Narcissism for Beginners

by Martine McDonagh

  I must be paying attention because, when Ruth asks me if I’ve been to see Marsha Ray, I answer.

  ‘Not yet,’ I say, ‘but I remember her from Brazil.’

  ‘Oh, she was there too? Well, my overriding memory of Marsha – correct me if I’m being unfair – is of one of those women who dressed like a twenty-five-year-old despite being well into her forties. I didn’t know if this tendency had been a contributing factor to her husband’s defection or was a reaction to it and I wasn’t interested enough to find out. Either way, my first impression was that despite the considerable difference in their ages her fascination with Bim was more than simply custodial.’

  Eew.

  ‘The reason I mention her is that Suki told me Bim had shown her something at Marsha’s house that had convinced her that, even if he wasn’t enlightened in the LifeForce sense of the word, he had accessed, if that’s the right word, a higher spiritual force that was ripe for exploration. That was her choice of word; exploitation would have been mine. It was his intention to set up a group for that purpose and he wanted Suki to help him. She still hadn’t made any commitment, but it was clear she was close to waving goodbye to the Good Ship LifeForce.’

  Ruth hesitates and looks at me. ‘Forgive me, I don’t mean to speak ill of your father, I’m sure he had many good qualities. I certainly came to witness many people enthralled and convinced by his performances and insights. His followers talked about him in the same way LifeForcers talked about Ishvana, said they only had to look at a picture of him to feel his love, all that. But at the same time it’s important to understand how unworldly your mother was, how beautiful and unspoiled, and how vulnerable to manipulation.’

  ‘I need to know the truth,’ I say. ‘What you thought of them.’ It strikes me that, since Thomas fessed up to being a killer, Ruth Williams has become the most trustworthy person in my life at this point and I’ve only known her two days. Not even.

  ‘Well, in the end, I decided it was better to support her in whatever she wanted to do than to try to persuade her against it, or more specifically him, and better to be around to pick up the pieces when it all went wrong than to alienate myself, to stand on the shore and watch her drift off on the tide.

  ‘Needless to say, she left LifeForce. She was given permission to stay in the house with Andrew, perhaps in the hope that he would persuade her back into the fold. But I had to find somewhere else to stay when I visited. Marsha offered me a room in her house, and withdrew the offer when Bim found out, but I wouldn’t have taken it anyway and had found a nice bed and breakfast in Kemp Town, the Avalon, close to Suki and Andrew. I decided to stay in LifeForce until I was certain Suki’s departure was permanent. Even after she and Bim set up their group, which they called Trembling Leaves –’

  Ruth raises an eyebrow at me and I manage to raise a smile.

  ‘– I continued to keep a foot in each camp. It was quite exhausting.

  ‘There were a few other defections from LifeForce to Trembling Leaves. Amber, the dancer I told you about, and Alison, whose face had never quite fitted – quite literally because she suffered from some form of hirsutism and had a perennial five o’clock shadow – and one other woman, whose name I forget. Oh, and Alan. Plus me, of course. Alison in particular was frustrated by her lack of progress within LifeForce, but in the main they just loved Suki too much to not follow her.

  ‘The first Trembling Leaves meeting was held in the summerhouse at the end of Marsha’s garden, an old 1920s tennis pavilion, built for ladies to take their afternoon tea in the shade and sip iced drinks laced with sprigs of mint plucked fresh from the herb garden – all very Nancy Mitford – while their menfolk expended excess summer energy on the tennis courts. Apparently the courts had been sold off after the war and houses built on the land, but the pavilion had stayed on Marsha’s side of the wall.

  ‘I walked all the way there from my B&B, which was further than I thought, so I was last to arrive. I took off my shoes and lined them up with the others on the verandah. Bim’s strange cloven-hooved affairs were there, slightly off to one side with Suki’s sandals.’

  We reach the road. I’m just thinking it’s too noisy on the street to keep recording when Ruth says, ‘Should we stop for a bit, dear? We’re almost there. Why don’t we pop over to that shop and buy ourselves a Cornetto each, like in the film? I think we’ve earned it, don’t you?’

  Ruth Williams, I love you.

  I’m still too shaken up to be hungry, but a Cornetto isn’t food, it’s sugar, and, as any recovering addict will tell you, sugar can be a welcome false teat.

  The crosswalk is one of those with black and white poles on each side of the street with a flashing orange light on top – zebra crossing, belisha beacons. I stand at the kerb waiting for the cars to stop but Ruth just steps right on out into the road.

  ‘Come on,’ she says, ‘they won’t want to run over an old lady.’

  After taking a strawberry Cornetto out of the freezer and holding it until it’s at melting point, Ruth changes her mind and goes for mint instead. I choose the straight vanilla. Outside the store, we chink them together like champagne glasses, peel off the wrappers, and start up the hill.

  A writerly observation for you. This city has so many trees and shit.

  ‘This estate was built as council housing,’ Ruth says when we get up there, ‘but it’s all privately owned now. These flats sell for a small fortune.’

  My multi-millionaire brain wakes up. I have a small fortune. I have a large fortune. I could buy one. I could live here and be friends with Liz from the movie and walk over once a week to visit Ruth. We could sit on a bench together at the top of the Heath and monitor the erection of new phalluses downtown. I could eat Cornettos every day for breakfast. I need never return to RB and my murderous guardian.

  I feel a little better.

  Ruth walks to a bench under a tree and sits down so I follow, nervous. ‘Are we allowed to walk on the grass?’

  Ruth points at the ground. ‘You didn’t notice the desire line?’ She laughs at my dumb expression and explains that desire line is the official name for an unofficial pathway. Sure enough, the grass between the bench and the road is scuffed as bare as the Great Dudini’s coat before he got his thyroid pills.

  ‘Cool.’

  She passes me what’s left of her ice-cream while she searches in her bag for a tissue to wipe her mouth.

  ‘Which one is Cunningham?’ I say, looking around at the identical apartment blocks.

  ‘Cunningum,’ corrects Ruth, just like Thomas, ‘one word. A name, not a manipulative pig,’ (That eyebrow again. We both know who she means, right?), ‘There’ll be a map of the estate somewhere; why don’t you go and look for it?’

  I guess she wants some alone time, and I’m glad to go because I am at risk of busting through my shame barrier and telling Ruth what I know about Thomas.

  She takes a photo of me outside the main door of Cunningham House, pointing at the sign with what’s left of my ice-cream, which is mostly wrapper, before we go sit in the shade of a tree, this time on the actual grass where Shaun perfects his zombie-slaying swing. Ruth yells at me for tossing the pointy end of my Cornetto wrapper into the trash. ‘That’s the best bit!’ she says, ‘Now we’ll have to buy you another one.’

  For a while we speculate about how Shaun could have climbed up on to Liz’s balcony. We argue about which floor she lives on, I say second and Ruth says first, until we realise we mean the same thing. After that we just sit a while. Ruth closes her eyes and I wonder if she’s meditating. Maybe meditation would help me. Maybe I should join LifeForce. Yeah it still exists. Ruth says it’s a huge international concern now, everywhere apparently. Maybe you went back to it in the end. What do you think – could you teach me to meditate?

  There aren’t too many people around, a couple moms pushing strollers, a guy in a uniform who Ruth says is reading gas and electricity meters, all moving in slow-motion, all pretty zombie-like. Ruth says i
t’s quiet because people are at work and the kids haven’t broken up from school yet. I like that it sounds as though the kids and school were lovers.

  Ruth suggests that as I’m so tired we should have a change of plan and go back to her house for some lunch, and visit Crouch End tomorrow instead. I agree.

  I’m wondering if Ruth needs me to help her up on to her feet, and how to offer without offending her, when she goes right ahead and, well, not springs exactly, but you get the picture. She’s not so old really and sometimes her movement is completely normal. I guess the sugar perked her up too.

  ‘Let’s be on our way,’ she says, ‘before I forget what I was talking about.’

  ‘The first Trembling Leaves meeting,’ I tell her, pressing the record button.

  ‘Ah, yes. Well, in the summerhouse, all the ex-LifeForcers were massaging each other’s shoulders. Massage was the LifeForce-approved and prescribed method of dislodging and expelling toxins from our auric layers. A lot of massaging went on in those celibate initiate households, all those young people starved of physical contact.

  ‘I got the impression they had been waiting for me because as soon as I arrived Suki jumped up and pulled me across the room to introduce me to the great Marsha Ray herself. There was no sign of Bim. One corner of the room was partitioned off by a wooden screen and I presumed he was lurking behind it. I made small talk with Marsha, told her how fortunate she was to own such a beautiful place, until at last Suki went and sat cross-legged in the centre of the circle and closed her eyes, indicating the start of the session.

  ‘Once the room was quiet, Suki opened her eyes and told us to close ours. “Listen to your heart,” she said. “We say this because our heart is where the Master places the answers to all our questions.” I could tell by her voice she was smiling. “Welcome to the inaugural meeting of Trembling Leaves,” she said. “Before we go any further, Guru Bim will show each of you in turn the reason you have been invited to join him this evening.”

  ‘She told us to open our eyes, then stood up with her arms stretched out to the side and started spinning, ever so slowly. “We are like a wheel,” she said, “whose connections to the main axle have become rusty and loose. We are in danger of becoming completely disconnected from it and from the energy that drives us. But there is a way to repair the damage and that’s why we are all here at the gateway to this new path. In a few moments you will close your eyes and we will begin our restorative journey towards repair by meditating together. When you feel a light touch on the top of your head –” she folded one arm to tap herself on the crown of her head and then unfolded it again, like an air stewardess getting her routine muddled “– you may open your eyes. When you feel a second tap, you must close them again. There will be no discussion about what you are shown.”’

  Ruth nudges my arm with her elbow. Quite hard, actually.

  ‘Well, there was no way I was closing my eyes, I can tell you. I wanted the whole performance.

  ‘The sun was setting and the room was already quite dark when Bim finally emerged from his hiding place. His white outfit seemed to glisten, but that was probably because my eyes were watering with the strain of being held half-closed. He tiptoed into the centre of the circle, not speaking, his attention fixed on Suki, who moved out of the circle, went to stand behind Marsha. Then he closed his eyes, raised a hand to his chest and took a few long slow breaths, sliding his hand about as if trying to locate his heartbeat.’

  Yeah, that probably took a while, right?

  ‘Then his whole body began to shake. At first the tremors were light and only apparent through the movement of his clothes, but as he went on they became more and more violent. By the time Suki tapped Marsha on the head, he was convulsing. When Marsha saw the spectacle before her she lifted her hands as if to burst into a loud, spontaneous applause, but Suki intervened. I heard Amber, the dance student, stifle an embarrassed giggle, so she must have been peeping too. I was last to be tapped on the head and midway through my turn he stumbled, as if about to fall on top of me. I felt certain he did it deliberately to give me a fright, but anyway Suki stepped in to steady him and lead him safely out of the circle. When she returned, she urged us one by one to open our eyes and get on to our feet, whispering, “Listen to your heart, listen to your heart.” We were to imitate what we had seen Bim do. “Unleash your joy,” she called out, “unroot your sadness. Banish your anger. Reach out with new and willing tendrils. Listen to your heart.”

  ‘I went at it more gently than the others but even so my heart was going like the clappers and I managed to whack somebody on the chin. I braced myself for their retaliation, but whoever it was I hit – I don’t remember now – smiled at me as if I’d just promised to do their ironing every day for a year.

  ‘I was the first to retreat to my cushion, and one by one the others fell down exhausted as Bim had done. Alan stayed on his feet the longest, trying to shake the homosexuality out of himself. Alison sat muttering under her breath, reciting her LifeForce mantra. Amber was giggling. We sat on our cushions, listening to Alan grunting and careering about, until at last he fell over. He lay still while we all sat in awkward silence, then, just as Suki tiptoed towards him, he sat up, all wild-eyed and expectant.

  ‘Suki nodded to Marsha, who got to her feet, with a rather self-important expression on her face, I thought, and went to fetch a pile of leaflets from the corner of the room. She divided them up and gave us each a small bundle.

  ‘“Next week will be our first open meeting,” said Suki. “Please do your best to bring people along. In the meantime it’s not recommended that you practise alone, or with anyone outside this group. If you have any questions about your shaking practice, you can make an appointment to talk to Guru Bim at the end of next week’s meeting, or you can ask me.” She looked around for Marsha, who was hovering by the door, waiting for Suki to give her the nod to go across to the house and fetch the tea and biscuits. Bim stayed behind the screen.’

  Ruth looks up and stares through me, caught up for a second in a sad memory, a regret, maybe just a fleeting shiver of unhappiness, hard to say.

  ‘Suki had changed, seemed happier than I’d ever seen her. When I got back to my room at the Avalon that night I tried to be happy too, but I must be honest, it didn’t come easily. I had presumed she would ask me to wait for her after the meeting, would want my opinion before making any lasting commitments, but instead she thanked me for coming and wished me safe home along with all the others and I realised that she had no further use for my opinion. She had invited me to show me her mind was made up, that she had moved on. She hadn’t even asked where I was staying.

  ‘I understood that this was her rebellion, and there was no disputing he had a certain charm, but it wasn’t the rebellion I had hoped for, especially as it seemed to involve pushing me away. The desire to protect her became stronger than ever. So, while I made no effort to distribute leaflets or attract other members to Trembling Leaves, I committed to going down once a week to attend the meetings. I don’t suppose it ever crossed her mind that I was anything but happy for her, that’s how naïve she was.’

  Ruth stops for a few seconds with her hands on her hips, gasping like a marathon runner at the finishing line. She looks so sad that if I were the kind of person to indulge in public displays of affection, comfort, whatever, I would give her a hug. She smiles at me as if to say she knows that, and the thought were enough, and resumes her walking and talking.

  ‘Trembling Leaves took off remarkably quickly. Every meeting brought new members – the usual vulnerable, needy types – and they kept coming back. I gave up going to LifeForce meetings because it took too much energy to keep up with both groups, but I stayed in contact with Andrew, because that was the only way I could find out how Suki was. And I’ve never stopped meditating. I really do believe it has helped me.’

  I ask if she thinks it could help someone like me and she says it wouldn’t do me any harm if I wanted to try it.

&n
bsp; ‘In a couple of months, the group had grown so big that the few of us original members were given blue outfits to wear, which I believe Marsha “acquired” from the hospital, to separate us off from the rest. Suki and Bim had worn matching white outfits from the start.

  ‘Bim had already stopped coming out from behind his screen. The newest members never saw him; they learned to shake from Suki and the rest of us. As for us in the core group, or Blueys as we became known, we were allowed to see him by appointment only. The others were always scrambling to put their name on a list to get behind that screen and ask their inane questions about how to shake their way to enlightenment. They were desperate for his attention, whereas my principal inclination was to avoid him.

  ‘Eventually the summerhouse was so full on a Tuesday night that the group was split in two. Suki ran Tuesday meetings for newcomers and non-Blueys, assisted by Marsha, and our meetings with her were moved to Thursdays. I don’t know if Bim ever attended those Tuesday meetings but he continued to hide behind his screen at ours and I assumed the reason for his presence was to check Suki was doing things the way he wanted them done and to ensure his supremacy remained intact.’

  Ruth’s cheeks are red with the exertion of walking uphill. As we’re near the top, I suggest we take time out to sit and look over the view of downtown again. To be honest I stopped listening to her some time ago. I’ve been thinking about Thomas again. About all the different Thomases. Thomas the junkie. Thomas the alcoholic. Thomas the gun-seller. Thomas the prisoner. Thomas the murderer. This new Thomas seems so far removed from even those other wayward Thomases, never mind from the one I’ve seen every day for most of my life, who raised me for the last ten years, who was father and mother to me and who saved his money to bring me here to London to find out about you and my dad. I’m not sure the state of being twenty-one is transformative enough in itself to help me deal with all that.