SUBLIMATED RELATIONS
OR
THE
Long Prose
Copyright © 1981-2009 John
O'Loughlin
____________
CONTENTS
Chapters 1-12
__________
CHAPTER ONE
He gently closed the front door of his parents' house behind him and,
pulling his scarf more tightly round his neck, set off at a brisk pace for
home. It was a rather cold night and, as
he hurried along, great plumes of escaping breath were quickly dispersed into
the chill air. He was somewhat relieved
that the once-yearly obligation to visit his parents for Christmas had been
successfully dispatched and that he was once more a free man - free, that is,
to please himself.
Not that their company
unduly oppressed him! On the contrary,
they did their best to make his stay a merry one, having provided a copious
roast lunch and a sufficiency of wine and/or sherry. But, even so, it was a relief that the social
pressure to be on one's best behaviour had if not entirely vanished then, at
any rate, been temporarily relaxed, and he was accordingly free to be his usual
informal self.
One's best
behaviour? No, that wasn't entirely
true! More accurately, the pressure to
tune-in, as it were, to one's parents' standard of Christmas and behave in a
manner which suggested that no alternative standard was either possible or
indeed desirable. Yes, that was it! He was escaping from the pressure of that, as
also, if the truth were known, from the even worse pressure of having been in
close proximity to his stepfather's wretched cold and of having had to pretend
that it didn't really inconvenience him in any way. But, really, what a gross inconvenience it had been! It was quite a stinker the man was suffering
from, a most objectionable stinker!
For a moment Timothy
Byrne was on the verge of cursing his stepfather for having had the untimely
misfortune to catch a rotten cold at Christmas, but, mindful of the festive
spirit, he stifled the thought as best he could and replaced it with a
charitable commiseration towards Richard Briley for the rotten luck he'd had
... to fall victim to such a sordid fate at so inopportune a time. In fact, he forced himself to feel sorry for
the man and to offer him, in retrospect, what private sympathy he could. Yet even then it wasn't possible for Timothy
to ignore the self-pity which suddenly welled up, like flood waters, inside him
at the recollection of his having had to sit in uncomfortably close proximity
to Mr Briley on a number of occasions over Christmas and not only risk being
infected with the stinker himself, but, no less distastefully, listen to the
incessant snivelling which issued from the old man's snot-laden nose. Really, it was enough to make one weep!
Crossing over one of the
busy main roads which prominently divided his part of Haringey from theirs, he
hurried his steps along the north London streets still faster, as much, in
effect, to escape the memory of his stepfather's threatening germs ... as to
get back to his flat as quickly as possible, lest additional threats from
unseen quarters lay in sordid wait for him!
Poor Mr Briley, it was really most unkind of nature to have inflicted
such a bad cold on him during that brief period in the year when, birthdays
notwithstanding, one least wished to suffer germs. Most unkind!
Yet, unfortunately, that was generally the way with nature, which was
unconcerned with human wishes and the sporadic attempts man might make to
approximate to a heavenly condition.
Mindful, one might almost say, of its own wayward interests. Ignorant of Christmas.
For what was Christmas,
after all, but a concerted attempt by man to approximate to Heaven in the face,
if needs be, of natural opposition? A
time when one remembered the birth of Christ and gave thanks for the spiritual
example He was to set. A time when one
endeavoured to live more closely in Christ's light and refrain from sin. But what did nature care about that? Not a frigging jot! It made no specific effort to emulate man and
call a truce for a few days. On the
contrary, one was just as likely to catch a cold on Christmas day, if germs
were in the air, as at any other time.
And if the weather had been particularly inclement before Christmas, it
wasn't likely to improve just to suit men.
It could even get worse!
Fortunately that had not
been the case this year, and, as he continued on his brooding way, Timothy felt
gratitude for the fact that the weather had remained comparatively dry and mild
these past few days, thus discouraging the rapid spread of harmful germs. Yet the fact of Mr Briley's cold was still
bad enough, and even if he, Timothy John Byrne, hadn't caught it, nevertheless
he had suffered from it in a certain sense, both psychologically and
physically, and that was no joke! His
Christmas hadn't exactly proved to be the most congenial of experiences, even
if it could have been a damn sight worse.
Still, his parents had generally been kind to him, and together, in
spite of their temperamental differences, they had endeavoured to maintain an
atmosphere of peace and joy whilst in one-another's persevering company.
Yes, a kind of crude
approximation to the heavenly Beyond had been achieved, in spite of whatever
opposition the temporal world had contrived to place in their way. Even with Mr Briley's constant snivelling and
the consequent risk of infection, these past few days had retained a seasonal
quality which, on the whole, was fairly pleasant, if a little lacking in
excitement. For there could be no
question that Timothy had eaten well and, despite his customary abstinence, imbibed
a bottle or two of quality sherry, not to mention sat in front of some
interesting films on television and spent an hour or so profitably reading
philosophy in one of his parents' spare rooms.
And, of course, there had been some conversation with his mother - Mr
Briley being a rather laconic bloke who preferred not to enter into
conversation with him even when he wasn't ill - which had proved more the
exception than the rule, and passed the time quite pleasantly.
Yet even as he hurried
across another busy road, Timothy reflected that this Christmas could have been
a lot better, a much finer approximation to Heaven than theirs had been, and
not only on account of his stepfather's cold, by any means! No, on a number of counts. But, alas, his parents had prevented it from
being such by their emphasis on traditional, or sensual, approximations to the
Beyond, and had thus made it virtually obligatory for him to follow suit. The ideas which were now welling-up in his
conscious mind, like molten lava, would hardly appeal to them, well-meaning
though they undoubtedly were. No, they
couldn't be expected to appreciate what he now considered a higher way of
celebrating Christmas, a way which, instead of emphasizing downward
self-transcendence, put the emphasis firmly on upward self-transcendence and
was accordingly closer to Heaven, to what Timothy liked to think of as the
spiritual climax to human evolution in the not-too-distant future.
However, being average
sensual people, his mother and stepfather could only celebrate Christmas in a
fashion commensurate with their average sensuality, not in a fashion which he
now regarded as of a higher and altogether more agreeable order. Yet what was true of them was no less true of
the great majority of people, who were likewise indisposed to change their
habits and celebrate Christmas in any but a sensual way. And as he neared his flat, a poignant truth
suddenly dawned on him. Like it or not,
the majority of people's attempts to approximate to a heavenly condition at
Christmas only resulted in their ending-up in a condition closer to Hell, in
which their customary sensual habits were intensified to a point of gluttony
and drunkenness, if not lechery as well!
Yes, that was the ironic
truth of the matter! For the average
sensual man Christmas was simply an intensification of his average sensual
habits, and thus, in certain respects, an approximation not to Heaven but to
its beastly antithesis. Society hadn't
yet evolved to a stage where the great majority of people were disposed to
approximate, no matter how humbly or tentatively, to the heavenly Beyond
through upward self-transcendence.
Consequently the only reasonable alternative to average day-to-day
consciousness for a relatively short period of time lay, for them, in downward
self-transcendence, in the gratification of the senses rather than of the
spirit, and thus immersion in the subconscious instead of the
superconscious. For which, as Timothy
well knew, food and drink were eminently suitable!
And so, by a curious
paradox, the Devil was arguably given more acknowledgement, by a majority of
people at Christmas, than God, and a kind of sensuous approximation to Hell
triumphed over the Christian world during that time. Only in a minority of cases was it likely
that the godly in man would be given its due and duly acknowledged, and as
Timothy drew closer to his small flat he realized, with some regret, that he
hadn't been among that minority of higher types this Christmas but, on the
contrary, had consumed more than his customary amounts of food and drink!
Maybe next year -
assuming he wasn't living in the same place and had the means to be more
independent of his parents for Christmas - he would be able to celebrate
Christ's birth in a manner more suited to his tastes, and thus become a part of
that tiny minority who acknowledged the superiority of the spirit over the
senses at Christmas, thereby upward self-transcending. He hoped so anyway, since he had become
somewhat dissatisfied, no thanks to his parents, with the traditional way of
celebrating it!
But what, exactly, would
this alternative to sensual indulgence be?
He had arrived at the front door to his ground-floor flat and duly let
himself in. Yes, what exactly? Quickly, almost impatiently, he removed his
black leather zipper and matching scarf and hung them on the metal clothes pegs
just inside the door. Then he hurried
into his small living-room and immediately switched on the electric fire there. Its two coiled filaments were aglow in no
time, and he gratefully sat in front of it and rubbed the cold from his frozen
hands. Yes, well, to approximate more to
Heaven than to Hell at Christmas meant that one would have to reduce one's
consumption of food and drink for a start, and thus avoid the temptation to
become both a glutton and a drunkard.
Whether one went as far as limiting oneself to bread and water instead
of, say, roast and wine was another thing.
But one could at least make do with a less sensual fare than one was
ordinarily accustomed to, and certainly avoid alcohol, that leading enemy of
the spiritual life! Milk, tea, coffee,
or some fruit juice was morally preferable to booze, though not perhaps as good
as cola.
Timothy smiled slightly
at the thought of it and continued to gently rub his hands together in front of
the electric fire. He was still feeling
quite bloated from the turkey-sandwich supper his mother had provided for him,
and not a little conscious of the soporific effects which the last glass of
sherry was having on his mind. He was
still thinking of heavenly approximations from the disadvantage-point, as it
were, of hellish approximations, or so it seemed. But he hadn't imbibed that much sherry in
all, and was accordingly still capable of lucid thought, thanks in part to the
sobering influence of the cold weather during his brisk walk home. So, as a step in the right direction of
upward self-transcendence, it would be necessary to minimize the part played by
downward self-transcendence by curtailing one's sensual intake. That much was obvious.
But what else? What about the actual feeding of the
spirit? Would reading a paperback
throughout the Christmas holiday suffice to take care of that? An image of a painting by Daniele Crespi
entitled The Meal of St. Charles Borromeo, in which the Saint was
depicted reading the Bible whilst eating a frugal meal of bread and water, came
soaring into his mind's eye and to some extent answered that vexing
question. Yes, reading would serve
the needs of the spirit and contribute towards establishing an approximation to
the heavenly Beyond, or Omega Point, as Teilhard de Chardin had called the
projected culmination of spiritual evolution.
But a rather crude approximation to it, one had to admit, insofar as
only the lower reaches of the spirit would be acknowledged and served - those
reaches in which the intellect had its throne.
The greater and higher part of the spirit, the soul, would languish
unfed, undernourished, and ignored.
Thus while reading would
be better than dozing, one could approximate more closely to the heavenly
Beyond by meditating throughout the Christmas holiday, thereby allowing one's
spirit to expand on a wave of blessed peace.
Stillness, quietness, alert passivity, joy ... all these consequences of
Transcendental Meditation would bring one closer to heavenly salvation than
ever reading could, even when the book in one's hands was of an elevated order,
and so result in a finer Christmas. Yet
if a few days given-up to meditating still seemed too much ... well then, one
could always divide one's time between reading and meditating, or meditating
and watching some ennobling film or listening to some inspiring music. As long as the spirit rather than the body
was being acknowledged, no matter how imperfectly, one would be in alliance
with that tiny minority of higher types.
Yet what else? Was there anything besides culture and
meditation that could be indulged in over Christmas in order to approximate as
closely as possible to Heaven?
Undoubtedly meditation was the best thing for any length of time. But if, by any chance, one felt one had to
have recourse to some kind of concrete substitute for alcohol or tobacco, what
was there? Ah, there was indeed
something that could be indulged in but which wasn't legal at present, and that
was mind-expanding hallucinogens like LSD, the acronym for lysergic acid
diethylamide. Whether LSD, for example,
would be legalized in the near or distant future ... remained to be seen. But, whatever its ultimate fate, there could
be no denying that its synthetic constitution distinguished it from natural
drugs, or drugs which either grew naturally or were less than fully synthetic,
like tobacco, alcohol, opium, and morphine, rendering it an altogether
different proposition from them.
For all the 'natural'
drugs - in short, everything that grew from or owed their origins to the earth
- were inevitably stamped with nature's imprint and were thus of a sensual
essence. Whenever one had recourse to them,
in whatever doses, the result was an intensification of sensual indulgence and
therefore a downward self-transcendence.
According to their strength and the amounts imbibed, they imposed
varying degrees of subconscious stupor, ranging from the shallow in tobacco to
the deep in opium or morphine. Being of
natural origin, they could only appeal to the senses, not the spirit, and thus
were aligned with Hell rather than Heaven.
The deeper the level of subconscious stupor imposed by them, the more
evil, it seemed to Timothy, they were, so it wasn't altogether surprising that
society had sought to protect itself from the most potent natural drugs by
making them illegal and punishing those who trafficked in them. Only the relatively less evil ones, including
tobacco and alcohol, were officially sanctioned and accorded a degree of social
respectability, even though they were by no means without extremely serious
consequences, as lung cancer and sclerosis of the liver made more than
adequately clear! Hopefully, a day would
come when even tobacco and alcohol would be officially discountenanced, and all
degrees of downward self-transcendence through natural drugs duly proscribed
or, at the very least, discouraged. But,
at present, we were still living in an age when such evils were to a certain
extent inevitable and somehow relevant to the times.
However, perhaps there
would also come a time when hallucinogens like LSD would be legalized, and
those who wanted to use it could do so without fearing prosecution? At which thought Timothy clicked his tongue
and, ceasing to rub his hands together, sat back comfortably in his
armchair. Yes, for LSD was a synthetic
drug, and therefore it acted on the superconscious rather than the
subconscious. It resulted, as a rule, in
visionary experiences of a transcendent, translucent, and altogether mystical
order, opening the door to the Beyond and thus giving rise to upward
self-transcendence. It was divine rather
than diabolic, uplifting rather than degrading, enlightening rather than
depressing.
Yes, if sanity was to
prevail in the world and evolution continue on its upward curve, then LSD would
certainly have a role to play in the future as probably the drug of
transcendental man. The centuries of
tobacco and alcohol consumption, not to mention the illicit consumption of dope
and the harder natural drugs, would have to be supplanted by the centuries of
LSD consumption, in which man aspired towards God, through expanded
consciousness, rather than regressed towards the Devil in varying degrees of
subconscious stupor. Then perhaps
Christmas, or some such equivalent festival, would be celebrated with LSD
instead of alcohol or tobacco. Then
Christmas would approximate more closely to the heavenly Beyond for the great
majority of people, and so be a much superior occasion to what it was at
present. For at present it was all too
under nature's sensuous influence. Only
by overcoming nature, Timothy believed, would man eventually attain to God,
since the mundane and the transcendent were ever different, if not antithetical,
propositions.
But, in the meantime -
no, one couldn't expect overnight miracles.
The majority of people were simply not ready for LSD and, consequently,
it had to remain illegal. Only a comparatively
small number of people would be capable of using it profitably and sensibly,
whereas, for the average sensual man, it would probably prove either a blank or
a danger. And not only to himself! One shuddered at the thought of what might
happen if a crowd of football thugs or other hooligans were to get their coarse
hands on the divine hallucinogen! Why,
they were bad enough under the influence of lager!
No, it was pretty
obvious that the one drug seriously capable of effecting an upward
self-transcendence would have to wait a while yet for official approval. There was no sense in casting pearls before
swine! When society as a whole had
progressed to a higher stage of evolution, a stage transcending anything we now
knew, then perhaps an official change-of-heart would be possible. But, in the meantime ... ah! one would just
have to make do, in a majority of cases, with alcohol for Christmas. And if one found that infra
dignum? Well, one could always
meditate or read a book - which was exactly what Timothy Byrne intended to do
next Christmas, all being well!
Getting up from his
armchair, he ambled over to the windows and pulled their floral-patterned
curtains across. He had quite overlooked
them when first entering the room, but it didn't really matter too much. Few people would have been interested in
staring-in at him and, besides, the low wall and front-garden hedge provided
his room with a certain amount of seclusion anyway. Yet he was reminded, by the sight of a large
Christmas card standing on the small table just to one side of the windows,
that he had been invited out to dinner on New Year's Eve, so he hastened to
pick it up and re-read its contents.
Yes, this late card,
only received on Christmas Eve, had come as quite a surprise to him,
particularly since he had met its sender but once, and then rather
briefly. Yet the man had shown what
seemed like genuine interest in his philosophy, and suggested the possibility
of their dining together some time. So
it looked as though he had meant what he said.
Here, however, is what he had written:-
Dear Timothy Byrne,
Just a
brief note to wish you a Merry Christmas and invite you down to Rothermore
House for dinner on New Year's Eve. You
will recall that we discussed your most recent publication together, earlier this
month, and that I was quite impressed by it.
Perhaps you would like to offer me some further enlightenment on its
difficult subject-matter in due course?
If so, then come down by early afternoon train to Crowborough in
Yours sincerely
Joseph Handon (Viscount)
Timothy re-read the
invitation through twice and then replaced the rather picturesque card on the
table. He was really quite baffled by
it, not having received any such invitation before. And the fact that Handon was a viscount came
as something of a surprise to him. He
hadn't realized, at the time of their first encounter, that he was dealing with
a peer of the realm. Maybe that
explained why the invitation made mention of a dinner rather than a party? It seemed to him quite posh really, not what
he would have expected at all. But,
still, what was he to make of it? Should
he accept?
He returned to his
single armchair and involuntarily began to warm his hands in front of the
electric fire again. Crowborough? No, not a place he had ever been to before? And Rothermore House? He smiled at the thought of his arriving from
the station by taxi at a large country house with fluted pilasters surmounted
by Ionic or Corinthian capitals on the façade, and a large central pediment,
with or without relief sculpture, over the architrave. Maybe, on the other hand, it would be less
classical, more baroque or even gothic?
He hadn't the faintest idea.
Nevertheless, it was almost bound to be large, imposing, spacious, and
surrounded on all sides by plenty of open land.
Country houses were usually like that, after all.
Again he smiled to himself
and sat back in his armchair. He wasn't
sure whether or not to accept the invitation, especially since he didn't know
much about Joseph Handon and had absolutely no idea who the other guests would
be. It wasn't as if he were exactly
enamoured of country houses either, though he had retained a certain rather
narrow aesthetic interest in one or two of them, compliments of some informal
architectural studies in the reference division of his local library, several
years before. Yet, all things considered,
perhaps the experience would prove rewarding, confirming him in his
suppositions and further enlightening him where aristocratic lifestyles like
Viscount Handon's were concerned. Yes,
maybe he would learn a thing or two from first-hand experience, as it were, of
country houses and their inhabitants that contact with reference books had
denied him? It was certainly worth
considering anyway.
Still smiling, he
vacated his old armchair again and proceeded to slot an audio cassette into the
tape-deck of his modest midi sound-system.
Boxing Day still had an hour to run and he was determined to pass the
remaining time in as cultural a fashion as possible. Some synth-based modern jazz would, he
supposed, enable him to do just that!
CHAPTER TWO
At length the train arrived at Crowborough station and a rather
bored Timothy Byrne alighted from the empty second-class compartment, in which
he had sat cross-legged for most of the journey, and slowly made his way
towards the ticket barrier. Only a
handful of other people had got off the train with him and he wondered, as he
passed through the exit, whether there might not be another person bound for
Rothermore House among their number.
Once outside the station
he quickly engaged the services of a waiting taxi, and presently found himself
being driven through a series of narrow country lanes in the general direction
of Rothermore House. It was almost four
o'clock and he hoped that his arrival there wouldn't be too early; though he
had no way of telling from the invitation at exactly what time the viscount
would be expecting his other guests to arrive.
Perhaps most of them were already there?
He mentally shuddered at the thought of it and sought distraction from
that prospect by scanning the surrounding fauna-and-flora of the passing
countryside. He never liked being the
last or nearly last guest to arrive anywhere.
"Been out this way before, mate?" the cabby asked,
addressing his passenger via the driving mirror.
"No," Timothy replied,
a bit startled by this unexpected intrusion into his sordid reflections.
"Nearly there
now," said the cabby, who speedily steered the taxi round a couple of
sharp bends and then brought it to a gradual halt a hundred or so yards along a
relatively straight road, which appeared to lead nowhere. On one side, a view of trees and hills. On the other side, a tall gateway presented
its black steel bars to their attention.
It was slightly ajar, and stood between high brick walls lined with
trees and bushes.
"I'll take you up
the driveway if you'd like," the cabby offered, half-turning round in his
seat.
"Is it a long
one?" Timothy asked.
"At least a coupla
hundred yards," the cabby informed him.
"Right,
thanks."
Having got out of the
taxi to push the gate open, the cabby returned to his seat and restarted the
engine, which had in the meantime spluttered out. "You're the second geezer I've driven up
here today," he revealed, as they got under way again.
"Oh, really?"
responded Timothy, who hadn't expected to be informed of that fact! "Perhaps I won't be the last," he
commented.
"Perhaps not, mate."
The taxi reached the end
of the driveway and there, suddenly, the expanse of Rothermore House loomed
menacingly ahead, no more than seventy yards away. One had the feeling, curiously, of coming out
of a jungle and into the open again.
"I'm afraid this is
as far as I can go, mate," the cabby informed him on a slightly apologetic
note, as unexpected as it was strange.
Timothy felt like
saying: "That's quite far enough," since he had no wish to be driven
right up to the large front doors of such an imposing house in a bright red
Cortina, but simply nodded his head and got out. Then he paid the driver and, reciprocating
his New Year wishes, stood back to allow the taxi to turn around in the narrow
space provided and speed back down the driveway.
So this was it! He stood a moment stock-still, staring across
the wide expanse of front garden which framed the large house. He hadn't been far wrong in his conjectures
as to what the place would look like, for it did indeed possess fluted
pilasters surmounted by Corinthian capitals.
But where he had imagined a central pediment there was a balustrade,
upon which a couple of weighty-looking sculptural urns were standing, and this
balustrade extended along the entire length of the façade, reminding one, in a
way, of crenellated battlements. Thus a
two-storey house, with twelve vertically-elongated windows on each story - six
to either side of the aediculated entrance.
Where had he seen a building like this before? Yes, of course! A book on English architecture in the local
library's reference division had shown him a photograph of
Realizing that he
couldn't very well continue to stand out in the cold and gaze up at the
building as though he had nothing better to do, he forced himself on towards
his objective. The crunching of his
steps on the gravel path which led through the English garden made him feel rather
self-conscious and exposed to view as he neared the large front entrance, and
he carefully avoided looking at the windows from fear of seeing someone behind
them. The house seemed to tower above
him like some fearful monster the nearer he got to it, making him feel rather
dwarfed as well as self-conscious. He
was almost wishing he hadn't accepted Joseph Handon's invitation, as he climbed
the steps leading to the framed entrance.
Almost, but not quite! For he was
determined to brave this experience out until the end and learn what he could
from it. And he was learning fast,
because now, halted just in front of the door, he realized that there was a
world of difference between looking at photos of country houses and actually
standing in front of one! The former he
could tolerate, the latter.... He shuddered with apprehension and pressed the
bell. Now he was irrevocably committed.
In less than a minute it
was answered by a manservant, who, on receiving his name, politely ushered him
inside. Once there, he took off his
leather jacket and handed it, together with woollen scarf, to the man. He hoped that his sartorial appearance would
pass muster here, since he wasn't in the habit of dressing more conservatively,
having burnt his last bridges, so to speak, of conventional attire several
years before. His black denims and green
sweatshirt were presentable enough, he thought, and his new white leather
sneakers with black stripes sufficiently clean, in spite of the dust kicked up
while crossing the gravel path. All in
all, pretty typical of him these days, and not something he had any desire to
change, given his long-standing aversion to suits and ties and other sartorial
manifestations of a more conventional, not to say bourgeois,
lifestyle.
"Now, sir, if you'd
just care to follow me," said the elderly servant, once he had deposited
Timothy's jacket and scarf in a cloakroom to one side of the entrance
hall. Smilingly, he led the way across
the intervening space to a pair of double doors which, on reaching, he threw
open with a polished gesture, to reveal one of the longest and largest rooms
Timothy had ever beheld. Having
announced his name for the benefit of its occupants, the manservant ushered him
in with formal politeness and then gently but firmly closed the doors behind
him, leaving the young writer to his fate.
Never before had he felt as self-conscious as now, what with the sight
of those already gathered there. He
might as well have been standing in the nude before a roomful of nubile females,
as standing in his usual informal clothes just inside the doors of this immense
room!
But help was at hand in
the form of Lord Handon himself, who beamed an encouraging smile at him while
swiftly approaching across the bright blue carpet which covered the greater
part of the floor. "So glad you
could come," he announced, extending a welcoming hand; though the six or
seven yards he had to walk seemed to take an eternity for Timothy, who
gratefully clasped the outstretched hand when it finally arrived. "I trust you had a pleasant
journey?"
"Yes, quite
pleasant," the writer responded, blushing slightly.
"I'm a bit
out-of-the-way here, and wouldn't like to think that you'd got lost en route
from the station," Lord Handon remarked.
"Oh, no trouble in
that respect," Timothy averred.
"Good! Well, allow me to introduce you to the
others," said the viscount and, taking his latest guest in tow, he led the
way towards the centre of the room, where a small group of people were seated
in a semicircle in front of a roaring open fire. There was hardly time for Timothy to get more
than an inkling of the extent and variety of his surroundings, as he bashfully
accompanied the grey-haired peer back across the carpet. Besides, he couldn't very well begin
investigating the room's contents as though he were in a museum. It was obligatory to ignore them, as though
stepping into such an ornately-furnished and expensively-decorated room was a
commonplace affair, unworthy of more than a passing curiosity. The only thing that mattered was the series
of introductions which were about to befall him. It was impossible to concentrate on anything
else. "Allow me first of all to
present you to my wife, Pamela," the host obliged, extending his arm in
the direction of a medium-built lady with high cheekbones and a long nose who
was seated nearest the fire. She at once
rose from her amply-cushioned armchair and held out a dainty hand for Timothy
to shake.
"Delighted to meet
you, Mr Byrne," she said, smiling primly.
"And here is my
youngest daughter, Geraldine," rejoined Lord Handon, leading his new
guest's attention to the occupant of the next armchair, who duly stood up and
offered him a similar hand, albeit in a more tentative manner. She was wearing a straight purple dress with
black stockings, and had fine dark-brown hair which was tied-up in a bun on the
crown of her head. She couldn't have
been more than eighteen or nineteen.
"Unfortunately, my
eldest daughter is celebrating New Year's Eve elsewhere," Lord Handon
explained, for the benefit of his guest, "so you'll have to forego the
pleasure of meeting her."
Scarcely had the writer
shaken hands with Geraldine than he was whisked-on to the occupant of the third
armchair from the fire, who happened to be an artist by name of
"And here,"
Lord Handon announced, leading the way past an empty armchair to one occupied
by a coloured girl of slender build, "is a highly-talented young opera
singer by name of Sarah Field, whom you may well have heard of or even heard
sing."
"Indeed I
have," Timothy admitted, extending a nervous hand for its sixth shaking.
"Pleased to meet
you," said the singer, with a polite smile in due attendance. Her brown eyes sparkled gaily from the
reflection, in part, of the electric lights which issued from an overhead
chandelier. She was tastefully attired
in a dark-green minidress with pale stockings, and wore her smooth dark hair
combed back into a single plait which stretched a third of the way down her
back. Her lips were enhanced with pink
lipstick, and pink was the preferred colour of her eye make-up. She was about the same height as Timothy - a
little short of tall.
"And, finally,
before the strain of encountering so many new faces proves too much for you,
here's Miss Sheila Johnston, that excellent concert pianist of Scotch origin,
whose graceful tone and touch gladden the heart," Lord Handon smilingly
revealed.
Miss Johnston held out a
firm muscular-looking hand for Timothy to shake and lowered her large blue eyes
while he shook it. She was blushing from
the compliments of her host and smiled involuntary appreciation of his
flattery. Timothy she hardly seemed
conscious of and the handshake was uncomfortably one-sided.
"Good, that just
about takes care of everyone," Lord Handon commented, simultaneously
giving the writer a congratulatory slap on the back, or so it seemed to the
latter. "But for a couple of people
yet to arrive, we're all here," he
added, before drawing Timothy's flagging attention to the vacant armchair in
between Nigel Townley and Sarah Field, and motioning him to sit down, which he
thankfully did, though not without a certain self-consciousness at actually
taking his place there amongst the other guests. "Since we've all had a glass or two of
port this afternoon, I should be delighted if you'd join us in that
respect," the host declared, beaming brightly.
"Very well,"
said Timothy, politely putting aside his natural aversion to such drinks.
"One port
here!" Lord Handon requested in an extraordinarily loud tone-of-voice,
bringing his butler, who stood at a discreet remove from the armchairs, into
action.
To his astonishment,
Timothy found the port being served up to him on a silver platter by the
officiating servant - a slight, balding man with long grey whiskers and a sober
mien, who bent down to facilitate service.
"Would anyone else
care for another?" the host asked, casting around the arc of his
guests. "No? Very well.
That's all thank you, Madley."
The old servant
straightened up and withdrew to the drinks cabinet across the far side of the
room, where he noisily deposited the platter before taking up his customary
stance, like a sentry on duty, unobtrusive and remote. It appeared that he would have to stay there,
attentive and waiting, until his next summons, which, to Timothy's way of
thinking, seemed rather strange.
Hardly had the young
newcomer got over the experience of being served port on a silver platter than
he found himself being questioned by Lady Handon as to the nature of his
work. "My husband tells me you're a
religious writer," she remarked, fixing a pair of beady eyes directly upon
him.
"Yes, that's
basically so," he admitted.
"And quite a
revolutionary one too, I hear?" Lady Handon added.
"Yes, I suppose
so," Timothy confirmed, nodding vaguely.
Lord Handon smiled
acquiescently and confessed to only having read one of Timothy's books so far,
and that the latest. Yet it had made
quite an impression on him, and he was now interested to discover whether its
author had made any progress beyond that point in the meantime.
"Yes, do tell us
what you're currently writing," Lady Handon seconded. "Are you a deist, a theist, an atheist,
or what?"
"Well, as a matter
of fact, I'm an atheist, insofar as I reject the assumption of an existent
deity in the Universe and the attendant concept of Divine Creation,"
Timothy blushingly confessed.
"You do?" Lady
Handon responded, on a note of subdued alarm.
"And, pray tell me, why's that?"
"Because I believe
that the Universe is fundamentally of diabolic origin and that evolution is
essentially a struggle, as it were, from the Devil to God," the writer
averred.
One or two brows were
raised in tacit incredulity with the reception of this unconventional
statement. Young Geraldine even found it
slightly amusing and smiled faintly.
"In what way
diabolic?" Lady Handon wanted to know.
"Diabolic insofar
as it was brought about by the formation of stars and their myriad
explosions," Timothy answered her.
"To my mind, there's nothing more infernal and hypernegative than
the stars, and, taken together, they signify the Devil for me, purely and
simply."
"This is certainly
beyond what you wrote in 'Religious Evolution'," Lord Handon observed,
before his wife could say anything further.
"You never mentioned that there."
"No, and I believe
I've made more progress in my religious thinking these past three or four
months, since its publication, than in the whole of the preceding twelve
months," Timothy confessed.
There came a murmur or
two from some of the other guests and, once again, Lady Handon interposed with
further curiosity. "You say the stars should be equated with the Devil,
but what, pray, do you equate with God?" she asked. "After all, you've just told us that you
don't believe in Him."
"Quite so, I
don't." At which point Timothy
sighed softly and took a sip of the port which, until then, had remained
untouched. "What I do believe,
however, is that man is entrusted with the responsibility of creating God, that
human evolution is essentially nothing less than a development for bringing God
to fruition in the Universe, and thus of establishing God as the climax to
it."
Lady Handon raised her
brows and cast her husband a correspondingly puzzled look. She had never heard anything of the sort and couldn't
very well disguise the fact. "But
how?" she asked, in an almost petulant sort of way.
"Increasingly, in
the future, through the widespread practice of Transcendental Meditation and
the cultivation, in consequence, of superconscious mind - in other words, the
spirit," Timothy revealed.
"Transcendental Meditation?" Geraldine repeated, still
vaguely amused.
"Yes, though not in
a passive sense, reminiscent of Buddhist practices, but in a dynamically
post-Christian sense which stresses the difference between God and the world,
between, for want of a better term, the Holy Spirit and human spirit. One mustn't think that because one is
meditating one is tuning-in, as it were, to God, since, as I've just contended,
God is in the making, not already there.
All one would be doing, in reality, is tuning-in to one's own
spirit. But one's own spirit shouldn't
be confused with the Holy Spirit, with God per se, since it's
contaminated by the flesh, the senses, and therefore isn't transcendent. It is simply human spirit. Therefore Brahman and Atman are not, strictly
speaking, one and the same. There is no tat
tvam asi, or 'thou art that', contrary to Oriental assumptions. Rather, the Holy Spirit is that which, as
God, will arise out of man in due course, when he has evolved to a point where
his spirit has expanded and developed to such an extent ... that it becomes
transcendent, and thereupon abandons the flesh to literally establish God in
the Universe. And once God has
been established there, He will shine inwardly for ever - eternally. So man is the medium through which the future
culmination of the Universe strives to realize itself and attain to its
blissful goal. Man is the maker of God,
not vice versa. For the maker of men,
animals, plants, etc., would appear to have been the Devil, or stars, and so
one would be quite mistaken, in my view, to speak of a divine origin to life or
to equate God with the world. 'Out of
evil cometh good', and out of the world will come God ... as pure spirit."
Lady Handon had become
well-nigh flabbergasted and now turned somewhat pale in the face. "Do you seriously mean to suggest that
nature is evil?" she exclaimed, her beady eyes more concentrated,
seemingly, than ever.
"I most certainly
do, insofar as it's under sensual dominion in subconscious stupor,"
Timothy retorted. "Quite the
opposite of the Holy Spirit, which would be a completely spiritual essence in
superconscious bliss."
Lawrence Gowling, who
had listened patiently to the conversation thus far, suddenly felt a need to
challenge Timothy on the nature of God.
After all, hadn't Pascal stressed the impossibility of our having
absolute knowledge of Him, and wasn't it therefore presumptuous of Timothy
Byrne to presume he knew better?
The young writer smiled sympathetically
and took another sip of port. "One
should beware of taking everything thought by great men of the past too
seriously," he remarked. "For
their views are often proved fallacious in the course of time. But no, I'm not presuming absolute knowledge
of God and, in that respect, I'm in complete accordance with Pascal. However, the fact that God is a spirit would
be hard to refute, since, by definition, God is the highest we can conceive of,
and there's nothing higher than pure spirit.
But that's only relative knowledge.
I can say, for instance, that God will emerge in the Universe following
transcendence, but I cannot tell you for certain what His exact scale will be,
nor how brightly He will shine, nor how intense will be the bliss that results
from His spiritual constitution. I
cannot tell you what it would be like to actually be in the holy
light of pure spirit, for the simple reason that I'm a man, with a body and
impure spirit, not God. I can only
speculate and say, rather theoretically, that the experience of ultimate being
would be higher and greater than anything one could ever hope to know in the
becoming ... as man. I cannot have any
absolute, eternal knowledge of it. Only,
at best, a diluted, temporal, transient knowledge, such as is compatible with
my earthly condition."
"Yet, presumably,
this holy light of pure spirit, or whatever, would be a pretty large
entity," Lord Handon commented, turning a mildly inquisitive face towards
his religious guest.
"Quite possibly, though we cannot have any idea of exactly
how large," Timothy rejoined.
"We can, however, speculate that it would be compounded of the
transcendent spirit of the entire population at the climax of evolution, and
quite probably the entire population of human-equivalent life forms throughout
the Universe, so that the sum total of superconscious mind gathered together
there in absolute unity would be way beyond our comprehension. A phenomenal cohesion of pure spirit."
"What a staggering
thought!" cried Nigel Townley, offering his fellow first-time guest an
expression of bewilderment.
"Yes, and this
phenomenal cohesion of pure spirit would presumably constitute the One which
has arisen from the Many," Sarah Field suggested, warming to Timothy's
thesis.
"Precisely," the
writer confirmed. "Thus the
converging universe to the Omega Point, which Teilhard de Chardin often speaks
about in his fascinating books, would indeed be a fact of spiritual evolution. Willy-nilly, the Diabolic Many are giving way
to the Divine One."
Lady Handon frowned
bitterly and snorted defiantly. "I
really cannot reconcile myself to your attitude towards the stars and
nature," she said. "Why, is
one to see the Devil in the sun every time one looks up at it on a fine
day?"
Geraldine tittered in
frivolous response to this sceptical if not rhetorical question, and that
prompted an otherwise circumspect Sheila Johnston to do likewise. Even Lord Handon permitted an indulgent smile
to cross his formerly impassive face.
"You might find it
less picturesque if you were transported to Venus, where the surface
temperature is reputed to be somewhere in the region of eight-hundred degrees
Fahrenheit (800°F) and you'd be in for an extremely roasting time,"
Timothy replied, endeavouring not to flinch before Lady Handon's stern
gaze. "And, of course, the closer
you went to the sun, the hotter the temperature would get, so that you'd have a
less complacent notion of it. Even here
on earth there are places, like the
Lord Handon smiled
defensively. "One would think that
the Universe is still quite an imperfect place, judging by the vast numbers of
primal stars currently in existence," he said.
"Indeed,"
Timothy agreed, nodding. "And it
will continue to know imperfection until such time as the last star collapses
and fades away in so many thousands-of-millions-of-years' time. Only when the Universe is solely the Holy
Spirit will it be perfect. In the
meantime, it will remain under the Devil's influence to some extent, even with
the initial emergence of transcendent spirit."
"You mean, with the
climax of human evolution?" Gowling suggested.
"Either that or
with the climax of human-equivalent evolution on some other planet or planets
elsewhere in the Universe," Timothy smilingly rejoined. "After all, we can't be sure that we're
the only relatively-advanced species of life in the Universe, can we? And if there are others, then they must be a
part of a converging universe to the Omega Point as well."
"What makes you so
sure that some other species, more advanced than us, hasn't already established
transcendent spirit somewhere in the Universe?" Lady Handon asked,
offering fresh opposition to the young writer.
"Well, frankly, I
just can't believe that any other civilization elsewhere in the Universe could
possibly have evolved to that level when we still have such a deplorably long
way to go here," Timothy replied.
"It's too fantastic. The theory
of a converging universe would seem to suggest that, willy-nilly, all its
higher life forms must converge together en masse and roughly
apace, rather than at great evolutionary intervals. Now the fact, moreover, that we haven't yet
encountered any alien civilizations, not having explored too deeply into space,
suggests that evolution still has a long way to go before an extensive
convergence becomes manifest in the Universe.
Consequently, judging from the absence of any superior alien visitors to
earth thus far, we needn't expect other civilizations to be greatly ahead of
us. In all probability they'll either be
a little behind us, approximately on our own level, or a little ahead -
assuming, for the sake of argument, that any such alien civilizations, and
hence alternative life-forms, do actually exist. Yet I'd be extremely surprised to learn of an
alien civilization which had already established the beginnings of God, so to
speak, in the Universe, when it would seem that we on earth still have such a
deplorably long way to go. Somehow I
can't help but assume that any truly-advanced, superior 'people' would already
have made themselves extensively known throughout the Universe by dint of their spiritual sophistication. Accordingly, I remain unflinchingly an
atheist, but an atheist with this difference: I'm all in favour of our doing
what we can either to establish God as the Holy Spirit in the Universe in the
future or, if some other civilization beats us to it, at least contribute to
its growth by linking our spirit with the sum total of transcendent spirit
already there. Thus I'm in the quite
unique position of being an atheist who's in favour of God. No small distinction!"
Lady Handon snorted
contemptuously and sought distraction in the flickering flames of the large
open fire to her left. She wasn't at all
resigned to the writer's beliefs, nor to his apparent facetiousness concerning
them! But Lord Handon had a different
response.
"Yes, you're
probably onto something there," he at length opined, a reflective
expression on his darkly clean-shaven face.
"The notion of a diabolic origin and of a divine consummation to
the Universe does, I must say, possess a certain logical appeal. After all, when one recalls that this planet
was once populated by fearsome dinosaurs and other loathsome monsters, and that
volcanoes were erupting all over the damn place, it would seem more logical to
ascribe such a creation to the Devil than to God. Life on earth must have been a real hell for
the earliest men, mustn't it?"
"To be sure, and
only very gradually did it become less so, as man evolved away from nature and
thus grew less evil himself," Timothy averred. "For a long time man was little better
than the beasts, since more given, like them, to sensual indulgences. But gradually, with the development of
civilization, he became less sensual and more spiritual, grew closer to
God. Yet even the most spiritual men are
partly of diabolic origin, insofar as they're of the flesh. All they can do is aspire towards God, not
actually be God. For God and
nature, which includes the flesh, are two very different things, and should
never be equated!"
Lady Handon frowned
sullenly at Timothy, while Geraldine drew attention to the difference between
his standpoint and those who equated God with nature. Apparently, the pantheists were quite
mistaken, then?
"To my mind they're
really unconscious devil-worshippers," the writer asserted
confidently. "Anyone who equates God
with creation rather than consummation must inevitably make the same
mistake. For nature is an entirely
sensual phenomenon, and anyone who thinks he sees God in it must be imagining
things. If, on rare occasions, it
appears transfigured, shines, as it were, with a spiritual glow - as it
apparently did for Wordsworth on occasion - one can assume that the mind of the
beholder has experienced an inrush of spirit and projected this internal
transformation onto nature, thus giving rise to the delusion that it's nature
itself which shines with 'something far more deeply interfused', or whatever
the quotation is. For, in reality,
nature can never be anything other than its own subconscious self."
"Accordingly,
writers like Aldous Huxley were somewhat mistaken to equate it with God?"
Lord Handon suggested.
"Indeed,"
Timothy opined. "Although
unquestionably a brilliant man, Huxley fell too much under the influence of
Oriental mysticism, with its complacency in nature. He couldn't properly distinguish between the
One and the Many, but was all-too-disposed to see the Many in the One rather
than as the basis out of which the One would eventually emerge. He could never have equated the stars with
the Devil, still less regarded nature as the Devil's creation. To him, it was all part of the One, and the
One was compounded of the creative force behind nature, or the Ground, the
natural realm itself, including the human, and the Clear Light of the
Void."
"Which, presumably,
is approximately equivalent to the Holy Trinity?" Lord Handon conjectured.
"To be sure,"
Timothy conceded. "But this, I
believe, is where traditional religion, both Eastern and Western, slips
up. For, in reality, there's no such
unity but, rather, a continuum of evolution from the Diabolic Alpha to the
Divine Omega via man. The One is the
consummation of this evolution, not a combination of 'Three in One', like the
Christian cynosure of the Holy Trinity.
To my mind, the Creator, or the Ground, is symbolic of the Many, whereas
the Holy Spirit, or Clear Light, symbolizes of the One. And, in between, we have Jesus Christ, or
some such Eastern equivalent like the Buddha, who represents the human
aspiration towards God, towards Oneness.
He is a son of the Many, as it were, aspiring towards the One."
"A son of the
Devil?" Lord Handon queried, on a note of slightly scandalized concern.
"Inasmuch as we're all sons or daughters of nature and are
thus fleshy, worldly, natural," Timothy calmly responded.
"Yet Christ is
represented as a supernatural being in scripture," Lady Handon objected.
"From a theological
standpoint, that is absolutely correct," the writer admitted, blushing
slightly under pressure of her fierce gaze.
"But, not being an orthodox Christian, I don't personally take Christ's
divinity too seriously. To me, there's
only one true divinity, and that is the pure spirit which should emerge out of
man's spirit at the culmination of evolution.
I reject all other concepts of the supernatural, including the
ghostly. And that's why I'm an atheist,
not a believer in divinities which are presumed to exist already."
"Then what, pray,
of the resurrection of Christ?" Lady Handon imperiously pressed him.
"I regard that as
an excellent symbol, or metaphor, for man's future destiny in spiritual
transcendence," Timothy declared.
"Don't think I'm knocking Christianity, I'm not. If you must know, I regard it as the greatest
of the traditional, or 'axial', faiths ... to cite a term coined, I believe, by
the philosopher Lewis Mumford. But I
also believe that, so far as the more advanced industrial nations are
concerned, it has seen its best days and is gradually being superseded by a
transcendental attitude to God, an attitude which should constitute the final
stage of our religious evolution. Christianity
has brought us to transcendentalism, but transcendentalism will take us to God
- of that I have no doubt!"
"Let's hope you're
right," said Nigel Townley sympathetically.
"Yes," agreed
Geraldine, to the consternation of her mother, who briefly cast her a sharp
look of reproof. "And presumably
this transcendentalism to which you allude, Mr Byrne, should not be confounded
with Oriental mysticism, but is largely a Western affair?"
"It stems from the
artificial influence of the modern city, which, in cutting us off from nature
to a greater extent than ever before, has made the cultivation of a
predominantly spiritual approach to God possible." No sooner had Timothy said this, however,
than he realized that he was speaking to a person who, together with her
parents, spent most of her time in the country and therefore wasn't in a
position to appreciate it properly. But,
since he had already spoken at some length about his religious beliefs anyway,
there seemed little point in his refusing to continue just because Geraldine
wasn't likely to appreciate it. And so,
with fresh resolve, he went on: "One might say that it's post-Christian,
insofar as we're led to concentrate our religious devotion on the Third rather
than Second so-called 'Person' of the Trinity, and so work towards actually
bringing about the birth of the Holy Spirit in the Universe. Accordingly we're not indulging in Buddhism
or Hinduism or Mohammedanism or any other traditional religion, but in something
which is the logical outcome of them all, since a further instance of the
converging universe from the Many to the One.
Instead, therefore, of a number of so-called world religions, the future
will contain just one, a true world, or global, religion, and, being
transcendental, it will prove acceptable to everyone. Indeed, religion is hardly the word! For we won't be dealing with creeds or dogmas
or rites or prayers or any of the other formulae of traditional religious
observance. Yet inasmuch as religion has
to do with the cultivation of spirit, then a religion of sorts is what it will
assuredly be, and meditation, as a method of directly cultivating the spirit,
will apply to it. But its objective will
be to establish God, whereas traditional religion assumes that God already
exists, which, in my opinion, just isn't true.
All that actually exists is the Devil, viz. the stars, and the Devil's
creations, viz. nature, the beasts, and man.
For me, the Creator, which traditional religion upholds, is symbolic of
the stars and is thus diabolic, not divine!
'Our Father Who art in Heaven'.... No, rather 'Our Father Who art in
Hell' ..."
Lady Handon huffed
indignantly and cast her guest another withering look. "Really, Mr Byrne, how can you say such
a scandalous thing!" she exclaimed.
"Because I believe
it's true," the latter explained. "After all, we're living in an age
which is in the process of transvaluating all values, to cite Nietzsche, and
this is simply a further instance of such a transvaluation, whereby the Father
becomes synonymous with the Devil, in order that the term 'God' may solely be
applied to the Holy Spirit, and all ambivalence and open-society relativity
accordingly be overcome. In reality, the
concept of the Blessed Trinity is a myth.
For the Father is decidedly cursed, whereas Christ, like all men who
have attained to a civilized stage of evolution, is somewhere in-between - in
other words both cursed and blessed, as
his dual role as banisher and redeemer at the Last Judgement adequately
attests, whether or not one actually believes in such a judgement. So the Father is really the Devil in
disguise, an anthropomorphic metaphor for the creative-and-sustaining force
behind the world. Now what is that if
not the sun and other such stars in the Universe? As I've said before, if evolution is a
journey from the Diabolic Alpha to the Divine Omega, from the Devil to God,
then one can hardly regard the creative and sustaining force as God. On the contrary, God is, only the Devil does."
"All this is indeed
rather revolutionary, isn't it?" Lady Handon observed disapprovingly. "And also rather blasphemous, I might
add."
"Blasphemous?"
Timothy queried.
"Well, you do speak
of the Father as cursed, don't you?" Lady Handon rejoined. "And your interpretation of the Lord's
Prayer would suggest that you identify 'Our Father' with the Father
instead of with Christ, even granted the rather ambivalent terminology
involved, which may well lead some people to unthinkingly identify the Lord's Prayer
with the Creator, and thus with anything but the god of Christian
humanity."
"That's all too
true, and one has to accept that Western civilization is anything but clear-cut
in its allegiance to Christ," averred Timothy, who was pleasantly
surprised to find himself at last agreeing with Lady Handon on something. "Yet my use of the word 'cursed' in
relation to the Father is only on the understanding that the Father, or the
Creator, stands as a symbol for the sum-total of flaming stars in the Universe....
Besides, as an atheist, I would be incapable of blasphemy. For God is something I regard as in the
making, not an already-existent fact. We
have to develop our spirit until, by transcending the flesh, it becomes pure
spirit and thereby establishes the light of God in the Universe. At present, the Holy Spirit simply isn't
there to be blasphemed, only the Devil.
And I don't see how one can be accused of blaspheming that!"
"I wasn't accusing
you of blaspheming the Devil," the hostess sternly countered. "Simply of blaspheming God by regarding
Him as cursed."
"Correction,"
said Timothy. "I was regarding the
Father as cursed, since He is symbolic of the stars for me. And the stars ... well, I could hardly be
expected to regard them, in all their infernal heat, as blessed, could I? Quite the reverse. Only the Holy Spirit will be truly blessed,
and I can assure you that I'd be the last person on earth to blaspheme that -
assuming one could. No, the age of
blasphemy, so to speak, is by and large a thing of the past, and let's be
sincerely grateful for the fact! For we
are gradually coming to realize that the Universe, or at least the world, is
becoming increasingly peopled by men who, having turned their backs on the
Diabolic Alpha in light of a more evolved status, aspire towards the Divine
Omega, not by men who imagine they can come into direct contact with the Divine
Omega, or that alpha and omega are really one and the same! One can of course come into a more profound,
expansive contact with one's spirit if one bothers to cultivate it. But that's quite a different proposition, I
should think, from actually being in the Holy Spirit as pure
transcendence. One's own spirit is, at
the best of times, only potentially divine.
For it's all the time surrounded by the flesh or, rather, the
brain. Only those whose spirits develop
to a point, in the distant future, of literally becoming transcendent ... will
know what it means to have direct contact with the Divine Omega. For they will actually be God."
Lady Handon permitted
herself a sharply cynical laugh, in spite of the gravity of the subject. "Are we therefore to suppose, dear boy,
that the spirits of these future people of your perverse imaginings will somehow
break out of the body, or wherever it is that spirit reposes, and soar
heavenwards, like comets or rockets?" she cried, casting Timothy an
equally sharp look of quizzical scepticism.
In spite of his
convictions her guest was unable to prevent himself from blushing at what
seemed like a cynically rhetorical question, especially since Geraldine and one
or two of the others were manifestly amused by it. "It may seem odd," he admitted,
after due deliberation, "but you could well be right in supposing
something of the kind. After all, how
else could spirit become transcendent if not by breaking free of the brain and
gravitating towards some point in the Universe congenial to itself?"
Lady Handon huffed
disdainfully. "And from whereabouts
in the brain would this ... transcendent spirit emerge?" she wanted to
know.
"Presumably from
that part of the psyche known as the superconscious, in which it had been
cultivated," Timothy averred.
"What, leaving a
hole in the skull behind?" Lady Handon conjectured cynically.
Lord Handon flashed his wife
a reproving glance, but said nothing.
"Not
necessarily," Timothy responded, remaining calm. "Though it might cause the brain to blow
apart, since it would be an incredibly powerful globe of spirit - more powerful
than virtually anything of which we can now conceive."
Lady Handon smiled
self-indulgently. She was endeavouring
to imagine what thousands of small globes of spirit simultaneously converging
upon a central axis in the Universe would look like. Some kind of vast fireworks display in reverse
was the nearest she could get to it.
"And, presumably, when all the transcendent spirit in the Universe
had converged upon a central axis, God would be complete, would He?" she
frowningly concluded.
Timothy nodded his head
in wary confirmation. "But not
until then," he opined. "Which
is another reason why one can assume that, properly speaking, God doesn't at
present exist. For even if, by some
remote chance, an alien civilization much more advanced than ours had
established transcendent spirit somewhere in the Universe, such spirit would
only amount to a tiny fraction of the potential sum-total of pure transcendence
which the evolving Universe was capable of producing. In other words, it would merely constitute
the beginnings of God, not the Divine Omega in its entirety, grown to full
maturity, so to speak, through the spiritual assimilation of the total
transcendence of every advanced civilization.
However, I incline to doubt that even one alien
civilization elsewhere in the Universe has already attained to definitive
salvation, and thus entered the heavenly Beyond."
Lady Handon coughed
superciliously and turned her beady eyes back towards the fire, as though to
seek refuge in a more congenial element - one necessarily closer to the
Diabolic Alpha.
"But what happens
to our spirit when we die?" the host asked, taking over the reins of
sceptical interrogation from his fire-struck wife. "I mean if, as you would doubtless
agree, transcendent spirit is eternal, why shouldn't our mundane spirit also be
eternal and thus, as has been traditionally believed, capable of surviving
bodily death? Surely if spirit is
eternal, it must continue to exist following death?"
"I rather doubt
that," answered Timothy in an almost commiserating tone-of-voice. "For it seems to me that spirit only has
a right to eternity if it has been extensively cultivated and is thereby able
to escape the body, not otherwise being strong enough to survive it. Now since we haven't yet evolved to a stage
of extensively cultivating the spirit, having too many bodily obligations to
attend to, it would seem that it is destined to perish - mine, yours,
everyone's. We none of us seem to have
got to a point where spirit is strong enough for eternity."
"Not even the
saints and spiritually elect?" Lord Handon queried, his eyebrows slightly
arched in sceptical response.
"I doubt it,"
Timothy opined. "After all, they
mostly lived in an age which was at a lower stage of evolution than ours, an
age in which men were closer to nature and had more contact with natural things
generally. And, as far as I know, they
all died - like everyone else. Now it
has been assumed that, at death, the spirit passes into the heavenly Beyond. But I incline to the view that, even in the
case of the more spiritually earnest individuals, it simply expires and thereby
succumbs to that nothingness the other side of life. For if the spirit ever were to leave for the
Beyond, it seems to me that the point of death would be the last time at which
it could do so, since it's weaker then than at any other time and therefore
unlikely to gather sufficient energy together to be able to precipitate itself
into Eternity. No, I incline to the view
that, at death, the spirit simply expires.
If one is ever qualified to transcend the body, it would be at a point
in time when the spirit was most energetic, not when it was on the point of
languishing irrevocably into death. One
would, I imagine, be in one's spiritual prime, fully conscious and determined
to attain to the Beyond, which isn't, however, the narrow personalized heaven
of Christian man but, rather, the climax of evolution in which, by completely
transcending the body, man ceases to be human and becomes divine. That is my belief anyway, and you can accept
or reject it, as you please. I'm not
trying to convert anyone here to my religious position, simply endeavouring to
offer what I consider to be a valid reinterpretation and extension of Christian
belief in suitably contemporary terms.
For we've now got to the stage, as a society, where it's possible to
look upon spiritual evolution not with the eyes of faith, like our Christian
forebears, but with the eyes of scientific knowledge. The age of faith is, fortunately or
unfortunately, a thing of the past, rendered necessary in its time by the
egocentric stage of evolution to which dualistic man had progressed. Now that we're in the post-egocentric or
transcendental stage of evolution, however, we can regard spiritual issues with
a transpersonally factual eye and thereby aspire to objective truth. We needn't consider ourselves particularly
unfortunate on that account."
There was a rustle of
clothing and a few embarrassed coughs from amongst the recipients of Timothy's
informal lecture, followed by an uneasy silence in which baffled or sceptical
looks were exchanged. Only Nigel Townley
on the writer's left and Sarah Field on his right conveyed an impression of
having been impressed by it, since they gently smiled in his direction and regarded
him with respectful eyes. However, the
host and hostess appeared somewhat disconcerted, especially the latter, whose
eyes smouldered with resentment in the shadow of the flickering flames. But nothing further was said or asked to
provoke Timothy into continuing an exposition of his current religious
freethinking. And so, before long, the
conversation turned elsewhere, giving some of the other guests an opportunity
to reveal their deeper selves, however right or wrong those selves might happen
to be!
CHAPTER THREE
Later that afternoon Lord Handon, desiring as much to show off his
house as to entertain his guests in a relatively educative manner, took those
of them who hadn't set foot in it before on a brief tour of inspection,
starting with the ground floor and working up to the bedrooms in which each of
them had been allocated a bed for the night.
Sarah Field expressed her delight in and amazement at what the host had
in store for them, whereas Timothy Byrne, though intrigued by the scale of everything,
remained somewhat cooler and more objectively detached than the others, as
though in an effort not to be too impressed by anything, least of all by its
scale or amount.
It was in the library,
for instance, that he acquired his first real glimpse of an aristocratic norm
where books were concerned - a glimpse, alas, which did little but confirm him
in his low opinion of aristocratic libraries generally! Stretching some thirty yards along the length
of an entire wall and reaching to a height of about ten feet from the floor,
the shelves of this particular library were crammed full of rather
cumbersome-looking leather-backed tomes of ancient lineage, which had doubtless
been handed down from generation to generation of the Handon family line. There must have been upwards of 20,000 books
there, most of which had probably never been read, at least not by the present
owner, the 4th Viscount Handon. They had
probably just stood there for centuries, gathering dust. Only a tiny fraction of them, at best, would
have had their pages turned and perused in a thoroughly curious manner....
Though quite a number may well have served a brief reference purpose which the
owner felt it incumbent upon himself to engage in from time to time. Indeed, many of them were so large, so
weighty and lengthy, that it was inconceivable they could possibly serve any
other purpose than one of reference, since, even with all the time in the
world, such tomes would have taken months, if not years, to peruse
individually. For the most part, they
were simply decorative possessions which the viscount had considered it
expedient to hold-on to for family honour and to satisfy the scholarly
traditions of his class - extremely expensive possessions which would fetch a
tidy sum from any prospective buyer, if ever he or any of his descendants
decided to sell.
Oh, yes! And as Timothy scanned the tightly packed
shelves of cumbersome tomes, he realized that their purchase could run into
hundreds-of-thousands of pounds. But
that wasn't something by which he intended to be unduly impressed. On the contrary, he needed to keep his
customary attitude to the existence of such collections in mind - an attitude
which, rather than being impressed by them, tended towards their condemnation
on grounds of excessive materialism. As
the Biblical proverb had it: 'Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a
needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven', and, by God, how
true, in a funny kind of figurative way, that statement was! Weighed down by the extent and scale of his
possessions, it seemed pretty evident to Timothy that men like Joseph Handon
were almost at the furthest possible remove from the 'Kingdom of Heaven', which
is to say, the Omega Point - the climax of evolution in spiritual
transcendence. Burdened by so many material
belongings, it was inconceivable that the viscount could be anything but a kind
of spiritual tail-ender on the journey to God, a victim of the Devil in
materialistic dominion - the higher materialistic dominion, on the one hand, of
the man-made, which included his house, and the lower materialistic dominion,
on the other hand, of nature. For as
Timothy could plainly see via the library windows, there was no shortage of
sensuous, subconsciously-dominated plant life in the immediate vicinity! The viscount's land stretched around the
house virtually as far as the eye could see, and contained more than a few
trees, bushes, hedges, etc., which testified to the prevalence of the Devil's
influence there, even though a degree of cultivation had been brought to bear
on them, especially to the north of the house.
Yet cultivated or not, nature was still of partly diabolic origin and
nothing man did, by way of reshaping or pruning it, could ever alter that fact. Nor was it altogether surprising that,
surrounded by so much land, the Handons hadn't been particularly appreciative
of Timothy's transcendentalism, since they were the victims of so much
subconscious influence. One could hardly
live in the middle of the country and adopt a Mondrian-like disdain for nature!
No, it was perfectly
obvious that they were not the ears for his mouth, to paraphrase Nietzsche,
but, given their stately circumstances, would either be offended by what he
said, as in the case of Lady Pamela, or somewhat perplexed by it, as in the case
of the more benign Lord Handon, who nevertheless endeavoured, in his capacity
of host, to remain as receptive as possible.
Still, one could understand the human aspirations in the face of nature
which had led to the building of large country houses like Rothermore. Rather than risk being dwarfed by the
surrounding countryside, the aristocracy had sought to tame and dominate it as
best they could, and the erection of the largest possible houses had gone some
way towards satisfying that end. After
all, even the ancient aristocracy were human beings, not animals, and
consequently they reflected human aspirations towards the Divine Omega, no
matter how crudely or materialistically.
Even the viscount's great-great-great-grandfather would have had a
spirit of sorts and found it desirable to cultivate that spirit to at least
some extent, even if only to the rather limited extent of collecting thousands
of cumbersome books and filling his house with Greek or Roman statuary. For, as the library amply demonstrated, there
was no shortage of classical sculpture on display, though most of it was
undoubtedly derivative. In fact, it was
difficult not to stumble against various of the statues, statuettes, and busts,
as one gingerly wound one's way between the tables and chairs liberally
scattered along the length of Lord Handon's library, as though in anticipation
of a whole tribe of avid readers.
Doubtless a certain horror vacui had possessed the original
furnisher of this room, which duly resulted in its becoming virtually crammed
with possessions, both aesthetic and utilitarian. And the current owner had not rebelled
against the fashion of his ancestors but, if the comparative newness of one or
two of the chairs and tables was any indication, had succumbed to it with a few
materialistic additions of his own!
Well, judging by the amount of furniture already in the room, it was
pretty obvious that Lord Handon wouldn't be able to add much else to it in
future, not unless he either sold off most of what was already there or set
about filling up the interior space of certain other rooms - assuming, of
course, that they still had any such space left to fill. As yet, Timothy had only seen a couple of the
downstairs rooms, so he wasn't really in a position to judge. But what he had seen was more than enough to
make him pessimistic about the rest of the house, bathrooms and toilets not
excepted!
Yet, by an ironic
paradox, it could also be claimed that this urge to collect and fill one's
rooms with expensive possessions was a further indication of aristocratic man's
desire not to be dwarfed or smothered by nature, but to extend civilization to
the extent he could. The regrettable
thing, however, was that he could only extend it, for the most part, in
materialistic terms, not in terms, significant of the spiritual, which stood at
the furthest remove from sensuous nature.
With him, it was more a case of endeavouring to protect oneself against
a greater evil with the aid of a lesser good.
Whereas it was increasingly becoming the tendency of modern man to
protect himself against a lesser good with the aid of a greater good, which is
to say, to bring forward the direct cultivation of the spirit through
meditation at the expense of its indirect cultivation through culture. No small distinction! But aristocratic man, reflected Timothy,
hadn't really been in a position to do any such thing, and so the indirect
cultivation of the spirit through culture was, as a rule, the best that could
be done.
And not generally the
most elevated culture either, if Lord Handon's library was anything by which to
judge! One searched in vain, among the
numerous sculptures on display, for anything with a direct bearing on
Christianity. Not a single statue,
statuette, or bust of a senior Church dignitary, not even of a pope or an
archbishop, and no reproductions of saints or evangelists either. Except for some busts dedicated to the memory
of various members of the Handon line, the entire collection revolved around
classical antiquity, with reproductions of Roman emperors, Graeco-Roman
deities, and one or two Greek heroes, like Hercules and
Yet neither, it
appeared, would the writings of the great Christian mystics have appealed to
this family. For the bookshelves were
mainly dedicated to the pagan authors of classical antiquity, especially the
Romans, who figured prominently on the lower shelves. Possibly everything ever written and
preserved for posterity by Sulla, Cicero, Tetullian, Caesar, Scipio, Horace,
Senneca, Juvenal, Catullus, Virgil, Terence, and Pliny was to be found there,
both in the original Latin and in subsequent English, French, and German
translations, reminiscent of the sort of library favoured by that great
sixteenth-century humanist, Michel de Montaigne. By craning one's neck up to the top two shelves
at the far end of the library, it was just possible to discern a few large
depressing-looking bibles, again in various tongues, but the eye soon
encountered the beginnings of a series of books written not by the Church
Fathers, as one might vaguely have expected, but by medieval scholastics of a
classical turn-of-mind, whose interest in contemporary scientific endeavour
extended to a commentary on the Greek philosophers, and whose works now
sedately reposed beside the major philosophical achievements of Plato and
Aristotle. Farther along that same shelf
the subject of Greek philosophy was superseded by a series of large tomes on
alchemy, among them a number by Paracelsus, and beneath these the eye discerned
the complete plays of Shakespeare, Racine, Corneille, and Molière in rather old
but evidently valuable editions - probably the first or very nearly. Apart from a number of important literary
figures such as Chaucer, Dante, Montaigne, Boccaccio, Rabelais, Petrach,
Cevantes, Milton, Byron, and Goethe, the greater part of the remaining shelves
was taken-up with histories, memoirs, biographies, letters, philosophies, and
books on painting, architecture, graphics, landscape gardening, and
sculpture. In fact, apart from a little
modern history, the only contribution the twentieth century seemed to make to
Lord Handon's library was in the realm of aesthetics, notably through art books
dealing with classical antiquity and the Renaissance. Judging by the nature of the house itself,
one might have thought the Baroque would figure prominently. But, try as he might, Timothy could discern
no more than three works dedicated to that stage of aesthetic evolution, and
they were decidedly pre-war, suggesting acquisition by the viscount's father or
grandfather rather than by the current owner himself. Thus apart from the aforementioned histories
and studies in classical and renaissance aesthetics, the crisp spines and
bright titles of which betrayed comparatively recent purchase, the great
majority of the books on display appeared to have been inherited and retained
in aristocratic tradition. Unless by
some chance Lord Handon had a second library elsewhere, it looked as though
this collection was broadly representative of his intellectual tastes - tastes
which completely excluded the modern!
For even the newer books in it had been written in the twentieth century
about pre-twentieth century activity, like the studies in classical
art. As regards modern art, a complete
blank. And as regards modern literature,
the nearest one came to it appeared to be half-a-dozen novels by Disraeli and a
couple by Lytton! Really, Timothy could
hardly believe his eyes, as he frantically scanned the shelves in search of
twentieth-century life. Not even a
Proust or a Gide or a Mann.
Nothing! So far as this library
went, the twentieth century didn't exist.
Evidently, Lord Handon had little use for it. Or would it be nearer the mark to say that it
had little use for him?
It wasn't exactly a
question one could ask there and then, not, anyway, while the man in question
was so fervently engaged in explaining to both Sarah Field and Nigel Townley
how his great-grandfather had acquired the Venus statuette in imitation of
Phidias by an unknown Roman sculptor whilst serving as English ambassador to
Italy at the time of its discovery. A
quite shapely statuette it was too, but terribly nude and pagan! It would have been of more interest to
Timothy, just then, had someone inquired how the family had come by the worn
edition of the Marquis de Sade's 120 Jours de Sodom, which
reposed, beside a number of the master's other novels, on a shelf just to the
left of where he was now standing, slightly apart from the small group of
admiring statuette-gazers. At least de
Sade, for all his moral faults, had the virtue of seeing the criminality in
nature at close range, so to speak, and in not pretending that it was really
something else. There was even a dash of
the saint about him, albeit in a paradoxically negative kind of way. For rather than turning towards God and the
spiritual with love, like a genuine saint, de Sade had elected to turn against
nature and the sensual with contempt, and thereby set about denigrating it in
the manner best known to posterity.
Hardly surprising, therefore, that he was condemned as a criminal and
regarded as an eccentric in an age of Rousseauesque fervour for
nature and Wordsworthian complacency in nature. His hatred of nature, and the rather extreme
manifestation it was increasingly to take, could hardly be described, under the
prevailing circumstances, as trendy. Yet
it served as an example of sorts to such negatively inclined 'saints', or
anti-saints, as Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and Huysmans, who were to bring the
anti-natural tradition of decadent writings to a much more refined pass later
in the century. But de Sade, it
appeared, was the only anti-saint Lord Handon's library contained, whether or
not its current owner appreciated the fact.
In all probability, thought Timothy, as he followed his fellow-guests
past the Venus statuette and on towards the exit, the novels by that notorious
French nobleman had mouldered on their shelf since virtually the time of their
purchase. The current viscount had
probably not even opened them. Or, if
perchance he had, he probably shut them again pretty quickly, fearing
contamination!
They passed out of the
library and were, in due course, introduced to most of the other rooms,
including a large billiards room in which a couple of lush green felt-topped tables,
one full-size and the other small, stood naked but for a cue resting on
each. Apparently billiards and snooker
were among the host's favourite pastimes, which he sometimes played with
himself, but more often with friends of the family who came-in from nearby
country houses to do noble battle with him.
Neither of the two male
guests accompanying him on this particular tour of inspection, however, could
admit to being regular practitioners of either game, though Townley confessed
to having played a great deal of snooker in his youth - a confession which
appeared to endow him with a certain temporary distinction over the others in
Lord Handon's eyes.
Yet, for Timothy, the
most interesting aspect of the billiards room was the arrangement of Ionic pilasters
which stretched the length of the walls at wide though regular intervals,
endowing the setting with a restrained classical elegance. Being fluted, they took on a symbolically
feminine character that sharply contrasted with the masculinity of the bare,
white Doric columns which stood at salient points in the room, more suggestive
of the interior of a Greek temple than of anything recreational. In fact, there was even space here for a few
statues of Greek athletes, and the wall nearest the full-size table had two
curved niches in it, at a distance of some four yards apart, each of which
contained a brightly-painted Greek vase of the type which Timothy must have
seen hundreds of photos of, during his pictorial investigations in the local
library, but had only once before beheld in the flesh, so to speak, and then in
the British Museum. Was this spectacle
any better or worse, he wondered?
Curiously, he thought worse. For
he had grown so accustomed to photographic reproductions of works of art ...
that he had come to value the reproduction above the original production. Lord Handon was perfectly entitled to his
vases, as to his sculptures, but he, Timothy Byrne, wouldn't have wanted them,
not even if he they were offered to him free-of-charge. He preferred the spiritualization of the
material object to the material object itself, and was therefore more at home
with photos. These Greek vases were of
course beautiful, but they were even more beautiful, to Timothy's way of
thinking, as colour reproductions in some choice book on the arts. The actual object was somehow disappointing,
all too palpably there. He preferred his culture
at a Platonic remove, as it were, from real culture, raised above materialism
through spiritual sublimation. All these
sculptures and ceramics which Lord Handon possessed and evidently had need of,
to fill his immense house, would have been raised to a higher level, it seemed
to him, in photographic reproduction.
Rather than floundering about amidst bodies, as one did here, one would
be contemplating their abstracted spirit, at a safe remove from their physical
presence. And one would be experiencing
a higher level of culture - a level made possible thanks to the existence of
photography.
Yes, how logical
evolution was! The further one evolved,
the more spiritual one became.
Eventually one would even dispense with photographic reproductions. But not for a while yet, least of all within
the foreseeable future. The twenty-first
century would doubtless continue to amass reproductions of the materialistic
culture appertaining to an earlier stage of civilized evolution, thereby
indirectly furthering the cause of its own spiritual culture. And Timothy would continue to derive more
pleasure from the latter than from the former - of that he assured
himself. In fact, so much so that his
facial expression, as he stood no more than a few feet from the nearest Greek
vase, must have communicated something of the disdain he was feeling for the
object to its owner, who casually remarked, by way of apology, that it was a
rather second-rate, first-century item purchased for a modest sum by his
grandfather, some decades ago. Slightly
taken aback by the host's unexpected intervention, and a little ashamed of
himself for having unwittingly betrayed his feelings on the matter, Timothy
blushed faintly and then burst into a forgiving smile. He could hardly reveal to the viscount what
had really been on his mind!
And so, following their
brief but passably educative tour of Rothermore House, the three first-time
guests were led back to the large drawing-room, where the rest of the gathering
was still assembled, and thereupon encouraged to have another drink, with the
aged butler duly officiating. Dinner, they
were informed, would commence at seven-thirty sharp, whether or not the
remaining two invitees had arrived. In
the meantime, they were to relax and simply get to know one another
better. Which is what now proceeded to
happen ... in spite of their differences.
Even the drawing-room had certain lessons to teach, and Timothy, not
least, was avid to learn what he could from it!
CHAPTER FOUR
To Timothy's subsequent satisfaction, the long dinner table
accommodated the seven guests and three members of the Handon family quite
comfortably, leaving ample elbow-room to either side. At the head of it sat Lord Handon, whilst on
either side of him, to left and right along the table's length, sat Sarah and
Timothy, the one directly opposite the other.
Next to Timothy was Sheila Johnston, the Scotch pianist, whilst opposite
her the architect Nigel Townley eagerly spooned into his helping of duck
soup. Beside him sat young Geraldine
Handon, who looked directly across, whenever she lifted her bright-blue eyes,
at the moustached face of
"And how are things
getting along at the museum?" Lady Handon inquired of the portly gentleman
to her right.
"Oh, quite well on
the whole, I'm delighted to report," O'Donnell replied. "We're getting more visitors by the
day."
His hostess seemed
pleased by this response and cast her husband, who happened to have an eye
cocked in their direction, a complacent glance.
"Young or old?" she asked.
"Oh, mostly
schoolkids," O'Donnell obliged, momentarily desisting from the avid
consumption of his duck soup.
"Really? And are they very noisy?"
The portly gentleman
chuckled softly. "Not as a rule,
thank goodness," he confessed.
"We try to discourage speaking as much as possible, which, in the
circumstances, is rather ironic really."
Lady Handon smiled
knowingly and cast her husband a matching glance, to which he duly responded
with a short, sharp laugh. "Perhaps
we ought to enlighten those of our guests who haven't heard about Mr
O'Donnell's museum," he suggested, preparatory to imbibing a steady
spoonful of soup.
"Yes, do please
tell us what all this is about," Sheila Johnston politely requested of
him.
The portly gentleman
cleared his throat with a soft though evidently ironic cough and smiled
esoterically upon the host, who duly said: "Well, as you will no doubt be
surprised and delighted to hear, Mr O'Donnell is principal director of the
world's first voice museum."
"Voice
museum?" Sheila echoed, visibly startled by this unusual information.
"Quite,"
confirmed the principal director with a gentle nod. "It is a rather novel concept, I'll
admit. But one which, in my opinion, was
long overdue."
"As would seem to
be borne out by the growing curiosity it is apparently exciting from the
public," Lady Handon commented.
"But what exactly is
this voice museum?" Sheila pursued, showing Scotch determination to get to
the bottom of the matter. She looked
searchingly at Mr O'Donnell, but it was Lord Handon who elected to reply with:
"Simply an institution in
"Though some people
like to re-enter the booth a number of times in order to listen to the same
voice over and over again," O'Donnell remarked, a touch petulantly.
"And then in spite of
the fact that they'll only hear the same recording as before," Lord Handon
rejoined sympathetically.
The principal director
nodded his curly-haired head.
"Quite," he confirmed.
"Though, in the case of voices like Marilyn Monroe's and Greta
Garbo's, you can quite understand it."
General amusement
prevailed amongst the other guests, with the reception of this remark.
"You mean to say
you preserve the voices of famous film stars there?" exclaimed Sarah on a
note of gratified incredulity.
"Not only of film
stars but of the famous in general," O'Donnell declared, before noisily
swallowing his last spoonful of soup.
"We have quite a large room also dedicated to the voices of famous
writers, composers, artists, politicians, sportsmen, war heroes, and so on. And we shall shortly be opening a smaller
room upstairs exclusively dedicated to the voices of infamous persons,
including the likes of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin."
"Something to rival
the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Toussaud's," Gowling suggested, smirking
ironically.
"Quite
possibly," O'Donnell conceded.
"But such specific voices, for which the young queue like rush-hour
commuters, are only a single aspect of the museum's facilities or, rather,
exhibits. There are other rooms in which
anonymous voices may be heard remarking on some particular thing - one on the
ground floor, for instance, exclusively dedicated to regional dialects of the
British people, where the visitor can sample examples of the thickest Geordie,
the highest Highland, the softest Scouse, the strongest Swansea, the broadest
Mancunian, or what have you. Then
appended to this room is another, smaller one in which the emphasis is on class
rather than simply regional differences, and where the visitor can sample
anything from the most plebeian cockney to the most patrician Oxbridge. An ear-opener if ever there was one! For you're made comprehensively aware, if you
take full advantage of our facilities, as to just how wide the range of speech
variation actually is between the various classes, and of how many classes
there in fact are throughout the length and breadth of the country. Yet that room is merely an appendage to the
dialect room, which covers a much wider range of tone."
At this point there
issued from the assembled guests a mixture of surprise and amusement,
astonishment and incredulity. Timothy
Byrne, in particular, was quite astonished by these revelations, and inquired
of the man responsible for them why it was necessary to collect and exhibit
such voices?
"My dear
chap," Lord Handon interposed, deputizing for the hard-pressed O'Donnell,
"it's simply the function of a museum to preserve a record of a given
aspect of life, culture, society, or whatever, and our museum is no exception. Here, for future generations no less than
contemporary ones, is a record, well-stocked and equally well-preserved, of the
twentieth-century human voice in all or most of its several
manifestations. For virtually the first
time in history, we are enabled, by our technology, to preserve a record of
that most elusive of things, the human voice, and that's precisely what the
museum does."
"Yes, and not only
with regard to the British voice," O'Donnell confirmed, "but also
with regard to just about every other national voice in the world, not to
mention, in a majority of cases, the dialect and class divisions thereof."
Timothy was virtually
thunderstruck, and so, too, were most of the other guests, despite the
distraction of dinner - the servants meanwhile having removed the empty soup
dishes and brought in the main course, which included roast chicken and
assorted vegetables, these latter being brought up to the table separately in
Sevres china and deposited at regular intervals along its ample length.
"For not only does
the museum possess a British room," O'Donnell continued, ignoring the
toing-and-froing of the busy servants, "but it also possesses European,
Asian, North American, South American, African, and Australasian rooms, in
which examples of the greatest diversity are to be found."
"Especially in the
European and Asian rooms, where the entire gamut of major national languages is
represented," Lady Handon remarked, putting aside, for the moment, her
preoccupation with food. "In the
European room one can listen to anything from Portuguese and Spanish to Greek
and Russian, whilst in the Asian room one can go from Bengali to Cantonese or
from Hindustani to Japanese all within the space of a few minutes."
"Provided, of
course, that the booths aren't in excessive demand," O'Donnell pedantically
rejoined, helping himself to a generous portion of Brussels sprouts from a dish
passed to him by the hostess.
"Otherwise one may have to stand in the queue for several
minutes."
Nigel Townley proffered
his most understanding smile and admitted, in a light-hearted vein, that it all
sounded rather fun. Indeed, he was
surprised, he confessed, that this voice museum thing was a British and not an
American invention, since the Americans were usually quick, not to say keen, to
exploit new possibilities, and already possessed more than a few museums of a
decidedly unique character, including, he recalled, a museum dedicated
exclusively to nuts.
"Well, as a matter
of fact, my father was American,” O’Donnell admitted with a wry smile. "Though my mother was Asian and I was
born and raised here. So perhaps there's
a degree of American initiative behind the
Timothy smiled
esoterically upon the reception of this eulogistic information and cast their
host a deferential glance, before commenting: "So now, should we ever be
invaded by aliens from outer space, we're in possession of a building where an
investigation of the extraordinary variety of human languages and accents can
be carried out on-the-spot, and presumably free-of-charge - not that aliens
would care to pay, of course."
Fifty pence for old-age
pensioners and schoolkids," the principal director revealed, "but
£3.50p for everyone else, with the possible exception of, ah, aliens from outer
space, who may not have the correct change," he added facetiously, for
Timothy's benefit. "Nevertheless,
any visitors to our planet would certainly learn a thing or two about the human
voice from our museum, assuming they weren't smart enough to go straight back
from where they had come! Though I need
hardly remind you that it wasn't specifically designed to satisfy the
anthropological curiosity of aliens, stupid or otherwise, but the vocal
curiosity of human beings, both now and in the future."
"Indeed," Lady
Handon confirmed, waving away the servant who was about to pour some red wine
into her glass and motioning for sherry instead. "And one can quite imagine a time, you
know, when people will be as interested to learn how mankind spoke in the
twentieth century ... as we're now interested to discover how they wrote or
built or dressed or whatever in the fifteenth century. Time will add a new dimension, a certain
historical charm, to the recordings currently on track there. And, of course, the coming centuries should
provide us with fresh recordings - possibly even a room dedicated to the voices
of aliens, Mr Byrne. After all, there's
no reason why we should freeze the museum's exhibits at the present stage of
lingual evolution or reality, is there?
We can always add new floors to the top one."
"Quite,"
O'Donnell agreed, while crushing a delicious piece of roast chicken between his
gold-plated molars. "Or even extend
the museum down deeper into the earth," he added, as an afterthought.
"Is the visitor
told anything about what he's likely to hear in whichever soundproofed booth he
happens to enter?" asked Irene Myers, fixing an inquisitive gaze on the
face opposite.
"Oh yes,"
O'Donnell replied with alacrity, a piece of tender chicken transfixed on the
sharp prongs of his silver-plated fork.
"There's a large white plastic plaque on each of the booths
bearing, in crisp black print, information about the voice recording
inside. But most people don't bother to
read them, partly, I suspect, through laziness, though also because quite a lot
can be spoken within two minutes and, since a majority of the recordings last
that long, the plaque can become rather prolix and tedious to read. So most people, especially the slow readers,
tend to studiously ignore it, so to speak, and take pot-luck with whatever the
recordings contain. However, largely as
an ethical gesture, we find it expedient to provide details of the recordings
in order to nominally preclude criticism from those who might otherwise be in
some doubt as to their moral integrity
and consequently inclined to suppose they contained scurrilous or obscene
language, which, of course, they most certainly don't do!"
Lord Handon found
O'Donnell's explanation highly amusing and duly infected the rest of the table
and even the elderly butler, who was still officiating with the drinks and
generally pottering about the diners in his rather genteel and overly
deferential manner, as though dealing with hot-house plants. It was now, as he received an extra drop of
Cockburns port from the old bugger's unsteady hands, that Timothy realized he
was at least partly deaf. For he wore a
tiny hearing-aid clipped to his left ear, and this in some measure sufficed to
explain the rather strange proceedings in the drawing-room earlier, both in
terms of Lord Handon's loud commands and of the butler's rather close proximity
to them all in the region of the wine cabinet.
Presumably, if the old man was going deaf, he couldn't be allowed to
stray very far from the scene of alcohol consumption, but had to remain
permanently on duty there, like the proverbial sentry at his post. There seemed little risk, to judge by the
loudness of the viscount's orders, of his overhearing much anyway, and this
further realization came as a slight relief to Timothy, who was unused to
talking in the proximity of servants.
"Unfortunately
we've received a number of critical, not to say abusive, letters from various
elderly members of the public who considered what they heard, in certain
booths, to be of dubious propriety," continued the principal director, as
soon as things had quietened down again.
"However, you can't please everyone, and I'm fairly convinced that
such people would find something else to grumble about if not that."
"Like, presumably,
the brevity of each of the recordings, or the volume at which they're played,
or the size of the booths, or the length of the queue, or something of that
order, I should imagine," Geraldine suggested, before looking across her
shoulder at the portly figure on her left.
"Quite so,"
O'Donnell confirmed, with an abrupt and evidently peeved nod of his curly-haired
head thrown-in for good measure.
"Yet I've no cause to endorse the criticism of dubious propriety
myself, which, not altogether surprisingly, has mostly been levelled at the
booths of the famous, particularly the writers and film stars, while those of
the anonymous French, Italian, and Greek voices exhibited in the European room
have borne the brunt of the remainder of such criticisms. These latter recordings would appear to be
obscene to some people simply because they're foreign and seemingly
unintelligible, whereas with the former recordings ... well, perhaps it's just
the tone-of-voice adopted or the way the words are handled ... that aggravates
the ageing sensibilities of my foremost critics. Still, one can hardly expect Marilyn Monroe or
Greta Garbo to sound like sexless machines, can one? And as for Henry Miller ... well, his mere
inclusion in the museum is evidently sufficient grounds for hostility from some
visitors, even though what he says is entirely restricted to himself and completely
devoid of sexual epithets."
There was a faint ripple
of laughter around the table at this remark, and Geraldine, although by no
means the most prudish of young females, saw fit to blush. Lady Handon merely nodded her head and then
sipped daintily at the sherry in her bony hand.
She was one of those who, albeit secretly, opposed the inclusion of
Henry Miller herself. Timothy, by
contrast, was quite delighted with the mention of it, and inquired of the
director what other writers' voices were to be heard there.
"Oh, quite a
number," came his confident reply.
"For example, Aldous Huxley, Ezra Pound, G.B. Shaw, Bertrand
Russell, George Orwell, Dylan Thomas, T.S. Eliot, Robert Graves, Lawrence
Durrell, Anthony Burgess - a few more of that sort. We only exhibit the voices of those who are
dead, as a rule, though we have recordings of various important authors who are
still alive in stock, so to speak, for future use. Also several tapes of authors - as, indeed, of
other artists and famous people in general - who, although dead, are kept in
reserve, pending a rise in their reputations.
Rather than being a 'dead' museum, where the same exhibits are on
display year after dreary year, the Metropolitan Voice Museum, as it's
officially called, is very much a 'living' one, with regular changes or
variations in the exhibition material.
So you're not guaranteed of hearing T.S. Eliot again, assuming you went
back to the museum after a couple of years expecting to do so. And even if his voice was still there, you're
not guaranteed of hearing it say exactly the same thing as before. I like to ensure that there's sufficient
recorded material in stock to enable us to vary the programme from time to
time. That way nobody gets bored, and
there's always some fresh bait, as it were, to entice people back to the
museum.... In point of fact, I'm seriously considering having the recorded
programme we currently have of Aldous Huxley on exhibition replaced by a less
philosophical and possibly more autobiographical one, since I recently received
a highly critical letter from a senior churchman accusing the museum of
propagating certain orientally-inspired mystical views prejudicial to the
Christian faith. It seems the good man
was less than happy with, amongst other things, the term 'Clear Light of the
Void', and would have preferred Huxley to speak in terms closer to the Western
soul, such as the Holy Ghost."
Timothy smiled
appreciatively at O'Donnell before swallowing the thoroughly chewed remains of
his last piece of roast chicken. "I
think he may well have a point there," he opined, when his throat was
clear again.
"Yes, well, I may
replace the current orientally-biased recording with a less 'prejudicial' one
in due course," O'Donnell sighed, "and thereupon run the risk of
adverse criticism from someone who would prefer Huxley to be represented by his
mystical views." At which point the
principal director of the world's only voice museum heartily cleared his throat
and gulped down a welcome mouthful of sherry.
It appeared that he was resigned to anything and everything the public
might throw at him!
"Presumably in
changing the current recording, you would have to change the information plaque
on the outside of the booth as well?" Nigel Townley pedantically
conjectured.
"Naturally,"
O'Donnell confirmed. "We could
hardly allow those visitors who bother to read them to be misled. It would therefore be necessary to have a new
plaque printed."
To everyone's surprise,
Sheila Johnston's voice suddenly exploded into a sharp burst of high-pitched
laughter. "I must confess to
finding it rather difficult to visualize these transparent booths, with their
buttons and plaques and all the rest of it," she declared in her soft Scotch
accent. "Are they all arranged like
soldiers on parade, or what?"
"Mostly grouped
together in rows of about 10-20 at a time," O'Donnell rejoined over the
intervening arm of a servant, who was busily removing empty vegetable dishes
from the table. "But, really, you'd
have to see the museum for yourself, to get a proper impression of things and
..."
"A thing that we
hope you'll all do quite soon, in any case," Lord Handon interposed. "And not only as visitors. Part of the reason for my having you here is
to invite you to participate in the museum indirectly, that's to say, through
the medium of a voice recording. As
you're all highly-distinguished young members of your respective professions,
it seems not unlikely that one day you'll be eligible for inclusion in the
museum's catalogue of famous people. So
a recording or two of each of you now, at this stage in your respective
careers, would not be inappropriate, in my opinion."
"And later on, we
may wish to record you again," said O'Donnell, his sherry-wet lips curved
into a gentle smile.
There issued a number of
gasps and raised brows from the other guests, who were completely astounded by
the prospect of being included in the museum's arsenal of tapes.
"How come you
didn't mention this the last time we were here, Lord Joe," complained
"Oh, partly because
I hadn't then discussed the possibility with Mr O'Donnell and felt that it was
safer to wait until he agreed to your inclusion before putting the invitation
to you," the viscount revealed, smiling.
"He won't allow just anyone with a name in the arts to record for
him, you know. Only the best are chosen,
and after long and arduous discussion, we came to the conclusion that you're
all eminently qualified for the honour, if I may so term it, of indirectly
participating in the museum's catalogue of illustrious names."
"How
flattering!" cried Sarah, clapping her hands together in childish
delight. "And do you intend us all
to record here, there, or what?"
"Preferably in the
recording-room on the top floor of our Piccadilly headquarters," the
director answered, craning his neck round to the right, in order to address the
opera singer in person. "We would
require less than an hour of your time to get your voice on tape in a suitably-polished
and correct manner. All you need do is
to speak slowly and distinctly about either yourself or your professional
activity for about fifteen-twenty minutes, so as to give us sufficient material
for several short exhibits ... should we wish to vary the subject-matter from
time to time. And in about ten or twelve
years' time, you can all come back to the recording-room again to advertise
your more mature voices for an alternative airing." He smiled benignly on the talented occupants
of the table, before helping himself to another mouthful of sherry.
"Well, do we have
your consent?" Lord Handon asked, throwing his head back the better to
scan the Voice Museum's potential prey.
"Frankly, it all
sounds a trifle bananas to me," Townley averred. "But since you appear so serious about
it, I shall have to consent."
"Me too,"
Sheila agreed half-heartedly.
And one by one the
others - Irene, Gowling, Sarah, and Timothy - each volunteered to offer their
voices, so to speak, to the museum.
There wasn't really any valid reason not to, especially in light of its
appeal to one's professional vanity.
"Excellent!"
declared Lord Handon, with the facial self-satisfaction of one who has just
pulled off some lucrative business deal clearly in evidence. "I knew we could count on you all! And, by the way, Mr O'Donnell will amply
remunerate you for your services."
"To the sum of
£1,000 each," the director confirmed with his customary alacrity.
Sheila Johnston raised
her dark eyebrows in a show of horrified surprise. "Oh, but you needn't do that!" she
objected, speaking on her own behalf, but unconsciously including the others as
well.
"I insist,"
the director quite firmly rejoined.
"It's our policy. And,
besides, it will cover your travelling expenses."
Clearly, Miss Johnston,
despite O'Donnell's little joke, had no option but to accept whatever payment
her services were due. And the same
applied to the rest of Lord Handon's guests, who sat in a kind of dream while
the servants cleared away the dinner plates, preparatory to bringing in the
third course, which, to everyone's delight, took the impressive form of apple
crumble with Devonshire cream. It was at
this more advanced stage in the proceedings, curiously, that the viscount
requested the substitution of candle light for electric light by summoning the
services of a tall servant, who, with cigarette-lighter in hand, lit the six
tapers on the two candelabra before switching off the light of the
chandelier.
Not surprisingly, the
sudden transformation in the room's lighting caused quite a stir among the
guests who, with the exceptions of Gowling and Sheila, had never experienced
any such arrangement before. Sarah
regarded it as a transformation for the better, whereas Timothy found himself
reflecting on his preference for electric light. Indeed, he always made a point of preferring
the artificial to the natural on principle these days, regarding it as
indicative of a higher and therefore less evil stage of evolution. The spectacle of the six candle flames
flickering in front of his port-drowsed eyes had a slightly depressing effect
on him, making him conscious of what he took to be the close proximity of the
Infernal, even if it was controlled and limited to a given, rather innocuous
sphere of influence. Somehow he couldn't
avoid the connotation of flame with evil, or of the diabolic with the sun. It was as if a tiny piece of the sun had been
transported to the dining-room and placed on the wicks of each of the burning
candles, so that the spectacle in front of his eyes was less candle flame than
six miniature hells, six fragments of the Devil, burning in splendid
isolation. He shuddered with
disgust! But then, remembering where he
was, simply pretended to feel cold and proceeded to gently rub his hands
together under the table. However,
nobody appeared to be paying him any attention.
For, at that moment, Irene Myers was heard asking the man opposite her
when he would like them all to turn-up for their voice recordings?
"Oh, no
hurry," O'Donnell replied, momentarily looking-up from his dessert, which
now contained an especially large helping of cream. "Of course, I'd be more than willing to
open the recording studio to anyone who wanted to offer his or her services
next week. I don't require you all to
turn-up at once however, but simply when it's convenient to you. I shall be available on the premises from
approximately
"In which
language?" the young opera star wanted to know.
"English
unfortunately," O'Donnell confessed.
"For I haven't as yet dared to include foreign languages in the room
of the famous. Though we're intending to
open a separate room for the relatively or absolutely non-English speaking
famous in due course ... possibly later next year. That would enable us to include such
illustrious names as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Hermann Hesse, Dmitri
Shostakovich, and Pablo Picasso in the museum, thereby enhancing its growing
reputation. After all, it's still in its
infancy, not by any means grown to full maturity, and, as such, there's
certainly scope for improvement. Yet
that isn't to say the Callas recording is bad.
Au contraire, she handles her English very well, on the
whole."
"I have in fact
heard her speak before," Sarah revealed, slightly to the director's
disappointment.
"Oh well, I'm sure
you'll be delighted all the same, particularly since she talks about her social
background rather than her work," he rejoined.
There followed a short
lull in the conversation, before Gowling inquired of O'Donnell whether his
funny little museum happened to have a recording by Piet Mondrian on offer?
"Alas, no!"
the latter sighed. "We're not aware
that he ever made one and, besides, he died in the 1940s, so even if he had, it
would more than likely be of poor sound-quality and therefore unworthy of
continuous exhibition. As a rule, we
studiously avoid anything recorded before 1950."
"A shame in one
sense," Lady Handon opined.
"For it means that a lot of very important famous people are
automatically excluded from public attention."
"Quite so,"
O'Donnell conceded. "But one has to
begin somewhere, and voices from the second-half of the twentieth century, or
at least from the 1940s, provide an excellent foundation upon which to build
our future repertoire, so to speak. No,
we cannot lay claim to a comprehensive collection of famous twentieth-century
voices because we're obliged to exclude those from early in the first-half of
the century, which, as you say, is a shame, especially where the most famous
and important artists are concerned! But
we're certainly doing our best to record everyone of any consequence who is
currently alive, if that's any consolation to you?"
"A little,"
the hostess drily granted.
"Although being, like my husband, a member of the older generation,
there are one or two pre-war voices that I'd personally prefer to hear, in
contrast to much of what is currently on offer, irrespective of the
comparatively poor sound-quality. Of
course, I fully realize that the modern and, on the whole, more youthful public
of today wouldn't share my preference.
But the museum might still profit, you know, from an extension of the
existing range of recordings back into the early decades of the current
century. A kind of historical room of
early recordings. And I'm quite
convinced that, in spite of gaps or omissions, there would be no shortage of
material from which to choose. However,
this is only a suggestion, Girish, not an order! I quite understand your reluctance to expand
too rapidly. Yet suggestions of this
kind may prove useful, particularly if you should one day run into competition
from foreign voice museums." At
which point she cast him a mildly quizzical glance, and then resumed eating her
dessert.
Having in the meantime
ordered more drink for the table, Lord Handon nodded in agreement and began to
expatiate on a rumour he had heard, only the previous week, that the French
were seriously contemplating the establishment of a national voice museum,
which would inevitably focus more exclusively on their own language and, in all
probability, the regional dialects and class differences thereof, thus bringing
the disparate accents of their loquacious nation firmly under one roof. "And before long," he continued,
"I shouldn't be at all surprised to see the Germans and, ahem, Italians
following suit, and perhaps even the Americans - assuming they can get over the
shock that someone else thought up the damned idea before themselves!"
"So any aliens from
outer space who wished to find out more about the human voice wouldn't
necessarily have to go to London in the future, but could depend on the
inhabitants of just about any major country in which they happened to land to
provide them with the relevant information," Geraldine declared
facetiously.
"Indeed, they might
even prefer to hear French or German voices to British ones," her father
joked.
"Yes, well, as yet
no alternative voice museums actually exist," O'Donnell remarked, bringing
a serious note back into the discussion, "so we needn't fear immediate
competition. I will of course bear your
suggestion in mind, Pamela, and should we subsequently decide to expand in that
rather retrograde fashion, I shall give you full credit for it ... as indeed
for the suggestion you made, last time I was here, concerning the possibility
of extending our range of vocal sound to include singing, shouting, laughing,
whistling, crying, coughing, or whatever it was ..."
"I would hardly
have suggested crying or coughing!" Lady Handon protested, with a look of
ironic reproof in her beady eyes.
"Although they might serve the curious purposes of an alien with no
knowledge or experience of such things!
No, I was thinking, more specifically, of the human voice in various of
its myriad occupational roles - you know, the opera singer, pop singer, regimental
sergeant-major, schoolmaster, priest, and so on. For I am convinced that a room dedicated to
the immense variety of occupational contexts would further enhance the museum's
growing reputation."
"And prevent its
future competitors from forcing it into an imitative role," her husband added,
as he came to the end of his dessert.
"However, let's not burden our guests with any more talk of
that. I'm sure they're dying for a
change of subject."
"On the contrary, I
find it a most fascinating one," Sheila blandly confessed.
"Me too," Sarah
seconded, her pretty face bursting into a reassuring smile.
The other guests,
however, remained verbally noncommittal.
"Oh well, you'll
all be able to sate your curiosity when you actually visit the museum,"
Lord Handon averred. "In the
meantime, and this evening in particular, I'd like you to feel free to enjoy
yourselves in a less educative fashion ... principally by joining my wife and I
in the small ballroom next-door for a spot of dancing. After all, this is New Year's Eve, so we
ought to celebrate it in style. I trust
you have no objections, ladies and gentlemen?"
There were certainly
more than a few slight qualms and alarms at the mention of this, but, since
no-one seemed to mind, or to express verbal reservations if they did, the
viscount took it that everyone was agreed on the suitability of his suggestion,
and clapped his hands together in apparent satisfaction. "Good!" he cried. "Then as soon as you're all ready, we
shall proceed to the ballroom." And
that, curiously enough, is what duly happened.
CHAPTER FIVE
The room Lord Handon spoke of was not as small as one might have
supposed, but it was still smaller than the drawing-room in which his guests
had sat prior to dinner. There was certainly
ample space for ten people to exercise their legs, and, at a guess, one would
have said it could accommodate at least fifty people in that regard.
Situated on the south
wing of Rothermore House, one entered a rectangular room brightly lit by three
cut-glass chandeliers and warmly heated by a large open fire which blazed
fiercely from its hearth in seeming anticipation of the dance. Doubtless the servants had just prepared the
room. For it also contained a
copiously-stocked wine cabinet, similar to the one in the drawing-room, on top
of which stood a variety of wine bottles de-corked and ready for use. Yet 'ballroom' was hardly the word one would
have applied to the room on first entering it.
For not only was the floor covered by a bright-red carpet of seemingly
immaculate condition, but there were also a number of armchairs and a couple of
large settees spread along the length of its cream-coloured walls at various
points, thereby giving the overall impression of a lounge or even a sitting-room. And the walls were not adorned with mirrors,
as one might have expected, but with various-sized glossy paintings, mostly by
minor Italian or French artists of the seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries, which were of a decidedly romantic cast. Added to which, the familiar spectacle of
fluted pilasters spaced in solitude at regular distances apart, plus a few
statuette-prone niches and one more or less had the 'ballroom' in a
nutshell. Yet there was still some
exquisitely carved stucco on the ceiling, reminiscent of Robert Adam, and more
than a hint of rococo panelling along the lower section of one of the walls,
thus endowing the room with a stylistic eclecticism as charming as it was
unusual.
However, all this detail had relatively little significance for
Timothy Byrne, as he followed the other guests across the threshold in a
somewhat perplexed state-of-mind. For he
was more concerned with the ominous prospect of having to dance than with the
stylistic nature of the ballroom itself, and hardly noticed his
surroundings. Who-on-earth would he be
expected to dance with, he wondered? And
what dance to - the Foxtrot,
But this vague and
slightly dishonourable hope was quickly dashed, as Lord Handon cried out, with
a certain roguish gusto it seemed to Timothy: "Choose your partners!"
and then proceeded to advance towards the centre of the room, where his wife
was already waiting, impatient, no doubt, for the dancing to begin.
"Oh hell!"
sighed Timothy, as he heard the first strains of a gentle Two-Step descend on
his ears from high up in opposite corners of the room, and realized that the
challenge was on.
“Well, my dear young
lady," said
For a moment Timothy
almost envied Gowling his choice, but was soon distracted from that as he heard
Girish O'Donnell saying: "I think it's about time you and I put feet
together, Irene," and the ample figure of the sculptress duly rose from
her seat, to accompany the director of the world's first and, to-date, only
voice museum unsteadily across the carpet.
"Two down, two to go," sighed Timothy, as he was left
face-to-face with his own blank irresolution.
Perhaps the choice would be made simpler if Nigel...?
At that very moment Townley did in fact feel it incumbent upon
himself to offer an arm to the nearest solitary female, who, to Timothy's
manifest relief, accepted it without demur and set off with Scotch gusto
towards the centre of the room. So that
left only one, and she, still dressed in a dark-green tapering minidress and
matt stockings, happened to be the opera singer Sarah Field, who smiled
encouragingly at Timothy while he extended a tentative arm and stammered a
gratuitous invitation.
So there they were - ten
pairs of legs shuffling about the centre of the carpet as the music set the
pace in rather quaintly old-fashioned terms.
At first Timothy's legs seemed unwilling to work, but persisted in an
awkward stiffness, which brought more than a gentle frown to his ordinarily
impassive brow! For he had quite
forgotten how to dance a Two-Step and was afraid of stepping on Sarah's
vulnerably-exposed toes and not only causing her physical discomfort, but
making a thorough fool of himself, to boot!
He shuffled about the carpet begrudgingly, as though incapable of
spontaneous movement, and, to be sure, an impartial observer might have
supposed him dancing on stilts or wooden legs, so stiff would his technique
have appeared! Fortunately for him,
however, there was no-one to fit that description in the room at present, since
those there were all on their feet and endeavouring, as best they could, to
keep time with the music and avoid bumping into one another. It wasn't even possible to fear that the
servants might be secretly enjoying themselves at one's expense. For they had apparently been forbidden entry
to the room and were thus on duty elsewhere - presumably in the region of the
kitchens and dining-room. Well, that was
a relief too, and a sufficient incentive for one to loosen up a bit. Which, to his surprise, Timothy gradually
found himself doing, as the music began to get the better of his
self-consciousness and to instil a certain complacency, partly born of reduced
sensibility, into his mind.
Not that he didn't have
to struggle against himself in the process.
But, somehow, Sarah's self-confidence began to make an impression on him
and encouraged him to take that redemptive plunge with her, when their two
bodies would unite in a single movement and flow into each other, like two
streams meeting in a single river. As
yet, he was just on the brink, still stiffly apart and uncertain. But the temptation to merge with her was
pressing upon him with greater insistence, becoming impossible to ignore. His steps were less tentative now, more
assured of their placings, and he had ceased to frown with virtually every
move. He felt her body press against him
with greater frequency and ease now, whereas previously they had been almost
afraid to touch each other. She was
smiling with a fresh candour, and the sweet scent of her perfume was
insinuating itself into his slightly-dilated nostrils, causing his head to swim
with aromatic pleasure. Was this really
what he had been afraid of before the dance started, this subtle pleasure in
sensual gratification? He smiled his
incredulity at the thought of it and, suddenly, as though by the wave of a
magic wand, the old world of distinctions had slipped away and he was at one
with Sarah in the rhythm of the dance, had lost his self-consciousness and
passed over into a world of transpersonal unity. All in a flash, like that 'click' which
descends upon people who are socially and sexually right for each other,
heralding the start of a compatible relationship. He was all of a sudden in that other
world and Sarah's smile seemed more endearing to him than ever, her perfume still
sweeter. He had little time or
inclination to notice what stage everybody else was at, though if he had
bothered to look around him, he would have seen that all but Gowling and
Geraldine had left their self-consciousness behind and were lifted up in the
swirling movement of the dance, transported, as it were, to another realm. They would follow suit later, but at present
both of them were still struggling with their egos - particularly Geraldine,
who danced rather primly with the taller figure of Gowling.
And so the music
continued as the couples circled around one another with greater facility,
becoming increasingly part of one large twenty-legged creature with ten
heads. But then, almost without their
expecting it, the old record reached the end of its scratchy duration, and
suddenly a chilling silence descended upon the room, disrupting the orgy of
blissful self-forgetfulness. There were
a few appropriate sighs of disappointment from the more ardent dancers and
then, as if in gratitude for what they had
experienced, a number of smiles, hand claps, and tersely eulogistic
comments. Their faces had already become
quite flushed, especially Lord Handon's, whose high blood-pressure and age
undoubtedly had something to do with it.
But he had no intention of allowing things to flag and duly hurried
across to the record-player, where he proceeded to turn the disc over and set
its other side in motion.
"Well," said
Sarah to her dancing partner, "it looks as though we're going to be kept
busy tonight, doesn't it?"
"It does
indeed!" Timothy agreed, and, once more, he put his arm round the opera
singer's waist and set her in graceful motion.
To his delight, she smiled more endearingly than ever as their bodies
drew gently together, making him feel newly confident. He wanted, if possible, to draw still closer
to her, but realized that the propriety of the dance precluded it. Besides, he couldn't very well allow himself
to become too ardent in the company of the others, particularly Lord and Lady
Handon, who now danced, it seemed to him, with a certain measure of constraint,
as though they were approaching the end of their quota of energy or were
secretly more intent upon surveying the proceedings around them.
"Oh, so
sorry!" cried Townley above the music, as he collided with Timothy and
well-nigh sent his slender body sprawling across the carpet. "I'm not used to this sort of
thing," he added by way of excuse.
"Neither am I,
actually," the writer confessed, before the swirling throng engulfed him
afresh.
And so it went on, with
Lord Handon taking sole charge of the stereo and, until his retirement through
fatigue about an hour-and-a-half later, effectively leading the dance. Thereafter the host and hostess sat watching
the younger people amuse themselves in the centre of the room, not more than a
few yards from the blazing open fire which Lord Handon judiciously topped-up,
from time to time, with a small log or two from the pile of chopped logs that
lay conveniently close to-hand in the spacious hearth. And every time the prevailing record reached
the last of its tiny grooves, up he would get to initiate a change of melody
and sometimes even a change of dance, thereby throwing his guests into fresh
confusion. Thus Timothy found himself
obliged to improvise a variety of ballroom dances on-the-spot, including the
But, still, the proceedings
were generally fun, and everybody had imbibed too much alcohol to care unduly
about the quality of their performance.
Even the host, who had drained more glasses than anybody else, appeared
not to take much interest in it after a while, but slumped into his armchair
with bowed head, as if in response to an overpowering tiredness, quite
oblivious of his surroundings. In the
next armchair, his wife stared ruefully at the fire or cast a beady and rather
abstracted gaze round the room, occasionally bringing her attention to rest on
one of the small romantic paintings which were intended both to avoid the usual
ballroom cliché of mirrors and to serve a mildly aphrodisiac role. She appeared not to want to see the dancers,
as though their presence was an inconvenience, a reminder of her long-past
youth and current lack of stamina. Yet
youth and stamina were not exactly the leading attributes of Girish O'Donnell
and his plump dancing partner either, and before long, at Irene's prompting,
they also dropped out of the limelight, leaving the floor to the less bulky
individuals.
So now there were only three couples in motion, who danced on
oblivious of everyone else, or seemingly so.
For Timothy, especially, had not quite regained that self-confidence of
the preceding hour and was beginning to weary a little, despite the
ever-enchanting proximity of Sarah Field, whom he resolutely clung to from fear
that, if someone else were to intervene, he would be irrevocably plunged back
into his old self-consciousness again.
Better this than that, even if, with all that alcohol swirling round in
his head, he was now the victim of a downward self-transcendence, a
transcendence such as his logical reasoning mind would ordinarily have deemed
inferior to upward self-transcendence.
Unfortunately this was neither the time nor the place for the
hallucinogenic trip of divine illumination!
Like it or not, one had to persist in the folly of Lord Handon's tastes
and give way to the Diabolic to a greater or lesser extent. Such was the situation. Such it had been for centuries. And such, in all probability, it would
continue to be for ... centuries to come?
Perhaps and perhaps not. Who
could say for sure?
So they danced on, and
now it was Geraldine who led them, the very same person who, when the dancing
had first begun, was the least willing to part with her
self-consciousness. Strange in a sense,
but more indicative of her adolescent shyness in the imposing company of
Indeed, the more
abandoned Geraldine became the less abandoned he appeared to be, so that he was
now dancing with a degree of constraint which, in contrast to his partner's
freedom, assumed an incongruous and semi-humorous aspect. He had gone noticeably stiff and become
somewhat self-conscious, occasionally bumping into the other couples, and this
in spite of the fact that they now had more room in which to manoeuvre than
before. He must have cursed Lord
Handon's eccentricity, at such moments, for depriving the dancers of mirrors
and thereby increasing their chances of colliding, despite the limited
utilitarian value of mirrors in a crowded ballroom, the difficulty of gauging
perspective not rendered any easier by alcoholic somnolence in relation to the
speed of the dance and the number of couples involved. Doubtless the old devil had private
motivations of his own for doing so!
But the dancing wasn't
to last much longer now. For as Nigel
Townley and Sheila Johnston dropped out, more through fatigue than lack of
ability, a sudden self-consciousness descended on the two remaining couples, who
feared that they would become the cynosure of too many pairs of critical or
envious eyes. The smooth bright carpet
on which they slid and twisted suddenly seemed naked, and the dancing area
itself stretched away on every side, causing them to feel somewhat isolated in
the centre of it. Still they danced,
however, more out of pride than enjoyment, and when, a few minutes later,
Timothy and Sarah simultaneously pulled out of the fray, even Geraldine had to
admit defeat and relinquish her hold on Gowling, to the latter's evident
relief.
There was perfunctory
clapping all round, as the last couple abandoned their feet for the enticing
comfort of the nearest vacant armchairs, slumping into them with a well-earned
sigh apiece.
"Well done!" cried Lord Handon, raising himself a little
in his seat the better to survey the couple in question. "You managed to bring the beast out of
my daughter, Lawrence," he added, with a roguish chuckle. It was a comment, however, that his wife
didn't appear to appreciate. For, at
that moment, she frowned sullenly and shook her head - more, it seemed, for her
own benefit than anyone else's. But this
gesture generally passed unnoticed.
It was now quite late,
however, and most of the guests were feeling the lure of sleep, particularly
those who had danced the longest. Their
bedrooms awaited them on the first floor where, after
"This is the last
drink you'll get this year," their host facetiously declared, as he
returned the empty champagne bottle to the wine cabinet, "so you'd better
make the most of it!" And that, ironically,
was what they all endeavoured to do, Timothy almost literally so. For he half-feared that the viscount would go
back on his word and fish out another bottle from the wine cabinet's far from
empty interior.
Mercifully, that was not to be the case. For no sooner had he quaffed back his share
of the champagne and stubbed-out the smouldering remains of an
expensive-looking cigar, than Lord Handon staggered over to the stereo in order
to hunt out, from among the dozens of displaced records there, a recorded
version of Auld Lang Syne with which to facilitate their own rendering of it in
due course. By the time he actually
found the disc, however, midnight was already striking, and not only in the
ballroom but in virtually every other downstairs room throughout the great
house as well, creating a furious uproar which quite precluded any attempt at
simultaneous singing.
"Better late than
never, I suppose," Lord Handon averred, as he fumbled the record onto the
turntable and, with evident difficulty, strove to align the stylus with the
first of its worn grooves. After one or
two false starts, during which one heard snatches of the music prematurely, he
succeeded in his objective and, staggering to his feet again, gestured with
outstretched arms that he wanted everyone to join him in the centre of the room
for the traditional singing. Such was
the peremptory nature of his gesture that drinks were left unconsumed as
everyone, including Lady Handon, converged on the chosen spot like vultures
upon a rotting carcass. They had
scarcely arrived there and formed themselves into an approximate circle,
however, when the music started-up, obliging them to join-in regardless. To everyone's dismay, Lord Handon lost his
footing and fell forwards into the centre of the ring, dragging his
long-suffering wife down with him.
Thereafter a general confusion reigned during which, whilst endeavouring
to sing Auld Lang Syne, efforts were made by one or two of the male guests to
get the drunken peer and his startled wife back on their unsteady feet
again. Eventually success ensued in this
regard, but not before the record had virtually run its course and brought
proceedings to an embarrassing halt.
Nevertheless, Lord Handon defiantly rallied his forces about him for a
final onslaught on the vocal cords and initiated a belated though rousing
performance of the song once more, largely, it seemed, for the servants'
benefit. Then, as though following the
roar of a loud explosion, the room fell into a deathly quiet, broken only be
the intermittent sound of laughter, sighs, snivels, and coughs. The party was over and, almost to a man, the
revellers quietly dispersed to the fringes of the room, to finish off their
drinks or wipe their brows or slump into a welcome armchair. Now at last they were in the New Year, and it
was as though the significance of this fact had only just begun to dawn on
them, necessitating a slight readjustment of psychological perspective.
CHAPTER SIX
Yes, it was New Year's Day, and as he mounted the red-carpeted
stairs, a few minutes later, Timothy Byrne wondered whether the New Year would
prove kinder to him than the old one had, and, if so, in what ways. Indeed, he was so engrossed in speculation on
this point that it quite startled him to hear Sarah inquiring over his
shoulder, as he reached the door to his bedroom on the guest wing, what kind of
accommodation he had been allocated for the night. He turned abruptly in the thickly-carpeted
corridor and confronted his questioner with a blank face. "Oh, forgive me!" he cried,
blushing as he recognized her. "I
hadn't realized you were following me."
His voice sounded quite leaden with drink and he almost lost his
physical balance as he turned fully towards her. "Have they put you in this part of the
house as well?" he foolishly asked.
Sarah returned him one
of her characteristically-endearing smiles.
"Just a little farther along the corridor," she replied,
pointing with her index finger.
"I see," he
responded, vaguely turning his head in the direction indicated. He seemed indecisive as to his next move or
remark and was on the verge of saying goodnight ... when the opera singer
requested to see the interior of his room.
"Certainly,"
he impulsively replied, and, just as impulsively, opened the door and pushed
his way in, flicking on the light switch as he went.
"Ah, how
pretty!" exclaimed Sarah, following him inside. "It's more cheerful than mine," she
added, with a look at the light-blue wallpaper which clothed the walls of the
brightly-lit, box-like room. "And
the curtains!" She advanced a pace
towards the maroon velvet curtains, which hung down to within a few inches of
the floor, and clapped her hands in admiration of the harmony they formed with
the wallpaper. "Let's swap
rooms," she playfully suggested.
For a moment Timothy
thought she was being serious. "What's wrong with yours?" he asked.
"Oh, nothing really," giggled Sarah. "Or, rather, it's just that the colours
aren't quite so much to my taste."
She turned towards him and smiled briefly, before adding: "Come on,
I'll show you it, if you're interested."
It wouldn't have been
very polite of him to say he wasn't, so he obligingly followed her out through
the half-open door, automatically switching off the light, and made his way,
with some difficulty, along the corridor to the room next-door. He felt a trifle guilty and foolish about
this, and was almost afraid that someone would see him. But ahead of him the corridor was deserted,
while behind ... he glanced back over his shoulder and saw no-one - at least
not at that moment. For just as he
reached Sarah's door the distinctive voice of Girish O'Donnell was sounding at
the top of the stairs, and, before he could disappear into her room, the portly
figure of the Voice Museum's principal director had appeared in the corridor
and was advancing towards them, accompanied by Irene Myers. There was a faint hint of recognition from
O'Donnell but, rather than acknowledging it, Timothy hurried into Sarah's room
as fast as he could, under the circumstances of his inebriation, and shut the
door behind him in a panic, fearing they might have seen Sarah going in as
well. Not that any such thing was
guaranteed. For she had been in front of
him, after all, and was in the process of opening her door when they rounded
the corner. And, anyway, even if they
had, so what? Did that necessarily mean
...? He cast the thought from his mind
and advanced unsteadily towards the centre of her room, newly reminded of the
purpose of his visit, which, on the surface at least, seemed perfectly
innocent.
For her part Sarah had
sensed nothing of his panic and now stood to one side, pointing out the colours
she apparently found less cheerful than those in her neighbour's room. "You see?" she sighed, with a
slight air of constraint.
He looked about him,
like a connoisseur of fine art, and nodded his head in apparent sympathy. Though, in reality, he couldn't see anything
amiss, since the dark-blue wallpaper and silver-grey velvet curtains were quite
to his taste. If anything, he preferred
this combination to the one in his own room, which was suggestive of some
football team, and would have said so, had not discretion or something
analogous prevailed upon him to hold his tongue. Finally he decided on a compromise by
conceding that, although her room was probably a shade less cheerful, it was
nonetheless just as brightly lit and no less spacious. "Not really that bad at all," he
concluded, involuntarily including the silver-quilted double bed which stood a
few feet to his right. "At least
you won't have to sleep in it longer than tonight."
She smiled in
acknowledgement of this obvious fact and sat down on the corner of the bed,
nearest to where Timothy was standing.
"No," she agreed, "that's one good thing." Then, abruptly changing track, she asked him
what he thought of the dance earlier?
"Oh, quite amusing
on the whole," he remarked, grinning.
"Not that I'm a particularly accomplished dancer, as you doubtless
realized. I hope you'll forgive me for
having trodden on your toes so often."
She glanced down at her
pale-stockinged toes and confessed that, but for a little wear, they had
survived quite well, considering that her dancing partner had been wearing some
kind of newfangled boots.
"Besides," she added, smiling anew, "I must have
committed more than a few choreographic indiscretions myself, not being used to
that kind of dancing. So perhaps it's I
who ought to be apologizing to you."
He blushed slightly in
spite of himself, wondering what she could be referring to, and sought distraction
in a small stucco carving of a cherub which graced the top of a circular table
just in front of where he was still standing, hands bashfully tucked inside
front pockets. Yet she was looking at
him with a curious interest when next he dared face her, much as though he were
a work of art worthy of a certain critical appraisal. What could be on her mind, he wondered?
However, before he could
wonder anything else, he heard her say: "I quite liked what you were
saying about your latest religious beliefs, before dinner."
"Oh, really?"
he responded, somewhat surprised and not a little ashamed of his current
wine-intoxicated condition. Or was it
the fact of his religious beliefs?
"Yes, I think there
must be some truth in it," Sarah declared.
"Quite a lot of truth in fact, in spite of your predilection for
sweeping generalizations of the debunking sort, which are doubtless more
expedient than pedantic, suggesting a degree of literary licence which, though
arguably objectionable from a more objectively philosophic standpoint, at least
has the merit of simplifying things and of obliging one to rethink accepted
positions."
A smile of gratitude
overcame him with the mention of this.
"I'm glad you think so," he admitted, though he didn't fully
understand the latter part of her remark.
"However, I'm aware that Lady Handon wouldn't agree with such an
opinion."
"No, she appears to
be something of a religious conservative," Sarah confirmed, wrinkling-up
her brows in evident disdain.
"Still, one can't win them all.
What she believes in is obviously right for her."
"Indeed,"
Timothy conceded with a hint of weariness in his voice. "Nevertheless, for people like you and
I, such traditional criteria as she apparently subscribes to are far from
right. They would simply keep one moored
to the Diabolic Alpha at the expense of the Divine Omega, binding one to the
Creator in worshipful subjection to theocratic authoritarianism, and thus
preventing the achievement of religious freedom in self-realization. For without freethinking, there is only
enslavement, and the freer and more advanced the thinking, the more will the
Alpha appear diabolic and only the Omega divine." He turned round and was on the point of
returning to his room, when Sarah's voice halted him in his tracks.
"Do you like
opera?" she asked.
"Some of it,"
he replied, smiling faintly.
"French opera, in particular."
A look of gratified
surprise came into the opera singer's large eyes. "And have you ever heard me sing?"
"Yes, once, in Manon at
Her look of gratified
surprise blossomed handsomely into a smile of relief. "And did you like it?" she wanted
to know, her dark-brown eyes sparkling gaily in the reflection of the light
from the small chandelier overhead.
"I did
indeed," he admitted, blushing slightly in spite of his semi-drunken
predicament. "As it happens, you
reminded me quite a lot of Beverly Sills, not only as regards the way you sang
but also with regard to your appearance.
It was through a recording of Manon by Sills and Gedda that I
first got to know of the opera, actually."
"Yes, one of the
classic recordings," Sarah opined in a tone of undisguised enthusiasm.
"I guess it would
have to be, what with Gedda in it," Timothy rejoined, smiling
appreciatively. "He's still my
favourite tenor. However, I was keenly
appreciative of Souzay as 'Lescaut' and Castel as 'Gillot', too. Not to mention Bacquier as 'Le Compt de
Grieux', for that matter. His voice is
unforgettable! But the bass part which
has given me most pleasure to-date is undoubtedly Boris Christoff's rendering
of 'Mephistopheles' in a recording of Gounoud's Faust. What power!
What brilliance of execution!
There are times when one's hair virtually stands on-end!"
"I quite
agree," Sarah responded. "He is
one of the great masters. And he was
with Gedda in the recording you allude to, wasn't he?"
"Indeed he
was!" Timothy smilingly confirmed.
"Gedda and
"You forgot to
mention
"Yes, and then the
libretto is very good, which is more than can be said, in my opinion, for Pelléas et
Mélisande, especially where the tedious reiteration of 'petit père'
is concerned! That just about drained my
patience, I'm afraid."
Sarah graciously
admitted to finding that part of the opera a bit trying herself. Then, realizing that Timothy was still
standing in the centre of the room with hands in pockets, she invited him to
sit beside her, so that they could discuss opera in comfort. There was no reason, she said, why he should
tire his legs standing there when a soft bed was conveniently close to-hand.
Although he was somewhat
mentally fatigued and mindful, at this juncture, of the lateness of the hour,
he complied with her invitation - more from a relief to be off his feet at last
than from anything else.
So they sat side-by-side
and discussed opera, Timothy relating his experiences of a variety of
recordings, Sarah, for her part, merely content to comment upon them and offer
a professional opinion from time to time.
She confessed to having sung in all the major French operas and to
preferring her role as 'Carmen' to either that of 'Margueritta' or 'Manon',
though each of these she found preferable to 'Melisande', which was less
inspiring.
"And Werther?"
asked Timothy, becoming doubly inebriated by the sweetness of her perfume and
the graceful flow of her conversation.
"Yes, I was '
"As a singer or as
a person?" Timothy queried.
"As a person,"
Sarah confessed.
The writer chuckled
softly and offered her a gentle look of commiseration. "My only experience of Werther
came via Nicolai Gedda and Victoria de los Angeles, whose 1969 recording I
recently heard."
"You seem to prefer
listening to records than actually visiting the opera," Sarah deduced.
"In point of fact,
I do," Timothy admitted, "though that's partly because what I'd like
to hear isn't always available when I want it, and partly, too, because I'm
able to borrow records from the local library and thus sate my musical
curiosity free-of-charge, in the privacy of my flat." Here he felt like adding a word or two about
his preference for the spiritualization of art through reproductions or
recordings, but decided not to risk either offending Sarah by or burdening
himself with the corollary of a detailed explication of his philosophical
position - a position which Lord Handon's guided tour of the library, billiards
room, etc., had earlier made him freshly conscious of, and with a
vengeance! For, as a rule, he preferred
the elimination of the material factor in opera, which recordings provided, to
the actual live performance itself. Just
as he preferred a colour photograph, or photographic reproduction, of a statue
to the statue itself. It was all part of
his transcendentalism and the modern trend towards a greater spiritualization
of art and life generally. The
disembodied voices which assailed or charmed the ear were spiritual presences
merely, abstractions of real people - like, for that matter, the actors and
actresses who graced the cinema screen.
Nothing tangible or material about them - ghostly presences, rather, which
attested to the higher spiritual culture of contemporary man.
If one went to the
cinema it wasn't to see real bodies moving about on screen but, on the
contrary, the cinematic reproduction of such bodies. It was analogous to looking through glossy
art books at the photographic reproductions of paintings, sculptures, ceramics,
and the like. At its best, cinema was
undoubtedly a higher and more spiritual art-form than, say, theatre, which, by
contrast, dealt in real presences, no less tangible than material. Admittedly drama could be spiritualized
through the medium of film, and so, too, could opera, as had occurred in a
number of memorable productions, including Tosca. Perhaps this was the best way to experience
drama or opera in-the-round these days - simply by sitting in front of a colour
television with good quality hi-fi?
Although if one valued the music and singing above the stage scenery,
costumes, lighting, singers, and action, then a good quality stereo would
doubtless serve one's purposes better.
The primary ingredients of opera, viz. music and singing, would be
catered for on a superior level than what they would receive from a televised
performance in-the-round, where the sound reproduction was likely, as a rule,
to be less good. Yet whatever one's
bias, it seemed not improbable that cultural progress was being manifested
through these electronic media, which transformed an initially dualistic
material/spiritual performance into one of spiritual one-sidedness. The closer men drew to the Omega Point, the
more spiritual their art would become.
Film projector, television, video recorder, cassette recorder, stereo,
camera - these were the kinds of media through which Timothy believed culture
could be experienced in the highest way, detached from the physical, the
natural, the sensual.
Yes, he would rather
watch opera on film or listen to it on disc than experience an actual
performance of it in public, and, confessing as much to Sarah, he smiled to
himself, reminded of his reasons for doing so.... Not that he was completely
consistent in this respect, since he had of course visited the opera on
occasion, when the need for a little materialistic reassurance presented
itself. In an age of transition from the
mundane to the transcendent, the natural to the artificial, one couldn't be blamed,
after all, for the occasional backsliding into traditional criteria. Unless one had been blessed with a
consistently progressive or spiritually-advanced mentality, it wasn't expedient
to be too transcendental. One could risk
or even succumb to a serious brain injury somewhere along the over-idealistic
line.
Be that as it may, Sarah
seemed a twinge saddened by his preference for recorded performances and
asserted, with a mischievous gleam in her eyes, that while discs, tapes, etc.,
were wonderful inventions, it was still good to get a taste of the real thing
from time to time, in order to be brought into closer contact with what
actually prompted the singing.
"After all, a disembodied voice isn't the best key to the lock of
love in which the principal characters are trapped," she said, with
another of those subtly-endearing smiles on her lips.
"No, I guess
not," conceded Timothy, who was conscious, as never before, of the
extremely close proximity of the opera singer to him at this moment. "One must see it in the flesh as
well," he found himself saying, half-hypnotized by her stare.
"And, if possible,
touch it," she murmured.
"As well as smell
it," he rejoined, mindful of her scent and the complementary freshness of
her skin, a mere couple of inches from the tip of his nose.
"And thereby
experience it personally," she concluded, gently closing her eyes against
the kiss which, at that moment, Timothy felt impelled to bestow upon her lips
in response to the brazen cue just offered him.
Amazingly, a single kiss
was sufficient to precipitate them into each other's arms and initiate a series
of more ardent kisses, which duly led to Sarah firmly closing her eyes against
Timothy's carnal onslaught and meekly submitting to his physical objectives -
objectives which were to encompass far more than her lips ... as he gently
pushed her down on the bed and climbed over her reclining form, the better to
achieve them. Now he wanted to get more
closely involved with her than he had done in the ballroom before midnight; to
get so closely involved with her, in fact, as to make the rhythmic posturings
of their dancing routines appear comparatively superficial. Now there would be no clothes or
fellow-dancers between him and his movements.
It would be a direct communion of flesh to flesh, a return to the
primeval life-urge, a fitting climax to the New Year's Eve festivities. He had been so well-juiced for it, this
ultimate sensual communion, that it didn't really matter to him now whether or
not he subsequently got back to his own room again. If sleep overtook him he would stay where he
was, wrapped in the tight embrace of Sarah's arms - submerged in sensual
abandon.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The following morning was pleasantly bright and as, one by one,
the guests came down to breakfast, they were greeted by the full-face of the
sun as it shone in shamelessly through the tall windows of the breakfast room,
on the west wing of Rothermore House.
Timothy, however, contrived to turn his back on it, as he arrived at the
large round table at which everyone was invited to sit; for he rather disliked
a direct confrontation with the Diabolic Alpha at this time of day, and trusted
that it would be less harmful to his back than to his face. He didn't of course mention this to anyone,
lest they thought him crazy.... Although Lady Handon half-divined what was on
his mind by the eagerness and determination with which he had acquired himself
this particular seat. She smiled
ironically to herself and proceeded to sip the Chinese tea which the ageing
butler had just poured into her dainty cup.
Behind her, and therefore in front of Timothy, an open fire crackled
forcefully in its hearth. The writer,
for his part, preferred not to notice it.
"Well, I trust you
all had a comfortable night," said Lord Handon, as he took his place at
table and briefly scanned the assembled faces, all but one of which had a
noticeably pallid look.
"Very comfortable
thanks," admitted Sarah, whose candour caused Timothy a slight
embarrassment at what seemed to him like an oblique allusion to his own
contribution to it.
"Good!" said
Lord Handon in a business-like manner.
"As long as you all managed to get some rest after yesterday
evening's physical exertions and don't find the first morning of January 1981
unduly oppressive ..."
"Unfortunately I
had a nightmare," Irene Myers interposed, slightly to everyone's horror.
"Hardly the most
auspicious start to the new year for you then!" Lady Handon declared over
the rim of her steaming cup. "I
trust you didn't suffer a similar fate, Mr Byrne," she added, focusing her
beady attention upon the rather washed-out face opposite, which, to her
surprise, blushed perceptibly and shook its head.
"Fortunately
not!" he replied, all too conscious that he probably suffered a worse one
in not getting any sleep at all. For it
was so late by the time Sarah let him go ... that he had quite passed the point
of sleep and could do no better than to doze fitfully in his solitary room,
tortured by the incessant twittering of sparrows in some nearby trees. Now his head had something of the vacuity of
an exploded shell about it, as though his brain had been removed and a dull
void left in its place. He smiled with a
kind of cadaverous leer which the hostess appeared not to like very much; for
she sharply turned her face away.
"And how about you,
sir?" she inquired of Girish O'Donnell, noting the speed with which the
Voice Museum's principal director was draining his cup of black coffee.
"Oh, just a slight
hangover," he drawled, falling victim to one of the most palpably obvious
of understatements. "Nothing to
grumble about, really!"
"You danced
exceedingly well last night, Girish," opined Lord Handon, countering
palpable understatement with no-less palpable overstatement. "Indeed, you all danced very well,
including you, Geraldine."
His daughter couldn't
prevent herself blushing at this remark, and cast Gowling an optimistic glance,
as though expecting him to confirm it.
However, the artist was preoccupied with the piled-up flaky contents of
his cereal bowl and therefore didn't respond to her in any noticeable way. But she wasn't to be rebuffed by this fact
and declared that she had probably danced better last night than ever before -
a declaration which caused Gowling a comparable degree of embarrassment.
"Really?"
cried Lord Handon on a note of ironic surprise.
"That's putting it rather strongly, I must say!"
Not surprisingly his
wife preferred to say nothing about that, but tactfully switched the
conversation to her guests' impending departures, now that their New Year's Eve
celebrations were a thing of the past.
"I take it you'll all be able to return to your various
destinations today, bearing in mind the reduced public transport," she
said.
All but two of them were
destined to return to London, those being Nigel Townley and Irene Myers, who
had homes in Sussex.
"Yes, I don't
suppose there'll be any trains running," Lord Handon remarked,
endeavouring to qualify his wife's almost contradictory question.
"Don't worry, I can
take the others back in my car," O'Donnell declared. "I have enough space in the old banger
for at least half-a-dozen people."
He was of course alluding to his Mercedes, which was parked in front of
the house beside Irene's Porsche and Lord Handon's Rolls. It would be far better travelling back to
town in that than waiting around for taxis or buses, and the relevant guests
thanked O'Donnell for his offer and accepted without a qualm - especially Timothy,
who hadn't much enjoyed the solitary journey down by train in any case.
"Good, then that
takes care of that problem," Lady Handon concluded with an air of
finality, and she accordingly relapsed into a welcome silence.
Following breakfast, the
guests retired to the drawing-room for a spate of informal conversation prior
to their impending departures, Lord Handon encouraging those of them who could
stand the sight of alcohol to sample a fresh glass as a leave-taking
tribute. But most of them seemed in need
of fresh air, and, perceiving this, the viscount offered to take everyone on a
guided tour of his grounds, including the stables, gardens, and parkland. As the weather was so sunny that morning,
most of the guests accepted with alacrity, and, before long, a little party of
warmly-clad individuals had assembled in the spacious vestibule behind the
north door, eager for exercise.
Geraldine, however, was
of the opinion that it would be better for them to divide into two groups
rather than set off en masse across the lawns, like a herd of cattle. She accordingly offered, by way of example,
to take a few of their guests round the west wing of the house and through the
stables, while her father took the rest of them in the opposite direction, in
order to meet-up with her group at some point to the south. The idea seemed a good one and consequently,
with minimum deliberation, the party divided accordingly and set off in their
respective directions.
To his relief, Timothy
found himself in Geraldine's group, which included Lawrence Gowling and Nigel
Townley who, slightly to his amusement, smiled sheepishly at him from under
sleep-heavy eyelids. Geraldine, clearly,
had cornered most of the males, while her father, unaccompanied by his wife,
had availed himself of the females, adding to their number the portly figure of
Girish O'Donnell, who trailed along behind the others, like some kind of social
outcast. It was a little disenchanting
for Timothy to watch Sarah being led away in the opposite direction, but he
couldn't very well complain. Besides, it
might have proved embarrassing had she been with him instead, especially with
Geraldine there.
"Ah!"
exclaimed Gowling, as he deeply inhaled and exhaled the crisp morning air. "How refreshing to be out at this time
of day! Just the way to clear away a
hangover, what?"
Geraldine smiled her
acknowledgement of him, but made no comment.
She had changed into a pair of pale-pink cords and was wearing a
navy-blue anorak over a woolly jumper.
Her hair was still pinned up, but less formerly now than the day
before. Instead of forming a bun on the
crown of her head, it rested in a loose rectangle at the back, making her look,
if anything, slightly more attractive.
There was a faint hint of make-up on her face, but nothing overtly
seductive. Her eyes shone with pleasure
as she led the men across the English garden and around to the West Front. No doubt, she was relieved to be free of her
parents' restrictive company. "Let's
take a look at the goldfish," she said, pointing out a small artificial
pond which stood in front of the front in question. "My mother is rather keen on goldfish
and I seem to have inherited an aptitude for them myself. A case of acquired characteristics, wouldn't
you say, Mr Byrne?"
The writer automatically
raised wary brows, but graciously conceded her the benefit of the doubt.
"My God, there must
be hundreds of them in it!" Gowling observed, as they reached the goldfish
pond. "They're literally crawling
over one another!"
"Yes, it is rather
a cramped environment," Geraldine admitted. "Although we usually sell off a number
of them every year and thereby maintain a fairly stable population. We're intending, anyway, to extend the size
of our ponds soon - there's one like this, incidentally, in front of each wing
of the house - so as to provide our little darlings with more privacy."
"Privacy?"
Townley repeated, with an ironic expression on his face.
But Geraldine was more
interested in staring at Gowling's reflection in the shallow water than
justifying her use of words, while the artist, for his part, was too engrossed
in the pond's contents to notice that he was being secretly admired.
"Well, let's
proceed, shall we?" Geraldine at length suggested, and, together, they
continued in the direction they had been taking, on past the West Front. Here, too, Timothy couldn't help noticing
that the Baroque features of the North Front were in ample evidence,
particularly as regards the equidistant placing of Corinthian pilasters, and he
noticed, moreover, that Townley was taking more interest in the general
exterior of the house itself than in the surrounding grounds, which, for an
architect, was only to be expected, or so he supposed. But this was only in passing. For soon they came upon the stables, no
farther than a hundred-and-fifty yards away, and heard the sounds of horses
neighing and champing - sounds which Townley couldn't help commenting upon as
they drew near. "Our approach has
evidently excited them," he observed, raising his nostrils to inhale the
smell of freshly-deposited manure.
"How many do you have?"
"Just four
nowadays," Geraldine replied, with a hint of regret in her voice. "We used to have six, but, since my
older sister went to live elsewhere and my younger brother got killed in a
plane crash, we decided to part with theirs.... This one's called Smoky,"
she revealed, patting a large grey stallion on the nose. "It's the favourite of my father, who
owns the stallion on the right, too. But
this one's mine." His name was
Badger, and he was a dark-brown horse of slightly less than average
height. He seemed to like having his
mane fondled and Geraldine was keen to oblige.
"The remaining horse belongs to my mother," she continued,
drawing attention to a black mare to Badger's left, "and her name's
Stella. But since mother doesn't ride
very often these days, she's mostly entrusted to our groom, who is a reliable
horseman."
"So what's the name
of your father's other horse?" asked Timothy, who happened to be standing
directly in front of it.
"Dapper," said
Geraldine. "Because he is,
see?"
There was an uprush of
amusement among the three men, who eyed the dapper-brown stallion in question
with admiring looks. For his part,
Dapper neighed gently and stared back at them with a nonchalance bordering on contempt
- or so it seemed. Inscrutability was,
after all, a hallmark of the horse!
"Do you ride
regularly?" Gowling asked Geraldine, following a short pause in their
conversation.
"Whenever I'm here
I do, which is mostly during the vacations," she replied, smiling. "Unfortunately, being away at college
means that I don't now ride as often as before.
But I shall probably come down here for the occasional weekend, during
the months ahead, and wrench my horse away from our groom for a few hours. What about you - do any of you ride?"
Gowling admitted to an
occasional tendency in that august direction, while both Timothy and Townley
shook their respective heads, the architect adding that he would welcome an opportunity
to do so - a sentiment not shared, however, by the writer, who had never ridden
a horse in his life and had no desire to, largely because he found the idea of
intimate contact with a large beast repugnant.... To be sitting on a horse
somewhere in the country - no, that was definitely not for him! He almost shuddered at the thought of
it. On principle, he could never have
given-in to complacency on a beast in the
country. He simply wanted to aspire
towards God by expanding his spirit. But
how could one possibly do that seated on a horse, with nature airing its
mundane prejudices all around one?
Impossible! No, horses were
definitely not for him!
However, Townley was
interested and Gowling fairly proud of the fact that he occasionally rented a
horse for the day. After all, horses
were the most noble of beasts and not at all bad company. Yet when Geraldine said she would like to see
him ride, poor Gowling quite blushed with shame at the connotation with sex to
which the word gave rise in his vulnerable imagination! For it seemed to him that the young lady was
deliberately provoking him. He could
have sworn he detected a mischievous gleam in her eyes. "You don't mean now, do you?" he
gasped, in his perplexity.
"No, of course not,
silly!" she retorted. "Some
other time."
He mentally sighed his
relief and wiped some imaginary sweat from his brow.
"Well, now that
you've all seen the horses, let's explore a bit farther afield, shall we?"
suggested Geraldine, leading the way out of the stables and on across the open
parkland to the left of the South Front, in the general direction of a thick
wood beyond.
"No sign of the
other group from here," Gowling observed, looking across to his right,
where he had vaguely expected to sight Lord Handon's four followers.
The others cast a glance
in the same direction and Geraldine explained how that was probably because her
father had turned into the wood on the far side of the house, in order to
explore the river which ran through it.
"He's recently had a few fancy wooden bridges installed, which he's
probably keen to inspect and show off," she went on. "But don't worry, we'll doubtless bump
into them before long."
The parkland stretched
on quite some distance to either side of them and had the appearance of being
well-kept, despite the ugly proximity, every now and then, of copious weeds,
which had sprouted in the otherwise bare flower-beds, and of overgrown hedges,
bent forward under the oppressive weight of their evergreen foliage. A number of saplings were propped-up on
wooden supports against the inclemency of winter, intended, no doubt, to form a
new avenue of trees in due course. For
it was apparent, from a brief inspection of the area, that Lord Handon liked to
have his saplings planted in rows, like soldiers or, rather, cadets on
parade. Less ordered, however, was the
wood towards which Geraldine was now leading them. It had a rough path through it but no sign of
any intentional cultivation, and the prospect of his having to traverse this
intensification of nature wasn't at all to Timothy's liking! Indeed, he wasn't particularly happy to be
exploring the parkland anyway, even its most cultivated parts, which still
struck his transcendental mentality as evil, if relatively less so than the
patently uncultivated parts. But it was
into the wood that Geraldine led them, and he just didn't have the nerve to
back out or object. Gowling and Townley
would probably have thought him mad were he to do so, not being on his
spiritual wavelength. All he could
reasonably do was to brave it, and this he endeavoured to do as they came upon
the beaten path at the entrance to the wood and passed over into raw nature.
"If we're in luck,
we might get a glimpse of some of the deer that roam about in here," said
Geraldine.
"How many deer are
there?" asked Townley.
"About fifty at the
last count," the young lady revealed.
"Mostly deeper into the wood of course, and more over to the far
side. You can see quite a lot of wildlife
in here though, including foxes. Look,
there's a squirrel scampering up a tree over there! Can you see it?"
Halted, the men followed
her finger in the direction indicated, and for a moment Timothy had a
recollection of Sarah doing the same thing in the passageway outside his room
the previous night. "Quite
clearly," Gowling admitted, as the squirrel came to a sudden halt half-way
up the tree trunk, as though in suspended animation. "One can see how this wood must be
something of a naturalist's paradise, during certain times of the year and
under the right conditions."
Geraldine smiled warmly
before trudging on again. Only Timothy
refrained from showing signs of pleasure here.
For the fact of this wood being a naturalist's paradise could only mean
it was a transcendentalist's hell, and he needed no reminding.... Not that it
was the worst of earthly hells, since a tropical jungle would have been far
worse, to his way of thinking. And even
this place would, in his opinion, have been worse in the middle of summer than
at present, deprived of all but its bare bones, so to speak, in the heart of
winter. Still, even in this depleted
context, it was a place he would have preferred to avoid.
"We used to have
hunts here at one time," Geraldine was saying, principally for the benefit
of the others, as they continued along the path, Timothy at the rear.
"What, deer
hunts?" Townley surmised.
"Sometimes deer and
sometimes foxes," Geraldine confessed.
"At any rate, my grandfather was keen on hunting and used to run
with the pack, as they say, across the park and into this wood at various
points, usually to emerge again on the far side and continue the chase across
open country. But my father preferred
shooting grouse to hunting animals, so I never got to see more than an
occasional deer or fox hunt."
"Does he still
shoot?" Timothy asked, over Townley's shoulder.
"Oh yes, quite
often," Geraldine replied.
"Mostly pheasants, of course.
Why, do you object to blood sports?"
"Yes and no."
"What do you mean
by 'yes and no', you ambivalent man?"
"Well, 'yes',
because I'd rather people spent their time doing better things than chasing
about after wild animals or birds," Timothy informed her, "and 'no'
because I'd rather men made war on beasts than worshipped them. In the final analysis, I don't object to
people preventing the lower creatures from becoming too populous. Though I suppose it would be better if
society was arranged in such a fashion that either the State or some other
authority could take greater responsibility for keeping their numbers in check,
by having trained professionals do the job of culling them, in order to make
the business less a sport than a moral and ecological obligation."
"Ah, I see,"
said Geraldine. "Well, you won't
find the lower creatures too populous around here, I can assure you! Not unless you're also alluding to ants,
beetles, worms, sparrows, and other such lowly creatures?"
Timothy made no comment,
but contented himself, instead, with a private reflection on the sad fact that
the lowest of all creations, viz. raw nature, was far too populous or, at any
rate, abundant here, even in the heart of winter.
Yet if Geraldine
half-divined his thoughts she didn't let-on, nor draw attention to the
impracticality of greater state responsibility in the matter of culling wild
animals professionally while land was still in private ownership, but continued
to lead the way and talk about her father's shooting abilities, which were of
quite a high standard apparently.
"I'd love to have a
crack at shooting grouse myself one day," Gowling revealed, in due course.
"Well, perhaps we
can arrange that for you," Geraldine commented, and, as she briefly turned
towards him, the artist found himself becoming embarrassed again for no
apparent reason or, rather, for reasons best known to himself. "That would be most kind of you,"
he averred, slightly to Timothy's distaste.
The path wound on into
the distance but, mercifully for Timothy,
didn't stray too far into the wood, so that it was possible, every now and
then, to glimpse part of the South Front of Rothermore House away in the
distance, as one came upon a small clearing between the trees and bushes to
one's right. Glimpsed from this
distance, the house seemed quite small.
But it was still a vaguely reassuring spectacle for anyone who preferred
civilization to nature, and provided Timothy with a brief reprieve from the
gloomy thoughts which surged through his nature-stricken consciousness, like
doom-besotted ghosts. Overhead, the
regular flapping of wings attested to an abundance of bird life here, and
Gowling must have looked-up at the startled creatures, from time to time, with
more than a vague desire to pull the trigger of a gun and send one or two of
them crashing beak-foremost to earth.
Geraldine, however, had other things on her mind.
"Look!" she
cried, bringing the men to a sudden halt again.
"There's a fallow deer over there.
D'you see it?"
The pale-brown deer, a
doe, had certainly seen them and now kept a watchful eye on the intruding humans
from where it stood, some seventy or so yards to their left.
"How pretty she is!" Townley observed, instinctively
dropping his voice to almost a whisper.
"And so small really!"
But the doe had seen enough of them by now, and suddenly made off deeper
into the wood.
"Perhaps she has a
mate waiting for her somewhere," joked Gowling as they got under way
again.
"She might
have," Geraldine responded, smiling slyly, "although we're not
exactly in the heart of the rutting season at present and, as such, the bucks
tend to be somewhat aloof ... like certain men at this time of year," she
added, a shade ironically.
Gowling experienced a
painful recrudescence of his former embarrassment and endeavoured to hide his
face from Geraldine by looking in the opposite direction ... across towards
Rothermore House. It was evident that
she was teasing him again! Timothy, on
the other hand, smiled faintly and offered no comment. Recalling to mind his intimacy with Sarah the
previous night, he felt confident that Geraldine couldn't very well have been
alluding to him - at least not as far as he was
concerned. For he had seen more than
enough female flesh to last him a good few nights to come!
To be sure, the
recollection of his pulling down Sarah's little white nylon panties and placing
an exploratory kiss on her pubic hair caused his smile to expand slightly, in
spite of the uncongenial environment in which he still found himself. Because he was walking just behind the
others, however, this smile went unnoticed and he didn't have to justify
it. No doubt, Geraldine, in particular,
would have been intrigued! Anyway, he
was relieved that it was Lawrence Gowling and not himself the young lady was
especially interested in, since he had no real desire to fraternize with the
aristocracy. Perhaps Gowling was
suffering a scruple of conscience on that account too, and was accordingly
afraid of what he would be letting himself in for, if he became Geraldine's
lover? It was possible though by no
means guaranteed, considering the extent of the artist's bourgeois
pedigree. Perhaps, on second thoughts,
he would have welcomed closer association with her, but was simply afraid to
take the initial plunge and risk being identified, in her parents' eyes, as
some kind of unscrupulous social climber?
Poor fellow! If that was the
case, then he deserved pitying. Social
climber indeed! The thought was enough
to make Timothy smile again. But by now
they had come upon a stream which ran through their part of the wood, and
Geraldine was explaining that it merged into the river farther down. "And that's where we'll probably run
into the other group, since they've probably been dawdling on one or other of
the new wooden bridges, watching the fish swim by," she added for their
benefit.
"Do you get many
fish here?" Townley asked, as they stared down into the gently-flowing
stream which glistened with myriad patches of sunlight, like some kind of
kaleidoscope.
"Not in the stream
itself," Geraldine replied.
"For, as you can see, it's rather shallow and stony. But certainly in the river. My father has caught more than a few salmon
there over the years. Quite large ones,
too. After grouse shooting, it's his
next favourite sport."
"Oh, really?"
Townley responded, his face aglow with polite interest. "I used to do a spot of fishing myself
at one time. On the Wey, in
Guildford."
"How lovely!" Geraldine exclaimed. "They tell me there are some ideal spots
for fishing, along the Wey."
"Ideal if you discount the counter-productive influence of
passing rowing boats," Townley retorted, with a faint good-natured
chuckle. "They often scare the fish
away. And sometimes the
less-accomplished rowers have a fatal tendency to get their oars entangled in
one's line, which can be pretty frustrating, I can tell you!"
A chorus of sympathetic
humour erupted from his listeners, before Geraldine assured him that there
weren't any boats on their river, so one could fish in
peace. "My brother used to catch
tiddlers in this stream," she remarked nostalgically, as they continued to
skirt its edge.
"Tiddlers?"
echoed Timothy and, smiling inwardly, he recalled his own rather frustrating
efforts, as a small boy, to catch either tiddlers, tadpoles, or aquatic insects
in his fishing net at Bagshot Ponds or off the tiny wooden bridge in the park
at Farnham. Mostly he just caught weeds
and stones. It was enough to put him off
fishing for good (long before mature reflection, as an adult, led him to
conclude that fishing for pleasure was on a par with blood sports and therefore
no less reprehensible from a moral standpoint).
However, disillusioned as much by the nature of his catch as by the
humble means employed, he later gravitated to feeding monkeys on the Hogs Back. It was a slightly more rewarding occupation
than waiting for non-existent or extremely recalcitrant tiddlers! But the Wey?
He smarted with repressed indignation at the indirect insult just
received from the unsuspecting Nigel Townley, who, it seemed, objected to
boating there. Had not he, Timothy Byrne,
spent many a pleasant afternoon rowing down the Wey without disturbing a single
fishing enthusiast or noticing a single fish, except the occasional dead one
floating on the water's surface, compliments, in all probability, of the rod
fraternity? And had he not been
inconvenienced himself, on a number of occasions, by fishing lines cast too far
out and necessitating an abrupt change of direction, which usually resulted in
one's colliding with the nearest bank? God
knows, there were so many sharp bends and unexpected twists-and-turns in the
Wey, that it was difficult enough to avoid clashing with one or other of its
banks at the best of times! But for this
bloke to complain about the inconvenience caused by rowers!
However, Timothy had no
real desire to drag up his childhood or youth by the banks of this little
stream, even though, in the circumstances, it wasn't entirely irrelevant. As a child one was always, after all,
something of a savage, and thus more partial to the barbarous influence of nature's
predatory instincts. A miniature pagan,
at the furthest possible moral remove from God, or very nearly so. For it was probably truer to say that the
very earliest children, in the childhood of the human race, so to speak, had
been at a still-further remove from the Holy Spirit than were their latter-day
counterparts - bad enough as they generally were!
By now, however,
Geraldine's group had come upon sight of Lord Handon's in the distance, and,
together, they quickened their pace to approach them. Yet if the former had spotted the latter, it
was hardly the case that a reciprocal spotting had taken place with the other
group. For they stood with their backs
to the approaching quartet and were staring down into the water which ran
beneath the sturdy wooden parapet upon which they all leant. Or so it appeared for an instant. For as Geraldine's group got a slightly
better view of the bridge, thanks to a narrow clearing beyond the path, it soon
became apparent that only Girish O'Donnell and Irene Myers were actually
leaning on the parapet, since, much to Timothy's surprise, the remaining two
guests were leaning against Lord Handon, one on either side of him, while he
held a supporting arm round their respective waists. Yet this, too, was an optical illusion or, at
any rate, only a very transient posture.
For, on closer inspection, it soon became evident that Lord Handon’s
hands weren't exactly static, but actively roaming backwards and forwards over
their respective behinds.
"Shush!"
hissed Geraldine, bringing them to a sudden standstill, the better to spy on
the proceedings farther afield. Then,
following the inevitably excited pause, she whispered: "Can you see what I
can?"
"Plainly,"
Timothy admitted on a note of disgust.
Townley sniggered softly
and shook his head in amazement.
"It seems that you were perfectly right to say this place must be a
naturalist's paradise, Lawrence," he at length remarked, for the artist's
dubious benefit. "Everything would
seem to point in the direction that Lord Hand-on would be a more apt
accentuation of Han-don, and that he's doing his damnedest to live-up to his
surname."
Geraldine had put her
hand on Gowling's arm in involuntary response to her father's actions and was
causing him to blush anew, despite his manifest interest in the occupants of
the bridge. "Gosh, we could
certainly do with some binoculars now!" he managed to say.
In point of fact,
binoculars would not have taught them much they didn't already know. For, from where they now stood, they could even
see the smiling faces of Sheila and Sarah frequently turning up towards the
viscount, as he whispered or murmured something evidently endearing into their
eager ears. A smile, and then another
little bout of hand roaming on Lord Handon's part. Another smile, followed by more of the
same. And then, quite unexpectedly, a
spurt of more adventurous caressing in relation to Sarah, as the hand nearest
to her caught the rim of her minidress and gently lifted it up, thereby
exposing the greater part of her pale-stockinged legs to the rapt attention of
Geraldine's group - an action which precipitated a fresh wave of amazement, not
to say amusement, among them.
"My goodness, what
will the old sod do next?" Geraldine was asking in a patently rhetorical
fashion.
"Are you sure that
wasn't the wind which blew it up?" queried Gowling, who was slightly
myopic in any case.
"Positively,"
Geraldine assured him. "I always
knew my father was a lecher, but really...!" She cast him a sort of reassuring glance,
before adding: "I don't think I ought to watch this any longer."
"Frankly, I don't
think there'll be much more to watch," said Timothy, conscious, now he had
got over his initial shock, of a feeling of jealousy in relation to Lord
Handon's liberties.
"Maybe that's what
you prefer to believe," Geraldine retorted, an ironic smile on her lips.
He shot her a withering
look, but almost immediately regretted it, and relapsed, instead, into a morose
silence.
"I'm surprised that
Girish and Irene aren't more intrigued by their guide's familiarities with the
others," Gowling declared to no-one in particular.
"They appear to be
more interested in themselves," Townley observed. "Arm-in-arm and talking quite volubly,
by the look of it."
"A pity we can't
hear what they're saying from here," Geraldine murmured. "But if we go any closer, they're bound
to see us."
Timothy was beginning to
feel the cold. "In all probability,
they've only got their arms about each other to keep warm," he opined.
"It's not that cold!"
Geraldine objected.
"Yet even if that
applies to Girish and Irene," conceded Townley, "it hardly explains
or justifies the posture, as it were, of the others."
"Quite," both
Geraldine and Gowling confirmed simultaneously.
"Unless, of course,
your father is endeavouring to keep his right hand warm by using Sarah's dress
as a glove," Townley rejoined, in an attempt to elucidate his objections.
"I must say, she
does have a nice pair of legs," Gowling declared half-humorously.
"So does Sheila,
incidentally," the architect revealed.
"Oh? And just when
did you discover that fact?" Geraldine asked.
For Sheila's legs were still modestly hidden beneath her outer garments
at that moment.
"Whilst I was
dancing with her last night, if you must know," Townley replied, divulging
only a part of the truth.
"I see,"
sighed Geraldine, and a slightly-pained expression crossed her face. For she had hoped that Lawrence would have
become better acquainted with her own not-unattractive pair of legs by now. Unfortunately her attempts to lure him into
her bedroom, following the dance, had quite failed, with a consequence that she
had spent the greater part of the night thinking about what she was missing,
conscious of the difference between a thoroughly pleasurable night and the
rather less than thoroughly pleasurable one which she had been obliged to
experience, thanks or no thanks to him!
But perhaps she would get what she wanted before long?
Meanwhile, however, it was her father who appeared to be getting
what he wanted from the two young women on either side of him. Evidently his wants were not as exigent as
Geraldine's but, nonetheless, they were of a sufficiently sensuous nature to be
of some concern to Timothy, who watched, with growing resentment, the liberal caresses
Lord Handon was permitting himself at Sarah's expense. For his right hand had now slipped under her
dress and was more intimately exploring the opera singer's rear, gliding
backwards and forwards across what appeared to be the very same pair of panties
which Timothy had had the privilege of removing only the night before. However, to the latter's relief, Sarah must
have realized that Lord Handon was taking extra liberties with her, and decided
there and then to put a stop to it. For
the hand that wasn't wrapped round his waist suddenly came to the rescue of her
modesty and set about restoring the dress to its former, more orthodox
position, thereby obliging her assailant to adopt a less intimate caress
again. In fact, Timothy almost heaved a
sigh of relief at this point, but, realizing that Geraldine's attention was
partly on him, he checked the impulse to do so at the last moment and
endeavoured to fake a light-hearted smile instead, as though the proceedings
farther afield were only of humorous interest.
If Geraldine saw through him, too bad!
"It looks as if our
little peep-show is about to come to an end," Townley remarked, a shade
disappointedly.
"So it does,"
Geraldine confirmed. For the arms of the
two young women on the bridge had now dropped to their sides, as Lord Handon
turned away from the parapet and began to walk towards the couple to his left.
"They'll be coming
in our direction now, won't they?" Gowling surmised at the top of his
whispering voice.
And, sure enough, the
other group was leaving the bridge and heading towards the beaten path on which
they were still standing, as though locked in suspended animation.
"I feel like
turning back," Timothy confessed, in the throes of a momentary panic.
"Don't be such a
bloody fool!" cried Geraldine.
"They'll be expecting us to bump into them shortly in any case, so
we must go on. But when we do meet them,
try not to look guilty or amused.
Otherwise they're bound to realize that we've been spying on them. Try, if anything, to look surprised."
"What, you
here?" joked Townley, smiling.
"Yes, something of
the sort," Geraldine smilingly agreed, as they continued along the path
and thence out into the less thickly-populated stretch of wood beyond.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The drive back to London was both pleasant and educative, giving
the four passengers in O'Donnell's Mercedes an opportunity to discover more
about the Voice Museum and finalize arrangements for their prospective
recordings. As it happened, both Timothy
and Sarah, who sat next to each other beside Sheila Johnston on the back seat,
agreed to visit the museum together at the same time the following week, while
Sheila made provisional arrangements for another day of that week, and Gowling,
who sat beside the driver, tentatively offered his services for a day in the
week after, when he would apparently be less busy. The other two guests or, rather, ex-guests of
Rothermore House had also, before going their separate ways, put forward provisional
dates, so it rather looked as though O'Donnell would be in for a fairly busy
time in the coming weeks! And with a
little luck, he would be able to show each of them around the museum
personally, in a gesture of confidence.
Their conversation
became more desultory, however, as the drive wore on, and had virtually
petered-out by the time they reached the outskirts of London. Sheila was the first to go, since she lived
way south of the Thames, and then, at Chelsea, Gowling alighted with a sigh of
relief. That left Timothy and Sarah,
and, since he lived in Highgate and she in Hampstead, he was the next to be
dropped off. Not surprisingly, he was
almost tempted to offer her a parting kiss when she put a farewell hand on his
nearest thigh, but, mindful of O'Donnell's ignorance of their intimacy, he
refrained from doing so at the last moment, making do, instead, with a parting
smile. O'Donnell simply nodded farewell
and, as soon as Timothy was safely on the pavement, roared away again in his
expensive motor. After dropping Sarah
off in Hampstead he would proceed to his semidetached in Golders Green, where
he lived in bachelor confinement.
Whether he would continue to live in such confinement much longer,
however, remained to be seen. For he had
certainly taken more than a passing fancy to Irene!
Arrived home, Timothy
immediately set about preparing himself some supper. He hadn't eaten since lunch and, as it was
nearly four o'clock when they left Rothermore House and had now just gone
seven, his stomach was in need of some refreshment, not to say fuel. It might have been more sensible, he thought,
had they stayed on at Lord Handon's for tea instead of rushing away before it
got too dark. But O'Donnell had wanted to
see one or two of the sights of Crowborough while some daylight remained, and
had accordingly insisted on their leaving during the afternoon. One could tell that even this was too late
for Lady Handon, who, as previously noted, had wanted to get rid of them all in
the morning. Her husband, however, was
less keen to see them go, and that was the main reason why they had remained
there for the better part of the day. No
doubt, he was intent upon furthering the morning's intimacies! Either that or he didn't want to be left
alone with his wife and daughter too soon!
Yet, as far as Timothy could tell, the morning's intimacies had not been
furthered, so the good viscount was obliged to make do with desultory
conversation and, when that failed, a game of
billiards with Nigel Townley - an occupation which appeared to mollify
him in some measure.
Timothy ate supper in
the kitchen of his four-roomed flat. He
was both pleased and relieved to be back from what, for him, had been an
unprecedented experience. But, by God,
how small everything seemed! The kitchen
looked ten times smaller than usual - more a cupboard than a room. And what applied to the kitchen would
doubtless apply to each of his other rooms as well - all cupboards! To be sure, the difference in scale from the
rooms at Rothermore House was indeed tremendous, more tremendous than he would
have been capable of contemplating had he never set foot in the place. It was almost a comedown being back home
again. A comedown? How quickly the aristocratic criteria of Lord
Handon's stuffy old baroque mansion had made their mark on him, influencing his
soul in a way he would ordinarily have considered pernicious or misguided! No, not so much a comedown, the rational part
of his mind now told him, as a radical change-of-scale. But isn't that more to your liking?
Ah yes, there at last
was the philosophical part of his psyche reasserting itself again, reminding
him of who he was and what he believed in as a person. It was coming to his rescue, coming to combat
the pernicious influence of his recent misguided experiences. That old Nietzschean 'transvaluation of all
values' was making its voice heard above the babble of contradictory feelings
and impressions once more. He could hear
it quite clearly now, as he sat in front of his mug of steaming coffee and
plate of cheese-and-tomato sandwiches.
Calm, reassuring, methodical, a reassertion of his customary values....
No, it wasn't a comedown to be sitting back here in one's tiny kitchen after
the materialistic opulence and expansiveness of Rothermore House. On the contrary, one had simply returned to
one's own more evolved level, a level in which materialism was scaled-down, as
it were, to a bare minimum. One had
returned to the late-twentieth century again, to a world of flats and small
city houses. It was a very different
world from the old aristocratic one of large country mansions. And faced with a choice between living in a
small flat or a large mansion, one could hardly be blamed for coming down
heavily in favour of the former. One
simply followed one's logic until it attained to a realization of the fact that
one was closer to the Holy Ghost by living in a flat or small-city house than
ever one would be in a large country mansion.
Not a great deal closer perhaps.
But still, on a higher level of evolution than the person surrounded by
nature on some country estate. One was
morally better off, and that was worth knowing. Such was the way, at any rate, that Timothy
Byrne looked at life, and he was confident that there were plenty of others who
would be just as capable of looking at it from a similarly objective viewpoint
- objective, that is, in terms of the Holy Ghost and the struggle for inner
truth.
He smiled to himself as he swallowed the last mouthful of
sandwich. In his mind's eye he saw the
stern, rather embittered face of Lady Handon, as she disagreed with his concept
of the Diabolic, saying: 'I really cannot reconcile myself to your attitude
towards the stars and nature.' Ah well,
too bad, Lady Pamela, too bad! We don't
all live on the same evolutionary level, after all. Some of us virtually live in the Middle Ages,
some in pagan times, others even aspire, if that's the right word, to the
primeval, and yet others live in a mixture or combination of them all. But then, of course, some live more
up-to-date - in fact as far up-to-date as the last quarter of the twentieth
century. A few are effectively spiritual
leaders and consequently expressive of viewpoints which may well sound strange
to those who lag behind. And the further
they lag behind, the stranger these viewpoints are likely to sound. A genuine pagan would have been even less
disposed to accept Timothy's views of the stars and nature than Lady
Handon. Fortunately, however, genuine
pagans were few-and-far-between these days.
Evolution was against them. It
disliked laggards.
Yet what of the spiritual leaders? Was evolution encouraging them as much as it
could, and, if so, had Timothy Byrne a right to consider himself blessed with
the privilege of such leadership? Yes,
he liked to think so - at least as far as his thinking, his theories, were
concerned. Naturally there would be
those who, when once they read his latest published work, would be only too
ready to consider him mad or bad, or both.
But so what? Did that prove he
really was? In all probability their
thinking - assuming they thought anything at all - was simply at a lower stage
of evolution and therefore indisposed them to relate to him. It was nothing to be surprised at. There were millions of Lady Handons in the
world, and what they thought was usually little more than what others had
thought for them, and not generally the most up-to-date or progressive people
either! Let them have their little
grumble, if that was all they wanted. He
would not be thrown off course by that, but would stick to his intellectual
guns and fire away at the body of outmoded tradition, of entrenched reaction
and dogmatic denial. And if, after all,
he was wrong and could be proved so?
Well, damn it, he would still fire away for all he was worth and assert his
thinking over everyone else's. It was
his own life to do with as he saw fit.
And if he saw fit to regard human evolution as a sort of struggle from
diabolic alpha points to a divine omega point, from the stars to the Holy
Spirit - well then, that was his affair and nothing could take it away from
him, not even the combined efforts of all the Lady Handons in the world put
together. As long as he lived, his truth
lived with him. It was germane to him
and a reflection of his degree of evolutionary sophistication. He had a right to think of the Alpha in
diabolic terms, for he had gone so far in the contrary direction ... that there
was no other reasonable possibility.
Willy-nilly, the Alpha is entitled to the respect accorded to divinity
until the coming of the Omega shows it up and puts it in an immoral light. For alpha and omega are incommensurate, and
if there is to be an omega point, there can be no continuing allegiance to the
Alpha. Self-realization necessarily
excludes worship.
He finished off his last
cheese-and-tomato sandwich and gulped down the rest of his coffee. His new book was bound to cause some
disagreement or disapproval among people.
Good, let it impinge on the cobwebs of their conservative thinking and
rouse their feelings a bit! God knows,
some of them needed to have their feelings roused, to be shocked out of their
smug complacency! And if it stirred them
into writing him abusive or threatening letters, so be it! He would bear his cross as best he could,
regardless. He wouldn't go along with
those who thought 'God's in His Heaven and all's right with the world.' The Devil was in its Hell all right, but, so
far as he was concerned, God had yet to be established in His or, rather, its
Heaven. Only with the climax of
evolution would man attain to God, in his opinion. Only with the transformation of spirit into
holy spirit, transcendent and pure, would God actually become manifest in the
Universe.
Thus Timothy saw himself
in the unique position of being a spiritual leader who was yet an atheist, a
man of God who disbelieved in God's actual existence, preferring to contend
that it was our duty, as evolving beings, to create ultimate
divinity in due course, to further the cause of divine truth in the Universe by
cultivating the spirit as much as possible.
God, then, was the
culmination of evolution, the divine flower at the end of the stem of human
progress, the climax of Eternal Life. By
cultivating the spirit Timothy believed that we were not so much getting into contact
with God, contrary to what most mystics had hitherto imagined, as simply with
that which, in pure consciousness, was potentially God - incipiently
divine. The spirit and the Holy Spirit
were not identical. For the latter was
destined to arise out of the former as it became transcendent. As yet, however, spirit was all too impure,
held back and down, as it were, by the flesh.
Some presumption, indeed, to equate this spirit with God!
With supper out of the way, Timothy decided to call a halt to these rather radical reflections and
do some meditating before going to bed.
He was quite tired now and anxious to make up, in due course, for any
sleep missed the previous night. Ah, how
Sarah had drained him of physical energy, or such of it as he had still possessed
after the fatiguing exertions of their dancing match! A sexual vampire, if ever there was one! But a very beautiful woman, he had to admit. Too beautiful, in fact. The kind of woman who could quickly drain one
of spiritual energy, too!
He switched off the
kitchen light and ambled across the passageway to his study, which was where he
preferred to conduct his brief stints of Transcendental Meditation these
days. The light was somewhat brighter in
there and quite dazzled him as it came on, causing his mostly paperback library
to gleam back at him from the opposite wall.
Ignoring that, he advanced towards his dark-green notebook, which lay
where he had left it on the desk beneath the study's single window, and,
opening it at the page where he had made his last entry only a couple of days
before, began to read:-
I like de Chardin's phenomenology, or theory of
cosmogenesis. In fact, it has had some
influence on my own work. But I'm rather
sceptical about his Christogenesis, especially with regard to a literal
resurrection of Christ and the consequent inference of an already-existent
Omega Point compounded, so to speak, of the spiritual presence of the Risen
Christ. This would suggest the existence
of God, and I am unable to reconcile myself to it. However, I do believe that, considered
figuratively, the Resurrection can be regarded as a symbolic illustration of
man's future destiny in spiritual transcendence. Hence the Universe could be said to entail a
literal Christogenesis insofar as it is man's destiny to follow the symbolic
example of the Risen Christ and ultimately attain to the Omega Point, attain,
in other words, to the Holy Spirit, the climax of evolution - call it what you
will. But as for Christ Himself, no, I
can't for one moment believe that He literally rose from the dead and actually
attained to the Omega Point two millennia ago - particularly in light of the
fact that, even in this day and age, we have such a deplorably long way to go
in developing our spiritual potential, and, as a corollary to that, to pairing
back and eventually transcending the natural, ours no less than that pertaining
to nature in general.
Timothy smiled to
himself in deference to the almost Nietzschean implications of the latter part
of the last sentence, before turning back the page of his notebook to a note
written earlier that same day. It read:-
Like Aldous Huxley, I am opposed to downward
self-transcendence but in favour of upward self-transcendence. I believe the future belongs to LSD or some
such hallucinogenic alternative.
Increasingly we shall avail ourselves of the synthetic, turning away
from the natural, as from a narcotic plague.
And above it another
note, reading:-
They say that, like art, literature is dead, but
this isn't really so! Literature is
simply undergoing a process of transformation into a higher stage of evolution,
becoming less a matter of illusion and more one of truth, like art. In this transitional age, the most advanced
literature is that which aspires most consistently and successfully towards
truth or fact at the expense of illusion and fiction. In this regard, the philosophical stands
above the autobiographical, the transpersonal above the personal. Hence novels like Island (Huxley) or The Call-Girls (Koestler) are superior to, say, Tropic
of Cancer (Miller) or Sons and
Lovers (Lawrence). But these predominantly autobiographical
novels are, by a like-token, superior to novels of a traditionally and/or
conventionally fictitious cast.
He smiled to himself
once more, this time in response to a reflection on the shortcomings of the
above note, which, while doing relative justice to conventional bourgeois
literature, absolutely failed to embrace the extent to which computers would
revolutionize literature in terms of an artificial conceptualism that, in
relation to conceptual precedent, would be effectively superconceptual, and
proceeded to read the first note on the left-hand page, which was strictly
autobiographical:-
I am incapable of writing inconsequential works -
novels which revel in silly fictions and half-baked illusions. If I do not write philosophical bombshells,
pushing the pursuit of truth to greater heights, I don't write at all. My imagination dries-up before mere
story-telling. It requires a worthier task!
Ah, how true that statement
was! He closed his notebook and stood a
moment staring blankly through the dark window, out into the night. He wasn't a petty man to waste valuable time
scribbling silly fictions! It was his
duty, he felt, to further the philosophically- and/or autobiographically-biased
literature of late-twentieth-century man.... Admittedly, it was still necessary
to commit a certain amount of illusion or fiction to paper, but one did so
begrudgingly and sparingly, always with a view to supporting one's
philosophical bias. For if one was
foolish enough to allow it to swamp one's work, to move from the plane of
foundations to that of the principal edifice, one simply produced poor
literature, that is to say, poor by late-twentieth-century standards -
reactionary or traditional, a literature seemingly in the service of the
perceptual rather than standing on its own conceptual terms in philosophical
opposition to the theatrical, whether anterior or, preferably, posterior to it. For the perceptual and the conceptual were
two quite separate ways of approaching life, and there was no sense in which
the perceptual was inherently superior to the conceptual. On the contrary, it was a barbarous alpha,
not a civilized omega. The one stemmed
from dreams, the other could be said to presage meditation.
Absentmindedly, he
pulled the bright cotton curtains across the dark window and then turned
towards the centre of his study. He
normally meditated sitting cross-legged on a cushion on the floor, but he
wasn't now sure that he really wanted to meditate, after all. Somehow the day had caught up with him,
making him too tired to adopt a positive attitude towards his spirit. He would run the risk of relapsing into a
kind of downward self-transcendence in trance-like stupor. He could end-up experiencing his subconscious
mind rather than his superconscious one, his perceptual senses rather than his
conceptual spirit. No, he could do
without that, especially after his experiences of the last two days! He'd had enough truck with the Diabolic Alpha
at Lord Handon's. In a short while he
would be sliding down into his subconscious anyway, to dream the
devil-knew-what, so he might as well save himself the inconvenience of
premature subconscious domination in the study.
After all, it was the noblest of his four rooms, the one most suited to
the cultivation of spirit. It wouldn't
do to fall asleep there! God knows, it
was difficult enough to cultivate spirit at the best of times, what with all
the diurnal occupations and obligations with which one had to contend. Even more difficult when one lived in an
environment, as Timothy used to do, in which dogs were gruffly barking most of
the time. Hellishly so!
Fortunately, however,
all he now had to contend with was tiredness, yet that was more than
enough! He decided, there and then, to
take himself off to bed and make-up for this spiritual lapse some other time -
perhaps the following day. Then he might
be in a better frame-of-mind to cultivate the godly and aspire towards
transcendent spirit.
And, sure enough, the
following evening he set aside half-an-hour for the objective in question. As a rule, he preferred the evening to the
day because, to him, it was a less evil time, the sun having its primary influence
on the opposite side of the globe. The
evening world was accordingly at the farthest physical remove from the Diabolic
Alpha, and thus it was easier, he believed, to aspire towards the Divine Omega
then than at any other time. Aspire,
yes! But not attain to it! For there was an immense difference, he felt
obliged to remind himself, between spirit and holy spirit, between that which
was potentially God and the actual transcendent establishment of God in due course. To underestimate this could prove fatal. He had no intentions of doing so!
Yet he got a surprise
that evening. For no sooner had he
completed his meditation routine and begun listening to some synth-based music
than the telephone rang, and who should it be but Sarah Field! He almost jumped out of his skin at the clear
sound of her voice, sweetly alluring as ever.
Had he got over his visit to Rothermore House? Yes, he had.
Was he happy to be back home?
Yes, he was. Had he decided what
he would say at the Voice Museum on Thursday for O'Donnell's commercial
benefit? No, he hadn't. Would he be free for a friendly get-together
on, say, Monday or Tuesday evening? Er
... yes. But where?
"I'll come and see
you, if you like," Sarah replied.
"I'd love to see your flat."
"Oh, you would,
would you?" (Gentle laughter at Sarah's end of the line.) "Well, in
that case, Tuesday will be fine."
CHAPTER NINE
Tuesday evening was in fact when Sarah arrived, looking like a
beauty queen - or so it seemed to Timothy's overwrought imagination - and
bringing a recording of Massenet's Werther, which she wanted him to
hear because she was on it.
"I know you're
familiar with the work itself," she stated, as he took the slender box-set
in his eager hands. "But since it's
the only recording I've so far made in French, it may prove of some fresh
interest to you."
"Decidèment,"
Timothy smilingly assured her.
"We'll put it on straightaway."
"Please don't feel
under any obligation to," said Sarah, following him into his
sitting-room. "I mean, you needn't
play it just because I'm here." But
Timothy seemed resolved on playing it now, and so she was obliged to let
him. "Ah, what a nice room this
is!" she enthused, while taking off her coat. Underneath she wore a pale-green satin
miniskirt with black nylon stockings and matching high-heels. Her dark hair hung down her back in a plaited
ponytail.
"Yes," Timothy
agreed. "It's where I like to
relax." Although, with the
ravishing proximity of Sarah Field in front of him at that moment, he felt
anything but relaxed! In fact, her image
had played on his mind throughout the past few days, keying him up for the
present. He could hardly be blamed
therefore if, no sooner than he had set side one of Werther
in motion, he took her in his arms and lovingly applied his mouth to hers.
To his gratification,
she responded warmly, enabling him to unzip her skirt and run his hands over
her ample behind, as though to erase the imprint of Lord Handon's liberties
there the week before. It seemed that she,
too, was keen to explore the pleasures of the senses. For her hand took care of his zip shortly
afterwards.
"Are you going to
let me open your purse again?" he teasingly inquired of her.
Purse?" she
queried, wrinkling-up her brows in feigned puzzlement.
"You know," he
smiled, still teasing.
A knowing blush suffused
her cheeks. "Provided you put
something rich into it," she joked.
He needed no further
encouragement on that score but lifted her off her feet and set about the task
to-hand, removing her tiny nylon panties with one hand and freeing his
already-erect penis with the other. In
the background, so to speak, the disc was well under way, but now that he was
succumbing to the physical enticements of Sarah's moist 'purse', it meant
little or nothing to him. He was quite
familiar with the libretto anyway, and preferred not to hear certain parts of
it again - for instance, the lines sung by Werther in Act One, which went:-
O nature
enivre-moi de
parfums.
Mère
eternellment jeune, adorable et pure!
O nature!...
Et, soleil,
viens m'inonder
de tes rayons!
and clashed violently with his own philosophical viewpoint
concerning nature and the sun. No, he
could certainly do without that, even
though it was something of a pleasure to hear the voice of Sarah following on
behind, in her role as Charlotte.
But the opera singer's
body was more interesting to him now than her voice and, since he hadn't had
much tangible sex these past few years, he was keen to satisfy his needs in
some measure, to redress the balance slightly or, at any rate, pay some dues to
the world, as it were, for being a man rather than a god. Besides, he had become slightly less
theocratic and correspondingly more democratic off late, which made coitus
virtually de rigueur.
Yes, he put something rich
into her empty 'purse' all right, filling it up with tiny pearls of glistening
sperm the making of which caused her to squirm in an ecstasy of sensual delight
and expend her wealth in due course. Oh,
she clung to him like a leech, draining every last drop of the precious deposit
from him, as though her very life depended upon it. But then, all of a sudden, it was over, and
he withdrew from her with the rapidity of a passing tornado, leaving her
ravished form to topple to the carpet just in front of the electric fire. He had filled her 'purse' all right, but what
if she became pregnant? Would he marry
her? Would he be capable of living with
an opera singer - he, a man of the spirit?
He turned towards her and said: "Sarah, supposing you become pregnant
...?" But the words sounded hollow
and he immediately regretted it.
Somehow, one shouldn't ask such embarrassing questions!
Yet, to his surprise,
she calmly answered: "I take the pill, Tim."
The pill? Ah, yes!
Why hadn't it occurred to him?
She wouldn't have allowed him to have his way with her otherwise, not
with her professional life to consider and the fact that they had only known
each other less than a week - since last Thursday, in fact. No, of course not! How stupid of him to panic.
"Would you rather I
became pregnant, then?" she asked, to his further surprise.
"Well ..." and
he hesitated, wondering how best to answer.
For, in a sense, he would, since he had put so much effort into
satisfying their mutual desires. It
seemed a waste of energy that she was defeating his sperm with the pill. A futile, not to say gratuitous,
undertaking. But, on the other hand, he
hadn't known her long enough to be confident that she would make a good wife;
wasn't absolutely convinced that it would be in their mutual interests to
embark upon the hazardous course of raising a family.
Naturally he was pretty
keen on her, might even have fallen in love with her in his own offhand way,
and couldn't pretend that he didn't want to get married some day. But whether to this particular woman ... that
was something he couldn't very well tell at present. All he knew for sure was that he didn't want
to rush into anything prematurely, like he risked doing this evening. He did, however, want to make some woman pregnant
sooner or later, to have a son or a daughter and thus play a part, no matter
how small, in keeping the human race going.
For it was only through propagation that humanity could continue to
evolve and one day attain to the climax of evolution, only through reproducing
itself that it could eventually attain to transcendent spirit. His son or daughter would be chronologically
closer to this long-awaited consummation of evolution than himself, and that
was worth knowing. The heavenly Beyond
was our goal all right, but we couldn't get to it without reproducing ourselves
en route. Willy-nilly,
propagation was a must.... "Well," he said again, "I suppose I'd
like you to become pregnant eventually, but I've no desire to rush you into
anything." In fact, this was said
in spite of himself, in order not to hurt her feelings. For he still wasn't absolutely sure that he,
personally, would want to make her pregnant.
Sarah smiled
understandingly and put her arms round his waist. "I wouldn't allow you to rush me into
anything," she softly assured him.
"But if I really
wanted to give you a child?" he remarked.
"I'd probably allow
you to," she responded.
Timothy was visibly
surprised. "Just like that?"
he sceptically asked.
"Yes, because it's
better that way, better to have a child by a man who really wants to give you
one ... than by someone you have to coax it out of, like he's afraid of the
consequences or something," Sarah replied.
"But what about
your opera career?"
Sarah frowned slightly
and closed her eyes a moment, before saying: "It could wait."
"Wait?"
"Oh, don't think I
don't love singing," she assured him.
"But if I could love a man more, then my career would have to take
second place."
"You wouldn't
consider it a waste of your professional time then, having a child?" he
conjectured sceptically.
"Not if the man was
worthy of my love," she confirmed, smiling. "A woman first and foremost, a singer
secondly."
"Even if you were
on the verge of world fame?"
Again Sarah hesitated a
moment before replying, turning her face towards the electric fire as though to
gather strength from its bright orange filaments. "Yes, even then," she said,
swallowing hard.
Timothy was indeed
surprised! He had never been in such a
seemingly privileged position before. It
was almost disconcerting to hear her admit such a thing. Enough to make one feel guilty. "And you consider me worth sacrificing
your career for?" he tentatively and almost bashfully inquired of her.
She sat up beside him
and placed a tender kiss on his nearest cheek, saying: "Yes, Tim, I
do. For a while, at least."