Imaginary Toys (9 page)

I can’t sit there. The sun’s too strong, I’d look out of the window. Other side just as bad. Go by the Reserved Books place. But they’re always whispering. Never mind. Place is practically empty. Not early. Shocking idleness. What this
morning
? Don’t say I’ve left—no, here. Chaucer I did yesterday, didn’t I? Oh, not Skelton, not this morning. Not Milton. He’s for a rainy day. I used to love poetry. I love poetry and hate literature, that’s it. Hours I used to spend just reading and reading. Never
remembered
a line. Dreamy. Again one day, perhaps. Not for the next few weeks, though. Work. It had better be Wordsworth. No, stick to the schedule, easier like that. Oh, not Skelton, not Spenser. Do this afternoon’s work this morning. Lessen the drudgery. Donne and all those. Like Donne, he’s good, wiry. Stands up to the critics and hits them back. Pretty academic mind, though, himself.
Compasses
, I ask you, compasses. Nice blue cover. There’s Nicholas. Got so cross with me yesterday, and quite right, too. Always right, Nicholas, that’s why he’s so maddening. Awful Father Gibbons. Where did I put those notes? Shan’t look at Nicholas. Here we are. Oh yes, Jack Donne and John Donne, rake and priest. Give me Jack every time, please. Will Jack go and get solemn and regret his youth? Please not. Perhaps my parents will take him to court, like Donne’s wife’s. Goodness, what was their name? I should know these things. Drury? No, that was something else. More. That’s right, More. They couldn’t, not now, it’d look so silly. But they’d want to. Beneath our station. ‘Elaine’s gone and married some schoolmaster chap she met at Oxford. Nice enough, I dare say, but not quite our sort, don’t you know. Yes, awful blow. Seemed such
a sensible girl, too.’ Well, that’s their fault, not mine. Daddy’s grandfather was only a farmer. Awful the way people cling to respectable social position. ‘Pity about Cole’s girl, did you hear? Run off with some terrible fellow. Schoolmaster. No, not public, I’m afraid, grammar, if that. Absolute nobody. Always said it was a mistake to educate women. Poor old Cole, must be livid. Terribly cut up. No, an absolute nobody. Son of a coal-miner or something. Very bad indeed. Let them down awfully badly.’ Stupid, loathsome people. ‘Went to Frinton this year. Always go to Frinton, matter of fact. Children like it. Lots of young people. Nice lot of people. Our sort, you know. Tennis, and all that. Dances for the young. Have a whale of a time.’ It’s no good being unfair, no good at all, stop it. They’re perfectly nice people, they just don’t think before they speak. Don’t think at all. Stopped thinking when they got their first job. Dangerous to think in your first job. Dream about golf and cars. ‘Have you seen my new baby? Really good buy, a Morris Oxford. Runs like a bird. Give you a spin, if you’d like. Marvellous little girl.’ No, stop it. ‘Mummy and Daddy, I have a surprise for you, I am going to get married.’ ‘Isn’t that a bit sudden, darling?’ ‘No, I don’t think so, we’ve been sleeping together for a year.’ Except that’s not true. Why did I have to think of that? Donne. ‘Busy old sun, unruly fool.’ That’s terribly good, really. No rubbish there. Nothing about warming the earth, and being benevolent. That was a nice afternoon with Charles, sun like anything. Shouldn’t have told him that, though. Wanted to tell someone. Why should I do that? Jack’s fault. My fault. Charles won’t tell. Perhaps he will. Oh my
God.
No, Charles is all right, just that awful Margaret. Not her, but the way he hangs on like a dog. He’d be better if he believed in something, perhaps. Perhaps. Dear God, please let me marry Jack, but we can’t possibly afford it yet, so may we sleep together while we’re waiting? I mean, it’s wrong in a way, I know that, but it’s not all that wrong, is it? We are going to get married. We do love each other. Please God. Donne. ‘Go and catch a falling star, get with child a mandrake root.’ That
is
academic. You have to go and find out what a mandrake root is. No, that’s not fair, not his fault. But it’s forced. Or is it? I don’t
like
it. Not when I think about it. No. Catch a falling star, yes, all right. But getting a mandrake root with child. Well, so it
is
about
impossibilities
, it’s still not very nice. Earthy in the wrong sense. No one would think of making love to a vegetable, all carroty and covered with earth. And worms, too, probably. Ugh. Not fantastic
enough.
You could go and try. Can’t even try to catch a falling star. What rubbish I’m talking. Mandrakes don’t exist. But did he think they did? Perhaps it’s all right, then. Still don’t like it. Horrid masculine idea. Where like a pillow on a bed, the pregnant bank swells up to rest the violet’s reclining head, ti-tum. Only not, that’s what’s clever. Tum-ti. Or is it? Sat we two one another’s best. There, same thing again. I am clever this morning. Sex underground again. Pregnant bank. Perhaps he used to go off into the fields and make love to the earth. Where else can he have got it all? Very academic. Or very peculiar. No one would think of making love
to
the earth. On the earth, yes. That time near Eynsham. Goodness, I must stop thinking about sex all the time. Never did till we stopped. Donne’s fault. You’d never think it of Jack. Ever such delicate hands. Yet they’re big and ugly, with short fat fingers, look almost stunted, the fingers. When he’s praying he doesn’t make a tall pointed arch like me, he makes an igloo. Me a wigwam, he an igloo. But no, he’s not so cold. Would I still go to church if it wasn’t for him? And would he if it wasn’t for me? Nicholas always quoting that thing he saw in America. ‘Find the
strength
for your life. Worship together this Sunday.’ Ugh. Then he talks about the friendly neighbourhood church. Odd, the Americans must be. Nicholas must be joking. Can’t make religion something like petrol. Perhaps they do, though. Methodists have more and merrier miles. Roman Catholigas is blessed by the Pope. With God you get more kicks per minute. Oh really, I shall fail if I don’t concentrate. Ambiguity. Jack and John. I still dislike pregnant bank. Sounds as if they’re making love on a pregnant woman’s belly. Disgusting. Teeming nature. Everyone always wants the earth to be teeming and fertile. Population getting out of control as it is. Who wrote about Wordsworth in the tropics? Not relevant, he was attacking the Romantics. Huxley. The pathetic fallacy. Not this morning. Must concentrate. Daren’t look up, Nicholas will catch my eye and look stern. Have to pretend that nothing happened yesterday and it did. Why does he hate God so much? Because he’s queer, perhaps. Must be awfully odd, like being a woman, only not. I wonder what they
do.
Poor things. Jack says it’s because he can’t have children, that’s why he hates God. Can’t be right. He’s creative in lots of other ways. Lots of people who aren’t queer can’t have children, and that doesn’t—perhaps it does. If I don’t concentrate I shall get a Third. Perhaps I should, no, all right then, pray. Dear God, for as much as without Thee we are as
nothing worth. No. I won’t say thee, it’s ridiculous. Trouble isn’t God, it’s Father Gibbons. Nicholas right as usual. Jack says you have to accept the teachings of the Church, because the Church is. Oh but. That day was so awful. I thought I would never stop crying. Not again till we’re married. Not again till we’re married. And he’d been so clumsy, I knew something was wrong. I don’t make love to Father Gibbons, Jack, but to you, to you, to you. Stop that. Concentrate. Whoever said that sex wasn’t important for women was mad. Stuff and nonsense. Perhaps it’s different after marriage. You get used to each other, bored. What a dreadful thing. And oh, he says it’s a sin, and it is, but I don’t know. Stop it, will you? But suppose he were to be run over, before we were married. What difference can it make? I love him, he loves me. Shut up, shut up, shut up. He isn’t dead. Then why not? No laws for people when they’re in love. If only I could make Father Gibbons see. Never slept with anyone in his whole life, I bet. Another priest, perhaps. They’re all queers, must be. Perhaps Jack is, that’s why he likes going there. Don’t be ridiculous. If Jack’s queer, go and get with child a mandrake root. Terribly earthy image. But a man doesn’t look like that at all. But then it’s a woman, do wake up. Jack doesn’t look like anything else. I don’t need to be reminded, I suppose. Don’t even have to shut my eyes. There. But I don’t think about him like that alone. So silly to make sex that
important
. Goodness, there’s a switch. But I
don’t
think of him as a male animal making love to me. I want him to make love to me, goodness, yes. But not all the time. Father Gibbons says I mustn’t think about it. Simply doesn’t understand. Queer. If he knew what went on in my mind. Shocked out of his cassock. No, too queer to care about women. Then
yes
,
because I think about Jack. What’s in Jack’s mind wouldn’t interest him. Wants to get me out and put himself in. Unfair. There are those two from Jack’s college, there every Sunday. They must be queer. Father Gibbons must enjoy them. But the qualities of God’s instruments do not alter the qualities of God. Clever, that. Must have read it somewhere. Donne knew what he was talking about. Never been keen on sticky palms, though. They all seem to have liked them. Fashions in love change like anything else, I suppose. Else a great prince in prison lies. That is marvellous, marvellous. Ever so right. Would Father Gibbons understand that? ‘But Father Gibbons, it’s by Donne, and he was a clergyman, a dean.’ All those sermons. Morbid, though, dressing up like that. John Donne. Jack. What did Christ say? Not the
point, don’t be trapped into fundamentalism. Shall be, though. Fundamentals are very important. Have to argue it out all the time. Missing the point. Morality. Absurd to say we’re immoral when we love each other. Sleeping with someone you love isn’t immoral, can’t be. Nicholas said something about that. Rather nice. When Jack wants me, his arm goes all stiff across my back, and I know he’s trying to control himself. Don’t want him to. Really don’t. Please God, can’t we be happy again? Sound like Eve, too stupid, prayers like that. His eyes look so miserable, dogs begging for a bone. So unimportant, sex, so terribly important. Stupid paradoxes. Hate people who say that sort of thing.
Unimportant
when you have it, vital when you don’t. Only Father Gibbons, God, someone, says no. Couldn’t be less wicked, it’s truthful and good. I suppose they don’t approve, the Romans, of contraceptives because then the practical argument disappears. Fancy a lot of sworn celibates telling people how to run their sex-lives. But they’re right to stop licentiousness. Goodness, that can’t be what I mean. Untruthful love, sex without love. But that’s not us, we
are
in love. And—Donne. That’s no argument, everyone thinks he’s a special case, Jack’s right about that. But then everyone is special. Sex without love is bad, though. Nicholas was so nice, really, being unsympathetic, just what I needed. Oh Jack, Jack. Else a great prince in prison lies. Perhaps we could get married now. They can’t make exceptions, everyone is an exception. They’re right, that’s what’s so awful, absolutely right. I don’t care. I want Jack. We’ll break up in despair, otherwise, don’t You see? What with everything else, parents, and him staying here and me going down, it’s going to be bad enough as it is, You
do
see, You just won’t listen. It’s only when we don’t have it that we quarrel so much, about such silly things, too. You
do
know. You just won’t answer, why should You, after all. Because the Church knows best in the long run, and the end justifies the means…. You can’t
mean
that, can You? I don’t believe it. You can’t put us here on earth just to make us unhappy. It would be so pointless. Why should some suffer as an example to the rest? But You must see that we won’t harm anyone else by doing it, in fact we’ll both be much happier and nicer, and then we’ll actively help other people. Didn’t You hear what Nicholas called Jack? A morose dullard? And that could never have been said until You stopped us, or whoever it was. And I do believe in You and love You, but please, please,
please.
Stop this. Imagery. New science. Structure. Rhyme scheme. At the round
earth’s imagined corners blow your trumpets, angels. Here we have the opposition of the old and the new. Round earth, imagined corners. Compare with contemporary cosmology. Show
intelligence
by comparing effect of Einstein on modern verse. Can’t. Sorry. But then one does have to know a lot to enjoy properly. But do they teach one the right things? Probably not. An age of criticism. It’s like us. I mean—do I? Things more complicated than they look, have to be discussed all the time. Belief, feeling, against knowledge, reason. It’s not a question of faith at all, really. I shan’t stop believing in God. I can’t imagine being without You. You know that. And then there’s the parents. Must be brave and take Jack home. He’ll hate it, be embarrassed. Thinking about his accent all the time. They’re not all that bad. Very simple, that’s it, very simple. Clear and wrong ideas. Clear, though, so it’s easy to know when you’ve done something wrong. You shouldn’t have done it, and there is no more to be said, the dress will be sent back in the morning, and you will wrap it yourself and pay for the postage. And the same with this young man. And when you disagree, it’s like treachery. Like in politics. Family life a continual dissembling. Like a good poem, disparate elements forming a whole that none of them understands. That’s rather clever. Layers and layers of feeling and meaning behind each gesture. Ambiguity. Donne, now,
please.
Heavens, look at the time. Almost coffee-time. Where’s Jack this morning? Well! Sitting right opposite and I never even noticed. Working now, his head down. I’d know that head. Mustn’t let him see I’ve noticed, pretend I’ve been working like mad all morning, too busy even for
him.
Make him jealous of Donne. No, no more of that. Oh, Jack, dear Jack. He’s got that green tie on again. I told him he ought to buy a new one, that’s getting so dirty. Says he’s saving for our wedding. Liar. Something very nice for his birthday. No,
not
that. Well, why not? That as well, then. He can have that whenever he wants it, though, not much of a present. Oh, and the sun’s got here, busy old sun, unruly fool. I like that. Like a schoolboy who’s forgotten to brush his hair. We’ll have a boy like Jack, with brown hair that gets all rumpled and crumpled and unruly. Call him busy old fool when he comes in and wakes us too early in the morning, he won’t understand, but we will. But he’ll laugh, and think it’s all our private joke. Oh, education, how it makes life rich and ambiguous. What a nice thought. Here he comes. Books aside. Looking at me? Shan’t look up. Been working all morning, longer than he has. He’s coming.