by Robert Irwin
Wednesday, June 14th
I woke up worrying about absolutely everything – even including things like why did I have a vision of a man shod with iron shoes? I wish I had the same idea about life as Sally. Sally was always going on about how in reality there is no causation. Just because one thing happens after another, it does not make any sense to say the first caused the second. According to her, the Trobriand Islanders have no words for ‘why’ or ‘because’ and they are much happier as a result. When I pointed out that, if the Trobriand Islanders’ happiness was as a result of not having those words, then that was an example of causation, she got pretty ratty. She said it was typical of the way white men used rationality and causation to make the world work for them. Rationality is a male power thing, whereas Sally was into something more witchy and intuitive. But if I did think like Sally, then I would not be worrying about why, when Laura and I made love last night, she was looking at me with love, yes, but also with such pity and concern. Also I still worry a bit about the possibility that I may be a homo. Is it a regular male thing to enjoy being the recipient of anilinctus? But on the whole, I do not think I can be a homo. Felton seemed pretty emphatic on the point and, besides I have taken so much LSD in the course of the last year and, according to Timothy Leary, LSD is a cure for homosexuality. But it would be good to just switch the brain off and be intuitive.
Towards the end of the afternoon I returned to the Lodge and wrote up my diary. Then I started to get ready for the evening’s date. Now I am feeling pretty grim. First, I do not want to meet this girl and, secondly, I hate wearing the suit. I already wore the suit at the funeral, so this will be the second time in a week that I have worn the suit, and my forthcoming date feels more funereal than the actual funeral was. I have to be dead to my own desires. This evening I have to dress up in such a manner as to impersonate a respectable person, in order to impress a girl whom I have no desire to impress – particularly if respectability is the sort of thing that impresses her. Another thing I hate about suits is that I wear them so rarely that I can never remember which pockets I have put things in. I keep resolving to put everything in a single pocket, but then I invariably forget my resolution, so that by the time I actually need, say, my wallet, I have to slap at every pocket, as if I was frisking myself for a hidden weapon. And then at the end of the day when I am quite likely to be very tired, I have all that fag of hanging the damn thing up and hunting for creases. Why cannot tailors make the creases run along the seams?
But the suit it has to be, as Felton has insisted on booking a table at the Gay Hussar for my date, and, just as I was about to go out, Laura caught me in the hallway and told me how smart I was looking in my suit and she ran her hand over my hair. I made my way to Piccadilly and took up a position under the Statue of Eros. I was surrounded by agreeably scruffy-looking registered addicts nerving themselves up to take their prescriptions across the road to the chemist. Whereas I, dressed in a suit and prominently displaying my copy of Aleister Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice, felt a complete idiot. Fortunately I did not have to wait long.
‘Peter Keswick? I am Maud.’
Maud was wearing a mini-dress with some kind of peacock’s feather pattern and shiny, black boots which come up to her thighs, and a feathery boa round her neck.
There are hundreds of girls dressed like her walking up and down the King’s Road on any evening of the week. But the very short mini did not work on such a big girl. Maud is tall and thick-thighed. She is not exactly ugly, but she is not attractive either. Her face, which is alabaster-white and with thickly applied eye-make-up, makes me think of a clown. Only her hair, heavy, dark and lustrous, is OK. The instant I saw her I knew that I did not fancy her. So that was it. Except, of course, that we had the whole evening ahead of us. I saw her sizing me up too. There was a just barely perceptible shrug.
We shook hands awkwardly and I told her where we were going for dinner. As we walked along towards the Gay Hussar, we talked about travelling about in London and restaurants and stuff like that. Only once we were seated at our table, did we begin to exchange serious information about ourselves. I thought Maud’s life sounded pretty dull, but, to be fair, I do not think mine sounded all that interesting either (for I was hardly going to tell her about kissing lessons, satanic rituals on cocaine and the sound of horseshoes and screaming in the night).
Maud works as a hairdresser’s assistant. She had wanted to be an air-stewardess, but she failed most of her O-levels, but then she is really pleased she failed, because being a hairdresser is so nice.
‘Every person’s hair is different and needs different treatment, but it is not so much the cutting, shampooing, blow-drying, shaping and perming. It is working with people that is so nice – I mean good manners and remembering to smile are so important and they make all the difference in a well-run salon.’
She went on and on about the salon and the nice people she met there. It was so boring. I half wanted to tell her to shut up and to listen to me instead, so that I could tell her about the emissaries of Satan, Choronzon’s power, ritual invocations, placating the Qlippoth and the importance of virgin sacrifice and I wanted her to realise how much more interesting I was than her. But then again, when I thought about it, I did not really want to make myself interesting to her. Basically I just wanted this wasted evening to be over and not to see her again. So I let her lecture me about stand-up pin curls, roller curls, barrel pin curls, reverse curls, finger waving, backcombing and perms, without my letting on how spectacularly bored I was. And I watched her eat. She had quite an appetite and the chomping of her heavy jaws made her seem distinctly bovine. There was something a little eerie about the whiteness of her soft flesh in the candlelight. Sally was pale enough, but Maud looks as though she has spent her childhood living under a large stone.
Eventually she did get around to asking me about myself. She was disappointed that I was a student.
‘I was hoping that you would be a soldier, or a professional sportsman, or something like that. Or a doctor, I think doctors are interesting. My pa wanted me to become a university student, but I didn’t want to. Students are scruffs. I’m sorry … I didn’t mean to be rude. You are quite smart, for at least you are wearing a suit and, even though your hair is terribly long, it looks quite nice. I do think that one of the wonderful things about being young is that long hair hangs naturally and usually looks good. Who do you get to cut your hair?’
‘I cut it myself.’ (This was a lie. Sally always used to trim my hair, but I did not want to talk about her.)
We talked a bit about the boxes we had ticked on the computer form. Maud likes Gilbert and Sullivan and Strauss waltzes and so on. When she went on to remark that it was not just classical music she liked, but she liked anything with a good tune, so she thought some pop music was nice too, I briefly entertained the hope that we might have something in common to talk about, but when she listed her favourite artists as being Manfred Mann, Lulu, Sandy Shaw and the Seekers, I felt a terrible despair.
For her part, she was disappointed that I was not sporty. She is mad about karate. Apart from hairdressing, karate seems to be the only thing which interests her. As she went on enthusing about karate and how she got into it at school and, as she went on about the inter-school karate matches which she had won, I felt a jolt of surprise. I had been assuming that Maud was lower class. The fact that she went into hairdressing after failing her O-levels made me think this. But actually she failed her O-levels and took lessons in karate at Roedean.
‘It is difficult to be really good at karate, if one is a woman,’ she said. ‘I hate the way my breasts get in the way of everything. I would rather have been a man. I hate my body.’
‘It’s a very nice body,’ I said out of politeness rather than conviction.
I do not get the impression that she has had many boyfriends. Perhaps she has not had any. Perhaps she scares them off with her talk of karate chops and kicks. She is certainly a virgin. This
came out when she was talking about how she believed in old-fashioned values. She was mildly curious about where I lived. I told her that I was living in an esoteric community (I had to explain the meaning of ‘esoteric’), but that I was only living there for the purpose of studying it. I tried to sound offhand about it – as if it was just some really dull thing that I was doing. I need not have bothered, for she obviously did think it really dull. She prattled away about how she always looked at the horoscope page in the back of a magazine called Honey, but it was evident that she has not the slightest interest in occultism. She was just disappointed that my copy of Magick in Theory and Practice did not have any conjuring tricks in it.
I do not think that there is anything more of interest to write about Maud. She is amazingly vague about her family. Her ‘pa’ is some sort of teacher. Her ‘ma’ has been ill and she doesn’t see her any more. (‘I don’t want to talk about it.’) She shares a flat with a law student in North London. She continues to go to karate classes. She keeps a diary in which she records interesting things which she hears in the salon.
‘Oh dear, I shouldn’t have said that.’ She put up her hand to her mouth in comically simulated dismay. ‘You know what Tallulah Bankhead said, don’t you? “Only good girls keep diaries. Bad girls don’t have time.”’
Maud was pleased to hear that I kept a diary too. (Perhaps she took it as a sign that I might be as boring as her.) Undeterred by my frequent lapses into silence, she kept trying to be jolly.
‘What is high, white and has ears?’
‘What? I don’t know what,’ I replied.
She leant across the table, her eyes wide with triumph.
‘A mountaineer!’ she declared.
I thought about it. Then,
‘I don’t get it. A mountaineer isn’t necessarily particularly high or white.’
‘No, that’s the mountain. Er … no … damn. What I meant to say was that a mountain is high and white and has ears … and … er, let’s see, you would probably say that you didn’t think that a mountain had ears and I would point out that you must have heard of mountaineers. Still, you can see it’s jolly funny.’
Undeterred by her failure with this one, she kept telling jokes, but she kept getting the delivery wrong, or she forgot some crucial point before the punchline, so that it was almost impossible for me to join in her laughter. This whole evening has been a mad aberration. There is no way I can ever see her again, even if it was only for the estimable purpose of luring her into the Lodge so that she could be sacrificed to the Master on the Altar of Choronzon.
Throughout the dinner the waiters, alerted by Granville’s big tip the last time I was here, had made a big fuss of me. When the time came to pay the bill, I had the usual frantic search for my wallet. Panicking madly, I started emptying my pockets on the table. Maud thought the whole thing uproarious until she saw that one of the papers on the table was the order of service for my mother’s funeral and then she looked horribly embarrassed. I walked her to Leicester Square tube-station. At the top of the stairs down into the tube, she awkwardly lunged to kiss me, but I suppose I did not look responsive, for at the last moment she lost her nerve and her lips failed to touch my mouth (I think that was what they were aiming for) and then she stood back. The great kiss not having come off, we ludicrously shook hands.
‘Well this has been a pleasant evening,’ I said. ‘OK I’ve got your number. I’ll call you sometime soon, probably next week, or maybe the week after.’
I could hear my voice. It reeked with insincerity like a television compere.
There was a stricken look in her eyes, but she nodded humbly. I pecked her on the cheek and walked smartly away.
I was practically dancing as I walked away. I was free of the pallid frump. I could, of course, have taken the tube at Leicester Square, but since I did not want to spend a minute more with Maud, I walked up Charing Cross Road revelling in my freedom and took the tube from Tottenham Court Road. Back at the Lodge, I sat up late writing this all down in my diary. (I reckon that I am losing sleep as a result of all this diary-keeping.) Goodnight and good-bye Maud.
Thursday, June 15
Despite some strange dreams, including one of exploring the nest of a great white worm, I was at first cheerful this morning, for I was glad to have got the previous evening’s ordeal over. At breakfast Felton asked how my date had gone. But then, before I could reply, he decided that we should have the day’s diary session early, straight after breakfast. He decided that it would not matter if I was late in taking up my observer’s post at the playground.
I was fed up at this, for if we had the session this early, it meant that Granville would not be around to show me his diary, but I followed Felton into his study. I try, but I rarely succeed in guessing which word or sentence it will be which will draw Felton’s fire. This time it was ‘fancy’.
‘“The instant I saw her I knew that I did not fancy her.” How could you have brought yourself to use that verb in this context, Non Omnis Moriar?’
‘What’s wrong with it? That is how I felt.’
‘But you surely did not feel that this somewhat solid young woman was merely the product of your fancy, or fantasy – something conjured up by your imagination. Nor did you mean that you were breeding her, in the sense that a pigeon-fancier fancies pigeons … ’
And Felton went on and on about the horrid vulgarity of my use of ‘fancy’, before asking abruptly when I was proposing to see Maud again.
‘I thought that I had made it pretty clear in my diary. I am not going to see her again.’
‘But you have to. What on earth was wrong with her?’
‘Maud is stupid. She is impossibly stupid. The Lodge could never have any use for her.’
‘And you suppose that you are clever … And you are clever. But forget cleverness. On the Path you are taking cleverness is as much use as a rubber duck. Resolute obedience will serve you better,’ said Felton. ‘I am ordering you to ask Maud for another date.’
‘Don’t ask me to do this. She is a real turn-off – not good-looking at all.’
‘The demon Choronzon is not good-looking either, but I know, from reading your diary, how badly you want to see him.’
‘Yeah, but I was not planning to take Choronzon out to dinner or to kiss him. Maud just isn’t my type. Nothing could come of it.’
‘Come, come. To take a young woman out to dinner or the cinema is not such a great matter, after all. The Lodge might have tested you with a much harder ordeal.’ Then something came into Felton’s mind and he paused before resuming, ‘Oh, but I forgot to tell you the sad news. Julian is dead. He had an accident in the grounds of his house yesterday. He seems to have tripped and his gun went off in his face. Probate will take some time, but I think that you will find that he has named you as the main beneficiary in his will.’
‘Why me? We hardly knew one another and, insofar as we did, we did not like one another.’ This was true. What I felt hearing Felton’s news was definitely not regret. It was more like fear.
‘But Non Omnis Moriar, it is your future need to be rich which has caused Julian’s death now.’
What does he mean? I cannot relate to being rich or successful. Those are outward things which have no value in my eyes. In that respect, I am quite different from Felton – or indeed my father. They are all so boringly hung-up about things like property and status. I have no need of Julian’s money. But Felton is waiting for a response from me, so,
‘You say it was an accident with a gun?’
‘Accidents tend to happen to people who resist the flow of the energies generated by the rituals of the Great Work. Now I really think that you should ring Maud as soon as possible. Since it is already past nine, I presume that she will be at work at the hairdressing salon. Give her a ring there now. Make a date with her for as soon as possible.’ And pointing to his desk, ‘Here, use my phone.’
I lifted the receiver, but still I hesitated.
‘
Do it, Non Omnis Moriar,’ Felton insisted. ‘If not, you will revert to being Peter and you will be dead to the Lodge.’
I dialled and waited.
‘Gear Shears Salon. How can I help you?’ The silly voice sounded like hers.
‘Is that Maud?’
‘Yes, who is this? Is that Peter?’
She sounded a bit surprised. I think that, as much as anything, it may have been the tremor in my voice. As I continued to speak on the phone, I was thinking about Julian’s death and asking myself what had I got myself into and, come to think of it, what was Felton planning for her?
‘Thank you so much for dinner,’ she continued. ‘That was really nice. I was going to write you a thank-you note.’
‘Maud, I would like to see you again – as soon as you have a free evening.’
There was such a long silence at the other end, that I began to wonder if we had been cut off or something.
‘I’m sorry, Peter,’ she said at last. ‘I’m not so sure that that would be a good idea. Pardon me, but I got the impression that you didn’t really want to see me again. I thought it must be that I wasn’t your type.’
‘Oh yes, you’re my type, Maud. At least, I think you might be. Let’s get to know one another a bit better. Let’s meet again. I would like to take you to a film or a concert or something. When are you free next?’
‘Well … I don’t know … OK Peter. When do you suggest?’
‘How about tomorrow evening then, say about six?’
‘Well, OK, but I don’t actually stop working until six. Come to the salon around closing time – six or a little before and we’ll take it from there, shall we?’
It is a grey day. On my way out of Horapollo House heading towards the bus-stop and ultimately the playground, I thought that I caught a glimpse of Cosmic lurking at the end of the road. But then he vanished, maybe because he did not want to be seen by me. If indeed it was Cosmic, that is so sad, him walking around the area, an outcast, longing to be readmitted to the Lodge. However, I do not think that there is anything I can do for him. He has become like one of the larvae, a relic of a human being, dead, but unable to accept that he is dead and therefore unable to sever all ties with his former world.
