Imaginary Toys

by Julian Mitchell

  Me: You are the most unfair man I know. I am working for a degree which will get me the job I want, eventually. I could get the job now, if I wanted. But one must be thorough, Phi.

  Phi: No, you will become a don if you stay here much longer. That would kill you. You would simply fall in love with your pupils one after another. Then one would fall in love with you, and one day you would wake up to find yourself faced with the police and a rapidly disappearing son-figure. No, Nicky, not that, please. But be quiet. I have to remember my speech. I prepared it on the train, all the way down. I was being thorough, you see. How does it start? Oh yes. I am much troubled in spirit, my dear Nicholas, about your future. So much seems to rest with me, so much with your own unaided soul—

  Me: Phi, for God’s sake, make less noise and say what you have to say.

  Phi: Yes.

  Suddenly very serious. Usually everything is covered under the mannerisms. All dropped now. The only other time he ever did this was after I’d lost my temper with one of his friends. Then he told me I was childish to care about such people. And I felt a child.

  Phi: Nicky, I thought I loved you, and I think I did. Now I don’t think I do. But I am fond of you. If it’s any consolation, I usually detest someone after I have been with him as long as I have been with you. I have been with only one person longer, as it happens. Sometimes I pay them to go away, they fill me with such disgust. But about you I feel no disgust, only a certain amount of guilt. It is your fault. You would keep talking to me about responsibility, and politics and sex and everything else. You made things important, when I didn’t want them to be important. I don’t agree with more than a third of what you said, if that. But I feel responsible about you, dear. I respect you, which I don’t any other of my ex-lovers. And I don’t now respect myself for treating them the way I did. Now I don’t. At the time it never occurred to me. I simply wanted them to get away from me as soon as possible. But you, Nicky, manage to make me feel naughty every time I think about myself. And I am now going to show you what I have learnt. [Sudden leaning back, rich smile. Then smile fades, sadness and simplicity take over.] For all my money, Nicky, I’ve never had any power. Except the power I had over the people who slept with me to get gold cigarette-cases. I have never wanted power much. But I should like to have the power of love, to be loved so much that I could do anything I liked with the lover. I think I might then become a really nice person. It probably won’t ever happen now. But if I stopped thinking that it might happen, I should commit suicide. I had a certain power over you, you know. But that was the power of the experienced man over the innocent one. And it makes the experienced man impotent after a time. If he has any sensibility at all. You had your power, too, you see, even though you may not have known it. I learnt a great deal from you, my dear. But I have some power left. And I am going to use it to try and make you happy. It is my power but you have controlled it, in a way. I hope you understand.

  Me (silent, feeling that if I were to say anything at all, it would be I loved Phi still)—then: Thank you, Phi, very much.

  Phi: Barman, two more gin-and-tonics. Put in much, much more gin.

  Me: I’ve been in a daze.

  Phi: Never mind. Was it a nice daze, or a nasty one?

  Me (new drinks appearing): Cheers, Phi. May you make a happy mess of your life, not a miserable one.

  Phi: winced.

  Me: I can’t think why I said that. State of shock. I’m sorry.

  Phi: Just your honesty getting the better of you again, dear. Much best to let it sometimes.

  Enter Delta.

  *

  I think it was Delta’s look of disappointment that did it. He did not know anything about Phi, of course, he had never even heard of him. And he had no idea of the situation, or the state I was in. But he came in, saw me, saw Phi, and his face gave him away. At least, I think it was his face. It was the face I was watching. I nearly cried out—what I don’t know. For about a second I had a reaction which seemed to last for several minutes, but it was all during the first look on Delta’s face. I thought: honesty, Phi talks about my honesty, but honest to what? The moment—a face? Many moments—how many faces—how many moods on how many faces? Knowledge? I am afraid this feeling will return. I came to bed fearing it, that I would not be able to answer. But it hasn’t come. I think it, but I do not feel it. There is no nagging.

  When I saw the look on Delta’s face, I decided. Coming out of the state of suspension. Breathing suddenly a little difficult. But decision taken.

  *

  Phi did not once call either Delta or me ‘my dear’ during lunch. He behaved with apparently effortless tact. I think he regards my life as something he has to do. The way other men have their businesses to run. Having done nothing all his life, he has suddenly found a task. Or he thought he had something to do. But after the look on Delta’s face, the matter was decided. Phi thought he had power over me. Until that moment he had. But after it, none. He was a catalyst, simply. An enzyme of love. I expected a deus ex machina, and was given a recording angel.

  *

  Phi: Do you know the Dawsons in Dorset?

  I thought he was trying to be rude—the Dorsetshire Dawsons. But no. He simply wanted to know.

  Delta: Yes. They live near Bridport.

  Phi: Aren’t they dull? They think that living in the country somehow makes them morally superior to those who live in towns. And anyone who lives abroad is insane.

  Delta: It’s even worse than that. Anyone who doesn’t live in their part of Dorset cannot appreciate either the beauties of nature or the Christian religion.

  Phi: I didn’t know they went to church.

  Delta: They don’t. But they hold the advowson of the parish.

  Me: They sound as though they believe in the Over-soul.

  Delta: What kind of religion is that?

  Phi: Oh, a sort of cross between Wordsworth and William Morris and Christian Science.

  Delta: My uncle died of moral disarmament.

  Phi: Re-armament, surely?

  Delta: No. He believed that the M.R.A. had become corrupted. What was needed was total abstention from all things that might lead one into moral difficulties. Since moral problems were, for him, purely physical ones—whether or not one should eat meat or have sex or hit someone back—he decided that the only thing to do was to stop having a physical existence. Which he did. He starved himself to death.

  Phi: Well, it was logical, I suppose.

  Delta: Yes. His wife found the logic of it very comforting. The only thing was he decided at such an awkward time of life. She had four children, you see, between twelve and two.

  Me: People like that should be put into cool calm hospitals.

  Delta: No, they should be made to witness suttee.

  Phi: I’d never thought of the practical moral to be drawn by Christians from human sacrifice.

  Me: But would it have made any difference to him?

  Delta: Yes. He couldn’t bear to hurt anyone in any way. That’s why life became impossible for him. If he had seen a wife being burnt he would have realized that, though being alive raises all sorts of difficult problems, suicide is immoral for a married man. His wife, unfortunately, loved him too much to tell him while he was alive.

  Me: How long have you been saving this uncle up, or is he purely imaginary?

  Phi: What a rude question, Nicholas.

  Delta: Oh, it’s all right, Nicky can ask. It all happened before I was born, so it’s both fact and fiction. He was an early heretic of the M.R.A. I only thought of it today because I had to translate some of A Passage to India into German. It looked quite different when I’d finished with it. I’ve never read it. Is it a good book?

  Phi: Yes. Nicky—Nicholas will lend it to you. He lent it to me.

  Delta: Oh, I thought I was the only person who called him Nicky.

  Phi (at once): From now on you are. I surrender all rights.

  Delta (with a smile): Thank you. What sort of rig
hts do you have?

  Me: Fishing rights.

  Phi: Nicholas, I wish you would be serious.

  Me (desperate): I am serious. You know me, Phi, serious responsible Nicholas Sharpe.

  Phi: Be quiet. If you’re going to be facetious you must eat at another table.

  Delta: I thought you had surrendered all rights.

  Phi: I beg your pardon.

  Delta: You mustn’t give orders, you know. Nicky, if you cannot be serious, you must go and eat at another table.

  Me: Damn you both. All I meant was—let’s change the conversation.

  Delta (arrogant): Very well. Phi, do you know the Dawsons?

  Phi: No. Hardly at all. They were only a conversational gambit. But they will serve again.

  *

  Phi didn’t call anyone his dear, but by the end I did.

  Me: Delta, you haven’t said anything about how good it is to have your Oxford career behind you.

  Delta: Is it behind me?

  Phi: You really can’t go into that now, it’s a very private question. But I hope so, yes, since you ask me.

  Delta: I wasn’t asking you, Phi. But thank you all the same. I can’t promise, though, can I?

  Me: As a matter of fact, my dear, you can.

  Delta (as though nothing had happened): Good, then it is. I thought so, actually. My father told me I should start work in October.

  Phi: What will that be?

  Delta: He doesn’t care. He retired from the army at thirty-five, so he can’t really complain. But I am going to be a travel agent. I shall spend my time sending other people abroad. Can you imagine anything nicer?

  Me: But won’t you be away a lot of the time?

  Delta: Oh no. I work out the programmes from brochures in the London office, and blame the guide if anything goes wrong. I’ve got a job with one of the bus companies that runs trips all over the continent.

  Me: You never told me.

  Delta: You never asked, Nicky, did you?

  Phi: What is Nicholas going to do?

  Me: I’ve been offered a job on a new weekly—semi-political. If the paper ever gets going.

  Delta: You never told me.

  Me: I turned it down. But I think the job’s still going.

  Phi: How much will they pay you?

  Me: Less than human dignity allows, but since they stand for human dignity one can put up with it.

  Phi: I doubt if they will allow you to be academic.

  Me: So do I. I shall be economics editor, foreign editor and probably theatre critic as well.

  Delta: It sounds marvellous. Will you get two tickets for everything? Is there anyone else on the staff at all?

  Me: A staff of six. I don’t know what the sales will be—mimimal, I imagine. It doesn’t start till August.

  Phi: I am glad I came down. I had no idea that you were about to narrow your life to scholarship when such an opportunity offered. I take it, Nicholas, that the paper will be some kind of extremist left-wing bulletin and scandal-sheet? Against everything?

  Me: Not everything, Phi.

  Delta: Oh, good.

  Me: It intends to be almost indecently responsible.

  Phi: A cross between the News of the World and Tribune?

  Me: No. But an unFabian New Statesman.

  Phi: What on earth can that mean, Delta?

  Delta: Nicholas, I hope.

  Me: Thank you.

  *

  After lunch Phi said: I have made up my mind, Nicholas. I shall go back to London this afternoon. But first I want to talk to Delta.

  Me: Oh!

  Phi: Nothing to worry about, I assure you.

  Delta: I expect he’s going to give me some fatherly advice.

  Phi: Go away, Nicholas.

  Me (going, then coming back): You know, everything seems to have been decided without anything having been said.

  Delta: You’ve been talking the whole time, Nicky, particularly when your mouth was shut.

  Phi: I told you, Nicholas——

  Me: I know, I know. But I feel as though I haven’t taken any active part in things at all.

  Phi: Of course you have. You were here, weren’t you? Now go away, for God’s sake, before one of us bursts into tears.

  Me (sudden gush): It’s not been easy. I’ve always tried to be honest. I thought I was beginning to succeed. But now I don’t know.

  Phi: Don’t worry about your intellect at this stage of things, Nicky. Let things happen to you for a change.

  Me: I tried….

  Phi: Don’t try too hard, take an old man’s word for it. And be honest with other people, too. Remember Delta’s uncle.

  Delta: Remember me.

  Me: Phi, please … I mean, thank you.

  Phi: I’m sure I shall see a lot of both of you. But now go away.

  Delta (taking me out): Nicky, I’m terrified. I can’t keep this up.

  Me: If you hadn’t said that I think I should have taken the first train home.

  Delta: I shall have to take off these stupid clothes. Or perhaps one should wear a white tie on the day of one’s engagement.

  Me: But not a mortar-board, surely?

  Delta: I shall be with you in an hour. I believe in these long engagements, don’t you?

  *

  Delta: Is he always like that?

  Me: Never. Once before. I knew it was there. I don’t think I could ever have brought it out. He was always thwarting me.

  Delta: He was very sweet about you. He said he felt ridiculous saying it, but would I please let him know if anything seemed to be going wrong. He feels like a parson at a wedding, I think.

  Me: How much do you know about me, Delta?

  Delta: I know how you feel. How many people have you had as lovers? I don’t mean just sleeping-partners.

  Me: Phi. Just Phi.

  Delta: He knew that, didn’t he?

  Me: Yes. And you?

  Delta: No one. Let’s sleep a little. It’s been rather a day so far, hasn’t it? Not tea-time yet, either. Let’s sleep.

  After we’d slept a little, he said: ‘Do you mind if I don’t see you again today, Nicky? I want to see how it looks to be ordinary for the last time. I’m supposed to go and get drunk with the other people in my college who finished today. Rounding things off. Seeing them from a new angle. All those things.’

  Me: It’s all right to round things off as long as you have somewhere to start again. Poor Phi.

  Delta: He’ll be all right.

  Me: I hope so.

  Delta: See you tomorrow, terribly early.

  *

  Two in the morning. An aeroplane overhead. As always, a faint shudder in case it’s carrying an H-bomb. The bomb makes no distinctions. Just and unjust. Upper-lower-middle and middle-upper-lower. Does it really feel different to be in love with a woman? Am I special, are my feelings different in kind? I can’t ever know. I would give the whole of NATO’s stockpile to Mr Khrushchev if I am, if they are. Why do men hate each other so? They don’t. Why don’t we learn, listen, love? Hate is only inverted love, they say. Why, then, the terror that hate may win? It seems absolutely impossible, tonight, after today, with tomorrow to come.

  13

  Charles Frederick Hammond

  There’s nothing very much to say about the days after Margaret went away. The way I am, and the way a lot of other people are too, I imagine—or nothing would ever get done at all—things that have been very bad aren’t thought about much. So when I woke up next morning, having slept and slept, the previous day might not have happened at all. It was there in the back of my mind, I mean, and even at the front sometimes, but it didn’t cause me any sudden desperate grabs for the nearest handkerchief or anything like that. I felt, in fact, pretty frisky, and ready for something new, it didn’t matter what, as long as it was new, and hadn’t got anything to do with Margaret or my old waste of a life. I spent a lot of time that morning, in fact, thinking about the family business, about getting down to work, about not foo
ling around any more, about the stupidity of leading a life of momentary sensation, and about the satisfaction that everyone always talks about getting from doing any sort of job well. Really, I suppose, I was pretty trite that morning, and I almost started packing and setting off for the great world outside. But then I remembered the ball I was supposed to be running, and I thought I might as well stay around and enjoy it a bit, because, after all, I wouldn’t be coming back, and those balls can be quite fun if you drink enough. So then I started unpacking again and began to think about whom I should take. The thing was that it was really rather late to ask anyone I didn’t know well, and, anyway, I couldn’t think of any girls around the place whom I particularly wanted to treat to a night out. That’s one of the problems of being in love—it’s such a singular state of mind, you never get around to noticing the other talent about the place, you let the other girls find other men.

  So I didn’t do anything very much about it, I just conferred gravely with whisky-coloured wine-merchants and sold a few tickets and pretended to search for a suitable partner. But I didn’t put much life into the search, in fact I put quite a lot of death. One evening at Nicholas’s he told some girl we both knew that I was looking for someone, and persuaded me that she was a sad and deserving character to whom I ought to be kind. Anyway, I did ask her, and she said: Yes,’ at once, very firmly, which set me back a bit, because I hardly knew her, and wasn’t, to be frank, terribly keen on her in the first place. So I hastily explained that I wouldn’t be able to look after her very well because my duties as a member of the committee involved spending most of the time scrutinizing people at the gate and counting tickets and being generally eagle-eyed and inefficient. This was a complete lie, as it happened, because I didn’t have a thing to do, it turned out. But after about five minutes, during which we both repeated several times how much we were going to enjoy going with the other, I’d made her think that to be invited by me was to spend the whole night shivering and alone in the lodge while everyone else was whooping it up in the marquee, and she changed her tune a bit and said she would have to think about it, but of course it was terribly kind of me to ask her, and I said I did hope she would be able to make it, and she said she would let me know as soon as possible, and when Nicholas got me alone he tore me to shreds.