Hopeful Monsters (11 page)

That summer it was as if there were some blockage inside me: there was an ache in my groin, stomach, heart; it shot up into my head. Well, what do adolescent boys do about sex? Oh we have been liberated from ghostly fears about masturbation, have we not! But how dispiriting can be this lack of haunting. Which is worse, to suffer from a lack of spirit or of sex?

It was as if I were one of those primitive organisms in which food and waste-matter go in and out of the same hole: nourishment and shit become confused; this seemed to be happening in my head. What I required, I felt, was one of those rods that plumbers use to unblock drains; you push it up, give it a few twists and tugs, then out comes all the slime and shit.

I thought - So indeed what is wrong! This is pleasure. Get it out, get it out.

There was a beam, and the half-broken chairs, and bits of old rope in the boathouse. I thought I might stand on a chair and put a bit of rope round my neck. Then, if I gave it a jerk, some blood and energy might be freed: machinery might start up again, like that of an outboard motor.

Once the chair broke - then the rope. I thought - I am ill: I am mad! Call this a quantum jump: for life, for death. Then - This is ridiculous.

I sat cross-legged on the floor and hoped - Cannot a bird like a

woodpecker come down and make holes in my skull, my brain, through which messages might flow or, in a wind, make music.

Once when I got back from one of these trips to the boathouse I found my mother sitting on a chair in the hall staring straight in front of her. She had just come back from London. I thought - She has been, do you think, in whatever might be her form of boathouse -

She said 'Good heavens, what's happened to you!'

I said 'I fell through the floor of a boathouse.'

She said The things you do!'

I said 'I was collecting food for my salamanders.'

I did notice now that my mother was sad. But children have little capacity for bearing in mind that their parents are sad.

Then there was an evening when my father came back from Cambridge and he had been opening his letters in the hall and he was a long time reading one letter and he was looking up to the door of the drawing-room as if he were waiting for my mother to emerge. (I wondered - Had he noticed that she was sad?) But then when she did appear, he just said 'Your friend Kammerer has been caught cheating.'

She said 'My friend Kammerer?'

He said 'He's been caught faking the evidence.'

My mother said 'You do really hate people, don't you.' Then she began to go up towards her room.

My father called after her 'Yes, I do dislike people who don't tell the truth!'

My mother stopped on the top step of the stairs and said 'What do you know about truth!' Then she shut herself in her room.

I thought - But could it in fact be Dr Kammerer that my mother has been seeing in London?

What had been happening about Kammerer was, I found out later, both from my father and from press-cuttings in his study -

In the course of experiments with another species of animal called the Midwife Toad, Kammerer had claimed that he had created circumstances in which toads had demonstrably inherited acquired characteristics. First he had induced these toads which normally mate on dry land to mate in water, which other toads do; and in the course of time they had acquired 'nuptial pads' similar to those of other toads - pads on the palms and fingers of the male by which he clings to the body of the female under the water. Then after several generations Kammerer found, or so he claimed, that these pads

acquired by his male toads had become a feature transmitted by heredity.

Now some time later, as a result of examination by so-called 'disinterested' scientists, it had been found that one of Kammerer's mummified specimens that he had used as evidence for the inheritance of these characteristics had been injected on the palms and fingers with Indian ink, so that this had simulated the colouring of nuptial pads, and now anyone might be able to call Kammerer a cheat and a forger with some justification. But in fact there was no evidence that Kammerer had known about the injections of ink: he himself had encouraged the examination of the specimens by neutral scientists and the injections might have been done by a laboratory assistant out of hate or even love of Dr Kammerer - the particular specimen was tattered, and the marks of the pad were fading. But no considerations such as these weighed in the balance against the opportunity that Kammerer's opponents now had publicly to discredit him.

That evening when the news about Kammerer's co-called 'exposure' reached my father and my mother went up to her room - she stayed in her room saying she had a headache and asked for supper to be sent up to her - that evening I talked with my father in a way in which, I think, I had not quite talked before.

'But why is it so important to you that there should not be the inheritance of acquired characteristics?'

'Because it's not true.'

'But you seem to care more than about its not being true.'

'Do I? Well, perhaps it's because if it was, there would be less chance of adaptation.'

'Why would there be chaos?'

'Folly, depravity, lying - they'd be dug in for ever.'

'But might not good things be dug in for ever?'

'No. When it comes to power, bad things win.'

'But couldn't human beings choose for the good things to win?'

'Who would do the choosing? It would be done by the people in power. God help everyone if people in power have more power!'

'But don't you think humans will ever be fitted for that sort of power?'

'No.' Then - 'Leave it to nature. Leave it to chance.' Then -'Though I wouldn't be surprised if, sooner or later, humans wipe themselves out.'

I thought - My father must be going through an especially bad time with my mother?

The day was coming closer when I was due to go to boarding-school. My mother was still spending much of her time in her room; my father went off each day to Cambridge. I was sad about going to school, mainly because I would have to give up my salamanders. It had been arranged that when I went I would hand them back to Miss Box. I did not like to imagine what would become of them. I had recently taken less and less notice of the garden I had created. I said to them Tm sorry, I'm having a hard time myself, my salamanders.'

They still seemed to be spending most of their time in their shelter. I thought - They are like my mother: or is it that they know I am going away to school?

Then there was a day when my mother had been up to London and my father was in Cambridge and I had been walking round the village saying goodbye to it, and when I got back I saw that my mother had returned from London early; there was her handbag and umbrella in the hall. I went up to her room because I was sad and wanted to talk; but her door was locked. I knocked and called, and there was no answer. Then when I came downstairs Watson was in the hall and she was chewing the inside of her lips which she did when she was anxious. It appeared that my mother had come back some time ago and had gone straight up to her room; she had not answered when Watson had knocked. Mrs Elgin came out from the kitchen and she and Watson both went up to my mother's room and called; the door remained locked. They came back down the stairs and Watson went out into the garden and looked up at the windows of my mother's room; Mrs Elgin said 'Your mother was in a state when she came home.' I said 'What sort of state?' Mrs Elgin said 'Oh you boys, you would never notice anything!' I thought - But I did notice, yes, that my mother was sad. Watson was out on the lawn talking to Mr Simmons the gardener: they were both looking up at the windows of my mother's room. They seemed to be discussing whether or not to get a ladder. I thought -But this is terrible! I said to Mrs Elgin 'You mean, something might have happened to my mother?' Mrs Elgin said 'Oh yes, something has been happening to your mother in London!' Mr Simmons seemed to be going off to get a ladder. Mrs Elgin went back into the kitchen. I thought that what I would do was to go up to my room which was above my mother's and I would try and climb out

on to the wisteria or magnolia or whatever it was and then down to the windows of my mother's room. I did not dwell too much on what Mrs Elgin or Watson and Mr Simmons seemed to think might have been happening to my mother: it seemed that there were just things to be done, one after another. Then when I got to my room and opened the door, there was my mother sitting on my bed. She was facing me, with her arms hanging down between her knees, as she sometimes sat when she was on the lavatory. I could see she had been crying. I said 'What's the matter?' She said 'I'm so sorry!' She went on crying. I went and knelt in front of her; I tried to put my arms around her; she was hot, as if she had been running or lying a long time on burning sand or in long grass. There was the smell of something growing, glowing, rotting, about her; it was like the smell in my boathouse; like the smell from my salamanders when they had been lying in their sun. The salamanders were in their glass case just behind her. She said Tm so sorry I came up here, I was so sad, I didn't want the others to find me.' I said 'Well that's all right then.' I thought - You wanted me to find you! She was on the very edge of the bed; I was kneeling close to her; she had put her arms around me. Oh what is it about grief that is so sensual, do you know? I was saying 'But what is it?' She was pulling me towards her; one of her knees was digging into me; I lifted myself so that my knees were on either side of her knee; she toppled slowly back, with me on top of her. I said 'Is it about Dr Kammerer?' She said 'Dr Kammerer!' She pushed her hair away from her face. Her mouth seemed swollen, crushed, like Hans's had sometimes been. I thought - Oh I see. I said 'It is about Hans?' I had not really thought much recently about my mother and Hans: perhaps at the back of my mind I had somehow known she had probably gone on seeing him. She took one hand from my back and stroked my face; she said 'Hans, why do you talk about Hans?' Her voice seemed to come from a long way away; or as if there were a rope tightening around it. She said 'Hans is very beautiful!' Then - 'And so are you.' Her body began tightening under mine. She rolled her eyes back: she seemed to be looking up at the glass case in which there were my salamanders. Then she said 'Did you and Hans ever do anything?' I said 'No.' She said 'How did you know what I meant - did you and Hans ever do anything?' There were only the whites of her eyes; she was arching her back; all this was happening very quickly. I thought - Well, my mother and I, we are in some Garden of Eden. I said 'Of course I know.' She said 'Don't go!' I thought -

Of course I'm not going to go! I had got used to something like this, after all, by myself; on my bed, in my ruined boathouse. Then my mother opened her mouth and made some sort of noise like air coming in from beyond her. And then it was as if it were my turn to be saying 'Don't go!' There was the tightness at my throat; the sweetness at the centre; at the top of my head and beyond me. Then there was nothingness, everythingness: the unblocked flow of blood, guts, air, liquid. After a time my mother said 'There.' Then - 'Are you all right?' I said 'Yes.' She said 'Your silly old mother!' She said this quite dispassionately. I was lying on top of her with one of her thighs between mine. After a time she began to push me gently off her.

She said 'You don't feel bad?'

I said'No.'

She said 'Good.' Then - 'Well I don't feel bad.'

I said 'Good.'

She sat up and pushed the hair back from her face. Then she looked at my salamanders. She said 'Those poor things, will they be all right?'

I said 'I hope so.'

She turned and put her head down against mine. Then she said 'You won't tell anyone about Hans, will you.'

In the day or two that was left before I went to school my mother was at her most composed, regal: she floated round the house chatting with, giving orders to, Mrs Elgin, Watson, Mr Simmons. It was as if she were taking pains to put out the message - Ah yes, there are strange times of distress, of darkness, are there not: but then, look! we can come out on to another level!

I had a letter from Hans saying that he was sorry he had missed me in London, but he very much hoped that one day our plans would come to fruition about going on a walking tour in the Black Forest.

My mother saw that I had received the letter, but made no mention of it.

I thought - I see. Then - But what do I see? What means have I to know, let alone talk about, what is really happening?

I did not do anything about my aquaterrareum until the very day that I was going to my new school. So at the last moment there was a fuss about why I had not dismantled it before; how was I now going to get it to Miss Box? My mother was going to drive me to school. But I had this enormous glass case. In the end it was

arranged that my mother would drive me and my aquaterrareum into Cambridge on our way to school so that I could drop it off at the laboratory with Miss Box. Then just before we left my mother was caught up in a long conversation on the telephone, so we were going to be late; but what did I care, I was having to leave this fine new world I had created; I was going to dump it, carrying it in my arms. I was still saying to my salamanders 'I'm so sorry; so sorry!' This was what my mother sometimes said. For some days I had not seen my salamanders; they had been in their shelter; I had not wanted to disturb them. I thought that when I got to the laboratory I would take the top off the shelter so that I could say goodbye to them there; but what sort of goodbye would this be! We make our beautiful worlds: we abandon them.

My mother was silent in the car. When we got to the laboratory building I staggered up the stone staircase carrying my made-up world like Atlas: my mother stayed in the car. My father was somewhere in the building: I would have to say goodbye to him too. Miss Box was in the room with the dim glass cases like those in which are kept sandwiches. I put my aquaterrareum down: I did not take the top off the shelter yet: I thought I would say goodbye to my father before I said goodbye to my salamanders. I found my father coming out of his room.