Catastrophe Practice

by Nicholas Mosley

  Lilia was trying to pull the baby out of its carrier and hold it to her front. She said ‘Look! Fire engines!’

  The baby stared into her face. It smiled. It pulled at her mouth, her ear.

  One of the women — grey-haired and with steel spectacles — touched her on the arm. Lilia thought — I can jerk away; cry out; hold my baby in the air, to be caught up by angels.

  She had said — You think you’re God!

  He had said — You’re a devil!

  — Get it out: help me —

  The baby, hanging on to her hair, was reaching down to get rid of the hand of the woman with steel spectacles.

  Lilia thought — Perhaps the woman, if she touches my baby, will be struck dead by a hand coming down through the fog above the Old Science Buildings.

  The scene in front of her — the men round the fire engines chatting amicably a block away from the fire — was like, she thought, a gathering on one of those plains in Portugal or Spain where children had seen a vision of God or the Virgin Mary; the grown-ups collected as if for a scientific experiment; and because of this nothing further could happen, except for the millions of bottles of fruit juice and cameras and trinkets.

  And the message that had been given to the children was —

  There was the sudden blast of a loudspeaker.

  A girl was coming towards her across the green. She was wearing a jacket long enough to be an overcoat. Lilia recognised it as one of Jason’s.

  The words from the loudspeaker were giving some warning about danger that was unintelligible.

  Lilia wanted to shout at the people round her — If you loved enough, cared enough, you would take your baby through streets no matter what visions —

  The girl said ‘Hullo.’

  Lilia thought she might say — I wondered if you might not remember me.

  ‘Jason asked me to say —’

  ‘Where is he?’

  The baby had turned. It was stretching out its arms to the girl.

  She said ‘He asked me to find you.’

  Lilia said to the baby ‘It’s all right, my darling.’

  ‘Then I saw you here.’

  The woman with steel spectacles had taken her hand away from Lilia’s arm.

  Lilia said ‘But what’s he doing?’

  Lilia and Judith, together with the baby, began to walk round the back of the crowd at the edge of the green. It was as if they were in some dark landscape with burning towers.

  Judith said ‘Oh I forgot! Don’t go home!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There was a bomb; it blew in the windows. Gas is everywhere. Water’

  Lilia thought — A pressure going in and out. Across a plain. A ruined city.

  Judith said ‘And glass was all over the cot.’

  Lilia said ‘Glass was all over the cot.’

  Judith said ‘Where he would have been sleeping.’ Then — ‘How can I tell you.’

  Lilia thought — Yes how can you tell me.

  She said ‘Thank you.’

  They had moved away from the green. They were walking, with careful steps, between grey stone buildings.

  Judith said ‘Jason went to look for you.’

  Lilia said ‘I see.’

  She thought — But what do I see? My life: and a crowd with its arms up, rushing towards a river —

  — And I, with my baby —

  They had come, in their walk, to the entrance of a courtyard where a wrought-iron staircase went up on the outside of what seemed to have been a warehouse. Judith stopped. Lilia began taking the baby in its carrier off her back Judith said ‘I’ve got to go in here for a moment.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Then we’ll look for somewhere for you to stay. Would you like to stay with me?’

  Lilia said nothing.

  ‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’

  Lilia sat on the bottom step of the staircase. She said ‘No thank you.’

  She held her baby close to her.

  She thought — I want to be somewhere where I am not trapped when all this terrifying music stops —

  There were bits of the night sky flying around her.

  Judith went up the steps.

  Lilia thought — Perhaps it is my own breast that is pouring out stars —

  Then — Do you think he slept with her?

  The baby was looking up to one of the large windows which were like those of a warehouse.

  There were people moving in and out of the courtyard. Lilia thought — They are like those boring people going on a ladder to what they think is heaven from hell.

  After a time, because she was cold, and because her baby was restless, and because she wanted to look at what might be reality instead of her visions, she stood, and walked a few steps up the staircase, and held the baby so that it could see through the first-floor window. She thought — Now, if it amuses you, see something like earth!

  When she looked through the window herself it seemed that the large high room like a warehouse was some sort of newspaper office: it was brightly lit; it had posters and notices on the walls. Men and women were sitting on or leaning against desks with an air of bright expectancy as if they were waiting to be fed at some zoo. A poster depicted a Chinese soldier with a rifle raised like a fist: an American flag had blood running down it. Behind the desk nearest to Lilia a man with a cigarette in his mouth seemed to be trying both to suck smoke in and to blow it out at the same time; it was as if he had a cloth over his face and were being tortured: a woman, leaning towards him, held her smile in front of his face. Lilia thought — But this is a vision of what we like being fed by: before we rush out to the fire.

  There were packages of newspapers piled around the walls: she had a vision — Like packets of explosives.

  Taking her baby down from the window she thought — We fight for our lives: but at what cost for survival —

  A boy with a loud-hailer had come out onto the iron landing outside the first floor of the warehouse. He put the speaker to his mouth as if he might address the crowd in the courtyard. Lilia thought — Or down his throat molten lead might be poured.

  The baby had turned towards her and was playing with her necklace.

  The boy with the loud-hailer was also carrying a banner which he seemed to be trying to unfurl. He moved the loud-hailer and the banner from hand to hand; as if he were doing a trick on a tightrope.

  Lilia, with her baby, went up a few steps.

  People in the newspaper office suddenly began shouting and screaming.

  Lilia was close to the boy on the landing. She thought — Stand still. Hold your hands by your sides.

  The boy looked at her and the baby.

  A bundle of newspapers landed on the iron landing between them. It had been thrown out of the room like a warehouse.

  The boy on the landing stepped back he seemed to get a leg caught on the stick of his banner: then he half fell, at the last moment half seemed to jump, over.

  Lilia thought — Turn away wait till they have gone past you.

  Then — This is ridiculous: people thought the bundle of newspapers was a bomb?

  The boy had seemed to land head first on the cobbles.

  Some people in the room were still screaming.

  Lilia turned with the baby and walked down the steps.

  She thought — Perhaps it might have been a bomb. Then — I cannot help it if it is so boring.

  Some people had run into the courtyard to the boy.a They were bending over him.

  Lilia remembered that Jason had said — When leaves disappear from the bottoms of trees, it is not that some giraffes grow longer necks —

  She clung on to her baby.

  The bright glass coming into his cot like daggers —

  — It is that the giraffe that happens to have a longer neck —

  There were the lights, and bells, of ambulances, far away, coming closer.

  She had said — Survives?

  He had said — I
f it’s lucky.

  She wondered if she should go and spread tears like oil over the fallen boy.

  She had to keep moving.

  She said to her baby which she held in front of her — ‘It’s all right, my darling, it is only your adversary the devil that is walking about like a hungry lion —’

  She had said — What is a longer neck?

  She went out of the courtyard and into the street.

  He had said — Living as if nothing else mattered at any moment more than —

  She had thought — Why do we leave so many of our sentences unfinished?

  — A hook; a line; a heartbeat; a baby?

  7

  Jason, having seen the Professor go down the alleyway at the side of the Old Science Buildings, had said to Judith — Go back home, will you, and if Lilia comes there, will you explain —. He had thought later — Explain what? He had followed the Professor down the alleyway — Why I am not at home? why Judith was at home? why I am going to ask the Professor if he has seen Lilia? Or just — There are no explanations to these questions. He had had little trouble with the police going through the cordon. He had pointed to the Professor somewhat ahead; had looked confident, and nodded and smiled. Then he had walked forwards with his arms by his sides: he thought — Like a mad archaic statue. Or — Explain that if you move as if you were slightly mad or off the ground then they may think you are not real, and so not shoot you.

  The alleyway seemed to lead in a line parallel to the fire. The Professor was not in sight. There was a door in the wall on one side of the alleyway with no handle and a smooth surface. He thought — As if desperate hands might have scratched there. The door was ajar. Then — There are these stories in fairy books: you push in your mind, and enter a strange corridor.

  The corridor had no light: there was a faint smell of burning. By holding the door open he could see by the light from the alleyway a short distance in front. He thought — You hold the light with one hand and are tied to what you remember: go ahead with the other, but then are you in the dark Letting the door go behind him, he moved down the corridor. He thought — Do blind people construct a world outside them: or do they see that their fingers and ears send messages just to themselves in the dark?

  At the end of the corridor there appeared shadows, lights, monsters. He thought — The Professor has a torch.

  He could go up to the Professor and say — Bang! I have shot you!

  So — We are in a film: real or unreal like cowboys?

  At the end of the corridor there was a T-junction and he turned left. A torch shone into his eyes. He raised his hands and murmured ‘Light!’

  The Professor said ‘Just what we want: an electrician.’

  Jason thought — It is, isn’t it, as if we were here for the sake of something being mended?

  When the Professor turned the torch away Jason saw that the space that they were in was a small hallway which contained a door to a lift-shaft. The Professor, as he flashed his torch around, became visible himself from its reflections.

  Jason said ‘Have you got Lilia?’

  ‘She’s at my flat.’

  ‘And the baby?’

  ‘He seems to be fine.’

  The Professor, with his torch, seemed to be examining the entrance to the lift-shaft. There were double doors, smooth, with a crack in the middle.

  Jason said ‘Will she stay with you then?’

  He realised — This is ambiguous: it could mean either that I want her to stay, for safety; or that I don’t want her to stay, because of you.

  The Professor said ‘I told her to.’

  At the top left-hand corner of the right-hand door to the lift-shaft there was a small slot in the shape of a mouth, or a smile. It was on this that the Professor’s torch shone. He was feeling in his pockets as if for keys.

  The Professor said ‘The power’s off.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the stairs are blocked.’

  The Professor took from what seemed to be the lining of his pocket a bunch of keys. He tried uselessly to shove one or two into the slot that was shaped like a smile.

  Jason said ‘— And somewhere downstairs, is there that little bottle, which, if it falls into the wrong hands, will blow up the world —?’

  He thought — This might be true?

  The Professor said ‘I’ve got to get my notes, which are in the basement.’

  The Professor tried another key. Then he gave up. He pulled with his hands at the crack between the doors.

  Jason said ‘I used to know about lifts.’

  The Professor had put the torch between his legs. He said ‘The things you know.’

  Jason said ‘I once translated a manual about lifts into Italian, to earn some money.’

  The Professor pulled at the doors. He said ‘Did you have an Italian girlfriend?’

  Jason thought — That’s witty.

  Then — Perhaps it is what is witty that, like what is in that little bottle, either will blow up or will save the world.

  The Professor gave up pulling at the doors. He took from the lining of his jacket what seemed to be a half bottle of whisky.

  Jason murmured ‘What a big bottle!’

  The Professor took a drink. He said ‘That’s witty.’

  Jason took the torch from between the Professor’s legs. He moved with it around the hallway.

  On a wall at one corner of the hall was a small box with a glass cover. Inside it was an instrument like a key. The end of the key was curved into something like the shape of a smile.

  Jason said ‘It’s if the lift is here, that you won’t be able to get down the shaft.’

  The Professor seemed to think about this. Then he said ‘A metaphysical problem.’

  Jason gave a bang on the glass door of the box, which opened. He took the key out.

  He said ‘From one of the explosions, which was near our home, the window of the baby’s room blew in, and the glass went all over his cot. So if Lilia had not taken him away, I mean if she and I had not quarrelled and she had not gone to you, that is where the baby would have been, and he could have been injured or even killed.’

  The Professor handed Jason the bottle. He said ‘Here.’

  Jason drank. He said ‘Thanks.’

  The Professor said as if quoting ‘— Radioactive waste: cancer-carrying bacteria —’

  Jason said — What is in that little bottle?’

  The Professor took the bottle of whisky back He said ‘And I thought that she walked out because of me!’

  Jason went to the doors of the lift-shaft and held the key up to the small opening like a smile. The key went in. He turned it, and pushed. Then he tried to pull the doors sideways. The doors opened a crack.

  The Professor said ‘Can you get your fingers in?’

  Jason thought — This is absurd.

  He said ‘There’s another catch inside.’

  The Professor said ‘I’ll pull. You try to get at it.’

  The Professor went in front of him, almost underneath him; Jason thought — Are we lovers; keeping an eye on each other for our mutual girlfriend? The Professor pulled at the doors: Jason reached up into the lift-shaft.

  Looking round for somewhere to put the torch, he thought — I could put it in my mouth —

  The Professor said ‘This is absurd.’

  Jason found the catch on the inside of the lift-shaft. It was above the doorway, in the dirt and darkness.

  The Professor pushed sideways; the doors opened further.

  When Jason shone the torch into the shaft there appeared to be a drop of about six feet to the top of the lift, which was at the bottom.

  Jason thought he might say — Do you really want to get down? Or are you doing this because you think you have to —

  The Professor said ‘It is possible?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s a trapdoor —’

  ‘In the top of the lift.’

  The Professor sat
with his legs over the edge of the lift-shaft He took the bottle from his pocket again. He drank Then he handed it to Jason.

  Jason drank.

  He said ‘The problem now is not how to get in, but how to get out when at the bottom.’

  ‘Because people usually get out at the top?’

  ‘When they’re stuck. Exactly.’

  Jason handed the bottle back to the Professor.

  They sat, side by side, with their feet hanging down the lift-shaft.

  Jason said ‘Supposing you had the chance to do away with a third of the people in the world — would you take it?’

  The Professor said ‘At random?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If you were God?’

  ‘Yourself included.’

  The Professor took another drink from the bottle.

  He said ‘And your loved ones included?’

  Jason, looking down the lift-shaft, thought — Ah, those arms out, flying, that know they will always be caught —

  The Professor said ‘It wouldn’t work, no.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because the occasion’s got to be fitting.’

  Jason said ‘I see.’

  He thought — What do I see?

  The Professor said ‘I mean, if the occasion is contrived, not at random, then what are you being fitted for?’

  Jason said ‘And what are you being fitted by —’

  The Professor said ‘— Even if you think you are a god.’

  Jason thought — You mean, if you are a god, you are still just what happens?

  They sat at the edge of the lift-shaft, drinking whisky.

  There was a cluster of cables that went down the centre of the lift-shaft.

  After a time Jason said ‘I could go down.’

  The Professor said ‘Why should you?’

  Jason thought — Perhaps I’m grateful.

  He said — ‘I’m younger.’

  The Professor said ‘I’m not so old!’

  Jason said ‘All right, I’m grateful.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For your looking after Lilia.’

  The Professor said ‘Dear God!’

  Jason thought — But she should not have walked out!

  The bundle of nerves, down the lift-shaft, trembled slightly.

  The Professor said ‘There’s an electrical system, with emergency batteries, which, when the power’s cut, needs to be turned on.’ Then — I’ll explain when you’ve got down.’