Mark threw the paper over a wall.
- For Jesus Christ’s fucking sake! Pete screamed, hurling the books at Virginia’s feet, will you stop walking between those fucking paving stones? You’re driving me mad!
- Bastard! What do you mean? Bastard!
- I’ll kill you, you fucking bitch, if you don’t stop it!
Their screams pitched and grated together. Virginia, breathless, stared at his face. A silence hummed. Turning, she walked slowly on. Pete picked up the books and he, Mark and Len continued behind her.
- Well, if I don’t see you before you go, Len, Pete said, look after yourself in Paris.
- I’ll probably see you before I go.
- Yes.
They reached the beginning of the Downs. Virginia, ahead of them, had stopped under a tree. Pete paused by the railings.
- I’ll be seeing you, he said.
- Yes, Mark said.
Len and Mark walked back along the road. In the afternoon quiet they heard Virginia sobbing. Mark looked back and saw her crouched in Pete’s arms. He stopped to light a cigarette, drawing carefully. He looked back. They were moving slowly under the avenue of trees, on to the grass. He watched them move across the field, and out of sight.
- Are you coming?
Sixteen
They’ve gone on a picnic. They’ve time for picnics. They’ve left me to sweep the yard, to pacify the rats. No sooner do they leave, these dwarfs, than in come the rats. They’ve left me to attend to the abode, to make their landscape congenial. I can’t do a good job. It’s a hopeless task. The longer they stay the greater the mess. Nobody lifts a finger. Nobody gets rid of a damn thing. All their leavings pile up, pile mixing with pile. When they return from their picnics I tell them I’ve had a clearance, that I’ve been hard at it since their departure. They nod, they yawn, they gobble, they spew. They don’t know the difference. In truth, I sit and stir the stumps, the skins, the gristle. I tell them I’ve slaved like a martyr, I’ve skivvied till I was black in the face, what about a tip, what about a promise of a bonus, what about a little something? They yawn, they show the blood stuck between their teeth, they play their scratching game, they tongue their chops, they bring in their nets, their webs, their traps, they make monsters of their innocent catch, they gorge. Countless diversions. What about the job? What about the job in hand? After all my devotion. What about the rats I dealt with? What about the rats I saved for you, that I plucked and hung out to dry, what about the ratsteak I tried all ways to please you? They don’t touch it, they don’t see it. Where is it, they hidden it, they’re hiding it till the time I can no longer stand upright and I fall, they’ll bring it out then, grimed then, green, varnished, rigid, and eat it as a victory dish.
Seventeen
Pete walked along the east bank of the river. Under the wood-yard wall he stopped, peering.
Cow’s skull. Taken to root. No. A boulder. Dead lump of brass, battered.
Battlements of white wood jawed over the wall, clamped in frames of iron.
Palms of iron, upturned, manacled.
Deathmask of ironwood struck shadowed across the water.
A penny for the old guy.
He winked at the one star.
Only one this shift. Rest given up the ghost.
The jut of wood grunted, crisp, shaved, splintered. His heel grated gravel and dust. On to hard stone, the slope of the bridge. On the bridge’s hump he stared the river and wide reach of dark. Collected, rolled, let out. The yolk of gob flattened and sang white to a slap on the surface.
King of the horsefly world. Enemy in the knee.
Ah. Some worm’s a traitor in my camp.
Distance it.
His eyes glinted the boulder’s head on the bank.
Pawnbroker’s ball, carbuncled.
He descended to the bankpath and squatting, scrabbled in the dark under of the stone, wrenched it out of dirt. Beetles capered in the yawn. He swung the boulder. A crash, a swallow of water.
Fined thirty bob.
The river jolted, hollowed, fell from his boot. Through sliteyes he watched the slicing fall of a gull. The bird landed on pebble, padding to probe in the mud. Silently Pete moved along the shore. The gull tugged at the corpse, feet in its mouth. With a snap the cloth of the rat’s head tore. The beak dug and pierced.
Dessert. Cheese and biscuits.
His head thumped, he turned and crossed the bridge. The fields spread out of sight and dark.
Dead as a squashed bug.
His eardrum pricked the muffle of sound, the beat.
Hold hard.
A long boat lunged a brisk pulse, along his course, past him, on the water; sucked under the bridge, stroked swift upstream. The wash stirred back, squabbling on pebble.
Athletes. Hold on. Animal in my gut. Knee argument.
Quick. Get on.
Dust in the fairground crackled and swam. The stalls ticked in the dark, shuttered.
Sweat still running. Arena sweat. Is this it?
Keep a straight line.
In the sweat of night a shunting engine cranked, stopped short. Heat of the merrygoround needled to his throat.
Knock at this gypsy door. Ask for remission.
Ask for the other exit.
A glut of bile creased into his mouth.
This is it.
Heavylegged walking he reached the lock. The river became canal.
Knee won’t make. Labour of birth. Gaswork now. Settle it. Steady. Hold. Would you I am?
His hand pounded staccato on the iron rail. A stab shook sauntering through his joints. Knees bent, he clutched, crouched, struck icy in the eyes.
Wash black wash black.
He summoned a grip.
Knuckle.
A clout slapped his nape, scrawled a blot of cold over his skull.
Now.
His eyelid snapped a stone down.
Father.
Yes now you’re the one dear only son only the open blood canal the only night and the one taped to be taped. What choking spit and the ornaments the makeshift grass the splintered grass. A riderless horse canal turn blowing. Blowing bubbles I am the only so the only son. Belay there to stern. Rind no yes ammonia. My throat his only rubbished son. Black all to iron. So this rust. Rust and one. Yes now you’re done and made the one dear one. Split knifestalks yellow under green the nightblades crust and silk. At the canal turn. Bitch gone black. Steel and bland. Forge I hammer I blood to forge that ice.
No hand. Gaswork top and flat. Steel dish for such my only loss. Glass how can you to the grit? Eyeball sum up in wax. To say so. To say no. To pull and parley I chat I am swabbed to now. God and his leak. Cocaine Christ. Now. Bolt. Which now lock? Mains check check mains a blowout call them in call them check no bolt. Blowlamp now. Put so put on list. Steel of steel sweat current a current to yes to again. Concrete grass shoots grey no. No price no bid. No bid no board no chalk no sale no room no place no sign no tack cold cage carbolic summer.
Alone to be alone. Shiver me out. Douse down seeing. Taped to be so. Good and all. Time about. Barge. Old sows. Water in heat. Blindabout only existing son. No barter. Closed shop at the metal crack. Yes and I know it to that. That’s all. Am I your nighwatchman? All aboard. So to see. A breather. Screw this hinge. That’s it. Cobblers on. Air so. Keep the change. Compliments of. Air now. Now tread now back. Can move. Shall move.
Eighteen
Len climbed the stone stairs, in the echo of his steps. He walked along the balcony and stopped at the door. It was ajar. He went in. There was no sound in the flat. The hallway was dark. A crack of light shone from the kitchen.
- Pete?
There was no reply. Len walked to the kitchen door and looked in. Pete was sitting upright in an armchair by the window, facing him, in his shirtsleeves. Len stepped into the room. He rested his hand upon the dresser and thumbed the edge.
- The emissary, Pete said, smiling.
- What do you mean?
- That’s
another question, Pete said. I’m talking about yachts.
He moved his arms slowly to the arms of the chair.
- They’re as clean as a whistle. They have balance and proportion. They’re a logical unit. That’s the only thing to look for in this world. Logic. Logic in a drainpipe. Logic in a leaf.
His frame shivered. He gripped the chairarms.
- Virginia has put on lipstick and gone out with a girlfriend. A day off. I’m glad. She’s easily frightened. So you’re here? You’ve stepped over the mat, into this room. I can’t quibble now. I suspend belief. Cockeyed. I’ll take it that you’re here. I won’t abolish you. I know who you’re not, anyway. That is something decisive. No. To say I have a screw loose would not be accurate. On the contrary, my screws are so tight they grind against each other from each side of my cranium. It’s a music I respect. Certainly. You could say that if you smell impending lunacy you’re bound to recruit enough moral force to combat such a disaster. You would be right. But tonight not. I have made my way home from the canal. The mind has slipped its leash. Without my warrant. Acting on its own volition. I am no longer in charge. Or to what extent? There is no obsession here, only bereavement. I resent that. There is no need for you to pray yet. If you slip on to your knees and pray I shall be mortally insulted. It would be a prayer for the dead. That surprises you. How could you see me as a corpse? Quite right. I am a living man of extreme potential. A force to be reckoned with. A force who can reckon with forces, who reckoned with the devil and therefore created him. How are your negotiations? Where are you? My trouble is, I’m valid. That’s not your concern.
Pete winked his right eye.
- I’m nattering like a clubman. To the white meat. I can’t see you. You’re insubstantial to the point of chaos. Order in all things. I’m the only logical unit you know. The one you’d do better not to know. But of course I can keep distance. Distance is child’s play. Perhaps it is kept for me. Where does distance end? I can’t sidestep the facts, though I admit to alter the fact of distance might be desirable. Love is easy in the nursery. And life can only be kept with a tape-measure. If so, so what? The world sucks on these irrelevances. That measure may be a slug is irrelevant. And pride is a grotesque irrelevance. To do homage to it is suicide. Did you know that? By bits. First, you slit your eyelids. With a pincer you pluck your toenails. The rest follows. Such a course of events ceases to be eventful, it becomes method, simple procedure. Procedure is simple when suicide has set in. Are you still here? Because suicide itself is irrelevant. It is as constructive to upset the chamberpot. I do not participate and never will. Neither in their chamberpots nor in their procedure. I wrote their scriptures. I trod their scriptures before them. I am of a mind to abdicate. When my sense of distance has been proved wrong. And no one but me can eliminate it. When I have proved distance malleable I shall lay down this sword. Got to prove they exist, then lay down the sword. Because I am the axiom I will not escape. In the act of proof, after all, is the proof. The gaschamber, I won’t deny it, is a ripe and purposive unit. I look into my garden and see walking blasphemies. A blasphemy is a terrible thing. They cut the throat of a child over the body of a naked woman. The blood runs down her back, the blood runs between the cheeks of her arse. In my sight the world commits sacrilege. I shall walk to my own coffin, when I have chosen to make time. Soon I shall place a tombstone upon that world. The odour adds too much of disease to my own disease at present. The whole matter must be turned over to God and he can carry the can back. In time. In his own time. But I shall of course put the matter to him. Let it never be said God is unreasonable. I see you as clearly as a cheesecake. The world is vanity. The world is impertinent. I must cease to belong. My own bile is my own bile that has been placed in my mouth. And I give warrant to the worm. It has been necessary. My soul is old, I am the beginner in this world. My virtue is in the appraisal of my worms. I have forced them into the no-man’s-land of my own dictate. I have located their nest and acted accordingly. They are my dependants. They exist only by virtue of me. When I die, they are dead. But since I have located the place I can act from faith. I can afford to be flexible. I can move on many fronts. And I am a mainroad man, there’s no point in doubting it. I must keep to that course, however much pus congeals. Amen to all the good souls. I cannot deviate. My immediate and upper authority would frown. There’s the point. Such action would prove incongruous with my birthright. I would not be what I am. I see you now but can you see my existing head? That visage has blessed many innocents, nodding. But though I can feel it, now, on my neck, I do not believe you can see it. For I tear a hole in my skull with every word I speak. Each syllable suffocates a gut. Standing in one room I touch the framework of a larger. What is ludicrous is that I am too big for my ideas. But that’s all in the frame and I despise it and it shall be done until the balance is achieved and then I shall present my terms and my own scales shall weigh them. I am my own saviour. All the world knows that. Now what is it? It’s quite all right. Quite all right. I’m as gentle as a lamb. And you look as though you’d seen a ghost. Len stepped away from the dresser and sat down at the table.
- What do you want? Pete said.
- Nothing.
Pete sat forward and began to raise himself from the chair.
- What do you want? Len said, starting up.
- I want a glass of water.
- I’ll get it, Len said, going to the sink.
- Thanks, Pete said.
He watched Len turn the tap, took the glass and drank.
- Thanks.
Len placed the glass on the drainingboard and sat down. Pete licked his lips.
- What was your idea, he asked, in coming here?
- I thought I’d pop in.
Pete closed his eyes.
- What time is it?
- Threeish.
- In my jacket there, Pete said, you’ll find a cigarette. Throw it over, will you?
Len felt in a pocket, brought out a cigarette, and passed it.
- Here’s some matches, he muttered, taking a box from his pocket.
- I didn’t know you smoked.
- I don’t.
- I don’t think I have any more.
Pete lit the cigarette and let the match burn in the ashtray.
- I am ill, he said.
- Yes.
Len pocketed his matches.
- I wonder if you know what I lack?
- What?
- What would you say?
Len frowned and bent his head.
- I don’t know.
- I lack guts, Pete said.
- I wouldn’t say that.
- Yes. I lack guts.
- Do you?
- You mustn’t think, Pete said, that I don’t know what you and Mark are. I do. I recognize you both.
- Me? Mark? What do you mean? What are we?
- I take it you are my friends.
Len grimaced and clipped his palm under his jaw.
- Yes.
- Why don’t you ask me, Pete said, if I recognize Virginia?
- Why should I ask you that?
- If you want to know another thing, I’ll tell you. Because I lack guts, I commit spite. I suffer under that bondage. I commit spite at all corners, and in the face of the image.
He drew on his cigarette.
- Do you know what that makes me?
- It makes you Shammes to the Pope of China, Len said.
- Very true.
- What else?
- That could be it, I admit.
Len took off his glasses and examined them.
- What’s it like out now? Pete asked.
- It’s dark now.
- Have you ever met the Pope of China?
- Yes.
- What’s he like?
- He’s like you.
- No, I’m his Shammes.
- You’re also the Pope of China.
- No. That’s where you’re wrong, Pete said. I’m not. If I may say so, that is a gro
ss error on your part.
- Yes, I see that.
- And has also been on my part.
He stood up.
- Air.
- Where are you going? Len asked.
- Outside.
They walked out to the balcony and leaned over it. Len put his glasses into his pocket and rubbed his eyes.
- My eyes are very bad, he said. Now I’ve taken off my glasses, I can see.
- That’s reasonable.
- Isn’t that the moon up there? It must be late, Len said. Can you see the lights there, on the roads? All that. They’re bells. They have that sound. I can see the moon where I stand. It’s all right. The globe’s turning. This is not night. This isn’t night. It’s the globe turning. Can you hear the moon? Eh? And these lights? There’s a bell here. We’re making this bell. We’re making the light. Can you hear the moon, through the sound? It is in us.
Nineteen
- The world’s got nothing on me, Mark said. Where’s the bother?
- You’re a marked man, said Len.
- Possibly. Marked but indifferent.
- Would you be indifferent to the torturing wheel? Pete asked.
- Oh no.
- So you’re not indifferent to everything? asked Virginia.
- All I’m trying to say is that everything’s a calamity, Mark said. There are items within the fact of that fact that I am unable to accept. But I accept that I can’t accept them. I accept that which I can’t accept. I accept the fact within which I act. In other words I carry on merrily.
- It does me good to hear it, Pete said. But, on the other hand, everything’s not a calamity. There are certain kinds of achievement, which are, to say the least of it, worthwhile.
- Are there?
- Your uncle must have been Chief Rabbi, Len said.
- Why?
- Why? You’re steeped in Talmudic evasion!
The Dwarfs Page 10
