Nina In Utopia

by Miranda Miller

  ‘Your garret is very bare, and so I have brought some furnishings to fill it.’

  I stand my bombazine and corset upon the floor, and there they remain for the rest of my visit.

  A voice comes out of a box behind the sofa. I give a little squeal and listen as a man says horrid things in a most reasonable voice with a sweet smile. He speaks of people dead and wounded in far-flung places, and I can see the face of this man talking in the box. He is in the room with us, and yet when I rush around to the back of the box there is no sign of him. Jonathan stares at me and laughs again.

  ‘Nina, what are you on?’

  ‘Is it a riddle?’

  ‘You’re a riddle. Haven’t you seen a teavea before?’

  ‘I am very fond of riddles. Only I can’t remember any just at the present. Shall I tell you a joke?’

  ‘I can’t wait.’

  ‘A lady goes to visit her doctor and asks if the galvanic rings will cure depression. The doctor asks her what has caused the complaint, and the lady replies that it was the loss of her husband. And what do you think the doctor says?’

  ‘You’ve lost me.’

  ‘He says then you had better get a wedding ring. Oh dear. You don’t think it’s amusing, do you?’

  I stare down at my own wedding ring again because, of course, I have lost my husband, and now Jonathan says I have lost him as well, and then I see my mourning ring and remember the loss of Bella, and I cannot prevent the tears from brimming over. Then Jonathan tries to cheer me up by laughing at my joke, but his laugh is too late to convince me, and so he tries to comfort me.

  By this time we are quite famished, and somehow it is clear that Jonathan no longer wishes me to leave. We walk out into bright summery streets.

  Oh Charles, I do wish you could have seen the bright, merry place our dull and smoky old London has become. The night before I had been alone and frightened, but with Jonathan beside me every moment was a holiday. If you had been there you would have had your microscope out and your stethoscope and telescope and every other kind of scope, and you would have gone around measuring everything and asking questions. I know it makes you cross that I am not more methodical in my thinking, but I love to see new things - and what a banquet there was for my eyes.

  Everywhere men and women walk together and drive in shiny kaas and sit and have luncheon on tables and chairs in public. The pavement is very clean, and I long to join this alfresco party, so Jonathan leads me to a delightful restaurant where charming-looking men and women chatter and laugh and listen to invisible music. I hear dozens of foreign languages and see as many exotic and dusky faces as at the Great Exhibition. All London is an exhibition, and there are very few Anglo-Saxons visible, yet most of these foreigners appear to be perfectly decent and respectable folk.

  We sit down at a table in the middle of the thoroughfare, and the waiter brings a menu I cannot decipher.

  ‘You look happy.’

  ‘I think I was never so happy in my life. I hope this restaurant is not a very expensive one?’

  Jonathan smiles and shows me a gaudy visiting card. ‘That’s what I’ll pay with.’

  ‘Has money been abolished?’

  ‘In your dreams.’

  ‘Perhaps this really is a dream, but if so it is a very pleasant one, and I am fortunate to dream it.’

  In fact, I never once saw Jonathan use money apart from a few small coins. Everywhere we went he paid with his visiting card. I saw many others go to a hole in the wall near the restaurant where we sat and take bundles of money from it! So I think there has been some great Chartist revolution and the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street has opened her coffers to all. I never once saw anyone ragged or starving upon the streets. A man came to our table also asking for ‘change’, and Jonathan gave him a coin, but this man cannot have been a beggar for he was well clothed and shod.

  All of them wear the same clothes. Men and women and masters and servants alike are clad in tea shirts and trowsers. The colours vary and some of the ladies wear brightly coloured short shifts. Last night I felt like an ogress in my heavy dark clothes, but now I feel light and slender. Instead of an hour-glass - who would be made of brittle glass and weighed down by a crinoline and six petticoats? - I feel like a grenadier. No, not even that, for I wear no uniform and carry no sword. Like a boy going out with another boy for a lark. The way Jonathan’s trowsers have been rolled up to fit me makes me feel that I am at the seaside and about to go paddling.

  Jonathan buys a newspaper as big as an encyclopaedia and hands me part of it. I glimpse the date at the top of the page. It is like a dressmaker’s bill - there are too many noughts, so I pretend to myself that I haven’t seen it. I already know I am in the future, but I have fallen in love with it and do not want to murder my love by scratching and picking at it. Then I start to read the newspaper, and it is horrid. I become very upset, for all the news is of death and war, and there is a beastly picture of a little child covered with burns. But Jonathan explains that in their wisdom they - the denizens of this happy future - only pretend that evil still exists so that they may appreciate their good fortune all the more.

  ‘Shall we go shopping?’

  ‘I should like it of all things.’

  I am longing to ride in a kaa or horseless carriage but fear that the violent motion will make me sick as Mama was - all over my red gingham - the first time she went from Paddington to Maidenhead on G—d’s Wonderful Railway. Jonathan leads me through the clean, jolly streets until we come to a sort of scarlet perambulator. He opens a door with an enchanted flashing key and invites me to sit on a very low seat. Off comes the roof and off goes your Nina. I scream with delight as I fly away on this magic kaapet.

  How to describe the wonders of that afternoon? Oh Charles, I do wish you had been there. The motion was very swift but not unpleasant. We flew like the wind, which took my breath away and made me more of a scarecrow than ever. Soon the half-familiar streets were far behind us, and we were in a brand-new London of broad highways and buildings vast as cathedrals. I think I shall always see that future London now etched behind our filthy old city.

  We leave the kaa and enter an emporium. Not so much carriage trade as celestial trade. Imagine the Great Hall at Euston piled high with bananas and peaches and grapes and strawberries and pine apples and asparagus and tomatoes and lilies and daffodils and roses and lobsters and oysters and crabs and chickens and turkeys - as if every season had become one and all the countries in the world sacked to tickle the jaded appetite of some capricious queen. For every food I recognize there are six I cannot name. Even the potatoes and cabbages and apples are not our common-or-garden type but come in a multitude of guises. They are all cleaner and brighter and larger than ours. I think of what you said about the March of Progress and fall into step with it as I see how even an onion can evolve into a little spherical masterpiece.

  I follow Jonathan as he wheels a metal cart and helps himself to this cornucopia. Invisible musicians play softly, and all around us are other carts pushed by other disciples of Bloomerism. Little children who sit upon some of these carts shriek and laugh and take sweetmeats and whatever they fancy from the munificent shelves. I think how Tommy would adore this place and poor Bella, too, and how a child might well believe itself to be in paradise.

  As if in tune with this thought I see people floating above my head. You must not laugh when you read this, Charles, and say that all this happened in the reign of Queen Dick, for it is all true. I look up and see a line of heads ascending to the ceiling. A few yards away another group descends towards me. They glide with blithe insouciance as if it were quite an everyday matter to defy gravity. I run towards them and see that the staircase they stand upon is in motion. I feel quite faint to see this marvel and stand at the foot of the staircase gazing up at them.

  ‘What’s the matter with you now?’

  I hold my tongue, for I understand that my raptures are not welcome to Jonathan. I try to suppress my ga
sps as we make our way along the bounteous lanes. Sometimes I seem to meet an old friend - a Cheddar cheese or a steak-and-kidney pie - but all are transformed.

  When Jonathan has filled his cart to the brim he wheels it to a desk where a beautiful young lady smiles at us and packs it into bags. Jonathan gives her his visiting card, and that is the end of the transaction. Without paying a penny we carry our booty out to the waiting kaa.

  Back in his garret I watch as Jonathan stores the food in his arctic larder and prepare a pot of tea. All these household tasks he performs by himself without a single servant to help him. A poor man - but riches are of no use in a world where all is free.

  ‘Sorry to be so boring.’

  ‘I was never less bored in my life.’

  ‘You’re very polite. What would you like to do now?’

  ‘May I really choose?’

  ‘I want you to enjoy yourself. I like it when you laugh.’

  ‘Are there still theatres and opera houses and museums?’

  ‘If they’ve done away with them since last week nobody’s told me.’

  ‘I suppose they are very dear.’

  He hands me a shiny little magazine that is a kind of guidebook to his London.

  ‘Clubs. Do you belong to a club, Jonathan?’

  ‘I go occasionally. I never used to bother, but since Kate left …’

  I remember his divorce and blush to think that he must have been involved in some dreadful scandal, although he seems so gentlemanly.

  ‘Do you fancy going clubbing?’

  ‘Are ladies allowed?’

  ‘I’m not gay, you know. Do you like dancing?’

  ‘I adore it. But I have nothing suitable to wear.’

  ‘Just go as you are. Nobody gives a toss what you wear.’

  I smile to think of the two of us dancing a quadrille or even a dashing waltz in our hobbledehoy clothes.

  ‘But they will laugh at us.’

  ‘There’ll be much weirder-looking guys than us.’

  Indeed there were. I don’t think it was a bit like your club, Charles, for it wasn’t in St James’s, and, in fact, I have no idea where we went. That evening is rather a blur. I remember descending steps and looking around for the billiard tables and Pall Mall butterflies and dandies you have described.

  We are in a hot cellar, and it is so dark that I can hardly see what others wear. Dazzling lights cut into this darkness and slice into my brain and quite befuddle me. The air is thick with smoke and throbbing with loud music. Half-naked people stand and twitch galvanically, and it is all a little alarming - more like a cannibals’ feast than a ball - but I know that Jonathan will not let anyone eat me. He is very attentive and brings me a plate of sandwiches with a glass of iced lemonade.

  We sit at a little table and try to talk, but the music swallows our words and the whirling lights make me feel quite giddy. Jonathan offers me a few puffs of a fragrant object like a pencil wrapped in paper, which he calls a joint, and I accept although it makes me splutter. Of course, I have never smoked before and don’t suppose I ever shall again, but I have invented a little motto for myself: ‘When in Utopia do as the Utopians do.’ So I sit there valiantly pretending this is a delightful party, for it would have been discourteous to complain. I drink a great deal of lemonade as the cellar is stifling hot, and I think perhaps the lemons are not fresh for I began to feel quite sick. A sign above our heads says ‘Reality is a delusion caused by alcohol deficiency.’ I wonder if this is a joke and if I ought to laugh.

  ‘Shall I tell you a joke?’ I shout above the noise. I cannot even hear Jonathan’s reply, but I continue regardless. ‘What did the corpulent lady say to the crusty old bachelor?’ I have to repeat it several times before he can hear what I am saying.

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘She said, “Am I not a little pale?” And what do you think he replied?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue.’

  ‘He replied’ - and I cannot refrain from laughing at my own joke - ‘“You look more like a big tub.”‘

  I have to repeat this and explain it by which time my merriment is exhausted and so is our conversation. I cannot help wondering why gentlemen would wish to go to such clubs.

  At last we leave, and I feel a little like Persephone rising from the underworld, but Jonathan is more like Demeter my mother than nasty Pluto. He supports me and says he is too pist to drive, and so we walk back to his garret, and after that my mind is quite a blank.

  The next morning I feel seedy. I have the most ferocious headache and so does Jonathan.

  ‘Why, it’s Sunday! But there are no bells.’

  ‘When you start hearing bells it’s time for therapy.’

  ‘Don’t you go to church?’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Naturally I go with my son, and I used to take my daughter. Bella. She died.’

  ‘Oh I’m so sorry! When?’

  ‘Three months ago. A hundred and fifty years ago. I am confused.’

  ‘So am I.’

  We stare at each other. I think that perhaps our dear old Church of England has been replaced by elephants and marionettes and remember that it is impolite to speak of religion.

  The day passes very quietly. We do not go out but eat tranquilly at home, for this simple garret is beginning to feel like my home. Of course, I still yearn for our home and for you and dear Tommy, but… I’m sure you will understand, for you are so clever. It has all been too much for my poor little brain.

  Jonathan speaks of his eckswife Kate. This lady, or rather hyena in petticoats, divorced him and stole a great deal of money from him as well as a house. When I ask if married women are allowed to hold property in their own names he laughs bitterly and tells me a lady has even held the post of Prime Minister! However, it was not a great success, and I am not surprised. I wonder she had the effrontery. She was not a crabbed old maid but a married lady. Yet this is not the greatest of the marvels he recounts. Ladies are able to practise any profession, including law and medicine. If a young unmarried lady is seduced and gives birth the child is not called a b—st—rd and abandoned as a foundling but lives with its mama. Young ladies who do not find a husband are not despised but are able to support themselves, as they have received an education equal to their brothers’. I cannot help envying these Amazons who will be born long after Tommy is dead.

  The rest is soon told. Jonathan prepares a delicious supper, and we watch the teavea. This is something like the Panorama in the Egyptian Hall or a kind of magic lantern projecting wonders - whether imaginary or actual I do not venture to ask. Jonathan finds my questions foolish, and I feel a little like that family of bumpkins we overheard at the Exhibition. Do you remember? A man in a smock and a woman smelling of the piggery who was oohing and aahing at the sight of a water closet and saying she wouldn’t give sixpence for the Koh-i-Noor diamond.

  Dearest Charles, I know your love of the theatre and wish you could have sat with me to watch this drama that took place in our very own room as if a vast troupe of actors and musicians and magicians had, by enchantment, visited Jonathan’s tiny garret.

  I stare at machines that fly and excavate mountains and explore beneath the ocean and at towers that kiss the clouds. I see trains rumbling through tunnels beneath a great city and young girls cavorting shamelessly in their undergarments (perhaps as a cautionary tale). There is a kind of play about a young lady whose husband has abandoned her with three children - a tale so sad that I cannot help but weep - which Jonathan thinks a very foolish thing to do.

  ‘What will you do tomorrow when I’m at work?’

  ‘Must you leave me?’

  ‘Well, I can’t very well take you to work with me.’

  ‘What is your work?’

  ‘I’m an architect.’

  ‘A noble profession!’

  ‘Is it? I spend most of my time haggling over planning permission for shopping molls.’

  I do not like to ask what or who a shopping moll is. My lip
trembles to think of the desert of solitude that lies ahead. For since our darling Bella died I have come to fear the phantoms - hers and others - that rush to fill an empty room. I hear Papa’s voice telling me that time is precious and must never be wasted, and his kind eyes watch me as I do waste it. I hear Mama’s voice singing an Italian lullaby and then sinking into what she called her Finsbury Gloom. Sometimes, too, I see the two dead little babies who came between Bella and Tommy. They have no names or voices but stare at me reproachfully for carrying them beneath my heart and then failing to give them life. So when I am at home I take care to have a servant or even Tommy (if he is good, which he never is) in the room with me at all times.

  I lie awake in dread of the moment when Jonathan will abandon me. At breakfast the next morning he looks at me over the coffee pot, and I see he is too busy to be bothered with neurasthenic females. Like you, Charles, dear, after Bella … left me.

  ‘Here are some spare keys in case you want to go out.’

  ‘You are very kind.’

  ‘Don’t get lost’.

  ‘I am lost.’

  ‘If you do go out you’d better not go far. And don’t get the tube or you’ll never find your way back.’

  ‘The tube?’

  ‘The underground. Oh G—d, Nina - the railway that goes under London.’

  ‘How very dangerous. Do you mean there are tunnels beneath our feet? Are you not afraid the Russians will invade?’

  ‘You sound like McCarthy.’

  ‘Do you mean Josiah McCarthy of Finsbury Square? He was a great friend of my father’s. Such a dear old -’

  ‘Oh for G—d’s sake!’

  I see that I have annoyed Jonathan again and do not understand why. He is wearing a grey jacket and trowsers and carries a thin, sharp suitcase. I think it must be full of knives. He looks clever and powerful, and I see that he is not a poor man at all. He has been happy to play at being a pauper for a few days, but now he is a prince again rushing off to his palace. And I the pumpkin untransformed.