Fifty-Minute Hour (23 page)

He closed the magazine. He couldn't blame John-Paul for fifty laughless months. How could anybody laugh in such a world? He struggled out of bed, wincing as the chilly air nipped his wrists and ankles. He'd get dressed right away, just to beat the cold; could always use the extra time to let his morning tea cool down, instead of gulping it at scalding-point. He tiptoed to the bathroom, scared he'd wake his Mother, who rose at five-fifteen on John-Paul mornings, bitterly complaining about what she called the slave-drivers who whipped him off to work before first light. He loathed the dark himself, felt Chaos creeping up on him once the sun had set, all shapes and colours snuffed, all boundaries extinguished, his normal world eclipsed. He lifted the net curtain, gazed out into black. If only there were curtains he could hang up in his mind, kindly white frilled gauzes to stop Terror peering in.

He replaced the curtain, washed in melted ice, shaved with his old Remington, begging it to make less noise as it grumbled through his stubble. He crept back to the bedroom, put on his white shirt and grey-striped suit, which he'd laid out late last night, after hours of indecision about
which
grey suit, which shoes. The shoes were all plain black, of course, but there were still four separate pairs, which could drag out the whole process until one or two a.m. He was sometimes grateful to John-Paul for extracting all his money, so he couldn't buy new clothes. At least it cut the choices down – or some of them.

He pulled his socks up, eased on both his shoes, bent down to tie the laces, stopped half-paralysed. Which one should he tie first, the left shoe or the right? That was a decision he'd never really made before, never even thought about. How incredible, how casual, to have simply done them up, without working out the order, deciding on priorities, and for all those years and years. He stooped to tie the right, hands seizing up immediately. Why the right and not the left? He pounced towards the left instead, paused again, uncertain. He needed some fixed system, some principle or rule. There must be someone he could ask, use as guide or guru John-Paul himself, perhaps?

No, he'd never get to John-Paul's in the first place with his shoelaces undone; might trip and break his neck, especially in the ill-lit streets, the gloomy blinkered tube. And his Mother would start nagging if he dared go down to breakfast what she'd call ‘half-dressed'; would order him to do them up immediately. He wished she'd do it for him, as she had done as a child. He tried to recall her tying up his laces, buttoning his coat, but the small screen in his head remained obstinately blank. Had he ever been that tiny, or she ever had the patience to bother with a weak and helpless child? Wait! The screen was coming to life now – another woman stooping down to help him tie his laces – Mary, from the Winston Churchill Centre. He could smell her milky-mother smell as she bent towards his shoe, glimpse the plunging valley in her Eden-lily breasts. If he was going to the class tonight, he'd see her; could explain about his Father, confide in her, perhaps – except he was back to the same problem: how could he go anywhere until he'd tied his laces?

The left – he'd start with that one. His left foot was positioned just a fraction in front of the right, which was perhaps some sort of sign. He bent towards his left shoe, straightened up again. No, if everything was chancy in the universe, then the position of his feet was purely accidental. Sweat beaded on his forehead, despite the chilly room. Surely
someone
had laid down the Rules for Shoelaces, worked the whole thing out? He tracked back through his store of rules – office rules and school-rules, rules for witless children, rules for messy babies, rules for keeping neat and tidy in his Mother's cramping womb. Or how about cadet corps – that sweating red-faced drill sergeant who had always known the answers, had marched them round the drill hall yelling ‘
Left
, right, left, right,
left
as if left had some priority. So he was back to left again. He stuck his left foot out once more, bent wearily towards it, only pausing as he examined his right hand. When it came to hands, the right one was superior (unless you were left-handed), so how could he be sure about the feet?

He shuffled in his unlaced shoes back towards the bed, sat down on the edge of it, cradling his poor snake. Not ‘poor', for heaven's sake. Anne was extremely fortunate in having neither feet nor shoes. He checked his watch. It was getting very late. His Mother would be rising any moment, putting on the kettle, calling him to eat his Coco Pops. He could see himself taking his first mouthful, his own small scrunch completely lost in the Last Crunch of the universe as it came crashing down around them in the kitchen. Five billion years wasn't all that long. Just a few quite small decisions could take half that time on bad days. If the sun was going to shrivel, then shouldn't he be worrying, making some contingency plan, maybe increasing his insurance? There wasn't much time left.

‘
Left
'. He started, frowned in concentration. Hadn't he just briefed himself by thinking of the word? Three times that word had come to him like a signal or a pointer. He'd better stop his dithering and follow where it led. His fingers made sweet contact with the lace of his left shoe, then fumbled to a standstill. If he was going to go by words, then ‘right' had all the edge; meant ‘correct' and ‘fitting', ‘proper', even ‘orderly', in the sense of putting things to rights. He slid his right foot forward, stared at it unseeingly. His thoughts were higher up. He'd just read in that
Digest
that the left side of the brain was meant to be superior, so maybe he was wrong about the right.

‘Right, wrong, right, wrong, right,
wrong
!' He could hear that sergeant's voice – furious, contemptuous, as he drilled them faster, faster, up and down the asphalt in the sticky mocking sun. ‘You don't know right from wrong, Payne. It's probably in the family. Did your mother know your father?'

He sank down on the bed again, kicked both his shoes off violently, heard his Mother's warning cough as they crashed against the wall.
Had
she known his Father – ever, once, at all? He wormed beneath the covers, still in suit and socks, slumped face down on the pillow and wept into his snake.

Must stop, must stop. Things to do – lunch to cook, shirts to wash, typing to return to Emma Barnes. Oh, Blessed Edwin Mumford, help me and forgive me – I
can't
stop, just can't stop. A hundred and eight. Oh, wonderful! It's out of this world. If only I'd started earlier, years ago, decades ago, I'd have reached the million mark by now. A hundred and nine. Terrific! That's
enough
, that's it. I really must switch off now, go down and light the oven. Phyllis coming round for lunch, to discuss the church bazaar – mustn't find me naked on my bed. Fricassee of veal and apple pie. I've made the pie already, and the veal won't take that long. Okay, just one more small one, before I braise the meat; one teeny tiny one. A hundred and … No, take it nice and slowly, really spin it out this time if it's going to be the last. Why small, in any case? Why not a quite colossal one, a naughty big outrageous one? A hundred and what? Lost count now. Who cares about the count? Harder, faster,
harder
– turn it to top speed. Two million and … Oh, God! It's broken –
broken
.

‘Drawers go in and out, Bryan, so any drawer can be seen, of course, as phallic, but in this particular case, it would appear to me that the salad-drawer represents your mother's genitals. The serpent is your father's threatening phallus, coiled inside your mother's “box” or hole – a fertile place, as depicted by the salads. You dare not go in there yourself, or you may be bitten by a snake.'

Bryan reached out for his own snake, traced the outline of its mouth, the contours of its lumpy red felt tongue. He was glad it had no teeth, not even woolly ones. He murmured something indistinct and anodyne, tried to blank out the statistics he'd just read on passive smoking. John-Paul was on his fourth already.

‘The whole dream seems to me to reveal an obvious obsession with genitals – or what could be described as a “displacement outwards” from genitals to knickers.' John-Paul tapped his cigarette, removed a phallic worm of ash. ‘I've already mentioned the meaning of drawers as undergarments – an old-fashioned word, but nonetheless emotive – and the “knickerbocker glory” re-emphasises this. Once again, your father seeks the glory in the knickers, though he seems injured by his attempt this time, which I suggest is a manifestation of your own castration fears …'

‘No,' said Bryan, to no one. No one heard.

‘It could also be Oedipal, of course: your wish to harm your hated father, as a rival to your mother's favours – the one who is allowed inside her drawers or knickers, whereas you yourself are banned.'

‘I didn't hate my Father,' Bryan objected.

‘I beg your pardon? You're speaking extremely indistinctly. I wonder if that indicates some reluctance to participate, perhaps reluctance to be here at all, today?'

‘Yes,' mouthed Bryan, to Anne. ‘No,' he said, much louder.

‘It's just that I think I'd like to talk about the class now. I should have told you earlier, but I … I went back just last Friday and my Father
was
quite badly injured.' He took a deep breath in, inhaling John-Paul's smoke, eyes watering and smarting. ‘
And
,' he added, voice a keening wail, both hands clutching Anne, as if for comfort, ‘Mary's died of cancer.'

I'm swamped in black and brown, swirling lines crisscrossing in my head, whorls of sticky still-wet paint churning in my stomach and my bowel. It's difficult to breathe. Someone's slapped gouache right across my face, dammed up my nose and mouth. There's no air in the room. The pictures need it all. I can hear them panting in and out, breathing far too fast. They're all squashed and jammed together – some not even hung, but stacked around the skirting, balanced across chairs. ‘I'm sorry,' I keep telling them. ‘I need a bigger place, but …'

I didn't buy the sculptures. There wasn't room – or cash. I can't take any more clients, not with pictures on the bed. I'm too tired, in any case, too raw and sore and smarting, all my different orifices screaming out in pain. I can't really blame the blokes. They paid for what they got, didn't overstay their time; were mostly lonely misfits, not sadistic dangerous maniacs. One even said he loved me, bought me twelve red roses. The thorns were bigger than the blooms, which died within the day.

I weave around the room, avoiding pictures, furniture. I've got to get more cash. I haven't seen John-Paul for three weeks, two days and fifty-seven minutes. I kept praying that he'd ring. Even with my clients there, I was listening for the phone, all psyched up to answer it, naked, wet or shagged. I rarely left the bedsit, so I wouldn't miss his call, even contacted British Telecom to check the phone was working. Surely he was worried, wondering where I was? After seven endless days, he wrote me two brief lines, enquiring – curtly – was I ill, since I'd stopped attending sessions? I responded with two words: ‘No, fine' – scrawled in blood-red biro on a huge white sheet of paper. Last week he wrote again: if I wasn't indisposed, then my absence could suggest that I'd found the last few sessions quite disturbing, and that itself seemed an obvious indication against any thought of termination at this stage. It hurt, that letter, actually – its chilly tone, its coldly formal phrases – especially ‘termination', which is the word they use for pregnancies, and a euphemism for murder. Oh, I know he said I shouldn't even think of it, but the fact he used the word at all must mean it's on his mind; means he probably
hopes
I'll terminate, while urging that I shouldn't. There's a word for that as well – a jargon word: projection. He's guilty of the very things he accuses all us patients of – reversal and denial.

He even sent his bill, enclosed it with the letter, charged me for missed sessions when I was bleeding here at home. I was dying on account of him and all he was concerned about was whether he'd be paid. I was so upset I decided that I'd gratify him: do what he was angling for and quit therapy for ever; not stay where I'm unwelcome and resented. I kept repeating that word ‘terminate', like a sort of evil mantra. ‘Yes,' I said. ‘I'll terminate, if that's what you're suggesting. Do murder me – feel free.' I even considered changing my whole lifestyle, leaving London and moving back to Shropshire; digging up the corpse of my old home, unearthing my dead parents, my dead and rotting childhood; living as a ghost there. I tried to pack a suitcase, check rooms to rent, and train times, but I felt too ill to travel, too weak to deal with house agents; just flaked out on the sofa and lay there several days, shivering and feverish and hardly knowing where I was. Yet John-Paul assumes I'm ‘fine'; accepted my scrawled note – the most flagrant lie I've ever told, and he took it at face value.

‘Fine,' I say, repeating it, as I light a cigarette. ‘I'm absolutely fine.' People hate it if you're ill. Sympathy's like money – you need it for yourself. I'd better call on Wilhelm, suggest a new arrangement: not fellatio for dreams, but fellatio for cash. Dreams are quite superfluous if I'm not going to John-Paul, and my own are more dramatic now, in any case. Last night I dreamed John-Paul was a monster who lived in the Dead Sea, and had sucked me in as food, along with weeds and snails and debris and tiny writhing eels. I was living in his stomach which was lined with scarlet snot; swimming round and round it, battening off his food supply, excreting through his bowel.

I fetch my coat and handbag, lock my door so the pictures can't get out, climb the steep iron stairs to street-level. It's dark outside – dark at four p.m. The year is dying with me: brief days, bleak nights, decay and damp heavy on the streets. Though winter in the country is always more oppressive than winter in the town. I keep thinking back to Shropshire, where all life seems suspended by the last week of November – the sun a pallid blur in a waste of homeless cloud; sap falling, leaves abandoned, bracken beaten flat; no green except the ivy strangling dying stone. How quiet it must be there now, with all life folding down, all helpless creatures hibernating – toads shrouded under tree roots in their coffins of dead leaves; bats huddled in old churches, wings folded round their bodies like thin black ragged duvets.