1982 Janine (34 page)

(What did the company think of you when Brian was released?)

Why have you no interest in physics? Negative light costs nothing to produce and has no rate of travel because its single infinite wavelength is identical with the span of the universal continuum, thus enabling it to operate simultaneously everywhere. Professional astronomers were too few for the survey we had planned. We needed amateurs, all the amateurs the world contained, so in every language we broadcast an appeal for helpers which was also a course of instruction in astronomy and in how to build the probe, use it, and record the findings. The only payment we offered was the satisfaction of discovering stars and planets never
before seen by the human eye and helping to complete the greatest work of scientific art conceived by the human mind: THE MAP OF EVERYWHERE. “Remember, the universe is boundless but continuous,” said Alan at the end of the broadcast, “so don't stop discovering and recording until you see your own bum on the screen.”

The people of the earth, most of whom had television sets by this date, responded a million-billionfold, especially children, housewives, invalids and the elderly. A crippled ten-year-old girl in a Cambodian brothel discovered the first completely negative constellation in which the void between the various bodies is the source of its light, heat and gravity. A team of Derry charwomen mapped a galaxy where energy operates in parallelograms, making cubical suns whose cubical planets skip from corner to corner of rectangular orbits. An anonymous member of the U.S.S.R. Supreme Praesidium sent word of The Cuckoo Cluster, a collection of dully smouldering orbs which revolve in the same path until one overtakes and absorbs the others, getting hotter and faster as it grows bigger until it explodes and breaks down into the same number of spheres trundling round the same dull track. As the blank spaces in THE MAP OF EVERYWHERE steadily filled up the worldwide enthusiasm for astronomy grew until it seemed that all humanity was stretching its neck and straining its eyes outward in search of something it longed for but was unable to find. At last each viewer, having pierced the continuum, saw upon the screen the bluewhite cloudmarbled globe of their own home and knew:

The world is the lonely living centre of the universe. The universe is a rich whirlpool of energy which coheres again and again into every conceivable body of gas and mineral, but only one of these bodies grows living fruit. The rest are not only devoid of thought, they collectively lack the resources to nourish one primrose, one blade of grass. The only life we will find on other worlds is the life we take there. And this is good news because,

MODERN SCIENCE CAN SOLVE ANY TECHNICAL PROBLEM IT RECOGNISES

therefore

WE CAN DOME THE CRATERS OF THE MOON AND GROW FORESTS IN THEM

and then

STRIP FROM VENUS HALF THE CLOUDS WHICH MAKE HER SURFACE A FACSIMILE OF ANCIENT HELL AND GIVE HER MOIST AIR RAINING AN OCEAN WHICH, STOCKED WITH PLANKTON AND WHALES, WILL COMPOSE A WARM PACIFIC PLANET WITH VOLCANIC ISLANDS WHERE SLOWLY NEW LIFE WILL TAKE ROOT

and then

HOLLOW THE LARGEST ASTEROIDS, LIGHT ARTIFICIAL SUNS IN THEM, ACCELERATE THEIR AXIAL ROTATION TO PRODUCE CENTRIFUGAL INTERIOR GRAVITY, BUILD HORIZONLESS GARDEN CITIES ROUND THE WALLS AND LET ADVENTUROUS GENERATIONS SAIL TO THE STARS IN THEM

because

WITHOUT FIGHTING OTHERWORLDLY HUNS, PLUNDERING OTHERWORLDLY AZTECS, KOWTOWING TO OTHERWORLDLY SUPERMEN, WE CAN CREATE ALL THE GOOD WORLDS WE EVER IMAGINED

and thus

LOVE, SEX, BIRTH, CHILDREN NEED NO LONGER LEAD TO POVERTY, FAMINE, WAR, DEBT, SLAVERY, REVOLUTION, THEY WILL BECOME OUR GREATEST GIFT TO THE UNIVERSE WHICH ENGENDERED US!

However

THE COST OF FERTILISING THE WASTE OF THE UNIVERSE, STARTING WITH THE MOON, IS SO GREAT THAT ONLY A RICH PLANET CAN AFFORD IT

so we must

EMPLOY EVERY LIVING SOUL TO FERTILISE OUR OWN DESERTS, RESTOCK OUR OWN SEAS, USE UP OUR OWN WASTE, IMPROVE ALL GROUND, NOURISH EDUCATE DELIGHT ALL CHILDREN UNTIL ALL ARE STRONG, UNAFRAID, CREATIVE,
PRACTICAL ADULTS WHO LOVE AND UNDER-STAND THE WORLD THEY LIVE IN AND THE MANY WORLDS THEY COULD LIVE IN

for it is technically possible to

CREATE A WORLD WHERE EVERYONE IS A PARTNER IN THE HUMAN ENTERPRISE AND NOBODY A MERE TOOL OF IT

yes God we can

BECOME GARDENERS AND LOVERS OF THE UNIVERSE BY FIRST TREATING OTHERS AS WE WISH THEY WOULD TREAT US AND LOVING OUR NEIGHBOURS AS OURSELVES

(What happened three nights later when you went home to Denny?)

FUCK OFF YA FUCKIN BASTARDING BAMPOT YE! LEA ME ALANE YE BLEEDN CUNTYE! YE ROTTN PRICKYE! Yes I'll tell you about that but not right now. Give me a bit more time. Please.

God.

I.

Think.

I.

Am.

Going.

To.

Weep.

Of course I will not weep. To our tale. Kings may be blessed but Jock was glorious, o'er all the ills of life victorious.

All were glorious round that table. We were leading lights who would soon dazzle the world. We were not jealous of each other. In a crowd as happy as ours those who shine brightest do so because the rest want them to, have fuelled them to. Radiance belongs to everybody. This struck me as an important discovery but when I tried to explain it everybody started laughing. The English director cried, “Admit it, Jock. You want the theatre to belong to the electricians.”

I said, “Naturally. How can I give my best to an organisation which is not mine? The writer thinks the theatre his
because he writes the plays, the actors think it theirs because they perform them, Binkie thinks it his because he owns it, the audience think it theirs because they pay for it, and since your job is to join all the other people together you probably think the directors are the bosses of the show. Why can't the electricians be raving egoists too? Everyone who is essential to an organisation should be bosses of it. That is democracy.”

“You technical people are far too bossy already,” said the architect. “You've made my profession almost impossible. Architecture is the most essential of the arts and used to be the most splendid. The world's greatest buildings were once magnificent hollow sculptures which whole communities were proud to enter. Not now. Nowadays our designs are so restricted by plumbing regulations, lighting regulations, heating, ventilation and fire regulations that not even our geniuses, not even Lloyd Wright, Gropius or Corbusier have been able to make modern buildings look as good as they are useful.”

“The fault is yours,” I said, “you refuse to recognise that plumbing and wiring are as much architecture as walls and windows. It is ignorant snobbery for arty architects to think that technicians are not their equals and partners. The greatest social achievement of the last eighty years is in sanitary engineering. The U-bend, which seals our houses from the germs in the sewers, was invented eighty years ago and has saved more lives than penicillin, but who knows the inventor of the U-bend? Every city and town in Britain has a man-made river-delta under it which sends streams of pure water right to the top of every building, high and low, while shorterballs, I'm shorry, waterfalls, handy wee waterfalls gush out on every floor at the turn of a tap or pull of a plug. And instead of displaying these great clean systems proudly, like the roof-supports of the old Greek temples, you bury them like dirty secrets in walls and obscure closets. No wonder your art has become a matter of phoney façades.”

“A lovely notion!” said the English director. “Imagine a wedding reception with the buffet spread between the crystal pillars of a plumbing system. We watch the turds of guests upstairs descending these shining columns in a welter
of brown bubbles and amber pee, while we sip champagne and nibble small triangles of toast spread with gleaming globes of caviare.”

All sorts of mixing and joining occurred in the club but that night I felt most of it was happening in my head. There seemed nothing in the universe I did not understand because my mother's cryptic silences, my father and Old Red's conversations, Hislop's poetry, the lectures at the Technical College, Alan's middenraking, the arguments of Alan's friends, even Denny's wish to understand geography, amounted to a complete and satisfying explanation of the whole. I was eager to pass this understanding on to my friends. I was sure it would do them great good. My idea was simple and single but even the women kept laughing at the words I used, and they, I felt, had more to gain from them than anyone else. “If universe cone or globe,” I told Heldianjud, “which same thing really then dictor-ship, hiarchy because of topbottom, insideout, but no! Allcontinuum! Democracy!”

“Jock,” shouted the English director, “you are becoming a bore.”

“Must make clear then,” I said, bathing in and clutching Judianhels hair which kept flowing away from me. “Shoot up far fast enough head crashes into own bum, fall fast enough down bum crashes on own head so why travel, no centre except where
we
are no matter
who
we are therefore need for infinite respect, infinite love or all makes no sense ken? Bodies X sympathy + a lot of space = democracy, I love ye, ken? Because we can all do what we like.”

I noticed that the English director was standing up and bawling in the voice of an English sergeant-major.

“JOCK! SLAVE OF THE LAMP! LISTEN TO ME YOU ORRIBLE LITTLE MAN! I COMMAND YOU TO TRANSPORT THIS CELLAR WITH ALL ITS REVELLERS, AND SUPERSTRUCTURE, AND ROCK, AND CATHEDRAL, AND CRUDE OLD CASTLE, TO THE GARDEN OF THE EMPEROR OF THE DEMOCRATIC CHINESE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC! SET US SAFELY DOWN THERE BEFORE DAWN BREAKS, GENIUS OF THE LAMP,
LEAVING NOTHING BEHIND BUT THE SMALL HAIRY MOLE ON THE INNER SURFACE OF JUDY'S LEFT THIGH.”

He was taller than me so I stood on my chair and said, “This cannot be done because I have left my screwdriver upstairs, but anyone who keeps hold of their screwdriver can do anything, moreover”

At this point the chord of recollection snaps and I remember nothing more

before waking in bed with a feeling I became familiar with in later years. All my muscles ached but it was a refreshing ache, like the ache of having been born or of having done good exercise, yet my brain was uneasy. It suspected that I did not deserve to be born. My mattress was on a plank platform, scrubbed very clean, which bridged the well of the stair from the room below. I was wearing pyjamas and my clothes lay folded beside me as neatly as usual, though the socks were under the pile instead of on top. Beside the clothes was another small sign of derangement, my watch, which had stopped at half-past-eleven. I had failed to wind it up. Through a small high-up window I saw that the sky was the colour of late afternoon. The evidence was that, however intoxicated, I had left the company and gone to bed in decent order.

I got up, put on dressing-gown and slippers, took my toilet things and went to the least visited lavatory on the premises by the most roundabout route. Having carefully washed and shaved without being seen by anyone I returned to the closet and put on clean socks, underwear and shirt along with a jacket, waistcoat and trousers unworn since the last pressing. I knotted on a necktie, polished my shoes, then went downstairs with what I hoped was my usual air of alert self-possession. Though less than half full the restaurant was doing brisk business. I went behind the counter and poured myself a bowl of cereal and a mug of coffee. I carried them to our table where nobody paid me any attention.

They were discussing a newspaper article. Everyone seemed depressed or angry. Helen looked white and ill. She said, “Oh how could he write that? How
could
he write that?”

I asked what was wrong and they passed me the paper.

Under the headline
WOULD YOU LET YOUR
DAUGHTER? MINISTER DENOUNCES COWLAY
COMMUNE IN THE FESTIVAL FRINGE
was a photograph of the room which the helpers and performers used as a dormitory. It had been taken in poor light with an exposure that made it look shabby, dark and dirty. The story beneath began with the words, “How would you feel if you learned that your daughter was sleeping for nights on end in this huge barn-like chamber with thirty or forty men, most of them total strangers to her? Long-haired, bearded strangers with so-called
advanced
opinions about sexual morality and how society should be organised?”

This was written by a journalist who had recently spent a lot of time in our company. He was a cheerful, friendly soul and his paper had printed one of the first articles which had said that the club was an exciting, glamorous place. This was no longer news, so having learned of our sleeping arrangements (which nobody had thought to hide) he discussed them with a popular and easily shocked Church of Scotland clergyman who liked having his words broadcast through the press. The clergyman said, “This sort of example is leading thousands of young people down the slippery slope to perdition. I know my views are old-fashioned, but that cannot be helped. I got them from Jesus.” The journalist had then referred the matter to a more liberal clergyman who said that Christ taught that forgiveness of sin was a higher virtue than strict sexual continence. Having thus obtained a balanced religious view of the matter, the journalist had discovered the home addresses of the girls who used the dormitory and had phoned their parents to ask what
they
thought. Under the subheading A TERRIBLE SHOCK, Helen's mother was quoted as saying, “This comes as a terrible shock to us. Her father and I knew nothing about it. Perhaps Helen has been a little bit unwise, but I'm sure my daughter is doing nothing very wrong, really.”