The Adding Machine (30 page)

Audrey decided that the Darter Boys were a noble invention like the Happy Cloak.

He turned back to
An Outcast of the Islands
and the superb description of Willem’s corrupt infatuation for Aissa: ‘From Willem’s features the spark of reason vanished under her gaze and was replaced by an appearance of physical well being, an ecstacy of the senses that proclaimed its terrible work by an appalling aspect of idiotic beatitude. Then he whispered “I wish I could die like this now.” That whisper of deadly happiness so sincere, so spontaneous, coming so straight from the heart like every corruption ... It was the voice of madness, of happiness that is infamous, cowardly and so exquisite that the debased mind refuses to contemplate its termination or its price. His thoughts were so remote from her understanding that she let the words pass unnoticed like the breath of the wind like the flight of a cloud.’

Willem’s corruption lies in his own white heart and soul. He is not like the victims of Circe enslaved by a potent and evil will. He is enslaved by his own passions and Aissa is drafted into a role she does not understand and does not want. It is Willems who carries with him all the gloomy Nordic myths, the Love Death, the Earth Mother who hangs her naked consort at the Spring Festival, The White Goddess eating her mate, Circe who turns men into swine. Not that he is conscious of all this being at once a very simple and a very corrupt man. He does not know that he is The Goat God who meets Crazy Aissa by the stream anymore than Almayer thinks of Circe when he urges his little daughter to call after Willems, ‘Pig, Pig, Pig.’

Audrey closed his eyes and the story of Willems, Aissa, Almayer and Lingard unfolded, moving of its own volition, the sky, the river and the jungle in vivid colors, the white dim shadows in a grainy old film.

‘The Darters’ pointed teeth glittered. Others hopped from one dirty foot to the other hissing between their teeth. The silver crystal disks of their eyes shone with a strange luminescence as they shuffled forward in a closing semicircle.’ Electric tremors ran down Audrey’s body and he comes out in a red rash that spreads into great red patches shivering, burning, now Jimmy has the fever too. Whistle on sweet young breath, a peal of clear laughter in the stirring grass leaving behind a faint scent of blossoms and an acrid smell of decay. Ether vertigo a whirling black funnel Darkness blew in a whiff of brimstone.

‘Up flew the hands of the Darter Boys. From the tips of their silver fingers light hissed through the air. Molten droplets pricked against his skin bringing exquisite agony with every contact. He raged and cursed swinging his sword into a firestorm of exploding sparks spurting from the needle fingers of the Darter Boys. Dimly he saw flashes of silver disk eyes through exploding patterns of light. He came to himself strapped to the reeking hide of a snow camel. Darter Boys ran alongside. They chittered and chirruped among themselves, their huge disk eyes turned up to catch the reflection of the lost mournful stars.’

Indistinct vision of a man going away from him diminishing in a long perspective of trees growing smaller but never going out of sight ‘Something familiar about that figure,’ Willems thought, reminded him of something a long time ago ... Why!! Himself!! And going away where?

I guess you all read about the trouble the Sex Pistols had in England over their song ‘God Save the Queen (It’s a Fascist Regime)’. Johnny Rotten got hit with an iron bar wielded by HER Loyal Subjects. It’s almost treason in England to say anything against what they call ‘OUR Queen’. I don’t think of Reagan as OUR President, do you? He’’s just the one we happen to be stuck with at the moment. So in memory of the years I spent in England — and in this connection I am reminded of a silly old Dwight Fisk song: ‘Thank you a lot, Mrs Lousberry Goodberry, for an infinite weekend with you. . . (five years that weekend lasted)... For your cocktails that were hot and your baths that were not.. . so in fond memory of those five years I have composed this lyric which I hope someday someone will sing in England. It’s entitled:
Bugger the Queen.

My husband and I
(The Queen always starts her spiel that way) /
The old school tie / Hyphenated names / Tired old games/It belongs in the bog
(Bog is punk for W.C.)/
With
the rest of the sog / Pull the chain on Buckingham / The drain calls you, MA’AM
(Have to call the Queen ‘Ma’am’ you know)
/BUGGER THE QUEEN!

The audience takes up the refrain as they surge into the streets screaming ‘BUGGER THE QUEEN’

Suddenly a retired major sticks his head out a window, showing his great yellow horse-teeth as he clips out: ‘Buggah the Queen!’

A vast dam has broken.

It’s like in Ireland, where they have a form of life known as Gombeen Man. Now a Gombeen Man is a blackmailer, police informer, receiver, money-lender. In small villages he often runs a shop and leans on the scale when he comes to the punch line. . .

‘Well now Lord Brambletie I always say that what a gentlemen does in his own house is a gentleman’s business, but there are those as thinks otherwise. . .’

(Lean .. . lean. . . lean. . .)

‘Oh uh will you deliver that please?’

‘Certainly sir. A pleasure sir.’

Arrives at the house... ‘Well Danny me lad, been out back of the spring house playing like a boy will, haven’t you now?’

(Lean . . lean. . lean . . .)

And here’s a woman having an affair with a tinker while her husband is doing a hitch in the Navy and due back on leave.. . word in his ear . . . and ‘Well Mrs. O’Malley and top of the morning to you — Sure and your pots must need a sight of mending. . . and did you ever stop to ask yourself what the term a ‘tinker’s dame’ signifies
Mrs. O’Malley?’
(Lean... lean... lean...)

Here is the Gombeen Man on a house call. Arrives all huffing and puffing and sits down without being asked,

‘Ay and here’s your steak Lord Brambletie, as fine a piece of meat as you’ve ever handled if you’ll pardon the expression sir ... Always glad to be of service to a gentleman and there’s one way you can tell a
real
gentleman, a
real
gentleman isn’t mean, and he doesn’t give himself airs, like ... I could do with a spot of something to keep out the cold. And you don’t mind if I slip my shoes off do you, it’s a long punishing walk out here from town and me feet is killing me. You wouldn’t have a pad for me bunion would you me Lord?’

That’s a Gombeen Man in action. Sure and he’ll make Lord Brambletie put the pad to his corn with his very own lily whites and that’s worth more to the Gombeen Man than a hundred pounds. A real Gombeen Man is in it more for the game than the money. He gets more satisfaction out of selling someone stew beef for top sirloin or shorting a sharp housewife a quarter pound than he would from a fat check handed him by a solicitor for some letters or photo negatives. He wants
contact
.. .

‘Oh it’s not money I’m after Lord Brambletie. Just dropped in for a little chat like . . .’

A word of advice to you young people: Always beware of a whore who says she doesn’t want money. And a blackmailer who doesn’t want money is the worst kind. He wants your blood, and like the whore who doesn’t want money he’ll get more money out of you in the end. Soon Lord Brambletie will pay him
anything
just to stay away.

A real Gombeen Man blackmails his victims by his very presence, his slimy, evil, insinuating presence. They don’t watch him when he weighs a purchase because they don’t want to be in contact with him.

Now English children are taught ‘never to do anything you would be ashamed to do in front of the Queen’ and that makes the Queen’s picture blackmail right there. You see what we owe to George Washington and the Valley Forge boys for getting us out from under that blood-sucking picture. Imagine anyone telling his kids ‘Don’t do anything you’d be ashamed to do in front of President Reagan.’ But for an Englishman, making it in front of the Queen’s picture is like trying to have it off with a Gombeen Man at the foot of your bed . . . Don’t mind me — like a spot of fun meself you know.’

And of course there are those as has a kinky thing with the Queen’s picture. Either way, the Queen gets her tithe of flesh.

Now to come right out and say someone is a Gombeen Man is admitting you have something to hide, some reason you can be blackmailed, and so a good Gombeen Man may string it out for years before the moment of truth, when everybody looks into his neighbor’s eyes and says ...

‘Did he lean on you?’

So then they all rise up and drive out the Gombeen Man.

Just as Pavlov’s dogs salivated at the bell, that happy breed grovel in front of the Queen, indulging in that debased, degraded and downright disgusting English custom of ‘knowing one’s place’, a custom enforced by an army of shopkeepers, waiters, hotel clerks and doormen.

Here’s a young American with longish hair and some sort of musical instrument in a case, arriving in front of Brown’s Hotel with his luggage and getting the old English treatment from the doorman.

Doorman, looking at the man’s hair and the instrument case: ‘Sorry sir, we’re completely full sir.’

‘But I called from the airport and made a reservation.’

‘A mistake sir. Shall I call a cab sir? I’d suggest one of the larger places sir. More turnover you know.’

If he’s got good sense he’ll take that cab right back to the airport.

The Queen is the fountainhead and motherlode of a snobbery that poisons the dank air of England with the smell of brussels sprouts cooking in a soggy green paste. And what Englishman worthy of the name has not dreamed of being invited to Buckingham and having tea with the Queen, oh quite at ease you know. The Queen is leaning on every man woman and child in England. She’s naught but a Gombeen Woman.

A vast crowd marches on Buckingham Palace screaming ‘BUGGER THE QUEEN!’

Prince Philip comes out to say that after years of being the Royal Consort like a bloody stud horse, all he has to say is ‘BUGGER THE QUEEN!’

It’s like a re-make of the Magna Carta. Owing to a power shortage the Queen signs her abdication by flickering torchlight ... and good riddance to the Gombeen Woman.