Imago Bird (2 page)

After a time Woodcock did come in. He was a man without striking features—the ten of clubs, perhaps, after the King and Queen and Jack. Mrs Washbourne said ‘Can't he say he did it?' Aunt Mavis said ‘Can't he say he did what?' Mrs Washbourne said ‘I suppose he'd lose his job.' They were still talking as if neither Uncle Bill nor Woodcock were there. Woodcock went through into the study. I could see him looking up at the ceiling and then at the walls and the floor. Aunt Mavis said ‘He shouldn't have been playing with it.' Mrs Washbourne said ‘Why do you think he was playing with it?' I wondered how much any of them knew about psychoanalytic language. Aunt Mavis began to smile. When Aunt Mavis smiles, she seems at the same time to be trying to keep her mouth straight, as if it were a mountain-ledge from which she is hanging. I was still trying to get more breath in, or out, or anything: I was like a balloon over a volcano. Uncle Bill said ‘Have you seen a vision or something?' He was talking to me. It was unusual, in front of others, for him to talk to me. What he had said was a reference, I think, to something I had once told him, which was that I had bicycled to Bognor one day to visit the beach where Blake had seen visions: I had collected some shells there. I had at last to
let my breath out: at the end was a small hiccup, like a pendant. I thought that now I might smile. Uncle Bill was smiling. I thought—But do not Japanese people smile when things are alarming? Mrs Washbourne said ‘You frighten me.' Aunt Mavis said ‘You frighten me too.' Woodcock came back into the hall. It was as if he were a person who has found what he has been looking for in a game of hunt-the-thimble. He locked the door of the study behind him. Aunt Mavis began coming towards me on the stairs. Sometimes when Aunt Mavis comes towards you she seems about to go, as well as to look, right through you; but even for ghosts you have to step aside. I thought—Actors have that smile on their faces like mad archaic statues: they are trying to get back to an impossibly innocent past. By this time other secretaries and aides had come into the hall. I thought—Soon there will be enough for a full crowd-scene; then we can jump up and down and shout things like ‘Rhubarb rhubarb'; and we will not have to worry any more about meanings. Woodcock was putting the key of the study door into his pocket. I thought—But if what happens off-stage really goes on in the mind, then indeed can it not be seen as funny? even murder and self-mutiliation? And might not this, the knowledge of it, stop it? However—What about language then, for protection and self-justification. The people who had come into the hall were not quite looking at Uncle Bill; nor at Mrs Washbourne; not quite catching each other's eyes. I thought—Actors of course do not recognise each other as they really are when they are on the stage: it is their job to pretend, to cover up, to put something over. And by this they give comfort. The people in the hall were already not interested in finding out what in fact had happened in the study: they were interested in discovering what sort of parts they should play in order to preserve, whatever had happened, some customary function and identity. Like this they could give comfort: but did not the reality, locked in the study, remain in their unconscious like a hungry lion?

‘There was a shot —'

‘Yes.'

‘And your uncle came out of his room —'

‘Yes.'

‘And said “I was cleaning it” —'

One thing that happens in the course of analysis is that you are made to feel something of a fool. Or rather, you feel as if you would have been made to feel a fool if you had been talking to anyone but your analyst. But because one of the reasons that you have gone to him or her is that you think he or she might know more about what you are trying to say than you do yourself, so, on this quite different level—that of learning—you do not feel a fool at all.

I said ‘— Why shouldn't he have been cleaning a pistol —?'

Dr Anders said ‘You think he might not have been?'

I said ‘You mean—What would he have been cleaning a pistol for, while he was shouting at Mrs Washbourne —?'

What analysts do is to get you to play your words back to yourself so it is as if you can hear yourself speaking. Then you begin to question yourself, because you hear different patterns and inflexions. It is like hearing your voice on tape; but the difference from what you expected is not just of tone, but of content and intention.

Dr Anders said ‘You knew he had this pistol —'

I said ‘I knew there was a rumour that people like him could have pistols —'

‘Well if it went off he must have had it.'

It is a layman's idea about analysts I suppose that they take ordinary words and ideas and translate them into things like breasts and penises. And often they do. But they do not like it if you suggest this.

I said ‘Why am I smiling —?'

She said ‘Well, why are you?'

I thought—But it is another of the jobs of analysts after all to encourage you not to mind too much if other people do not like it when you suggest things.

Dr Anders said ‘Do you really think it is myself who, when you say something like pistols, makes you make the connection between them and penises?'

I wanted to say—Well, don't you?

I said ‘Well I think it's under your influence that I do.'

She said ‘Why?'

I wanted to say—Because it's funny.

Or—Aren't you trying to make me see that whatever connections are already there, are funny?

I said ‘Well, it's funny.'

She said ‘You haven't told me much about it yet.'

Sometimes with Dr Anders there was a warm and pleasant feeling as if you were lying in a bedroom with a fire in the dark.

I looked at her bookcase, the frieze on her wall, the spire beyond her window.

I said ‘Well, I was coming down the stairs and Aunt Mavis was coming out of the dining-room. Then there was this shot. I'm sure it was a shot. Then Uncle Bill came out of the study. But what actually happened inside, of course, I have absolutely no means of knowing.'

‘Why not?'

‘How could I?'

‘You could have asked.'

‘Who? When?'

I thought—Can I not say: I would have stammered?

Then—But this is what she expects me to say: which will prove that I use my stammer as some sort of protection?

I said ‘—Ask Uncle Bill if he'd taken a pot shot at Mrs Washbourne —?'

I thought I should explain—Anyway, none of this is what matters: the point is the way in which we were all there like people in a theatre; in which neither actors nor audience in fact do ask what is going on behind the stage.

Sometimes with Dr Anders it was as if so many things were coming into my head at once that it was like all the lights coming on in the auditorium.

I said ‘But the odd thing was that what had really happened didn't seem to be of importance: we were all just standing around waiting for the cover-up to begin: as if this were the whole purpose of people being involved in the drama.'

She said ‘A mystery drama.'

I said ‘Yes.'

Then—‘If you like.'

One of the patterns that seemed to be emerging from my sessions with Dr Anders was the way in which she claimed to have spotted in me a liking for turning things into mysteries; while I claimed that it was life itself that consisted of mysteries, which I tried to observe truly but which other people always seemed to be trying to turn into simple dramas that were false.

And in fact, did I not see myself as someone who was asking what was going on behind the stage?

I said ‘It's their mystery. They won't want to solve it. They'll chew it over for weeks. How else would they pass their time?'

Dr Anders said nothing.

Sometimes when Dr Anders said nothing I knew she did not approve of what I was saying: but because I knew she wanted me to learn not to mind too much whether or not she approved, I both did and did not mind this.

I said ‘What on earth can politicians do? They have to make up mysteries, hostilities, dramas: who has shot at whom: how the bridesmaids have behaved. What else is their life? Of course, sometimes, something has happened. But still, they would see their job as the cover-up; the story; the question of advantage; not what really had happened.'

Dr Anders used to sit in profile to where I lay. When I first had come to Dr Anders and had had to lie on her awful couch I had wondered whether or not I should take off my shoes. I had thought—If I do she will think I am overscrupulous; if I do not she will think I am dirty.

I said now—‘I suppose I could have gone into the study and looked at the ceiling.'

She said ‘Yes.'

I said ‘He did seem to say there was a hole there.'

I thought I might add—You see why I'm smiling?

Dr Anders' brown wrinkled face is like a nut that might sprout after millions of years.

She said ‘But what you said you found yourself actually thinking was—Now I've got you!'

I said ‘But also I said I didn't want this.'

She said ‘So that's why things seem mysteries?'

Sometimes in analysis such a bright light comes down that it is like a curtain in front of the stage and all the audience seems to be leaving the theatre.

I thought—So what is it now from which I am trying to protect myself?

There was Dr Anders' bookcase, her frieze, the spire beyond her window.

When I had gone for my initial interview with Dr Anders I had not then lain down on her couch but had sat in a chair opposite her. and when she had said—But of course you don't want to get rid of your stammer!—and I had been so outraged at this but had also thought—Well, all right, we are off on our long journey—I had kept wondering about this as the interview went on: and towards the end I had said—Why, if it is such hell, do I not want to get rid of my stammer? And she had said—You think people want to get out of hell? And this had been the first time that I felt the light that was like the glow of a fire in a bedroom somewhere beside me: and it was this that was like the beginning of a journey; and also the glimpse of the end of it. For although I knew that I myself thought things like this—about hell being something that people did not want to get out of—I did not know that other people thought this; and this knowing was some liberation. So I had said—But if I do not want to get out of hell because hell is a protection, what is it that I am using my stammer as a protection against? And I had thought she might say, as one of my earlier therapists had once said—Might not you be using your stammer as a protection against other people's disapproval? or against your own anger? And I had never quite thought this sufficiently subtle. So when
I had put this question to Dr Anders and she had not answered for a time I had felt—Well, I suppose your answer will be the same as other people's: and then she had said—Might you not be using your stammer as a protection against your own high opinion of yourself?

There was the white light like something fusing: then her bookcase, her frieze, the spire beyond her window.

I thought—If one jumped, might one not fly?

She said ‘Of what are you thinking?'

I said ‘Of the first time I came to see you.'

She said ‘What about it?'

I said ‘You said what I might be protecting myself against was my own high opinion of myself.'

She said nothing.

When I had first come for proper sessions with her and had had to lie down, I had taken my shoes off. Then I had thought—Would I not have learned more if she had seen me as dirty?

I said ‘But I couldn't ask there and then, in the hall, what had happened in the study. It would have been rude. And anyway, I did just stammer.'

She said ‘What were you trying to say when you stammered?'

I said ‘I was going to ask whether I should get some new clothes for this party they're taking me to tonight: also I was trying to say—Don't worry, I won't say anything.'

‘About the pistol shot —'

‘Yes.'

I thought—What was that image that came into my mind a moment ago when I was thinking my mind was a blank and I was looking through the window?

She said ‘That was when you felt—Now I've got you!'

‘Well —'

‘A feeling of triumph —'

‘But also not.'

— There are birds that sometimes perch on that ledge beyond the window —?

Then—But there is no reason why I should not have a feeling of power? And so I stammer?

I felt a sudden cold run up and down my spine, as if there
were Gadarene swine rushing there.

I said ‘I see.'

She said ‘What do you see?'

— A window-ledge; a courtyard; a drop on to some railings —

I said ‘If the story got out, I suppose it would damage him.'

She said nothing.

I said ‘Do you mean, if I had managed to ask exactly what had happened, I might not have stammered?'

She had a way of pursing her lips as if by this she were getting a hand-hold on a mountain.

I thought—But is it a good or bad protection then that I stammer?

— For I do not, do I, really want to hurt them —

When the lights come on so brightly in the theatre of your mind it is as if you were in a maze in which you have been travelling and have lost your way; you stand between green walls and look for a thread which was spun by some loved one years ago.

I said ‘But that's what I hate about the grown-up world, they talk so fluently, whether they're telling stories, or stories to cover up stories, they're still not trying to find out how things are. Language isn't suited to finding out this: language is for arguing, attacking, getting protection, getting responses. Stammering is perhaps a sign of trying to find out how things are: things are so complicated: there are so many of them: you can't get near them without a struggle.'