to the baby.

Had she never wanted to kill such a girl as this: to take her by the hair; to hit her; to drag her on to a landing —

‘Hullo, my lovely —'

‘I can't get in to my house. The windows have been blown out'

Eleanor said to the baby ‘And how are you getting on, my angel?'

She thought — I last saw you in those huge hands —

She said ‘Where's Jason?'

‘I don't know.'

She had said to Max — And what do you know of the mechanisms that prevent it?

He had said — Prevent what?

She had thought — You don't want to prevent sickness?

She had not wanted to drag her —

She said ‘Would you like to come to my place?'

Lilia said ‘That would be terribly kind.'

— Something open —

— Like a hook —

— That goes both ways —

He had said — People would find, if it was necessary, their own ways of survival.

She said to Lilia ‘How old is he now?'

‘Nearly a year.'

‘Hullo, sunshine!'

She had said — Some people. Then — And what is it that would be necessary?

Lilia said ‘He thinks everything's lovely. He thinks everything exists for him, and he is good.'

Eleanor thought — Then it is you, as his environment, that has made him good.

They had turned down to a towpath by the river. The water moved sluggishly.

Eleanor said ‘Can I carry him?'

The baby held out his arms to her.

She said ‘That huge head!'

The baby had bright dark eyes. When she held it, it seemed to search for something within her forehead.

Lilia said ‘On my way here, I thought I heard someone shouting above rooftops.'

Eleanor said ‘I thought I saw something like a body floating in the river.'

Anderson had moved through streets with the can of film that he had been showing under his arm; had seen the fire above the rooftops with its arms up like Petrouchka; had waved and called as if in sympathy; had crossed some cobbles, past a clock-tower, to the edge of the green by the Old Science Buildings; had seen, in the entrance, the rubble like roots and concrete earth; had thought — Or like a cancer, O my children and my children's children. He had come to the rope of the cordon: had seen a policeman turning to send him back.

By standing still, and by peering into the half light as if to try to recognise the policeman personally; then by straightening, pleased, as if the recognition had delighted him; he thought he might make the policeman come towards him as if on the end of a piece of elastic and then fire him off, like a stone from a catapult, on his way round the universe —

He said ‘Ackerman: Professor Ackerman' quietly, as if it were a password; while the policeman was still almost out of earshot.

He thought — Perhaps I have got my can of film under my arm just so that I can say —

When the policeman was close to him he patted the can under his arm and said ‘I've been sent to get this. Or we're all in trouble!'

The policeman watched him with no interest or understanding behind his eyes.

Anderson stepped over the rope. Going past the policeman, towards the entrance to the basement with its iron roots and rubble, he thought — Do they shoot you in the back? Or am I covered by that figure flying above rooftops —

When he came to the edge of the rubble, he had to climb
over it to get to the entrance. He thought—Have I been clever? or am I now like Napoleon at Moscow. There were some firemen with crowbars and torches. He thought — The stage has collapsed; the orchestra is buried. He had to put his can of film down on the ground to get a hand-hold: he thought — Perhaps they will think it is a bomb. Or — I am preparing to be lowered down a cliff-face?

It was beyond the building that there had been the bells and lights flashing. He thought — Is it true, it is luck, that the scene of the fire is just elsewhere?

He climbed down steps, over rubble. No one stopped him. He thought — You act: no one jumps up on a stage —

— We know each other so well in this small world: but what of the audience?

He was climbing with difficulty down through a hole in the rubble. There were lights from the engines outside. He wondered — Perhaps acting is with one half of one's brain to the other, which is watching.

Bits of the ceiling had come down and were festooned like cobwebs. He was now on the level of the basement. The firemen with torches had moved away. He thought — You go along a corridor, in the dark, with your hands out; like one of those mad, confident statues —

There was a door, and a smooth surface, then another door, on his right. Somewhere, in his memory, was the door, at the end of the corridor, to the room where he had been keeping the main part of his film. The film at the moment was hanging in strips from the ceiling like cobwebs. Or like chromosomes, he imagined, waiting to be joined —

There was a faint light playing as if through a peep-hole somewhere along the passage.

He thought — But there would be no discovery, if you knew what you would find?

A quiet voice said ‘I can't'

A voice from far away said ‘Why not?'

— The first voice from the tomb —

— The second voice from a mountain-top —

Anderson thought — Or seeds that fall, like an apple, or like
droppings from a bird, in a laboratory.

The light from behind the pinhole elongated and faded and disappeared. From this, Anderson constructed — I am in the small hallway in the basement which, I remember, contains the door to the lift.

‘You've got —'

‘What —'

‘The inner —'

‘But not the outer —'

The voices were, again — far away, and then quietly: far away, then quietly. Anderson thought — If you laugh, does it make the whole network light up?

He made his way to the outer door to the lift-shaft. There was what seemed to be a crack in a rock. He put his ear against it. He thought — Or it is a woman, and I am listening for a baby.

‘Can you get back?'

‘No.'

‘Dear God —'

Anderson said in a sepulchral voice ‘You've got to go on.' He thought — Or you are carried away, screaming, in a strait-jacket.

The voice from far away said ‘Who's that?'

‘It seems unlikely —'

‘Can he get you out?'

Anderson thought he might say— Some grandson, I think, in Australia —

Then the voice which came from within the lift-shaft said ‘There should be a little key, in a glass case, somewhere on the wall, I think, to the left.'

Anderson thought — But did I not, a short time ago, want to kill you?

He said ‘I haven't got a torch.'

Jason's voice from within the lift-shaft said ‘Well I'd lend you mine, if you had one to get me out with.'

Anderson thought — That's witty.

Then — It is just men, and not women, who get themselves stuck in a lift-shaft?

He began groping round the hallway.

The voice from within the lift-shaft said ‘You put it into a little slot, that is shaped like a smile, at the top left-hand corner of the right-hand door.'

Anderson thought he might say — Doesn't putting into a slot mean some other thing?

Then — But did he sleep with her?

The voice from far away said ‘Is it really him?'

Anderson said ‘It depends, right or left, which way you're facing.'

Jason said ‘Well which way are you facing?'

Anderson's hand touched a small box on the wall of the hallway.

The voice from above said ‘What's he doing here?'

‘Looking for a key.'

‘Can he find it?'

‘I think so.'

Anderson thought — Should not God on a mountain-top speak to me directly?

— Is that not the orthodox position?

He opened the glass door of the box. He took out the key. He came to the door of the lift with it.

Jason said ‘There's a little opening —'

‘I know —'

The Professor said ‘How did he get in?'

Anderson said ‘I climbed.'

He thought — No one's ever climbed —

Jason said ‘I thought it was blocked up.'

‘Perhaps it was. But now there's an opening.'

He was feeling for the keyhole on the top of the door on the right.

He thought — So with one great jump —

‘Can he —'

‘What —'

‘Pull sideways —'

Anderson thought — Ah, I could leave you both trapped! He banged with the key against the slot and tried to pull the door sideways.

He thought — You go out of a door, along a corridor, in through the same door —

— You can tell the difference?

The door opened slighdy.

There was Jason, with the torch between his teeth, pushing the door sideways.

The torch shone into Anderson's eyes. He backed away, with his hands up.

He thought — But he would not have wanted to kill me?

Jason stepped out of the lift.

Anderson said ‘You said I could borrow your torch.'

Jason made a noise that was unintelligible.

Anderson followed Jason along the passage. There were lights, and shadows, like cobwebs.

Jason, having taken the torch out of his mouth, said ‘Didn't miners have a bird, or something, that they sent ahead of them along a passage?'

He handed the torch to Anderson, who went in front.

At the end of the passage there was the room with his film hanging in strips like chromosomes.

Anderson thought — But wasn't in fact one of the firemen, in the rubble, wearing a gas-mask?

Jason said ‘How's it going?'

‘What?'

‘The film.'

‘Oh, all right.'

He thought — Wife and kids?

He put the torch down on a table. He began unclipping strips from the ceiling and putting them in a cardboard box.

Jason sat on a table. He said ‘I don't think the fire's anywhere near here really'

Anderson said ‘Then what are you here for?'

There was a bellowing noise, as if from someone trapped in a red-hot iron bull, from the direction of the lift-shaft.

Jason said ‘He wants me to switch something on —'

‘Oh yes —'

‘Do you know what?'

‘Yes. In a moment, I'll do it.'

Jason had picked up the torch. There was a door on rollers to the next room. He pushed on it.

Anderson said ‘It's a film about people being able to look at
themselves and like it.'

Jason said ‘Like being able to?'

‘Yes.'

‘Still, would they like what they saw?'

Jason had got the door open. He went through. The next room was a laboratory with glass pipes and retorts and dials and wires. Jason shone the torch around.

Anderson said ‘It's not dangerous.'

‘But people might think it is —'

‘Right'

Jason shone his torch on a tray containing liquid. There were wires going into the tray a plate like something cooking.

Jason said ‘Little green men —'

— With moustaches —

Anderson, from the next room, could see Jason looking round the walls of the laboratory as if they were the walls of a cell.

Jason said'— Radioactive waste. Cancer-carrying bacteria —'

Anderson said ‘They'd think they liked it?'

There was the bellowing noise from down the passage again; as if from a god, or the man in the red-hot bull.

Jason said ‘Oh, and his notes.'

Anderson thought — But after all, what did you do with Judith?

He went through into the laboratory where Jason was shining his torch.

He said ‘But they'd have to get back to the truth sometime, wouldn't they?'

Jason said ‘Who?'

Anderson said ‘Ah, that's the question.'

Jason went back into the room where Anderson had been packing up his film.

He said ‘I've got to go now.'

Anderson said ‘Does everyone get what they want?'

Jason said ‘I think so: don't you?'

Anderson said ‘Can I keep your torch?'

Jason said ‘It's his anyway.'

When the crowd had panicked in the newspaper office because someone had shouted that a packet of newspapers might be a bomb, Judith was by a tea machine watching a nozzle pouring out liquid and a light going off and on; then she went out on to the landing of the outside staircase holding a cup of tea in either hand as if she were on a tightrope: but Lilia had gone. There was just the boy who had fallen into the courtyard. She thought — So why was it him; while we, and others, go on?

The crowd was dispersing to other doors and exits. People were kneeling by the boy on the cobbles. His head seemed to be underneath his arm.

Judith put down her cups of tea on the platform. She went down the iron steps and across the courtyard and out into the street. There were the bells and sirens of ambulances. She thought — It is by such ghostly music that an audience is drawn in, then rolled over, in the aisles?

The street of grey stone buildings down which she had walked some hours before with Anderson was to her right; it was cordoned off; it led to the area of wasteland and the bridge over the river. Beyond, there was the avenue of broken glass and plane trees. It is necessary, she thought, to keep some map in my mind: then I will have a picture at least of leaves blowing to the bonfire. He, Jason, had said — The reason why travellers came across each other so often in eighteenth-century novels was because there were so few travellers. And he, Anderson, had said — Or because they were writing novels. The fire-engines seemed to be concentrated round a corner on the green in front of the Old Science Buildings. There was a seventeenth-century façade with people talking in twos and threes: she thought — Or in conical hats, like conspirators. A police
man was carrying something round and flat like a bomb: she thought — Or a reel of film.