a rational man

by J S Hollis

  She began to let her moral mask slip. On 10 December 2035, her alarm woke her at 7.00 a.m. She stayed beneath her duvet for a few minutes, reluctant to take the four metre walk from the warm bed to the shower. From beneath the duvet, she said, “Heating on.”

  A female voice responded, “Are you sure?”

  “OK, leave it off. Just put the shower on.”

  A few moments later, the voice announced, “It’s ready.”

  Clara scurried to the shower and got in. She scrubbed herself fiercely, leaving her hair dry, and after three minutes, the voice spoke again. “Shower ending.” She stood under the water until it cut out and then shivered into a dry but cold towel.

  After getting dressed, she went into the kitchen and made herself a bowl of porridge. She tried to savour every bite but she was struggling to finish it so she put the remainder in a container. Her SpeX told her to make a couscous salad for lunch but warned her not to buy the same couscous brand in the future, in light of a recent scandal involving unequal treatment of men and women on the relevant wheat farm.

  Although rain threatened, she decided to walk to work so that she didn’t have to listen to a lecture on the Tube’s carbon footprint. On the way, she bumped into an old school friend.

  “God, I haven’t see you in years,” Clara said. “You’re working in advertising now? How is it?”

  “Yeh, it’s great. Mining W for information. Trying to get people to wear adverts. The opps for design are endless. And you, you’re at the Green Party, right? Such a radical.”

  “Yeh, that’s where I am currently.”

  “Are you planning on moving?”

  “No, not now, but I want to get back into my art.”

  “Great, you were really good.”

  “Huh, I can’t believe you remember that.”

  “Well, I don’t in truth, but we always thought of you as an artist.”

  “Oh, thanks. Maybe one day I will be. Good to see you. We should catch up sometime.”

  When Clara got back to the flat that evening, she took out a pencil and pad and began to sketch an eye. Once she had done the pupil, she got up, pulled a canvas out from the back of a cupboard and dabbed at it with acrylics. Cecil found her an hour later, head in hands above a blob.

  “That’s cool,” he said. “Is it meant to be something?”

  “I don’t know. There are no thoughts coming out of my head.”

  “Just paint that then.”

  “I’ve forgotten how to be creative.”

  “What are you talking about?” He ran his thumb along the top of her spine. “What about your job? You are creative every day.”

  “That doesn’t count.”

  Cecil picked up the sketch of the pupil. “What about this? It’s brilliant.”

  She had to admit it wasn’t bad and she did enjoy drawing eyes – there was something otherworldly about them. The nebula of the iris, the infinite depth of the pupil and, behind it all, an optic nerve grabbing on like the mutated hand of God.

  Later that week, Cecil came home to find the flat matted in paintings of eyes. Clara was balled up on the sofa.

  “Hi,” Cecil said.

  “Hi,” Clara responded rather less emphatically.

  “Is everything OK?”

  “Sort of.”

  Cecil crawled in next to her and put his arm around her shape.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I can’t even use acrylics.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean acrylics. I’ve got twenty-five people messaging me about how I just poisoned some fish by washing my brushes. Acrylics!”

  “Can’t you use something else?”

  Clara’s face emerged from the ball. “Of course I can use something else but where does it effing end? Am I going to have to start painting in my own faeces?”

  “I know it’s hard but I’m proud of you for caring.”

  “I hate myself for caring.”

  Despite Clara’s uncertainty and creeping paranoia, it would be wrong to think she was unhappy. She liked the independence of having a job and having the time to enjoy the proceeds of her income. She had little to worry about except her career path, and Cecil provided reassuring stability.

  Cecil had it all figured out. The job he wanted, the partner he wanted, the life he wanted. And so perhaps it is unsurprising that he revealed the true extent of his conservatism prematurely.

  The release came a few weeks after Clara had started sketching again. They had cycled up to the coast to test Future Fibres new cycle wear and arrived, panting, at a delicate rental house overlooking the beach. The darkening afternoon sky and plunging winds had quickened their pace. As soon as they entered the house, the grey veil casting a shadow over the sea hit the pebbles, and commenced a billion tiny roaring echoes. They pushed their goggles against the window and stared as the sea swelled and bubbled like tar.

  “Looks like God is on our side today,” she said. “It’s smashing it down! We would have been washed away.”

  “Would have really tested these though.” Cecil pulled the fabric away from his torso and then let it spring back against him.

  “You’re welcome to go back outside but I think I’ll stay here,” Clara said, beginning to unpeel her skinsuit.

  Whether it was exhilaration at the divine luck that had held off the storm or the continuing flow of energy from the cycle, the naked bodies beneath the skinsuits were instantly in a rough embrace. Neither body seemed interested in foreplay and after a minimal amount of kissing and stroking and holding, they were each on their sides, face to face and yoked together. Then, sheltered by the storm, maddened by the briny air and complacent in the simplicity of youth, Cecil allowed his mask to fall off. He pushed himself up above Clara with creamy freckled arms and gently encouraged her left shoulder down so that she was facing the pillow. He grasped the sides of her small buttocks and dominated her from behind, in the depraved way of our ancestors. Clara screamed in misguided pleasure when Cecil finally fell on top of her with a single grunt.

  After the intercourse, Clara put her head on Cecil’s chest. When he was sure she was asleep, he reached out for his SpeX, which were hanging out of his discarded skinsuit. He seemed worried. Perhaps he suspected something was wrong. When he had the SpeX on, he saw that fourteen messages were waiting for him. He opened them up and they flashed across his eyeline. Each one expressed shock that Cecil had acted in such a savage and inhumane way. Jennifer, one of Cecil’s colleagues, simply wrote: “not you cecil :(”. Cecil was a victim of his own standards. Sylvio could sleep with any woman, in any way he and she wanted, with limited comment from his friends. But he made no pretence at morality and he had experienced the consequences. Cecil, on the other hand, regularly chastised strangers for leering – politely, of course.

  Cecil knew what he had to do to protect his reputation. Without consulting Clara or even waking her, he published a public apology: “I am so sorry for disappointing you all and for my completely inappropriate and immoral action. I do not know what came over me. I know that I cannot make it up to you now but I hope my future efforts indicate how strongly I believe in the equality of the sexes and how I am opposed to any expression of dominance of one sex over another. I hope you can accept my apology but understand if you are unable to.”

  This message seemed to work. The critical comments were replaced with acknowledgements that we all make mistakes. Although some people were still unimpressed that Cecil hadn’t taken his indiscretion seriously enough to get out of bed. When Clara woke up, Cecil brushed back her hair and said, “I am so sorry for what happened.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked in a soft voice that was still partially dwelling in a dream.

  “I was inappropriately aggressive before and I’m sorry,” he said again.

  “Don’t worry,
I enjoyed it,” Clara said still not really grasping the importance of Cecil’s apology or its performance.

  “I don’t believe men should act like that and it seems quite a few people are upset with me.”

  “Don’t worry about people.”

  “Well, I apologised to them too,” Cecil announced with a bit more bravado, realising perhaps that Clara was not going to be happy with this decision.

  “Oh, you did, did you?” Clara was now awake and sitting up. Carelessly nude.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Why did you apologise? You did nothing wrong. It was probably the best sex we’ve have ever had.”

  “I really don’t think that is an excuse. I degraded you.”

  “Are you mad? This is ridiculous. We don’t have to explain everything we do in our relationship. You are more concerned with public opinion than making love to your girlfriend.”

  “You know that’s not true. I just happen to think they are right.”

  “It is true.” Clara got out of the bed, leaving Cecil clambering to touch her. “You want to be the perfect modern man. Well, I don’t want to be a good woman or a good wife or a great artist. All these silly labels make me wanna be sick. I just want to have sex and not worry about it.”

  “Clara, look at me.”

  She looked out at the rain.

  “I understand, but we all have our identities, whether we want them or not, and, if we don’t live up to them, society will swat you aside. That’s just life.”

  Clara breathed in deeply. Perhaps hoping the air would hold the blood back as it tried to rush to her brain. But it was pushed aside and she shook her pulsing head.

  “That’s not life. I can’t put up with this anymore.”

  She pulled some clothes out of her backpack, put them on and walked out into the rain. Cecil ran to the door and saw she was already soaked.

  “Where are you going?” he shouted.

  “Don’t you dare follow me, Cecil. There’s a hotel down the road, I’ll check in there.”

  “What should I do with your bike?”

  Clara didn’t turn around.

  Cecil closed the door and went to sit on the sofa. He was still naked. “Faa!” he shouted. “Fa, fa, fa, fa, fa! Sorry, I just had to say that!”

  Clara’s sudden departure was a reminder to Cecil that he only ever held some of the puppet strings.

  Within days, Clara had handed in her notice, left England and enrolled at a Vipassana retreat in Gujarat. Cecil watched her all the way. He had tried to talk to her the next morning and there were a couple of days of silent orbiting in London, shot with the odd pleasantry. When Clara agreed to have a cup of tea, Cecil saw it as an auspicious sign, but his hope soon vanished like a shooting star. Aside from these random shimmers, Clara maintained the poise and silence of an Easter Island head. The taxonomy had shifted abruptly. A single expression of dominance by Cecil had sparked a resistance, leaving him desperate to win Clara back. He was back to the Cecil of whirling. For all his size, pathetic. A fairytale giant. The years of stability he had presided over seemed as remote as the Milky Way.

  When Cecil wasn’t looking at flights to Ahmedabad and hovering within a word or flick from purchasing them, he watched Clara meditate. He was frustrated that he had no access to her thoughts except through her expressionless face. “Did this mean something in itself?” he wondered. She knew he would be watching, so even her silence harboured some meaning.

  By day five of Clara’s meditation, in his desperation Cecil sought the counsel of Emma, his mother. He was meeting up with her for her birthday anyway and he couldn’t deprive her of her most coveted gift – the opportunity to be maternal. After her initial scepticism about Cecil’s relationship, Emma had become quite fond of Clara. In Clara, Emma had found a sparring partner for her rants about the problems with the world. Both of them appreciated a break from the forensic analysis employed by Cecil and his father, Kingsley. They wanted to believe things without having to provide supporting evidence in the form of anecdote, figures or logical summation. They wanted to disagree for the sake of disagreeing.

  Despite her fondness for Clara, Emma’s support for Cecil was unwavering, and continues to be to this day. “The only thing I know about motherhood is this,” she recently said. “You should treat your children like a football team. While being critical, I don’t mean boo them, supporting them whatever happens. They are always your team. It is not a matter of choice.” So when Emma met Cecil outside the Church of St John at Hackney after Morning Prayer, she immediately raised her arms their full length, levering his head into her neck.

  “Sorry, darling,” she whispered as he held him against her. Cecil stood up and Emma said, “You look terrible – I can’t bear it.”

  “Thanks. Just the thing to cheer me up.”

  The casual observer would not have noticed any difference in Cecil. He retained the solemn pallor of a Van Eyck portrait. But Emma saw much more than this, like an art collector sensing a forgery through the curse of her experience. We can only guess at what Emma saw. A slight slump in Cecil’s normally perpendicular stance? His eyelids falling into unusually deep parabolas? We must accept her expertise. Cecil was suffering in mind and body.

  They began to walk around the corner towards Tea Total, a herbal tea specialist on a rooftop overlooking the church’s vegetable gardens.

  “Why did you come all the way down here for a service? No good churches in Wood Green?” Cecil asked.

  “Oh, you know, I like to mix it up,” Emma responded.

  “Nothing to do with the good looking rector?” Cecil asked.

  “Don’t be silly.”25

  They climbed the stairs to the teashop and took a couple of seats at the corner of the roof. “So what are you going to do about Clara?” Emma asked, pushing the menu to the side.

  “Well I have narrowed it down to two options. Option one is to fly to India, wait for her to finish the meditation and then apologise to her. This option has the positives of being romantic, impulsive and, not least, giving me the feeling of doing something. The negatives are that by considering it incessantly, it is no longer that impulsive and there is a high probability that Clara will be apoplectic at my selfish need to ruin her escape. Option two is to wait for her to return. The only positive is that it may be less damaging than option one. The particular negative is that I don’t know how long Clara will be away for.”

  “Seems like you already know what you have to do. You just don’t want to do it.”

  “Do you think she will take me back?”

  “She’d be mad not to,” said Emma. She reached out and held her hand against Cecil’s pentagonal face.

  “You’re biased,” said Cecil, who was turning a slight pink, like the first dollops of Technicolor.

  “Who isn’t?” Emma pulled back her hand, looked around her at the empty roof and took out an egrette.

  With Clara’s absence, a fog descended onto Cecil’s path. He could see no further than her. He functioned but his work lacked enthusiasm and his politics became repetitive and uninspiring. He was passed over for editor of Generation G, the official technology publication of the Green movement. He cancelled meetings with his mentees. And his rigorous adherence to the advice of his ExerGo consultant26 began to wane.

  For three months Clara said barely a word to anyone, and even when she broke the silence it was only for polite conversation. Each day she practised Vipassana. She ate and meditated. Her tutor suggested she take a break but she ignored him.

  Cecil watched her relentless pursuit of nothing with the attentive passivity of a husband whose wife has entered a coma. Sometimes he would even talk to her. He felt like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, certain something had happened and constantly watching for a clue. But there were no clues. He could see her constantly but yet he could only go round in circles interpret
ing her inaction. She provided him with nothing but her image. Knowingly or not, she was previewing the ultimate consequences of Cecil’s aspirations for her. His aspirations for everybody. An image of perfection. Never straying. Only consuming what was necessary. Living in the moment.

  Cecil defended Clara’s (in)action in front of others. He was watching her during his lunch break, when he received a message from her father, asking, “Do you have any idea when my daughter will be returning to this world?”

  Cecil put down his salad. “Sorry, Leo,” he wrote, “I don’t know.” He had forgotten that other people might be hurt by her absence.

  “Hope you’re satisfied. You’ve driven her to madness with your perversion.”

  “You know I’m devastated but she hasn’t gone mad. If I didn’t miss her so much, I would be impressed by her willpower.”

  “She’s just running away.”

  “Quite the opposite. She is finding herself.” The messages stopped and Cecil finished his meal.

  Later, when midnight had long passed, Cecil’s body turned with his whirring mind. He sought comfort by varying pillow structures and the mould of the duvet but the renewed cool of the fabric dissipated quickly, leaving him caked in his own warmth. He tried reading. A couple of pages of Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot27 and he dozed off. But moments later he awoke with the wide eyes of a disturbed urban fox. Realising that Clara would be getting up, he watched her briefly. Her stoic face appeared, already in meditation and basking in the warm tangerine light of the rising sun. The serenity of her face and its peaceful and lush green surroundings stirred Cecil. “Come on, Clara,” he shouted. “Give me something. Anything. This is ridiculous.” He turned off the screen and shoved his face into a pillow with the ferocity of a child trying to plunge into Narnia.

  Cecil didn’t watch Clara for days after his outburst. He worked late, conducted personal research into changing fibre colours with electric currents, took long runs in spite of his training programme and met with friends. He used W as infrequently as possible. Something drew him back to her though. An uncertainty. The hope that her folly had ended. The fear that nothing had changed or that she was doing something else. Was with someone else. Knowing she had never broken up with him.