by Paul Ableman
“Not really,” I confess. “I enjoyed hearing it.”
“Well, that’s something,” he retorts briskly. He gasps slightly as he sets his bulky and abused body into motion again, and then he puffs slowly off up the stairs. At the landing he turns to add something.
“It’s all right,” he adds. “What could you say, after all? Though the truth is, although I put it so badly, still I have the feeling that we got somewhere, don’t you think?”
But at this moment a burst of voices comes from the meeting and, as if he had heard his name being discreditably mentioned, he suddenly brandishes his stick and hobbles up and out of sight.
When I get home Cousin Susan asks:
“Well, how did you get on?”
“Not too badly, Susan,” I say, not very truthfully.
“Then you’re established in Arthur’s office? You’ve embarked on a joint enterprise?”
“Well, not finally,” I temporize, “there are still a good many details to be settled. As a matter of fact, a number of the directors arrived drunk and Arthur had to cancel the meeting.”
I do not get the impression that Susan is convinced by this, but she goes away dutifully to put on my egg and I go upstairs to my room and get into bed. I lie there motionlessly for a while, hoping to feel calm, but instead I feel increasingly lonely. Outside the window is the harsh glare of morning. Whippoorwills and large urban parrots are circling around a smoking chimney. Other whippoorwills and sparrows are fluttering above the street, watching the morning bustle of the city, interested only in those untidy, muttering ancients whom day brings forth with little bags of crusts.
“Another day,” cries Arthur, bursting cheerfully into my room.
“You’re on your way?”
“I’m going to the office, old son. I shall pass Harkin the weed man, dispensing weed. I pass him every morning. I think I know the way by now.”
“I should think you do, Arthur,” I agree. “You don’t have to think about it.”
“That’s right,” he admits, but on a slightly dubious note. “I can think about other things, problems that I have to face. I can keep my mind clear.”
“Of course you can.” But then an interesting point occurs to me. “Can you keep it clear at that corner by the lavatories which seems to be very old?”
“What are you going to do today?” Arthur interrupts me, moving a small condensation about.
“I thought I might feed the parrots,” I offer, knowing that, for some reasons, it pleases Arthur to think that I have made definite plans for the utilization of my time.
“There aren’t any parrots,” he retorts.
“Then I might feed the gulls,” I amend. “The azure gulls, lovely birds, unique birds, ornithologists agree—”
“No, you won’t,” he contradicts, not angrily but with a certain hard certainty in his voice. “You’ll just lie there thinking, like a blight or plague.”
The detached manner in which he speaks these words gives them a good deal of force and I find myself looking at him with surprise and even a certain reluctant admiration. But then he speaks some more and sinks at once to a lower level.
“Feed the gulls. You won’t find many gulls in this district. And if there were—hundreds of them, screaming about as if the house were a dead whale, catch you feeding them. I don’t know why I bother with you.”
And he abruptly leaves the room.
After he has gone, I lie still for quite a long time. I realize that he was right, that I have no intention of feeding the gulls, that I have really devised no plans whatsoever for the day. And yet it is not my intention to destroy the day. Very far from it. I awoke filled with determination to put it to some excellent use. I don’t think I had anything precisely in mind although, if I had been asked to express as clearly as I could the sort of thing that was forming there, I think I should have called it a collaboration. I had intended to suggest this to Arthur when he came in, but he took the opportunity to boast about some trivial achievement and assumed what can only be called an abstract virtue. I pointed this out to him and he could only reply by displaying various testimonials, one dating from the rural period that has never been verified, and one that anyone but a chamber athlete would despise. He also spoke of his single foreign tour when it was the custom of his detachment to make their way to a steamy oasis infested by parrots. Admittedly, his description of Coker, the Northern horn-man, bellowing droll Northern obscenities as the engaging parrots wiggled their brazen plumage at him, was fairly amusing, but, on another occasion, as he once inadvertently revealed, he was hard and unjust to this same Coker. He hates Coker because the man’s memory reproaches him, but he can’t resist the applause he always wins when he recounts the spectacle. Arthur knew I’d penetrated to the disreputable core of the matter and so he closed on a note of bitterness. Later he came back into the room and purposely set fire to an end of straw trailing out of my old leather bag. He extinguished this in time but only to attempt to kindle a more intellectual blaze by remarking, in an apparently casual manner, making a show of directing his attention towards the remarkable Mrs. Groggins who was streaming her beauty down the street, “I can probably do twenty things that you can’t.” Naturally I didn’t challenge this, but Arthur could not resist adding, “Just one example—I can catch parrots.” I did smile faintly then, not that I found it really amusing, and Arthur, perhaps feeling slightly ashamed of himself, modified his attitude a little. He came and stood beside me for a moment and then, on his way out, rather casually, but with kind intent, said, “Never mind, I’ll bring you a few plumes.” And then I heard the particular sounds of his departure and the cries of the gulls, which have screamed round these rocks for untold ages, rising to a shriller note as he drove wildly out amongst them. And then the note of the gulls subsided again.
And now I lie quietly, gazing without interest at a point near the doorway. Nothing occurs to me. It is quiet in the house, It will remain quiet unless someone shakes the house. Sometimes they rebuild these houses or parts of them. Sometimes they redirect the whole line, so that if you stand at special sighting points, you can visualize later projects. An acquaintance of Groggins was persecuted like this. He protested, but his protest was used to make bullets. He said that it would be better to tear down the lot. He drew a graphic picture of the scene then, when pillars, rubble, charred frames and intimate debris made a playground for rats. These rats would do nothing with the wreckage but run nimbly here and there, finding bodies. Finally the rats would come up against pumice stone and be appalled by the acrid smell. They would picture the earth’s surface as so many smoking cones. Then they might sip delicately. But the thing has still to be negotiated. At this moment it glows in the forge. It has been hammered by sturdy men striding out of hamlets, by exhausted men, satiated finally on strands. Everyone has at least a little hammer and deals it feeble blows.
“Hello,” chirps Maria, entering in a cheerful and yet rather sheepish and beguiling mood. “Do you want an egg? I’ve brought you one.”
“Thank you, Maria,” I say, trying to sound as grateful as possible and, in fact, the autumn morning does stir appetite in my throat. “I’d be glad of some breakfast.”
“Here’s your breakfast,” she continues, setting the tray carefully on my lap. “When are you going to get up?”
“I don’t know,” I answer. I raise my spoon to tackle the egg, but suddenly the few trees along the street, lifting their heads into the first, thin seasonal mists and tasting their annual decline, breathe autumn into the room. I leave my egg unscathed. “It’s autumn again,” I remark, smiling at Maria.
She looks a little bewildered and yet fresh and enthusiastic.
“I know. I’ve just walked along to the shops. It’s funny, I noticed it too, suddenly. You don’t get much chance in this district. But you know that street—”
She gropes for the name of a street, and then, when she has found it, describes how she looked along it and saw how the trees, only li
ghtly burdened now with crisp leaves, arched the roadway, recreating a little bit of ancient forest.
“It’s suddenly become autumn,” she remarks.
“It’s been very sudden,” I agree. “But you’re quite right. I felt it almost at the same moment.”
Maria does not say anything, but she is clearly thoughtful. She may be thinking of some road above patches of wood or of her past. She goes to the window and draws the curtains more fully.
“Can you see any trees?” she asks.
I look but she is in the way and, anyway, I feel sure that no trees are actually visible from my bed. She suggests that I join her by the window.
“I was thinking of my past,” she confesses. “I don’t often do that. I don’t believe in regrets.”
“Do you have regrets?” I ask her.
“Of course,” she exclaims, turning towards me with a surprised expression. “Everyone has regrets. Are you coming to look at the trees? You can see them from here.”
“All right,” I agree.
I put my tray aside and climb rather reluctantly out of bed. The floor is cold with some of autumn’s moisture. With one part of me I feel a desire to embrace the unexpected season but I know that I could never be sufficient, and with another part I want to remain in bed and trace a development that Maria interrupted.
“Still, go on,” I urge. “Explain to me what you meant, about regrets.”
“About regrets,” she repeats vaguely, her glance drifting weakly from the tree tops which are either raking the mist as barbed wire rakes sheep or else are being shriveled by the mists and having the vital elements in the sap driven down into the safe roots. Her glance, leaving the crusts of nature without penetrating deeply into any aspect of them, is taken familiarly by Mrs. Groggins who is now returning from the shops in the company of a man called Scarl.
At the window I shiver a little. As far as one can see, between the prongs and casings, the mist is draped thinly over time. It is stirred faintly by aspiration, and these currents, slowly being absorbed by tidal and transcendental streams of different kinds are carrying this part of the season away. Each part of the season is stored carefully. It is kept in special cupboards from which the Provider brings out the right things at the right time.
“There goes Lady Groggins,” remarks Maria. She looks with a sort of resentful admiration at the remarkable wife of old Groggins.
“And the regrets?” I insist. “You were going to tell me about the regrets.”
“I haven’t got any regrets,” returns Maria irritably.
She remarks that she could use a new coat. Then, having turned away and glanced thoughtfully, her mind running to domestic matters of cleaning and so forth, round the room, she suddenly comes back and says boldly:
“I wish I’d married Carlo, if you really want to know.”
“I’ve often wondered,” I admit. “Of course, there were rumors—”
“Rumors!” she snorts, thinking, doubtless, of her passion for the Italian and their contempt, at that time, for rumors: of the times when, sealed together in doorways or entwined in public gardens, the protests of all morality would have been as the whispering of a breeze above the thundering falls of their passion.
“Then why didn’t you marry him?” I ask.
“Why?” repeats Maria. “I didn’t marry him for a variety of reasons.”
She appears to be recollecting some of these reasons. She sighs with considerable emotion and notices one of the last flies moving in the room.
“Are you going to tell me the reasons?” I ask her.
But she just shakes her head impatiently. She does, however, later admit certain things, but I become increasingly doubtful as to whether these are the real reasons, or as to whether the real reasons have any sort of existence anymore.
“There was nothing shameful?” I ask.
“It was like I’ve been telling you,” she retorts. “Just that he went—at least—it was just after a war, and we couldn’t find—”
She pauses, her face a screen onto which confused images from the past are projected.
“A house?”
“Some blasted woman—”
“A rival?”
She then explains how the doctor diagnosed something fearful.
“We all thought it was—naturally—”
But it was something else. But by then something had arrived, or some law. She now seems puzzled at someone’s absence—a cousin—or was it a cousin? But the episode has to be abandonded. Then how did—she is on the point of retrieving something when something else, cooking or cleaning, occurs to her and, with a start, she hurries away to perform it.
Downstairs, having returned to her work, moving quickly, scolding Jane and so on, she sings a little song, only a few coherent words of which drift out of mystery towards me: “sing—sing—heart—ago—”
And then a voice says:
“You must start again.” I ask myself wryly what is meant by that. “You must start again. It seems doubtful if you started properly before. It seems doubtful if you established a real position. Can you recall? Were you poised at any state?” I ask myself what this means. “Poised—there’s a problem. Do you concur? Do you subscribe to this formulation? What are your views?” What are my views? I ask this doubtfully.
Autumn views.
“A mere season.”
A mere season—well—I’m open to advice. I should like advice.
“You must begin by ‘living in a picture’ and then there’s a next step. You must think about your mother. You must rigorously exclude—
“You must exclude gulls. Then there’s the next step. You must seek advice.”
Well—I’m open to advice.
“You’d better get in touch with Stoker Brangwill. It’s most important —”
Will this advice spread? Is it like an estuary, full of ships that have come singly down the stream? Will it spread like the smoke or beams from the ships spreading with the wind and the subtle currents of the earth? First of all, is it new advice?
“It’s certainly advanced. We have the best people. This is Commissioner Brangwill. His father was a stoker, but he’s been specially trained as an adviser.”
Commissioner Brangwill seats himself. He takes up my problem at once.
“What is the nature of your problem?”
“Grapes.”
“This young man is perplexed about grapes.”
During the course of the ensuing interviews, he admits his own perplexities, not grapes but the propensities of children, the things they like, the things behind the things they like, the things he liked, the why and wherefore—
“But I’m talking too much about myself,” he smiles. “I was a child like you. And I sit here talking about children like us both. You’re doubtless looking forward to some therapy.”
He gives me some therapy which is distinctly helpful and then sends me out to see if the therapy has reconciled me. I meet someone who uses balm instead of therapy but is very hospitable. He at once invites me to establish myself and so my whole social world is extended. At its outermost ridge, I meet someone.
“Would you like to meet more of us?” she asks. “Do you know ‘Piper’ Brangwill? He was a boatswain, you know.”
We pass a wonderful evening. When I get home it is very light with renewed desire, with fresh calls and insisting.
“You can’t go on in this way.”
“He can’t go on like this.”
“Are there enough voices here to vote?”
“Can we vote?”
That evening, when I meet someone in secret, I confess that the situation is becoming much more difficult.
“It’s almost incredibly difficult,” I point out. “I’m sure your situation is difficult too.”
“I’m your little bird, your little bird of passage. Migratory bird. Shall we fly?”
“The situation at home is much more difficult.”
She turns away to look at other people
.
“I suppose it’s more difficult,” I continue, but with rather less conviction. “Well—anyway—what about old—thing—er—”
It is a bitter morning when I next present myself in Dr. Brangwill’s small den. He is seated as usual and registers some new data while I listen to the particular tensions made by the aviary nearby.
“Today,” he begins rather loftily, soaring about with his hands clasped loftily behind his back, “I shall tell you why I am not afraid, what screens I use. I use the screen of the immediate and other screens. I use strong screens and I sit behind them and suck rind. Sometimes I whimper a little but this sound is effectively screened and no one hears. I whimper because I see someone in need. I never see one person in need but millions. Then I stretch out my hand, still sticky from the sweet rind but I only touch the screens. That’s how my screening works.”
After he has explained this, he returns to his desk and sits down. He seems to reflect on what he has said and to be not altogether satisfied with it.
“That’s all I’m prepared to say,” he resumes. “Unless you ask me about my real interest which is early life. My early life, all early life. On second thought, too much time has been consumed already. You’re the very devil for making me talk.”
He then mentions therapy but becomes absorbed in reading a long list of appointments and names. I wait for a while and then get up and quietly leave his office. I tell his assistant that I will return for my next appointment.
“Somehow,” she says, “I don’t think you will.”
And, when I ask her to explain these words, she continues:
“You’ll never see Brangwill again. His number’s up. I don’t like him much, but if there was any way I could warn him—make him see—”
But then several people, who are waiting, begin to show signs of impatience. The assistant looks at them coldly, but then, adopting a conspiratorial and familiar manner with me, suggests:
“You’d better go now. They’re all impatient for their last interview. It’s rather awful.”
She shakes her head disapprovingly and then calls out the next name from her book. It is someone whom I only know vaguely and I do not stay long enough to exchange more than a greeting. The man does, however, provide me with something to reflect upon as I go.
