The Brooke-Rose Omnibus (27 page)

–No. I lost the equations. I must have left them in the pocket of the seat in front in the first vehicle. I must have left them in the coffin, in the upper parietal lobe of my brain.

–For the benefit of –

–The Save the Appearances Fund, certainly. How much do you want?

–Er … doctor, one of the newspaper reports that you opened your eyes for a second when they removed the coffin-lid. Do you remember anything of that?

–I remember … Something.

–Something. Er, what exactly? Fear, dazzling light, relief, astonishment, pain?

The scalpel scrapes into my pain. My wife’s lover and his wife watch the operation through dull eyes in my
drawing-room,
hers hypnotized by the never-never land of other people’s pain, his veiled with knowledgeable labels at my poor performance. He would have done much better, given the circumstances, but then, circumstances do not touch everyone with the same meridians. He has one stance to adopt, and with it he lassoes my wife and no doubt others and they come like mares. My wife likes one-stance men, she reads them from afar, and having deciphered their one stance feels humiliated and angry at her own limitations. My wife peels me an orange and dies with me vicariously.

The world drains me of atoms. I find it very tiring. Lazarus finds the world tiring goes round the world in black and in bright lights as a startling discovery.

Tell-Star persists with his verbal pedantry under which the worms in my head squirm and he sharpens his beak. What exactly do you mean by something, Dr Lazarus, or as a scientist at least could you define your terms?

Tell-Star picks his nose and masturbates in his unscreened existence but I remember nothing.

–Surely the nails, doctor, you must remember the lifting of the nails.

–The silence creaks. I collect silences, you know, one needs silence in which to read the nervous handwriting of the invisible coronas to distant galaxies. Couldn’t you give me a little silence?

–I understand, of course, but for the benefit of our viewers who can’t bear silence, couldn’t you hit a nail or two on the head for them to read in the sayings of the week? Could you define at least the nothing you remember?

I can’t remember my wife’s name or my wife’s lover’s name. He calls her nothing except you in the private banality of their untender story, and she calls him of course darling, so how can I remember? Of-course-darling retains his atmospheric density with that name, and he calls my wife nothing as he makes love to her but names, what do names matter? I shall call him Stance or something. I remember … oh yes? What, for instance? The silence in which he makes love to her, this one will add to my
collection
with his grunts, grimaces, snorts and body-odours, say something nice, she begs at the quick afterwards unsatisfied, you make love well, she bargains. It takes two to make love, he concedes a back-handed compliment with a slap on her buttock to his own satisfaction only and I remember Something. Yes, what, for instance, could you define your terms?

The world cocks its giant ear, twisting and swivelling it about. I remember, yes, what, a flash, a name, yes doctor, what name? Total darkness. Jonas. Black Jonas and his trumpet.

Lazarus says he saw Black Jonas delete check Ole Black Joe check must mean Joshua at Jericho flashes round the world and the walls come tumbling down. The walls around the crater grin like asses’ jaws and crumble.

–My dear chap, says Stance, I don’t blame you in the least. After an experience like that you should rest, get away from it all. Why don’t you take a trip? I can fix it for you in a jiffy.

–How do you know, says my wife on the quick verbal uptake for lack of deeper satisfaction, that he wants to travel in a jiffy?

Laugh, I thought I’d died.

–So you saw Joshua, says Stance in his best interested voice which amounts to a casual shrug.

–How very odd, says his wife. I can’t remember her name either. What did he do?

–He played on his trumpet.

–Really?

–No, not Really.

–Don’t laugh at us, darling, we really want to know. I mean, in time of course. When you’ve rested, it will all come back to you. Things do.

Lazarus mocks the world with Joshua and his trumpet goes round the world in black and in bright lights. I watch myself in my wheel-chair watching the world through a rounded screen. Fifteen thousand for my exclusive story.

Fifteen thousand million miles of no story in the psychotic handwriting of diffuse turbulent gas and ionized hydrogen on a small screen.

–I’ll fix it in a trice. How do you know, says my wife repeat performance. I wish I could remember her name. Everyone has a name although he calls her nothing in the private banality of their untender story. I have a name and no story. I only want a little silence.

–And you shall have it, darling. I’ll take you to Bermuda. Fifteen thousand! Or – you can go by yourself if you prefer.

–Where the remote Bermudas ride, Stance quips happily and he rides my wife already in the nearby remoteness of his ulterior motive which I read like the distant stars.

His wife can’t hope for an eternal quadrangle from me. I suppose she also has a name, everyone has, but I feel sick so please don’t bombard me with your particles of anxiety and you kindly stop puffing your cigar-shape at me.

–My dear friend, of course, why didn’t you say? Don’t worry, however, I’ll fix everything before you have time to think and his wife archly says how kind.

–I don’t want to go to Bermuda. I want to stay right here and work on my equations. And you shall stay here with me and look after me.

–Of course darling, if you want it that way. But the journalists –

–They’ll tire of it as soon as they’ve tired me out or no doubt before. I only want to cock my giant ear and listen to the total darkness in case it emits particles of light.

Lazarus gives his message to the Citizens of the World. Read the Daily Sphere tomorrow. As told to your favourite reporter, Tell-Star. Lazarus’ own sick handwriting
photographed
for you by telescopic camera in World Without End tomorrow. Read World Without End tomorrow, yesterday, today. Read Lazarus’ message in Sayings of the Week, no, I remember only total darkness, no, I remember nothing.

–Why did you tell them nothing?

–What? Leave me alone. I only want a little darkness.

–I can’t leave you alone, Someone.

–Why not?

–I can’t trust you. And besides, I belong to you.

–You do?

–Why did you tell them nothing, Someone?

–I didn’t. I told them … Something.

–You went much too soon.

–But the journalists came.

–They came for me, not you. But you never listen.

–I lost … Something.

–You lost your equations, Someone.

–I remember now. I’ve had such a peculiar dream.

–I know.

–Oh yes, you do the knowing around here, don’t you?

–I don’t know your equations, Someone.

–Have I lost a point, then?

–I tried to help you.

–But I had such an odd dream. Things come back.

–Yes, things do.

–I dreamt I died, and came back to life and could read people. Good people.

–Really?

–Yes. No. Not Really. What happened to Dippermouth, Something?

–He took after you, for three years. Now he takes after me.

–How did he take after me?

–He had your opaqueness. Now he has, to some extent, my transparence.

Dippermouth toddles into the room on tiny golden legs. The needles on his big moon-face point horizontally at a quarter to three and he gives a gurgling laugh like a chime.

–Can he talk?

–At three years old? I should think so.

–Say something, Dippermouth.

–Hello, dad. Wanna see something, dad?

–But I can see her, son.

–No, I mean something great, real great. Can you read, dad?

–I can read dials, Dippermouth.

–Good dad! You give real daddy-answers, don’t he, ma?

–Doesn’t, Dippermouth.

–Oh, but he does. You read my dial, dad. What does it say?

–A quarter to three.

–Quarter past nine. Got you! Now watch.

With a creaking noise that reminds me of something, Dippermouth dips and dips his mouth to twenty past eight, and with a louder creak dips on to twenty five past seven and on until my eardrums burst and his mouth joins down into itself to form one vertical needle that oscillates painfully on half-past six. Then with a screech it swivels as one needle half round the dial to twelve and the cowboy shoots his way across the screen on a white horse in a cloud of dust. The homestead burns. A sheep trots past the foreground and the naked blonde pours out of the flames with screams. The cowboy yanks her up onto his horse now blackened with the smoke, gallops away and Stance comes nonchalantly out of his hiding-place, smoking a big cigar. Good man, he says, can you repeat, we’ll do a take this time. Why didn’t you have your camera on, the cowboy asks, galloping back, I can’t repeat perform indefinitely. Well, I wanted to film the conflagration first, we’ll mix you in, don’t worry. Shoot. I yank the blonde again onto my saddle and gallop off the screen. Good man, he says to my wife, I changed the decoy blonde, he never noticed, this one will take him far. How unscholarly says my wife to confuse the records. Don’t you respect history, science? Things, he says, I have no interest in things. I like people. Now, my remote Bermuda, ride me. So he does call her something, and in the privacy of their banal untender story they go into a clinch. The needle chimes the romantic music of the spheres and then goes cloppety-clop around to half past six and with a creaking noise that reminds me of something slowly opens back to the disarmingly triumphant smile of Dippermouth at a quarter past nine.

–Quarter to three! Got you. What did you see, dad?

–I saw … my wife.

–Well! You sure saw something stupid!

–I saw remote Bermuda ride on Stance.

–You read what you want into it, Someone.

Dippermouth dips his mouth a little in disappointment.

–All that Bang Bang I gave you and you only saw Kiss Kiss. Oh dad!

He creaks with disgust and I cover my face with my hands.

–I can’t bear it, Something. I keep losing points. Why do you do this to me?

–Smile, Someone.

–No, you smile first.

I smile, it hurts and Dippermouth creaks back to a quarter to three.

–Quarter past nine! Got you.

–Good people! Good children. Now put away your camera, you mustn’t tire your little excrescent scar, dear boy, or I’ll have to swaddle it up again in bandages. Let me see –

–Madam, you shall not sit on me, no, I won’t have it, stop, get off!

–My dear good man, why should I sit on you? Stop yelling your head off or you’ll lose it, and then what will you do?

–What shall I do, Something?

–You leave my dad alone, fat grandma.

–Oh you dear pretty boy, what do they call you?

–Dippermouth Blues, fat grandma.

–Well, Mister Blues, I congratulate you, why, I would hardly have recognised him since I dragged him out of you. Let me see now, how has your little flan fared since then?

–Don’t touch me! Take your hands off me!

–These surgeon’s hands that saved your life with all their skill?

–I fear your hands.

–My dear good man, you understand nothing. I shall flounce out in a fury if you go on like that, and then what will you do?

–What shall I do, Something? Take me away, where can we go?

–Where would you like to go, Someone?

–Anywhere, away from her fat hands rummaging in my scar, from her fat buttocks about to climb on to me, from her huge weight.

–No weight climbs on you, Someone, weight only consists of the attraction between two bodies. Use your head. Lift it up. Do try to use your eyes and ears. You never look, you never listen. I made only one condition, but you didn’t keep your promise.

–I don’t keep anything. Even my point, I lose it all the time.

–You have a point, Someone. I assure you.

–Has she … has she flounced out?

–Yes. You hear what you want to hear.

–All that Big Bang I gave you, dad, and you only saw Steady State.

–But–

–Quiet, both of you. If you don’t take care, Someone, your atoms will become totally random and unable to impart uniform motion to others. Now concentrate, please, look, listen, organise your energy, listen at least to the absolute immobility of your own heat death, if it must occur. A little consciousness can do a lot.

The house crumbles around us. All the houses fall with a loud neighing from the edge of the crater and down through the twisted branches of the cork-trees with great creaks and crashes, down the immeasurably tumbling steps into the middle of the crater, which opens up and engulfs us all, Something, Dippermouth Blues and me.

We play cat’s cradle with our meridians, slowly,
soothingly
, and it quietens the neural cells in their untempered morse along the growing muscles of my love for Something. Soon we have wrapped ourselves and swing gently in our hammock. The boat chugs down the river and Dippermouth sings in a cloppeting counterpoint to the drum-like moon that bounces back his signals.

–What’s happened to the others, Something?

–You mean the journalists?

–What journalists? No, I mean the other moons.

–Oh, them. They’ll come back in time.

–Which do you think will come back next?

–I don’t know.

–I thought you knew everything, Something.

–Well, not everything. I only follow my instructions.

–Secret instructions, girl-spy?

–If you like. But they get bent and broken.

–You mean I break them?

–Well, when you break your word, it creates density and upsets the definition. And that confuses me.

–So I lose a point again.

–You win points too, Someone.

–I do?

–Yes.

–Does it mean, then, that you lose points when I win?

–All things have a balance. But sometimes we win points together, Someone.