Imago Bird (3 page)

Dr Anders said ‘Lucky old you.'

I thought I might make a noise as if I were someone behind a closed door and being murdered.

Then—Do other people think me lucky then?

If you stand in the maze long enough, what seems to happen is that the walls begin to shake and holes to appear as if you are in some sort of sieve.

I said ‘What probably happened was that Uncle Bill had just been mucking about with this gun and then it went off. I expect he does like guns. He's often shouting at Mrs Washbourne. God knows what connections there are in anyone's unconscious, or conscious.'

Dr Anders said nothing.

I said ‘I had an image just now —'

Then—I might have wanted to destroy them?

I said ‘No, it's gone.'

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

I said ‘So they make up stories —'

— A pond with a duck on it —

I said ‘Oh I know I make up stories too! Perhaps I do like mysteries. Then I can feel—what—I told you so! Then I do feel superior. Yes. But I know it and they don't And still, I don't really like it That's the difference. That's what I hate, their all being on a stage and acting so sincerely. As if they believed in their dramas. What does it matter if a pistol does go off? They treat life like a detective story.'

Dr Anders said ‘But the point of a detective story is to find out exactly what happened.'

I said ‘But in fact it's just a man with a blank cartridge behind the stage.'

Dr Anders said nothing.

I said ‘The whole play, or story, is just a pretence to amuse an audience.'

Dr Anders seemed to be considering something quite different.

I thought—But have I not, for the last ten minutes, been amusing?

Perhaps I could explain—Might I not be both actor, and audience, in my own drama —

Or I could cry out—Is not the thread through the maze the cold air through the holes which appear when the walls begin to shake and come down —

Dr Anders said ‘Do you know, for the last ten minutes, you haven't been stammering?'

I said ‘Haven't I?'

I thought—Or something wrapped like a cocoon or a baby in front of the fire —

Dr Anders said ‘I'm not saying it would be easy.'

I said ‘What would not be easy?'

Then —‘—Not easy to find out exactly what's happening —?'

Dr Anders leaned forward and raised her hands slightly from the arms of her chair. This was her signal that we were coming to the end of the session. It was also the signal, sometimes, for a rush of thoughts and images to come into my head as if they had been waiting just for this to be like children let out of school.

I said ‘But if my stammer is a protection against my destructive feelings, should I or should I not stammer?'

Dr Anders remained leaning forward with her hands on the arms of her chair.

I said'—I haven't stammered for ten minutes because I've been contemptuous and trivial and aggressive —?'

She said ‘Yes, that's a problem.'

She still did not quite get up from her chair.

I said ‘The more you find out, the more you find what's impossible. Neuroses are like shells: you lose them and you burn up in the sun. But if you don't lose them, they grow so heavy you go mad too.'

Dr Anders got up from her chair. She went to the door slowly. She sometimes held her leg as if she had been kicked by a horse.

I said ‘So isn't it better to be gentle and helpless than to pour out your shit?'

I thought—And I'm still not stammering —?

She turned with her hand on the handle of the door. She said ‘You think you can choose?'

I had a girlfriend at the time called Sheila who lived near Belsize Park. This was within walking distance from Dr Anders'. I used to visit Sheila in the afternoons after I had been to Dr Anders. Like this I did not have to telephone to make arrangements. I hate telephoning: and to make arrangements seems to me to be presumptuous in a world where anything may turn up.

Sheila said ‘Was there a lock on the front door when you came in?'

I said ‘Why, has someone stolen it?'

Sheila lived in a house with a lot of squatters and tenants who did not pay much rent because the ground-lease was nearly up and the landlord was doing nothing about renovations. Sheila was one of a group of Young Trotskyites. I liked the fact that Sheila was a Trotskyite; not, I think, because I found it easier to be committed to her sort of politics than to Uncle Bill's, but because I felt there was something interesting in moving between the two.

Sheila said ‘What did the old witch get out of you today?'

I said ‘Not much.'

She said ‘Just breasts and cunts and penises.'

Sheila was a big, round-faced girl with short hair. She had a skin which was rather like ice before you skate on it. She wore very tight trousers; in which she seemed to hang like things in a larder.

I said ‘And little bits of shit which, when I was young, were rejected by an unappreciative world.'

She said ‘I do think that's all balls.'

I said ‘And crap—'

‘And crap—'

‘And shit—'

Sheila's room had two old frames containing bedsprings on the floor, and a lot of cushions. There were some bits of seaweed and driftwood on the walls which she and I had collected from the beach near Bognor where Blake had seen visions.

She said ‘That's how we're conditioned to talk. By people like you and your fucking analyst. You don't think people would talk like this naturally, do you?'

Sheila was a few years older than I. She was doing social science at London University. She felt rather belligerent about doing social science, because so many Young Trotskyites were doing it.

I said ‘How do you think the workers will talk after the revolution?—Will you please pass the cucumber sandwiches —?'

Sheila said'—Will you pass you and your uncle's head on a fucking platter—'

Sheila and I used to talk like this I suppose because we were not in love. People talked like this on television and in films. I thought—It is this that is our conditioning.

I said ‘What's the matter with you today, have you been tortured by the police?'

Sheila began to take off her clothes. She had difficulty in getting her trousers off, as if they were sails in a high wind.

It was accepted that Sheila and I made love in the afternoons. It was useful to me that this was accepted, because then I did not have to go through the preliminary moves and stages which I was not good at.

She said ‘And what's been going on in your grand world? Have you met any particularly loathsome specimens lately?'

I said ‘I'm going to this reception tonight. For this Asian or African Prime Minister.'

She said ‘Which Asian or African Prime Minister?'

I thought I might say—They all look alike to me. But I wondered—What would I be protecting myself against by making jokes that I do not mean?

Also I sometimes imagined Sheila might in fact have a tape-recorder in her room, to take down my words and use them one day against me.

I said ‘Mr Perhaia.'

‘Who's Mr Perhaia?'

I said ‘I thought you knew about such things.'

When Sheila finally did get her trousers off she stood like the figurehead of a ship with her arms by her side and her lower half blown by spray. I took my clothes off.

She said ‘God you take it for granted don't you.'

I said ‘Well you do too.'

‘How did you get that thing up the stairs?'

‘I used it to knock the lock off.'

‘That's how you describe it is it.'

‘As if this house ever had any locks!'

‘You'd like that wouldn't you?'

‘What—'

‘I'll show you.'

Although it was accepted that Sheila and I made love in the afternoons, and I liked this, it sometimes seemed difficult to turn into reality what my mind told me I so much desired.

She said ‘What's wrong?'

‘Nothing.'

‘You were all right a moment ago.'

‘And now I'm not.'

I do not know what other people find about these things. People seldom tell the truth about making love. What I used to find was that although of course I looked forward to it very much, and it was of course very good when it happened, there was a moment in between when sometimes things went blank as if there were the lights coming on in the auditorium or the thread had got lost in the maze.

She said ‘Is it something to do with me?'

‘No.'

‘What is it then?'

‘Wait.'

I had asked Dr Anders if other people found anything like this. She had said—as she usually said to such questions—Why are you interested in what other people find?

I wondered—Would it be different if we were in love?

— Or if we did not take it so much for granted —

Also—Are these things the same then —

Sheila said ‘Was it because of what I said about you and your uncle's head on a platter?'

‘No.'

‘What was it then?'

I thought—But in love you would take both everything and nothing for granted —

When I had first been with Sheila this sudden failure had been terrible. Then, when things had worked out all right once or twice, it was not too oppressive.

Sheila said ‘You don't really think, do you, when I ask you questions about your grand world, I'm trying to get something out of you?'

I said ‘No.'

‘Because if you do, it's pathetic!'

When Sheila flung herself back on the bedsprings they would rock her up and down gently for a time like a boat

I thought—Is it true then that she might be trying to get something out of me?

But also—It is when we act as if we are angry that things get better.

I did have this fantasy about Sheila perhaps using me to find out things about Uncle Bill that she could pass on to her Trotskyite friends. But when I thought about this, it did not seem to matter. I thought—Why shouldn't she, if we are not in love, and what we are doing is for our own advantage?

Or even—If it helps to make love.

However—But if it is difficult, do I love her then?

I said ‘Perhaps I do love you.'

She said ‘Love me!'

Sheila had a way of looking at me when I said things like this as if she were protecting herself from torpedoes. The torpedoes were any words of tenderness that I might launch towards her.

I thought—For in love, might not the experience be overwhelming and thus castrating too?

She said ‘Use your hands.'

I said ‘I am.'

She said ‘That's better.'

I thought—If you don't feel happy, smile: don't wait to
smile till you feel happy.

Or—Do you know the story of Miss Paragon and the Belgian Schoolgirls?

When I did in time manage to make love to Sheila she did become soft, compliant; almost like another person. I thought—One day I will know someone who from the beginning is hot and dusty and like a nut in front of a fire.

Sheila said ‘Oh God that's fine!'

I thought—But in love, O God, one would not be thinking of one's own performance.

Sheila put her head back and opened her mouth like people do in films.

I think I could always make love to Sheila after a time because we distanced ourselves from ourselves and from each other: we were runners coming into the last straight: seeing her head roll, I knew I could pass her. Or we were the judges with our record-books and stop-watches: it was in the performance that there was power.

I do not know how much in this we were in fact influenced by films. In films there are bodies writhing like caterpillars because there has to be activity in front of cameras: you cannot be still: you cannot portray the nervous system. But men in films do not often seem to have erections. If one wanted to film the thing truly, one would have to go inwards; like a hand finding another hand at the beginning of a journey.

Sheila opened her eyes and looked at me fiercely; as if she were the figurehead of her ship and were turning and considering embracing it.

‘Was that all right for you too?'

‘Yes.'

‘You promise?'

I said ‘Yes!'

I thought—You should have learned not to ask that!

Then when I lay back again I wondered—Does it always have to be such a risk? Would I not rather be picked up, sometimes, and pushed as if in a pram towards the sea —

I said ‘Don't go!'

She said ‘I'm not going to go!'

She used to sit up on the bedsprings and light a cigarette.

She said ‘Why don't you like me to go?'

I thought—If you picked me up and pushed me, would I drown?

I said ‘Oh, because I am the tortoise and you are the hare.'

I thought—Where did that come from? That's clever!

When Sheila got to her feet and moved about the room she had that odd bird-like walk of women with no shoes and no clothes on: as if their bodies have not quite got used to being out of water.

Then she came back to the bedsprings and poked at me with her foot. She said ‘All right. Give!'

‘Give what?'

‘Tell me.'

I had wondered—But would I in fact like it, if she tried to get something out of me?

She said ‘You like that don't you—'

I said ‘Tell you what.'

I thought—It is this that is like being put in a pram and pushed towards the sea?

She said ‘About your uncle.'

‘What about my uncle?'

‘Who pays his bills?'

I said ‘What bills.'

She said ‘He can't live as he does on his salary.'

She stood on my stomach; balancing there on one foot.

I thought—Is Eros, seen from the bottom, like a female wrestler? Then—This is a game.