Mantissa (6 page)

T
HE
door of the hospital room has been kicked open with savage violence. There stands an infinitely malevolent apparition straight out of a nightmare; or more accurately, straight out of a punk rock festival… black boots, black jeans, black leather jacket. Its gender is not immediately apparent; hermaphroditism appears most probable. The only certain thing is that it is in a towering rage. Beneath the black jacket, which is festooned with outsize safety-pins (another hangs from the left earlobe) and swastika badges, can be glimpsed a white T-shirt with a pointing pistol printed on it. The splintered shocks of hair above are also white, a staring albino white; whether by dye or bleach or in sheer horror at the face below, it is impossible to say.

The eyes are alarmingly haloed with kohl, giving an effect less cosmetic than as if their owner has recently been the loser in a fistfight; and they match the mouth below, whose lips have seemingly been painted with the same black polish as that on the boots which have just kicked the door in. A left fist lies clenched on a hip, while the right hand grips the neck of an almost bodiless electric guitar. From it trails a short length of splay-ended flex, torn from the amplifier with such force that it has snapped in half.

But the ultimate horror is reserved for the last. Incredible though it may seem, there is, despite the hideous disguise, something familiar about the stance and facial bone-structure of the ghastly intruder. It is, after all, no hermaphrodite, but a she; and not any she, but the very twin of Dr. Delfie on the bed. One can tell by the black-ringed eyes. One can also tell by the reaction of the target of this macabre clone’s venomously accusing stare. Though he is evidently shocked, there are immediate signs that the would-be Member of Parliament is not entirely surprised. Pushing himself free with a speed and vigor markedly absent from his previous behavior, he sits up on one arm and throws a frantic glance down at his still procumbent partner; then back again at the gallows figure in the doorway; and finally speaks to it.

“You…” he swallows. “I…” he swallows again.

The satanic
Doppelgänger
’s only response to that is to march into the room and abruptly halt, legs astride. The neck of the guitar is thrust violently forward, as if it were a submachine gun, at poor defenseless Dr. Delfie. A black-fingernailed hand rises and slashes down across the strings as a cutthroat razor might slash across a face in Glasgow. There is an indescribable clang of tortured arpeggio. A moment later there is no longer a Dr. Delfie on the bed, only a faint depression where her head lay on the pillow.

Nurse Cory, who has sprung to her feet, opens her mouth to scream; but the merciless guitar is whipped to point at her, the steel strings are viciously slashed again. She too, pretty brown arms, blue-and-white uniform, astounded eyes, vanishes instantaneously into thin air, leaving nothing but a flutter of falling white typescript. Whang, wheeze, whang, goes the abominable guitar; into nothingness goes each sheet of paper.

Nemesis glares at the patient on the bed after this ruthless and lightning St. Valentine’s Day massacre, her eyes burning, still consumed by some maenadic fury. She less speaks than explodes.

“You
bastard!
”

Miles Green scrambles off the bed, hastily clutching at the rubber sheet and using it as an improvised apron.

“Now wait a minute. I think you have the wrong ward. And word.”

“You fuckin’ chauvinist pig.”

“Steady on.”

“I’ll give you steady on. Christ!”

“But you can’t…”

“I can’t what?”

“Language like that.”

Her jet-black lips curl in a ferocious sneer. “I can use any bleedin’ language I bleedin’ like. And I bleedin’ well will.”

He retreats, holding the rubber sheet tight against his stomach.

“That gear. It isn’t you at all.”

She takes a menacing step or two nearer.

“But we do just happen to know who I am.” The lips curl again. “Despite the
gear?
Right?”

He would back farther away, but realizes he is against the padded wall.

“It was just an idea.”

“Like hell it was. You lyin’ sod.”

“A little tryout. A first sketch.”

“My arse.”

“I thought I was never going to see you again.”

“Well you’re bleedin’ well seein’ me now. Right?”

He attempts to escape sideways, along the wall, but then finds himself at the corner, backed against the schoolgirls’ breasts and faced with the threatening guitar-neck. She gives him a vitriolic stare, then suddenly stabs an outraged finger at his face.

“You realize what you done? You ruined my best bleedin’ gig in years. I had sixteen thousand kids screamin’ blue murder every time I hit a chord.”

“I can believe that.”

“You think I got nothin’ better to do than piss around rubbin’ out porn, you’re out of your tiny mind.”

“I have a feeling we don’t quite share the same register of discourse.”

She surveys him from head to foot, with a total contempt; but then her face twists into a mock grimace.

“Oh sure. I forgot. Plus the usual” – her mouth sags sarcastically sideways – “deeper levels of meaning. Yuck.” She glowers, as if more than half inclined to spit in his face. “You’re pathetic. You don’t even know where it’s bleedin’ at anymore.”

“If you don’t mind my mentioning it, I think you’re rather overdoing ‘bleeding’ in the stichomythia.”

“And you know where you can bleedin’ well stick that!” She gives him another scorching look. “Honest, you make me bloody vomit. Dr.
A. Delfie.
That’s not a pun, it’s a dog’s turd. And Nurse
Cory
. Gawd save us. Stinkin’ elitist crap. I s’pose you think the whole soddin’ world still speaks Greek.”

He throws her an oblique look, half dubious, half imploring.

“Don’t say you’ve gone political.”

She shakes her head at him, in a new fury.

“Decent writin’, i.e., non-bourgeois writin’, was always political. ’Cept to middle-class zombies like you.”

“But you used to –”

“Don’t you dare tell me what I used to. It’s not my bleedin’ fault if I was a victim of the historical male-fascist conspiracy.”

“But the last time we –”

“And don’t give me that one!”

He looks down, then tries another tack.

“Lots of people would never have realized.”

“Screw lots of people.” She taps her thumb angrily back against the pistol on her T-shirt. “You don’t kid a sister. Not for one moment. All you are’s a typical capitalist sexist parasite. You been nothin’ but bad news, ever since I was stupid enough to give you the time of day.” He opens his mouth, but she jumps on. “Tricks. Games. Always tryin’ to have it both ways. But that’s the last time you do it with me, you bugger.” She kicks backwards at the bed. “Givin’ that cardboard cut-out
my
face,
my
body.”

“It was only a very general description.”

“Bullshit.”

“We used to be such friends once.”

She mimics his voice. “ ‘We used to be such friends once.’ ” Her head shivers forward at him. “I seen through you years ago. All you ever wanted out of me was a quick lay.”

“You’re confusing me with Walter Scott. Or James Hogg, possibly.”

She closes her eyes, as if counting up to five; then her scathing eyes sear into his.

“God, if you was only a character too. If I could just rub you out along with your piddlin’, pansy, paper puppets.”

She wipes her mouth angrily with the back of her wrist. He leaves a little silence.

“You realize you’re behaving just like a man?”

“And what’s that s’posed to mean?”

“Instant value-judgments. Violent sexual prejudice. To say nothing of trying to hide behind the roles and language of a milieu to which you do not belong.”

“Oh belt up.”

“For a start you’ve completely confused the uniform of three quite different subcultures, to wit, the Skinheads, the Hell’s Angels, and Punk. They’re three rather different things, you know.”

“Will you shut up! Christ!”

Her eyes are like black fire again, but Miles Green senses that he has, at last, made a small counterhit; for suddenly she turns away from him in his corner, lifts the strap of the guitar over her head, and throws the instrument petulantly down on the end of the bed. For a moment she stands with her back to him. The rear of the black jacket is emblazoned with a white skull, under which are the words, in Nazi-Gothic capitals, DEATH LIVES. Then she turns, once more with an arm and finger out.

“Now just get this. From now on, I make the rules. Right? You ever again…
kaput
. End of gig. Is that clear?”

“As your native sunlight.”

She stares at him. “Then get lost.” She folds her arms, and jerks her head sideways. “Go on. Out.”

He raises the rubber sheet an inch or two.

“I’ve got nothing on.”

“Great. Now the whole friggin’ world can see you for what you really are. And I hope you catch your death.”

He hesitates, shrugs, and takes a step or two over the old rose carpet towards the door; then stops.

“Couldn’t we at least shake hands?”

“You’re jokin’. You must be ravin’ mad.”

“I do feel this is a bit of a verdict without a trial. I was simply trying to comment lightly on –”

She leans forward. “Look. Ever since I got into serious liberation, you been takin’ the mickey. I got your number, mate. You’re the original pig. Numero Uno.” Her eyes flash at the door, and once again the skull-like head with its marionettish shocks of white hair jerks sideways. “Out.”

He takes a further step or two, backwards now, like a courtier with ancient royalty, since the rubber sheet does not quite reach around his midriff, then once again stops.

“I could have made it far worse.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Had you swanning soppily through the olive groves in a transparent nightie or something. Like Isadora Duncan on an off day.”

Her hands go to her hips. Her voice becomes a hiss.

“Are you havin’ the soddin’ gall to suggest…”

“I’m sure it had its points. In its time.”

She stands legs astride, arms akimbo. For the first time there is, beneath the anger, a glint of something else in her eyes.

“But it’d only make us giggle now, right? Is that it?”

He gives a modest shrug.

“It did always seem a touch absurd. Now you mention it.”

She nods at him, several times, then speaks between her teeth. “Go on.”

“Not of course as a purely literary sort of concept. As part of the iconography of Renaissance humanism. Botticelli and all of that.”

“But cock?”

“I wouldn’t dream of using such an ill-bred expression. Myself.”

She folds her arms again, and surveys him.

“Okay, let’s have it – what would you use?”

“Daft? Wet? Slightly dotty?” He goes hastily on. “I mean, heaven knows you can look terrific. That slinky little black number you wore last time we…” Her arms drop, their fists clenched. He adds, rather weakly, “Sensational.”

“Sensational?”

“Absolutely. I’ve never forgotten it.”

“And we all know what a great bleedin’ judge you are. Specially when it comes to degradin’ women by turnin’ us into one-dimensional sex-objects.”

“I think two would be –”

“Oh belt up.” She eyes him, then turns and picks up the guitar from the bed. “You think you’re so soddin’ clever, don’t you? ‘Iconography of the Renaissance’ – Jesus. You don’t know nothin’ – you don’t even know what I really looked like when I started. I’ve been through more bleedin’ Renaissances than you’ve had toast for breakfast.”

“I realize.”

“Oh no you don’t. You been askin’ for this for years. And now you’re bleedin’ well goin’ to get it. You smug bastard.”

Her right hand begins to pick a scale, a remote one, the Lydian mode. The transition is melting rather than instantaneous, yet extraordinary. The hair starts to soften and lengthen, to suffuse with color; the hideous makeup drains from the face, the color from the clothes; and the very clothes themselves begin to dissolve and modulate into a tunic of pure white samite. It leaves both arms and one shoulder bare and reaches to mid-calf. It is gathered at the waist by a saffron girdle. The material is not quite opaque where it is stretched. The boots vanish, she is barefoot. The now dark hair is bound up, in Grecian style. Around her forehead appears a small chaplet of pinkish-cream rosebuds among myrtle leaves; and the guitar has become a nine-stringed lyre – on which, metamorphosis concluded, she now plays the same remote Lydian scale in reverse.

It is the same face, but it seems younger, as if she has lost five years; a honeyed golden warmth now in all the skin, enhanced by the clinging white fabric. And as for the overall effect: faces that launched a thousand ships are nothing. This one would make celestial motion itself stop, and look back. She lets the lyre fall; and lets him stare, open-mouthed, at unmistakable and immemorial divinity. But after a few moments her free hand rises to her hip. Some things, it seems, have not changed.

“Well… Mr. Green?”

Her voice has also lost its previous, and not entirely secure, accent and intonation.

“I was totally wrong. You look stunning. Out of this world.” He seeks for words, or appears to do so. “More childlike. Vulnerable. Sweet.”

“More feminine?”

“Incontestably.”

“Easier to exploit.”

“I didn’t mean that at all. Honestly… a dream. Just the sort of girl one would like to take home to meet mother. Even the rosebuds.”

Her voice is suddenly suspicious.

“What’s wrong with my rosebuds?”

“They’re from the hybrid tea Ophelia. I’m afraid it wasn’t bred till nineteen twenty-three.”

“That’s just typical. You’re such a bloody pedant.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It happens to be my favorite rose. Since nineteen twenty-three.”