Judith

by Nicholas Mosley

  I said ‘That man at the end of the row –’

  He said ‘Old Jake. Jason. You know old Jason?’

  I said ‘Who’s Jason?’

  He said ‘Someone still looking for his Golden Fleece. Doesn’t know you can buy it now at any sex-shop.’

  I said ‘Oh I see.’

  I worked out after a time – You mean that man at the end of the row, who was as if waving to me from a window, is called Jason?

  That same evening Oliver said – marching up and down the room as if there were flies or military music after him –

  ‘I thought it was the Die Flamme people that you were so starry-eyed about: get the shit off the streets: rise and shine: get it poured over yourself: piss and polish: that sort of thing.

  ‘You think people like being on top? They don’t. They like being underneath. It’s warmer where you’re shat on. Why do you think children like it, what do you think Freud went on about, was it Freud or Jung who had that dream about God shitting on the world when on the seventh day he rested? That which proceedeth from the father and the son – Good boy! Mummy loves you!

  ‘You think that was clever – Don’t you see what trouble they had to take in order to destroy themselves? –

  ‘Give me a nice shiny scrubber any day. What was the name of that boy you were with? Desmond?’

  Oliver was standing over me by the edge of the bed.

  I thought – You mean, you are jealous of that person called Jason –

  – You would like me to get in touch with Desmond?

  Why does it seem false, do you know, to try to give straightforward descriptions of sex: is it because sex itself is a metaphor for something different?

  This is one of the ways one knows (because there are metaphors) that there is something different?

  I mean – You do all these things with bits and pieces of yourself; but you do them because round a corner, just elsewhere, there is something of quite another kind coming together, falling apart, coming together: I mean why else would you spend all that time with bits and pieces of yourself if there were not something different?

  But when you can’t hold this, pin it down, because it is around some corner – then I suppose there is some rage in you that makes you go after the bits and pieces.

  Oliver wasn’t much good at straightforward sex: perhaps he had done too much: but then, there were all his bits and pieces. These, as Miss Julie would say, were hanging out; he had to do something with them. He was like some sort of genie half in and half out of a bottle.

  He would say – For God’s sake, if you wait for yourself, you might have to wait for ever.

  And I had got bored, yes, with men who hang around with their tongues out all day as if they were in a desert.

  Oliver would say – All right my puppet, my Petrouchka-girl; there’s a good centre of gravity!

  Sometimes a packet would arrive in Oliver’s letter-box downstairs that did not contain dope but implements, sexual devices, or whatever: these were I suppose of the same order as dope: they were mechanisms to give a home to fantasies that floated half in and half out of bottles. Do not all humans have fantasies – either trapped, or running wild? I suppose it is better if they are in some way held rather than roar like witches above battlefields.

  Oliver would say – Machinery, like puppets, yes, is less ridiculous than humans.

  I would think – Are there people, somewhere, who prefer not to be tethered?

  Oliver would say – There is no orderliness when there is a choice: humans are ludicrous when they think they have a choice.

  I would say – But it might be something one cannot talk about –

  Oliver would say – Saints, explorers, have always wanted pain. You know that prayer on Easter Saturday – Oh happy fault! or whatever – how would there be the bliss of redemption if there were no pain?

  I would think – Bliss is being in the present, here, and with no dimensions?

  Oliver would say – It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living god!

  Sometimes we would go out together: I would dress up: then we could shine – as if polished, I suppose, or pissed on, or pissing. We had probably chewed on some of the stuff that made people in the streets roll towards us like penises. I was a doll: why do people make themselves up like dolls? to sit on thrones: like queens, like goddesses, with spikes up inside them?

  Oliver would say – We worship you! We bow down! Give us of your bounty!

  Oliver had received in one of his paper packets what was the latest contraption from Germany: it was shaped like an egg: it was worked by radio control, like one of those motor-boats that buzz about on ponds. Oliver held the control switch in his hand: the egg was pushed up inside me. Oliver said – Oh Virgin Queen! on the shoulders of your acolytes!

  When he pressed the button there was the sensation of a snake uncoiling somewhere near the bottom of my spine and shooting up to burst in the sky above my head.

  Oliver said – You are all at one. There is no hollow inside you!

  When we walked in the street I did feel as if I were some goddess in procession: crowds were under my skirts: an orb and a sceptre were suns at my breasts. I was to be taken to the altar; to flare up on the wings of angels.

  I thought – Dear life, dear God; well, it was nice having known you.

  We were on our way to a pub. This was Oliver’s idea. It was to be some ordeal: a test for witches.

  I had done my hair up in a crest like a bird. That woman from the cellar in the story had a mask like a bird, had she not? There were chains and trinkets around my body.

  I was to be enthroned, entombed. I was to sit quite still. I was to be guardian of the secrets.

  Well, people do worship this kind of thing, give up their lives to it, don’t they?

  When we were in the pub I sat in a corner with my back held straight so that the snake in my spine, when it shot up, might not twist and strangle me. I held my orb and sceptre, my worlds, my children, in my arms. Every now and then Oliver pressed the button and there were these stars above my head; the bomb going off; arms reaching after me. I felt – Now nothing further can happen to me: I am the rock: the kingdoms of the world are beneath me.

  Oliver had gone to the bar to get drinks. There was a man at the bar with his back half-turned to me. I realised he was the Professor.

  I was sure it was the Professor, though recently I had not been thinking of him much. I thought now – You mean, at last this might be rock bottom?

  There was a rush of cold air coming in. I thought – I am a mummy in one of those caves and after thousands of years the tomb is opened and the mummies are seen in all their glory for a moment and then they collapse in the air like burned paper.

  It seemed that if I sat very still the Professor might not see me; the bits of burnt paper might not float to him.

  Oliver was buying drinks. The Professor was on his own. I thought – But he will not remember me!

  This was a cry for help, of terror – This is I, Cleopatra, at the stake like a witch!

  The Professor turned and looked at me. He had his back to the counter of the bar. He seemed to be considering me thoughtfully. I thought – He sees me as if I were a painting.

  Perhaps I have not explained enough about the Professor. I had known, when I had talked to him that one time in America, that he had liked me.

  I thought I might say – Well, this is what we were talking about, isn’t it?

  Oliver pressed the button; there was the feeling of flames stretching up, reaching above my head and making me see visions.

  The Professor came and stood in front of me. He said ‘Hullo.’

  I said ‘Hullo.’

  He said ‘Do you remember me?’

  I said ‘Yes.’

  He said ‘How are you doing?’

  Oliver, from the bar, pressed the button. I thought – My mouth gapes open like the neck of Holofernes.

  The Professor said ‘You wanted to be
an actress –’

  I said ‘Yes.’

  He said ‘And you wanted to know if you could make things do what you wanted –’

  I said ‘Yes.’

  Oliver pressed the button.

  The Professor said ‘And I said you could go on doing this for a time and then you would stop.’

  I could not make any sound come out.

  He said ‘It’s stopped.’

  I said ‘Yes.’

  He said ‘Good.’

  I thought – I am dust and paper on the floor.

  Oliver came from the bar carrying drinks. He stood by the Professor. Oliver was this strange young-old man with a white face and devil’s eyebrows like an actor.

  Oliver said ‘You like her?’

  The Professor said ‘Yes.’

  Oliver said ‘She’s very expensive.’

  The Professor said ‘How much?’

  Oliver said ‘Too much for you, Dr Strabismus.’

  I thought – I must get some message through to the Professor.

  Oliver said ‘Now piss off.’

  I said ‘Coo-ee!’

  The Professor said ‘Shall I tell you my telephone number?’

  I thought – But I’ll never remember it!

  The Professor said ‘It’s the highest score in first-class cricket and the date of the Second Reform Bill.’

  Oliver said ‘So you ponce too, do you, you talented man?’

  The Professor said ‘And everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.’

  I thought – But there is nothing now there, where you might put a finger on my forehead?

  When we got home, Oliver said –

  ‘Little Judy from Hong Kong, half-way up the ladder, have a sniff, do: haven’t got good tits, but hang on to them, please, if you want a bit of the brown bread and bugger.

  ‘You like that old man? They still make them like that in America?

  ‘They re-cycle them? They put them on ice? ‘They do it by credit card over the telephone? ‘I had a call from your Nazi friend Desmond the other day: he said I had been seen going off with you at the Die Flamme party. I said – Walk up, anytime, model, top floor: jack-boots and climbing-irons welcome.

  ‘You know why you’re a mess? because you have almost as much contempt for people as I have. But what you can’t do is accept this. Fetch it! Good boy! Down boy! Oo!

  ‘What shall we do with your boyfriend? Dress him up as little Dezzie death’s head? A bit of the old Arbeit macht frei?’

  I thought – You mean you are attracted to Desmond?

  – You are afraid I might get in touch with the Professor?

  It was at about this time, I think, that Oliver began to take me to a house in North London. He now did not seem to want to leave me so much alone.

  I still wondered about why Oliver had stopped painting. Many painters, as I have said, at this time had become confused: asking what painting was, they seemed to be looking for ways to express this predicament.

  When Oliver had painted it was as if he had put his hand inside people and had turned them inside out like glove-puppets: their skin was shiny and seemed to be decomposing slightly with sweat.

  I think Oliver now wanted to get some sustenance for whatever he felt he needed for his paintings.

  The house in North London was a large Victorian building done up like a Moorish palace; there were tiled floors and mosaics; a courtyard with a fountain. The house belonged, I think, to some business associates of Oliver’s. I did not know who these were: it did not occur to me to want to know. The style of the house was that it was like an illustration to something pornographic.

  There was one of Oliver’s paintings, a mural, in an alcove. It was of a female figure lying on a rock with sea-anemones and crabs crawling over her. It seemed unfinished.

  Oliver said ‘She is Lilith. Do you know the story of Lilith?’

  I said ‘No.’

  He said ‘Lilith was Adam’s first wife. God had made her equal to Adam. So when she and Adam made love, she wanted to be equally on top. Adam objected to this, so Lilith flew away and lived on a rock. From there she sent out demons to plague mankind.’

  The figure of Lilith was like a womb turned inside out. Her skin was white, as if from acid in the stomach of a whale.

  Oliver said ‘Be nice to these people! Poor old Jonahs: all eaten up by the devils sent by Lilith!’

  Oliver, when he was not being venomous, was being flattering to me at this time. I thought – He does not know which way to hang: from the good breast or the bad breast of his mother.

  Or – You mean Lilith would not have had to go away to her rock if she had learned about the powers there are in being underneath?

  The people we met in the house in North London were large smooth men like drops of oil on the point of touching substance and spreading. They seemed to be from the Middle East: they gave the impression of being to do with yachts, and armaments. In the house in North London there was not much at first that went on: the atmosphere was like that of the party that Oliver had taken me to when I first met him. But these men did not seem to be residents of any holy of holies: they were like vessels that came in to be scraped and caulked before setting out again.

  There had been a story in one of the Die Flamme magazines about Oliver’s Middle East connections. They had suggested he was some sort of pimp: not only for the sake of what might be his art, but because he liked this sort of power.

  The first time I went to the house in North London there was some party or reception. I was to act as a sort of hostess: I was to move among these people carrying caviare and biscuits on a plate. But what they seemed to get from me was the feel of something that they (or indeed I) could not quite grasp: a lick of some fantasy unseen and unspoken: what was it these people had not got that they could still want to feel?

  They watched me from behind dark glasses. I thought – Oliver will get commissions to paint harems in the Middle East? They want their heads cut off like Holofernes?

  I said to Oliver ‘What have you told them?’

  Oliver said ‘What do you mean, what have I told them?’

  I thought – You have turned me inside out: they feel there is some glow about me; some radiation.

  What I worked out was that Oliver must have told them – I am sorry about this: there are, indeed, here parts of the story of which I am ashamed – was that I was something to do with royalty. I mean not, of course, that I was royal: but that I had been, was being, fucked by someone royal: what else would such men want to rub off on; to have rub off on to them? I mean, what else could they not get for money? And what else, for me, might be nearer rock bottom?

  I had thought – But of course, I am in the tent of Holofernes; should I not be good at getting something apart from this?

  There were the walls with beautiful tiles and statues of nudes like surfaces from which blood could be wiped off.

  I said to Oliver ‘What exactly have you told them?’

  He said ‘They are dealers in uranium and plutonium, which are the modern philosopher’s stones.’

  I said ‘What is your connection with them?’

  He said ‘The Israelis bugger the South Africans who bugger the Arabs who bugger the Israelis.’

  I said ‘But what do they pay you for?’

  He said ‘The snake that eats its own tail.’

  I said ‘And what is that?’

  He said ‘Queen Sheherazade.’

  I said ‘Hullo.’

  ‘Hullo.’

  ‘Is that the Professor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You gave me your number.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Can I see you?’

  ‘You can.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Lunchtime.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The National Gallery.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘Do you know a painting by Piero di Cosimo of a girl lying on her side with a wou
nd in her throat?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then that’s all right.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I’ll see you there.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Hullo, hullo, all you who find yourselves on spiral staircases; who look out of windows: you think you can fly?

  You make your mind a blank: you think your number will come up on the roulette wheel –

  On my way through the rooms of the National Gallery there was a huge St Sebastian on the wall like a board stuck through with darts: a row of Virgin Marys on their thrones like lavatories.

  I thought – What is the difference between these images and those hatched out of the dark in the house in North London?

  The painting by Piero di Cosimo is of a girl lying on her side with wounds in her throat and wrists: at her head there is a faun kneeling; at her feet a large brown dog. Behind her is a beach of pink-gold sand on the edge of what looks like an estuary: there are blue and silver hills beyond this in the distance. On the sand are three dogs playing: above the estuary is a line of birds dropping down like notes of music.

  I thought – These people are not posing? They are getting on with what they are to be doing?

  Then – This might be myself? You are the brown dog? You are the faun?

  On the same wall at the other side of the room there was a painting by the same artist of a battle between Lapiths and Centaurs. Squat grey figures bash at each other with clubs and stones and something that looks like a chandelier: they seem to be fighting in the middle of a picnic. Everyone seems to be having a good time: they glow with the ghastly bottom-of-the-ocean light of a flash photograph, or the figures in Oliver’s paintings.

  I thought – Well, people do think they’re having a good time with this sort of posing, showing-off, don’t they?

  I went back to the picture of the girl with the wound in her throat. I had loved this picture from the first time I had seen it. I thought I would wave and say – Coo-ee!

  The Professor said ‘Hullo.’