Philippa slopped soup into bowls and slung a large sliced Sunblest onto the table with a thud that made Goneril flinch but not move.
‘Unhygienic,’ Mrs McCue hissed, giving the cat a surreptitious pinch. Goneril ground her body further into the essay, as if digging in for the duration. Maisie flung herself into the kitchen, reporting that she was starving, and tore into the Sunblest’s plastic wrapper and started stuffing soft doughy pieces of bread into her mouth. She was accompanied by a hollow-eyed, adenoidal girl – Lucy Lake, Roger and Sheila’s eldest offspring, who was in Maisie’s class at Park Place Primary. They both had the same neglected air about them with their unbrushed hair and unkempt uniforms. Mrs Macbeth couldn’t resist the urge to spit on a handkerchief and give Lucy Lake a quick rub.
‘We can have some of this salmon as well,’ Philippa said, dishing out plates and cutlery; ‘it needs eating up.’
Mrs McCue eyed the salmon doubtfully. The stuffed olive eye of the fish returned her gaze with a certain inscrutability.
‘Food poisoning,’ Mrs McCue whispered when Philippa turned her attention back to the soup pot. ‘It may as well have “salmonella” stamped on its forehead.’
‘Such a bonny word that,’ Mrs Macbeth said. ‘It would make a lovely name for a girl. Salmonella.’
‘Is that where the word comes from, from salmon?’ Maisie asked the room in general, and Philippa said, ‘No, it’s the name of the man who discovered it.’
‘Mr Salmon?’ Maisie said sceptically.
‘Do fish have foreheads?’ Mrs Macbeth puzzled.
‘Well, they have fingers,’ Lucy Lake smirked.
‘Really?’ Mrs Macbeth said, looking worried.
Maisie picked the small naked body of a shrimp off the salmon and scrutinized it. ‘What do shrimp eat?’ she asked speculatively. ‘Do you think they eat drowned people?’
‘We’ll make a philosopher of you yet,’ Philippa said brightly.
Maisie braved a shrimp, biting it in half delicately, and reported it ‘pure bowfing’. Mrs McCue said she couldn’t imagine what shrimp looked like swimming around in the sea and Lucy Lake said, ‘Like insects, probably.’ Philippa clapped her hands and said, ‘Stop it, before this goes any further,’ because everyone had begun to look rather sick.
Philippa took the new McFluffy from her smock pocket and looked at it quizzically. It did seem rather limp and lifeless. She gave it a little shake and it woke up with a start. Maisie took it from her mother and placed it on her shoulder and crooked her head so that it could nestle into her neck.
‘That looks very uncomfortable,’ Mrs Macbeth said.
‘It is,’ Maisie said, eating her soup awkwardly.
∼ I think you drink soup, Nora says. (But then she has had a correct upbringing, whereas I have been dragged up anyhow.)
We all chose a different adverb to sup with. Philippa consumed her soup hungrily, Mrs Macbeth decided on messily, Mrs McCue on recklessly, whereas I myself opted for cautiously. Lucy Lake opted for not at all.
‘What’s this?’ Mrs Macbeth asked, poking at the manuscript on the table.
‘I’m writing a novel,’ Philippa said.
‘Why?’ Mrs Macbeth asked.
‘Why not? It’s a doctor/nurse romance, I’m going to send it to Mills & Boon. Archie thinks I’m prostituting my art, of course,’ Philippa said cheerfully (a common cry, it seemed), ‘but as far as I’m concerned that’s a specious argument based on the premise that all art is didactic in origin. Don’t you think?’ she said, turning to Mrs Macbeth.
‘Hmm,’ Mrs Macbeth said, shuffling through the manuscript. As a diversion from answering unanswerable questions she began to read out loud: ‘Flick’s cornflower blue eyes sparkled with devilment. Jake McCrindle may think he was better than she was because he was a high-flying house doctor and she was a mere first-year student nurse but she would soon show him—’ ‘Flick?’ Mrs Macbeth queried. ‘Flick? Are you sure?’
‘Isn’t Flick the name of a horse?’ Lucy Lake asked.
‘No, that’s Flicka,’ I told her. ‘My Friend Flicka.’
‘You have a friend called Flicka?’ Philippa asked, interested.
‘A-hem [or something like that],’ Mrs Macbeth said, ‘Flick had been on the men’s surgical ward only two days and already had clashed twice with the arrogant Doctor McCrindle who seemed to think he was God’s gift both to St Vernon’s and to the nurses who worked there.’
‘Was there a St Vernon?’ asked Mrs McCue, who was contriving to knit and eat soup at the same time.
‘Perhaps you’re thinking of the football pools,’ Mrs Macbeth offered.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Philippa said dismissively, ‘it’s fiction.’
‘“So, Dr McCrindle,” Flick said, only too aware of the effect she was having on him. “What is your diagnosis?”
He smiled wolfishly at her—’
‘I don’t think wolves can actually smile,’ Maisie interrupted, but just then Mrs Macbeth began to splutter and cough, and started to turn as pink as the salmon. Her eyes began to water and her mouth formed a surprised oval as she fought for breath. Philippa barked out, ‘Heimlich!’ and grabbed her from behind and yanked at her tiny body until Mrs Macbeth spat out a wad of words – smouldering, aching, throbbing – along with a large fish bone.
‘That was close,’ Mrs Macbeth said hoarsely, sinking back into her seat – as if a brush with death was part of her daily routine. She examined the fish bone. ‘A fish bone,’ she said, shaking her head in a mystified way. ‘Where did that come from?’
‘A fish?’ Lucy Lake (a sarcastic child) offered. The salmon was saying nothing. Mrs McCue gave Mrs Macbeth a cigarette to aid her recovery and lit one herself. ‘I’m saving for a Philips toaster,’ she said, ‘that’s a lot of cigarettes to smoke.’
A door closed and I heard water running upstairs. I wondered if this signalled the presence of Ferdinand somewhere in the house. I made my excuses and tip-toed up the litter-laden stairs. Sadly, the bathroom was empty of Ferdinand, although it did contain an unusual smell of male cleanliness – toothpaste, shaving foam and Lifebuoy soap – as if someone more used to regular institutional habits than the rest of the McCues had just vacated it. Beneath the smells of personal hygiene I could detect faint traces of Ferdinand’s own animal scent and if I listened closely I could almost hear the fading echo of his heartbeat.
The bathroom was a paean to sixties’ taste, from the sickly primrose yellow suite with transparent acrylic taps to the herringbone pine panelling which extended even to the ceiling where recessed lights glimmered darkly. There were mats of soapy hair in the plugholes and a deposit of slimy grey in the tub and another one of crusty brown in the toilet bowl, and an anaemic spider plant struggled for life on the windowsill, its leaves weighed down by a coating of talcum powder. The assorted reading matter of the different McCues was piled randomly on top of the cistern – Rubber Monthly, the Beano, and back issues of the Philosophical Quarterly.
Of Ferdinand himself, however, there was no sign. I looked in the upstairs rooms, hoped for his sleeping form in the spare bedroom where I had first encountered it, but could find nothing, only Mrs Macbeth’s old dog, Janet, asleep on the bed. She was snoring noisily, her breath rumbling loosely in her chest, but woke up when I sat on the bed and pushed her dry black nose into my hand. (‘Aye, she’s a wee bittie wabbit,’ Mrs Macbeth said mysteriously.)
I heard voices in the hall and peering over the banisters caught a glimpse of Ferdinand. Awake, he seemed more feral, with a hungry look about him as if he could happily eat raw meat and snap the spines of small animals if necessary. Unfortunately, he was just leaving the house, kissing Mrs McCue on the cheek and saying, ‘Bye, Gran.’
∼ Where do you suppose he’s going? Nora asks.
‘I don’t know.’ Who knows where characters go when they’re not needed? Into some kind of limbo, I suppose. Like death or dreaming. Perhaps he was with the yellow dog which had slipped off the page wit
h such ease.
∼ Where could they be? Nora asks, keen on this idea. St Andrews, on the beach? That would be nice.
‘What, like – “The yellow dog ran ahead of the man who was walking along the empty stretch of beach, his collar up against the biting wind, his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his leather jacket” – that kind of thing?’
∼ Better weather.
‘“The yellow dog frolicked in the waves ahead of a man strolling along the beach. His naked feet revelled in the warmth of the sand and the seawater, his face soaking up the summer sun.” How about that?’
∼ You could give it some plot, Nora says. God knows you need some. Something could happen.
‘Like?’
∼ A plane could fall out of the sky, a woman could walk out of the water, a bomb could go off.
‘I’m not writing that kind of book.’
∼ You could.
* * *
‘Right, I’m off,’ Philippa said, digging her bicycle out from the midden of junk which occupied the McCues’ hall. ‘I’ve got a second-year tutorial on the existence of God. Who’s coming down the road with me, maybe to the bus station?’ She looked hopefully at Mrs McCue and Mrs Macbeth.
‘Nae me,’ Mrs McCue said, switching on the vacuum cleaner to prevent any further discussion.
‘I’ll just give the kitchen a wee going round,’ Mrs Macbeth said, reaching for the Ajax.
‘Careful what you read,’ I advised her, retreating down the hallway as Mrs McCue tried to hoover me up.
* * *
Philippa scooted slowly down the Perth Road, one foot on her bike pedal and one on the pavement, while Maisie, Lucy Lake and I trotted smartly to keep up with her.
A swarm of people were buzzing around outside the Tower, most of them looking rather aimless. Someone had made a placard which they were waving aloft like a centurion and on which was written END AMERICAN IMPERIALISM NOW! although it seemed unlikely that this was something within the remit of the university senate.
We paused for the parting of our ways opposite this scene, outside the undertakers.
‘If only they’d bring the same enthusiasm to philosophical logic,’ Philippa said, bending down absently to allow Maisie to plant a goodbye kiss on her cheek. ‘They’re late,’ Philippa said fondly as we watched Maisie and Lucy Lake meander along Park Place back to school.
At the back of the Tower, where there was usually a constant ebb and flow of students, a logjam of bodies had built up. Some students were trying to get into the building so they could attend tutorials and lectures, while other students were intent on preventing them. I could see Heather wielding a placard which read SAY NO TO FASCISM!
A burly rugby player, with whom Andrea had once spent a hectic night, shouldered his way through the narrow passage that linked the Students’ Union to the Tower and amid much scuffling and cries of ‘Scab!’ managed to gain access to the building and, like Moses parting the Red Sea, held open a passage for others.
‘Well, goodbye,’ Philippa said, giving me an encouraging pat on the back that nearly knocked me over. She mounted the bike and wobbled precariously for several yards before attaining a kind of equilibrium along Small’s Wynd and disappearing.
I hurried along the Red Sea passage before the waters closed over it again.
‘Thanks,’ I said hastily to the rugby player, just as Heather jumped on his back with a kind of Sioux warrior scream and started biting his ear.
* * *
‘The only way a woman can gain the respect or even the attention of the male protagonist is when she proves herself to be possessed of an absolute, childlike innocence…’ Maggie Mackenzie was striding up and down at the front of the lecture theatre like a restless zoo animal, her hair already living a life of its own. ‘… a regression which, as in the case of Clarissa, for example, takes the extreme form of death…’
‘What’s she talking about?’ Andrea whispered to me. I shrugged incomprehension. I’d been under the misapprehension that Maggie Mackenzie was going to be lecturing on Middlemarch, otherwise I would never have come.
‘I thought she was going to be talking about Middlemarch,’ Andrea hissed.
‘Maybe she is talking about it and we just can’t tell.’
Andrea was looking very prim in a Laura Ashley fantasy milkmaid ensemble that Marie Antoinette would have coveted. You couldn’t tell that she had been thrashing around in paroxysms of lust just a few hours previously. (‘Again?’ an amazed Bob said as we tried to sleep between our purple passion-free sheets.)
‘How is death a regression?’ Kevin whispered in my other ear. ‘I don’t understand.’ I was the meat in a Kevin and Andrea sandwich in the back row of the lecture theatre, where assorted loafers usually slept out the hour.
‘I don’t know.’
I reached in my pocket for a tissue. I definitely had a cold coming on, if not worse, but instead of a tissue I again found a crumpled-up piece of paper, which after some puzzling I recognized as yet another stray page of The Expanding Prism of J. How were they getting there? Was someone putting them in my pocket? Or maybe they were sticky, like flypaper.
J, I noticed, was still as paranoid as ever and seemed to have become entangled with some kind of angry mythical beast (a common enough occurrence, it was beginning to seem) – Snorting, snorting, and dire snuffling of something ponderous and male, the beast of his imagination made manifest in muscle and sinew and arching frame, scaled like the sinful snake, the bloodlust of ages in the great thrust of the –
I supposed the angry mythical beast was an allegory or a metaphor but who knows – perhaps it was real, in as much as fiction is real, which it must be because it exists, unless something can exist without being real. And even if it only exists in the form of words, words themselves must exist or we wouldn’t be able to use them and Wittgenstein himself—
‘Miss Andrews?’ Maggie Mackenzie was climbing up and down the stairs looking for bad behaviour. ‘I don’t think you can afford to daydream, do you?’
Terri sidled into the lecture theatre. She was dressed in black fingerless gloves and a disintegrating taffeta cape and looked as if she’d been recently exhumed. From the look on her face I guessed she had not saved the goat last night. She was abruptly directed by Maggie Mackenzie to sit on the front row, ‘So I can make sure you stay awake,’ obviously unaware that Terri could sleep with her eyes open. Olivia, a natural front-row student, lent Terri pen and paper (which was never used) before returning to her assiduous note-taking.
‘Roland Barthes,’ Maggie Mackenzie, ‘says—’
‘Not him again,’ Andrea sighed. A faint cry of distress went up from the heart of the student body, indicating the presence of Proteus. Kara was sitting on the far side of the lecture theatre, well away from the source of the cry. She was dressed in a rainbow-striped jumper that looked as if it had been crocheted for a gorilla by a gorilla.
‘—claims that the classical narrative is based on the male Oedipal drama…’
Andrea leant across me and asked, ‘Is that what Edrakonia’s based on, Kevin?’ presumably out of mischief rather than genuine curiosity.
Kevin rolled his eyes like a cow in an abattoir and said, ‘Don’t be stupid,’ quite loudly, so that some people turned to stare, including Maggie Mackenzie, who tapped an impatient foot and said, in the words of teachers everywhere, ‘Do you have something you would like to share with us, Mr Riley?’ and then carried on without waiting for an answer—
‘As Althusser says, we are all “inside” ideology…’
‘What’s she talking about?’ Andrea muttered.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Stop asking me questions.’ I could feel the beginnings of a headache.
Janice Rand was sitting in front of us with her balding Christian friend. I had to suppress the desire to flick things at them. They occasionally passed notes to each other on tightly folded little pieces of paper.
‘Freud … believing that women were
less powerful because they know themselves to be castrated…’
‘Come again?’ Andrea said, looking alarmed.
‘… and also possessed of a less developed superego.’
Janice and her friend were passing notes furiously to each other. I managed to read one that said. ‘What’s a superego?’ Written down, it looked very odd, like a sauce for spaghetti or a musical tempo mark – spiritoso, sforzando, superego. My headache was growing worse. I wished I had an Anadin (a rather poetic cry of pain). I was too tired to concentrate.
‘Of course,’ Kevin said, to no-one in particular, ‘research has shown that ten minutes is the absolute limit of anyone’s concentration span, so the last twenty-five minutes have been pointless.’
‘Mr Riley? Something to contribute?’ Maggie Mackenzie said harshly. Kevin slid down in his seat and tried to look as if he was deaf and dumb.
‘The passive heroine in the phallic-centred myth…’
I inadvertently started daydreaming about Ferdinand. I made a mental list of what I knew about him – he was kind to old ladies, he slept like the dead, he might have blue eyes (I still hadn’t caught a glimpse of them), he was a convicted criminal. I was having trouble forming a whole character from these bits and pieces.
Andrea was doodling strange magic symbols on her jotter – fylfots, Ing runes, caducei and so on. Perhaps it was homework her Forfar wizard had set her. Janice caught sight of the swastika-like fylfot and was so startled by it that she could remain mute no more and started chattering eagerly to her Christian friend about Andrea being ‘a Nazi’.
Kevin, surreptitiously eating a banana, turned to me and, nodding in Maggie’s direction, mumbled, ‘Is she actually going to talk about George Eliot, do you think?’
An exasperated Maggie Mackenzie threw the blackboard eraser in the general direction of the back of the lecture theatre. It caught Janice a glancing blow on the temple and she screamed in an outraged martyr way.
‘No, I don’t think she is.’
Janice’s scream set off Proteus, who embarked on a desperate kind of wailing as if he was about to fall over the edge of the world (well, who knows what babies think) and Kara had to make her way along a row of people like an annoying late theatregoer – ‘Sorry, excuse me, sorry’ – until she reached her infant. ‘Nappy,’ she announced to everyone.
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