Fourteen

'Well, who asked you to come to Munden in the first place anyhow?' said Roland. 'You know damned well why I came. I wanted to be near, near someone I loved, but who did not love me. And she loved you, who did not and never have loved her and yet married her, you swine.' 'Blast! That ruddy bullet has spattered glass all over and into me by the look of it.' Roland wiped his hand over his face. 'Blood everywhere', he muttered and then continued aloud, 'You mean the bloody bitch Alice? You have to be married to her if you want real romance. It's fine for you—wandering around with your tongue hanging out, nursing your marvellous "heart ever faithful" act. I'm married to her. I know—you don't—what it's like to get a good fuck once in a blue moon and spend the rest of the time trying to think up a reply to "darling!" when you are worried to death about some firm trying to dun you for a harvester you have had to buy!' 'It's become very quiet. I held out my hand to see if it's still raining and—no bullets, no sniping, nothing! Do you think the war's over?' Roland stood up. Robin tried to pull him down. 'Don't be a bloody fool! You'll get killed—I only had my hand out. I didn't suggest you stood up. Get 59down you fool! You have all the luck. I get shot at; I get killed; only I don't die. You stand up, you aren't hurt—you collect all the praise for being so erect, so honourable, are called love, a mischievous sprite! Such a charming rogue. Even I smile at your antics sometimes.' 'Do you by Job! I've never noticed it. Unless ... Yes, of course! That ghastly expression! Grinning like a Cheshire cat. It must be your smile! Excuse me! I never knew. Of course! Of course—it's Alice's very own pussy. It must have been smiling. And I thought you were showing your teeth. Allow me to introduce—the right honourable; this is my dear old friend. Excuse me—can you tell me how we got here?' BETA

Count—the cat disappeared—allow me to introduce you to my dear friend Cox! A fellow of infinite jest, my dear chap ... hullo! What's that hellish noise? Of course, it's only me larf-arfing! Anyway you are making noise enough to waken the dead. That includes the living who might as well be dead for all the thinking they do and the dead who remain obstinately alive long after it's time they were dead.

ALPHA

And even myself, whose thoughts and feelings linger on long after I have woken up and remain active and alive in my waking life long after it is expected or supposed (by whom, pray? Shut up!) that I should be dead and buried (where?) In the land of nod, the unconscious, the forgotten, the ... wherever else I am to go to—the Future will do for a sort of royal cemetery as well as the past. Below the Thalamus. The royal cemetery at Ur, Newton, Shakespeare, Descartes. But some are so deeply buried, forgotten, even their names swallowed up, that they need exing the cave. Even metaphors come alive, otherwise the words that are needed achieve the qualities of 'life'. (More bloody metaphors! Who ever could sort out a mass of verbiage like this?) You could try calling it 'Paranoid Schizoid' after—a long way 'after'—Melanie Klein. Good idea. Good dog paranoid schizoid, here, here is a nice piece of jargon for you. Suspicious are you? Take that then! Another great lump of free associations, dreams and their interpretations, poetry, ('all lies', said Plato, sly, suspicious old dog that he was) is hurled at the poor, newborn baby. 'Intelligence', they call the puir, wee thing. Where is that Anarch of the stops and dashes and never-ending Parentheses?—Sterne, they called him, wasn't it? The 60Anarchs of the world of darkness keep a throne for thee, puir, wee Intelligence. A rose by any other name ... might just as well be a stink that smells as foul even if you call it a 'salubrious environment'.