The Blue Tent

by Richard Gwyn

  MLF?

  Marie-Louise von Franz, their teacher or mentor. I thought you knew all this.

  I do, some of it, I say, evasive.

  She looks at me curiously for a moment, but does not continue.

  Last night, I begin, deciding that I might as well clear the air … when we had sex in the tent …

  She interrupts me, gentle, but assertive: Listen, she says … you mustn’t trust what happens inside the tent. I don’t know what you remember, and whether it’s the same as I remember, but you cannot take as reality whatever happens to you inside the tent. I mean, you cannot treat it in the same way as what happens in the world outside.

  What are you saying? Are you saying we didn’t … that what went on between us didn’t happen?

  I’m not saying it didn’t, she says. But within the context of the blue tent, it doesn’t mean it did happen either. Can you understand that?

  Oh, I say. Well, no. Not really.

  But while I did not understand it, I thought I could just about imagine the paradox she was suggesting: that within the tent itself, things could both happen and not happen. I had already felt a hint of how that might be possible, on my previous visits to the tent, because of the tenuous and implausible nature of my experiences within it, the powerful sense of occupying a separate reality. It was as if the tent offered a distinct or parallel version of events. The phrase ‘a dubious textile’ suddenly drops into consciousness, blown there from who knows where …

  26

  Later that afternoon, when I go to the kitchen in search of something to eat, Gabrielle tells me she has spoken with O’Hallaran, and apologised for banging him on the head with a baseball bat. She says that he has accepted her apology, along with her invitation to have the tent back. She then asks me if she can move in with Alice. I reply that she could do better than that: there are at least three other bedrooms, and she is welcome to any one of them. She says that it is kind of me to offer, but that she and Alice are old friends and more than happy to share a room. The bed, she says, is big enough for the two of us. For three even, she adds, deadpan.

  I also manage to track down Alice, who is taking a break from tending to her potted plants, and ask her why – since they had been in touch, and for all I knew had spoken via some phone App – she hadn’t warned Gabrielle about O’Hallaran’s occupation of the blue tent before she arrived at Llys Rhosyn. Alice merely shrugs and says I didn’t think to. It hadn’t been a problem for me when O’Hallaran turned up, so I didn’t think to. To my mind, that sounds a bit suspect. Sometimes Alice’s fecklessness bewilders me, if that’s what it is.

  I watch Gabrielle and O’Hallaran through the kitchen window, as I make myself a sandwich. They are out by the greenhouse, examining the bicycle that Gabrielle was riding earlier in the day. If his body language is anything to go by, O’Hallaran still seems to be slightly wary of her, but that is hardly surprising.

  That evening I venture upstairs for a change of clothes. Through the window of my bedroom I am able to watch Gabrielle pulling a rucksack from the tent with one hand, a baseball bat in the other. Alice trails alongside her, carrying a sleeping bag and a pair of hiking shoes.

  As I had already deduced, all the changes that had come about since Alice first arrived – including her initial appearance in my kitchen – were brought about by some specific action of my own. I had started all this, and somehow invoked Alice, magically rendering her present. The same was true of the others: I had gone inside the tent, and some time later O’Hallaran and Gabrielle had appeared, by turn, and claimed to have arrived with the tent. Every development had been dependent upon me taking action, specifically by my going inside the tent. Perhaps the tent had arrived before any of its occupants, unaccompanied. Who could tell? But every development affirmed, in some way, a direct link with my Aunt Megan, and to Llys Rhosyn itself. It had become clear to me that my own decisive action was all that was required, and rather than watching and waiting, in order to see what might happen now that it was temporarily vacant – awaiting O’Hallaran’s return – I should step inside the tent immediately, and attempt to incite or invoke the next stage or phase.

  I hear the two women come up the stairs and into Alice’s bedroom. They are talking and laughing, bound up in private matters, secrets, little jokes, who knows what. I listen at the door, and hear my own name. I am not surprised at this, but once I have heard what I suspected I would hear – on a subject both scurrilous and arousing – I cannot bring myself to eavesdrop any longer, and set off down the stairs quietly, out through the rose garden, and stand next to the blue tent. I can see Alice’s bedroom window from where I stand, but there is no figure silhouetted there, as mine had been at the window next to it a few minutes earlier, only the clouds reflected from a constipated sky.

  The entrance flap has been left open.

  Once inside, the tent seems to have taken on a slightly weary or ironic aspect since I first saw it pitched there in pristine May sunshine. It almost seems a parody of its former self, but I am sure this idea of the tent’s obsolescence is of my own making, that I am projecting my own emotional fatigue onto a mere length of cloth, a piece of textile.

  Nevertheless, this time it feels different. I turn to zip up the entrance behind me, and can sense the change, and also a certain danger. The blueness is less intense, less all-consuming. It is as if the blue has lost some of that energy, which has been superseded by a more insidious element, or colour, or emotion; more grey than blue, more alien, corrupt, synthetic.

  I do not swoonas I did when I first came into the tent all that time ago, when everything was a sweep of overwhelming blue. But I know the white-streaked greyness that has replaced it represents a transitional state, and as I lie on the floor of the tent, the grey descends in tone towards a deeper substantiality; a spongy volcanic rockiness with the reek of burning, a residue of scorched metal, of materiel incinerated in the aftermath of battle, the abandoned husks of tanks and armoured cars. I know that this is the state to which everything will eventually be reduced, and although I do not know how exactly that will come about, I somehow remember it: young men learn to make war in order to redeem the world. A deep red suffuses the tent and seeps through the grey mist of burning steel.

  A wheezy accordion attempts to play me to sleep, but here I do not or cannot sleep, am alert and hostile, waiting for the tent to take off, fly away, a device that feeds off time like a vulture on a dead dog, whose life is short, the one I saw at the roadside once … where was it now? … and there were distant poplars …

  The tent grows and is a massive dance hall beside a lake, someone says in voiceover 1945 and there is an orchestra playing as the dance hall fills with couples jitterbugging. A young girl, who I recognise as Megan, looks on in confusion as, with a whirr and flapping of wings, a host of water birds, pink flamingos, alight on the lake, then sink into thick black oil … There is a beating of wind on the side of the tent. The voice that said 1945 now says After love all animals are sad … The dance hall fades and I am at a roadside in a barren, windswept landscape. Peace they say and again I stand before my Aunt Megan, the brightly hued bolts of textile spread on the ground before her as she looks down upon a pit containing a huge pile of bones; This was my generation, she says without emotion, the Cold War generation, we embarked on solitary crusades into darkness; and then she leaves and I am alone in the tent, and I hear the same voice as before say First the text and then the textile, and I am alone and lost on a winding path, nearing the end of my journey, poplars at the wayside; Peace they say, and I have no memory of what came before, or of how I came to be in this place …

  Confusingly, the sound of O’Hallaran’s voice replaces that of my dream’s invisible narrator.

  Bejaysus, he says, sounding like a stage Paddy, – you never know who you’re going to find inside the fuckin’ thing. Last time I paid a visit to me own tent some demented harpy attacks me with a crowbar; now the master of the house himself is found having a kip w
ithin.

  I sit up, rudely awakened by this outburst. O’Hallaran’s face, illuminated by a torch he holds, glowers at me ruddily in the entrance to the tent. He has evidently bathed again, and his hair, still wet, is brushed straight back from the forehead. He has trimmed his beard, and looks younger, is fresher-faced, as though he has applied some kind of unguent or moisturiser. In the ghostly light of the torch, despite the impressive bruising around one of them, his eyes appear very blue, as though he were wearing tinted lenses. I surely must have noticed this before. As blue as the tent ever was. His lips are blood-red. He has definitely been a lady’s man in his day, I would venture, oh most definitely. And he is transformed on the inside too; compared with the terrified creature I met in the woodshed, his manner and mood are unrecognisable.

  I break off from these reflections on O’Hallaran’s physical charms and mental state, and fully emerge from my trance, or however I might describe the state into which the tent has sent me.

  Good morning, I say. Or is it?

  After midnight, he says, as the song goes.

  Well, I have had a good rest then, I lie. The tent does that for me, at least. You’ll be wanting it back, as I gather from the intro.

  The woodshed has its pleasures, he says, but they are few and of a basic, hard-arsed nature.

  Rustic, I add.

  Quite so. And you, after all, the owner of a great pile like Llys Rhosyn, hardly need a wigwam too. Tell me, he adds, this isn’t the first time you’ve slept inside the tent, is it?

  No, I say. This is, let me see, my fourth visit. And on every occasion I have slept, after a fashion. Which for me is a luxury in itself.

  He looks pensive. He fiddles with his newly-trimmed moustache.

  So, he says, you visited my tent before I arrived here, if that is possible?

  I did, I reply. And it is.

  O’Hallaran shakes his head, a little sadly. Is he sad because he has discovered that he is not the unique owner – or even tenant – of the tent, or because his existence as the easy-going resident vagabond at Llys Rhosyn has been shattered by Gabrielle’s assault on him the night before?

  Tell me, he says, – what was it like when you first went inside the tent, without any knowledge of its, shall we say … its charms or special properties?

  Very blue, I say. Blue in the extreme. It felt like entering a world of blue.

  And now?

  Now, I muse, half in answer to his question and half in response to my own; now it seems like a place of tumult if not of desolation … but what am I saying, telling you, of all people, of the tent’s capacity for transformation? I’m sorry, I add, if I sound pompous.

  Oh, that is of no concern, says O’Hallaran. Be as pompous as the Pope for all I care. I am still curious about the tent, you see, even after all these years. Around thirty, give or take. It is a most unusual apparatus, the blue tent, what with the different effects it has on people … With me, nowadays, I hardly feel much at all, compared, say, to the early years. Apart from the occasional sadness. But in you, it would seem, the tent has found a perfect conduit. Now why would that be, do you think?

  Well, I say, I haven’t thought about it much.

  Hmm, says O’Hallaran. He appears unconvinced, but I am disinclined to share with him any further thoughts I might have on the topic of the tent.

  Well, I say, you’ll be wanting it back, your tent, at any rate. So I had better leave.

  If you would be so kind, says O’Hallaran, I would then be able to get some decent shut-eye.

  O’Hallaran moves aside, so I can crawl out of the tent. Once I am outside I too stand. A bright, cool night. There is a full moon now, and the stars form a tapestry of jewels. An owl hoots from the wood. I remember Alice, and feel an odd shiver of anticipation, or something else, tinged with a kind of fear … and yet I feel benign towards O’Hallaran, and put my arm around his shoulder.

  That is one hell of a whack Gabrielle gave you, I say.

  Aye, he rubs his forehead above the bruised eye. The girl gave me no time to explain myself, no time at all.

  And he disengages from me, crouches, kneels, and enters the tent.

  27

  Back in the library, I am wide awake, and I re-read the poem I discovered on the rug the night before. I try to make sense of it in relation to the message left for me, long ago, by Megan. One book opens the other …

  Every book might lead to another, and every text might be replicated in cloth or textile. I am beginning to think the tent is the textual repository of the entire library. The book of theory, perhaps. But I have also been reminded, by my tryst with Gabrielle, of another texture, that of the flesh. And there is a new element, which I can trace to the moment I left the blue tent on this last occasion: there are string quartets playing in my head. The music came in snatches at first, but now is almost continuous.

  Shortly before four in the morning the door opens and Alice steps into the library. At first I think she is sleepwalking; her step is unsteady, her gaze unfocused. Did she leave her own bed while still asleep? Does she awaken at the same time every night, and set off downstairs to the library in a semi-conscious state, only realising where she is when she arrives at the threshold of the library? Whatever the case, she seems to recognise me of a sudden – having been inside the library for a full ten seconds – and she smiles. But the delay in this moment of recognition strikes me as strange. It makes me think, absurd though the notion is – that perhaps I am only partially visible, or else that I am visible only some of the time. Or else Alice herself is not entirely present. Why did she not greet me from the doorway? Is it because she is not truly there, or is it because she cannot always see me?

  I must not think like this. She sees me, of course she sees me. I may be an insomniac, with string quartets playing in my head, but I am not a ghost, not a phantom spirit.

  Hullo, she says. I didn’t see you there, for a minute. A trick of the light.

  The pyjamas are not part of the agenda tonight. Instead she is wearing a pale blue shirt, a man’s shirt – which I recognise as my own, borrowed from my bedroom, no doubt.

  She approaches and slides onto the rug in front of the fireplace, adopting her usual cross-legged pose.

  I saw you go inside the tent, she says, after a long while.

  You did?

  Yes, she says. I was in your room. Peeping from behind the curtain.

  Oh. Why did you go into my room?

  I wanted to borrow a shirt. And to see if you had any nice ties, she says.

  And did you find any?

  No, she says, I was disappointed.

  There is a long silence. I know that this is not the only occasion she has been through my stuff, ransacked my bedroom – before hastily restoring it to a semblance of its former state – in a search that seemed inspired by a far more powerful motive than the mere quest for a tie, or any other such article.

  I reflect on her last response, and the nature of her disappointment, before conjuring my next question. But Alice beats me to it, catching me off guard:

  How did you enjoy Gabrielle’s thighs? she says. In the tent. Last night.

  Delay would be disastrous, but I have no ready answer to this question.

  I didn’t, I say.

  Oh, she says. That’s not what Gabrielle says. She says, and I quote, minus the cute accent, that you ‘fucked her brains out’.

  O Lord, I say. I never did. She’s lying.

  I may as well deny it, especially as Gabrielle has told me that what happens inside the tent hasn’t necessarily taken place in reality; and besides – I think, but do not say – that during the act of coitus Gabrielle was on top, so who, technically speaking, fucked whom?

  Now, why would she do that? says Alice. Why would Gabrielle lie to me?

  God knows. To make you jealous?

  Do I seem jealous?

  I look at her.

  No, I say.

  Quite, she says. What’s a fuck between friends?


  I ask myself: does Gabrielle qualify as a ‘friend’ on the first day I meet her? Or is Alice referring to the friendship between Gabrielle and herself? Is my fucking of, or being fucked by Gabrielle mediated in some way by her pre-existing friendship with Alice? Am I missing something?

  So? she says, with an upward intonation that suggests it is my turn to provide further detail.

  So? What do you mean? So nothing. So I didn’t fuck her. I mean, not exactly. Would you prefer it if I had? Is that what you two were nattering about on the stairs, when you moved her stuff into your room?

  Is that what we women do, natter?

  On this occasion, yes, natter seems an apposite verb. You and your friend were discussing your sexual preferences in an informal fashion, and I happened to overhear.

  There is again a long pause and, as I seem to remember happening once before, I hear sounds that I cannot reasonably be hearing: the scratching of a mole beneath the soil on the back lawn; the dew forming on the grass outside my window … Perhaps I am going insane.

  We are here for your own good, you know, she says. You don’t realise how lucky you are. You should appreciate it.

  And springing to her feet, she crosses the library floor with a sprightly step, offering no valediction as she closes the door behind her. Seconds later I hear the patter of her feet on the floor above. There is the sound of voices, and of laughter, and a cold wave of uncertainty washes over me.

  28

  The string quartets in my head have become a permanent feature now, and although the music is fluent and flawless – reminiscent at times of Beethoven’s final works – I do not, on the whole, consider this development to be a good thing. For the past few days it has been a more or less continuous performance. I mention it to Alice, and she simply says ‘lucky you’, which kind of misses the point. In my desperation for sleep – and to somehow muffle the string quartets; to quell some of the more frantic movements, if not banish them entirely – I have taken a generous helping of sleeping pills on a couple of occasions, but these barely scratch the surface, and the music plays on. My thinking has become more erratic and I am prone to long periods of staring into the middle distance.