From the Neck Up and Other Stories Page 8
I heard Alan come into the bedroom behind me.
“How did you know?” he said.
I knelt down and opened my drawer. He knelt next to me. “Wow,” he said. “Yours are really… cute.”
My many-eyed monsters looked at him with adoration. I realised that I did still love him, but in a very different way. It wasn’t a love created from boring human concepts of sex and beauty and mutual attraction – to be honest, that side of our relationship hadn’t been great for years anyway. It was a love that came from looking at each other’s monsters and being able to accept them.
We hugged for a long time, and laughed together. Then he broke away, and said, “Oh God. Aggie. I hope she’s okay. If she’s got the monsters too, she won’t have a clue what to do about it.”
We ran downstairs and across the road. Her living-room light was on, but when Alan rang the doorbell, nobody answered. He tried the handle; it wasn’t locked. The door swung back, and he called her name. She didn’t answer.
We crept into the living room.
There, by the light of the television screen, Aggie was only recognisable by her small pink mouth in a sea of long black hair. It came out of her in waves and fell around her on the armchair and over the carpet, and it climbed upwards from her head, twirling together to create a thick beanstalk-like base that stretched to the ceiling and splayed out against the roof. A particularly long, luxurious tress had snaked off to the kitchen; we didn’t look at what it was doing in there. It was overwhelming, too difficult to comprehend. It was Aggie, but it was not.
“Aggie,” whispered Alan.
The hair trembled, then parted in many different places on her body to reveal the many-eyed monsters. They peeked out at us with fearful, guilty stares, as if they had been caught in the act of committing a crime.
But Aggie’s mouth moved, and said, “It’s fine, it’s fine…”
“Aggie? Hold on, we’ll get them off you,” I told her, having no idea how to even begin that task.
“No, no, it’s fine, it’s fine.” The mouth smiled.
I turned to Alan.
“She seems quite… happy,” he said.
It was true. She did seem happy. The smile was gentle, and soft and very believable. It was untroubled.
“Okay then,” I said. “Bye, Aggie.”
“It’s fine,” said the mouth. The hair fell back over the many-eyed monsters and lay still.
So, we went home. We sat side by side on the sofa, holding hands, and had a really good talk about what we wanted out of life. The choice seemed clear. Either buy a Smoothcare and spend more and more time depilating so that we could pass for normal, whatever that was, or face the fact that our many-eyed monsters were here to stay.
It wasn’t that difficult a decision to make. We went upstairs, stripped, opened the drawers, and lay down on the bed. I didn’t see the monsters roll across the carpet; I only closed my eyes and felt them come to me. They put themselves on my skin and the pull was intense, and so good. After that, there was only the feeling of being part of something so much bigger and better than I could ever be.
It came to me at some point during the transformation that I was no longer experiencing any kind of fear. Because, of course, there had been fear. Fear of where that beanstalk hair would lead me. But the monsters had eaten all my fear; in fact, they had sucked up every bad feeling I had ever felt.
I think I reached a state of what some people might call enlightenment.
Far below, Alan’s body still rests next to mine, in that little house we used to call home. We grew together, our hair wrapping around us to make us a thick, springy nest from which we climbed into the sky. The roof of the old house didn’t last long against our tendrils. And far up, up in the clouds, we found other tendrils. The strength we created in numbers was incredible. We built a platform up there, where the many-eyed monsters can have a roll around and a play if they feel they need to detach for a while. It’s such a special place.
I don’t know what will happen when we reach right up out of the sky. I don’t think our monsters do either. This is a learning experience for us all. I don’t really have a concept of good or bad anymore, but I think it might be safe to say I’m having a good time.
I wonder if there are still people out there using Smoothcares, trying to hide their little many-eyed monsters. I wish I could tell them that there’s really nothing to worry about. It’s only a little body hair, after all.
THREE LOVE LETTERS FROM AN UNREPEATABLE GARDEN
You asked me in your last letter, my darling, to name my favourite bloom in the garden. I think it is the only flower that produces a scent I am not permitted to smell.
It is kept in a glass house, specially built for the purpose, you see. Those lucky few of us who tend to it daily must wear masks. There is a very good reason for this precaution, but it does mean that we all imagine the wondrous and famous perfume it exudes. We take turns, late at night in the communal sitting room for the gardeners employed here, offering opinions as to whether it would be more like a rose or a lily, or perhaps unlike any flower yet created.
Sometimes the urge to assuage my curiosity is strong. Even to think of the flower, growing alone in that arched construction of glass, brings on my desire. But never fear, my darling, my mind is stronger than my heart in this respect. No, not my heart – the demands of my body. It is akin to the need to taste strawberries simply because I am near them. These animalistic impulses of self-gratification must be mastered. We are not creatures of the garden, but its guardians. We must stand above it, and for it, at all times.
Imagine if the hordes descended. If the fence was battered down by the sheer weight of numbers, and they screamed and stamped across the perfect lawns, churning them to mud and picking clean the fruit trees in the orchard, ripping up the roses, all in the name of their own pleasure. They would pluck the flowers to make posies in the name of something good. For love, they might claim. For loftier emotions.
Except there are so many of them, of us all, and there is only one garden. It is worth more than humanity. Every emotion we feel has been replicated so many times in so many ways, that they have become meaningless.
But fear not. The fence holds them at bay, and we maintain the fences and the flowers within, and it is good.
My darling, I read back what I have written and must stress that I do not think our love (yours and mine) is cheap, or less than unique; I can imagine your face reading my foolish lines, your perfect face falling as you think I do not care. Let me explain. I am the mind and the man; I am both, but that does not mean the two get along together. I can despise love as the swamp of sensation it has become en masse, and the way many claim to be mired within it. For love: it means, because I am unable to rise above its sticky, fetid depths. Or do not wish to, more like.
But our love is not sticky, and it does not drag me down – it elevates me. It gives me wings to rise above the slime. How can this be? I do not know. I only know that just as there are many kinds of flowers in this garden, so there are many kinds of love. And our love resembles that wondrous flower under glass. I will forever keep it safe. I protect it as I protect the thought of you, cossetted and much cherished in my mind because some things are beyond precious. I cannot explain further, and do not think I have to. I have your understanding about my complexities, just as you have my devotion.
* * *
My darling,
In your reply you asked me to elucidate further on the flower kept in the glasshouse, and so I will tell you the story of how it came to be, because although I am weary I cannot sleep. The night is long and dark with only the snores of the other gardeners in the dormitory for company, but writing to you by soft candlelight makes me feel that you are close, and listening, and so I might do such a story justice with the time and care I lavish upon it, as I imagine your enjoyment of the result.
This is only a story, of course. A story of origins, which are always filled with lies. But I like to think
all stories either spring from truth or lead us to truth at their end. I leave you to decide which is the case with this particular tale and, after I have written it down, I will tell you the very sad news that is keeping me from sleep tonight.
Here is the story:
There was a great sportsman. He was a boxer and he had won many belts knocking each opponent down. He was fast on his feet and with his tongue; he would taunt those he fought, for he said battles were won with words long before the fighting began. He knew this because he had survived a long and vicious war of words with the one person who should have said only kindnesses – his mother. She had repeatedly played the trick, throughout his childhood, of making herself bigger by reminding him of how small he was, and how she could make him even smaller.
He had overcome her words to grow large, and strong. He was a warrior, and a survivor – rich and whole and beloved around the world. But after each victorious fight he felt a wave of shame for the things he had said and the blows he had landed, and he sent every defeated opponent generous gifts and heartfelt apologies to try to salve his smarting conscience.
A conscience is no easy thing to placate. It would not be quiet. Eventually, the thought came to the boxer that he must be enjoying the act of destruction in some way and that he was turning into his mother. He caught glimpses of her small hands when he examined his own meaty paws as he forced them into his padded gloves. It seemed to him that when he struck out at his opponents, he did damage to them through the part of her – the mean, cruel part – that he must have inherited. The fear began to grow in him that he would one day wake as his mother, shrivelled in hate, and all the experts in the world could not persuade him otherwise.
He stopped fighting. He sat in the grand mansion he had paid for with his winnings, and he walked through his vast garden. People came to his gate, hoping to see him, to cheer him, because he was much loved by the public. But nobody entered apart from the staff, who were loyal to him and who refused to speak to anyone about his sadness, for they loved him too.
Their loyalty was such that they had a meeting in which they mooted many ideas to make the boxer happy again. The gardening staff persuaded the others that their best hope lay in the mysterious and vaunted Mrs Tea, and so they all agreed to pool their generous wages in order to employ her and bring her to the garden.
Mrs Tea was talked about reverently by gardeners, because of her gifts with flora. She could breed such beautiful flowers, strange wonders that could lighten a despondent mood or gladden a sad heart, but her flowers could not propagate. Each one was a unique yet doomed experiment. For this reason, her gift was not celebrated in a world beyond gardens, where resources were running out; duplication was demanded by big business in an age of profit and production. But gardeners know that the sweetest moment is unrepeatable. Gardeners live for each bloom and grieve each winter, never taking the rebirth of spring for granted.
So they paid for Mrs Tea to come to the boxer’s garden and create the most wondrous flower of all.
It was pretty to look at – like a daisy with blueish petals and a scarlet heart – but it was the scent that made it so special, and spectacular. The scent was perfection. Each person who sniffed it described it differently, but nevertheless found a peace they had never known before, and that peace lingered for days, months, even years. Some talked of toffee apples at the fair, and others of exotic breezes from far-off islands. Another might remember the newly washed hair of their babies, who had long since grown to adulthood.
The boxer did not describe what he smelled. He took a deep breath in, and then smiled at Mrs Tea and his gardeners, who had formed a line in front of him and the wondrous flower. They were all hoping, hoping, that he would feel succour in his soul.
And he did.
He realised instantly that he was not his mother and he was not not his mother, and either way his life was a distinct and separate organism. He realised that we are all enclosed within our own thoughts: thoughts that others can touch, but never penetrate. Our mistakes are always our own, and we can either punish or cherish ourselves with them as we see fit. All this was, for him, a revelation wrapped in something like lavender.
He thanked Mrs Tea and offered her a full-time position to transform his entire garden. She accepted and created many transient wonders, but none that equalled that first flower, which the boxer surrounded with a small arched glass pavilion in its honour.
The garden became as famous as the boxer, and he returned to the ring and pulverised many more opponents with his words and deeds. Each defeated enemy received an invitation to sniff the healing flower, and all wrongs were righted.
The boxer was happy.
But then he noticed how each sniff of the wondrous flower took its toll upon its petals. Was it his imagination? No – after a particularly nasty match his beaten opponent breathed in the scent deeply, gratefully, and the boxer watched the flower quiver and droop. A lone petal came free and floated gently down to the ground.
The boxer panicked.
Now, gardeners know that flowers cannot last forever. Boxers do not. He was not ready to let that flower go. He gave up fighting once more and passed an order that nobody would ever sniff that flower again. He scoured the world for Mrs Tea, but she could not be found. Instead, he turned to experts who could prolong its life, and under their care the flower survived for years, as did the garden. But it was thought that one sniff more would kill that wondrous yet unbreedable flower; just one sniff and its beauty would be lost from the world forever.
This is where I come in, my darling, as you know, bringing my green fingers to bear upon this marvellous place. To work here, to tend upon that flower, was an invitation I could not refuse, even though it has parted us.
I have been here for – well, how long is it? I ask you as I consider you to be the keeper of the time that has passed between us, and the holder of our mutual memories, while I fill my minutes and my mind with floral thoughts. Anyhow, in that time the boxer sickened for the scent of the flower. But even as he withered, he refused to take one more sniff. I asked him why, once, and he replied:
I would rather die before becoming responsible for removing its beauty from the world.
And that is what he did.
He died.
But now to my sad news.
Our talents have been exhausted. The most wondrous flower is also near death.
It has one petal left, and that petal droops so low. We are all agreed that it is beyond our care. Outside the fence the sick and desperate clamour to be admitted in the hope of healing. What will they do when they find out it is lost? Will they break down the gates and rampage through the place I have protected and nurtured? We are all afraid for our lives, and sick at the thought of the death of the flower.
What should I do? I wish I did not have to wait for you to reply. If only I could see that dear face and hear your wisdom. You would know what to say. Write back instantly, my darling, and impart your thoughts.
Should I come home and abandon the flower in its last moments? Should I leave the other gardeners in danger as I sneak away in the name of the love I feel for you? Or shall I die here, too, in defence of the failing flower?
* * *
Time is short; I will be brief.
In the absence of your guidance I made a decision, my darling. Why could you not write back with good speed? Perhaps the letter is en route. If so, I will never read it because I am leaving here tonight before my actions are discovered.
The mind and the man are not the same. My love for you wished to defend the flower to the last, to make you proud of me. My mind spoke, in the long nights spent awake, of other things.
There are so many people outside the fence, all in need. One final petal on the flower. Only one person could ever benefit from its miraculous scent again.
Let me tell you of that scent. I can elucidate now.
It is the faint salty tang of the calm sea at sunrise, and it is caramel poured on chocolate cak
e, and so many more smells mixed up together into one. It is not a single thought, or memory, or even an individual hope. It is the understanding of the complexity that makes up the simplest of beings. When we celebrate one being alone, we celebrate them all, because there is no way to encompass or explain more than the smallest moments of life. It is beyond us, as a species.
It does not matter that the wondrous flower is now dead, or that the hordes will break down the fence, and trample the garden and the gardeners to destruction. And love! I was right about love. That it is meaningless, and commonplace. There are too many of us for love to be celebrated, or even taken into account when making decisions.
And so, my darling, goodbye. I am happy, if that means anything. It means something to me, and that is all that matters. I can picture your face, your plain and trusting countenance projecting pain as you read these words. So, let me put it simply. I do not resemble that famous boxer in any way at all. I do not shy away from causing pain if I must. In fact, I find I can almost enjoy the act. As an example, I have left you twice now, haven’t I?
The boxer said he would rather die than kill the flower, and he did. I would rather live, for what good is the most beautiful scent in the world if nobody can smell it?
I must go. To steal away before the others wake and venture forth with the sole purpose of maintaining my personal contentment. I will be the one person on this earth who manages that difficult feat. But this is my new mantra: the happiness of one is better than the happiness of none. And if there can be just one happy man, why should it not be me?
CORWICK GROWS
There were a number of old wooden signs that pointed the way. They could be found at crossroads, jutting from the grass verges, listing the local towns and villages on their pointing fingers. At the bottom, in small letters, one would invariably find: