The Brooke-Rose Omnibus (6 page)

– Please?

– I am happy with my thoughts.

– Excuse me.

The fingers drum a little on the thighs. The blue denim calls out the veins on the back of the hands. The chin crumples into a crumpled neck.

– Very witty. But unkind.

– He didn’t understand. He’s a foreigner.

– So are you.

– The dialogue will not take place, anyway.

– Sometimes it is sufficient just to be bloody rude.

– Sometimes it is sufficient merely to speak, to say perhaps or I don’t think so or how very interesting, as the case might be, for the effect to be bloody rude and the sequence,
therefore
, not to occur. Or to hammer a nail into the bent board over the dark sodden wood.

Dear Mrs. Mgulu.

The fly lies comatose on the Governor’s stalwart lips, unless it is contemplating its image. The Governor stares fiercely out regardless. The Governor gazes benignly down regardless. His dark eyes meet all eyes that meet his, but the meeting is not compulsory.

– Well I couldn’t help it, sir, I didn’t know. I wasn’t told.

– You people are all the same. You should have known and you could have found out. Listen you lot, this is the sort of thing I’m up against with you. This fellow says he’s a builder. He was sent to mend a roof-flashing which had got torn up by the gale and what did he do? He nailed it down into the wooden beam with ungalvanised iron nails. This in the rainy season. Needless to say they rusted immediately. The damp got into the beam and is rotting it.

The employment clerk hammers on the counter to make his voice louder and louder. The man on this side of the counter is puny, with a ginger head. Like a crooked
ungalvanised
nail he seems to sink into the tiled floor with every hammering of the employment clerk’s hand which is the colour of an old oak beam, startlingly braceleted with a white cuff-edge. The hall is silent. The silence of the hall is broken by coughs and shifting feet. The ginger head is raised again.

– I didn’t have no galvanised nails with me.

The bland Bahuko face shines, patched with curved oblongs and blobs of white light. The cuff-edge moves again, upholding the fly-flicking gesture of dismissal that must cause the ungalvanised nail to disappear from the floor.

There is a murmuring in the hall. The puny man with ginger hair shuffles past the row of sitting thighs and their belonging feet. His face is oxidised copper. Oxidative metabolism is a more efficient source of adenosine
triphosphate
than is fermentation. The greenish colour, however, is due to over-production in the gall-bladder, and gall-stones are the tomb-stones of bacteria. This is a good topic with which to go into reverse and bring about the sequence that has not yet occurred, should the non-occurrence of the sequence prove unbearable. Or not, as the case might be.

It is easy enough in the negative. It is more difficult to bring about than to prevent. Is this proposition true?
Sometimes
, anyway, the gruel is brought.

– Poor man.

– I beg your pardon? Smile to make up for tone.

– That man. He look sick.

– Oh, yes. He’s bilious. Over-production of the
gall-bladder
I should say.

– Please?

– I said, trouble in the gall-bladder.

– Were you doctor then in your country?

– Well, in a way.

– But why you queue here? They need doctors, many many sick, of the malady.

The fly, where is the fly? The Governor gazes benignly down regardless. Dear Mrs. Mgulu.

– Well. It’s a bit complicated. And you?

– Schoolmaster. Iranian. Useless here. Speak no good Asswati. Work on roads. Better for you, speak Ukayan, second language, and medicine better.

– Well. Not really.

– You ex-Ukayan?

– Yes.

– I see.

The sequence has occurred.

At home, a recipe would be read. At home there would be a remedy. It would occupy the air. Or a letter from
someone
possibly. According to our records you have not reported to this exchange for three weeks. Retrospectively a name will be called out daily from 8 a.m.

– You get slip?

– Er, yes.

– Doctors also?

– Well. Not quite. It’s a bit complicated.

– I understand.

– I wasn’t complaining.

– No. But sad. Excuse me. You take your dole pills?

– I haven’t reported for three weeks, just as it says.

– I have extra some. I collect but keep for big pep booze. You wish one?

– No, no. Thank you. Very kind.

– Please.

At home there would be a remedy. A remedy would be read out and it would occupy the air. It is more difficult in the negative, more difficult, that is, to stop than to bring about. Sometimes, however, a group of names is called.

– It is not really as you think, anti-Ukay. Look at me, Iranian. And that man up there now, ex-Uessayan, every day he come. And there is ex-French. And him Portuguese.

– Of course, all Colourless. But the head gardener up at one of the big houses is bright pink. Mauve even.

– Pink is a colour. Yellow is a colour. Beige is a colour.

– That is an article of faith.

– I understand their attitude. White is the colour of the mal –

– Waxiness is due to a deficiency in the liver. A greenish colour is –

A group of names is called out.

– Excuse me.

The gnarled, blue-veined hands press the tightly denimed knees as the thighs change to a vertical position. There is a nod high up.

At home there would have been a recipe. Dear Mrs. Mgulu. I hope you won’t mind, I hope you will not mind my writing to you, but in an age of international and interracial equality such as we have been privileged to witness and partake of since the great displacement, it is a shock and a
disappointment
for me to have to report to you that the two hands clasped together between the next human thighs are brown, dark brown like strong and tudor beams. The two index fingers point up cathedrally, touching at the tips. The two thumbs touch, pointing dihedrally towards the loin. A lodge is formed, with porch and gate, pink within, brown without. Pink is a colour. Brown is a colour. Black is a colour. It is an article of faith. There is a movement in the neighbour’s neck of one who is about to talk, to show that despite everything he is in the same boat, temporarily at least. They should know that people with kidney trouble find it difficult to use their voice, the voice gets lost and little. People with kidney trouble do not like people. It is easy enough in the negative.

– What job are you hoping for?

– Oh, anything, odd job. And you?

– What were you before?

– I was a schoolmaster.

– Uessayan?

– No, no, Iranian. And you?

– How very interesting. Ah, that’s me. Goodbye. Good luck.

The fly moves close to the white leather shoe on the mottled floor. Brown is a colour. Sooner or later, however, the correct identity, the Colourless identity that belongs, will be, is called out. The fly takes off swiftly. The left foot whose big toe is wearing out the canvas steps squarely into a mottled tile. The mottled tiles merge, move fast. Through the metal trellis the bland Bahuko face is splintered. It is not bland and not Bahuko but lean and brown and Berber, granulated like basalt rock, with hooded eyes over white slits that vanish. The Governor stares fiercely out regardless.

– Ex-occupation?

– Schoolmaster.

– Speak up, I can’t hear you.

– Schoolmaster.

– Ex-nationality?

– Iranian.

The brown hoods lift.

– That is two of you in five minutes. It is statistically
improbable
. What was your occupation?

– I used to be a joiner.

– We have you down as a philosopher.

– No, no, no. That’s not true.

– Well, it all comes to the same thing in the end.

– Why ask then?

The white cuff-edge encircles the brown wrist like a
bracelet
. The finger-nails along the golden pen are pink and well rounded. Whereas no amount of positive evidence can ever conclusively confirm a hypothesis, one piece of negative evidence conclusively falsifies it. Discuss fully, making detailed reference to your set texts. Dear Mrs. Mgulu.

– We have you down as an odd job man.

– Well it all comes to the same thing in the end.

– Don’t be impertinent. We’re doing all we can for you people but it isn’t easy.

Framed by the square in the middle of the metallic trellis the lean basalt face bears a wart above its well-chiselled lips. To the left of the nose, with the right eye closed, the left side of the trellis square divides the face almost exactly in half with a vertical bar. To the right of the nose, with the left eye closed, the bar moves to the left of the face.

– Oh, now wait, someone rang through about you. I didn’t connect the name. Where are we? Yes. That’s it. From Mrs. Mgulu of Western Approaches. Apparently there was a misunderstanding.

– A misunderstanding?

– That’s what’s written on the pad. Misunderstanding.

– Did she say that?

– Well, no, it was the butler, or someone. She wants you to start work tomorrow. In the garden.

Hee-hee-hee of a delighted child, the jet shoots out, the feet are apart, the index finger covers the brass nozzle-holder and the jet sprays out over the sliding blue globe in which against the moving palms a cavern-blue chin-line curves like a madonna’s, underlining a blob of mauve beneath a wide mauve crest of falling plumes, drowned in the water and away bearing a lucky number. Beyond the tall wrought-iron gates the mimosas are difficult, you see. We have no prejudice that’s an article of faith. But there is an irrational fear of the Colourless that lingers on, it’s understandable, in some cases, even justifiable, with the malady still about, well, it makes them unreliable. However, good luck to you. Oh, wait, here’s your unemployment pill, you’re entitled to it as you’re not working till tomorrow.

Whereas no amount of positive evidence. Dear Mrs. Mgulu, I know you won’t mind my writing to you in this way. The peeling walls are painted green. You must
understand
, we do all we can. Men move aside. Above their heads the notice says Do Not Spit. This lady takes an interest, as you should know, since your wife, the floor is mottled. A young palm tree mops the luminous white sky, framed darkly by the door.

Inside the avenue of the mind that functions in depth, Mrs. Mgulu sits back on the cushions of the vehicle as it glides towards the tall wrought-iron gates. The tumbling purple plumes of the wide hat shade off the cave-blue face, call out the wide and purple mouth.

To the right of the driver’s cap, far ahead, a man is
standing
beyond the wrought-iron gates. The sun flickers through the quick plane-trees. The iron gates grow and the man moves to the left behind the driver’s head. The iron gates open towards the vehicle, forming a guard of lances. The man stands in the road, shabbily dressed. He is Colourless.

– Who was that, Ingram, did you see?

– I’m afraid I didn’t, ma’am.

– I do believe it was the husband of one of my maids, she has often described him to me.

Mrs. Mgulu turns her black madonna chin-line towards the rear window just as the vehicle slides along the rounded corner.

– I wonder what he was doing there.

Ingram is silent, his eyes fixed on the coming curve of the road.

– I do hope the head gardener didn’t upset him, he is so very insensitive. A sanguine temperament. I really ought to get rid of him. But he is old and I am sorry for him. No, this would only be a thought. Mrs. Mgulu thinks, I do hope etc. Ingram, she says aloud, you didn’t hear anything in the servants’ quarters about the head gardener interviewing
someone
for a job as assistant gardener did you? I mean could anything have gone wrong?

– No ma’am, at least, nothing specific.

– What do you mean, nothing specific?

Ingram looks cryptically into the driving-mirror, sees her mauve mouth and stares at the curve in the road ahead.

– I only know that he came into the servants’ hall just before I left for the garage. He seemed rather angry.

– Oh dear, what a nuisance.

The olive-trees move slowly along, tinged by the sunset. It is difficult to tell the exact colour. The knowledge of their normal silvery green interferes with the absolute result of being tinged. And yet the road is pink. Not underfoot, where the immediate familiarity with its normal greyness makes it grey, but further ahead, receding even, the pinkness of the road recedes beyond the greyness covered. The white house on the hill is pink. The pink house higher up is
flame-coloured
. At eye-level, the shacks come into view. Three of them are on fire. Three of them are having a party. The glass verandah doors of three of them reflect the setting sun in dazzling orange. Some people would call them bungalows.

It was the glass that was blue of course, making the hat look purple and the face cave-blue and the wide mouth mauve in the avenue of the mind. The hat inside the vehicle must be pink. The wide pink hat of falling plumes calls the wide and dark pink mouth out of the chin-line that is
charcoal
smooth. In the driving mirror Ingram glimpses the
crimson
mouth and stares at the wrought-iron gates that grow as the man beyond them moves to the left. The iron gates open, forming a guard of lances. The man stands in the road, blue through the glass.

– Who was that, Ingram, did you see?

– No ma’am.

– I do believe it was Lilly’s husband, I have seen him
before
on this road. I wonder what he was doing there?

– Oh dear, what a nuisance. I did promise Lilly. Lilly is such a very excellent woman.

We can make our errors in a thought and reject them in another thought, leaving no trace of error in us. Comment and percolate. Sooner or later the bladder must be emptied, leaving no trace of urine in us. Explicate and connect. The grey base of the olive-tree darkens and steams a little.