Breaking and Entering

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘Er, no.’

  ‘Pity! I went to a Jungian for years, and it really opened me up. I was a bit like you before – frightened of getting to know myself, and putting on a front to face the world.’

  Daniel removed a potato-peeling from his mouth. How the hell could this infuriating woman know anything about him? He had only met her at the meal last night, barely exchanged two words with her.

  ‘Therapy makes you far too self-absorbed,’ Corinna interjected. ‘We’ve got to look outwards to society and the community, instead of focusing all our energies on our individual psyches.’

  ‘Anyway, Jung was a racist,’ Happy said dismissively.

  ‘And sexist,’ Corinna added.

  ‘Not as bad as Freud, though. All he did was patch people up to make them fit for the patriarchy. We need to be in touch with the feminine side of things, instead of everything in nature being labelled “phallic”. I mean, what a bloody cheek! Why on earth should storms and sky and mountains all be seen as masculine?’

  JB removed his arm from Happy’s shoulders and gestured with his spoon. ‘But you can go too far the other way,’ he warned. ‘After all, feminism stresses separation as much as patriarchy, and separation is isolating. We tend to split things into opposite poles – male and female, God and man, right and wrong, you and me – when we ought to seek harmony instead. We really need to understand that we’re all men and all women, and both at the same time.’

  Daniel glanced from Corinna’s breasts, still straining against the confines of their top, to JB’s hirsute chest. The proposition seemed unlikely, if not downright ludicrous, though he had no intention of arguing the point. He was intensely grateful that the spotlight had shifted away from him, and that the girl who’d originally challenged him was now busy feeding her toddler with a boulder of the bread, first softening it in a highly-coloured concoction of beet and carrot juice. He had declined the drink himself, preferring to stick to water (which had been served in a baby’s plastic beaker, with a bear on the side and a dead insect floating on the surface).

  The conversation had returned to feminism; Happy championing someone called ‘the goddess’, while Corinna berated the missionary position which she described as a variety of rape, since the woman was pinioned by the man and often found it impossible to reach a climax. Margot was plainly shocked, pursing her lips and complaining to her husband George that this was not a suitable subject for discussion during a meal, let alone in front of impressionable children.

  The half-dozen children were not, in fact, listening, but providing their own counterblast; arguing and fighting, or complaining about the food; one boy even demanding a Big Mac. Daniel could sympathize on that point, though he found the noise demoralizing, and wondered why it was so difficult to like or even tolerate other people’s offspring. If he shared JB’s philanthropy, he would love the whole world for what it was, instead of pondering on the advantages of a different sort of set-up, where neither wasps nor dogs nor under-twelves existed, or where infants reached the age of reason while they were still safely in the womb.

  This place was seeding in him a whole series of new guilts: guilt at craving steak, for instance, when Corinna had expounded to him how much cruelty meat-eating caused. And what about the missionary position? Of course it didn’t turn him into a rapist, but just listening to the endless talk about women’s rights and satisfactions made him depressingly aware (again) of how far he had failed Penny in the last few months.

  He abandoned his spoon and fork. (Knives were in short supply – or perhaps contrary to the principles of peace and non-aggression – but since the bulk of the food was mushy and there was no butter for the bread, they were not essential anyway.) He mopped his face, unfastened a couple of buttons on his shirt. Sweat was beading on his forehead, snailing down his back. It was far too hot for a fire, and although the flames were dying down, they were still roasting him on one side, while the sun grilled him on the other. He couldn’t understand why they cooked on an open fire at all, when many of the campers had brought Calor gas or oil stoves, but presumably it was connected with pollution. That was another thing which niggled at his conscience – he knew he didn’t share the others’ overriding passion for the welfare of the planet. All in all, he was beginning to suspect that he was not a particularly creditable member of the human race; continually preoccupied with his own concerns rather than those of Mother Earth. To expiate his sense of shame, he had chipped in far more money than the surprisingly small sum which had been requested as his contribution. All the expenses were shared; each family or individual making a donation to cover basic necessities, with Corinna in charge of the kitty. (He would have contributed a great deal more if it would have guaranteed him proper meals, eaten in the normal fashion in privacy and comfort.)

  He looked up from his plate, aware of a sudden lull. For the first time since they’d started lunch, absolutely no one was wrangling, preaching or holding forth, and even Margot and Corinna must have made their peace, since Margot seemed much more relaxed, and was reverting to her coffee-morning chitchat.

  ‘Well, it’s really lovely weather,’ she enthused, squinting up at the sun with her all but sightless eyes. JB had assured her that she didn’t need her thick remedial glasses, which made eating something of a problem for her. She had spilled a trail of stew from mouth to lap to groundsheet, and drunk in error from someone else’s glass.

  ‘Yes, I bet it’s not much hotter on the Costa Brava,’ Len observed in his no-nonsense Brummie accent, obviously relieved that he could now contribute to the conversation. He and his wife Jeanette had nothing in common with the new-age acolytes. Len was a builder and Jeanette worked as a hairdresser, and they had clearly never heard of Jung, nor of esoteric concepts such as auras and past lives. They were here for the sake of their daughter – a girl of eight or so, who had suffered since birth from eczema and asthma, and found no relief from drugs. Daniel noticed that they, too, were struggling with their food. Len had left the bulk of his stew, and Jeanette was crumbling her bread into morsels, to tackle it piecemeal. Both were distracted by the flies, Jeanette flapping her hand back and forth across her daughter’s plate to try to shoo them off, and Len shaking his head irritably every time they hovered near his face.

  ‘You’ve caught the sun already, Daniel,’ Jeanette pointed out. ‘Have you been working on your tan?’

  ‘No,’ said JB softly. ‘He’s been swimming in the lake.’

  Daniel tried to hide his consternation. ‘How did you know that?’ he muttered.

  JB smiled. ‘I led you there myself. You needed to drown your fear, wash away your pain and grief from the past.’

  Daniel felt himself blushing furiously as every eye was trained on him. Any moment now this tactless creep would be telling the whole company how the poor scared little schoolboy had mistaken him for his mother and lain sobbing in his arms.

  ‘We’re all men and all women, both at the same time.’

  Daniel stared down at his hands. The words took on a deeper meaning as they re-echoed in his mind. The healer had been his mother, protecting him all night. Yet now he felt threatened by the fact. He had learned, at the tender age of seven, to do without a mother; to reject all weakness and dependency, all need for female cossetting. JB’s mystic meddling could tear down the armour he’d spent so many years constructing, reveal the frailties beneath.

  He was saved by the toddler tipping over his drink – purple slush seeping into his pale blue dungarees. Jeanette ran to fetch a cloth, but another child – the oldest there: a teenager called Rick – chucked a mud-ball at her retreating back and hit her between the shoulder blades. She wheeled round in astonishment, only to be thwacked a second time; her shirt and slacks besmirched with mud.

  Len sprang up from the groundsheet, turning on the healer in a fury. ‘What’s the fucking use of talking peace and harmony, when these kids are allowed to behave like bloody savages?’

  ‘I’m not standing for language lik
e that,’ Margot protested in a tight-lipped voice. ‘I’m as disgusted by the children’s behaviour as you are, but you can hardly complain if you set them such a bad example.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ grunted her husband George, running a nervous finger round his perspiring red bull-neck.

  ‘There’s no such thing as “bad language”,’ Corinna remarked serenely. ‘Words only have the power we choose to give them.’

  ‘I’m sorry, young lady, but you don’t know what you’re talking about.’ George had scrambled to his feet as well, and was standing over Corinna. ‘There’s some words I don’t want to hear, not in any company, and especially not with ladies present.’

  Then Happy started sounding off in support of Corinna’s viewpoint, and a general argument broke out about whether any words should be taboo, and if so, which ones and why? The healer took no part in it, nor had he defended himself against Len’s indignant outburst. Instead, he was talking softly to the culprit, trying to control a subdued and sullen Rick through a combination of humour and sweet reason.

  Daniel sat in silence, welcoming the uproar. Probably no one would remember the reference to his own fear and grief, now that everybody else was so upset – Rick’s embarrassed mother stammering her apologies, Jeanette in tears, and George and Len still sparring. He caught Penny’s eye and exchanged a surreptitious smile with her – the first time she’d thought to acknowledge his existence since the beginning of the meal. She was sharing her upturned orange-crate with the younger of the gays, a lanky boy called Dylan, all bones and eyes and hair, and had been talking to him sotto voce throughout the rackety lunch. Their private conversation had made him feel excluded, especially as he’d been hoping to sit next to her himself so that he could hold her hand, metaphorically at least. But she was holding Dylan’s hand, literally and blatantly. It appeared to be an unwritten rule to fondle anyone within reach, and at every opportunity. Well, he was damned if he’d hold Len’s hand, or his other neighbour’s on the plank – Dylan’s partner Gerard (Gerald? Something like that anyway) – who had a crew-cut and a cold, and had hardly spoken yet beyond a few ‘Excuse me’s when he sneezed.

  ‘I’ll get the pudding,’ Penny volunteered, shrewdly asking George for help, to put a stop to his shouting-match with Len. Her bid for peace was effective; the fractious voices petering out as she and George returned with two large bowls of something brown again. All the food seemed to be mud-coloured, whether bread, stew, soup, dessert or cake. Everybody wiped their plates with the square or two of kitchen towel doled out at each meal, which served as paper napkin, handkerchief, sweat-rag or whatever. Then Penny sloshed some soupy stuff on to the same (still greasy) plates. Dishes were in short supply, and using the same receptacle for both the first and second courses at least encouraged you to finish up your food. Otherwise a dollop of prune mousse or organic brown-rice pudding would land on top of a discarded swede or a half-chewed stringy parsnip.

  He declined dessert altogether, since he had no idea of how to dispose of his uneaten stew (not to mention the plum-stone and the feather which he’d extracted from it earlier). He sat nibbling at his bread – which seemed the safest of the food, if not the most original – gazing up at the distant (silent) hills. Whatever the deficiencies of the cuisine, at least the view was some compensation; the sun so brilliant on the peaks he had to shade his eyes to look at them; the white clouds trailing wisps and shreds like Mrs Gwynfryn Evans’s leaking duvet. His thoughts returned to the lake, his private sanctuary enfolded by the hills. He longed to plunge into its depths again, cool himself in every sense. Just recalling it had changed his mood. He could feel his former peace returning, a languor stealing over him, as if he were stretched out on its pillowed shore, drying in the sun.

  He glanced furtively at the healer, though hardly knowing why. JB was sitting motionless, head erect, palms uppermost; the dark hypnotic eyes fixed unwaveringly on his own. Confused, he tried to look away, but he seemed somehow mesmerized – compelled to hold that gaze, even against his will. Yet all the while the sense of peace was growing stronger; the people around him dwindling, their chatter fading out, until he was alone again, and naked again – a newly-created Adam disporting in his paradise.

  Somewhere in the distance he could hear the healer’s voice, though it barely grazed the bewitching healing silence of the lake. The enigmatic words were mere ripples on its surface, a flicker in his consciousness.

  ‘I led you there myself.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘How long have you been here?’ asked Daniel, swishing another plate in the scummy near-cold water.

  ‘Oh, it must be over a week now.’ Claire flicked her tea-towel at a midge. She had already been bitten and kept rubbing at the red bumps on her arm.

  Daniel scratched his own bite – a large one on his neck. Washing up outside meant not just the lack of running water or a proper sink and draining-board, but being subjected to the attentions of the insect population. On the other hand, the sun was wonderfully warm and he was enjoying the sensation of having the unbounded sky above him, rather than a confining Wandsworth ceiling. He had even gone so far as to remove his shirt, and could feel his grateful skin soaking up the heat. ‘What’s your impression of the place?’ he pressed, hoping to glean some information from a friendly fellow inmate.

  ‘Well, it’s been quite a strain in some ways, but Rick’s definitely getting better. His stomach pains aren’t half as bad, and he’s not so anti-social. Oh, I admit he can be bolshie, and I almost died when he threw that mud at Jeanette, but he actually apologized when Blue had a word with him. He wouldn’t have done that in a million years if I’d suggested it.’

  ‘Blue?’

  She flushed. ‘That’s my name for the master. I know it must sound silly, but blue’s always been my favourite colour – the colour of big peaceful things like sea and sky and …’ She faltered, as if afraid he’d think her pretentious. ‘What do you call him?’ she asked.

  Now it was Daniel’s turn to hesitate. Studiously he attacked a blackened saucepan with his dishmop. ‘I … I haven’t quite decided,’ he replied. ‘I can’t make him out at all. I mean, I really don’t know the first thing about him. Does anyone? Do you?’

  ‘Oh yes! That’s the only reason I came. I live in Wales myself, you see – only thirty miles away – and someone in our village knows this man who had cirrhosis of the liver, but was cured by Blue within three days of arriving here.’

  ‘Oh, really? And have you met the chap, questioned him yourself?’

  ‘No, he lives in Shrewsbury. But apparently it was almost like a miracle, and even his doctor said he couldn’t believe his eyes.’

  ‘Mm, that’s the trouble, though, isn’t it? It’s always “apparently” or “a friend of a friend”, never anything more precise. I think we need to check up on him – ask to see his credentials, so to speak.’

  Claire twisted the damp tea-towel in her hands. ‘But that would look as if we didn’t trust him. And it would be a bit ungrateful, when he does all this for free. Yes, I know a few people make donations, and we all share food and stuff, but basically he’s giving and we’re taking.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Daniel tersely. ‘But if it’s our children’s health at stake, then we shouldn’t take any risks.’

  ‘But what risks could there be? I mean, it’s not as if he uses drugs or surgery. And Happy told me he learned his healing methods from really amazing people like Australian Aboriginals, and shamans in Peru, and Pueblo medicine-men. He’s actually lived with them, Daniel, travelled all over the world, from one tribe to another.’

  Daniel tossed aside the ineffectual dish-mop and seized a scouring pad, venting his frustration on the saucepan. Claire’s disclosures had made him still more alarmed. Wasn’t it the height of irresponsibility to allow his daughter to be used as a guinea-pig for the dubious (if not dangerous) remedies of some Pueblo medicine-man? He glanced around at the various bodies sprawled out on the grass – they might be s
unbathing on holiday rather than here in search of cures. Did no one share his apprehension, or at least his belief in basic standards and precautions? Most of them looked half-asleep, lulled by the fine weather, or perhaps drowsy after the meal. And those still awake seemed absorbed in some weird rite or other. Happy and Corinna were performing an exotic dance underneath the trees, circling with slow rhythmic steps and semaphoring with their arms. Another girl sat cross-legged outside her tent, meditating presumably, with her hands resting palms up on her knees. She was humming on one note, the low drone occasionally punctuated by the laughter of a child. Outwardly, the scene was tranquil enough – the stream burbling over stones, white butterflies alighting on gold buttercups, the sheep still placidly grazing. Only he was out of tune with the general air of peace; his mind churning with unanswered questions; suspicion of the healer overlaid with a grudging respect and a streak of indefinable fear. He was also worried about Penny. She had disappeared straight after lunch – and so too had JB. He only hoped they weren’t closeted together in the intimacy of the tent, he giving and she taking.

  ‘Another thing,’ said Claire, drying a clutch of forks and packing them in the cardboard box which served as a cutlery drawer. ‘He’s been ill himself – quite seriously ill – and I’m sure that makes a difference. If you’ve experienced suffering first-hand, you’re far more likely to sympathize. He confided in me the first night I arrived, which I thought was really touching. I was pretty low at the time – in tears and everything – so I suppose he realized it would help to know he’d been through the mill as well, and yet survived and come out stronger for it.’

  ‘The healer healed,’ Daniel murmured.

  The irony was lost on Claire. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ she enthused. ‘He says we’re all wounded and all capable of being healers, but we deny our natural powers.’

  Daniel scrubbed vigorously at the pan, cursing the ban on detergents. A slimy bar of household soap was no match for burned-on sludge. ‘Has your son had any healing yet?’ he asked. ‘I mean, a proper kosher session with the laying on of hands, or whatever?’