The Brooke-Rose Omnibus (15 page)

– Why, Lilly, whatever’s the matter?

– He gets on my nerves. And there’s my tin of pineapple gone, for nothing.

– Don’t cry, Lilly. Shall I take him over for a bit? You need a rest.

– Oh, my pineapple!

– But the pineapple was gorgeous, and we had a good laugh, didn’t we? Look, I’ve got a tin of prunes at home I can let you have instead. Oh I know it’s not the same but there’s a lovely recipe on it for prune kebab. He’s a sick man you know.

– I’m perfectly healthy. I do a full day’s work. That’s the test isn’t it? Can he love, can he work?

– Well –

– And if the past proves nothing why do they keep asking about my previous occupation?

– They’re bureaucrats. They’re behind the times.

– What were you before the displacement! What
displacement
for heaven’s sake?

– The displacement from cause to effect.

– Oh Mrs. Ned! You understand me! Help me, help me.

– Lilly, d’you mind?

– No, I don’t mind. Not if you bring me the prunes.

– My dear, you mustn’t get so worked up. It’s their little weakness, they fed on our past you see, and drained us of its strength, and we feed on their present. Now they deny the past, but need to ask as a matter of form, it flatters them, it’s a relic that they adhere to. We must allow them their little weaknesses.

– Come closer. Tell me, Mrs. Ned, how can you know they fed on it if there’s no such thing as the past?

– There you go again with your sick talk. It’s all a question of adjustment.

– Mrs. Ned, you are full of promise, I want to make mental love to you, here, on the kitchen chair. D’you mind, Lilly?

– No, I don’t mind. I can tell you in advance, though, it won’t help. Don’t forget the prunes.

– Tell me about yourself, Mrs. Ned.

– There’s not much to tell, it’s banal really, I first met my father in the usual circumstances, as a transference, and I said to him, why did you deprive me of my trauma, I’ve been looking for it ever since, alchemising anecdote to legend, episode to myth, it’s exhausting, you’ve made my life a misery, it’s because of you that I’ve grown up deprived, but he didn’t reply. I fell in love with him, deeply, painfully in love. How did you first meet your mother?

– At her funeral. The flowers on her coffin were a mass of red.

– Really? Why, what did she die of?

– In the displacement, you know.

– Go on.

– I can’t.

– What did she say to you?

– She was covered with purple patches. Her eyeballs stuck out. She couldn’t speak, she was deaf and blind.

– Was it the monocytic type?

– No, Chloroma.

– Go on.

– I can’t … Come in.

– Excuse. Boeuf Strongonoff. Wife.

– Well, thank you Mrs. Ivan. But why?

– Cry on tins. Present.

– It’s most kind of you. Lilly will be delighted.

– Please empty to return. Keep for roof. Ivan.

– Certainly. Thank you very much.

– Nichevo. Goodnight. Goodnight Mrs.

– Goodnight Mrs. Ivan.

– Goodnight Mrs. Ivan. Oh dear where were we?

– I don’t know.

– Erm. What did you do, before?

– What do you think I did?

– Something important.

The image of the man grows up a little. The two hands clutch each other damply across the wrinkled wood of the table, which is quite still and unflowing in the dusk. The goitre opposite seems to swell as Mrs. Ned relishes the idea.

– You’re important to me.

– Oh. But who are you? You must make yourself
important
too, a worthy vessel to contain my importance.

– You must make me a worthy vessel. It takes two to make love.

– Did you ever find your trauma?

– Not really. It got lost, in the displacement, you know.

– What displacement?

– The displacement from cause to effect.

– From birth to death.

– From nothing to something.

– From red to sickly white. Then black.

– From infra-red to ultra-violet.

– You’re beautiful. You’re wonderful.

– That’s why I have this goitre, you see, it’s a deficiency of thyroxin due to emotional deprivation.

– Oh my darling, you are important, you are a worthy vessel.

– What did you do, then, it must have been very important?

– I was a great lover. A lover of society. I grew up with her, grew strong out of her, basked in her. I tickled her, scratched her, tormented her, accused her, I trained the great microscopes of searching questions on her. I despised her, mocked her, got cynical about her, used her. I despaired of her, had high hopes of her, I loved her.

– How wonderful. So you satisfied your own demand?

– Yes, of course. But I was only a cog in her machine and the machine ground to a standstill.

– She let you down?

– Yes.

The image of the man grows up.

– Have you told this to anyone else?

– You are the first person to know.

– That’s nice. Because I’m bound to feel with you. I was let down too. Built up and then let down.

– You’re not doing it right, you’re talking about yourself.

– I’m only explaining that I’m ready as a vessel, and that I’m bound to feel with you, and understand your idealism.

– But I’m a formalist.

– I see. Well, it all comes, I mean, tell me, have you ever been in love, deeply, painfully in love?

– Er … define your terms.

– Needing his, I mean her, interest, I’ll put it no stronger, full-time, deeply, painfully enough to make an abject idiot of yourself getting it, and of course not getting it, on account of the situation, and so losing his, I mean her, interest. If any.

– No, only women do that.

– I am a woman. Have pity. You’re such a wonderful formalist.

The image of the man grows big. His identity is enormous. Identity is a powerful instrument.

– You’re talking about yourself.

– I’ve always loved you. From the very beginning I’ve loved you.

And so on. Lilly was right. Sooner or later smallness returns. Anyone can bluff a metaphysical remark as part of the
pretence
that the human mind is interesting, and alone involved. But nothing less than symbiosis will do. And in the marbled top-room of the mind, Mrs. Mgulu wears golden shoes. Her head is helmeted in golden chrome. In the left nostril, the alexandrite looks pink in the salon lights. She is reading a book on horticulture, with glossy golden callicarpas on the cover. From time to time she puts it down on her lap and looks a little beyond it to the floor in front of her. Or even to the right of her, keeping her eyes open, which strike deep, a rich chromatic chord. The marbled thermoplastic tiles are purple, streaked with pink. Have you ever been deeply, painfully in love? The answer is no, never. It is possible, after all, to act out these things, to divide oneself and remain whole, despite Mr. Swaminathan’s silent sway as he continues to indwell, sharing the observation of phenomena, staring at Mrs. Mgulu in golden shoes and a helmet of golden chrome. Eating her up. Her dark face shines under the hot air,
beautiful
in any circumstances, with the alexandrite pink in her left nostril. Mr. Swaminathan holds a black thermoplastic hose that follows his movement like a dying metronome.

– Let’s go and interview her, you and I.

– Is she not beautiful in any circumstances?

– We’ll ask her.

– She can’t hear, under the helmet.

– She will remove the helmet when she sees the
microphone
. She loves me, you see.

Mrs. Mgulu sits graciously at the dressing-table, taking an interest in the crackling electricity of her hair which is being brushed into sleekness by the small dark man in candy-stripe trousers, whose profile is reversed in the mirror. His hands are delicate with pale pink nails and his brown lips pout in concentration. On the other side of the dressing-table is another dressing-table which faces the other side of the mirror. There a pert Bahuko girl in an orange overall dresses the hair of a guest who is hidden by the two-sided mirror. As she works she glances into the mirror at the results. Even her long brown hands are visible, with their golden nails, but the guest’s head is hidden by the raised square mirror. From this position to the right of Mrs. Mgulu the Bahuko girl looks as if she were dressing the hair of Mrs. Mgulu’s image who faces Mrs. Mgulu on this side of the mirror. Mrs. Mgulu’s hair is being dressed by two live people, an Asswati in
candy-stripe
dressing her real hair, and a Bahuko girl in orange, dressing her reflected hair. Mrs. Mgulu does not know this, for she cannot see the Bahuko girl. In the square
wooden-framed
mirror her own smooth Asswati face smiles at her reflection with self-love in the round black eyes and in the well-curved lips, but occasionally with graciousness at the reflection of the Asswati with delicate hands, who pouts his mouth pursed in concentration. The smiling black eyes shift a little to the left, with graciousness, and then a little to the right, with self-love. A psychoscope might perhaps reveal the expression to be one of pleasure in beauty, rather than self-love. And then a little more to the right. The last marbled thermoplastic tile is glueing nicely, purple, streaked with pink. Sooner or later some interruption will be inevitable, a movement will have to be made, a finishing of the task, a declaration that the activity, the heat, the motion of colours and the concrete feel of tools and materials are over. You people are all the same, the task has taken far too long. The big ball is practically on us and the salon is only just finished, it’s all very well but it has been one long headache. You’re all as lazy and unreliable as one another.

– and Lilly’s very worried about you.

The eyes strike deep, a rich chromatic chord, the scent of hair-lacquer fills the corridor. The alexandrite in the left nostril is replaced by a small gold flower on a chain that climbs over the nose and loops gently along the cheek into the hair just above the right ear. Follow me, she said, I want a word with you outside. The conversation is real, repeat real. She leans her bare black arms against the golden banisters. Follow me, she said, tapping him on the shoulder, I want a word with you outside and now the golden banisters go curving down behind her, a sort of crown in depth, a spiral gown, a chrysalis.

– She was upset about the infidelity of course, anyone would be, but these things happen and she understood.
Anyway
it’s none of my business. But your capacity to work is my business. I’m your employer, for the time being anyway, and I’ve taken an interest in you, for Lilly’s sake at least. I’m very fond of Lilly. She practically brought me up and I owe a lot to her. She’s been with me ever since, I know her as I know my right hand, and she’s very unhappy about you. I’ve been watching you in there. You’re dreaming half the time. Oh I know the other workers are no better, it’s understandable, they want to make the job last, but still, time isn’t elastic.

– It’s because of there being no past, and no future, ma’am, it’s so difficult, living in the present.

– I see you’ve been talking to Mr. Swaminathan.

– You fed on our past, you see, and drained us, now you deny the past but need to remind us, it’s an empty ritual for you, a weakness. But it hurts.

– You don’t want to believe everything Mr. Swaminathan says, you know.

– That too is one of the things he says.

– Yes. He belongs to the rope-trick tradition, which can be as unhealthy as – well, you know what I mean. I think I should send you up to the hospital to be psychoscoped.

– Oh, no!

– Why, what’s the matter? It’s a very rapid treatment, quite painless and it does the world of good. It’s a privilege, too.

– Not … the Colourless Hospital?

– You speak so low. I can’t hear.

– Did you mean the Colourless Hospital?

– The—? But we don’t have segregation here, we’re a multi-racial society. Exalting all colours to the detriment of none, don’t you know your slogans? Good heavens, I do believe you really are living in the past … Tell me, does it hurt?

– Yes.

– You’re in a bad way, aren’t you?

The dress is mauve. The shining black hair is coiled up high and smells of fixative. The small gold chain loops gently over the nose and the banisters weave circles around her.

– Come with me, I’ll give you a letter.

The banisters weave circles round them both.

– Then you can go back and sweep up the mess before you leave. It’s all got to be spick and span by tomorrow.

The banisters weave circles.

– Steady! Are you all right? You can’t faint on my stairs, you know. I would send you with Olaf, my chauffeur, but I need him to go and open the Famine Bazaar. Are you taking those pills I gave Lilly? They’re better than the Government ones and they’re rather hard to come by. Wait here.

Whereas no amount of positive evidence. We can make our errors in a thought, and reject them in another thought, leaving no trace of error in us. No evidence at all is needed for a certainty acquired by revelation. Yes, but what relation does it have to the real thing? The number of molecules in one cubic centimetre of any gas, at sea-level pressure and at a temperature of fifteen degrees centigrade, is approximately twenty seven million million million, and each molecule can expect five thousand million collisions per second. Mrs. Mgulu emerges from the bedroom door, wearing something diaphanous. Classical physiology tolerates only one unknown quantity at a time in any investigation and that quantity shall be Mrs. Mgulu. Come in, she says, I want you to read this letter and see if it’s all right. Oh, stop it, you know very well this dialogue will not occur. We don’t have segregation here, oh I know it looks like it, but you’re selecting the facts, I do assure you we’re a multi-racial society. Come in, she says, and I’ll show you. I’ve always loved you, right from the very beginning I’ve loved you. You’re living in the past aren’t you, but now is the time for the beginning.

– Here we are, you go to the Hospital and give them this letter, they’ll get you back into focus. It’s all a question of restoring the equilibrium. But first go up and tidy the mess in the salon. It must all be spick and span by tomorrow. You’re feeling all right, aren’t you?