Homesickness

by Murray Bail

  ‘God, I hate tourists,’ said Gerald. ‘They’ve made a mess of everything. Nothing is real any more. They obscure anything that was there. They stand around, droves of them, clicking with their blasted cameras. Most of them don’t know what they’re gawking at.’

  They’d exchanged their raincoats for a plastic token each, its polished colour and the ritual enough to remind North of early visits to Africa, of dust and diminishing herds of elephants. But instead they were in the old world. Trays of glass in the roof again reproduced a kind of standard cathedral light, drawing their heads up. Along two walls, quasi-Egyptian frescoes illustrated The March of Progress, dwelling on those instruments of Victorian expansion, the sextant and steam engine, and the marble floor was inlaid with abstract symbols, a mosaic of large equations.

  ‘I’ve had a rotten time,’ Gerald admitted, opening the museum guidebook. ‘London has changed since I was here last. It’s an anticlimax.’

  ‘Where are we?’ North asked.

  ‘This way,’ he pointed.

  The psychologists, neurologists and psychiatrists, quacks, and even the chiropodists continue to argue the left indicates the past and individual characteristic, the right the future.

  Right: they clattered along the travertine, Gerald poking his hornrims back on his nose. It was a museum without space problems, either through design or judicious arrangement of objects.

  ‘I usually go to places where there are no tourists—places that haven’t been spoilt. But it’s getting to the stage now where even the size of a city or a country is no longer a defence. You know how mobs pour in and stand around, taking up room, and asking the most ludicrous basic questions. They’ve ruined a place like Venice. It’s their prerogative, but the authenticity of a culture soon becomes hard to locate. The local people themselves become altered. And of course the prices go up. Yet the tourist is still pandered to. That’s what irritates me. This week I’ve had a kind of bilious attack from it all. Several times I thought I might be physically ill; I’ve had splitting headaches. I used to love London. And the rest of the world’s going down the drain like this.’

  ‘I say.’

  ‘Well, this is your Science Museum,’ said Gerald bitterly.

  To reach the main hall they apparently had to first enter this plywood offshoot, a prefabricated antechamber. The world’s first museum in Alexandria was a Science Museum. North pulled back a purple curtain. Gerald following bumped into him. Their eyes had to get used to the dark. A system of holograms littered the black air with the century’s most far-reaching equations, giving a distinct impression of the elegance and excitement of discovery. ‘Written’ as if with chalk in mid-air the equations were three-dimensional and suspended like stars; the room, a kind of cloud-chamber, represented the illimitable universe of signs and knowledge. They could pass through this accumulated, human knowledge; or rather, the knowledge could pass through them. Indeed that was the whole idea. But Phillip North couldn’t or chose not to. In the dark, his feet on the floor, it had become suddenly like standing on the edge of space; there were no walls; only endlessness and shifting relativity: a rebuilding in nothingness. Towards something: what? Did these exquisite figures exist merely in mid-air? The edifice of knowledge, of mathematics was transparent. There was then a shrinking sensation of smallness, accompanied by pride, faint hope, a glimmer. ‘Whoops!’ Was he leaning forward? Vertigo: he clutched at Gerald’s elbow. They were both perpendicular. He touched the side wall, painted black. ‘Surprising,’ he muttered. He reached out and passed his hand through Ramanujam’s nearby formulate, (1.10)-(1.13). ‘Well, it’s remarkable. Though I don’t understand it,’ he said aloud. Over there among the alpha particles floated the first scribbles on quantum and calculus. Numbers in prime condition; set theories. At waist level Wiener’s slender calligraphy demonstrated cybernetics; in its wake a new measurement of quarks. Structure of DNA as if etched in acid. Of course! Formulae of nucleotides! Glowing symbols: produced a distinct resonance. Alone, they stood watching. In the corner, far away, the periodic table of chemical elements lay angled or propped in midair, a plank, a symphonic score.

  But then Gerald in the dark had to maintain science wasn’t ‘natural’ and added, ‘What’s-his-name, James Borelli, should be here. He’s a complete atheist; so he says.’

  North’s zoology was flesh. The noun embraces all that was furry, including termites and shit. Here stood the spotless clarity of metals. Gerald squinted at North and began shuffling.

  ‘We’re just the poor misunderstood laymen. Come on, we haven’t got a chance.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose.’

  As Gerald inched his way forward, E = mc2 appeared stencilled on his neck, and across his cheeks and teeth when he turned: Phillip North found it all so interesting he was laughing.

  The next room was dark, another antechamber.

  Gerald groaned: ‘No, not photography!’

  From early engravings and oil paintings a second system of holography reproduced a roomful of half-tone heads-and-shoulders of the bigwigs in science (there’s Leibnitz, goldilocks Newton) up to the present day, using photographs, though finishing early with Dr Gabor himself (balding, spectacled, naturally pleased). It was like standing among a crowd of gazing ghosts, a room full. They do their work early but live to a ripe age. That was why North spent time trying unsuccessfully to identify most of them. Outside in the main hall Gerald sighed, ‘I frankly find this rather dreary.’

  ‘Really? Not the first room? You didn’t find that interesting?’

  Gerald shook his head. ‘I don’t know why you bother. I’m like most people on this. Science leaves me cold. And actually I think it’s over-rated.’

  ‘To tell the truth,’ Phillip North admitted, ‘I’ve switched subjects. In a sense, I have. I’d like to avoid my old field for the time being. Let it lie fallow, you know. This interests me, a new area. It’s adjacent hut almost the opposite to zoology: what our American friends, I think, call a “whole new ball game”. Dreadful expression.’

  ‘Isn’t it a bit late in the day?’ Gerald asked, matter-of-fact.

  ‘I can’t pretend I properly understand. But I’ll look at anything,’ said North. And in this place his eyes were keen, darting ahead.

  ‘Can you imagine: every time I’ve been to London I’ve never been to the Science Museum? It was a form of blindness.’

  Whitehead looked glum. Before them stood an assortment of brains, not run-of-the-mill brains, the Great Brains, preserved in jars sealed with stainless-steel lids and clips, labelled and bathed in crepuscular light. Chief among them was the brain of Einstein. On the floor in front of it the linoleum was conspicuously worn. Such a small brain! Except for a slight protuberance in the frontal lobe—noticeable only by crouching down—it could have been any of those ranged on either side: the rocket engineer’s from the Ukraine, or that of the brilliant French biochemist with the IQ of 149 who died at twenty-three. Perhaps it weighed more? There was no way of telling. Since they all looked alike the instinct was to read the label, then peer inside the jar. And then and only then did the grey matter of the half dozen or so mathematicians appear to be teeming with blurred numerals and symbols, jostling to be multiplied. And that Cambridge astronomer (the knight): his resembled a soft meteor. Three sad brains from child prodigies: small cantaloupes, not tremendous cabbages.

  ‘No great poets, no artists, oh no’—Gerald complained. ‘It’s what I was saying before.’

  ‘I don’t see a zoologist either,’ said North glancing around. ‘Well, we’ve always been in the shade.’

  A fine reconstruction there of a great English brain, possibly the greatest (Sir Isaac again), consisted of plasticine and putty; effective, almost believable. This was for the layman and school children: it had been placed alongside the brain of a male elephant, four times larger than Newton’s, but as a long chart of its deficiencies showed, hopelessly inadequate.

  Some of these brains could still work.

  By th
e window some had been set up to take a small (?) electric shock. If administered in the right place the amazing trapped organ shuddered, proving that the brain is a ‘convoluted mass of nervous system’. Speech had not yet been reproduced; but one, look, made some coloured lights wink like a pair of eyes. Another submerged in its bath of formalin produced bubbles (thoughts?). North stood back as Gerald tried a few switches. Simple sums could be answered: the potential stirrings of science. What if you connected them to loudspeakers? Would they scream?

  North cleared his throat. Science raised myriad questions, no answers.

  They turned their attention to a spasmodic chess game between the brains of a French-American master—no names, please!—and what purported to be (there in writing) Leonardo da Vinci’s. Both were well preserved. They trailed coloured wires. The first, not a scientific brain in the dictionary sense, had a scientific turn of mind, and had retained much of its old elegance and daring. The second had never played before, but was doing well, having castled early. A grey-faced attendant sat in a chair-keeping his eye on them. He operated the clock.

  Gerald turned to North really bored.

  Entering the room from the wrong end came a group of South Americans who, all talking at once, gathered around the game. Others drifted over to the jars and called out to their friends.

  Gerald and Phillip North had to push their way out. North wore a vague distant expression. He would have stayed and drifted, taken a table in the cafeteria, and then continued in the afternoon, the sharp edges of metals an alternative to the imprecision and roundness of flesh; but Gerald still pulling faces and muttering didn’t stop in the next room.

  ‘There’s your cause. Right here,’ he pointed, then dropped his arm. His voice rose. ‘To think that a great museum should glorify this and make it “interesting”. What a marvel of technology, they say. No mention of the ruination it’s causing. It’s a symptom and typical. This is a vulgar specious age. Look at it: the great leveller, mob-generator, the lowerer of values. I’m sorry. You stay if you want to. It makes me sick.’

  Partially (patiently) reassembled: fragments of Sir Frank Whittle’s first jet engine, the one that disintegrated, almost decapitating him. Alongside with its own oil-tray was a centrifugal monster from a transatlantic air liner, in superb working condition.

  ……Tuesday. It’s Thursday. Hold your horses. That was…several Sundays had stretched and passed. The trouble or the pleasure was that each and every morning smacked of ‘Sunday’: open-endedness tinged with possibilities or emptiness. It was corrected once they stepped outside. It was in the morning. Good, a Friday. The day leaked and dripped as they finished their toast. Outside the streets flowed with arriving office workers, five, six abreast, passing between each other like counter marching bands, and more emerging from underground, abruptly halted and dammed by lights, spilling into the gutters, before moving again; amid the purpose, smoke and vibration of the big city awakening; trucks, vans, post and handbarrows delivering for the day; policemen orchestrating. It took place outside as they remained chatting over breakfast: the clink of forks and crockery sounded pleasant. Looking up from the stained cloth Phillip North apparently felt sorry for Gerald—his contorted forehead. He offered him a second cup. It was enough for Whitehead to blink with gratitude. It was the usual table. At the end Doug Cathcart went briefly cross-eyed as he swallowed a pill, his insurance policy; and Garry had to lean back, one hand behind his head, to blow smoke rings.

  A new side to Violet emerged as they settled at ten in the minibus. It had been laid on by one of the genealogical societies.

  Violet sat next to Garry Atlas but took no notice of him.

  ‘The stars,’ she turned, ‘the stars say this is an auspicious day for travel.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ Hofmann murmured.

  ‘Is anyone here a Libra?’ Violet went on.

  ‘Don’t tell me!’ Borelli put his hand over his eyes, ‘Not stars, please.’

  Sasha breathed into North’s ear, ‘Violet’s quite batty. She’s into astrology as well as this other business.’

  ‘I’m always fetching Kiwis, bloody Aussies and Maple-leafs,’ the driver spoke up. He had a hoarse voice. The last year had seen a boom; from the colonial backblocks folk wanted to know their origins, and test the old soil. They came in droves. Life would make better sense after tracing the roots; not only place, county and such: but had forebears sprung from the thighs of convicts or vice-admirals? Among the genealogical societies were warring factions and international advertising campaigns, though it was generally conceded Lady Pamela Hunt-Gibbons was the most reliable. Her leaflets were passed around, printed on lemon dunny paper.

  * PEDIGREES COMPILED AND SCRIVENED

  * COATS OF ARMS RESEARCHED AND PAINTED

  * FAMILY TREES

  * TOUPEES

  It is, I imagine, impossible to gauge the exact number of people who, in this age of increased leisure opportunities, have discovered the fascination of tracing their family history, but clearly the number is increasing at an astonishing rate! Not many other intellectual pursuits whip up such enthusiasm, which so easily gives a sense of achievement, and joy at sharing one’s knowledge! An added pleasure is the meeting of others of similar temperament but of different background, of making friends outside one’s own occupational group or even—let us say it—social class, of experiencing the pleasure of communication and exchange of ideas. But I am being read here by the converted…

  Green leaves, grass, pale green water, long weeds in the streams, and if they’d squatted down, moss on the undersides of posts and stones. That of the trees: a bright shimmering green. It caused them repeatedly to exclaim and point, though not all. It was so soft on the eyes, the colour of slow holidays. As they passed, apples fell off trees. To complete the picture Lady Pamela’s cottage appeared at the end of a lane. It was thatched.

  ‘This is a corker,’ said Doug, really pleased. ‘This is something to write home about.’

  It could have been straight off a calendar or a postcard,

  ‘Chrysanthemums there,’ Mrs Cathcart pointed with her chin.

  Already Kaddok had jumped out and began moving in the garden, treading on the odd flowerbed, to find the best angle. And Violet who had tiptoed ahead to find Lady Pamela instead found herself lost in the maze of waist-high lavender hedges which always steered her away from the mullioned windows. Here was the topiary art at its finest. When viewed from above, the precisely cut hedges actually formed the exceedingly complicated coat-of-arms and motto (Nosce te) of Lady Pamela’s family; though Violet on the ground wasn’t to know. After laughing at herself she began blushing. With the others watching she realised how confused she must have looked.

  ‘This way. Come along. Is that you Violet Hopper?’ a woman called.

  In a room with low oak rafters they found a white-haired lady seated before an easel. Camel hair brushes and a jar of grey water were at her elbow. Against the window stood a rack of Derwent pencils, complete, like coloured organ pipes. She wore nylon sleeves over her cardigan and being a lady she didn’t turn or stop painting as they crowded in. This was an experience. Cream antimacassars on all the armchairs; and Gerald examined the porcelain on the walls, English plates, English dogs and cups mainly, though all of a very high quality, and a group of early steel engravings of tall African and New Zealand waterfalls. Piles of manila folders tied with pink ribbons lay on the floor, as in a solicitor’s office. Over the fireplace Wills and Their Whereabouts (the 4th edition) and Wills and Where to Find Them were separated by Cooper’s Creek and the Everyman’s The Origin of Species. She blew her nose.

  ‘Pamela Hunt-Gibbons. How d’you do? Sit down. Don’t all stand around.’

  Squinting at her picture she rattled the brush in a jar.

  Doug cleared his throat. ‘Do you get any leaks with the thatch?’

  Lady Pamela appeared not to hear. Again she rattled the brush which allowed some of them to glance around at the ceiling.
She painted nothing but waterfalls; had, what, for the last thirty-something years. Stacks leaned behind the sofa, watercolours. Never having been out of England, she had not seen a major waterfall, relied on hearsay and imagination, and as the latter grew weaker took to rendering substitutes. Merely the same thing, she said to herself, but on a smaller scale. She persisted, the last vorticist. Rainwater overflowing from a gutter, water swirling down a bath hole, the brief turmoil of a lavatory flush were some of her subjects. The large stomach testified to her years spent at the easel. She had blue eyes and untidy white hair. And her nose which was red and thin kept leaking (Self-Portrait with Two Waterfalls), but she seemed decent enough. She wasn’t stuck-up.

  ‘I loathe ponds and stagnation of any kind. The clash of the sperm and the ovum is like the spin of the earth. Feel it now. It’s kept us all going. I am seventy-six. Fit as a fiddle. There’s nothing stagnant about Natural Selection or the way roots of trees surge through the soil like fingers. It’s my greatest regret I have never stood outdoors in a monsoon. That must be an electrical experience. I am told steps and alleyways and rocks become one gushing torrent.’ She dabbed at her nose with a tissue. ‘And the intermingling of molecules. Who is Borelli here, James Borelli?’

  Leaning against the mantelpiece: he raised his walking stick. She must have seen its shadow on the walls.

  ‘Bor-elli,’ she repeated. ‘I am afraid you are the odd man out. I could find nothing on you after an awfully long search. Seems your people never set foot on our island.’