Childhood, Roche thought: it was odd here how people spoke about their childhoods, as of a period only just discovered and understood. But Meredith had never spoken like this before, and Roche wondered whether Meredith knew how much he was revealing of himself.
Harry said, “I can’t believe that, Meredith.”
“And it wasn’t even what we call a grocery,” Meredith said. “A grocery was something else. Nice concrete blocks, solid, properly built, with a proper sign.”
Harry said, “You can sell liquor in a grocery.”
“The Leung shop was just a little shack, with a rusty galvanized roof and a broken-up floor and crooked walls coming down to the pavement. But it took me a long time to see it for what it was. I don’t believe I saw that place as it was until I came back from England. We’re all born as blind as kittens in this place. All of us. We can see nothing, and we remain like that even when we are educated, even when we go abroad. Look at me, working for the BBC and going to that house in Wimbledon with the tape recorder on my shoulder, and not understanding anything about the house or the woman. Just seeing a white woman and a half-Chinese man in a big house. It can take a long time to start seeing. And then you can see and see and see. You can go on seeing, but you must stop. You can start forgetting what you felt when you were a child. You can start forgetting who you are. If you see too much, you can end up living by yourself in a house on a hill. That was beginning to happen to me.”
“I never thought that was true about you, Merry,” Harry said. “Everything you said made a lot of sense to me. But if a man like you start talking like this, then this place has no future.”
“You were never blind, Harry,” Meredith said. “The one man in the country.”
“If you think we should all start jigging up to the reggae, not me, eh. If I had my way I would ban music here.”
“What do you mean by the future? What do you want? Different people want different things. Jane doesn’t want what you want. If you had one wish, Jane, what would you ask for? Shall we play that game?”
From the beach there came the sound of chatter again, and they all listened: the group returning, walking as briskly, their voices more animated now, and one voice—hard to tell whether it belonged to a man or woman—breaking into a shriek of laughter just below the house.
Harry said, “Joseph will be wanting to go and have his dip. You are staying for lunch, Merry?”
“No, man. Pamela.”
Jane said, “Let’s play the game. Ask me my one wish.”
Meredith said, “Tell us.”
Jane said, “I want lots and lots of money.”
Meredith said, “I thought you would say that.”
“You took the words out of my mouth,” Roche said. “You never miss an occasion, my dear.”
Meredith said, “Harry?”
“Occasion?” Jane said.
“To tell us how privileged you think you are,” Roche said.
Harry said, “My one wish? Well, Merry-boy, I think a lot about this one. And I suppose the truthful answer is that I want nothing. At the moment all I want is to get Marie-Thérèse back.”
Meredith said, “You mean you want to be in a position where you want nothing?”
“Merry, you putting words in my mouth. I know what you driving at. No, man, I mean nothing. I don’t want to want anything.”
Roche said, “You want to be a vegetable.”
“You can put it like that.”
Jane said, “How horrible.”
“What a restless man you are, Harry,” Meredith said. “You’ve given yourself away completely. Peter?”
Roche said, lingering over each word, “I would like to have the most enormous sexual powers.”
Jane, blowing out cigarette smoke in her ugly way, through wet lips, said, “That would solve nothing.”
Meredith smiled. “But it would be a lot of fun.”
“We can’t get away from the subject today,” Harry said.
Roche said, “And you, Meredith?”
Meredith continued to smile at Jane. Then his expression became serious. He raised his head slightly, so that again the great gap between his everted nostrils and his mouth was noticeable. He paused; he was creating a silence, as though to frame a prepared statement. He said, “I would like to express myself fully.” And for a while he held his head in the same raised position, and the expression on his face, of the bullied schoolboy, remained unchanged. So that, black, and the only one among them sitting upright, he seemed central and solitary on the porch, distinct in the light, sitting on the thin striped cushion of the low stool. At last he relaxed and began to smile again.
Harry said, “But you’re cheating, man, Merry. You ask us to say one thing. And you say four or five things. It’s as though you ask a guy to tell you in one word what he want, and he say ‘Everything.’ ”
“I don’t think I’m cheating. I would say I’m asking for less than you. When I am about to die I want to feel that I have lived. I can even put it negatively. I don’t want to feel that I’ve been denied life.” He spoke with seriousness, making no attempt to match Harry’s jovial tone. And again he seemed to be sitting on the porch as on a stage, against the white sky and dazzling sea.
Jane said, “This is getting creepy.”
“You think so?” Meredith said. “The really creepy thing about people is how little they expect of themselves. Or for themselves. That is the creepy thing.”
Roche said, “Human ambition is limitless.”
“But capacity is restricted,” Meredith said. “We can prove that right now, the four of us. Do we have time?”
Jane said, “Is it another game?”
Harry sat up in his hammock. He was wheezing; the flesh around his sunken eyes looked bruised. He said, and his chest sang through his words, “Joseph is getting a little cantankerous.”
Jane said, “Let’s play the game.”
Harry got out of the hammock and moved toward the living room. “You people just hearing pots and pans in the background. And you think Joseph is just doing his stuff. But with Joseph I am like a mother with a baby. I know the meaning of every noise he make. And I’m telling you: Joseph is getting damn mad.”
Meredith said, “When you come out, Harry, bring a pencil and paper.”
Harry sucked his teeth and went inside. A wheezy whisper was followed by muffled bass noises. Pots and pans banged. And when Harry came out again, with a pencil and a “Don’t Forget” pad, he was wheezing hard.
Meredith took the pad and began to write. He said, “I am writing down the answer you will all give to a question I’m going to put to you.”
Jane said, “That doesn’t sound much of a game, if we’re all going to give the same answer.”
“You mustn’t anticipate, Jane.” Meredith stopped writing and put the pad face down on the terrazzo floor. “I am not asking for one word or one sentence. In fact, I want you to be as imaginative as possible.”
“If this one has a catch,” Harry said, “I don’t want to play.”
“There is no catch,” Meredith said. “You have everything you want. Right? Everything, anything. It’s all been granted. All I want to know is how you spend a full day. A working day, if you’re still working. I want it in detail. You can create any personality for yourself. But you mustn’t duck the question. I don’t want a catalogue of the things you own or your talents or your achievements. I want to see you living with all your blessings through twenty-four hours. Just remember this, though: If you’re the world’s greatest painter, you will be spending a lot of time painting.”
Jane said, “But I can’t answer just like that. I will have to think about it.”
“That’s a good answer,” Meredith said. “I think it proves my point.”
“And then I don’t know whether I want to tell you about my perfect day.’
“Who was talking about a perfect day? That’s a woman’s reaction. But all right, Jane. You’ve dropped out.”
> Roche said, “That doesn’t mean that her expectations aren’t great.”
“It means they are very vague. And the whole point of the exercise is that you’ve got not to be vague. I didn’t want to say this before, but this isn’t a game that women can play. Their expectations have to do with somebody else. Like that perfect day we aren’t going to hear about. A woman can’t visualize too well because she has too many possibilities. She can be anything. Anything can happen to her. But it’s out of her hands. It all depends on this man who’s going to find her. That’s a terrible thing, if you think about it. I often think that if I were a woman I would be very frightened.”
Roche said, with a faint smile at Jane, “Jane doesn’t look very frightened.”
She said brusquely, “I’ve dropped out.”
“Harry doesn’t want time to think,” Meredith said. “Start, Harry. Let’s see you getting up in the morning. Lovely bedroom, fabulous view, fabulous house.”
“Well, yes. I will take a little honey, and then I suppose I will do my yoga.”
Meredith said, “You don’t have asthma. You’ve got rid of that.”
“I will still take the honey. And I will still do the yoga.”
“Excellent.”
“Then a little walk around the garden, I suppose. And I’m not looking at sand and sticks. No drought.”
“Fantastic garden,” Meredith said. “But where’s this house? In what country?”
“I love this country. But you know the situation.”
“There is total stability wherever you are. You have absolute security.”
“I have to think of the children. They’re more ambitious than me. I think it will have to be in Toronto. Well, after breakfast, nuh, with a little honey, I go to the office.”
“Fabulous business,” Meredith said.
“No, nothing too big. No fun in running something that get too big and you can’t feel it. I get to the office before anybody else. I find it cool and quiet and clean. I love being in a clean office first thing in the morning. Nobody around you, nobody talking, your desk empty. That’s when I do my thinking, in that first half hour. All kinds of fantastic ideas come to me. I see how I have to play this and play that, and I feel in control. Then the guys start coming in, the letters come up, and work starts. In the middle of the morning the guys come in with some problem that is driving them frantic. Well, I listen to them and I go through the papers and I straightaway see how you have to play the thing. I say so-so-so-so. And the guys fall back in amazement. And they know why I am the boss. Well, lunchtime, nuh. Nothing too elaborate. You know me. As soon as I eat or drink too much I start choking.”
“This is excellent, Harry,” Meredith said. He got up and passed the pad on which he had written to Jane.
“I’m forgetting,” Harry said. “There is no music anywhere. I am not hearing music anywhere. In the afternoon I dictate half a dozen magnificent letters. I’ve been turning them over in my head all day, and at three o’clock I call the girl in and I’m ready to go. And that’s it. Eight or nine problems. All settled, and I feel I can look forward to developments. I’m planning years ahead, you know. At four o’clock I’m feeling damn good. And everything I do now is like a reward.”
Jane read what Meredith had written and began to laugh.
Harry said, “Am I saying something funny?”
She said, “No, no. Go on, Harry. Do go on.”
“In the evening I go back home and walk around the garden and do a little yoga and splash about in the pool. Then I shower and put on clean clothes. I love clean cotton. And then some lovely friends come for dinner. And then we end up in the bar.”
“And that’s it?” Meredith said.
“I suppose so.”
Jane said, “Meredith is right.”
She took the pad back to Meredith, and he passed it to Roche.
Roche read: The life being described is the life the speaker lives or a life he has already lived. The setting may change, but no one will make a fresh start or do anything new.
Harry got out of the hammock and said, “Let me see, Peter.”
They all stood up. The sun was slicing across one corner of the porch. The light was hard; the parched lawn was beginning to reflect heat.
Roche said, “I suppose that’s true of me too. I was changing the setting. So I wouldn’t feel I had to do anything about anything.”
“Release,” Meredith said, and at that moment was like a friend again. “That would be lovely. Just to be oneself. That’s how I see it too.”
Roche said, “I was trying to see myself in this new setting as a successful lawyer. I feel like you. The law engages the whole personality. Scholarship, memory, judgment, knowledge of men—”
Jane said, “But you didn’t mention Marie-Thérèse, Harry.”
“I thought about it, but somehow I didn’t want to.”
Meredith said, “Don’t believe him. He wasn’t sure. But that’s standard. Men who play this game seldom mention sex. The man who has everything takes that for granted. Cruel but true.” He was standing beside Jane. She was as tall as he. He began to rise and fall on his toes, began again to swing his arms, slapping the matchbox against the cigarette pack. He said, “But we might talk more about this, Peter. On the radio. I’ve had you on my Encounter list for a long time. As a matter of fact, it’s what I wanted to see you about. You should have been on the program a long time ago. But I wanted to let you settle down. I don’t think there’s any point in asking a man who’s just arrived what he thinks about the place.”
Roche said, “Now that I know, I’m relieved. But I suppose I’ll have to ask Sablich’s.”
Meredith said, “They’ll give you a bonus. It’ll be very nice for them. The format’s quite simple. We’ll record for an hour and cut it down to twenty-five minutes. Roughly what we’ve been talking about. Something offbeat. Nothing about our beaches and our wonderful hospitality or the way we look after our old people. I’ll telephone you next week.”
He rose on his toes, small, solid, bowed to Jane, said, “Jane,” and then, arms swinging, matchbox striking cigarette pack, he walked with his springy step through the dark living room, acting his exit as he had acted his entrance, saying loudly, in a local accent, “But, Harry, where Joseph? Joseph gone? Take care he don’t leave you too, eh, Harry.”
The car door slammed. The engine started.
Harry said, “Well, all right, man, Merry. Nice of you to come over. Love to Pamela, eh. And tell her the boycott over. Well, right, man.”
The car moved away, and Harry came back into the living room, wheezing, looking very tired.
Joseph had gone down to the beach. But he had laid the table in the alcove at the far end of the living room and had put out the food on the ledge of the wide kitchen hatch.
Harry said, “Well, sit down, nuh.”
His tone was the jocular tone he had used seeing Meredith off. But his voice had grown hoarse. All at once he closed his eyes, held up quivering hands, and said, “I feel like screaming. I feel I should go out somewhere and cut my throat.”
Roche said, “Count ten, Harry.”
And while Jane squeezed in between the bench and the table in the alcove, Harry put his hands on his hips, lifted his head and began to take short, noisy breaths. When, eventually, the spasm was controlled, and they were all seated, he said, “That man draws something from me these days. It isn’t so much what he says. It’s a kind of feeling he gives off. When you look at his face and that little smile you feel: Oh my God, what’s the use, why do anything. And you want to push your hand through a glass window. And he always ends up looking so damn happy. That gets me so mad, man.”
Jane said, “I can’t get over his looks. He mesmerizes me. When he was sitting down on that low chair I thought he looked like a wistful little frog.”
Roche said, “That probably explains a lot.”
“He was aggressive today, man,” Harry said. “I’m sorry, Jane. I’m very sorry. B
ut I’ve never heard Meredith use language like that before in company.”
Jane said, “I scarcely hear what he’s saying. I just sit and admire.”
Harry said, “Somebody’s given him a sniff of power. You notice he didn’t say too much about his perfect day? I was waiting to hear whether he was prime minister. But he didn’t mention politics at all.”
Roche said, “I can understand that.”
“No, man,” Harry said. “He wants power. Or what he thinks is power. I’ve been hearing stories. And he is a damn fool. They will chew him up again. And this time he will really mash up his life. I don’t know how he thinks he can go down to the beach and talk to those people. They don’t want to hear anyone like Meredith.”
Roche said, “That’s why he’s so worried. He knows he will be chewed up.”
“I don’t know how a man can change so much,” Harry said. “Jane, you wouldn’t believe what fun it used to be with Meredith. Terrible things would happen in this place, and then you would hear Meredith talk and he would put everything in place for you and your mind would be settled. You would feel that with people like that things couldn’t be so bad. But look today. You know, I’ve never heard Meredith talk so much about Jimmy Ahmed. To Meredith the man was a joke. Today he talk as though he want to kill the guy.”
“He’s jealous of that woman in Wimbledon,” Jane said. “I suppose he wants us to look in his eyes too and understand the meaning of hate.”
Guerrillas Page 15
