Eating Air

by Pauline Melville

  ‘I need my tranquillizers and antidepressants, honey. But maybe you’re right. I don’t know what to do.’ She rolled her eyes.

  ‘Do you want to stay here till I come back? We have a performance this evening. I’ll be back later. Donny knows but I haven’t told anyone else.’

  ‘OK. Thanks. I think I might.’ Hetty gave a rueful smile. ‘Saves going back to my empty flat. It’s a bit lonely there. I’ll put my feet up here and wait. Your eyebrows need plucking by the way. I’ll do it for you some time.’

  *

  It was still light when Donny came home from work. He went into the sitting-room to find Hetty lying on her back aslant on the sofa with her head and one arm hanging over the side. Her blonde curls brushed the dark blue carpet. She had a glistening snail-track of dribble coming from the side of her mouth which was slightly open. A handkerchief had dropped from her hand. Pills were scattered around her. A glass of water stood next to her on the floor.

  For a full minute Donny stood in the doorway, looking at the rumpled figure and tear-ruined face in the pale early evening light. He put his toolbag down. She did not move.

  ‘Fucking get up,’ he snarled.

  There was no response. He repeated: ‘Get the fuck up.’

  Hetty opened her eyes. The expression on her face was sweet and foul as she raked through her brain for a quick explanation. None came, so she started to gag as if about to be sick.

  ‘Pick up those pills.’ Donny’s voice was deep and grim. Her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Oh holy shit. The pills didn’t work. I’m alive.’ A peculiar talent for believing her own lies made her sound convincing. She gasped and flung herself face down on the sofa. She clutched a cushion, half gagging and half sobbing.

  ‘You have to swallow them first,’ sneered Donny, ‘not just throw them on the fucking floor.’

  Donny picked up Hetty’s handbag and tossed it over to her.

  ‘Get up.’

  When challenged in this way, Hetty became calm and matter-of-fact. Her tears stopped. For a few moments she stared up at Donny with a sly smile. Then she sat up and shrugged. She began to gather her things together as if nothing had happened. She popped the pills back in their bottle one by one.

  ‘Where’s my comb?’ She looked round vaguely, found it on the sofa and ran it through her hair. The shallowness of feeling was in stark contrast to the intensity of the demonstration a few minutes earlier. Donny looked at her. It was as if she was a platform from which everything rebounded without reaching the interior. Nothing penetrated. Tremendous exaggeration was followed by staggering superficiality and she already seemed to have forgotten what she had done.

  ‘Don’t try that trick again,’ he snarled.

  ‘It was just a kinda joke.’

  ‘No it wasn’t. Now fuck off,’ said Donny.

  Hetty finished gathering her things together and walked to the door.

  ‘Could you tell Ella to ring me please?’ she said with icy politeness, as she let herself out. Hetty Moran went home, where she remained for a week sequestered with her own fury at Donny for unmasking her charade.

  *

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that. She might just have been really upset at being pregnant,’ said Ella when she came home.

  ‘No she wasn’t.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘She’s not pregnant. I can just tell.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The next Tuesday Hetty walked into the New Scotland Yard offices and went up to the reception desk. MI5 had already spurned her offer of information.

  Three officers were on duty behind the front desk.

  ‘I have an appointment with Detective-Sergeant Alan Forbes.’ She held out the card he had left with her after the sleep-walking episode and went and sat on one of the seats in the window.

  The receptionist called his office. ‘He will come down and see you.’

  Five minutes later the lift doors opened and Alan Forbes approached her. Although she hadn’t seen him for some months she recognised the conventional good looks, the square jaw and brown eyes and remembered that he had started out as an actor before he became a policeman. As a member of Special Branch he now wore plain clothes, a casual suit, and had let his hair grow down to his collar:

  ‘Good heavens. You’ve got long hair.’ Hetty gave him a beguiling smile.

  ‘Yes. Part of the job these days. How are you? No more sleep-walking, I hope.’ He was relaxed and friendly.

  ‘No, that’s stopped. I’m sorry to bother you but I have some information that I think you should have.’ Hetty regarded him gravely as she spoke. He nodded.

  ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to talk in the canteen? Special Branch are not allowed to take people into their offices.’

  Hetty smiled her youthful smile.

  ‘That’s fine.’

  They went up in the shiny metal lift and sat in part of the canteen that was sectioned off. In the next area was the restaurant which was noisy with clatter. They queued up and he paid for two coffees.

  ‘How can I help you?’

  Hetty’s demeanour changed to one of anxiety. Her voice was tremulous as she spoke.

  ‘Is it safe to talk here? I’m in a dilemma. I’m not sure if I should be telling you this. I’m not even sure what it is I’m trying to say. And now, all of a sudden, I feel I might be wasting your time. Maybe it’s not important at all.’

  ‘I won’t know till you try it.’ Forbes smiled at her as he stirred his coffee.

  ‘It has something to do with the bombings that have been happening lately. But I don’t know what to do as I might be completely wrong. I might know someone who had something to do with it. But I’m really not sure.’ She bit her lip and looked at him in anguish.

  ‘Fire away and we’ll see what it’s all about.’

  ‘First of all, I’d better say that I would never be prepared to give evidence. He thinks I am his friend. I’ve been in agony about this. It’s making me feel really treacherous but I think I’m doing the right thing. It might not be him but I know something is going on in that house anyway.’

  ‘Which house?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t actually seen anything. It’s only what I’ve heard. The thing is I’m going back home to the States and I couldn’t have it on my conscience that I’d left without telling somebody. It’s a house where I’ve heard people talking about … explosives and robberies … Hell. I’m really not sure I’m doing the right thing.’

  The Detective-Sergeant took out his pad and a pen from his top pocket.

  ‘Why don’t you just write down a name and address. We can investigate. Nobody need know anything about your involvement.’

  Hetty hesitated and looked troubled. Then she looked him directly in the eyes and bit her lip before scribbling a name and address down on the pad.

  ‘I hope I’ve done the right thing.’

  ‘Anything you’ve told me will be strictly confidential. And thank you for coming in. This might be useful. We’ll check it out anyway.’

  After she had left, Detective-Sergeant Forbes studied the name and address she had given him. Back in the office he reported what he’d been told to his colleagues. The matter was brought up at the next daily meeting.

  *

  It is in the nature of everything to be reported, to leave a trace or a trail. Even a pebble has a shadow to remind us that it is there. So does the planet. A fern leaves its trace in the rocks. Footsteps wear out a stone stair. The world is full of signatures. Even an electron, although its path cannot be predicted, leaves a trace of where it has been. But Hetty Moran rarely left a trace when she decided to move on.

  Ella tried telephoning her every few days, but Hetty had gone.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The house in Bethnal Green was full of a harsh new energy. There were footsteps running up and down the stairs day and night and the sound of unfamiliar voices and foreign accents in the basement. Students and trades unionists
came and went. The mood in the house matched the mood in the country. The government had declared a state of emergency. Six Yorkshire miners arrived at the house to lobby parliament. They slept curled up in sleeping bags on the floor. A Black Sabbath album blasted through the house day and night. All this left Ella feeling restive. The incessant political conversations induced an odd sensation of effervescence in her stomach, making her light-headed and dry-mouthed. It was as if the myelin sheaths around her nerves had been removed, leaving her exposed to prevailing winds. When she listened to arguments about class and revolution she felt a sympathetic rage related to Donny’s work and pay. Then her position would inexplicably go into reverse and she would become hostile to whatever they were discussing.

  ‘I’m really not interested. I just want to be a dancer,’ she said, when asked for help over some campaign issue or other. One of the miners, with a strong work-bitten face, said: ‘We dig the coal that provides the electricity that lights up your theatres, love. Our wages have dropped to nothing.’ Then he suddenly gave a sneering smile and grabbed Ella’s breast. She shook him off and went upstairs.

  That evening Ella looked around the dressing room at dancers pulling their faces this way and that to apply pale pink lipsticks and black eye-liner, and for the first time they annoyed her. The conversation was all about who was playing what in which ballet, or tips on whether Elastoplast, methylated spirits or footbath lotion best protected their sore feet.

  ‘Don’t dancers ever go on strike?’ Ella asked, as they collected their costumes from the wardrobe department. The others looked at her in surprise.

  ‘Shouldn’t think so,’ said Manuela, holding a small white feather tiara between her teeth as she fixed her hair. ‘Striking’s just not what we do. I want to hook one of those bankers that hang round the stage door. How can I bag one if I’m on strike.’ She giggled. ‘Can you help fix this headpiece?’ The other girls continued chatting and adjusting their full net skirts, pinning on headdresses and fastening white ribbons around their ankles. Ella felt a rush of impatience with them all.

  ‘OK. Les Syphilitics are coming,’ yelled one of the girls, as the tannoy called them on-stage.

  *

  At home Ella half-listened to the intense conversations in the kitchen, her feet marking out some new choreography under the table.

  Frequent visitors included a gangly young Dutchman with spiky blond hair called Jaap and a local worker at a community playground called Jerry Haynes. Jaap was a veteran of the defunct Provo movement in Amsterdam and had arrived on a white-painted bicycle which he parked in the hall. Jerry Haynes was immediately nicknamed Clark Kent because of his square-jawed good looks. Ella liked him best. Most of the other visitors ignored her. Jerry at least acknowledged her with a friendly grin and he brought with him an endless supply of dope which he shared around. Flicking back his long brown hair, Jerry described what had happened during his last year at university.

  ‘It was amazing. The lecturer just said: “In England, ten per cent of the people own ninety per cent of the wealth of the country” and there was a sort of whoompf as if he had held a match to a build-up of gas. The whole place went up. That guy had been giving the same lecture for years to zero response. This time everyone went wild. They had to call the police onto campus.’

  ‘A policeman tried to search Donny a while back but he wouldn’t have any of it.’ Ella spoke quietly. For the first time she found people listening to her with approval.

  ‘They would pick on a working-class guy,’ said Jerry. ‘I don’t think people will put up with all this shit much longer.’

  Someone had brought a TV down into the kitchen. Everyone in the kitchen gathered around it in silence. The news showed thousands of workers assembled in the Glasgow shipyards. Jimmy Reid, the trades union convenor, was speaking.

  ‘The government has decided to let the shipyards close. But we will not let the yards close.’ There was a roar of approval from the shipyard workers. ‘Youse have voted to take over the yards and begin a work-in. We will start straight away. No hooliganism. No vandalism. No bevvying.’

  ‘I suppose they have to exercise discipline.’ Jerry turned to the others.

  ‘Yes, but we don’t,’ replied Mark with steady calm. ‘We can do things on their behalf. Anonymous targeted actions to support them.’

  *

  Another visitor to the house was Situationist architect Michael Feynite, a young man with blond hair and classical Grecian features who could have been mistaken for an aristocrat until he opened his mouth.

  ‘I’ve seen you dance,’ he told Ella, in a slight cockney accent. ‘I saw you dance in a school in Manchester. I went there with a ballet critic – my lover at the time.’

  Feynite had been in Paris in May ’68 and still wore an air of subversion. He believed that architecture should be a summons to revolution and spent long hours in conversation with Mark Scobie discussing the works of Debord and Vaneigem. The discussions gave Ella a headache.

  ‘We should provoke something.’ Feynite drew on his spliff. ‘Until we can build the city we want we should try letting a herd of sheep loose in Parliament Square.’

  The presence of Feynite caused ructions in the house. He was despised as elitist. Various political factions clashed in the kitchen. Arguments and fights broke out. It required a tremendous effort for Ella to keep herself focused on dance. Jerry Haynes spotted that Ella was becoming unsettled by the turmoil. One evening he invited her to see a movie with him. Jerry called for her in his old green Simca. It was a hot summer night.

  ‘Will Donny mind us going to the pictures? He’s not the sort of guy I’d like to cross.’

  ‘No. He’s not bothered.’

  Jerry swung the car round into Mare Street.

  ‘I’ve booked two tickets for The Seven Samurai at the Rio. I hope you like it. By the way, did you meet Hector’s new girlfriend, Barbara?’

  Ella shook her head.

  ‘She seems nice enough. A nurse, or something. They came up from Kent the other day. Is Hector with Lotta Continua in Italy or is he with the Brigate Rosse?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’ Ella smoothed her skirt down over her knees and looked out of the window. Jerry continued full of enthusiasm.

  ‘Someone said that Donny could get hold of explosives at his work. That would be brilliant. Is it true?’ Jerry sounded in awe of Donny.

  ‘I haven’t got a clue.’ A faint smell of garbage from the Hackney streets floated in through the open car window.

  The film turned out to be shot in black and white. It was not at all what Ella had expected. At the beginning there was a lot of yelling and confusion in Japanese and despite subtitles Ella could not follow the story. Then a figure came onto the screen who mesmerised her. It was Kyuzo the swordsman, taciturn and stone-faced, with black hair pulled back into a knot with a spiky tuft sticking out at the back. His prominent cheekbones, grainy complexion and ascetic face reminded Ella in some way of her father.

  Ella watched the swordsman practise his art alone in the mist on the hillside. He was mute. He did not smile, and worked in isolation far from the other Samurai. His swordsmanship was the art of deadly precision. When he killed, the blow exploded out of nowhere and blood sprayed from his opponent’s neck like grain from a burst bag. She identified with this character. She wanted to dance with the same degree of precision and commitment. She remembered her teacher saying, ‘You have to be masculine and feminine to be a dancer.’

  She was silent on the way home. Jerry switched on the car radio to hear the news. There was an announcement.

  ‘An explosion has damaged the home of John Davies, Minister of Trade and Industry.’

  Jerry let out a whoop of delight.

  ‘They’ve got John Davies. He’s the one who’s closing down the shipyards. Do you remember? Tell Donny that someone’s blown up the house that belongs to the minister in charge of the building industry. Yippee. Doesn’t Donny work for Laing’s?’

  ‘Yes.
Yes.’ She was barely listening. ‘He used to. He changes every five minutes.’ She was trying to remember the moves that the swordsman had made.

  Jerry dropped her off at the house.

  *

  The next evening, when Ella was at work, Donny came downstairs into the kitchen. Jaap the Dutchman was rocking backwards and forwards on the hind legs of his chair. His boasts about previous revolutionary activities had been grating on Donny’s nerves.

  ‘How about coming for a drink, then?’ Donny asked. Jaap nodded, grabbed his peaked leather cap and stood up to leave, smiling his endless vacant smile around the room.

  Jaap had not been prepared for a rampage. After the first two pub visits, however, Donny’s eyes were alight with the anticipation of violent disorder. There followed a whirl of taxi rides, raucous arguments with the drivers, the bright lights of various pubs, threatening encounters and unsolicited exchanges of underwear in different parts of London. Finally, in Camden Town, there was a scuffle in which heavy punches were exchanged. Panting, Donny stood on the pavement with his head to one side challenging Jaap: ‘Did you say you were interested in class struggle?’

  The fracas had unsettled Jaap but he tried to maintain a level of bonhomie.

  ‘Ya. Of course. That is why I am in England.’

  ‘Then lace up your cunt-kicking boots and come with me. I’ll show you some fucking class struggle.’ Donny grasped Jaap’s arm and pushed him into a taxi. Jaap let out an apprehensive laugh. Before he knew it the taxi was pulling up outside The Ritz.

  Joyous, bountiful, grim and gruesome Donny fell out of the cab dragging Jaap after him. He approached the entrance to The Ritz brandishing a blood-stained jockstrap he had picked up somewhere along the way. His own white T-shirt was also decorated with streaks of blood down the front. A blood bubble shone in his right nostril. His eyes burned with an invincible strength. The uniformed doorman tried to stop this force of nature from getting through the swing doors. But into the pink and gold art nouveau of heavenly order erupted Donny McLeod, raw-headed and bloody-boned, for his evening cocktail of palm court orchestral music and good old-fashioned class struggle.