The Dwarfs (8 page)

Thirteen

Pete walked quickly out of the office and across the road. He found an empty telephone box and went into it. While the bell rang he looked into the street.

- Ginny?

- Yes.

- Are you in?

- In? Of course.

- All right. I’m coming round now.

- What’s the hurry?

- I’ll be there in half an hour.

- Is anything wrong?

- Don’t go out.

He caught a bus to Dalston. At the trafficlights he jumped off and took a short cut behind the station. Virginia opened the door of her flat in her bathrobe.

- You were very quick. I’ve just had a bath.

- What for? Pete asked.

- What?

He went into the kitchen, took off his jacket and tie and washed his face at the sink.

- Did you have a bad day?

Seizing the towel, he turned.

- What do you mean, bad day?

- Bad day. Bad day.

- Why have you had a bath?

- It’s hot.

He threw the towel aside, returned to the living room, sat down in an armchair, lit a cigarette, blew the match, and looked up to see Virginia, her bathrobe open, regarding her body.

- Look how pink my nipples are. Like a virgin, she said.

- Will you do that thing up?

- Why?

- Do you mind doing it up?

She tied the cord and sat at the table. From her handbag she took a cigarette and lit it.

- Who was round here this afternoon?

- How do you know anyone was here?

- The cups, the cups. Who was it?

- My friend Marie Saxon.

- What did she want?

- A cup of tea.

- What did she want?

- Christ. She didn’t want anything.

- She’s a prostitute.

- No she’s not.

- She’s a scrubber.

A breeze blew the curtains. Virginia smoothed her hair.

- Did you have your bath while she was here?

- Why?

- Did she soap your armpits?

Pete looked about the room.

- Where are the drawingpins I left here, and the drawingboard?

- Here. Somewhere.

- Where?

- They’re not down the bloody drain.

- If you become involved with Marie Saxon, Virginia, that’s where you’ll end up.

- Christ.

- Will you stop saying that?

- No, I don’t know what to say.

- Why say anything?

- Ah.

- And for God’s sake, he shouted, keep that robe done up! I don’t want to see the hair on your crutch. What do you
think I am?

She stood up, closed her robe and sat again.

- I don’t know what I think you are.

- I know you don’t. I’m damn sure you don’t. It’s about time you stopped continually powdering your fanny and opened your eyes, mate. Why, for instance, don’t you go and put some clothes on now? You’ve made your point. It only needs a little effort to get out of this masturbatory rut.

- What are you talking about?

- Don’t you realize, he said, that someone might knock on that door and that you’ve no right to open it like that?

- You could open it.

- You’re being very disappointing, Virginia. You know what you’re doing, don’t you? You’re behaving like any other little tart who must show herself off or cease to exist.

- I’ve just had a bath.

- It’s normal to dress after a bath.

- Oh for God’s sake!

Pete threw his cigarette into the grate.

- So, he said, if there’s a knock on the door, you’ll go to it like that?

- I don’t expect anyone.

- Don’t be stupid. Anyone’s liable to turn up. A man may come to examine the meters.

- He only comes in the mornings.

- How can you be sure?

- He’s at home, Virginia said, mowing the garden.

She began to chew a crumb, and then rose and went to the sideboard, where she picked up a copy of
Picture Post
and flicked the pages.

- If you could start to think, Virginia, you might be a little more use to me. As it is, quite honestly, you’re nothing but a dead weight. I know there are men who would be glad to accept you as you are, but I needn’t enlarge upon them. We know their requirements. Of course, it may be that their requirements are yours too. It’s quite possible that I’ve been
suffering under a delusion about you. If that is the case, why don’t you get Marie Saxon to introduce you to some motorcyclists, or all-in wrestlers?

- Yes, I’ll think about that.

- What else do you think about, Virginia?

- Nothing else.

- I wonder, Pete said, what you and Marie Saxon discuss?

- Only one thing. Jockstraps.

- Yes of course, most women have minds like mouldy larders. It could hardly be otherwise, I suppose. I remember the last time I saw Marie Saxon. She was in a swimming costume. Her breasts were flopping about like washing on a line. She exists within that framework, such as it is, of course. Her life naturally resolves itself into a neverending bout of selftitillation. That’s what she understands by life. But if you’re falling into that error, I’m disappointed, to be quite frank. I’ve told you before where your beauty lies. If –

- Pete! What do you want? What do you want? What do you want?

She ran across the room and fell at his knees.

- What do you want me to do? What have I done? Please! What have I done? Tell me. Tell me.

He looked down at her.

- Why did you say that thing about
Hamlet
last night?

- What thing?

- About
Hamlet
. Why did you say it? Why do you say these things? Do you know they’re extremely stupid? It made me look very foolish. Did you realize that? You don’t know anything about
Hamlet
, Ginny. Don’t you understand that? And yet you come in with the book under your arm. Why did you do that, in the first place? Was it to make an impression? Are you mad? Did you think Mark would be impressed? If so, at what? Mark was amused. But I wasn’t. It’s up to you entirely - in point of fact it’s a matter of distinct choice - a choice you’ll have to make - but the point is, Ginny, that while we’re together I can’t have you making
such ridiculous statements about something you know nothing about. It’s out of all proportion. You made me look, in effect, a bloody fool. I thought I told you to leave Shakespeare for a while? Don’t you think it was for your own good? I’ve told you you’re nowhere near the point where you can begin to absorb his implications, and not only do you ignore what I say but you lug the book about with you like a pissy fifthformer, and parade these stupidities. It’s quite absurd but it’s more than absurd. It’s pathetic. And not only is it pathetic but it’s bloody niggling. I’ve told you to leave him alone, I’ve told you you’re not capable of expressing an opinion about him, which isn’t a reflection on you, because not two out of a hundred are capable, I’ve told you of the study you’ve got to do, I’ve surely given you an inkling as to the complexity of the whole question, I’ve even asked you to reach a position of being able to inform me, through study, so I must have had some respect for your powers, and this is how you act. Do you realize that that statement was an abortion? Where did you read it? Wherever you read it you didn’t even digest the idea. Could you have argued upon that statement, with reference to the text? Of course not. Did you think such palpable emotionalism would pass as critical comment? In other less charitable company you would have had your balls chopped off. You were really very fortunate no word was said. I decided not to, then. You had showed both of us up enough, as it was. What must Mark and Len think? I’m supposed to have some concern for your literary development and suddenly, under my auspices, as it were, you come out with that. But what, I want to know, was your motive? What did you hope to prove? That you could form your own opinions? To prove to Mark that you could read? Do you think that if you carried a book on Advanced Mathematics under your arm you would necessarily persuade Len you could add two and two? You didn’t seriously imagine you were presenting a brand new idea? Don’t you
realize that that idea, though not your crummy expression of it, has been chewed over and gobbed up from start to finish, and mostly by incompetents? Don’t you realize that it is in itself incompetent, superficial and gauche? But it’s not worth talking about. What I don’t understand is your motive. Were you deliberately trying to make me look a fool? No, it was probably just - here I am, listen to me - but you forget you weren’t in your school commonroom, Virginia. God knows what you say there that probably passes for God’s word. It’s lamentable. Now look here, you’re bound to think of what you say before you say it and you’re obliged, this is the point, to realize, once and for all, your limitations. You’re morally obliged. That was nothing but an unforgivable error of judgement, as applied to time, place and content. You seem to have no sense of fitness or context. So far from doing any good you did positive harm. It was morally indefensible and morally objectionable. Because from what did it spring? A desire to assert. It was pure bloody bombast, illconsidered, faulty, inept, preposterous and shaming, and what’s more, entirely unpolitic. Did you think we were all going to bow down at your altar? Did you think you would be excused because you were a woman? Well, whatever you thought, Virginia, quite honestly it’s not very satisfactory. I find it all very dubious. I put a considerable degree of faith in you, I damnwell do my best to educate you, and all you do is make a fool of both of us. Now listen here, what I want you to understand is this. In other societies you’re entitled to do what you like, but while we’re together, I refuse to put up with this kind of behaviour. It’s for your own good as well as mine. I’m willing to help you all I can in such matters, but such an action on your part almost amounts to a stab in the back. Now it’s no use saying you won’t repeat this sort of thing if you’re still going to feel the inclination. What you must do is develop a sense of proportion, of judgement. You have the faculties but you seem reluctant to use them. Why are
you crying? I tell you, you have the faculties. It’s just a matter of bringing them into focus, of sharpening them. I’ve always admired them in you. You’ve no need to cry. I know you’ve understood me. All that happened was that your artistic sensibility, your sense of proportion, went astray. I’m quite sure, in fact, that you realize that, Ginny. I admire these qualities in you, I always have done, I merely felt bound to point out -

- I’m sorry, Virginia said, her head in her hands, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.

- No, Pete said, rising, sitting on the chairarm, and holding her to his chest, it’s all right. It’s all right.

- I’m sorry, Virginia said, I’m sorry.

- No, Pete said, it’s all right. It’s all right.

Fourteen

- Why don’t you put it on the table? What’s up your nose now?

- What do you want me to say?

- Open it up, Len. I can’t see you for the cobwebs.

- You must excuse me. I’m in the centre of a holy plague.

- Do you want me to send out a cart to bury the dead?

- Are you a nonprofitmaking concern?

- Of course I’m not, Mark said. Who is? What are you saying?

- Sometimes you’re a snake, to me, Len hissed.

- Now don’t get me against the ropes, Len.

- You’re a snake in my house.

- Really?

- It’s a question of motive. I don’t trust your motives, Mark. I can understand you’re after some profit from all comers. Yes, who isn’t. But I smell a rat when it seems you’re trying to buy and sell my firm. It’s the action of a snake. What do you think I am, a ventriloquist’s dummy? I object to opening my mouth and saying something you’ve put into it. By insinuation. That happens. As for you, you sit and watch points. You weigh me. You keep a tab on me. You cash in all the time. How much are you making? You think you’re on to a good thing. I could even accuse you of working out my casehistory, though I have no substantial evidence. Quite honestly I wouldn’t put it past you. But I object very strongly to this buying and selling of me, this sticking labels on my every word, my every action. You’ve got the scientific mind, not Pete. That’s what the world doesn’t appreciate. Am I wronging you? All right, how calculated is it? It appears to me quite often, Mark, very calculated. I don’t like the smell. I don’t want to see through
your eyes or anybody’s eyes. I have enough trouble making ends meet as it is. What are you after? I tell you I won’t have a snake in my house.

Mark stood up, walked into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. He drank it and stood in the doorway.

- Balls, he said.

- That doesn’t mean a thing to me.

- What are you waiting for, a statement for the defence?

- That’s up to you.

- Aaah! Mark grated.

He sat down on the edge of a chair, coughed shortly and spat in the fireplace.

- Still, I’m glad you’ve said all this, he said, belching and wiping his mouth. Who knows? You may be right. Your conclusion is I’m a snooper? Why should I answer?

- You want me to leave your house?

- Do what you like.

Len clenched his fist and thumped the chairarm.

- So you’ve got nothing to say?

- No.

- Do you understand what I was talking about?

- Yes.

- And you don’t agree?

Mark shrugged.

- You disagree?

Mark cleared his throat and hawked. He banged his chest and spat.

- What?

- You think I’m mistaken?

Mark shrugged.

- But am I? Apart from what I think and you think, am I?

- Am you?

- Am I?

Mark shrugged and sniffed. He blew his nose.

- What’s the matter with you tonight? Len said. You’re farting and belching all over the place.

- Uh.

- Aaah! Len rasped, and rattled his head, shivering. Do you or do you not stick labels on me?

- Not as far as I know.

- Are you telling the truth?

Mark eased back in the chair and crossed his legs.

- Of course, Len said, you may not know the truth yourself. Yes, yes, that’s quite possible. That’s a possibility. I’m just unable to wind this thread up. It’s eating me away.

He raked his hair.

- You’re too big for me, he murmured. You and Pete, you’re too big. You leave me dry. You eat me out of house and home, whether you damnwell know it or not. I sometimes feel I’m the ball you’re both playing with.

- Why should you be?

- Sometimes I’m all right. And then the room becomes full of ice. I don’t understand. I don’t understand Pete, but I can feel him at a distance, sometimes. You I can seldom feel at a distance and I don’t understand you either. You’re not as simple as you look. But I know one thing. You’ve made a deeper hole in my side than I thought at first. Yes. I suppose there’s a lot to be said for feeling the world at a distance. I have known it. But mostly the world is sitting on top of me. Maybe it’s really at a distance then. Who knows? Maybe there’s no such thing as distance. But we know there is!

He smacked his forehead.

- I’ve lost a kingdom.

Mark picked up the toastingfork and held it behind his ear.

- I respond, you see, Len said, only to the intimate and minute. I prefer it that way. If only I could close my eyes and live alone with suggestions of life. I can’t live comfortably when the world begins to bang. And at work I don’t lift a finger. I don’t even kick anyone. But it’s very clearcut there. A train comes in, people get out, everyone knows what to do. Someone drops dead on the platform and
everyone knows what to do. It’s easy. And it is easy. I don’t deny it. What could be easier? I suppose you’re taking good care of things. Did you know that you and Pete are a musichall act? I know nothing about Pete, except that his world sets every day and he has to resurrect it forcibly. I have an inkling of that. But the two of them. Him and Ginny. What happens? I think when they’re alone they must do a jig, a dance, that nobody else could understand. What happens? But I know nothing of these things. It’s a closed book and it’s too big for me. But is it big? I must be able to tell the big from the small. If I can’t do that I might as well cut the cable. I suppose you’re taking good care of things. For me, you see, I don’t grow old. I change. I don’t die. I change again. I am not happy. I change. Nor unhappy. But when a big storm takes place I do not change. I become someone else, which means I change out of all recognition. I am transformed from the world in which I suffer the changes I suffer, I retreat utterly from the standpoint where I am subject to change, then with my iron mask on, in a guise of which I understand nothing, less than before, I wait for the storm to pass. But at the same time it is, I admit, impossible for me in these moments to sit quite still without wanting to go back. It’s also impossible in these moments not to feel the itch to go forward. I must learn restraint. Anyway, I suppose you’re taking good care of things. Just because you’ve put a penny in my slot you think I’ll go on talking for ever. But you’re wrong. My gas, the gas, is running out. But I’m not casting off till I’ve made sure of my provisions for a long journey. I know what it’s like to be caught short, unprepared, unprotected because of lack of forethought. It may be I shall spend all my time collecting provisions and never cast off from the shore. I’m fed up with talking but I shall always talk. Maybe that’s my business. Everyone has his or her job. But I can only get the window half open. The window refuses to open.

He took off his glasses and placed them in his lap.

- But I can tell you one thing. Mysteries are always new mysteries, I’ve decided that. So, you see, I am alive and not a storehouse of dead advice and formulas of how to live. And I won’t be. But I have to be silent, like the guilty.

He looked up and put on his glasses.

- Did you know that the suspicious and the dead have one thing in common? They are silent. Of course, I put my suspicions on the table tonight and I wasn’t silent. So you think I’m contradicting myself, but if you think that I’m prepared to go further. Actually, and you can take it or leave it, I am neither suspicious nor dead. I am not. Weinstein may be. The trouble, the real trouble, is, though, that I cannot convince myself that I’m not spiritually dead. Quite frankly, the evidence is overwhelming, if to be dead in such a way means the ability only to communicate with the past, the inability to communicate with the present. I sometimes communicate with you, occasionally with Pete.

- Pete? Mark said. The only real communication for you with him would be surrender. He’d consume. He’d be the one, mate, that would eat you out of house and home. I’ve told you, it’s about time you did yourself a favour.

- You’re wrong and right.

Mark frowned. He moved to the sideboard, picked up an apple and bit into it.

- Yes, Len said, I say I communicate sometimes. But whether I do or not doesn’t matter. I do just the same.

- Yes?

- It’s a corner, you see, I occupy a corner. I am unable to speak to anyone, most of the time, without there being a complexity which repels me. I am unable to consider myself without finding myself repellent.

- Are you at a dead end?

- You mean have I no potential? Yes, I have potential, certainly. Do you know what it’s like? It’s like the useless buried Spanish treasure galleons. It will not come to the surface, ever. All my days, Mark, are lived with a sight of
my own buried treasure. It’s in my corner, somewhere. Everything is in my corner. All I said to you earlier is contained there. Everything is from the corner’s point of view. I don’t hold the whip. I’m a labouring man. I do the corner’s will. I slave my guts out, and get nothing out of it. I thought, at one time, that I’d escaped it, but it never dies, it’s never dead. So I can never hope to see things as they are, or might really be. Of course, I can understand that my corner is the whole too. I feed it. It’s well fed. Things that at one time seem to me of value I have no resource but to give it to eat and what was of value turns into pus. I can hide nothing. I can’t lay anything aside.

He leaned forward in the chair.

- Look, I’m finished with buried treasure. Mine is here now, instant and ready. Why don’t you take it? You have it. I give it to you. Take it.

- No thanks. You can keep it.

- Listen, Len said. I know the corner is a necessary, an evident particle of living, a whole within a whole, if you like, but I know I know I’ve got to die in some way to get out of it. Something has to die. I may be emerging. I’m not dead in it, at all events. You could say I was dead and alive at successive times. In, out. In, out, dead, alive. Some people would call it an interesting period.

They stared at each other. Mark slapped his head.

- I’ll have to use a stopwatch in a minute!

- What can I do? Len asked, bending double in the chair, guffawing. What, I ask you, can I do?

Mark walked across the room, thumping his ribs.

- When you say you can’t get out you are out!

- Where is out? Len asked, jumping up.

- It’s not in, Mark said, retreating into a corner.

- You’re not out if you’re in, Len said. You’re quite right!

- Look at it this way. When you’re out you’re out, and when you’re in you’re in.

- I’ll write you out a prescription in a minute!

Mark groaned. He went to the table and opened two bottles of beer.

- Listen here, Len said. What I’m really doing, if you want to know the truth, is trying to get my weight down to the limit. Otherwise I lose my purse money and you don’t get your 10 per cent.

- I’d give up shadowboxing and go on the road if I were you, Mark said.

- What have you got in here? Len asked, opening the cupboard. Have you got any gherkins? Do you know what I did the other day? I showed a bloke at work, an Oxford student, one of your poems. We’d just met the Irish mail and we both got a five bob tip. So I showed him one of your poems.

- How did he take it? Mark asked.

- He looked at his watch. He said we’d better get across to number seven. The point about these people is, that when they read a poem, they never open the door and go in. They bend down and take a squint through the keyhole. That’s all they do.

- They’re the intelligent people, Mark said.

- Yes. I’ve seen their stuff too. It’s lucid all right. There’s no denying it. But when you feel the quality, there’s nothing there. You pick it up like a piece of cloth and you can see right through it. I can’t talk to them. How could I tell this bloke that one phrase in your poem wasn’t English but Chinese. It’s Chinese. That phrase is Chinese. How could I tell him that?

- Which phrase?

- It’s not important. I don’t remember.

They drank.

- The trouble is, Len said, that I can’t follow their terms of reference. I’m a stranger. You see, my reaction to poetry is like the old women eating onions and knitting when the guillotine falls. That’s what it is. What do you mean? I don’t like the word style. I don’t know what it means. I don’t like
the word style and I don’t like the word function.

- These people, said Mark, want everything to fit into their crossword puzzle and they object when a piece doesn’t fit, that’s all. To hell with them. They’ve got minds like a backyard bog, mate, even though their shit comes out wrapped in silk and satin.

He picked a buttend from the ashtray and held it up.

- That’s what those sort of people are worth.

- I don’t know about that.

- What’s the good of being shy of contempt? Mark said. Be prepared to condemn and despise, Len. Then the plate’s clean.

- I don’t believe it.

- Well, how
is
the poetry business? Yours, I mean.

- Finished.

- Bankrupt? Haven’t you got any small change in the safe?

- Yes, but it’s of no value. I showed that bloke one of my poems too. He hasn’t looked at me since. He took it as a personal insult that I should even show it to him. Do you know how I write a poem? I sit in the room and look up at the corners. Suddenly I get up and squeeze a lemon, a drop of juice comes out, and that’s the poem. What’s the good of that?

- There are no hard and fast rules.

- No?

Mark shifted a curtain and looked out into the night.

- Do you know what these people do? Len said. They climb from word to word, like steppingstones.

He walked about the room, demonstrating.

- Like steppingstones. But tell me this. What do they do when they come to a line with no words in it all? Can you answer that? What do they do when they come to a line with no words in it at all? Can you tell me that?

Mark drained his beer.

- As for you, Len said, I’ll tell you what you do when you write a poem. You press button B and get your money back.