Martha, sitting with her legs stretched out, her arms behind her, resting her weight on her palms, said to him: ‘Do you know what it is you are really wanting? ’
The man now kneeled by her, became a very thin, gently-smiling man with soft-falling fair hair. But she knew he wanted to dominate and control.
‘Are you sure, ’ he said, ‘that you oughtn’t to have a rest or something? ’
‘Yes, I am, ’ said Martha crossly.
‘Well, if you are sure …’
‘Do you know what it is you really want? ’ inquired Martha. For now it seemed extremely urgent that she should tell him, that he should understand, and that he should by this be saved from his own varieties of foolish behaviour. She could do this by simply
telling
him. (Just as if what she had been learning, basically, was not that one has to experience to understand.)
‘No, you tell me, ’ he said, smiling.
‘You want someone to boss you. To dominate you.’
His mouth fell in out of his smile and became determined not to show annoyance.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I know so.’
At the door, the indolent girl crossed her legs differently, and laughed, so as to demonstrate her agreement.
‘That is
quite
true, I think, Bob, ’ she said, in purest Kensington.
‘It is not at
all true
.
‘
‘Yes, ’ said Martha. ‘All you young block leaders, you simply can’t wait to hand yourselves and your disciples over to the nearest guru or gauleiter. Blind leading the blind.’
‘I am sure you’d feel better for a cup of soup or something. Olive, how about some of that soup we made for lunch? ’
‘Do you want some soup? ’ Olive asked Martha.
The baby began to complain. Olive parked him on one beautiful hip, and jiggled the hip. It looked like a kind of dance-a onesided or crippled shimmy. Her breasts swayed and marched, one, two, one, two.
Martha fell back on the floor and laughed. She laughed, and laughed.
Stopping laughing, she noted that Bob waited, smiling, to be told why she laughed. Behind his head, a ceiling moulding looked like a square halo. She laughed again.
‘Do you know what a halo is? ’ she inquired. For she had understood in exactly that moment what a halo was.
‘Certain people have haloes. They have white light or yellow light around their heads. Instead of dirty-breath green or angry red or efficiency grey.’
‘That’s interesting, ’ he smiled.
The baby began to half-laugh, half-cry the way babies do when they are being jollied along by mother or somebody and they feel obliged to laugh but really they are angry and would like to have
been allowed to hit, or bite, or scratch. A sobbing laugh. A laughing sob.
‘I don’t want to be rude, ’ said Martha, with extreme, and indeed finicky politeness, ‘but I haven’t got all that much time, because Rita is coming soon. She’s Maisie’s daughter. No, of course, you wouldn’t know Maisie. And I’ve got to get through this lot without putting myself into a loony-bin-time’s running out.’
‘Ah, ’ he said, ‘I do see.” He unfolded his legs upwards under him and again became a beanstalk reaching to the ceiling.
Martha saw that he would go off, quarrel with the girl, who would not bring her soup (now she saw this she was sorry, her stomach raged with hunger) and that they would not, or not soon, come back. They felt that she, Martha, was probably in need of help; they did not want to break their own code of social behaviour by calling doctor or police or the carpenter from downstairs who would, or might do this: so it would be simplest if they did not come back to see Martha too soon. Blessed are the cowards and the indolent: what a lot of trouble they save.
The interruption into the room’s activity changed it. The Hater retreated a bit.
I’m in Bosch country. I know where Bosch got his pictures. Good Lord, look at that
…
Is it always here
? (
There? Where.) I can see why those books say you should not get too interested in this. You could spend your life just watching television
.
Bosch country. If I could paint, and I painted this I would be a forger. Are forgers people who plug into Bosch country
?
Why am I so stupid. Have understood. If I didn’t know better and I plugged into Hater by accident, I’d stay a Hater. Did Hitler plug into Hater by accident? (For instance.) A nation can get plugged into-something or other? A nation can get plugged in through one man, or group of men into-whatever it might be. Here is Martha. I’m plugged in to hate Jew, hate black, hate white, hate German, hate American, hate. Now not plugged. Might be plugged again in ten minutes’ time
.
This is Dali landscape.I’m plugged into Dali mind. If I could draw, paint, then I’d paint this, Dali picture. Why does only Dali plug into Dali country? No Dali and me. Therefore Dali and-plenty of others. But nurse says, delusions. If ignorant, does not think:This is Dali country. Thinks: That’s a silly picture. If educated, knows, thinks:I am a copycat. Or, that must be a Dali picture I haven’t seen? (Perhaps it is
.)
He couldn’t have painted so many. Why not
?
Plagiarism. (Think about this after when time.) Mark writes something. Then it’s floating in the air. Someone can plug in.A City in the Desert is photostatted in the photosphere. (Oh, very funny. Ha. You only deserve half a laugh for that one.)
One of them is rather weak
.
And one of them is very meek
.
And one of them is just a horse
And one of them is rather coarse
.
One of them would like to strangle
,
Hurt and tear and bite and mangle
.
And one of them is rather crude, And one of them is just a prude
.
And one of them
…
For God’s sake stop, sobbed Martha, clutching her ears as this awful da-da-da-da-da ground into her ear-drums.
Lying face down, nose in a thick plush of carpet which smelled faintly of dust, the sea of sound came down, swallowed her.
Almost.
One of them is rather bright
.
One of them just must be right
.
One of them is
…
Eyes shut, she watched the pictures pass in front of her eyes that went with the jigging rhymes, like a child’s picture book with verses. One of them is rather meek’ was Lewis Carroll’s shawled and knitted sheep.
And sometimes you are very kind
,
But often you are cruel, you’ll fìnd
.
God I’m so stupid. Obvious. Me. What makes up me
…
Martha, kneeling by the low table, scribbled and scribbled notes, words-memoranda to herself for later, but listened to the jigging rhymes and kept shutting her eyes so as to miss as little as possible of the television programme.
Martha, a breathing individuality of faceted green, reflecting sky, house, pavement, cloud, man, woman and dog, a gaunt, wretched woman in an old towelling bathrobe, watched the facets of her personality march past-watched, and scribbled,
remember
.
For God’s sake. Don’t forget. Or you ‘11 have to do it again
.
It’s later than you think
.
Girls and boys come out to play
.
The moon is shining as bright as day
…
I am the creation of my own mind
.
lam the creation of my own mind
.
I am
…
Words, words, words, words. If the words come, the reality will afterwards
.
Paul came in. She was asleep on the floor. Incredibly handsome as usual; beautiful, in clothes that managed to combine elegance with a half-laugh at it, he sat on the edge of his four-poster bed, looking quizzically at Martha.
She snapped into common sense, in the habit of alarm: here was one of the ‘children’ - she was not being responsible.
‘It’s only me, ’ he said.
She lay back again. He lit a cigarette and gave it to her.
‘You aren’t looking your best, ’ he remarked. ‘However I suppose you know what you are doing.’
She had been slipping into a region of terror: one new to her. She was relieved that he had come, and that his coming steadied her.
She sat up, made him tea, talked: all with the aim of testing out to what an extent she could present normality to him. Inside her head the world of sound, conducted like an orchestra by the self-hater, rang, hammered, drilled. Soon, being with Paul subdued it.
Because it did, she was able to send back with him to Mark a message that, yes, she would be able to come to the restaurant tonight. Margaret was very upset about the house being bought by the Council; she intended plans, campaigns-at least a family conference. She had already pulled several strings.
Asked if he was to be at this dinner, Paul said gracefully: ‘Well, I’m not entitled to it, am I? It’s not my house.’
This was not a plea, or a complaint, or from bitchiness. He felt this. After all, he had
this
house-half of it; and half of another like it.
Was Francis to be there? He had been asked, but said he was sure the grown-ups would do everything for the best.
Martha put on a suit, made herself up, and saw in the mirror that no one could possibly guess that she was, by any yard-stick this society used, a raving lunatic. The self-hater had become, logically enough, the Devil, and commented, or exclaimed or jeered, or
criticized her every move, thought, memory. Her will went into not succumbing, while at the same time, she listened, trying to be neither frightened nor resentful. She was going to take the Devil to the restaurant, and it was necessary that no one should guess this. That Paul had not, was a good omen.
The restaurant was one of the small expensive ones, French, doing good classic food. The décor was modestly pretty, and reminded of French provincial hotels.
The guests: Mark. He was silent, sombre, occupied with his own thoughts.
Martha. She was accompanied by the Devil.
Lynda, silent, looking rather ill: she had now definitely decided to leave Mark and to ‘be a real person without props’. Extending her activities she had found she was not as strong as she had thought. She had had a week on sedatives and was badly set back. In short, she was very frightened about her future.
Margaret. She was full of angry unhappiness.
Her husband, John, who was tight. He had been drinking a lot recently, having fallen in love with the newsagent’s assistant in Marleybridge, which passion he was fighting with alcohol.
Phoebe, now a sub-minister with various responsibilities in the new Government. Everything the Government did went from bad to worse, as if the whole world (she felt) conspired against it, and she, too, was angry. Also extremely tired, being overworked. She, having not had a proper meal for days, had had a sherry while waiting and was a bit tipsy.
Arthur, who had not been given a job in this Government, because he was too left-wing. He was in exactly the same position he had always been in: nothing of what he believed, or stood for or had ever campaigned for was being attempted by this, his Labour Government, so he did not feel he had been challenged. He was still waiting, a vigorous handsome man of nearly sixty, for the future to begin.
His wife Mary, who had fallen in love this week with a charming boy, the carpenter who was putting new shelves into the bathroom. Understanding by this that she was now definitely middle-aged, she had rushed out in a psychological
crise
, had bought herself a grandmother’s woollen dress, and was wearing it. Her Arthur had said he did not think the dress suited her-she reflected that this clever man had never understood her-nor ‘anything to do with
the emotions’. This thought was enshrined in the small dry smile on a pretty face smudged by long crying. It stayed there unaltered until the theme of
The Youth
was introduced.
And there was Elizabeth, who had spent the afternoon with Mark, to set up an ideal community ‘somewhere in a new free country’. She had been drinking brandy all afternoon and was tight-and sizzling with frustration. She simply could
not
understand Mark who had described a perfect city and was not prepared to make one. She had burst into tears several times that afternoon and had been very rude. Mark, realizing that she was in the middle of a breakdown, had rung Dr Lamb, who was going to see her tomorrow. She kept her hungry eyes on Mark.
This was a family conference.
They were here because of Margaret. First they ordered food, while she held her fire.
One order of
Pâté Maison
, one of
Pâté Campagne
, two of
moules
, two of melon, two of artichoke, one avocado pear. They were all drinking muscadet except Arthur, who was drinking Scotch.
Margaret said it was a disgrace that the house should be taken over, even if it was (as she had heard was likely) to be used, with minor alterations, for administration. She had a petition ready and they must all sign it. She produced from her bag a petition, and a selection of others, one on behalf of Fidel Castro’s exiles in America, one on behalf of some prisoners in South Africa, one for Oxfam, and a letter to
The Times
about some writers sentenced to imprisonment in the Soviet Union. At which Phoebe, without speech, produced some petitions from her handbag. She had the South African one, and the letter to
The Times
; but also a draft letter about political imprisonment and torture in Portugal, and a statement or affirmation, designed for the
New Statesman
, about the behaviour of the police.
They all signed all of Phoebe’s, except for Margaret, who would not sign the complaint about the police-the Government’s recent report (Tory) made it clear that their behaviour was impeccable and complaints against them the work of troublemakers. They all signed all of Margaret’s, with the exception of the petition about Fidel Castro’s victims, which was signed only by Elizabeth.