The only other atmosphere I could remember like this was in a gambling casino I had once been to, where the enormously rich had succeeded in losing or winning thousands by doing absolutely nothing except slowing move their fingers every now and then like crabs.
I thought – These are the people whom Desmond talks about who run the world? who let themselves be used for the conspiracy theory of history because this is what other people require of them?
A woman in a dress the colour of a contraceptive diaphragm came up to talk to Oliver. Oliver introduced me: he had in fact learned my name. I thought – I have been an amateur in this; he is very professional.
I went to a window and looked out. Across the river there was the floodlit power station with its four tall chimneys: I thought – It is like a dead horse, its feet up in the air.
Then – Old gods and goddesses are preserved because they live in tombs which are quite airless?
Oliver went on talking to his hostess. They were like people in a painting plotting beneath the high blank wall of a Venetian building.
The man dressed like Figaro came up and offered me some food. Then a young man with dyed black hair and make-up stood by me and said ‘We were saying it was better when it had three.’
I said ‘Three what?’
He said ‘Chimneys.’
I said ‘Do you know Oliver’s wife or his girlfriend?’
The man was eating with a fork from a plate; he shovelled food in like a croupier. After a time he moved away. I thought – You mean, you are not allowed to ask a direct question?
I tried to remember what I had heard about Oliver’s wife. She was enormously rich; she was an American; she had previously been married to a German prince. Or this might have been his girlfriend?
Oliver came over to me. He said ‘All right, we can go now if you like.’
I said ‘I quite like it here.’
He said ‘Why?’
I said ‘I’ve never been anywhere like this before.’
Oliver was looking at me. I was looking out over the river. I thought – I have not got it wrong: you have to be honest?
He said ‘Will you come home with me?’
I said ‘No.’ Then – ‘You know I can’t!’
He said ‘Why not?’
I said ‘Because that’s what everyone does with you!’
He lifted his head right up so that his neck seemed to stretch towards the ceiling. Then he smiled. I thought – Does his laughter ever come out: or does it just burn within his skull like the flames around witches?
He said ‘Do you know the story about D’Annunzio?’
I said ‘No.’
He said ‘D’Annunzio had the reputation of being able to go to bed with any woman he liked. Then one day some woman got the idea of being the first one ever to turn down D’Annunzio; so after that every woman wanted to be like her, and poor D’Annunzio couldn’t get to bed with anyone at all.’
I said ‘Is that true?’
He said ‘It might be.’
I thought – Oliver is the only person who has made me feel inadequate?
He stood looking out of the window. I thought – But he has been doing this sort of thing for so long, that it is impossible even for himself to tell whether or not he is acting.
It seemed I should say – Still, I can’t go to bed with you!
He said ‘Take these.’
He had taken from his pocket a bunch of keys which he held out in front of him as if he were a water-diviner. We watched them: his hand was steady: the keys did not swing.
I said ‘What are they?’
He said ‘They’re the keys of the new flat I’ve just moved into. I’d like someone to have a spare pair. I’m always losing my own.’
I thought – This is really very clever.
I said ‘All right.’ I took the keys.
He said ‘And promise to ring me in the morning. Will you? The number is on the keys.’
I looked at the keys and there was a label with a telephone number and an address on it. I thought – But is it not odd to have an address on a bunch of keys?
I said ‘All right.’
He said ‘You have promised.’
I said ‘Yes.’
I thought – But if he does not know himself whether he is or is not acting, does this or does this not mean that he is in touch with something beyond this?
Now what about those spiral staircases going up or down: the windows one occasionally passes through when one waves and says – Coo-ee?
There are coincidences. But are the staircases going up (to something beyond) or down (towards rock bottom): or are both processes going on at the same time, so that when one sees another’s face at a window this might mean – either this or that is up or down, so what is the difference?
I was driven back towards the hostel by the chauffeur in the car: Oliver had said he wanted to walk. I got out of the car at Victoria Station. I could not think of any story to invent if there were a scene on the steps of the hostel.
Upstairs I found that someone had been in my room; my drawers had been turned out; money had been taken. It was likely that this had been done either by, or with the knowledge of, Krishna; he was the only person except myself who had a key to the room. His revolutionary party was always short of money: Lenin, he had often explained to me, had encouraged the robbing of banks to obtain funds for his revolution.
So I went down to the basement and found him and his friends perched like conspirators or chickens against the walls and I thought this would be quite a good time to have a quarrel. At first he said he knew nothing about the money and then he said what good did I do with my money anyway? So we had a fight and I tore down some of the posters and I said that if he was a revolutionary why didn’t he go out and fight; and so on. I said he and his friends were indistinguishable from very rich capitalists in that they sat around in a vacuum so that people were drawn in just by nothing happening.
I slept in my room on the top floor with the bits and pieces of my past life scattered about on the ground. I thought sooner or later Krishna would come up and we would make love; and then everything would be just the same as before; and I could not make out if I wanted this, or could not bear it, or both. I thought – Well this is some sort of despair, or giving up, isn’t it? I sometimes imagined, when I talked to myself like this, that I was talking to the Professor. I felt as if I were still at the top of a long steep slope. I would have to move out of the hostel. I thought I might shout – Help! Here I come!
I had the bunch of keys under my pillow as if they were some life-line that had been thrown to me by Oliver.
Well, there are some coincidences that are more coincidental than others, aren’t there?
By morning Krishna had not come to my room. I thought – That’s that: and a mercy anyway.
I got out the bunch of keys.
There were one or two things that did not quite make sense about the previous evening. Oliver and I had stood by the window overlooking the river; he had said ‘Promise to ring me in the morning!’ The keys had a label with the address on it. Keys were a Freudian sex-symbol weren’t they? They were also some symbol of death. Keys were to heaven or to hell: at the top and bottom of the staircase.
I thought – I know how Oliver would operate: he is like me.
Rock bottom is not always a metaphor; not at least when you hit it.
Had he not said that his wife and his girlfriend had both just left him?
I thought I should ring Oliver as soon as possible.
At first Krishna was in the entrance hall where the telephone was; then he went down to his room. Oliver’s number was engaged. Then Krishna came up from his room.
I thought – Hurry: you must hurry.
You sometimes know what is happening don’t you? even when you can’t put it into language.
– There are the guns and the tanks in the streets outside the theatre –
I dressed and went out of the hou
se and ran to a call-box. When Oliver’s number was still engaged I asked the operator to check to see if there was anyone talking on the line. There was not. I thought – Hurry; it is proper to hurry. Then – Or is it just that for once I feel straightforwardly needed?
I went out of the call-box and looked for a taxi.
I had no money for a taxi. I thought – Either Oliver will pay, or if he does not, then there may well have been an excuse to have taken a taxi without any money.
I told the taxi-driver the address that was on the keys and the taxi went up to the West End. I thought – To heaven or hell, what is the difference? The building where Oliver had his flat was another large Victorian apartment block with turrets and battlements and towers. I felt as if I were a knight approaching where a sleeping beauty was lying. I asked the taxi-driver to wait. By the door there was a column of bells with numbers and names against them: there was no name against the number of Oliver’s flat. I rang, then let myself in with one of the keys. There was a rather grand hallway with a lift. Oliver’s flat was on the top floor.
I thought – It is with the drama, or the being needed, that you feel powerful, elect, perfect?
I went up in the lift. On the top floor there was a landing with two doors to flats; a passage went along to another door with glass in it which gave on to what looked like a fire-escape. I rang the bell by the door of Oliver’s flat; I knocked; then I used the keys to go in. Inside the flat there was an extraordinary heat; it was like the engine-room of a ship; there was a passage which went past the open door of a sitting-room – this had packing-cases on the floor and dust-sheets over the furniture – then there was a kitchen and a bathroom on the other side of the passage and at the end a door which seemed likely to lead to a bedroom. Through this there came a scraping noise. It was like the creaking of a ship – one of those ships, perhaps, from which the crew have mysteriously disappeared. I went in. Oliver was lying on the bed on his back wearing the white shirt and black trousers he had been wearing the night before; his hands were folded across his chest like those of a crusader. The scraping noise was coming from his mouth, which was open: the noise was his breathing. There were bits of foam and of encrustation at the corners of his mouth; it was as if some sea had gone out and left him. There was an empty pill-bottle on a table by the side of his bed: a glass which smelled as if it had contained whisky. The noise coming from his lungs was as if an iron file were scraping away inside him; something was trying to break free, and then he would be dead. I thought I knew what to do about this: you do, God knows, if you have lived among Europeans in Hong Kong. The telephone was by the bed with the receiver off. I thought – He was gambling with me: playing Russian roulette: what on earth did he think were the odds? it is as if he had put five bullets in and left just one space empty. I dialled 999 and gave the address and said ‘Come quickly, there’s someone dying.’ I heard myself – so clear and confident – then I realised I had not stipulated ambulance or police. I had put the receiver down. I did not think it mattered. Then I went through into the bathroom – I do not know why – and on a shelf above the basin there was a piece of paper with some white powder on it and beside it an old-fashioned razor-blade. I thought – Dear God, a razor-blade! do you want to leave clues that are almost jokes for me or the police? I smelled the white powder, which seemed to be some mixture: then I thought – But it is I who have dialled for the police! I screwed up the heroin or cocaine or whatever it was in its paper, but it was dusted about on the shelf; there might be some on the basin, or the floor; and what on earth do you do with an old-fashioned razor-blade? I thought I might telephone again to try to stop the police, but I did not think this would work. There are things that you just do, are there not, when you have been feeling decisive, confident, elect. I went out on to the landing to stand by the door of the lift to try to stop, send away, the police when they came; then the door of Oliver’s flat banged shut behind me. I realised I had put down the bunch of keys on the table by Oliver’s bed. I thought – I am mad: I have come to save Oliver and I have destroyed him. I felt it vital that I should get back into Oliver’s flat before the police or ambulance men arrived: I had left the paper with the dope in it in the bathroom. I went along to the glass door at the end of the landing and it did, yes, give on to the small metal platform of a fire-escape. There was a key to this door in a glass case; I got the key out and unlocked the door and went out on to the fire-escape. There was a parapet along the battlements to the right which went past the windows of what must be Oliver’s flat; the third window should be that of Oliver’s bedroom. I thought I had to do this because had he not asked me to save him: and had I not accepted responsibility? I set out crawling along the parapet; there was an enormous drop to the street below. When I was going past the windows of the sitting-room there was the siren of a police car or an ambulance in the street. I thought – If I am found like this how can I explain? but then, nothing of importance can ever be explained, can it? I realised it was unlikely that the window into Oliver’s bedroom would be unlatched since the flat had been so airless: so I might fall, and make an end of it. Or I might fly like a bird. When I reached the window I found I could get my fingers underneath the bottom; then it went up; so I thought – Now everything will be all right; thank you! I went in head-first through the window and through the curtains which were still drawn; and in so doing I knocked over a small table. A drawer opened and what looked like an enormous bundle of twenty-pound notes fell out. I was on my hands and knees, staring at this, like a dog above a bone. The police car or ambulance was arriving in the street below. I picked up the table and put the drawer back and closed the window and pushed the bundle of notes into my pocket; then I went into the bathroom and put the piece of paper with the dope in it into another pocket and I wiped the shelf and the basin and the razor-blade and washed my hands. When I had done all this the buzzer went from what I supposed was the downstairs door. I went to the entry-phone and pressed the button and told whoever it was to come up; then I went into the bedroom and stood by Oliver’s bed. Oliver’s breath was still scraping. I thought – Well, I needed money for the taxi, didn’t I? Then I went to the door on to the landing and waited for the lift.
Two policemen arrived, one in uniform and one not. I said ‘I’m so terribly sorry I didn’t mean to call the police, I meant to call just an ambulance.’ I went ahead of them down the passageway. I was wearing jeans: there was the money, and the dope, in my pockets. I stood by the bed and held Oliver’s wrist: I said ‘He’s taken an overdose, I don’t know why, I hope the ambulance is coming.’ I thought – You don’t say too much, do you? they make you feel guilty anyway. The policeman in plainclothes picked up the empty bottle of pills and sniffed it and sniffed the glass of whisky; then he spoke to the one in uniform who went into the passage and spoke into his two-way radio. The man in plainclothes moved around the room: he picked up things and put them down again: he opened the drawer in the table where the money had been. I thought – Police are supposed to take money, aren’t they? Then – Everyone is guilty about something. The man in plainclothes said ‘Do you live here?’ I said ‘No.’ Then – ‘But I’ve got the keys.’ Then – ‘He’s only just moved in.’ I could hear the man in uniform go into the bathroom: I thought – But Oliver might have dope anywhere! I said to the man in plainclothes ‘I let myself in just now, this morning.’ The man had eyes like iron gratings through which fingers sometimes crawled. I thought – He is thinking what it would be like to have a flat like this and this girl who lets herself in with her own keys in the morning. I stood in my jeans with the dope and the money in my pockets. I thought – One knee slightly bent: one foot in front of the other. Then – This will be all right: there may be the smell of dope and money; there is also the smell of sex.
The man in uniform came in and said ‘They’re coming.’
The one in plainclothes said ‘Wait for them on the landing.’ Then he said to me – ‘How can we get in touch with you?’
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br /> I said ‘You can get in touch with me here.’
He said ‘Will do.’
He looked at me with his hot, imprisoned eyes. He made a note of the number that was on the telephone.
When the ambulance men arrived they were quick and professional: they put Oliver on to a stretcher and strapped him so that he would not fall off in the lift: they asked me if I knew what he had taken, or how much, and I said I did not. When they were going off with him I said – ‘Oh can I come with you?’
I thought it was necessary to get the policemen out of the flat. I said to the one in plainclothes ‘Please!’
He said ‘Come in the car.’
So I got them out of the flat, and locked the door, and then downstairs I found the taxi was still waiting. I thought – You mean taxi-drivers are like fairy godfathers in 1940s films? I thanked the plainclothes policeman with such genuine, grateful eyes! I said I would go to the hospital in the taxi. There was the hint – Well, you can ring me, can’t you? But then in the taxi I thought – How extraordinarily everything has worked out! I mean if I had not shut myself out on the landing and had not had to crawl along that parapet, however would I have got the money to pay for this taxi!
Now there is something I want to put in here – as if it might be another face at a window in one of those spiral staircases –
When I arrived at the hospital they had already taken Oliver off to pump him out or do whatever they had to do: they could not tell me yet whether he would live or die. I gave details to a woman behind a desk of what I knew about Oliver: she asked me whom she should put down as his next of kin. I said that I did not think Oliver would want anyone to know what had happened, so she said should she put me down as next of kin. I said ‘All right’. I thought – After all, I am protecting him; did he not give me his keys? But I did wonder for a moment whether I might be being trapped by Oliver in this; what are people doing when they involve others in games of Russian roulette?
Then in a waiting-room of the hospital (they had told me it might be some time before they knew whether Oliver would live or die) I found an old copy of Die Flamme magazine: in it there was one of the strip cartoons about Oliver: it was one showing him in the role of Faust: his bargain with the devil was that he should, at the cost of his soul, be able to get any girl he liked. But there was another story in this number which was to do with one of the more venomous vendettas the Die Flamme people had been carrying on for some time: this was against an Indian guru whom they referred to contemptuously as God. Some of the followers of this guru apparently themselves referred to him as God: and when he had been questioned about this (I remembered this story from an earlier number of the magazine) he had said it was a joke; but he had added that of course God liked jokes. When the Die Flamme reporter had asked him whether it was he who liked this sort of joke, he had apparently been overcome with laughter; and the Die Flamme reporter had felt discomfited, because, it seemed to be being suggested, he did not have a sense of humour.
Judith Page 5
