“And I don’t know if we’ve asked you how long the treatment takes.”
“Maybe a year, but it should taper off to one session a week. Don’t worry,” she said as I tried to conceal some disappointment, “I think you may find he likes coming back.”
“The others do, you mean.” When she agreed without speaking I said “Except the one who’s too young to say.”
“I believe he does as well. He’s Chris’s little one, the lady who sent you to us.”
I think that convinced me—the idea that the paediatrician believed that her child could be helped at such a young age. “We can start Toby on Monday if you’re agreeable,” Dr Sweet said. “We’ll just need to put you on the route for the bus to pick him up.”
As soon as I looked into the next room Toby shut his book on a picture of a boy among the stars. “Am I coming for a sleep?”
I found myself wondering if he might have eavesdropped, with his ear against the wall, perhaps. I couldn’t blame him if he had, since I’d listened in to conversations when I was more than twice his age. “You’ll be starting next week,” I said, and his face brightened so much that I had to share his gladness.
He replaced the book between Hans Andersen and the Grimms and looked out of the window, where the shadow of a vast cloud was gliding through the grounds, snagging on fattened bushes and odd humps in the snow. By now Lesley and the doctor had joined me, “Sorry you couldn’t make a snowman, Toby,” Dr Sweet said.
“Never mind, you haven’t finished your creature at home,” Lesley said. “Have you dreamed up a face for him?”
“I don’t want to any more.”
I couldn’t tell whether he meant completing the snow figure or dreaming of its face. I’d forgotten his remark by the time I drove away from Safe To Sleep, but I remembered it that night as I shut his bedroom curtains. The day had brought a partial thaw to Liverpool, and the figure’s pairs of plastic legs had drooped and slanted outwards, so that it looked poised to crawl towards the house and to deliver a many-limbed embrace. The head had partially melted before a freeze fixed it in a new shape, a concave lump with icicles hanging from the forehead, a mass of translucent tendrils that veiled the hollow where a face should be. I remember feeling disconcerted that the weather should reshape it so oddly, and I had to make myself concentrate on reading Toby the tale of the emperor’s new clothes, which made him laugh and look wise. Soon he was asleep, and that night he slept as a young child should. I was able to believe that all might soon be well.
4 - A Face In The Dark
“Truly this was the son of Gawd.”
Most of my students laughed at this, though I suspected some of them were simply indulging my impression of John Wayne, but Alisha said “Why is that funny, Dr Sheldrake?”
I had a sense that she was trying not to be offended. “Maybe just my imitation was.”
“It’s funny in the film,” Jojo said. “He’s about as good an actor as a rock.”
“I think he shows some range in Ford and Hawks,” I said. “Take a look at She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Red River.”
Jojo’s dreadlocks wagged as he shook his head. “Do we have to for your course?”
“I’m just suggesting you might enjoy broadening your view of his work.” When Jojo rolled his eyes I said “To return to The Greatest Story Ever Told, I’ve seen it suggested that shot is a gag.”
“A joke about Jesus dying on the cross,” Alisha said as if she hoped the suggestion was the joke.
“In the sense that Wayne gets just that shot and just that line. The director started out in comedy, I ought to mention. He worked with Laurel and Hardy to begin with.”
“That’s not the same as poking fun at Christ.”
“I don’t think George Stevens was doing that. Comedy needn’t preclude seriousness, do you think? Think of the porter in Macbeth.” When Alisha looked unpersuaded I said “I’m not saying Stevens had to be aware of the comic element. We saw how Melville made a Christian film he thought was atheistic.”
“In Léon Morin, Prêtre Emmanuelle Riva seeks instruction from Belmondo’s priest because she lusts for him. Alisha had agreed with the general view that the film was inadvertently religious, but now she said “They’re not the same at all.”
I was about to talk about unintended themes in fiction when Katy said “Who says you can’t send up religion?”
This provoked Brendan, who didn’t usually contribute much to discussions. “Maybe the law should,” he said while his face grew as red as mine used to in my youth.
“They’ve tried, but most people won’t be told what they’re allowed to think. Look how some places banned Life of Brian and everyone just went to see it in the next town.”
“Dr Sheldrake,” Jojo said, “are you going to say that’s another religious film that wasn’t meant to be one?”
“I think you could make that case if you tried.”
Brendan’s face turned redder still. “More like the most blasphemous film ever made.”
“You can’t have seen much Bunuel.” Before I could interrupt Katy, having seen contention in her eyes, she said “At the end of L’Age d’Or Christ comes out of an orgy and then goes back to do something to a girl.
“I’ll be steering clear of his stuff, then.”
“Aren’t we seeing one of his films, Dr Sheldrake?”
“Yes, The Milky Way.” I thought it best to assure Brendan “The director himself said it was a religious film.”
“That’s the one where Christ heals the blind men,” Katy said, “but they act as if they still can’t see, so it’s no use.”
“Let’s not spoil the film for anyone who hasn’t seen it.” This sounded feeble even to me, but I was hastening to head off any further provocation. “Let’s get back to the film we’ve watched,” I said. “I want to suggest that Nicholas Ray’s life of Christ is in its way as radical as Pasolini’s…”
I reminded them how naturalistically Ray filmed the Sermon on the Mount, tracking with Christ through the crowd. I directed their attention to the use of architectural space, and the portrayal of Judas as a revolutionary determined to persuade Christ to take political action, but the most that any of the students would concede was that King of Kings was relatively radical in terms of Hollywood. Perhaps Toby’s bad night had drained my arguments of strength, along with me.
This was months before Lesley and I heard of Safe To Sleep, and we’d felt utterly helpless as we’d watched him in his seizure, his outstretched limbs so stiff that they reminded me of rigor mortis, his chest barely stirring, his eyes so nearly shut that we couldn’t see into their darkness. Perhaps the lack of sleep had left me inattentive to my words as well, because later that week the vice-chancellor came to find me for a talk.
I’d been discussing Christ figures with my students: Brando in On the Waterfront, Michael Rennie in The Day the Earth Stood Still, Leonard Nimoy in The Wrath of Khan, though he wasn’t resurrected until the next Star Trek film… In every case I’d had to argue against skepticism, even over Rennie’s character, who descends to earth and calls himself Carpenter, dying for the sake of humanity before bring raised from the dead. By the end of the tutorial I’d begun to feel my convictions were a kind of faith. As I made for lunch I saw colleagues approaching across the campus. They caught sight of me only to veer away, and one turned her wave of greeting into a gesture of farewell I’d observed such behaviour often enough at university functions—lecturers abruptly abandoning their colleagues—to know why. I hardly needed to look around to confirm that I’d been singled out by the vice-chancellor.
He looked vague yet determined, reminiscent of an oncoming cloud that heralded a storm. His hair was as grey as his expensive suit, but turning white above his lofty forehead. Mentally I always cast him as a minor Roman senator, one of those who utter just a line or two while major players dominate the scene. “Dominic,” he said. “A word, if I may.”
This was far less of a request than it insisted it
was. “Of course, vice-chancellor.”
“I find myself a little discomforted by the news from your department.”
Nothing recent came to mind. The Tierney tragedy was years old: Rose had drowned in the river when she was about to have a child, and Bill—her fellow lecturer and husband—had left the faculty. “Which news might that be?” I said and felt as if the vice-chancellor’s style were affecting my speech.
“Tiresome as students can be, and I appreciate they are…”
He appeared to be leaving the sentence for me to complete, which only made me parody his language. “Ah,” I agreed, “students.”
“Imagine my surprise upon learning that some of them feel discriminated against. That’s really not the done thing these days, you know.”
“Dear me.” This sounded too much like him as well, and I did my best to revert to my own voice. “Where has that been happening?”
“It grieves me to have to cite your film course, Dominic.”
I wasn’t ready to admit I’d known it must be. “Who’s supposed to have been discriminated against?”
“According to my information, some of the more religious of your students.”
Another bout of watching over Toby until he returned to us in the middle of the night had left me irritably brittle. “Are you saying they’re saying I did it?” I said.
“Such is my intelligence, I’m pained to say.”
“I’d like to hear how. I’d like to hear it from them.”
“I should prefer to avoid confrontation. You understand you would be required to answer to a committee in that case.”
I saw that he wanted to forestall any further damage to the university’s reputation. I might have insisted on vindicating my name, but Toby’s condition was sapping my energy. “Perhaps you can tell me who made the allegations,” I said.
“I regret they were made in the strictest confidence, otherwise they would not have been made at all.”
“Am I at least allowed to know what was said?”
“I’m saddened that you feel the need to ask.”
A pause let me grasp that he was awaiting my response. “Well,” I said, “I have.”
“I’m led to understand you mean to show a lampoon of Christ made by these Monty Bison people.”
Despite the accusation, I had to spend time stifling mirth. “It isn’t about Christ, vice-chancellor, and in any case I won’t be showing it. It just came up in discussion.”
“But you propose to show a film that equates Christ with the Marquis de Sade.”
“I’m afraid someone was confused if they weren’t deliberately misrepresenting what happened. I just wish I’d been there when all this was alleged.” As a hint of distaste wrinkled his lips I said “That was another film that was mentioned in the discussion. I’ll be using a different film by that director, a critique of religion.”
“One might question whether his attitude qualifies him to criticise. And you’ll forgive me, but if the students are confused I have to question what that says about communication.” Before I could speak—the response felt like a jagged object I had to expel from my skull—he said “I believe you were also mocking a sentence associated with the Crucifixion.”
“No, I was examining how one film represents it.”
“And how would you say that benefits your students?”
“I’m encouraging them to look again at things they may have taken for granted. That’s what criticism should do, make us take another look.”
“I assume you’re speaking of the Bible.”
That made me sound like Christian Noble, and it resurrected memories I’d thought were safely buried. “No, I’m talking about films,” I said. “We’ve just been looking at Christ figures in the cinema.”
“Portrayals of the messiah, I assume you mean.”
“Characters who share some of his qualities or his experience.” When the vice-chancellor only gazed at me I said “Take Brando on the waterfront. Karl Maiden’s priest explicitly compares the treatment of the dockers to a crucifixion, and he insists Brando has to lead them unaided at the end even though he’s injured and nearly falls more than once.”
“I have seen the film.” Apparently this conveyed his view of it. “You’re offering a course that studies how films portray religion,” he said and held up a hand to fend off any objection I might make. “That’s how I interpret the description, and I fancy students and their parents would. May I urge you to adhere more closely to it? I shouldn’t care to have to deal with any further complaints or to need to make it more official, Dominic.”
My rage at being so curtly dismissed began to lessen as I crossed the campus, and by the time I made for home I’d started to rethink my choice of films. While I could certainly have argued the case for everything I’d planned to show, our trouble at home was exhausting enough. I even tried not to wonder which of my students had complained, since I couldn’t be sure Brendan had. At the next session I did watch for any sign of a blush, but he and Alisha and the rest of them might almost have been auditioning to play saints in a film. By the time Toby started at Safe To Sleep I’d almost forgotten the incident, since whoever was responsible seemed to be satisfied. As long as the students found the substituted films and the way I taught them rewarding, I did as well.
I owed most of my optimism to Toby’s progress. From the outset he looked forward to being collected by bus, which plainly made him feel grown up. The nursery school had agreed to release him two days a week, so that he spent three at Safe To Sleep and every Sunday with us. Phoebe Sweet said they might reduce his visits soon, since in the first month of his treatment he’d suffered just two seizures. Each of those felt like an interruption of our hopes, and when I came home one day in March—later than usual, because the students had so much to say about The Seventh Seal—I was afraid he’d had another. I could tell from Lesley’s face that she had news I mightn’t like. “Is it Toby?” I said.
“It’s about him. Apparently he’s been scaring some of the children at school.”
“By doing what?”
Telling them what they may see when they go to sleep.” I might have felt relieved, but found a question I didn’t want to ask. “How long has he been doing that?”
“Supposedly for months, but they’ve only just told their parents.” This time I did give in to some relief. At least the situation had begun well before we’d enrolled him in Safe To Sleep, which meant the treatment wasn’t to blame. “Do we know what he’s been saying?”
“Something about a giant face that lives in the dark.”
“Mummy, that’s not what I said.”
The protest came from beyond the kitchen door, which wasn’t quite shut I couldn’t rebuke Toby when this reminded me how as a child I’d left my bedroom door ajar to eavesdrop. Lesley and I had been keeping our voices down, but now we went into the kitchen, where Toby was crayoning a picture on the top sheet of a pad—an image of a large house above which an elongated cloud was hovering. “What are you drawing, Toby?” I said.
“Me at Doctor Phoebe’s house.”
“You put yourself in later and just listen to us. What’s all this about a face in the dark?”
“It wakes up when you go to sleep.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“It’s like it’s waiting for you to go to sleep so it can have your dreams to make a bit more of itself. It’s made of millions of them and it’s like those spiders we saw hatching out of a ball, all running over each other. It’s all right,” he said as if he was determined to reassure us, “I’m never scared.”
“Well,” Lesley said, “some of your friends at school are, so you mustn’t make up things like that to tell them.”
“Mummy, I didn’t make it up.”
“In that case,” Lesley said as though she needed to hold someone responsible, “who did?”
“Maybe the face did. It must be able to do lots of things in your dreams. It’s ever so much bigger t
han the sky.”
“Toby, that doesn’t make sense.”
“You dreamed that, did you?” I suggested. “Dreams needn’t make sense. They’re only dreams.”
“There’s lots of things in mine. You saw one.”
“You dreamed about something we all saw, you mean,” Lesley said.
“No, mummy, I saw it in my sleep and then I tried to make it in the snow for you to see.”
“Your snowman. It wasn’t a man, though, was it? What would you call it, Toby?”
“I don’t think they have names. They hatch inside stars and eat them up, and that’s why stars go black. The creatures want to make it all dark because that’s where they like to live.”
“That’s very imaginative, Toby. Have you told Doctor Phoebe about it?”
For the first time since the discussion had begun he looked uncertain. “Shouldn’t I?”
“I’m saying you should. Tell her all about your dreams and see what she thinks, and ask her to let us know. Do you think you may be getting some of these ideas from the astronomy programme you watch? The gentleman on there was talking about black holes, wasn’t he?”
“I don’t think he knows about the creatures inside stars or he’d have said. They’re lots bigger than our planet, so he’d have to notice.”
“Then I wonder where you’re getting all this from,” Lesley said and stared at me.
I felt accused until I realised that she didn’t quite intend that. Like my father, she assumed I’d passed my imagination down to our son. Toby’s dreams weren’t much like any I’d ever had, and so I didn’t see why I should be blamed for them—and then, in a moment that seemed to bring a good deal into focus, I knew what they were like. “Toby,” I said, “I won’t be angry if you say yes, but have you been in my desk?”
5 - The Voice Of The Book
“I hope Toby didn’t read these,” Lesley said.
“So long as they still make you laugh.”
“I expect they always will,” she said, demonstrating with a token chuckle at a verse.
“You needn’t force it so long as they did.”
Born To The Dark Page 4
