Trawler (25 page)

“Yeah! Well!
Listen!
As I was saying before you interrupted—don’t
do
that!—homosexuals are
not
effeminate. As heterosexual males like to think. No, not at all. In early and later post-pastoral small-city-societies they were the
warriors,
the fighters! And they died so that their heterosexual brothers and sisters could find mates and breed and farm and garden and found cities and get on with their lives in peace. But of course they didn’t think of it like that. No. They went off to join this
club.
Heaven! The Army!”

“Aye. They did?
Please
Redmond,
try
and concentrate, you know,
on the one thing.
Because, well, this is actually
interesting…
”

“It is? Luke, you really think so? Then that’s
great!
You’re my friend! Yes!
The Army of Sparta?
Front rank in the assault? The youngest boy-soldiers. Second rank? Older boys, in their early twenties, who had no relationship with the late-teenagers in the first rank. Third-rank? Hand-picked, as it were, Luke, men whose position in the line-of-battle was
very
carefully arranged, with much intelligence-gathering (gossip to you!). They were set in place with the very latest information—because
this
was the only secret, the only key to spectacular victories! The homosexual General gave it
lots
of quiet thought, the plan of attack, because he knew that exactly behind the young men in the very first rank,
but one indifferent rank back,
he must put the mature soldier who was in love with that young man. And in the fourth rank he must place the soldier whose lover was directly in front of him, but in the second rank, one rank away. And so on. Shock-troops. Elite soldiers. Line-on-line. And if he got it wrong? Just one or two bondings that didn’t match? Then he knew his army would be ineffective, chaos, because his men would run diagonally to their lovers in moments of crisis, out of line, and bash into each other, and the battle would be lost, and—even if he survived—he’d be disgraced! But if he got it right
—did that army advance?
Jesus yes! And how! Because it was powered not by aggression, but by
love.
It
ran
into battle! It sprinted! It came on so fast and manic that it
kicked the shit out of heterosexual armies five times its size.
And of course it did,
when you think about it, because what were those heterosexual soldiers thinking as this thoroughly focused, two-selves-contained, apparently mad, ferocious army
ran flat-out,
yelling, towards them? Yes—each soldier in a heterosexual army is
isolated,
he has another world of his own elsewhere, way
behind
him; he’s fond of his army mates, of course, but he’s not
in love with one of them—
no! He’s thinking
disabling
thoughts, and he can’t help it! At the worst possible moment for such thoughts he thinks: ‘So what’s my wife doing
right
now? And why am I putting up with all this? And are my children okay?’ Yeah. So there you have it. The Spartan Army zapped, but
zapped,
forces five times its size. And it could have done so every day of the week. It was the most successful army the world has ever seen!”

“Magic!” said Luke, as I sank back, muscle-less, exhausted, a meatless assemblage of disconnected aching bones in my sleeping-bag. “Magic! Great!” And then, in a different voice, one I recognized instantly because it seemed to come straight from my own three-quarters-forgotten world, from an inner secret memory of a very small circle (as we have to tell ourselves, if we still have the vitamins and hormones and relict health that means we even
want
to survive): it came straight from a so-called peer-thought-world of scepticism, outright corrective hostility—and that’s okay, and it can be beneficial, and besides, it’s flattering that people who think so differently are taking the slightest interest, and, eventually, you’re grateful… “So tell me,” he said, “those friends of yours in the SAS. Are they gay?”

“No! Of course not! Jesus Luke, you’re so ignorant!” (And even as I shouted this it didn’t seem right—in fact it registered with me instantly as something to be ashamed of, later.) “The deep psychology of all that is
entirely
different—it’s why the Regiment can only be around 800 men at a time (and Thatcher offered
millions,
to expand it to ten times its size, which was good of her, of course, but it couldn’t be done, because real élitism in
anything
as you know—it’s
nothing
to do with money). And why? Because your typical mainstream
regular
super-soldier—no psychopaths,
no muscle-men, no fantasists—he’s someone who has no family. At the extreme of subsequent motivation—as a baby he’s been left in a plastic bag on the hospital steps—so in his late teens the Regiment becomes his family. The Regiment-Father—and my god, once he’s passed selection,
how it cares.
How it loves him! For always!”

“Aye! Sorry sorry sorry! Nuts!”

“Okay! Fine! So tell me—the Army of Sparta.
When else was the same tactic employed?”

“Go on! Big time! Shoot!”

“Okay! So I damn well will! Pow!
Poof!
Because you asked for it—but you won’t like this Luke, not one bit. But just remember—our history is mostly written by academics in institutions, okay, let’s face it,
in Oxford and Cambridge:
and (no matter what their actual background) they can’t help it, they enter and then gradually, they come to
belong
to this tight social group, a
Club,
they dine together, they meet, and there’s no escape: they inhabit the
glorious
mediaeval architecture, the walled-in quiet, the peace of the gardens, they soak in the youthful eagerness (of even their worst students) and they learn the absurd traditions of their particular group (a college) and they pass the port to their left. And Luke—it’s okay—because I’m only talking about the arts! Scientists—ninety per cent of them—are more or less immune: because their interests are hard-wired into the great big brutal world of external reality (even if they happen to be studying cockroaches). Yes? Anyway, those academics in the arts, and maybe they were once fired-up boys or girls—with real interests—from Leeds or Belfast or Hull or Nottingham—they come to think that they’re aristocrats in a great house with attendant estates (which is
almost
socially true, for their short spell of play-acting)—and in a way that’s
great.
That’s the whole point of a scholarly community, to reinforce everyone’s sense of their own importance, the necessity of the work they’re doing. You know,
at its lowest:
the role of
vision
in the works of Thomas Hardy, say, or a critical work on the critical works of the critic Hazlitt, who was a great guy—yet all that’s good and necessary. Because it’s an inevitable by-product of the
Great Idea—it’s like the work of those medieval monks in the scriptoriums of their monasteries, preserving the ancient texts for all of us, producing those paradisical illustrations in their Books of Hours! And yet—and yet, as always, there’s a small price to pay for the Great Good, for a
celestial place,
for somewhere that almost everyone is pleased to pay his taxes to support—you, me, Jason, Bryan, Robbie,
even Sean:
we like the idea, we could not do without it in an advanced society. And if you don’t believe me, Luke
—consider this:
do you or do you not like philosophy? The most outré of subjects,
less use than Sanskrit,
do you want it to continue? Of course you do! And why? Because you’d far rather
pay
someone to consider whether you exist or not, and whether you have consciousness, and whether, if you do, it’s as real as a raven flying low over bracken, and whether an artificial construct like language or mathematics has evolved to connect with reality, and anyway, yourself,
your self,
what status does that have exactly? So could you,
as you,
ever have a substantive insight into anything as banal, as boring, and
questionable,
as enigmatic, as diachronically dodgy as the putative products of the purely social construct of
science,
which may all be a risible white middle-aged male conspiracy? Or would even a very
small
hydrogen bomb going off in your back-garden force you to change your view? Or perhaps, even if you were an anti-science feminist of the most extreme kind, we might not hear your view? In that particular set of circumstances? What do you think? Yeah—yeah! So it’s
much better
to pay someone else to consider such matters on our behalf (matters? Let us pause …) someone who may well, under such entirely unnecessary and intolerable psychic pressures sling themselves from a rope to a tree, or snuggle the side of their neck (it fits!) over one steel runner of a railway-line. Jeeesus Luke! The
noise
of the approaching train, the metallic shudder in the cold rail…

“Redmond Redmond! You sad old Wurzel! What are you trying to say?”

“Yeah, well, sorry, you’re right—it’s just that people in well-mannered, be-suited, formal clubs like that (which are still not as bad as the Diplomatic Service—I want you to know that) they
have
to develop a cardboard-false personality in order to survive. They self-censor themselves. They have to—they don’t even know they’re doing it. And so they just
can’t
give you the truth, not quite—and the
great
exception is: Gibbon! But then he was lucky.
He got the fuck out…
because he had the money. Money of his own. So he could! And modern philosophy? Why is it a good thing? Is that what you’re saying? Obvious! Not because it gives the rest of us
knowledge—
-it’s like the study of the history of English literature—it doesn’t produce anything that’s new for the tax-paying public! No! Science, music, literature, art, archaeology, history do that—no, the great value of it, the
social point is
for philosophers and critics and their students themselves: it gives them a license to read in all the other disciplines. And in the long term, that
helps:
it really does produce an education!”

“Aye, but the
point!”

“Yeah, yeah, I
told
you! Didn’t I? The nineteenth-century British navy! That’s when! The most consistently successful group of fighting men—over the longest time-span—that the world has ever seen!”

“Magic!” And then, I’m afraid, Luke shouted, “Bullshit!”

“Listen Luke,
even as a kid in school it worried me, it really did,
the idea of the wicked press-gang
Because it made no sense. No sense at all. The bullshit, as you’d say. The
bullshit
we were taught—we were supposed to believe that these press-gangs went out on a Friday night and picked up poor drunk stupid local farm-boys in the taverns, the pubs, round and about the naval bases at Plymouth or Portsmouth or wherever. It makes no sense! Of course not! Look—I grew up in a farming parish, my godfathers were farmers, farms were where I liked to be—there was no greater pleasure on earth,
everything
about it (and besides, Luke, when you know the Mother’s Union or the Young Wives or the choir or the Parish Council were coming—all those horrible chairs in a ring—you could jump on your bike and pedal like mad and get clean away and get a
real
welcome,
real
friendship on any one of the Henly’s family group of farms, three of them …)”

“Redmond!”

“Yes, well,
sorry,
Luke, I’m
drifting
again, like you said—and I want you to know, Luke, I took a pill of heroin once,
swallowed it,
can’t
bear
needles—and it
sent me to sleep for two days.
Now what’s the point? Eh? Because I can do that myself, anytime!

“Christ, Luke, you’re right, it’s like you said: this is far worse than any drug (but you didn’t say that, did you? No, of course not! Because you were never a wreck like me—you never
took
drugs! But there again
—don’t be so smug—
maybe it’s just that you’re
young
So you never had the time! Anyway, this feeling, it’s more than a bit frightening, actually, even for an old ex-soft-druggie like me: the sixties, Luke! Way before you were born! But you’re right—no wonder the gentle sophisticated torture of choice for army interrogators is sleep deprivation! Because right now I’d say anything! Anything! I can’t stop! I’ve
never
felt like this before: the boss, the organizer, you know, the internal
tough guy
that we sometimes resent but always obey, the Mister Big who directs our thoughts, Luke—he’s gone! He’s ceased to exist!”

“Aye, aye,
don’t be a wanker,
I warned you! And this is
it!
The boys, Redmond,
Jesus—
they go through this
every time
on a two-week trip.
For their entire working life.
I told you! And you—you think you’re
special.
But you
were
about to say something! Aye, tell me: the British Navy!”

“Luke! You’re so wrong! How dare you say that
I
think I’m special! Fuck you! If I thought that
—even for five minutes a day,
as you might say, then I wouldn’t need to take my scrip of anti-suicide,
really
life-saving, thank-you,
thank-you
science: Prozac. And as it happens, real chance, long ago I met the genius, the guy who discovered or invented or created it: Fluoxetine. A wonder drug if ever there was one, a saver-of-lives, like you (and yes, I hear you, Luke—but it does that for you, too, eventually: it stops you even
considering
whether your own life is
worth
the saving). This genius—and Luke, he was
so
quiet and shy and retiring and modest that I can’t even remember his name—he was sitting opposite me at a supper given by Mark Boxer for Anna Wintour, the editor of American
Vogue.
He was her attendant husband. So I asked
him what he did. And he said, ‘Do you
really
want to know?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I really do!’ (because he had this sudden light in his eyes—and so I really
did).
‘Well,’ he said, coming alive, like a bumble-bee that’s finally managed to get itself sun-warmed enough to be able to fly—‘I don’t know how much science you have’ (that’s what they say! that’s how they talk!), ‘or even interest in the subject, but I’ll tell you. I’ve spent the past few years collecting the brains of young people in the United States who’ve committed suicide—and there are a lot of them, believe me, the danger period is from sixteen to twenty-five years old. Now, of course, some parents are far too short-thinking or imploding-distressed to let me help them (or rather all the others to come, long-term) by gathering the evidence I need—but even so I have a
huge
sample (because it’s such a very common form of death amongst the otherwise disease-free young in the United States)… I have a sample
way beyond
the demands of significance in statistics. And that’s a
joy
to me. Personally. Because my one-to-a-hundred hunch about this has turned out to be
entirely
correct. And generally, professionally. Because I think I can prevent many of these pointless stupid young deaths in the future … I think I really can! Because all these brains—you put them in a centrifuge and analyse the mush it produces—they had one thing in common: an absence, a complete lack of a mystery chemical, serotonin. Whereas in the controls—young men and women of the same age killed in car-crashes, other mishaps, the serotonin levels were almost always at a normal constant. So—this one chemical—I now call it the happiness substance! And I really think it may be possible to prevent its degrading and dispersal in the brain—to conserve it!’”