by Richard Gwyn
Outside, I unload my tray with a clatter. I whistle along to the music, abstractedly, but stop when I realise I am doing it. I know how irritating it can be when someone whistles or hums along to a song. I am not normally this self-conscious. Is this what marijuana does? Why on earth do people smoke the stuff, then? For pleasure? I can feel a certain physical glow, a suffusive warmth coursing through my bloodstream, but the feeling that I am being observed, that I am, in an uncomfortably real sense the object of the universe’s scrutiny outweighs the sensation of wellbeing. My mouth is dry, and since I have spilled my orange squash and cannot be bothered returning to the kitchen and do not feel like drinking water, I pour a glass of wine. Yes, I decide that I fancy a glass, after all. Its sensual and musty flavours are a little overpowering at first, but once I have knocked back a glassful, I realise I rather like the taste. I top up my glass, offering a refill to Alice and O’Hallaran also. I smile at Alice, who smiles back.
What ho! I say, for absolutely no reason at all, other than to sound jolly. But of course, it doesn’t sound jolly, it sounds quite retarded, as though I were some character from a Bertie Wooster story. I know, of course, that this is the effect I am making, but I am being intentionally anachronistic, so it doesn’t count. I finally let out a cackle of violent, insane laughter, and spill ratatouille, which I have been ladling from the saucepan, onto my foot. Since I am wearing flip-flops, and the vegetable gloop is hot, it burns me. I hop up and down, waving the ladle, which splashes bits of tomato and onion and courgette over O’Hallaran’s, I mean Brendan’s head. He jerks back in his seat, affronted at first, then realises it is an accident and wipes himself with a serviette. All of this is over in a few seconds, but to me it feels as though I have been negotiating hostile terrain for an eternity, and am not sure I can sustain the tension. I collapse onto my seat, a nervous wreck. All this excitement has taken away my appetite. I pour another glass of wine instead, thinking it might help, and knock it back in one.
My, says Alice, you are thirsty. Something about her tone of voice reminds me of our first meeting, after I had sprinted down through the woods to follow her into the house, and she is back to being the sweet gypsy girl I first met, and less of the thoughtful sophisticate who appeared after her strange illness. I am overcome with longing and gaze at her like an imbecile. She passes me a dishcloth, probably to distract me, and so that I can wipe the spilled supper from my foot, but I can’t be bothered. O’Hallaran is tucking into the food with his customary relish.
Sorry, I say to him, about the spillage.
Don’t worry about it, he says, tearing bread from the loaf. He looks like a wild man, his hair a mess, his beard flecked with the stew, bits of which he has missed after my accident with the ladle. He doesn’t care though. He certainly doesn’t appear preoccupied by anyone else’s opinion of him, or the way he looks. He is evidently more self-contained than I am, despite his poverty. He possesses Good Faith. I drink more wine, and dunk a slab of bread in my bowl, scooping up the juices. It is a delicious ratatouille. I say as much, complimenting the chef.
Easiest dish in the world, ratatouille, says O’Hallaran.
Heavens, we are getting along famously. What a merry gathering. I raise my glass to the other two, and suggest a toast. To the Blue Tent, I say, and all who travel in it. The Blue Tent, they both murmur, though not, I feel, with quite enough enthusiasm.
We clink glasses (but not I feel, with quite enough vigour).
Fuck it, what is the matter with these people? Where is their jouissance, their joie de vivre? Why don’t they show a little more fervour?
My head is beginning to ache. Perhaps I have drunk the wine too quickly. I seem to be stuck in a tight repetitive circle, condemned to a pursuit of the same inane concepts, all of them made ridiculous by the language I choose to describe them, all of them concerning the blue tent. Maybe – by the law of opposites, as my addled brain informs me – speaking some more will help. Language, after all, is a form of action.
So I say: Damn it, O’Hallaran, I believe I am going to punch you on the nose.
I have always been horrified by the notion that intoxication, rather than unleashing random and irrelevant ravings, actually reveals the dark undercurrent of our true nature. But something is stirring in me, and rather than concealing or repressing my innermost desires – as I normally endeavour to do – what would happen if, as seems to be occurring at this very moment, I were to act on a fleeting impulse?
And yes, I do feel an intense desire to punch O’Hallaran on the nose. I start giggling idiotically at the thought of this, not so much the act of physical violence as the expression itself, the words, and the fact that I have uttered them. Even the fact that I have specified the exact portion of his physiognomy that I will be aiming for. O’Hallaran, meanwhile, is watching me curiously. He remains in a seated position, which tactically places him at a disadvantage, but he does not withdraw his gaze from me.
So, I say, how about it, you smooth-talking, red-nosed bastard? What do you say to a few rounds with a real champ? I begin sparring, shadow-boxing, making little spitting sounds with each imagined moment of contact. Phut phut, phut, I go, as I curl my left fist into jabbing hooks and pummel the air with straight rights, while dancing over the flagstones in deranged imitation of Mohammed Ali. I move in on O’Hallaran, punching and feinting around his head, phutting out my little exclamations as I make contact with each fantasy target.
Aw, come on now, says O’Hallaran. Sit down for a moment, won’t ya. You’re making me dizzy.
I am not certain of the precise sequence of events at this stage. All I remember is that the world sways around me, my head makes contact with something hard, and the sky collapses.
Time passes.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Took a bit of a tumble there, you poor palooka.
I look up and the fox is standing at my feet, staring at me.
Did he speak? Did the fox address me, in a kind of mumbling badass Bronx accent, as though his mouth were full of gravel? Did Foxy call me a palooka?
I am caught between achieving full consciousness and digesting this unexpected development, when the fox starts licking my toes. Yes, Foxy really is there, gathering up the spillage from our dinner party, including lashings of ratatouille and a few loose strawberries, which lie abandoned about the ground. And then Alice is here too, leaning over me. O’Hallaran is clearing dishes from the table, whistling an old rebel song that goes: Too ra lay, too ra loo, they’re looking for monkeys up at the zoo, but if I had a face like you I’d join the British army.
I move my legs and Foxy hops away, as if surprised that the object of his investigation is in fact animate. He stands at a distance and regards me warily before turning tail – a most felicitous expression in his case – and departs across the lawn.
I am glad the fox has gone. His continued presence, especially the possibility of his having spoken, was most vexing.
How are you now? says Alice. She is stroking my temples, massaging with gentle circular movements, perhaps believing that this will return some degree of life or intelligence to what remains of my mind. I have no idea whether it helps, but it certainly feels soothing. I think of asking her what happened, but I don’t really care. I don’t want to know.
I tell Alice I would like to move indoors. She asks whether I think I can walk. I say I can, but might need a little help. I am like a wounded hero. I lean on Alice, and together we wobble into the kitchen. Library, I command, and so we lurch through the hall and into the inner sanctum, while O’Hallaran, I am pleased to observe, busies himself with the washing-up. I plonk myself into the green armchair, and Alice pulls up a footstool, onto which, almost reluctantly, it seems to me, she lifts my feet. She throws a blanket around my shoulders, and leaves the room. Presently I hear her chatting to O’Hallaran in the kitchen. Within a few short minutes I have been transformed from blathering buffoon to needy invalid. Is this what I have brought upon myself? Am I turning into a v
ictim of the tent’s devices, as, quite possibly, Alice and O’Hallaran already are, in their different ways. I rest my head back on the cushion behind me.
Alice returns to the library, kneels down next to the fireplace and prepares a fire, twisting newspaper and arranging kindling. This feels right; a return to comforting ritual, one which is associated, for me, with that brief interlude of domestic serenity and newly forged friendship when Alice had just moved in. Nostalgia, I realise, for the very recent past. Nostalgia for something that has only just happened.
Later that night, after Alice has gone to bed and O’Hallaran has returned to his tent, I take a long bath, soaking in the big enamel tub with a warm flannel over my face. It is while I am lying there, absorbed in dark thoughts, that the obvious solution occurs to me. If O’Hallaran is causing me distress, if his appearance has coincided with an inexplicable shift in my own personality – and a corresponding detachment from me on the part of Alice – and if I don’t have the resolve or the courage to ask him to leave immediately, I must resort to more roundabout means. I must get inside the tent. Firstly, because if I wish to find out more about O’Hallaran, I need to look through his personal effects, to see if there is anything that incriminates him in some way, that I can use against him. Secondly – and more importantly – since he appeared almost immediately after I had ventured into the blue tent for the second time, might it not transpire that (by the law of opposites, again) if I return inside the tent, O’Hallaran will disappear, or be disappeared?
The resolution fills me with hope, and with energy. I climb from the bathtub, wrap myself in a towel and wander back to the library, dripping bathwater over the parquet floor. It is three o’clock in the morning, but I am wide awake. I wander over to the tall bookshelves on the north wall and select, almost (but not entirely) at random, the Aphorismi Urbigeranior Certain Rules, Clearly Demonstrating the Three Infallible Ways of Preparing the Grand Elixir of the Philosophers.
21
The next morning O’Hallaran humiliates me further by not mentioning my behaviour of the day before. Somehow it would have been better if he had chided me good-naturedly for my feeble foray into the pugilistic arts, or teased me about my woeful lack of tolerance for minute quantities of cannabis and red wine, the effects of which, on a normal person, would have been negligible, and on a seasoned degenerate like O’Hallaran, would have been utterly inconsequential.
Instead he greets me cheerily from the kitchen door, and wonders if there is a cup of coffee to be had. If this represents a modest attempt not to be intrusive, then he fails, but I have no reason to refuse him hospitality, especially as I plan shortly to be rid of him.
Sorry about that caper last night, I say. The wine must have gone to my head, or something.
Oh, think nothing of it, says O’Hallaran. It was a blessing you knocked yourself out. Saved me from having to do it for you. Ha ha ha, he goes. And so he still finds it funny, the swine.
Over coffee O’Hallaran announces that he needs to go to the post office in town. I cunningly offer him the loan of the car, but he says he does not drive. My generosity does not extend to offering him a lift myself, for obvious reasons. Since Alice does not drive either (or does not volunteer to) he says he will walk. That is good, as it will take him at least four hours to walk to town and back. Even if he gets a lift from some passing motorist he will be away most of the morning.
With O’Hallaran safely off the premises, it’s time for me to make my move. Outside, the weather is overcast and rain threatens. Standing at the tent’s entrance, on the edge of the field, I feel like an explorer at the point of entering remote and inhospitable territory, although I am more self-conscious and nervous than on either of the previous occasions. The first time – which Alice witnessed, unbeknownst to me – I was swept away, passing out in the swirling blue sea of the tent, and the second time I was simply exhausted, and had lain down to sleep. On this occasion, although I do not exactly have a plan, I have a pressing need to bring about a turnaround in my circumstances. Ideally this would be the removal of O’Hallaran from the vicinity of the house. If, as I have gathered, the tent can be amenable to the desires of its occupant, perhaps it will do as I wish. I know, from O’Hallaran’s own account, that the tent has been ‘playing up’ of late, that it has been making difficulties for him. I flatter myself to think that perhaps, as the tent seems so very receptive to me, it is going through a change of allegiance. At the very least, it will come up with something; of that I am certain.
I open the front flap in authoritative manner, as though I mean business. As though I were unzipping my pants. It is important to let the tent know I am not to be trifled with. There is a black duffle bag lying alongside O’Hallaran’s blanket. He has no sleeping bag, but this nice thick ethnic blanket, of Balkan or Slavic appearance, that I recognise from my previous visit. I rummage through the bag, and immediately find a yellowing photo of Megan as an attractive woman of middle age, in an ostensibly French village square (thereby coinciding with O’Hallaran’s account of first meeting her back in the 1980s) and several photographs of persons unknown, and of O’Hallaran himself in a younger incarnation, with much longer hair, and a clutch of small notebooks, tied together with a plastic band, through which I riffle. The handwriting is atrocious, and the notes are accompanied by a number of childish but entertaining drawings. If indeed the notebooks are his, he has an artistic side.
I replace the items in the duffle bag and attempt to focus my mind on making O’Hallaran go away. I visualise him alone, walking over an Arctic landscape. I imagine him picking his way across snow into the distance, becoming ever smaller, until his figure is a mere pinprick on the blurred horizon. I am then tempted to visualise a scenario in which a polar bear attacks and eats him, but retract the thought, suspecting that the tent may not take me seriously if my fantasies become too extreme. I lie back on the ethnic blanket and imagine diverse scenes in which the solitary figure of O’Hallaran vanishes into oblivion: I picture him disappearing, by turn, into the barren depths of a rocky desert, the yellow dunes of the Sahara, a bleak and cratered moonscape, and finally I have him alone in a small dinghy, way out at sea, the swell around him mounting, his tiny boat dwarfed by massive waves. This last visualisation has a strangely comforting effect and, rather than seeing the figure of O’Hallaran tossed on the crest of distant breakers, it is I myself who am in the boat, relaxed to the point of stupor, being carried to stupendous heights and dropped to abysmal depths at the mercy of the sea’s heave and sway, while remaining entirely without fear. I feel once again the familiar inundation in deep blue, the folding in of sky and sea, my body utterly at the mercy of a great seething marine force, upon which I am carried, gently now, into the deepening folds of the indigo night …
It is Alice who wakes me. She has been looking for me all over, she says. When she could not find me in the library or anywhere else in the house, it occurred to her that I might be in the tent. I try to muster myself, but my body feels bruised and stiff. I crawl outside, and am relieved to find that it is only just past midday. O’Hallaran has not returned, Alice tells me, in answer to my question.
This piece of information does not console me, nor indeed do I register any emotion. I am indifferent to O’Hallaran, in a way that certainly was not the case before going inside the tent. Despite feeling physically knocked about (as though I really have been cast adrift in a storm-tossed dinghy), I know something is different, as though a mist has lifted. I am refreshed by my sleep, but also intellectually re-charged: detached and autonomous, much as I had been before O’Hallaran’s appearance, but more so: I feel more assertive, more confident and, yes, more manly.
Why were you trying to find me? I ask, once I have zipped up the front flap.
Oh, she says … I don’t know. It just felt a bit strange with no one about. By the way, she says, what were you doing in the tent?
Sleeping, I say, evasively. One thing I have learned is that I invariably manage to fall asl
eep in the tent, so I went there for a kip.
Well, she says, I am pleased. I have a feeling you’re going to need your strength, she adds, mysteriously, and she links her arm through mine as we walk back to the house.
22
In the kitchen we are sitting in silence, waiting for the coffee to brew, when there is a knock at the back door, and someone calls out Alice’s name. Alice responds with a greeting, and a woman walks into the kitchen. She is wearing jeans and a white silk blouse, with blonde hair tied back in a loose knot. She has deep brown eyes. Alice hurries to embrace her.
This is Gabrielle, she says.
That was quick, I think, but do not say. The tent didn’t even give me time to have a cup of coffee.
The newcomer greets me enthusiastically, taking my hand between both of hers and kissing me on both cheeks. I pull out a chair, so she is seated between Alice and myself.
