by Colin McAdam
HE HAD TROUBLE catching Matty at home for several weeks. He seemed to be convincing himself that he was just popping by, randomly, and wasn’t it a sad coincidence that she was never there? In fact he appeared at her driveway regularly, constantly like a foolish little cuckoo bursting wide-eyed from a clock. He almost ran into Leonard a few times, and after a while he gave up.
He assumed there was some extraordinary reason for her absence. Perhaps she had retreated to a nunnery, afraid of the passion he had awakened in her.
What was the truth? Was she not interested in him? Already?
He returned to spinning texts, to narrow hallways, lunch breaks, Wednesday afternoons.
It was he who retreated to the nunnery and it was becoming very clear that he was no longer enjoying it. He deliberately wiped his dirty shoes on his blue carpet. He caught himself whispering once, “Is there nothing real to do?” and was a bit embarrassed to catch himself. He had to do something, something grand.
Reading those myths reminded him of the glorious things the imagination produces. When he had read Ovid at university he had lost himself for hours, thinking of nothing but outlandish events and the sweet tortures of love. He imagined that when he left university his life might be as rich as all that; once the prudish restraint of childhood was shaken off, once the expectations of his family could be forgotten, the real world—his world— would be populated by giants, wit, and desperately romantic encounters. Sounds naive, but he wasn’t. He was always wise enough to know that if things can be imagined, they can be created.
But how many years ago did that conviction first arise? What had he created?
It is the curse of being involved in policy. If you are involved in making policy you will know that no matter how active or industrious you may be there is always a sense of having done nothing in the end. You know perfectly well that it was your policy which led to a concrete result. But somehow in the face of the concrete result your policy looks like nothing. You feel a niggling uneasiness. Was your policy really responsible for that? Your policy alone? You start to forget how you had come up with that policy. You realize that no one else credits your policy for the creation of that, and as your own memory fades of how and why you came up with the policy it becomes even more insubstantial next to the result itself.
It is more than a fear of not being noticed, it is a fear of thinking you are one person, but then not remembering that person when you look back at him, or not believing he can have amounted to you.
THE DREAMBOOK MENTIONED a Museum of Childhood.
It mentioned an Odeon, a three-thousand-seat theater where only poetry would be read.
There was a plan for a hundred market gardens, which would leave the city self-sufficient in vegetable terms for three weeks a year. Laughs in pencil, “ha ha ha.”
Sometimes when he opened the book he thought it laughed at him personally, but he realized that if he left it open long enough the pencilled scoffing of his colleagues would disappear. At the inky heart of the book were some serious, sad lost dreams.
Something could be built that would create rather than take away choice. Human possibilities could be examined rather than stifled.
Anything on the landscape takes away choice; he knew that. Houses, neighborhoods were the worst offenders—the same shapes framing everyone’s potential. Put walls around a child and the child can’t be free; take away paradise and Paradise will have to be imagined. But what if a building could be created where choice would be endless, where all substance, known and unknown, could be examined in miniature? A building where imagination could take form and where the consequences of taking hold of what is imagined would be minute.
There was such a structure in the Dreambook. I mentioned it.
Whenever he tried to visit Matty he would pass by that park on the edge of the Greenbelt, perhaps enjoying a rosy flush thinking of the flirtations he had enjoyed there, perhaps feeling regret over following flirtation too far. But whatever particular thoughts he had of the park, it was always in his mind when he was doing other things, when he wrote memos, when he looked through the Dreambook, when he spitefully wiped his feet on his carpet. It was no surprise that he thought of the park soon after he whispered, “Is there nothing real to do?”
MATTY HAD SEEMED pleasant enough, polite, when she and Simon said goodbye, but her absence had grown chilling. He didn’t know whether he would have any better luck finding her at home this time.
“Hello, Simon.”
“You’re home! Finally. I was going to check for fresh graves around the city.”
“We’re having dinner at the moment.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Hello, Struthers.”
“Hello, Schutz. Sorry to interrupt your dinner.”
“Not at all. Come in. I’m afraid we’ve finished eating.”
“I can’t stay long.”
“Oh well. Come in. Did you want to talk about work?”
“Um. Yes.”
“Could it wait till tomorrow?”
“Absolutely.”
“Do you really want to come in then?”
“Perhaps not.”
“No, do come in, Simon. Heavens, Leonard. Come in and have a drink, Simon.”
“Thanks.”
Never mind what happened next. The door closed behind him.
Matty had been in Montreal, she said, visiting Kwyet, getting out of Ottawa, that sort of thing.
“IT PROBABLY ISN’T a good idea if you come to our house when Leonard might be there, especially if you don’t really seem to have any reason for visiting.”
“I do have a reason.”
“A reason that Leonard would like to hear.”
“I was just curious about what you were doing. I was beginning to worry.”
“That I was dead?”
“That you wished I were.”
“I was in Montreal.”
“Yes.”
“And I didn’t wish you were dead. I’ve just never . . . I’ve never had an affair before. It is an affair, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not very romantic. Aren’t you supposed to say, ‘It’s Love,’ or something like that? Anyway, Kwyet says it’s a passing fancy.”
“You told Kwyet?”
“Only that you had sex with me in her father’s shower. None of the other details.”
“I see.”
“I’m kidding.”
“I know.”
“So why do you look pale?”
“Love.”
“I don’t feel like joking. I don’t want to have an affair with you, Simon.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I didn’t . . .”
“You didn’t like it?”
“Well, it’s more than that, isn’t it? I told you that sex is a bit pointless with me. Anyway you don’t have to feel like you’re betraying someone. I know you don’t like Leonard but he’s the only man I’ve been with for more than twenty years. He can be pompous and I have to coddle his insecurities constantly, but when all you see is someone’s vulnerabilities you hardly want to hurt them more. I know him. I know him like my own skin. I mean, I do want to hurt him sometimes, but not like this. Now you look hurt.”
“No.”
“I am attracted to you, Simon, but I just can’t have an affair.”
“Right.”
“That seems to mean nothing to you.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Well, yes. What do you mean?”
“Perhaps I should visit your house sometime.”
“Really?”
“I don’t know.”
“WHAT DO YOU want to know, Simon?”
“About what?”
“About me.”
“Everything.”
“Really?”
“No.”
“That’s honest.”
“I have a theory.”
“What?”
“That I a
m only interested in sexual things.”
“Sounds like you may be right.”
“Well, I am interested in you entirely. I mean private things more than sexual things.”
“I must be dull, then. I do nothing in private. Leonard and I do nothing in private. That’s not entirely true. We do things but I don’t want to tell you about them.”
“Why not?”
“Because I myself don’t find them interesting. And now that I am reminded of them I feel a bit sick.”
“Is he that unattractive?”
“No, Simon, I feel sick because I am betraying him. Would you mind putting your clothes on? I can’t get used to you naked.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t mean to ask boring questions, Simon, but what are we doing together?”
“Let’s not talk about that,” he said.
“What should we talk about?”
“I don’t know.”
“Should I ask you what you do in private?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s private,” he said.
“I see.”
“I seem to do nothing but think of myself in private.”
“That’s no good. What do you hope for?”
“By thinking of myself?”
“No, I mean generally,” she said. “That’s something we can talk about. What do you hope will happen to you? What do you hope to do? Those are things I think about, in private.”
“What do you hope for?”
“You first.”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m always thinking of myself.
I’m always wondering what I want, I never know, but I am always aware of wanting.”
“Like an alcoholic.”
“Is it? I would have thought alcoholics knew exactly what they wanted. I don’t know at all. I think I know, but then I try having it and I realize I am wrong.”
“That’s how one learns, presumably.”
“I suppose. Alcoholics don’t learn. What do you hope for?”
“I don’t know.”
“Really?”
“Not a clue. I hope for daily things . . . that Kwyet will call, that I won’t lose my health, that sort of thing. That I can have peace and quiet but not be lonely.”
“It sounds like your hopes are precise.”
“No. I don’t know what I want any more than you.”
HE WANTS TO BITE without tasting, taste without eating, eat without digesting, digest without losing, lose without regretting, regret without shame, feel shame without anger, grow angry without biting, bite without tasting.
“MATTY?”
“Yes?”
“Can I take my clothes off again?”
THE AIR IN the park is like cream. The grass is fat and the leaves blow like flutes.
“Why don’t you two skip?”
“Because mothers and daughters don’t skip in the grass unless they’re alone or in a man’s fantasy.”
“Really?”
“No.”
“But I have seen Mum and Dad skip together.”
“You should go ahead and skip, Simon. Kwyet and I will chat.”
WHEN THE LION spies a herd of knobble-kneed delicacies cudding on the veld, he must, on occasion, feel confused. The delight, certainly, of running at them en masse must be great. But then two peel away. The finest two? One hopes. And when one of these peels away from the other, is there an epic battle of minute duration between instinct, hunger, mania, and indecision?
Yes, oh, yes, he was that lion. He may have been skipping in dew-lapped loafers. He may indeed have been skipping away from his prey. But he was that lion, oh yes.
“YOU SAID my daughter’s name when we made love.”
“Kwyet?”
“Yes. ‘Oh, Kwyet.’”
“I was just saying ‘quiet.’ I thought we were loud.”
“I wasn’t loud.”
“No, I was.”
‘“You were telling yourself to be quiet?”
“Yes.”
“‘Oh, quiet’?”
“Yes.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you loved Kwyet. I don’t know where she came from. Proud mothers always say that, but I think all mothers would agree that Kwyet can’t have come from Leonard or from me.”
“She has your intelligence and beauty.”
“Your lies are predictable sometimes, Simon. What did she get from Leonard then?”
“Yes . . . Perhaps, not speaking in medical terms, her beauty is a metempsychosis of Leonard’s voluptuous ideals.”
“That was unpredictable. You’ve paid it some thought.”
“No.”
“Seriously, Simon, why were you telling yourself to be quiet when there was no one there but me? It’s not as though our parents were downstairs.”
“I don’t know. It must have slipped out. It’s your fault for not taking it seriously. If you took sex seriously I wouldn’t feel self-conscious. Then I wouldn’t tell myself to be quiet.”
“I find it hard to believe that you wouldn’t be self-conscious. You are the most self-conscious man I’ve met.”
“Am I?”
“Don’t look stunned. It’s not a bad thing.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Simon?”
“Yes?”
“It is getting late. Your colleagues will be wondering.”
DID HE THINK of Kwyet?
Kwyet had been on his mind since the world first said no and his mind insisted yes. No more jellies, Simon; no more playing, Simon; no more sleeping, Simon; no kissing, Simon (I’m your teacher); no cookies in bed, Simon; no more money, Simon; no kissing, Simon (she’s your cousin); no making fun of fat boys, Simon; no crying, Simon; no leaving school grounds, Simon; no tongue, Simon; no, Simon, not there; no, Simon, not now; no ogling, Simon; no fondling, Simon; no, Simon, leather pants on boys are ridiculous; no, Simon, it goes like this; no, Simon, think of your father’s reputation; no sex in dorms, Simon; no sex in girls’ dorms, Simon; no sex with dons, Simon; no sex with Dawn, Simon (she’s my wife); no sex for two months and never with me (I’m your doctor); no biting, no talking, no slander, no parking, no time, and no wine on a weekday.
“Simon?”
“Kwyet?”
“Don’t forget about my invitation to Montreal.”
“I haven’t. I thought you might have retracted it.”
“Why?”
“Last time I saw you—when you went baby-sitting—you seemed upset.”
“ . . . ”
“Kwyet? Were you upset?”
“Come to Montreal in a few months. In a year.
“Why?”
“Don’t you want to come?”
“Of course l do. Why in a year?”
“I don’t know.”
UNTIL HE KNEW everything he would never be at rest.
The wise cleric, sour of tongue, says, “Until you are at rest, you will not know everything.” And you, pragmatic children of Locke, “Rest or not, you cannot know everything.”
He didn’t wish to know God. He didn’t wish to know wisdom. He had no inclination to know the magic, faith, or chemistry that turns coal into motion, gas into water, a spinning jenny into glory of a nation. He wished to know nothing of the ground he walked on or the fabric of his bones.
But he did wish to know what private man and woman do when their doors are closed at night. The universe isn’t hidden in an atom, it sits in the mind of a man at work who thinks a dirty thought; it’s in the mind of your neighbor in her living room, flicking through her coffee-table book of dreams. What noble, envious, grasping, divine aspirations are playing behind her eyes? If he could collect each scintilla of emotion and perception. If he could record the precise notation of her coloratura climax as she writhes in the arms of adultery. If he could know you all, alone, the extremes of your despair, the remedies you barely dare to contemplate, your thoughts before they are tainted by language, y
our language, untainted by thought, which you babble in your bathroom. If he could learn every happy nasty secret of each solitary mind, then he would know everything. Then he would know more than the men who search for wind on Jupiter, more than the men who know financial markets as farmers know their fields. Then he would be at rest.
And it follows, logically, that he would be interested in finding out where Kwyet baby-sat and observing her through a window.
There she is now, in the room through there, in this filthy house.
Where did Mummy and Daddy go? What does Daddy think of his baby-sitter, this dark-haired answer to every conceivable yearning?
There’s our Kwyet. Who’s the lucky little boy? I suppose he is handsome enough, but not enough for her. None of the requisite age and experience. Unhand her.
Oh, look, an airplane! Where did she get that from? She consorts with a pilot. Does he give her model airplanes? Good heavens, the boy likes the airplane more than he likes Kwyei. Look at her, son, her.
Neeeeeyoooww, vvvvvvvv—no, no, give the plane back to Kwyet, there we are, they can’t fly backward—vvvvvvvv. Look at her hand, little boy, look at the grace and force of it: an argument with five elegant conclusions. Ask her if you can touch her hand. But you do, don’t you? You can. There you are now, touching whatever you like. Ask her if he can come in and join you. Please?
Oh, look, there he goes. Yes. He is off to the bathroom. That’s right. Leave her alone for a minute. What do you look like alone, Kwyet? The smile slowly dwindles. How long? Still a trace of a smile. He is long gone, Kwyet. Why are you still smiling? He can’t be that charming. Perhaps you can hear him in the bathroom. Is he singing? Maybe you hear an adorable tinkle. No, you are above that. Why are you still smiling?
Now here he is, back. With a banana? Why do they keep bananas in the bathroom? He must have gone to the kitchen, not the bathroom. Get Kwyet to peel that for you—yes, clever boy. She does that very well. Perhaps you would like her to have a bite? No?
What are they talking about? What is he saying that’s so engaging? There is room on that couch for Simon. Perhaps he should ring the doorbell. What would his excuse be? “I heard you were flying planes. Can I join you?” They would both like that, a fellow enthusiast.
