The Dwarfs (16 page)

Your social faults don’t interest me, if I could trust you. But you ask too much when you want me to take them as credible. Your morality, your bedmanners, are something I no longer want to interfere in. It’s your stink. Carry it. But it’s your integrity that’s in question and you haven’t proved that you’re worth it. I am asking you to be honest. It was fear and anger led you to bed. A mess of it. It’s true that my integrity has vanished on many occasions. It was frustration and hate that did it. I had at all costs to survive, and I have bitten, cut and slashed with a good will and enjoyed doing it. It was a question of overriding justice. Did I, above everything, believe that my being killed might be not only an overwhelming disaster for me, but an irreplaceable lack in the sum total of human knowledge, and an irreparably lost opportunity for creating good? There is very little on my conscience about that. It’s all supposition.

I think you’ve made a fool of yourself over this bed business. It was a clangor. When the echoes of it die I hope you’ll be there to smile at the ruins. You won’t by thinking I am wrong. The damn thing will bounce up and give you such a crack in the bollocks you won’t know where it comes from.

But if this is the status quo of creation I’ll take no more bites out of anybody. The flesh is sour. I’ll go hungry. I’ve had many a laugh at the crumbs Len threw away. I’ve been alive to the comfort you’ve both tried to give. Let it be said, even if it damns me, that I appreciate it. But don’t let it blind us to the issue. You reproach me because I should be perfect. No. And I can’t be dallied out of my spot. Don’t entice me with just affection. I have more to offer of that than a dozen of you. Merely listen to the truth. It’s shaming to all of us but it may do some good.

You can see the fix I’m in. I’m ready to listen. I will listen intelligently. I will go and understand. Make a journey for it.

But I will not cut my suit entirely to measure you, on a pretext. In a spirit of trying most things are possible. For that reason you can go to hell. We’ll both toe the line. I’ll come as far as I can. If we can’t meet, tough luck. But so far as the truth is concerned, you have a lot farther to travel. If you don’t think it worth it, I’m sorry. It would be many miles of good road wasted.

In the past, I haven’t been able, or made it my habit, to speak the dog’s honest truth about me. This time I have. You have heard it.

Mark did not answer. After a few moments Pete stood up and walked to the window.

- You’ve got me, he said, acid and all. On the supposition that it had to be said I’ve said it.

Mark coughed and spat into the fireplace.

- I hope the acid hasn’t blinded you to the meat and salt.

- I think, Mark said, it has.

He struck a match and watched it burn.

- Right, Pete said. I’ll let myself out.

Thirty-one

They’ve stopped eating. It’ll be a quick getout when the whistle blows. All their belongings are stacked in piles. But I’ve heard nothing. What is the cause for alarm? Why is everything packed? Why are they ready for the off?

But they say nothing. They’ve cut me off without a penny.

And now they’ve settled down to a wide-eyed kip, crosslegged by the fire. It’s insupportable. I’m left in the lurch. Not even a stale frankfurter, a slice of bacon rind, a leaf of cabbage, not even a mouldy piece of salami, like they used to sling me in the days when we told old tales by suntime. They sit, chockfull. But I smell a rat. They seem to be anticipating a rarer dish, a choicer spread.

And this change. All about me the change. The yard as I know it is littered with scraps of catsmeat, pigbollocks, tincans, birdbrains, spare parts of all the little animals, a squelching squealing carpet, all the dwarfs’ leavings spittled in the muck, worms stuck in the poisoned shitheaps, the alleys a whirlpool of piss, slime, blood and fruitjuice.

Now all is bare. All is clean. All is scrubbed. There is a lawn. There is a shrub. There is a flower.

1952–1956 Revised 1989