Imago Bird

by Nicholas Mosley

  The gardens of the square had railings round them and notices saying Residents Only. I climbed over the railings and I sat on a bench beside some bushes where I could observe the front door of Judith Ponsonby’s house.

  I said to myself—All right, if you just let things happen then it is like homosexual love because it is like loving yourself: but if you have to make things happen, which is like heterosexual love, then still, you would have to sit back sometimes and observe whether what seems to be happening is true, or how would you know that you were not chasing yourself?

  Judith Ponsonby’s door had white pillars and a portico. I was uneasy about her living in such a grand house. I thought—But is not all loving the hope of starting from, then going on from, where one is oneself?

  There were children playing on the grass. They had foreign girls as nursemaids. The girls were like hens waiting to peck at the children and then deposit them on the ground again like shit.

  I was not really waiting for Judith Ponsonby: I was waiting to see whether or not she would come out. In fact, if she came out, would I hide in the bushes?

  I thought—I am like a body frightened of being taken over by a visitor from Andromeda.

  I was suddenly not even sure if I had got the right house. I had not made a note of what Sally Rogers had said. But then—Did this matter, if what I was interested in was not Judith Ponsonby, but seeing whether or not she came out?

  The nursemaids were gobbling amongst themselves like turkeys. From time to time they would make a dash at the children, as if to pick off bits of fluff for their nests.

  I thought I should try to write something in my notebook. There was a mystery here about these images of hens and turkeys, for I imagined birds to be symbols of something divine.

  I found a blank page in my notebook. I blew on it.

  After a time a man’s voice said ‘Are you a resident?’

  I said ‘No.’

  ‘Get off then.’

  The man wore thick boots like torn-up tree stumps.

  I wondered if I should say—I’m MI5.

  What I had written in my notebook was—The person one loves should be involved in the same experiment.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’

  I said ‘I’m MI5.’

  The man was wearing a peaked cap. He had a thin face and a small moustache like Hitler.

  I had thought—Birds peck at the mind; for good or bad; the experiment would be to find when good or bad could equally be useful.

  I said ‘I’m waiting for someone.’

  He said ‘Who.’

  I said ‘Judith Ponsonby.’

  I wanted to write down—With someone one loved, one could watch life hand in hand, and good and bad would be like a culture growing.

  He said ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘Number 18.’

  ‘She doesn’t live at number 18.’

  I had a terrible urge to pick the man up and throw him into the bushes.

  He put his hand into his breast pocket

  I thought—In films, would he be going to pull out a pistol?

  I was afraid I was losing what I had been about to write down.

  The man pulled out what looked like a police whistle.

  I snatched his whistle and hurled it into the bushes.

  He got down on his hands and knees to go after it.

  I thought—I could put my foot against his behind and push him further in —

  Then—What is this violence, that even on hands and knees there is confusion about whether he is a persecutor or a victim?

  I began to walk across the grass. It was such a bright day. The nursemaids were in rows. I wondered—Is it true, that victims are people who summon violence with police whistles?

  Then—Wars usually start at the end of a long summer.

  I wondered if the man in the peaked cap was coming after me.

  When I was out in the street—I had gone through a gate, I had not bothered to vault the railings—there was the traffic and the people on the pavement as if taken over by Andromeda. Nowadays there was no war; so placards made up stories about warfare. If one asked people what they were doing, how many would say—Staying alive?

  There was a placard by a man selling newspapers which said PM Hits Miners.

  I saw Judith Ponsonby coming towards me on the pavement.

  I at first did not recognise her. I had been thinking of going back to the man in the peaked cap and saying—Sorry, but it is people like you who start wars; who make other people so awful; not because you are violent, but because you are victims. But I did not think I could make him understand this.

  Then there was this girl coming towards me. For a moment she was like the goddess Andromeda herself being pulled along by her sea-monster. Then I recognised Judith Ponsonby.

  She wore a short leather skirt and had strong legs. She was pulled by a dog on a lead.

  I was so amazed that I stepped into the road and a man ran into me on a bicycle.

  I said ‘Sorry.’

  The man said ‘I might have been killed!’

  Judith Ponsonby was going past me on the pavement. The man I had knocked off his bicycle had fair crinkly hair. I thought—But he is not, is he, the man who was in the attic of Uncle Bill’s house like President Nixon?

  Judith Ponsonby had stopped just past me. Her dog was peeing against a lamp-post. I thought—That is her dark horse, to take her to her beloved.

  I said to the man with crinkly hair ‘You wouldn’t have been killed because you ran into me: you’d only have been killed if you’d swerved out into the traffic.’

  He said ‘Aren’t I lucky then.’

  I thought this was quite witty.

  Judith Ponsonby had raised a hand and was looking across the road as if for a taxi

  The man with crinkly hair said ‘I’m Jake Weatherby.’

  Judith Ponsonby was one of those smooth, perfectly rounded girls who are like stones in the shape of eggs: or a dancer in an American musical which, like herself, would be booked up for ever.

  I stretched a hand out across the road as if to help Judith Ponsonby get a taxi. In doing this, I knocked against Jake Weatherby again.

  He said ‘I say!’

  Then the man in the peaked cap came rushing out of the gardens with his whistle.

  Jake Weatherby said ‘Can I have a word with you?’

  The man in the peaked cap blew his whistle.

  There was a taxi on the other side of the road.

  The taxi-driver, hearing the whistle and seeing me with my arm raised, swung across the road and pulled up in front of Judith Ponsonby.

  Judith Ponsonby, who had been watching me, said ‘That’s brilliant!’

  The man in the peaked cap, having seen me turn towards him with my arm raised, turned and ran back into the garden.

  I opened the door of the taxi.

  Jake Weatherby said ‘What’s up?’

  Judith Ponsonby said ‘I could always do with someone like you!’

  She climbed into the taxi with the dog.

  She had boots halfway up her thighs: above them, sun-spots like explosions.

  When she was in the taxi she smiled at me. I waved.

  Jake Weatherby said ‘I know quite a good place round here.’

  The taxi moved away.

  I turned and went with Jake Weatherby.

  I thought—But I am mad to let her go!

  Then—He is not that flat-faced homosexual?

  Jake Weatherby said ‘You keep turning round. Is there anyone following you?’

  I said ‘Yes, a man in a peaked cap with a whistle.’

  I thought—I did not even hear where the taxi was taking her!

  I tried to remember exactly what had happened. She had seen me reach out my hand; then there had been the whistle; then the taxi had drawn up. She had said—That’s brilliant! Then—I could always do with someone like you!

  Jake Weatherby said ‘It was lucky I spotted you.’r />
  Then when the taxi had drawn away, she had smiled and I had waved at her.

  Jake Weatherby said ‘What shall I do with my bike?’

  The point was, it was as if she and I had always known one another.

  I said ‘Can’t you chain it to the railings?’

  We had come to a pub.

  And when she climbed into the taxi, there had been those tongues like flames coming down —

  Jake Weatherby said ‘You do know who I am, don’t you?’

  I thought—But I do know where she lives, don’t I?

  Inside the pub Jake Weatherby went to get beer. I sat with my back against a wall. I thought—It would have been useless if I had pursued her.

  Then—But there is evidence, is there not, that she is the person with whom, for me, good and bad might be the same?

  I tried to work out who Jake Weatherby was. He wasn’t the man in the attic, because he had fair hair. He wasn’t the flat-faced homosexual, because he was younger. He wasn’t the man in white overalls, because he wasn’t like the famous actor. Nor, I thought, was he one of Tammy Burns’ henchmen, although he was buying me a drink. So was he one of the people put on to follow me by Uncle Bill? Or a gossip-column person such as Aunt Mavis got things from? Or was he just some devil or angel sent to bump into me so that when I first spoke to Judith Ponsonby things would appear magical; and chariots of fire would come down?

  Jake Weatherby came back with two glasses of beer. He said ‘Do you mind if I talk to you?’

  I thought—And it was in fact practical, even if I let her go, that some pattern was set up of things being magical —

  He said ‘About your uncle.’

  I said ‘Yes.’

  He said ‘You know there are these stories.’

  I could say to Dr Anders—But are they, these coincidences—these men with whistles and men on bicycles and dogs which drag girls along to pee on lamp-posts—are they or are they not in the outside as well as in the inside world?

  He said ‘You may be able to help me.’

  I thought I should try to concentrate very hard on what this man was saying, in order not to float off like a balloon.

  There were some men at the bar who were watching us closely. I realised I was still wearing Uncle Bill’s bedroom slippers.

  Jake Weatherby said ‘There are some photographs.’

  I said ‘What photographs.’

  He said ‘I think, stolen.’

  I thought—But coincidences can be part of the law of averages?

  Jake Weatherby was looking round the pub carefully.

  Then he said ‘Ave Maria! The Mafia! The whole bloody shooting match!’

  I thought—Ave Maria? The Mafia? Uncle Bill’s whole shooting match?

  Then—One picks what one wants to pick from these averages —

  Jake Weatherby pulled out a piece of paper and began writing on it.

  I thought—Like Sally Rogers at the pop concert; will he now push some message in my ear?

  Jake Weatherby held out the piece of paper to me. He had written—We can’t talk here. I think we are being overheard.

  I wondered—Am I supposed to take this piece of paper and screw it up and swallow it?

  There were all these people in the pub with flat, expressionless faces: like men outside pornographic bookshops.

  Jake Weatherby took back the paper and wrote—May I get in touch with you?

  I took his piece of paper and held it.

  I said ‘Yes.’

  I folded the piece of paper into a dart. I launched it across the pub.

  Jake Weatherby seemed about to go after it; as if to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. Then he went out of the pub.

  XV

  One day I went to the country to see my sister, who is called Lilia. She lived in Suffolk, in a cottage, with a man much older than herself. I had not met this man. He was another of the things that my mother and father did not much talk about: not, I think, because he was so much older than my sister, but because they could use this as an excuse not to have to talk about something about which there was not much to be said anyway.

  My sister is quite a lot older than I. But we had been close to each other as children.

  I sometimes think that my sister and I are the opposites of the people who come from the same egg and are always trying to find one another again: we seem always to be trying to get away, but it is with each other that we feel at home.

  My sister met me at the railway station. We sat in her small car while she tried to get it into reverse. Then after a time she said ‘Could you walk ahead of me on the pavement please with a red flag or something?’

  When she drove she leaned close to the steering-wheel and stared ahead as if her dark eyes might be a cow-catcher to pick up people and deposit them on the sidewalk.

  I said ‘How much do you remember of our childhood?’

  She said ‘Not much.’

  I thought—I will not, if I’m good, will I, tell her about what Aunt Mavis said about our mother and Uncle Bill?

  I said ‘I’m going to this Dr Anders you know.’

  When we got to her cottage there were rambling roses and honeysuckle over the porch and the whole thing seemed to be the setting for an opera. I thought—Will her elderly lover appear and sing for ten minutes in knee-breeches?

  She said ‘I don’t think it matters, do you, if we don’t remember much about childhood. I think we have to get new parents anyway as we go along.’

  I wanted to say—But I remember about you: you remember about me?

  I said ‘This is like the cottage in La Traviata.’

  She said ‘It is not like the cottage in La Traviata!’

  I said ‘What about your young brother coming like that old father, you know, and singing for ten minutes about how you’re ruining the family reputation?’

  She said ‘I’m not going to die!’

  All I knew about her lover was that he was some sort of professor.

  When she got out of the car she seemed to be rather overdressed for this time of year; with a heavy leather waistcoat and gumboots.

  I thought—You mean, you’re thinking you may die?

  I said ‘Why didn’t she just tell him, that old father in the opera, to go and chase himself?’

  She said ‘Dear brother, you’re always chasing yourself.’

  I thought—That’s witty.

  I wandered through into the sitting-room. I looked for signs like pipes and tobacco and burnt holes in cushions.

  I said ‘How is the Prof?’

  She said ‘Don’t call him the Prof!’

  Then—‘He’s quite all right thank you.’

  I said ‘No one ever asks me how Sheila is; just because she’s not glamorous.’

  She said ‘I was just going to ask you about that, tiny boots.’

  This was from a joke we had had in my childhood; when everyone used to tell me I was too big for my boots.

  I said ‘Well as a matter of fact Sheila and I have broken up. That’s why I’ve come down to see you, to cry one of those heartbroken arias.’

  She said ‘And I thought you’d come to see me because you’re jealous that it’s me who’s ruining the family reputation.’

  My sister looked good when she was doing things like standing in front of a stove and cooking; because you didn’t expect someone so pretty to be good at banging pots and pans about.

  She said ‘And how is Dr Anders?’

  I said ‘Do you know, the extraordinary thing is, when I talk to her, it all comes pouring out’

  She said ‘Dear cloaca maxima, when has it ever not come pouring out?’

  I thought—Her Professor teaches her the classics?

  Then—Do we talk like this because in family love you are having neither to do what you want nor to make anything, but are simply at home?

  I said ‘Have you noticed, my sister, that every now and then, I stammer?’

  She was keeping her back t
o me at the cooker. She was wearing this leather jerkin. I thought—Is she pregnant?

  She said ‘Nevertheless, brother, whenever has it not come pouring out, except when you want to be insufferably silent and spooky, in order to torture your nearest and dearest, such as your sister.’

  I thought—Do, or do not, brothers imagine that their sisters are pregnant?

  I said ‘This thing about getting new parents. Do you think one has enough genes, from long ago, to be able to choose, a bit, what sort of parents, or suchlike, with whom one wants to grow?’

  She said ‘I don’t know, do you?’

  I thought I might say—Can you ask the Professor?

  She was cooking lunch. She always stood rather wide-legged; sturdy. As if she were cultivating children.

  I thought—Is this where I would like to be at home? with a girl in a kitchen banging about and doing things for me?

  I said ‘Would the Prof know about that?’

  She shouted ‘Don’t call him the Prof!’

  Then—‘I expect he does; I’ll ask him.’

  She brought over plates, cutlery, dishes. She was a very good cook.

  I said ‘Do you know a girl called Judith Ponsonby?’

  She said ‘No, are you in love with her?’

  I said ‘I think love’s overrated, don’t you?’

  She said ‘What would you put in its place?’

  I said ‘Respect. What’s seemly.’

  She put roast beef in front of me. I thought—Good cooking is the doing of simple things well: it is the doing that is so complicated?

  She said ‘Tell me if it’s underdone.’

  I said ‘It’s not underdone.’

  She said ‘Seemly!’

  Then she came over and put her cheek against mine.

  I wondered—Why don’t I ask: Are you pregnant?

  — Might she be having a bad time with the Professor?

  We sat opposite each other and ate roast beef that was like flowers.

  I said ‘I am jealous.’

  ‘Who of.’

  ‘Him.’

  She suddenly began to cry.

  The table was between us. I thought—No, I do not get up and put an arm around you.

  I said ‘Are you pregnant?’

  She said ‘Yes.’

  I said ‘I thought you might be.’