Goodbye, Mr Dixon

by Iain Crichton Smith

  The music ended. Grand old Russia had ejected the germ that troubled her sleep. He thought of shadow after shadow crossing the snow towards France, never to arrive there.

  Sheila was sitting beside him, composed and calm. Perhaps he could rely on her, relax after the storm. But then how could one know?

  He looked at the programme. Sibelius. Not particularly good either. Still, he was melancholy and smooth. A landscape of water. He laughed at the paradox. The music unfolded in his mind, distant and cold and melancholy. He wanted to say something to Sheila but he couldn’t think of anything to say. She too looked distant in her blue gown. Perhaps she had borrowed it, perhaps it wasn’t her own.

  Melancholy music, a composer far from the centre of things, buried in a dream of a country that he had remade in his imagination. Romanticism. Perhaps, unlike Sibelius, that was what he should do; go out into the streets, confront and assume the brutalities, as some of the reviewers had told him to do. But, ah, think of Mozart. Did he do that? Surely not. That sublime gift had nothing to do with any age, it was as natural as breathing.

  At the interval they stood in the foyer again.

  “How did you like it?” he asked her.

  “It was beautiful,” she said but he sensed that she really hadn’t been impressed. Music was perhaps not one of her things, not one of her interests. He didn’t know what her interests were. He asked her.

  “I do a lot of embroidery,” she said. “And I paint in an amateurish way.”

  He shuddered. Of course she would paint in an amateurish way. Yet perhaps embroidery suited her. It accounted for her air of calm. He wondered about her for a moment, about her background, who her mother had been, and her father, about her impressionable years.

  “Most of us do things in an amateurish way,” he said at last. He didn’t believe that he himself was an amateur but he thought this was the thing to say.

  ‘“Do you want to go back for the rest of the concert then?” he asked. She waited for him to make up his mind. True, he thought, there was Mozart and he would like to hear him.

  “If you aren’t enjoying it,” he said, “we’ll go for a meal.”

  “But I am,” she said.

  “No,” he said making a decision, “we’ll definitely go for a meal. We’ll catch up on some music some other time.” They went out into the street which was all yellow and red. In front of the concert hall was a building painted a livid green from which deafening sounds of music blasted. It sounded as if a hundred sets of guitars and drums were hammering away simultaneously. He felt her interest quicken but they walked on across a bridge that banged in the wind. He often wished that he could drive and thanked God that it wasn’t raining.

  They entered a hotel and went straight to the dining room. They ordered. He wondered about his feelings for her. He thought her nice and relaxing and he felt peaceful with her. He had really wanted to get away from that set, his wife and her friends. He wanted away from their abrasiveness. But was that a weakness in him? If he was a good novelist ought he not to be more ruthless, ought he not have fought them on their own ground? Had he run away? And what was his writing anyway? Was it an activity that did not belong to the real world? But still these people wouldn’t give him any peace. Their tongues clacked bitterly all day. And he needed peace, he needed space and time for things to grow in him, to come to birth. They wouldn’t allow him his quiet pregnancies. Perhaps she might.

  Of course there was no guarantee that she would have anything to do with him.

  “Have you ever thought of getting married?” he said casually, watching the waiter come up with some wine.

  “I’ve never been asked,” she said clearly and almost humorously.

  He laughed. “Oh, I don’t believe that.” They drank their soup quickly for it was a cold night. He would have to get a taxi for her when they left.

  “It’s true,” she said. “Other girls seem to get married easily but not me.” He wondered about that: perhaps there was something wrong with her. And yet there didn’t seem to be.

  “I think,” he said carefully, pouring her out some wine, “there’s something you should know. I’m parted from my wife.”

  “Thank you for telling me.”

  She asked no questions. Was this because she had guessed already, or was it because she was indifferent, or was it because she didn’t know what to say? What did she think of him? Did she regard him as the suave, confident man of the world?

  “Could I see one of your books some time?” she asked him.

  “Certainly. I can give you copies of most of them. I would sign them for you if you would like that.”

  “If you would,” she said.

  They ate their fish.

  She looked around her and said, “I don’t think I should like to live in a hotel. It would be very lonely.”

  “I’m sure it would,” he said. In fact that was why he hadn’t come to live in a hotel himself. It was too formal, too chilly. He preferred being where he was, at least for the time being.

  “Would you like to go to an opera next week?” he asked. “Or would you like to visit me? I could play you some of my gramophone records. Would you like that?”

  After some hesitation she said that she would.

  He gave her the address and she copied it down into a small book that she took out of her purse.

  “I stay with a girl friend, so I’m afraid I can’t invite you,” she said. Sometimes he caught her gazing past him with a distant gaze; it was at such moments that he sensed what her life had been like. And yet she seemed warm and pleasant and companionable and he felt relaxed in her company, though he missed perhaps some of the wit and malice and sardonic chatter of his first wife. Or did he really miss it? Perhaps it was just that he wasn’t as yet used to these human silences.

  There was hardly anyone in the dining room except themselves and they finished their meal in silence. He felt that she was still wary of him, as if she didn’t know what to say.

  As she said that she wanted to be home early he went to the phone and ordered a taxi for her. They drank their coffee till the taxi came. He felt a happy calm companionship. There was about her the air of one who throws herself on the world, undisguised. She had a girlish appearance, a sincerity, which appealed to him more than ever after his experiences. He couldn’t afford to lose her.

  He put her in the taxi and watched it drive away. Then he began walking, as the night wasn’t wet though it was slightly chilly. He began composing in his mind certain sentences connected with his book but found that they didn’t come with any urgency. There was no fire about them, no headlong fierce arrival. He worried this through as he made his way along the fiery streets, thinking of the flat awaiting him, with its books and records and radio. He would have to get some work done. After all, there was the world of the lucid intelligences of his novel to strengthen, to make plausible and realistic, rather as in the work of Hesse, though he wouldn’t admit to anyone that he had read the German author from whom he had borrowed so many of his ideas, who had taught him to write with a cool metaphysical poise, such as was possible in the eighteenth century. The bridge banged noisily about him in the wind as he walked along it, lights shining all round him. A large stout drunken woman with a red face waddled along, talking to herself restlessly. She made strange signals to him but he ignored them. She was too red and raw and typical to fit into any of his books: anyway he didn’t know what language she would speak. Against the parapet of the bridge a girl and a boy embraced fiercely, the boy almost forcing her over into the river as he bent her backwards like a bow, descending on her with hungry beak and body.

  13

  ANN CAME INTO the room with a tray on which there were small biscuits with toasted cheese. She was wearing a red dress with yellow flowers on it. She seemed calm and poised among the noise and swirl that was going on in the flat. Sitting on the floor or on sofas were about eight people whom Tom had never met till that night. Ann stopped to talk to a tall thin
fellow with a wispy yellowish beard. Tom watched her. Ann had told him that now and again she and her flatmate Mary held a party to which there came mostly Mary’s friends as she wasn’t long out of college. On a chair a tall youth with a pelt of hair was singing to himself a folk song in a sonorous sad voice while at his feet a girl in a kilt sat looking up at him soulfully.

  Tom drank another whisky and stared angrily at the wallpaper which was red on one wall and black on the opposite. He felt out of things and couldn’t understand why he had come, especially as Ann was talking to that thin idiot about education and he hadn’t seen much of her during the course of the night. Now and again he could hear phrases about requisitions and books and classes. The tall thin idiot was holding a glass of sherry in his hand and Ann was looking up at him, pretty and vivacious in her red dress. He opened a can of lager which he found beside him on the floor and drank thirstily.

  A large placid fellow beside him said that he taught physics. What did Tom teach?

  “I don’t teach,” said Tom curtly. “I don’t teach anybody anything.”

  Mop-hair had stopped singing and was leaning down to kiss the girl whose arm rested on his knee. Tom’s eye was drawn to the cream-coloured clock on the mantelpiece which showed half past one. He was mesmerised by it and in his state of drunkenness was trying to make out whether he could see the hand moving. Time, what was it? How was it created? He felt suddenly terribly sad, and weighed down by a premonition of some disaster sailing towards him, a black ship which neither bons mots nor wit could divert and which was present for everybody at the best of times.

  A small man with a beard appeared suddenly at his side. “Ann tells me that you are a writer,” he said. His wet eyes looked melancholy and spiteful.

  “I haven’t written anything,” said Tom to whom his voice suddenly seemed very loud. “I try.”

  “I write a bit,” said the small man, offering his hand. “My name’s Eddy. I write poetry. Of course I don’t have much time. The curse of writers.”

  “What do you do?” asked Tom without much interest.

  “I work in an office. You don’t know Lorimer, do you? He’s a nice writer. Writes poems, and paints. Or Mason? You don’t know any of them?”

  “No,” said Tom, “I don’t know any of them.” His mouth seemed to be full of pebbles and fog and the girl’s kilt swayed redly in front of him.

  “Well,” said Eddy, “I thought I’d ask. I hope you don’t mind my asking. I write concrete poems you know. Like Lorimer. We are thinking of bringing out a pamphlet.”

  “Are you?” said Tom. What the hell was Ann finding to talk about?

  Yes. We can flog it round the pubs. Of course the established names hog everything. You can’t get into the poetry anthologies. Have you ever tried to get in?”

  “No,” said Tom.

  Eddy took out a grubby piece of paper from some deep recess in his jacket and said, “Would you care to give an opinion of this?” At first Tom thought he was going to bring out a pound note which he would have much appreciated. He stared distastefully down at the paper which looked black and soiled.

  It said:

  Dawn

  rises

  like a fart over the Clyde

  Tom put it down on the small table in front of him and sighed heavily. The little man picked the paper up angrily and stalked away. Later Tom could see him talking to the two who were embracing on the floor and laughing. He felt very very aggressive and frustrated and rather drunk.

  He heard someone beside him say, “Of course education is different nowadays. We have to make it relevant. We have to show them the point of what we’re doing.” He saw that it was the thin man who had been talking to Ann. He turned away and drank another whisky. He felt as if he wanted to smash the whole room and uproot the chairs. A wave of mediocrity hit him like a stench. He himself felt mediocre and unreal, as if he were drifting about like a fog. In front of him in a corner he saw a pile of records, some Mozart, and some Edith Piaf and some Scottish folk songs. His eyes moved slowly up to where he saw a picture of a deer standing above a swirling river with a green mountain in the background. He suddenly wanted to be there, wherever it was, away from these people and away from Dixon, somewhere clean and pure and uncorrupted. He wondered what Ann was playing at, bringing him here and talking to that thin drip.

  A large man eased himself across the floor and put a record on the record player. Suddenly everybody was standing up and dancing, moving their bodies sensuously and rhythmically, clicking their fingers, dreaming a dream, all except himself and the long drip and Ann. The dancers looked like stems with flowers on their tops, self-obsessed, lost in themselves, pre-Raphaelite people. He felt very lonely and suddenly piercingly aware of the premonition he had sensed before. He poured himself another beer and drank it. The drip was staring sardonically at the dancers and saying, “Relevance is of course the secret. Have you ever seen Top of the Pops? That’s exactly how they look. That’s what our pupils imitate. That’s what they know about. All they know about.”

  Tom felt the rage rising in him like bile. He would have to leave before he did something outrageous. Ann was now beside him. She said, “Are you enjoying yourself?”

  He didn’t trust himself to say anything but perhaps she saw some terrible hostility in his eyes, for she added quickly, “Have you got enough to drink?” He saw her as a stranger, as belonging to the hostile world. He studied her coldly and distantly. There were wrinkles under her eyes and she looked tired. Perhaps she didn’t like these parties after all.

  “Would you like to sit down here,” he said, “beside me?”

  “I have to get more food,” she said. He felt her also with-drawing into her orphan world.

  “Can’t your flatmate do that?” he asked angrily. The tall drip was looking down at him from about fifteen feet. He wanted to kick him in the teeth, to cram all his mediocrity down his throat. He felt a storm raging inside his head, the crackle of electricity.

  “She needs help,” said Ann, “she’s been working hard all night.”

  “Christ,” he said through his teeth.

  The tall drip said to him, “Have you ever seen Top of the Pops?”

  “Oh, shut your stupid mouth,” said Tom and turned abruptly away. The dancers were swaying backwards and forwards, some more fluid and relaxed than others. A huge man, vast as a boulder, thrust out a huge behind. Tom’s eyes rested on the picture again. Ah, to be in that place of deer and shepherds and no guitars.

  Ann was just passing with a tray. He said, “I’m leaving.”

  She laid the tray down on a table and came to the door with him, sensing his anger.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I’ve been here all night,” he said, “and you’ve hardly spoken a word to me.”

  “I thought you’d like to …” she started. In her eyes there was an unholy joy and they sparkled beautifully.

  “I’m bloody well going home,” he said. “I can’t stand your bloody stupid friends.” His hand rested on the knob of the door.

  “If that’s what you think—” she said, “if that’s your opinion …”

  “That’s what I think,” he said.

  “All right then,” she said.

  “All right then,” he said.

  “They’re nice people. They’re Mary’s friends, not mine. I don’t see why you can’t talk to them.”

  “They’re bloody bores,” he said. “That’s what they are, bloody bores. Thanks for the whisky.” He was almost crying with frustration and rage.

  “Goodbye,” he said.

  “Goodbye,” she said.

  He slammed the door behind him and ran down the stairs into the air. He felt light-headed. And yet he was daunted by what he had done. At least the party would give him some copy for his book, but what would happen to Dixon now that there was no Ann for him to be with? What would happen to his own book? But he was so blinded with rage that he didn’t care. He cursed monotonously unde
r his breath as he strode on, feeling the satisfaction of having burned his boats, feeling the anger on his tongue, inside his stomach like whisky. Bugger the lot of you, he kept repeating. And especially you, he said to the Ann in his mind, seeing her in her red dress with the wrinkles under her eyes. He felt that he must keep his pride somehow. He wasn’t going to a place where he didn’t know anyone and be treated like that. He wasn’t a serf, was he?

  As he walked under the million stars he calmed down and became more philosophical, more like Dixon. He thought, This must have been what Dixon felt when he walked out on that bitchy wife of his. Dixon would have to find someone else or he himself would project Ann, the unwon Ann, into the rest of the novel. He wasn’t going to be made a fool of. Not even for Dixon would he do that. Not for anyone.

  He imagined he heard a voice calling him and looked back along the long street but there was no one there. He could hear only the echo of his own feet. Now he was more calm and not at all angry. He could see things very clearly, the haloes round the lamp posts, their brooding professorial stance. In the distance he heard a train screaming through the night. A line came into his mind, “Somewhere beyond the stars with you.” It was from an old song that he had heard on TV recently. Bugger her, that was the last he would see of her, that was for sure. He’d had enough. She wasn’t going to make a fool of him. No one was.

  In the light ahead of him he saw a man seated on the pavement reading a book. The book was red and looked as if it was burning. The man was in rags sitting there as if beside a brazier. He too looked red. It couldn’t be true, of course. It must be a nightmare. And sure enough when he arrived at the spot there was no one there, there was nothing there. He passed his hand across his brow, frightened, and walked over. He knelt by the side of the road and tried to be sick. All the time he thought he was hearing a voice calling him back, but there was no voice, only the vast glittering night.