Keep the Aspidistra Flying (33 page)

The woman at the desk was a university graduate, young, colourless, spectacled and intensely disagreeable. She had a fixed suspicion that no one—at least, no male person—ever consulted works of reference except in search of pornography. As soon as you approached she pierced you through and through with a flash of her pince-nez and let you know that your dirty secret was no secret from
her
. After all, all works of reference are pornographical, except perhaps Whitaker’s
Almanack
. You can put even the Oxford Dictionary to evil purposes by looking up words like —— and ——.

Gordon knew her type at a glance, but he was too preoccupied to care.

‘Have you any books on gynaecology?’ he said.

‘Any
what?
’ demanded the young woman with a pince-nez flash of unmistakable triumph. As usual! Another male in search of dirt!

‘Well, any books on midwifery? About babies being born, and so forth.’

‘We don’t issue books of that description to the general public,’ said the young woman frostily.

‘I’m sorry—there’s a point I particularly want to look up.’

‘Are you a medical student?’

‘No.’

‘Then I don’t
quite
see what you want with books on midwifery.’

Curse the woman! Gordon thought. At another time he would have been afraid of her; at present, however, she merely bored him.

‘If you want to know, my wife’s going to have a baby. We neither of us know much about it. I want to see whether I can find out anything useful.’

The young woman did not believe him. He looked too shabby and worn, she decided, to be a newly-married man. However, it was her job to lend out books, and she seldom actually refused them, except to children. You always got your book in the end, after you had been made to feel yourself a dirty swine. With an aseptic air she led Gordon to a small table in the middle of the library and presented him with two fat books in brown covers. Thereafter she left him alone, but kept an eye on him from whatever part of the library she happened to be in. He could feel her pince-nez probing the back of his neck at long range, trying to decide from his demeanour whether he was really searching for information or merely picking out the dirty bits.

He opened one of the books and searched inexpertly through it. There were acres of close-printed text full of Latin words. That was no use. He wanted something simple—pictures, for choice. How long had this thing been going on? Six weeks—nine weeks, perhaps. Ah! This must be it.

He came on a print of a nine weeks’ foetus. It gave him a shock to see it, for he had not expected it to look in the least like that. It was a deformed, gnome-like thing, a sort of clumsy caricature of a human being, with a huge domed head as big as the rest of its body. In the middle of the great blank expanse of head there was a tiny button of an ear. The thing was in profile; its boneless arm was bent, and one hand, crude as a seal’s flipper, covered its face—fortunately, perhaps. Below were little skinny legs, twisted like a monkey’s, with the toes turned in. It was a monstrous
thing, and yet strangely human. It surprised him that they should begin looking human so soon. He had pictured something much more rudimentary; a mere blob with a nucleus, like a bubble of frog-spawn. But it must be very tiny of course. He looked at the dimensions marked below. Length 30 millimetres. About the size of a large gooseberry.

But perhaps it had not been going on quite so long as that. He turned back a page or two and found a print of a six weeks’ foetus. A really dreadful thing this time—a thing he could hardly even bear to look at. Strange that our beginnings and endings are so ugly—the unborn as ugly as the dead. This thing looked as if it were dead already. Its huge head, as though too heavy to hold upright, was bent over at right angles at the place where its neck ought to have been. There was nothing you could call a face, only a wrinkle representing the eye—or was it the mouth? It had no human semblance this time; it was more like a dead puppy-dog. Its short thick arms were very dog-like, the hands being mere stumpy paws. 15.5 millimetres long—no bigger than a hazel nut.

He pored for a long time over the two pictures. Their ugliness made them more credible and therefore more moving. His baby had seemed real to him from the moment when Rosemary spoke of abortion; but it had been a reality without visual shape—something that happened in the dark and was only important after it had happened. But here was the actual process taking place. Here was the poor ugly thing, no bigger than a gooseberry, that he had created by his heedless act. Its future, its continued existence perhaps, depended on him. Besides, it was a bit of himself—it
was
himself. Dare one dodge such a responsibility as that?

But what about the alternative? He got up, handed over his books to the disagreeable young woman, and went out; then, on an impulse, turned back and went into the other
part of the library, where the periodicals were kept. The usual crowd of mangy-looking people were dozing over the papers. There was one table set apart for women’s papers. He picked up one of them at random and bore it off to another table.

It was an American paper of the more domestic kind, mainly adverts with a few stories lurking apologetically among them. And
what
adverts! Quickly he flicked over the shiny pages. Lingerie, jewellery, cosmetics, fur coats, silk stockings flicked up and down like the figures in a child’s peepshow. Page after page, advert after advert. Lipsticks, undies, tinned food, patent medicines, slimming cures, face-creams. A sort of cross-section of the money-world. A panorama of ignorance, greed, vulgarity, snobbishness, whoredom and disease.

And
that
was the world they wanted him to re-enter!
That
was the business in which he had a chance of Making Good. He nicked over the pages more slowly. Flick, flick. Adorable—until she smiles. The food that is shot out of a gun. Do you let foot-fag affect your personality? Get back that peach-bloom on a Beautyrest Mattress. Only a
penetrating
face-cream will reach that under-surface dirt. Pink toothbrush is
her
trouble. How to alkalise your stomach almost instantly. Roughage for husky kids. Are you one of the four out of five? The world-famed Culturequick Scrap-book. Only a drummer and yet he quoted Dante.

Christ, what muck!

But of course it was an American paper. The Americans always go one better on any kind of beastliness, whether it is ice-cream soda, racketeering or theosophy. He went over to the women’s table and picked up another paper. An English one this time. Perhaps the ads in an English paper wouldn’t be quite so bad—a little less brutally offensive?

He opened the paper. Flick, flick. Britons never shall be slaves!

Flick, flick. Guinness is good for you! She
said
‘Thanks awfully for the lift’, but she
thought
,‘Poor boy, why doesn’t somebody tell him?’ How a woman of thirty-two stole her young man from a girl of twenty. Night Starvation etc. Silkyseam—the smooth-sliding bathroom tissue. Halitosis is ruining his career. Pyorrhea? Not me! Are you a Highbrow? Dandruff is the Reason. Kiddies clamour for their Breakfast Crisps. Now I’m schoolgirl complexion all over. Hike all day on a Slab of Vitamalt!

To be mixed up in
that!
To be in it and of it—part and parcel of it! God, God, God!

Presently he went out. The dreadful thing was that he knew already what he was going to do. His mind was made up—had been made up for a long time past. When this problem appeared it had brought its solution with it; all his hesitation had been a kind of make-believe. He felt as though some force outside himself were pushing him. There was a telephone booth near by. Rosemary’s hostel was on the phone—she ought to be at home by now. He went into the booth, feeling in his pocket. Yes, exactly two pennies. He dropped them into the slot, swung the dial.

A refaned, adenoidal feminine voice answered him:

‘Who’s thyah, please?’

He pressed Button A. So the the was cast.

‘Is Miss Waterlow in?’

‘Who’s
thyah
, please?’

‘Say it’s Mr Comstock. She’ll know. Is she at home?’

‘Ay’ll see. Hold the lane, please.’

A pause.

‘Hullo! Is that you, Gordon?’

‘Hullo! Hullo! Is that you, Rosemary? I just wanted to tell you. I’ve thought it over—I’ve made up my mind.’

‘Oh!’ There was another pause. With difficulty
mastering her voice, she added: ‘Well, what did you decide?’

‘It’s all right. I’ll take the job—if they’ll give it me, that is.’

‘Oh, Gordon, I’m so glad! You’re not angry with me? You don’t feel I’ve sort of bullied you into it?’

‘No, it’s all right. It’s the only thing I can do. I’ve thought everything out. I’ll go up to the office and see them tomorrow.’

‘I
am
so glad!’

‘Of course, I’m assuming they’ll give me the job. But I suppose they will, after what old Erskine said.’

‘I’m sure they will. But, Gordon, there’s just one thing. You will go there nicely dressed, won’t you? It might make a lot of difference.’

‘I know. I’ll have to get my best suit out of pawn. Ravelston will lend me the money.’

‘Never mind about Ravelston. I’ll lend you the money. I’ve got four pounds put away. I’ll run out and wire it you before the post-office shuts. I expect you’ll want some new shoes and a new tie as well. And, oh, Gordon!’

‘What?’

‘Wear a hat when you go up to the office, won’t you? It looks better, wearing a hat.’

‘A hat! God! I haven’t worn a hat for two years. Must I?’

‘Well—it does look more business-like, doesn’t it?’

‘Oh, all right. A bowler hat, even, if you think I ought.’

‘I think a soft hat would do. But get your hair cut, won’t you, there’s a dear?’

‘Yes, don’t you worry. I’ll be quite the smart young business man. Well groomed, and all that.’

‘Thanks ever so, Gordon dear. I must run out and wire that money. Good night and good luck.’

‘Good night.’

He came out of the booth. So that was that. He had torn it now, right enough.

He walked rapidly away. What had he done? Chucked up the sponge! Broken all his oaths! His long and lonely war had ended in ignominious defeat. Circumcise ye your foreskins, saith the Lord. He was coming back to the fold, repentant. He seemed to be walking faster than usual. There was a peculiar sensation, an actual physical sensation, in his heart, in his limbs, all over him. What was it? Shame, misery, despair? Rage at being back in the clutch of money? Boredom when he thought of the deadly future? He dragged the sensation forth, faced it, examined it. It was relief.

Yes, that was the truth of it. Now that the thing was done he felt nothing but relief; relief that now at last he had finished with dirt, cold, hunger and loneliness and could get back to decent, fully human life. His resolutions, now that he had broken them, seemed nothing but a frightful weight that he had cast off. Moreover, he was aware that he was only fulfilling his destiny. In some corner of his mind he had always known that this would happen. He thought of the day when he had given them notice at the New Albion; and Mr Erskine’s kind, red, beefish face, gently counselling him not to chuck up a ‘good’ job for nothing. How bitterly he had sworn, then, that he was done with ‘good’ jobs for ever! Yet it was foredoomed that he should come back, and he had known it even then. And it was not merely because of Rosemary and the baby that he had done it. That was the obvious cause, the precipitating cause, but even without it the end would have been the same; if there had been no baby to think about, something else would have forced his hand. For it was what, in his secret heart, he had desired.

After all he did not lack vitality, and that moneyless
existence to which he had condemned himself had thrust him ruthlessly out of the stream of life. He looked back over the last two frightful years. He had blasphemed against money, rebelled against money, tried to live like an anchorite outside the money-world; and it had brought him not only misery, but also a frightful emptiness, an inescapable sense of futility. To abjure money is to abjure life. Be not righteous over much; why shouldst thou the before thy time? Now he was back in the money-world, or soon would be. Tomorrow he would go up to the New Albion, in his best suit and overcoat (he must remember to get his overcoat out of pawn at the same time as his suit), in homburg hat of the correct gutter-crawling pattern, neatly shaved and with his hair cut short. He would be as though born anew. The sluttish poet of today would be hardly recognisable in the natty young business man of tomorrow. They would take him back, right enough; he had the talent they needed. He would buckle to work, sell his soul and hold down his job.

And what about the future? Perhaps it would turn out that these last two years had not left much mark upon him. They were merely a gap, a small setback in his career. Quite quickly, now that he had taken the first step, he would develop the cynical, blinkered business mentality. He would forget his fine disgusts, cease to rage against the tyranny of money—cease to be aware of it, even—cease to squirm at the ads for Bovex and Breakfast Crisps. He would sell his soul so utterly that he would forget it had ever been his. He would get married, settle down, prosper moderately, push a pram, have a villa and a radio and an aspidistra. He would be a law-abiding little cit like any other law-abiding little cit—a soldier in the strap-hanging army. Probably it was better so.

He slowed his pace a little. He was thirty and there was grey in his hair, yet he had a queer feeling that he had only
just grown up. It occurred to him that he was merely repeating the destiny of every human being. Everyone rebels against the money-code, and everyone sooner or later surrenders. He had kept up his rebellion a little longer than most, that was all. And he had made such a wretched failure of it! He wondered whether every anchorite in his dismal cell pines secretly to be back in the world of men. Perhaps there were a few who did not. Somebody or other had said that the modern world is only habitable by saints and scoundrels. He, Gordon, wasn’t a saint. Better, then, to be an unpretending scoundrel along with the others. It was what he had secretly pined for; now that he had acknowledged his desire and surrendered to it, he was at peace.