The pea green feltex might have harboured flea-nests; the dust rose and twisted in the thick sun; the naked bulb rocked on its maroon cord. They sat on the feltex without touching, and talked while outside the house there was the sound of traffic and child cries, and the room was still and hot and silent.
‘I like to watch you,’ Paint said.
‘I’m glad.’
‘Does he like to watch you?’
‘He never said.’
At that time when they were on the feltex, sitting and not touching, Persia tried with great exertion of nerve and brain parts not to need Paint, and not require the presence of him to consummate the day. It should have been possible, because he had intruded on other obligations, to expel him neatly from his invasion of her mind, but although reasoning would eliminate him for a small time so that he was no more than a distant acquaintance, after a while he would come back in again, necessary and indispensable.
‘I would like to tell you something,’ Persia said.
But Paint, knowing of the bordering honesty which was about to open, said, ‘I want to show you to all my friends.’
Persia did not say anything for a little while then. A bus made bus noises of stopping and going.
‘I have one friend in particular,’ Paint said.
Funny you should be jealous of a friend rather than a lover.
After some time more Persia said, ‘You mentioned you had one friend.’
‘I have more than that.’
‘But one particularly.’
‘Yes.’
‘Is he a man?’
There was a long silence. A car with a broken exhaust spread a line of sound across it like neon worms.
‘Tell me about your friends,’ Paint said.
‘Some are from school, and some from later.’
‘Do you have male friends without complications?’
‘I have been brought up to be afraid of men. And since then I have been frightened more.’
‘How was that?’
‘There was a married man once, who encouraged me. Until him I had believed I was ugly and undesirable. But he told me I was sexy until I became so.’
‘Did you like him?’
‘I did not know him. But he excited me. He made me show him my breasts. It was the first time I was proud of how I was. Then I began to think that I wanted him. And . . .’
‘And what?’
‘I don’t like to remember. But I will remember, just for you.’
‘What?’
‘There was a party, and he was there with his wife, and I had too much to drink. I went outside with him—there was some excuse; I think to see the house next door. Then, because I was drunk I kissed him just to discover.’
‘What did you hope to discover?’
‘A new experience. But he misinterpreted me. There in the dark in the most cartoon way. He thought I was assaulting his virtue. He had been so full of suggestiveness but I scared him like slaters under stones. He scuttled out one of the corniest lines I’ve ever heard.’
‘What was that?’
‘Let’s not spoil a beautiful friendship.’
‘Ugh.’
‘Yes. Ugh. I never wanted to see him again.’
‘Funny how a reflex could destroy a friendship,’ Paint said.
‘It was simply a misunderstanding. I am always having them. He never realized, and I suppose he told his wife how I tried to seduce him. I could never explain.’
‘And how did it end?’
‘For me a rebuff could be a terrible grief.’
‘Why does one bother to make an approach anyway?’ Paint asked.
‘Perhaps it’s chemicals, or cosmic cycles, that compel.’
‘You think it is the co-incidence of collision?’
‘I think it is organization.’
‘By somebody?’
‘Yes of course. Because if the approach is successful then you have joined up and been completed, and you can carry it through from the past to the future, and make a sequence.’
‘What do you carry through?’
‘You are going too deep. I would answer love, if I was brave enough.’
Paint considered this, while he rolled dust into a neat ball which insisted on crumbling as soon as he released it into its own independent life. Then after some time he asked, ‘If I rebuffed you, would you stop liking me?’
It took a long time to answer, but at last Persia said with words which were picked and put separately into the hour, ‘I would be stung and submerge. But I would come up on an island of remembering.’
‘Is Adrian your friend?’ Paint asked. He was like quizz masters who have the attention of the cameras because of their secret knowledge.
‘No. But he added to me.’
‘Am I your friend?’
That’s different. I’m happy with you.’
‘I would rather that,’ Paint said.
‘It is not so useful,’ Persia answered.
‘Being happy is more important than being useful,’ Paint said.
‘No, I think it is rather selfish,’ Persia answered. But a bit later she said, ‘I’m glad we are being selfish.’
There was a blonde-wood suite with cut glass handles and gold chrome stars across one corner of the room. Paint said it was magnificent, and suburbia caught between art and antiquity.
Persia, laughing, saw he was serious.
‘Also my other art work,’ he said, gesturing to three cardboard cartons full of Kleenex boxes, some unopened, some dispersed, spilling out over the floor with their printed titles and machine-folded contents, symmetrical, identical, in perfect order.
‘They epitomize life. Blowing into them, mopping or not mopping up with them, flushing them down the toilet: they must fill drains under all foundations. Have you ever noticed how fragile and beautiful they are? Look, hold one against the light, and it is man’s version of the spider web.’
He was so convinced that the pale mauve and translucent Kleenex fluttering slightly, did in fact become a masterpiece, not bound by weight, putting its form in existence, limited strictly by metrical factory demands.
‘It has passed through so many hands and processes,’ Paint said. ‘We tend to forget. In its way it’s as travelled as Chippendale chairs.’
‘Do you like Chippendale chairs?’
‘I would have, if they hadn’t been ruined by snobs.’
Then Persia disclaimed all responsibility for worshipping him because she had tried to stop and could not do so, and there was no act of will which could destroy, so she had no fault.
‘Do you wear only jeans?’ Persia asked.
‘Mostly, because I am not rich.’
‘Where do you work?’
‘At home. I am finally indecisive.’
‘Then how do you live?’
‘On scraps. I work at times in places.’
‘What places?’
‘Where it is rich and full of living: restaurants, factories, cleaning toilets.’
‘And did you buy this house yourself?’
‘There was some money I had once. I was on a scholarship. I won some things.’
‘What things?’
‘I was clever. I graduated with an honours degree in History.’
‘Because you studied hard?’
‘No. I was too busy enjoying how the world is put. But it happened I was interested. I had a craze for reading about the Tudors, just at the time before the exam, and half the questions were on them.’
‘But ultimately what will you do?’
‘I have not yet found. I am waiting until I know.’
They went on sitting together on the floor so that their bodies were not touching but their faces breathed each other’s breath.
‘What does Adrian do at this time of evening?’
‘He reads, or watches sporting results.’
‘He is very meticulous.’
‘I am glad you noticed too.’
‘But he goes o
ut of his way to be charming,’ Paint said.
‘It’s part of his upbringing. He doesn’t try.’
‘His sense of timing is exhausting.’
‘Yes,’ Persia said, and then, ‘I’ll go back soon.’ For it occurred to Persia that neither of them had made any arrangements. It had not been necessary to fix the future with words. They had simply come together and that was sufficient.
‘Some time you can,’ Paint said.
He pulled Persia to her feet and stood her up. ‘We will have some lunch, or dinner,’ he said. ‘It will all be out of cans. The refrigerator’s been broken for months.’
‘How do you cope?’
‘I eat soya meat. You simply add water.’
So they went down a layer of stairs, their feet which were bare, hardly sounding on the old worn wood which had known many imprints, and which would absorb their layer of living as simply as all the other layers.
The top kitchen was on floorboards sloped as though the whole verandah it was balanced upon would fall from its precarious position somewhere halfway up the roof. Out of the old ice box came a pint of milk, of which they drank half each in smeared glasses which were plastic, from yoghurt. Then they had some bread with melted butter on it, and a tin of nutolene because Paint was a vegetarian.
‘I would like to see the rest of your house,’ Persia said.
‘I have a library. Would you like to see my library?’
He wiped some tomato sauce from his chin and threw the empty can out the window. He watched as it rolled down the roof and finally fell with a clatter into his back courtyard. A cat went racing over the paling fence which separated the back plots.
‘Isn’t it magnificent? The freedom of a rolling tin? I go down and collect them all later. Once I wrote a poem about the tin rolling down the roof and it won a prize.’
‘The tin?’
‘The poem.’
They went half down some steps and into a room with a very low roof. There were bookshelves, of every type and shape, of cedar, of solid oak, of white painted burnie board of brick and of laminex, all arranged at various angles in various positions, none against the walls, but all centrally placed so that Persia had to skirt among them avoiding contact in case they should tumble. For each one was full of heavy books and volumes of magazines and paperbacks, crammed and stuffed with other people’s minds, converted to print and captured.
Then Persia had to laugh, because of the bookshelves, and the house, and Paint, and where she had landed.
‘It’s a work of art,’ Paint said. ‘It’s an experience moving through them. The air is heavy with their thinking.’
‘Do you sometimes knock them over?’
‘Yes. Ideas fall all over the floor. Then it’s a rule to read every open page. It takes me days. That’s why I walk with caution.’
They laughed among the books, for the sheer joy of the shelves. In one corner was a desk with piles of paper and pens.
‘Did your poem come from there?’ Persia asked.
‘It was simply a matter of listing memories.’
They did not talk for a while then, and Persia and he moved round among the bookshelves, each in their own direction, stopping occasionally to remove anything which appealed to their curiosity, examining it at length, before replacing it again.
Then after some more time of reading and not speaking, Persia coughed.
‘Paint,’ she said. ‘I will have to go back now.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it is right.’
‘He will be confused.’
‘He’ll be confused anyway.’
‘I haven’t got any clothes to stay,’ Persia said later. She was uncertain as to what the staying involved.
‘That’s alright. You can wash the ones you’re wearing.’
‘He will be standing by the phone wondering.’
‘Do you really think he will?’
Persia did not answer. She looked out the window which was very small, and opened on rows of roofs which were all the same and echoed and went on, and copied.
‘I will have to go back some time,’ she said. ‘I am always going away.’
Paint was at the other end of the room rummaging through papers.
‘You don’t,’ he said.
‘All my belongings are there.’
‘Then leave them with him.’
‘I can’t keep going away.’
‘Ring him if you’re worried. There’s a phone in the hall.’
Suddenly more than any other wish, there was the wish to hear Adrian’s true voice which would say Adrian was there, although out of sight, and was capable of continuing existence independently.
Down some stairs there was a phone sitting on the lino with disintegrating wires. The phone looked at Persia. It was like a large heavy insect that clicked. She dialled and waited for Adrian to answer, and was afraid and yet proud of her experience, and wanted to keep it, and give it away.
‘Hello,’ he said, and did not have any embroidery.
‘Adrian?’
‘Is that you Persia?’
‘Yes. It is Persia.’
‘Where are you? Have you had an accident?’
For a moment Persia did not answer, because he had asked if she had had an accident, which was unlike him. And for him to have admitted such worry, she knew must have been like tents on mountains and a very great labour.
‘Yes, I’m alright,’ Persia said. ‘No I have not had an accident. How was the cricket?’
‘Fine. Where are you then?’
There was another pause. It was a promising conversation. For all his power, which he had always known and brought to bear, was now handed to Persia, and now at last after all his life of pompous existence, she could make him feel, for the world was not worth knowing without drama and depths. Because to be the cause of some small anguish he had never before experienced, was, in a way, to possess him.
‘I went to the art gallery and met Paint,’ she said.
‘That’s good. But where are you now? Shall I come and pick you up?’ He was like hens with ruffled tails pecking in yards.
‘I am at Paint’s house.’
‘I see.’
He had of course immediately condemned, perhaps because of his age, but more particularly because of his own virtue, so that Persia saw no reason to justify her own good behaviour. There was no speaking for some time, but even that was not long enough to gather fragments.
‘Do you want me to come and pick you up?’ Adrian asked.
There was a long sound of nothing.
‘Did you enjoy the cricket?’
‘I’ll come and pick you up now.’
‘I suppose they made runs and silly outs.’
‘Persia, will you be sensible.’
Paint had come down the stairs. He tiptoed and pulled a face, and pretended to be solemn. He arranged for himself to fall right at the bottom step just at the moment of most tense confrontation, so that there was a terrible clattering and Persia was heaped up with him, and the phone fell out of her hand. She grabbed it, and fought to press it against her ear again, and they both turned red in the face trying not to laugh, and their eyes watered, and they held their noses so as not to let Adrian hear, but every now and then they snorted as they rocked backwards and forwards, and it was most terrible not to have control, when he had been most gentle and willing to forgive, especially when he had waited alone and said as plainly as he could ever say that he did in fact need Persia.
At last after a long time of stifled hooting, she said, ‘Yes?’ into the receiver, and she could tell that Adrian knew she was laughing, because his voice was flat like deserts.
‘Persia, will you be sensible,’ he said, and it was all so unutterably sad that she was crying and laughing all at once, and going apart in all directions.
‘I am (snort) sensible.’
‘I’m asking you whether you want me to come over and pick you up.’
There was another pa
use. Paint was pulling faces and rolling his eyes at Persia. She said in a weak thin voice into the mouthpiece, ‘Could you come tomorrow?’
For some reason this seemed extremely funny. It seemed to be the top of all the funniness so that it could hardly bear holding. Paint bent double and held his stomach in his elbows, and howled and kicked like wounded dogs.
‘I am either coming now or never,’ Adrian said. He was at that moment most forsaken and drifted, like men who had no arms to hold the child they loved.
‘He says he is coming now or never,’ Persia hissed with her hand over the mouthpiece.
‘It’s now or never. Come hold me tight,’ Paint began to sing, with his hand over his heart and his lips expanded to jelly.
‘Tomorrow would be fine,’ Persia shouted against opposition.
‘Very well. I’m sorry. Goodbye Persia.’ He clicked in her ear and was gone. Forever perhaps, because of her own impulsiveness.
There was a terrible silence. After such mirth and hysteria they were at once drained. They sat staring across the hallway at one another, two guilty children, their backs propped against opposing walls, the dead phone in Persia’s hand.
‘I was cruel to him,’ Persia said.
‘He might appreciate you more next time.’
But she was believing there might not be any other time. They reached across the space of the hall and joined hands. Their feet were pressed together, pushing them apart. Their hands were pulling them closer. Their eyes were still awash. They were exhausted, and luminous, and neon flesh in the darkened hall.
Chapter 6
Paint had a double bed which was on a wire frame which sloped down in one corner because one of the legs was broken.
‘Flat surfaces are always to be avoided,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I only have one bed. Do you mind sharing?’
‘No, I don’t mind,’ Persia answered.
‘I could lend you some pyjamas,’ Paint said, ‘Except I never wear them.’
‘That’s alright,’ Persia said. And did not understand.
‘Or would you rather be in another room?’
‘Oh no. If there is only one bed.’
It was after midnight. Cars still howled along a distant highway. Some beetles fluttered against the window.
The Beginning of Everything and the End of Everything Else Page 8
