The Dwarfs (4 page)

Four

There is the table. That is a table. There is the chair. There is the table. That is a bowl of fruit. There is the tablecloth. There are the curtains. There is no wind. There is the coalscuttle. There is no woman in this room. This is a room. There is the wallpaper, on the walls. There are six walls. Eight walls. An octagon. This room is an octagon, with no woman and one cat. There is the cat, on the carpet. Above the fireplace is a mirror. There are my shoes, on my feet. There is no wind. This is a journey and an ambush. This is the centre of the cold, a halt to the journey, and no ambush. This is the deep grass I hide in. This is the thicket in the centre of the night and the morning. There is the hundred-watt bulb like a dagger. It is neither night nor morning.

This room moves. This room is moving. It has moved. It has reached - a dead halt. There is no ambush. There is no enemy. There is no web. All’s clear and abundant, not closed, not closing, not moved, not moving, having no stealth, possessing no guile. The time would be dark where there are gardens. Here are my stocks. This is my fixture. Perhaps a morning will arrive. If a morning arrives, it will not destroy my fixture, nor my luxury. Here are the paths on my walls, dead at their destination. A meetingplace for the sundries, all within harness. If it is dark in the night or light, nothing obtrudes. I have my cell. I have my compartment. All is ordered, in its place, no error has been made. I am wedged. There is no hiding. It is not night, nor is it morning. There is no ambush, only this posture, between two strangers, here is my fixture, here is my arrangement, when I am at home, when I am alone, not needing to arrange, I have my allies, I have my objects, I have my cat, I have my carpet, I have my land, this is a kingdom, there is no betrayal, there is no trust, there is no journey, they make no hole in my side.

They make a hole, in my side.

The bell split in the room. Len rose. He pushed aside books on the table, lifted the tablecloth, nudged the cat aside, and stood still. He felt deep into the body of the armchair, lifted the cushions, tapped along the windowsill, pulled the curtains to and stood still. The bell rang. He inspected the mantelpiece and knelt down to examine the hearth, crawled under the table and found the floor bare. He stood up and still. The bell rang. He moved to the dresser and emptied a bowl of letters, lifted a cup from its saucer and, shuddering, looked down at his feet. His eye caught a reflection, his chin drew in further. In the top pocket of his jacket were his glasses. He put them on, walked up the stairs to the front door and opened it.

- What were you doing? Mark asked, a wardance? I could see your shadow bobbing up and down.

- How could you see my shadow?

- Through the letterbox.

In the street, the rain slipped through the darkness.

- What did you say the time was? Len asked.

- Well, Mark said, it’d be getting on for that.

- You’d better come in.

In the room Mark took off his raincoat and sat heavily in the armchair, arranging the cushions.

- What’s this, a suit? Where’s your carnation?

- What do you think of it? Mark asked.

Len fingered the lapels, opened the jacket and looked inside.

- It’s not a shmatta, he said.

- It’s got a zip at the hips.

- A zip at the hips? What for?

- Instead of a buckle. It’s neat.

- Neat? I should say it’s neat.

- No turn-ups.

- I can see that. Why didn’t you have turn-ups?

- It’s smarter without turn-ups.

- Of course it’s smarter without turn-ups.

- I didn’t want it double-breasted.

- Double-breasted? Of course you couldn’t have it double- breasted.

- What do you think of the cloth?

- The cloth? What a piece of cloth. What a piece of cloth. What a piece of cloth. What a piece of cloth. What a piece of cloth.

- You like the cloth?

- W
HAT A PIECE OF CLOTH!

- What do you think of the cut?

- What do I think of the cut? The cut? The cut? What a cut! What a cut! I’ve never seen such a cut!

He sat down and groaned.

- Do you know where I’ve just been? Mark said.

- Where?

- Earls Court.

- Uuuuhh! What were you doing there? That’s beside the point.

- What’s the matter with Earls Court?

- It’s a mortuary without a corpse.

Yawning, Len took off his glasses and pressed his knuckles to his eyes. Mark lit a cigarette and walked about the room, peering, his arm outstretched.

- What are you doing, dedicating a bull?

- That’s right.

He found an ashtray and sat down.

- How did you get back, allnight bus?

- Of course.

- Which one?

- A 297 to Fleet Street. A 296 from there.

Len stood up to let the cat out the back door. He glanced outside and shut the door quickly.

- I can get you from Notting Hill Gate to here in an hour to the minute, he said.

- You can get
me
?

- It’s simple. Perfect. Any time of the night. Say you’re at
Notting Hill Gate at 1:52, no, it’s Shepherds Bush at 1:52, say you’re at Notting Hill Gate at 1:56 or 1:57, you can catch a 289 which gets to Marble Arch at about 2:05, or 6, about 2:06 and there, before you know where you are, you can pick up a 291 or 294, coming from the Edgware Road, gets to Marble Arch about 2:07. What did I say? That’s right. That’s it. You catch that to the Aldwych, gets there about 2:15 or 14 and at 2:16 you can pick up the 296 from Waterloo, takes you all the way to Hackney. If it’s after three o’clock you can do the whole lot on a workman’s ticket.

- Thanks very much, Mark said. What are you doing at Notting Hill Gate?

- Notting Hill Gate? That was for your benefit. I never go anywhere near Notting Hill Gate.

- I’ve just told you I was at Earls Court.

- Ah! said Len. Don’t mention that place!

Mark scratched himself in the groin and stretched his legs.

- What were you doing, he asked, when I knocked on your door?

- Doing? Thinking.

- What about?

- Nothing. It was about nothing. This room. Nothing. A waste of time the thought and the thinking.

- What’s the matter with this room?

- What’s the matter with it? It doesn’t exist! What you don’t understand, you see, is that they’re holding me up for ransom. If someone doesn’t pay up quick I’m a dead duck.

- Are they asking much?

- They don’t want currency. They don’t want currency, they won’t touch it. They ‘re asking for something nobody’s prepared to give. And I can’t give it myself, because I haven’t got it. Ah, that doesn’t matter. What does it matter? There’s a time and place for everything. These things should be faced.

- You never said a truer word.

- What? What do you mean by that?

- There’s a time and place for everything. These things should be faced.

- You never said a truer word.

Mark coughed shortly and spat into the grate.

- I see that butter’s going up, Mark said, wiping his mouth.

- I’m prepared to believe it, said Len, but it doesn’t answer my question.

- What was that?

- What are you doing here? What do you want here?

- I thought you might give me a piece of bread and honey.

Len moved to the window and straightened a curtain.

- I know that you’re frightened, you see.

- Oh yes? Mark said. What of?

- You’re frightened that at any moment I’m liable to put a redhot burning coal in your mouth. Yes. But when the time comes, you see, what I should do is place the coal in my own mouth.

- Why’s that?

- Why? That should be obvious. Pete would be able to tell you. He wouldn’t be far out.

- Do you think so?

- He wouldn’t be far out, Len said, sitting on the table. But I’ll tell you something about him. As you’re here. I know, you see, how things stand in the nothing. I know the nothing. The waste and dead air. But for Pete, even the nothing is something positive. Pete’s nothing eats away, it’s voracious, it’s a malignant growth. But, can’t you see, he fights back, he grapples to the death with it. He’s a fighter. My nothing doesn’t bother to act in such a way. It licks its paws while I shrink. It’s a true nothing, a paralysis. There’s no conflict, no battle. I am it. I am my own nothing. It’s the only thing I have to rejoice in.

- Monkeynuts, Mark said.

- Why do you say that?

- Catpiss.

- All right, all right. If you believe that, I’ll ask you another question.

- Ask.

- What have you got against Jesus Christ?

- That’s a fast yorker.

- Can you play it?

- Which firm does he work for?

- He’s a freelance.

- Oh yes, Mark said, he runs a book down at the dogs, doesn’t he?

- He runs a book all right.

- That’s the bloke, Mark said. Why? Has he put you on to any good things lately?

- He’s given me a few hot tips, I can tell you that, Len said, and shrugged. Well, I suppose everyone’s got a blind spot.

He began to stride the room, gripping and relaxing his fingers.

- As a matter of fact, Mark said, I did hear a rumour that your fares were going up.

Len stopped in his tracks and turned.

- Going up? Who told you that?

- I hope you’re not going to strain the budget.

Len sat down, facing Mark at the fireplace, and smiled.

- I was waiting for this, he said.

- You might give me an idea of the fare stages. I could walk to save the extra penny.

- Listen here. I admit my prices are tending to go up, but if you feel you’re unable to pay my costs I can always arrange to put you next to the driver or in the luggageboot. But, quite frankly, I’d much rather you give the correct fare. What do you want? But how did you know they were going up?

- Pete told me.

- Naturally.

- Why? Has he got money in it?

- In a way I suppose he has, but that’s beside my point. I
can’t see me getting the correct fare out of you or anything like it. But you must understand that I’m subject to the rise and fall of the balancesheets. If the market drops, or goes up, what can I do? Look here, Mark, it’s quite true. My examiner is hiding behind a large book at the moment. I won’t deny it. It’s over there, by the wireless.

Mark turned in his chair and looked over his shoulder.

- A black book?

- Yes.

- A thick black book?

- Yes.

- Looks familiar.

- Huh.

- Lots of pages, in that book.

- Yes. Well, he’s hiding there, but I mean to see him, I can tell you that. I mean to have a look at him, at least.

- What’s wrong with that? Mark said.

- Nothing. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’ll let you know the result of my investigations.

- All right.

- But, Mark, you can do me a favour and don’t spit. You don’t have to spit. I know you’ve got Droit, but so have I. You must have manners, even if you’ve got nothing else. All I ask is, use restraint.

- Hold on a minute. Who’s raising the fares, me or you?

- Let me explain, Len said. You see, one of my troubles is that I tend to mistake the reflections of the palace and the moon for the real objects. My ancestors tell me which are the real objects and I respect age. But I must find out for certain myself. I must try to look through the reflections and find the object. What can I lose? Of course, you have your Droit, but let me have my Droit and you can have your Droit!

- Howzat?

- Not out.

- What about Pete? Can he have his Droit too?

- Pete’ll have his Droit, Len said, when we’re dead and
buried. Pete has his Droit whether you like it or not.

Mark lit a cigarette and blew the match.

- Listen, Len, he said, all you’ve got to do is put up a notice: Spitting Prohibited. Who could argue with that? The fare’s high enough. I couldn’t afford to pay a fine on top of it.

- Yes, that’s a good idea. I’ll do that. But if you do happen to let out a spit and you can’t pay the fine, I won’t be responsible for the consequences.

- The question won’t arise.

- But you can see. Can’t you see that I must put up my own fares and travel in the front seat so that I won’t have to ride in my own luggageboot? I can’t see from there, and I must keep my eye on the driving. There’ll be plenty of room for me because hardly anyone else can afford the price. In that case I can keep to my own route and avoid traffic jams. I must do that.

Five

Pete looked over her body to the humped shadows of the room and then, gathering her hair, he smoothed it back upon the cushion. About the windowframe the moon edged. She inclined him towards her. He rested his head on her breasts. Above them, through the open window, a light breeze moved. She looked past his head to the walls. She could not distinguish their meetingplace. They seemed at once distant and close upon her. She stared up at the creased ceiling. The pale rim of the hanging shade, at first apparent, now in her sight faded, changing from form into shape into the bulge of the ceiling. Upon a wall, an oblong of barred reflection angled from light in the window. The darkness pointed upon their bodies, weighted, and as she stared it out, dispersed, withdrawing.

- I have banished darkness from the face of the earth, she said.

Pete stretched his arms around a chairleg, and clasped his hands.

- How did you do that?

- No, it is dark, she said. More so since you moved.

- It’s the heat. If it weren’t so hot it wouldn’t be so dark.

- But in summer, Virginia said, day doesn’t become night. The day is the day. In winter, the night’s in the day. In summer-

- I’m not quite sure, Pete said, that I agree with you.

He yawned and stretched, pressing the fender with his foot.

- But it is dark now. Darker because we’re so white, she said.

- Yes.

He pulled her to him and kissed her, turning her on to the cushions, and stared down at her face.

- You don’t close your eyes.

- No, she said.

- Why not?

- I want to see you.

- Why?

- Because I love you.

- Yes, said Pete, so do I.

The moon had gained the body of the window. Between the bars of a chair, it shone down on them.

- Listen. Don’t you believe I love you?

- Do you?

- Do you believe it?

- No.

- You’re wrong, Pete said. I love you.

He reached up to the chairside and drew two cigarettes from his jacket, lit them and placed one in her mouth.

- In some ways I’m very backward.

He allowed the smoke to collect and divided it with a breath.

- But I’m becoming less ignorant.

- Ignorant?

- I think I’m learning to love you.

- How?

- Perhaps you’re teaching me. Who else could?

- Me?

- Who else?

She sat up and faced him.

- The other day you told me I was like a boy to you.

- I said in some ways.

- But -

- I’ve been thinking.

- What?

- I’ve been doing some thinking.

He dropped his head to the cushion at her hip, stretching his legs to the hearth and she, swivelling with him, looked down. Bending, she kissed him, and then moved away to sit upright. He pulled her back and pressed his mouth to her shoulder. Her hair swung across his face. He kissed her breasts. She stared at
the window. The light was glazed. She turned on her hip and fell against his body. His arms enfolding her, they kissed, rolling off the cushions. His thigh was closed between her own. They were still, the underside of the table black above them, her hands at his waist. She moved her hands along his body. He loosed himself from the embrace and sat up.

- Yes, you’re very beautiful.

They moved back to the cushions and faced each other sitting.

- But what was I saying? he smiled.

- You were thinking.

- Yes.

- You had been thinking.

Pete picked up her cigarette from the hearth and passed it to her.

- What happens sometimes, he said, is that you have, in fact, proceeded farther than your thought. You’re behind your own times and you don’t know it. All this, I see now, has been happening in me for some time and I haven’t been sufficiently aware of it. Or perhaps I was reluctant to trust it. I’ve been learning to love you for some time.

Virginia was silent. He lay back and gazed into the dark corner of the room.

- Are you sure?

- No. But I want to be. I want you to help me prove it.

- Yes.

- We can do it. I’m sure of that.

- I can’t hear a sound, said Virginia.

- Hey.

- Yes?

- I’m going to stay here tonight.

- You are?

- Yes.

- I can’t remember when you last did that.

- Well, he said, there you are.

- Here I am and here you are. Would you like to dance with me?

- What do you mean? Now?

- Yes.

- Not at the moment, eh? Pete said.

- All right.

- Let’s have some wine.

He stood up, walked to the table, poured two glasses of red wine.

- You’re very slim, very tight.

- Cheers.

- The moon’s following you about.

- No, I’m getting in its way.

- That’s your privilege.

- Yes, why not?

He stood at the window, looking out.

- There’s no wind.

- Len once said that to me, she said.

- What?

- He just looked at me and he said, there’s no wind.

- Ah, said Pete. Len. I’m going to see him tomorrow night. He bent his head and looked up at the sky.

- All quiet up there, anyway.

- Sounds very grave, she said.

- What does?

- Going to see Len tomorrow night.

- No. Why?

He sat down by her.

- What are we, you and me? What we are not is items in a double lovemachine.

- No. We’re certainly not that.

- Quite. You represent for me something much more than that. For example, you don’t need to clutter yourself up with ornaments of provocation, that kind of stuff. They’re beside the point. Your provocation is of another sort, it’s of a purer sort. Your loveliness is of another sort.

- Is it?

- Yes. It exists in spite of yourself and everyone else. You
don’t have to go in for titillation, like the rest of them. That’s not your vocation. Your vocation is to be a disciple of the Gods. Do you follow me?

Pete emptied the bottle into their glasses. Virginia slipped into bed.

- Did I ever tell you what my bugbear was when I used to knock about with Mark - in the days I was one of the boys? Pete said. Armourplated women. It’s one stage less difficult than making love to a crowbar. I remember once a suspender snapped. We were sitting on a tombstone in Hackney graveyard. I was caught between the buckle and the other machinery. I nearly had a penis stricture. She was a nurse, that one. Fully qualified. She used to pinch me on the epidermis to show how she would lay me out as a corpse. Very entertaining, but all in all a mug’s game.

- Did you and Mark always go about together then?

- Yes. Shift work. Work. Work tomorrow, he said, yawning. Do you know that in the firm’s cellar there’s enough venison to sink a ship?

- Who’s it for?

- The directors and the directors’ wives.

He climbed into the bed and held her in his arms.

- This is good for me, she said.

- For me too.

- It’s not right for a schoolteacher to sleep alone all the time.

A churchbell struck two.

- Your eyes are very bright, she said.

- I’ve never seen yours so wide.

- Mine grow at night.

He traced her brows and the hollows of her eyes, and her cheeks.

- I wonder if I’ll dream tonight.

- No, she murmured, her eyes closed, we won’t dream.

- Look, Pete said, at the moon.

Leaning forward, they looked through the window.

- Yes.

Bordered by ribs and caves of cloud the bright moon stuck.