Inner Circle

by Jerzy Peterkiewicz

  ‘We think there’s a probability you weren’t baptized at all. On the other hand, you may be a Greek-Orthodox, that’s quite possible, too. But your aunt was rather vague about your baptism.’ They meant Dolly-mum, but Patrick let them get away with this slip. He didn’t like being Greek and that other thing as well, whatever it was. The old yes-father said he would ring up Patrick’s only father to clarify the matter, as he put it.

  This worried Patrick for hours: daddy could be so rude on the telephone when he was woken up at noon.

  Days passed, and on the third of April the principal yes-father kissed Patrick on the head, gave him his own hand to be kissed in exchange, and then announced that the christening would take place in the school chapel next Sunday afternoon. ‘In private, of course,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, your father, Patrick, may not be able to attend, he’s developing a bad cold. It sounded like influenza on the telephone.’

  Patrick was later told a few things, and asked how many gods there were in hell, and finally, to appease the most anxious no-father of them all, said:

  ‘Has the Orthodox god a longer beard?’

  ‘Judging by the icons, my child-yes, he has.’ The no-father smiled and Patrick saw love opening in that smile.

  ‘I prefer the one with the Catholic beard,’ he spoke with great conviction.

  And they baptized Patrick just in case; and he became so pious that he could see words through the letters in some books and could guess numbers, too. He taught himself to spell Vera in three different ways, and wrote it down twenty-seven times in three rows.

  Dolly-mum now gave him three rolls for breakfast which somehow made sense, and he chewed them carefully like a secret, straining his ears to hear the poodle. But the fuzzy mop never barked before nine o’clock. Out of piety, or happiness maybe, Patrick became as plump as a puppy.

  ‘You’re growing a paunch. Just like your daddy,’ Dolly-mum teased him, and Patrick was proud of his father, though he didn’t see much of him.

  ‘And my father gives me a quid every time I see him. Honest.’

  His friend was Patrick, too, but had ginger hair like Saint Patrick on the coloured picture which hung in the corridor on the way to the lavatory.

  ‘Lend me a quid then,’ the other Patrick said.

  ‘I can’t. I left it in a wallet at Woolworth’s.’

  This impressed the ginger Patrick; he never left anything at Woolworth’s.

  The next afternoon, five minutes after closing time, Augustus exchanged a casual dialogue with his son. There was a bench out on the pavement, next to a rickety table, both smelling of spilled beer, so they sat down like the best of pals.

  ‘Too late for tomato juice. How is life treating you, my boy?’ A firm pat on the head followed and the ho-ho laughter. Paternal love had its reassuring sequences.

  ‘I’m growing a paunch like you, Dolly-mum says.’

  ‘She certainly keeps her figure, good old Dolly does. By the way, tell me, what was that baptism fuss about?’

  ‘I am a Christian now, daddy, properly christened. You forgot to do that, remember?’

  ‘Ah—’ said Augustus.

  ‘And my first mummy must have forgotten, too, because she was a Greek.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘An Orthodox, father.’

  ‘She was the most Bulgar Bulgarian you ever saw, by Jove. I don’t want to see her again.’ Augustus stopped abruptly, looked sideways and began picking his nose.

  Patrick sniffed very loudly.

  ‘Well, now,’ his father was still looking aside, ‘would you like a quid or something?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I’d like a quid very much, thank you.’ Suddenly Patrick remembered why he had waited outside the pub since half past two.

  Augustus rummaged in the pockets of his tweed jacket, then disturbed some loose coins inside his trousers; he was on the point of giving up when a wad of bank-notes fell onto the table. It was held together by a rubber band.

  ‘Must buy myself a wallet for Christmas.’

  ‘I’ll get you one at Woolworth’s,’ said his son.

  ‘That’s a nice kind thought, my boy. Take your pick.’ Patrick observed the rubber band, fingered the greenish edge, and very quickly pulled out two pound notes stuck together.

  ‘It’s a double quid, father.’

  ‘Have a double quid, then.’

  And a few minutes later they parted at a bus stop, Augustus waving the green wad, which he then pocketed.

  ‘Why isn’t my first mummy seeing daddy? Is it because he forgot to baptize her as well?’ Patrick asked after supper, and Dolly-mum didn’t laugh at him, though she liked to have a good laugh before retiring to bed.

  ‘You’re old enough to know, Patrick,’ she said, ‘your daddy and your Vera-mum are divorced. They don’t live together. But she wasn’t really a very nice lady, if you know what that means.’

  At school the following day, he gave a quid to Patrick Saint Ginger and asked him what he would do with it.

  ‘I’ll buy myself a filthy book, that thick,’ and the other Patrick showed him how thick. ‘Listen, I’ll tell you something for lending me that quid.’

  They went to the lavatory and Patrick the Ginger shut the door. ‘I heard my mother pee. She went on and on and on. Have you ever heard your own ma in the pee-placer Patrick shook his head. ‘Now you pee,’ said the spotty Ginger, ‘and I’ll tell you if you are better and louder than her.’

  But Patrick couldn’t do it. He stood clutching his penis, and then thought that perhaps he might treat himself to a ride in the Tube.

  He went up to the booking office in Sloane Square station.

  ‘I want to go on the Circle Line.’

  ‘Where tor asked the man inside.

  ‘I’ll come back and tell you, sir.’ Patrick found the map on the wall, followed the yellow line with his finger, and returned to the clerk. There was no queue. ‘Aldgate, please,’ he said, and received a clinking handful of change.

  Down below, Patrick found a tomato sandwich in a nice paper bag on the platform, next to a slot machine with chocolates. It tasted good. He waited patiently for the right train, watching the clock and the posters.

  Patrick boarded the Inner Circle train at nine to four. That was what the clock showed him. It could have been the same carriage where he had sat with his father, because the picture with the tiny men in the bottle-neck was hanging on the right and the people inside kept looking at him as if they remembered him from that other round trip.

  At Gloucester Road a lady with parcels entered, but she wasn’t blonde and had no umbrella. Two empty seats remained between her and the breathing doors.

  Patrick made up his mind. He stepped forward, and with his legs well apart he urinated into the seat which was nearest to the door. It seemed hours before a man in a uniform took Patrick by the arm and walked with him along the platform, then all the way up to the surface. The elevator wasn’t working.

  3

  Patrick’s piety ascended to a foul sublimation after that incident on the Circle Line, which Dolly-mum refused to accept and pretended had never happened. The boy was given three rolls at breakfast, as before. The odd quid came his way as before.

  Patrick didn’t, however, recover that loan of his, for the simple reason that he had to add five shillings to the pound to get the thick volume of muck from Patrick Saint Ginger. No, he couldn’t borrow it; books as filthy as that were never on loan; you had to buy them, Ginger explained, in great secret and keep your trap shut afterwards.

  The volume was thicker than its content merited. A number of consecutive pages, and there were at least fifty of them in all, reappeared again and again between the covers, as if the printers had wanted to prove their priority rights before the common readers. Printed in Egypt, the muck classic had no title, no author’s name, but plenty of curious misspellings which, unfortunately, Patrick was as yet unable to appreciate. The pages, recurring at fairly regular intervals, gave a boost to his
reading confidence: he recognized at a glance the intimate scenes between the headmaster, Horace Ball, and his star pupil, Fatty Hole; then words seemed to goggle their eyes at him from every line in the page.

  Patrick found some filth less foul than the margins of the book, which had stains far deeper ingrained than those on his daddy’s headboard. He liked the schoolboys doing the same silly things to the masters, which the masters had previously done to them, but since he himself was a day-boy, he couldn’t quite imagine the strange dormitory described in the book. It was no use rushing to Patrick Saint Ginger for a quick explanation, for Patrick Ginger had his angry moods, and kept squeezing his spots out with one hand only. Besides, he didn’t look like a chap who would crawl under beds, dragging a chain. There were two bedrooms in Dolly’s small house, but no dormitory.

  ‘Have you got a whip under your bed, Dolly-mum!’ Patrick inquired in his serious voice.

  The second mummy reacted with a shocked flush, which came up through the powder on her face.

  ‘I have nothing of the sort, Patrick! Neither under nor over, nor inside my bed. I wouldn’t dream of punishing you like some mothers do. Have I ever struck you, my pet!’

  Patrick shook his head violently and repeated ‘oh, no, no!’ while Dolly-mum scrutinized him with her sharp eyes. Then she said very quietly: ‘Run to the loo, Patrick, like a good boy. You’re always holding it up.’

  ‘I’ve been, Dolly-mum. Twice.’

  A week or two after the Easter holidays, Patrick received a present from abroad.

  Even before he opened the dainty box, the ginger Patrick asked for the stamps and was promised them in exchange for eight spelling snorters in that book. The bargain seemed fair. Inside the box there lay something like a cat, very shiny though, because it was made of porcelain. And it had Ricordo di Venezia across a funny boat, inside which the cat was sitting, its mouth wide open. Taking the straw out from the bottom, Patrick found a card rimmed with gold. This time he had a harder struggle with the spelling and got stuck half-way.

  Questo Batto cantante mandato con molto affetto al mio carissimo bambino Boris. Love Mother V. One of the cleverest yes-fathers, who also answered to the name of Pio, read the card aloud to Patrick, translated it into English as far as bambino Boris, asked who that was, and finally admired the singing cat in the boat.

  ‘That’s in Bulgarian, isn’t it, yes-father?’

  ‘No, Patrick, it’s in Italian.’

  ‘Are you sure, yes-father?’

  ‘Don’t say yes when you ask a question, child. I am positive. I spent ten years in the Vatican.’

  ‘That’s an awfully long time, Father Pio. I am also Boris. . . .’ Patrick hesitated, ‘my first mother thinks I am Boris.’

  ‘A nice name,’ said the cleverest yes-father and departed.

  Patrick called the cat Boris, but only for a day. Then he changed his mind because one of the boys made a rude remark about the boat and said the cat wasn’t singing or rowing, but something-something, and so everybody laughed, at Boris, not at Patrick. From now on the cat went about hidden under Patrick’s blazer and under the new name ‘Ricordo’. Ricordo had a cool fur which was strange to touch.

  The boat somehow got lost, and Ricordo went on singing in mid-air, until one evening his mouth, his whiskers, his tail and the rest became bits of porcelain on the floor. Patrick wept in his bedroom, fell asleep, woke up and began praying to Father Pio, who was the cleverest yes-father and knew Saint Vatican personally.

  Again he sent himself to sleep, but after dreaming about the poodle and some people from the house next door, he got up in a different mood. The taste of the rolls speeded up his morning associations. All of a sudden he was caught up inside the foul sublimation.

  With a piece of chalk in his pocket he jumped onto a bus, but didn’t go as far as the school. Instead he took another bus, number thirty-one, and arrived at World’s End before nine. He entered the familiar doorway, very quietly, walked up the stairs to the first landing and stopped outside his father’s bedsitter. One look round just in case. A sleepers’ den it really was, not a soul stirred at this hour. Patrick’s chalk moved across the brown door, and words dropped into three neat rows. He smiled a foul farewell to each one as he passed it to write the next.

  Piss, puke, he wrote and smiled twice, then ffuk Venezia poachd balls oil yore arse, and pisss again, with as many s’s as he could twirl into the space left near the edge.

  Another quick look round. Patrick blew the chalk dust off his right sleeve and departed with an air of serenity about him, just as the yes-father Pio would have done, had he selected the same door to show off his spelling.

  Patrick was, of course, late for his Scripture class, but on Tuesdays they were doing revision, from the very beginning all over again, so he entered the Garden of Eden just in time. And the yes-father with glasses didn’t scold him; he merely pressed the book he was holding against his white robe and asked Patrick to read that bit where Adam is giving names to the animals in his private zoo. The class didn’t expect a great performance, and nobody took much notice of his eh-eh-ehs, though in fairness to the print of the book Patrick found the words winking at him, as if he and they had met before.

  Suddenly, there were more words, over the lines and below, trying to get in, and Patrick seemed to recognize them without any difficulty whatsoever. Now his voice rose up confidently, and he proceeded to read about Adam teaching the cocks how to jump on the hens, telling the poodle which arse-hole he should sniff at, and soon everybody copulated and pissed with everybody under the sun.

  The class was spellbound and very quiet, then a neighing sort of noise broke out.

  Patrick was being laughed at: the entire class loved him in unison. He sat down, exhausted. Silence returned and like dust was settling on his desk and the open textbook.

  It was only then that the yes-father found his lost voice and piped towards the ceiling:

  ‘No, no, no!’

  The principal yes-father didn’t kiss Patrick on the head. He mumbled something about not being able to reach Patrick’s father by telephone, and also about a letter in the post. During the twenty years under his guidance, St. Patrick’s School had fumigated many filthy minds, but Patrick’s filth was beyond any demucking measure. However, he wanted to know one thing.

  ‘Who taught you those horrible words!’ But Patrick wasn’t going to be a puky squealer, especially now that the principal had told him they couldn’t possibly keep him at St Patrick’s. ‘Give me his name.’

  ‘Yes, father,’ Patrick said, ‘it’s Boris.’

  ‘Boris who?

  ‘My brother. He teaches me things, yes-father.’

  At home, Dolly-mum was kindness itself. She took him for a brisk walk round Prince Albert’s Memorial, and this time Patrick didn’t call him the Blessed Albert.

  ‘It’s just as well you’re out of their clutches. They put too much sin into your innocent head. And it’s the fault of your dad, who is a snob. Do you know what he said?

  He said it’s quite all right socially to be a backward Catholic. Mind you, I don’t want you ever to resent your dad. Father and son should be like chums to each other, but really what’s so smart about having a religious background?’

  That night Patrick didn’t sleep at Dolly-mum’s house. He waited hours for the last train to pass the Underground station, from which he was to begin his nocturnal exploration. A torch-lamp weighed his pocket down. He saw a man in uniform approach.

  ‘That’s the piss boy,’ one of them had said when he once peeped into the side entrance at Sloane Square. And they had chased him out like a dog. Now he heard a quiet voice which didn’t frighten him at all.

  ‘Waiting for your mum, sonny? Shall I help you to find her?’

  ‘Oh, no, sir, it’s Boris. He’s just coming. And thank you, sir.’

  ‘You’re a polite boy,’ said the man and walked away.

  Patrick saw the lights in the tunnel change from red to green.


  Sky

  1

  And the Sky Man put the animals between me and my husband.

  I know my age by my children. Nineteen children ago, we were living just beneath him in the treeland that must have been afloat between two skies, because I still remember the roots of the thickest trees dipped in the rain clouds on which we could walk then without falling down. And I remember the animals which had wings to protect us and themselves against the light, for the light was always burning in the hands of the Sky Man, one in his day hand and the other in his night hand. With both he struck us, and put the animals between me and my husband.

  The animals with wings are now smaller and have timid eyes; they wash their feathers in the sky all day and hide in the rocks after dusk; I never see them walk with their wings spread out, flapping the air and turning the shadows around me. I walk between my cedar tree and my lake alone, unattended; the animals step aside from the paths I choose, even when I have to cross the shadow circles which are crowded with their young. They multiply and will multiply, because the Sky Man put them in our place, and handed the dominion over the surface of the earth to their mute breed. They prowl around my home on dark nights before a storm, but none of them, even the hissing cat, would know how to attack us when we are unprotected by our eyes in sleep. And we have lightning and thunder on our side.

  My eyes reflect in the water like the green jewels on the dragon’s fins: I am afraid to stare into the reflection for long, because I might lose power over my body and drown in my own eyes. Once I crouched to pick snails from the reeds and a water animal, spiked with big red bones, slid out of the slime and crushing the reeds, came close to me. My eyes were at the same height as his, and he was stupid to look at me. I did nothing. I only held my glare, and his wet eyes without any hairs around them tried to close and couldn’t.