Imago Bird (19 page)

— What I must remember, from now on, is that I must live as
if my hands and feet were music —

— Or were supporting my own body like a sky or ceiling.

I had once seen an illustration of this, in a temple in Egypt.

But still, as Dante said—There are men's faces staring up through ice —

But I could get out of the kitchen window without being seen and go down towards the river.

In Bosch, in Breughel, there were devils eating people who were soft and compliant like fruit.

I thought—Oh come on, come on, my dark horse: you have my last straw: take me to my beloved!

I had got to the door. I thought—It is for identity's sake people fight: but millions die anyway on the carpet —

— Like seeds; like parachutes —

I was going down the stairs carrying my clothes and my shoes and my notebook. I thought—There is a rope, is there not, that goes up to the top part of the kitchen window?

— On it, I could climb out —

— Thus reversing these old images.

In the kitchen there was a light on.

I wondered if there were burglars come to steal something boring like state papers or old photographs —

There was in fact someone in the kitchen.

It was Mrs Washbourne.

I thought—She has come to cheer up Uncle Bill by acting out some old scandal —

— Or is she just someone who can't sleep; who has come to make some cocoa.

Mrs Washbourne, quite often, when there was work or anything to do, spent the night in the basement at Cowley Street.

She said ‘I thought you were a burglar.'

I said ‘I did too.'

She said ‘I couldn't sleep.'

I said ‘Nor could I.'

There was the long thin rope that went in a loop to the top of the high kitchen window. I thought—Perhaps I could make it seem as if I were about to hang myself.

Then—Ah, Mr Paragon, where have you gone with your Belgian Schoolgirls!

I said ‘Actually, have some things been stolen, out of the house, recently?'

She said ‘How did you hear that?'

I said ‘What are they? Documents? Photographs?'

I had sat down at the kitchen table. Mrs Washbourne had turned back to the stove and seemed to be making cups of tea.

Then she suddenly sang, in an embarrassing contralto, ‘—Tiger River, you have stolen my heart away —!'

I said ‘I don't think it is Tiger River.'

She said ‘What is it then?'

I said ‘Dream River. Something River. I don't know.'

We sat on either side of the kitchen table. She gave me a cup of tea. I thought—When the bomb goes off, these must not be the sort of positions we will be remembered in —

I said ‘Do you know a man called Jake Weatherby?'

She said ‘Jake Weatherby!'

I thought—He's her lover? Her son? Having changed his name from something so unsuitable as Washbourne —

I said ‘I think he's a reporter.'

She said ‘He's not a reporter!'

I thought—Well he's not, is he, the man who put his arms round you at Mr Perhaia's party —

She said ‘He used to know my husband.'

I said ‘I didn't know you had a husband.'

She said ‘Oh yes.'

I thought I might say—Where does he live? Libya?

She said ‘Bert, your uncle's very tired.'

I said ‘Yes.'

She said ‘He'll kill himself if he goes on.'

I thought I might say—What, with that pistol?

I said ‘Did you know my mother?'

She said ‘Yes.'

I couldn't think what else to say.

Then she said ‘Bert, you're not stammering.'

I said ‘I know.'

She said ‘Why not?'

I thought I might say—Because, if life were an umbilical cord, I have come to the end of my tether.

I said ‘Perhaps Uncle Bill should have a rest. Jake Weatherby seemed to think he's in some danger.'

Mrs Washbourne put her head in her hands; she said ‘Oh Bert I'm sorry! So sorry!'

I said ‘What about?'

I thought—If only Mrs Washbourne could go out of the room, then I could do something sensible like climb out of the window and go down to the river.

She said ‘He's had so much to put up with! He's been so cruelly maligned!'

I thought I might say—You can't say cruelly maligned!

I said ‘What are you going to do about Aunt Mavis?'

Mrs Washbourne looked up and said briskly ‘Put her back in her cure, probably.'

She looked like someone who has been kicked.

I said ‘Can you lend me a pound?'

She said ‘What do you want a pound for?'

I said ‘To have some money.'

I thought—If I take that rope, it might come in useful for carrying my pyjamas.

She said ‘Oh Bert! It's so terrible we put on to you all this!'

Then she went out of the room. She seemed to be acting as if she were distressed.

I gave a tug on the rope at the window and the high-up part opened with a bang. A bit of glass half fell out, and hung there.

I thought—What, a guillotine?

If I could climb out through the main part of the window then I could put my arm back through the top part and close the latch of the main part: then I could pull the top part closed —

I thought—But what is the point of that bit that has broken?

— So that I can get in again?

— So, there are these coincidences!

But this was ridiculous.

I climbed out of the window.

I imagined—But isn't it reasonable after all that I would not want at this time of night to go out of the front door past that
policeman?

I smoothed the broken bit of glass back into place: then I closed the main part of the window, and then the top part, gently.

I had taken the rope. I thought—Not to hang myself with, but to tie up a parcel.

I walked across the garden.

I thought—The point is, you go on some pilgrimage?

— For all those lost souls; for who have shot at whom, and how the bridesmaids have behaved —

I was wearing gym-shoes and was carrying my jeans and jersey.

I thought—I will change in the garden and I can wrap my pyjamas round my hands so as not to be cut by the glass on the top of the garden wall —

I remembered my father saying—What people are good at is getting keys from under doors and climbing down drainpipes —

— Will we, one day, be good at getting keys from the wrong sides of doors that are in our minds?

I was going down towards the river. I had got over the garden wall quite easily.

I thought—Now I am truly one of the élite! I have no food, no home, no money —

I had just the pencil and notebook in which I sometimes wrote the things which came into my head —

— And launched them over the world on paper darts —

— Like doves or ravens from the ark, my father.

I wrote in my notebook a letter to Tammy Burns. I said —

Dear Tammy,

I have a project for the sort of film we talked about, which might interest you.

Most films are boring now because a camera can't show what a person is, what's inside him, how this might or might not affect the outside world. Actors and film-makers try to show what people do and what happens: but no one can talk much about the mechanisms as it were between what people are and what happens: the way someone perhaps by simply being what he is can affect minds and hearts and not only of people around him. And this is the most interesting thing in the world, because without some feel of it people are like furniture or animals; which they are not, because they do things like making and looking at films.

My idea is that there should be at least two screens in the first place perhaps side by side but then overlapping or one moving inside the other so that for a time the other is like a frame. And on one screen—the one that would later be in the centre say—there would be a fairly ordinary story such as of a man going off to war, as you might see in any old film; a cowboy or a crusader perhaps trotting off in his awful armour; he would be one of those men that actors like acting so much, you know, all tragic and trussed up like a turkey. And on the other screen—the one that would later be the frame perhaps—there would be as it were the separate but quite closely connected story of, say, the wife he has left behind; who as soon as he has gone—on the other screen he would be trundling across one of those tastefully orange deserts—the wife would call in some frightful lover—this story would be
quite corny too you see; stories usually are; what's interesting is only what we make of them—a lover like one of those shaggy men you have to have more than a glimpse of to make sure it isn't a fig-leaf: and they, the wife and lover, would begin to make love; or to make those advances towards love that they'd feel they'd have to; what else can they do for ninety minutes? But really of course they might not want to at all; this is like life; to excuse ourselves, we make up morality. Well anyway, all this between the wife and the lover would be going on on one screen which would gradually begin to wrap round, or perhaps itself to be wrapped round by, the other screen: on which there would be the crusader or cowboy or whatever on his horse in his ghastly armour. But in what way by him, you see, if any, would the wife and lover be affected? Because they can, you see, go either this way or that: but perhaps not by their own willing. And the point of him, the crusader, would be that he too would be open: would be thinking—What am I doing this for? Why am I trundling across this desert in my armour? Why have I left my wife? Do I, or do I not, know she may have a lover? And he would both want and not want to die or to kill because of this; as if the desert were the arms of a lover. I mean he will not clearly think all this: but it would be going on somewhere inside him. And this, and not the trundle, is what would be interesting to an audience. And the wife would not quite know, too, but would feel—Here I am wrapped around the arms of my lover: what else am I doing this for except that there is inside me something dry and lost like my husband going off to war: that now knows where it is: because he is in a desert. But do I want this? What will make me choose? These things will not be seen clearly by the audience either; but they will be there, for the connections to be made if anyone wants to; and this will be possible, because the things will be shown side by side or one inside the other. And perhaps the audience will begin to feel, because they thus have the chance of making connections, what can be done about these things: within and about themselves even. For what else can choose? Well anyway; the crusader has arrived at his war. The wife is with her lover. But what have they to do with each other? If they do have
connections, this is the point, these will be such that have made him want either to live or to die; to make her want, or not, to go off with her lover. But these connections will be just the influence that the one might have had on the other throughout the whole of their lives: what they have ever been or become or made of themselves: the way in which the one might have grown within, or around (or not) the other; and so might influence him or her; because he or she is part of the other; even in a desert or in the arms of a lover. They would not really know this: they would know a bit what was, or was not, happening. I mean it is the whole life of the crusader, what he makes of himself, that will have become part of his wife and that will influence her: and it will be the whole of the life of the wife, what she has made of herself and in relation to her husband, that will be around him, in him, and that will make him want to live or kill or die. It will not be any direct action by the one that will affect the other: but just what the whole of them have been and are, their style and meaning. And perhaps this style is not so much of this or that: but just the fact that they know that they have a style and meaning. And they will demonstrate this by what they do on their own: but it will also, if it is inside them, be shown by the effect that it has on others.

Well there is the crusader at a town perhaps which he is laying siege to: he gets into some sort of position in which he can kill or not kill a victim: or if he does not kill, then perhaps the victim will kill him: and the wife on the outside or inside screen—or could the two screens writhe round each other so that they are like snakes that eat each other's tails or like lovers—by this time the wife perhaps is on the bed and is about to give in or not to her lover: part of her would have said yes but there would be also her husband inside her like a starved and violent child: would it not perhaps be better if he died? If she killed him? With her lover? But there he also is outside her with his sword raised about or not to kill his victim. And he will be thinking—no, not thinking; this is not the point; the point is what happens: what he has made of himself: all of this around and inside him: such as his wife—this will be what might stop him; or encourage him; give him reason to live or die—her
arms around him or her lover; the child crying or dying inside her. Each of them everything they have ever been, and to each other. And then—this is the point—what was happening on one screen—or in the connections between the two—would become slightly bulging; bursting out from one screen to the other; like something living; like a cell; like something trying to emerge and create something different Like a butterfly. The edge of the wife's nightdress, perhaps, would just flick out of her screen at the arm of the crusader who has his sword raised above his victim; might spur him on; might stop him. The crusader's raised elbow, perhaps, would just come out of his screen and nudge the wife on her bed; which would make her pause; if not to say just yes or no at least to think—no not think, it would have to be what happens—whether she would finally go away or not with her lover. Which would depend on what she and he, the husband, had ever been to each other; which would make her go or would stop her. The flick between the screens bulging outwards; like a propagation. And the crusader, within or around his wife, would or would not kill his victim. And the wife might get up and leave her lover; or might submit, with eyes looking out of the frame as if it were a window; either to help her husband or to wish him dead; she might want to free him or to be free of him; he might have wanted her to be unfaithful. This is not to do with morals, you see: it is to do with how people might see truly. The crusader might lay down his sword: might have killed, or been killed by, his victim. And his wife at the window would be looking out on a distant world. Having learned something perhaps about power; about victims. And her husband in the distant land living or dying perhaps but being peaceful. They having just nudged one another. By what they had ever been. And they would both know this, and not know it. But what does the audience know. Some perhaps might be able to know it by what they have ever been.