Sally Rogers said ‘Exciting!’
I said ‘Yes isn’t it.’
She said ‘You don’t sound very excited.’
There had been a good deal of publicity about this series of concerts by Tammy Burns because he did, in fact, make some sort of appearance as the Virgin Mary. A plastic grotto had been built on the stage into which he emerged and stood almost naked—one hand over his breast and the other over his groin—while laser-beams played around him like a halo. Someone (perhaps himself?) had brought a prosecution against him for blasphemy; which of course had increased the popularity of his concerts enormously.
Sally Rogers said ‘I’ve got a plan for afterwards!’
I said ‘Oh what?’
She said ‘I won’t tell you.’
The plastic grotto, before the concert began, was shrouded in a sort of dust sheet: as if religious symbolism had been put away in moth balls.
I thought—But what of that bird that flew down between pillars; was it the bird that was first sent out of the ark?
In the first half of the concert there was a group with a xylophone and it was as if we were in the inside of an enormous bell. I thought—This is the line of men with guns; the noise that shoots birds down as they come back on that shaft of sunlight.
Sally Rogers said ‘Afterwards we’ll meet Tammy Burns!’
I said ‘Oh will we?’
‘Come on, come on, you ought to be saying—’
‘But I am!’
She said’—What is this old bitch up to, who wants to introduce me to Tammy Burns?—’
I thought—Ah, I will like Sally Rogers.
When the second half of the programme began I could no longer hear anything that Sally Rogers said. Her mouth opened and shut and from time to time I put my ear down to it; and once she put her tongue into my ear. I thought—Well, this is the real thing, isn’t it?
Then—At the Tower of Babel, after that bird had gone, wasn’t it tongues that God confused so that men should not be angels?
On the stage the dust sheet had begun to glow as if a huge head were about to come through it.
I thought—But what was the language that men had before Babel, that was making them like gods?
With Sally Rogers’ tongue, there had been the feeling of a snake getting into the apple of the world —
The dust sheet, glowing on the stage, was like a grub about to burst into a butterfly.
I thought—What is the word for this—Imago?
Sally Rogers had taken out a pad of paper and a pencil and was writing on it—What would you like to do with Tammy Burns?
I took Sally Rogers’ pencil and paper and I looked at it for a while. Then I tried to draw a face using her writing as a skeleton—her top words for hair, her lower words for eyes and mouth, an oval enclosing them. It came out quite like Tammy Burns.
Sally Rogers took the drawing back and stared at it. She turned it this way and that.
Then she put it between her thighs.
When Tammy Burns came on he emerged through the dust sheet like a sort of baby: there he was, almost naked, with one hand across his breast and another at his groin. (Or his grotto, I might have said?) There were a lot of lights like blood around him. He was grotesque. He was also beautiful. I do not know how to write about this. I mean, he was in some way blasphemous. We have got used to the idea that things like images of the Virgin Mary can be beautiful; that things like a parody of the Virgin Mary can be clever or nasty but not beautiful; what we have not got used to is the idea that if we know now about these images, the power of them because they are inside us, then what better can we do perhaps than to smile at them as well as say they are beautiful? To take our projections back inside us; perhaps even teasingly; but also to love them; and for the same reason—that they are ours.
I wondered if I might be a bit in love with Tammy Burns.
The song that he sang was a slow, deep, drawling sort of thing that was called, I think, ‘Miss Skylight.’ It was all about some girl wanting to be rescued from—what—where she was trapped? In a grotto? A lavatory? A womb? Tammy Burns sang it in a deep growing voice as if he were trying to amuse or to reassure himself; that he was not, or was, really a girl that he loved; as if a record were being played at a speed different from that which it was made for. The accompanying music was rather quiet: with wispy bits like entrails. The point of the song was that it made a sort of commentary on the image and the music; on what had once been so beautiful; which had become corny perhaps but which now again might be beautiful; because someone was so painstakingly holding it up to be cared about; rather deprecatingly perhaps; but as if it were a good baby. I know I cannot write very well about this. Tammy Burns did have some sort of magic: which was to show that a really beautiful thing is what is beautiful anyway; but then there is the struggle to be able equally to accept it: to feel at home with it.
When Tammy Burns came down from his pedestal he tried to dance and as the show went on I thought he became rather embarrassing. But then—Did he not want to be embarrassing, because that is what something being born is anyway?
Then I thought—Is he not rather like that girl at Sally Rogers’ party?
Then I became so involved in my thoughts about the bird that had gone out of the ark and had later slid down to a birth on a shaft of sunlight that I did not notice much of the rest of the concert.
Then, when we were out in the street and there were people running rather deliberately this way and that as if there was a fire and they were animals looking for water Sally Rogers said —
‘What would your uncle have made of that?’
I said ‘What would my uncle have made of what?’
She said ‘All right, all right, Mr Skylight!’
In Sally Rogers’ small car we sat while people pushed round us as if they were a stream and we were an egg. I was thinking
— Before Babel, would language have been music?
Sally Rogers said ‘Do you think he’s gay?’
I said ‘My uncle?’
She said ‘Tammy Burns!’
I thought—If we built a tower to the gods now, the language would not be music: we know too much: music is meaning separated from knowledge.
Sally Rogers’ small car jerked forward as if it were having ejaculations.
The place to which we were going was some sort of club, or pub, where show-business people went in the evenings. Tammy Burns, Sally Rogers said, would come in later.
I thought—Will I be able to tell him that when he dances he should try to be not a girl but a bird?
The pub, or club, was a red-plush place with candelabra and mirrors. I thought I should try to get drunk as quickly as possible; then I could stop thinking and talk; could perhaps even become the life and soul of the party.
I was thinking—But the language would be silence; and our actions rather than our words would be like music.
I said ‘Let me get the drinks.’
Sally Rogers said ‘No, you’re not a member.’
I said ‘I can act as if I were a member.’
Sally Rogers said I’m sure you can.’
When she came back with a whole bottle of whisky I thought—Well, this is indeed all right: I can imagine myself as the Hall Porter in Miss Paragon and the Belgian Schoolgirls.
Then Sally Rogers said ‘What’s your uncle going to do about these strikes?’
I said Oh good heavens, I don’t think he’s going to do anything about the strikes!’
She said ‘But is he or isn’t he going to call in troops?’
I thought that I might say—No, he’s going to call in the Libyans.
I said ‘What else do you want to know about my uncle?’
She seemed to think about this for a time. She looked away round the red-plush landscape.
I said ‘Do you want to know where he gets his money from?’
She said ‘Well, where does he get his money from?’
I said ‘The Liberals
.’
She said ‘Sorry—’
I said ‘Is that why you asked me out?’
She said ‘Did you think I asked you out for a quick fuck?’
The pub or club had a lot of glittering people in it; they were like models practising the poses they would be dug up in in a million years; to give evidence of social disintegration, before the ice-cap came down from the pole.
After a time I said ‘I hoped so.’
She said ‘Well then we’ll have a quick fuck.’
I thought—Oh what am I going to do when I like Sally Rogers?
I said ‘I’m sure my uncle doesn’t know what he’ll do about the strikes. But I think he’s right that it’s usually best for governments to do nothing.’
I could explain—Then people, surely, expend themselves?
I said ‘And I don’t know where he gets his money from, I don’t think anywhere interesting, and it may not even be true that he spends more than he earns normally.’
Sally said ‘You know that girl you had your eyes on at my party?’
I said ‘Yes?’
She said ‘She’s called Judith Ponsonby.’
I thought—I am about to learn from Sally Rogers something that so far has been out of my reach.
Sally said ‘She lives at 18 Ruskin Square.’
I thought—Good heavens! Then—That’s very posh.
I said ‘Thank you.’ Then—‘The reason why I might not have seemed too friendly to you straight away, is that there’s a terrible lot going on in my head, and you’re quite like my sister.’
Sally said ‘What’s going on in your head besides Judith Ponsonby and your sister?’
I said ‘I quite love my sister.’
She said ‘Then get it out, get it out, Mr Avalanche.’
I thought—What good new names! Sally Rogers! Judith Ponsonby!
When Tammy Burns came in he was wearing a white overcoat down to his ankles. He was somewhat painted. He began to go round people greeting them like one of those grandmasters at chess who take on a roomful of amateurs: rather quickly, not saying much, with his eyes inside him: but everyone concentrating on him; getting close to him as if they might touch him but not quite; as if they did not want his strength too much to fly out of him. As he approached Sally and myself I wanted to find some move on my chess board that would be more than a game, more even than what I had been playing with Sally. But I saw Sally’s eyes adoring him and I thought—Ah, she will spoil it! But then, how else could I have got to Tammy Burns? Then when he was quite close and Sally seemed ready to flatter him I thought—But what is that story of the Zen master who comes round his pupils and he carries a stick and he says—If you say I am holding this stick I will hit you with it and if you do not say I am holding this stick I will hit you with it—and his pupils do not know what to say: they are in awe of him, looking up at him so shiningly! Then when Tammy Burns was opposite me I knew that he was indeed like the boy I had been in love with at school: something hot and dry and dusty about the mouth and eyes: like an afternoon in some foreign city. Or like Judith Ponsonby. And I remembered that what the Zen pupil has to do if he wants to be free is to get up and snatch the stick from the master’s hand and thus upset the whole chess board.
XII
When I got home very late that night or in the early hours of the morning I let myself into Cowley Street and I thought that this time at least no one except the policeman by the door would see me, and I went upstairs holding my shoes like people do in cartoons; but the door was open into Aunt Mavis’ room and the light was on and there was a sort of scratching noise. I thought—Not that man again like President Nixon! In the room Aunt Mavis was on her hands and knees and she seemed to be pulling at the carpet She wore a white nightdress and her bones showed through like those of an old horse. I thought—Or like the madonna fallen from her grotto; her plaster and wires in the dust.
Aunt Mavis said ‘Come in and shut the door.’
I said ‘I thought I heard a noise.’
Aunt Mavis said ‘They’ve got this place bugged.’
She clambered upright. She went to the window and put a hand up against the wall Her nightdress gaped at the side.
I thought—Or like some bird unable to fly, trying to get back into its cage again.
I said ‘Is Uncle Bill here?’
She said ‘He’s with that woman.’
I thought—Surely he’s been with Mrs Washbourne too long for Aunt Mavis to call her that woman?
I did not know what to do. I sometimes sat on the edge of Aunt Mavis’ bed and chatted to her in the evenings.
I said ‘Have they really got this house bugged?’
She said ‘I think it’s behind the shutters.’
I thought—Or is she like one of Goya’s disasters of war?
I said ‘But I mean, if you found wires, they’d probably just be false wires put in to make you find them. And the real wires would be somewhere different. Like burglar alarms. Or there wouldn’t be any real wires, that’s what they’d have wanted, to make you think they were real wires to save expenses. Or they might be real ones. Or anything.’
She said ‘There was a man here the other day.’
I said ‘Yes, did you see him?’
I thought—Am I as drunk as she is? Do I think the house is bugged?
Then she said ‘They’ve got photographs.’
Aunt Mavis used to keep bottles of sherry in her room. Sometimes she called them cough-medicine. She would wait till someone was passing her open door, and then take a swig from her bottle.
I had thought—She wants to be rescued then?
Or now—She’s forgotten where she’s pretended to hide her bottle?
I thought I should go over and act as if I too were trying to find something behind the arras.
I said ‘What sort of photographs?’
She said ‘Look—’
There were in fact wires attached to the shutters. They were thin, and went down to a junction box near the floor. But I thought they must be to do with old burglar alarms which I knew were installed, but were seldom turned on.
Aunt Mavis said ‘Go to that drawer.’
The burglar alarms were not turned on because Aunt Mavis used to set them off: and then when the police arrived it was difficult to explain about Aunt Mavis, either that she was drunk or that she was not.
‘Which drawer?’
She said ‘I’m not decent.’ She giggled.
She sat on the edge of the bed and put her feet up.
I don’t know if I’ve explained about Aunt Mavis. We used to see her quite a lot when we were children. We had a house in the country, and she used to come and stay there and play croquet. She would arrive with her own special mallet which had brass rings round the ends, and she would hit her balls very hard into the shrubbery. She and my sister would have terrible arguments about whether or not the shrubbery was out of bounds, and whether her balls could be replaced a mallet’s length on to the lawn.
I went to one of Aunt Mavis’ chests of drawers and opened a drawer and there were a lot of those soft women’s clothes like packets of bacon.
She said ‘One drawer down.’
I thought—What would Dr Anders say about my thinking that women’s clothes are like packets of bacon?
Aunt Mavis said ‘Underneath the jumpers.’
Once, when I had been a child, and we had been having supper with Aunt Mavis, she had taken her false teeth out while sitting at the table and had held them in front of her face and moved them slightly as if she were a ventriloquist and she were having a conversation with her dummy.
She said ‘Find it?’
It was after incidents like this at the supper table I think that Aunt Mavis had gone away to do a cure for alcoholics. My mother and father did not seem to talk about this much: as if they thought it both funny, and too tragic.
Underneath the jumpers, and skirts, and furs like bits of old skin (I thought—Is it that I am frighten
ed of death? My mother’s?) I came across a mounted photograph, about six inches by four, which I recognised as being one of those such as used to be taken in the thirties or forties on a seaside pier. I had seen illustrations of these in books. You put your head or heads through holes cut out of a piece of boarding from the back, and on the front were painted bodies in shapes and poses that made you look ridiculous. In this particular photograph the painted bodies were those of a very fat lady and a baby she was pushing in a pram. The heads, coming through the holes from the back and superimposed on the bodies, were those of Mrs Washbourne and Uncle Bill.
Aunt Mavis said ‘You recognise them?’
I said ‘Yes.’
I thought—Is she saying something very subtle here, which is that this is a bit of profound symbolism representing something true about Mrs Washbourne and Uncle Bill? or is she just being half-witted?
She said ‘She’s pushing him in a pram.’
I said ‘I know.’
There are primitive tribes, I had read somewhere, who when they are shown a photograph are unable to make out what it is about: they turn it this way and that, as if it were a piece of paper with just a design on it, or perhaps as if it were the reality it is representing.
Aunt Mavis said ‘It’s that woman.’
I said ‘Yes.’
Aunt Mavis put her arms round her knees and rocked to and fro.
I wondered—But might Mrs Washbourne and Uncle Bill in fact do something like this? I had read in one of my pornographic magazines of a man who liked to sit in a pram outside his house in some suburb —
Aunt Mavis suddenly put her head back and opened her mouth and made a noise like paper tearing.
I said ‘But Aunt Mavis, this is painted on wood. You put your head through from the back. It was taken on a pier. It’s the sort of thing people did, you know, when they wanted to cheer themselves up at the seaside. I expect it was taken at one of those political conferences, you know, where politicians must want to cheer themselves up.’
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