Hopeful Monsters (23 page)

The person who was asking the question was saying - 'But are you saying that what you call "objective" is simply what happens?'

Wittgenstein, it was true, had been looking towards the door.

I left the doorway and went out on to the lawn. There were people standing holding plates with their backs to the wind; paper napkins were blowing like the tops of waves. I was looking for the girl who had held her hand out to Wittgenstein: I thought - There could be a painting of that: of a meeting, and something quite different going on. Then - How old would she be: sixteen? seventeen? Then - But what happens, I mean, if something quite different is happening.

The girl had gone to the end of the lawn where there was undergrowth beneath trees. There was a fallen willow which went halfway across a small pond or stream. The girl was climbing out on to the trunk of the tree. She had long fair hair which hung like shields on either side of her head. I thought - Her legs, yes, might almost be clappers of a bell.

I went and stood by the roots of the fallen tree. The girl was sitting on the trunk with her legs dangling above water. I said 'He didn't mean to be rude.'

The girl said 'I don't mind if he did mean to be rude. I hate this party.'

I said 'Why?'

She said 'No one says what they mean.'

I climbed out on the log and sat down slightly apart from her, facing the same way; my feet dangling above the water. I said 'It's sometimes difficult to say what you mean.'

She said 'Why?'

I said 'Because you often don't know quite what you mean.'

She seemed to think about this. She looked down into the water.

She said 'I know what I mean.'

I said 'What?'

She said 'Nothing.' Then - 'I'm Suzy.'

I said 'Yes.' Then - 'How old are you?'

She said 'Seventeen.'

'Are you still at school?'

'No.'

'What do you do then?'

'I want to go to Paris.'

I thought - Well this is what is happening: we are sitting side by side; we are looking down towards water; the light is coming through the leaves, the shadows.

I said 'What do you want to do in Paris?'

She said 'I want to study music'

Then why don't you go?'

'My father won't let me.'

'Why won't he?'

'He says I'm too young.'

'Have you any friends with whom you could stay in Paris?'

She looked round at me. She had a round face and a soft mouth. I thought - You mean, it is something on that other level that is happening?

Then - Of course, she is sexy.

She said 'Why are you asking me these questions?'

I said 'Have you a boyfriend?'

She said 'No.' Then - 'I had a friend at school with whose parents I could stay in Paris.'

'So it's not the money - '

'No.'

'And you can't study music here - '

'There's nothing happening in music here.'

I thought I might say - Well why not come with me to Russia: there may be something happening in music there.

It seemed that as a first step I might move along the log and put my arm around her and kiss her. I found I managed to do this. After a time she said 'That was nice!'

I thought - Dear God, and you think you can't get to Paris!

There were the people on the lawn holding their plates like gauges in which rain might be collected: in the house there was still presumably Wittgenstein in his niche. I thought - But we are being given messages, yes, as if we are in contact with gravity.

Then - But perhaps I should not be thinking of going to Russia, or to Paris: I should go to the north of England and do some work for the unemployed.

Then - Why did I think this?

I had been carrying a bottle of wine when I had come across the lawn: I had put it down by the roots of the tree. I stopped kissing Suzy and went to get the bottle. I thought - You mean, on this strange level, what you notice is just that one thing happens after another?

I noticed that Suzy's father was coming towards us across the lawn. I crawled back, with the bottle of wine, and rejoined Suzy on the tree.

Suzy said 'Does that mean you'll take me to Paris?'

I said 'I think it means something perhaps like I'll take you to Paris.'

She said 'And what does that mean?'

I said 'It means we'll see.'

Suzy and I were sitting with our arms round each other looking down into the water. We drank from the bottle of wine. Suzy's father had arrived at the roots of the tree and was watching us. I thought - Oh this might be a magic tree that will get someone or other to Paris!

Suzy's father said 'What are you two doing?'

Suzy said 'We are sitting on this tree.'

Suzy's father said 'Come back to the house.'

Suzy said 'That is my father.'

Suzy drank from the bottle of wine. I drank from the bottle of wine. I turned to offer it to Suzy's father.

There was a thick pall of smoke drifting across the garden. It was coming from some next-door garden, or perhaps from a building that was on fire. I thought I might say - Well that's nothing to do with me.

Or - We have been working on the problem of how to get Suzy to Paris.

Suzy's father said 'There's a building next door on fire.'

I thought - You mean, all this might be a part of some composition like that of a painting?

There were some firemen in metal helmets who had come on to the lawn. I thought - Or they are Greeks and Trojans -

- Or perhaps I am drunk!

The guests who had been in the house were coming out on to the lawn. They were looking at the pall of smoke, then turning away and coughing. Wittgenstein was on the lawn: he was looking up at the smoke as if he was considering its colour, its texture. I thought - Well what indeed do you make of this aesthetically?

Suzy said 'We've been talking about going to Paris.'

Her father said 'You're going to Paris?'

I stood up on the log. I was holding Suzy's hand. I thought -Indeed we are on a tightrope; do I not have to hold her hand!

Suzy's father said to me 'You're not taking her to Paris!'

I thought I might say - No, I'm going to Russia: or to work for the unemployed.

I noticed that Melvyn and Mullen had come out on to the lawn. Mullen was watching me. Melvyn was talking to Wittgenstein.

Wittgenstein was turning away as if annoyed. I thought - But indeed these images, these ideas, these people, come into my head -

- Put in a figure here: another one turns up there -

- This is reality?

People were moving off through the house, coughing.

Suzy and I walked across the lawn. I was still holding her hand. Her father followed us. Melvyn and Mullen were watching. When we were near the house Mullen said to me 'I didn't know you would be here!'

I thought I might say - Ah, you think we know anything!

Wittgenstein said 'This smoke is not poisonous.'

Suzy's father said 'How do you know?'

Wittgenstein said 'It is the smell.'

Melvyn went down on one knee and held his arms out towards Suzy and me. He said 'Beauty and the Beast!'

Suzy's father said to Suzy 'You know these people?'

The firemen seemed to be trying to clear the lawn. People were going in twos and threes towards the house holding handkerchiefs to their noses. I thought - Then there will be just our small group left in the picture.

Mullen said to me 'Have you thought about what we talked about?'

I thought - Why, what did we talk about?

I said'Yes.'

He said 'And what do you think - '

I thought - Of physics? Of politics? I said 'It is a matter for aesthetics.'

Melvyn had put his arm round Suzy. Suzy's father was saying 'Why did you think that I said you couldn't go to Paris?'

Wittgenstein was looking at me. He said 'Thank you.' I wasn't sure if I had heard this, or if he had said it to me. Then he moved off towards the house.

I let go of Suzy's hand. I went after Wittgenstein. Then I thought - Oh, but anyway, I am drunk.

I saw that my father and mother were coming into the house from the roadway. I thought - But there are too many people in this picture! Get them out.

Wittgenstein had gone through on to the roadway where I could see that Donald was standing. I thought - Oh yes, Donald can be in this picture! Wittgenstein was now talking to Donald.

My father said to me 'I didn't know you'd be at this party.'

My mother said 'Are you all right?'

I said 'Yes, I'm all right.'

Suzy's father was pushing Melvyn out of the house. Mullen and Suzy were following; they were watching me. My mother and father were standing side by side. We had all emerged on to the roadway. Wittgenstein and Donald were going off, talking.

The smoke that had been blowing from a next-door building now seemed to be going up in a straight column into the sky.

I waved to Suzy. I thought - Oh but we had it, for a moment, exactly, didn't we, what you can't talk about, in a picture!

In the summer holidays of that year politicians went abroad to their usual watering-places while the mechanism of the capitalist world ran down; it seemed to make drooping, groaning noises like those of a clockwork gramophone. Politicians were recalled from their watering-places to see if they could get the capitalist world wound up; but it seemed that they had lost the handle, it was no longer in the nursery toy-box.

I had heard of a clergyman in the north of England who was looking for volunteers to help build, or re-build, a church hall which was to be made into a recreational centre for the use or edification of the unemployed. I thought - I can go and help build a hall for the unemployed, but will I not be doing this for my own edification?

Then - But might not the world be wound up, if everyone tried to see what was their own edification?

I bought a second-hand suit of clothes and travelled to the north of England. It had seemed that I might emerge in a different dimension. People had said - But you cannot imagine the north of England!

I might have said - But do you not carry around what you imagine in your own head?

When I got out at the railway station I seemed to be underground; the train had run into the centre of the town in cuttings and tunnels. Climbing, I emerged into an area of heavy blackened buildings - a town hall, a department store, a bank, a museum. It was as if these had been in a fire which had been put out by rain. I thought - But this is just how I have imagined the north of England!

There was a pale grey light as if the town were set on the curve of a low hill; or on the surface of a convex mirror.

I had a haversack on my back. I walked in the direction in which I imagined the river. The river was where there were the dockyards and shipbuilding yards which had once been the reason for the existence of the town.

The ground fell away from the central keep or fastness of the town hall, the department store, the bank, the museum, to where there were the dwellings and workplaces of the people that might be sacrificed, as it were, if the town were besieged. I thought - But now, what are the besiegers? they are more to do with states of mind.

I turned off the main road and went into an area of narrow streets and tall, jumbled houses. Here there were piles of refuse and splintered wood and broken carts. Men stood by the broken carts. I thought - Could not the men use the wood to mend the carts and take away the litter? Then - But of course, one is not supposed to think like this now. There were smells. I thought - Humans have lost their sense of smell: they once had a sense like that of hunting dogs, which made connections.

The men wore cloth caps and mufflers. The women had long thick skirts and shawls over their heads: some of them carried small children with dark furious eyes. There were older children in clothes and caps that were too big for them; it was as if they were involved in a game of dressing-up. It was these children who, as I walked through the streets, paid attention to me, followed me, mocked the way I walked. When I turned to them they would pretend to have been doing something different. I thought - It is this age, from five to eleven, that children still have a chance to do what they want to do.

I was on my way to the church of the clergyman who had asked for people to help build, or re-build, the recreational hall for the unemployed. He had found it difficult, apparently, to get local men and women to do this for themselves. They had felt that it would be some sort of defeat for them: they wanted work provided as part of what other people wanted to do.

I did not want to arrive at the church straightaway: I wanted to observe more of the strange landscapes in which besiegers and victims seemed reflections of states of mind.

I moved out of the narrow jostling streets into a more open area where the ground sloped down towards the river. Here there were long rows of low houses back-to-back like stitching. There were not many women and children visible here, and the men in cloth

caps seemed to have been swept into groups on street corners. The windows of shops on these corners were boarded up; the walls of houses at the ends of rows were falling down. I thought - This landscape is like clothing coming apart at the seams: a shroud that has been tied too tightly over the body of the earth, our mother.

Beyond the houses was a maze of railway lines that went down towards the river. The lines were raised on posts; they were where coal must once have been carried down to ships. Now the railway was not working; there were rows of stationary trucks like bumps on the spines of skeletons. Beyond the railway lines were the shipyards with tall grey cranes that were themselves like birds become skeletons, for want of anything to feed off.

I thought - These images are of a charnel house: these images are in my mind. If I am an anthropologist come to take notes of this strange tribe, what I should be doing is taking notes of states of mind.

The railway lines were like the tracks of baby turtles that had once run down towards the sea: the birds, the cranes, the crabs, the seagulls had got them.

I thought - But one or two get through?