WHEN IN DOUBT — ‘LOOK IT UP’ IN The Encyclopaedia Britannica, THE SUM OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, 32 volumes, 31,150 pages, 48,000,000 words of text. Printed on thin, but strong opaque India paper. A COMPLETE and MODERN exposition of THOUGHT, LEARNING and ACHIEVEMENT, a vivid representation of the WORLD’S PROGRESS, embodying everything that can possibly interest or concern a civilized people, all reduced to an A B C simplicity of arrangement.
So much for the Encyclopaedia. Let me describe how I constructed my desk. Having decided to use the wardrobe door as a surface, I searched for the volumes of the Encyclopaedia, which were scattered about the attic, mixed in with other books. When the set was complete (except for Volume 13, which I could not find), I arranged it into alpha-numerical order. Then I made four pillars out of the volumes: Volumes 1 to 8 for the front-left leg of my desk; 9 to 16 the back-left; 17 to 24 the back-right (replacing the missing volume with a book of similar thickness); Volumes 25 to 32 formed the front-right leg. Now the pillars were in place, I placed the wardrobe door on them.
That is how I constructed my desk. The problem was that now, whenever I wanted to consult the Encyclopaedia, I had to take my desk apart! Let me demonstrate the difficulty. Say, as now, I wish to read about Alessandro Moreschi, I must carry out the following steps:
– Take the computer off my desk and hold it in my hands
– Kneel down before the legs of my desk
– By the light of the computer locate the relevant leg (in this instance the back-right) and, within that leg, the relevant volume (MEDAL — MUMPS)
– Place my computer on the floor with the screen facing the relevant leg
– Stand up, remove the various items that have accumulated on my desk — cups, pencils, rubber bands, books, the tape recorder, Damaris’ diary, paperclips, keys, a hair slide, a lamp, a vase, some stones — and place them on the floor
– Lift the wardrobe door and lean it against the attic wall
– Take the topmost volume of the relevant leg (Vol. 24, back-right) and place it on the floor
– Take the next volume (23) and place it on top of the first (24)
– Repeat the process with the succeeding volumes (22 on 23, 21, on 22, and so on), until the volume I wish to consult (18) is exposed
– Take that volume and, by the light of the computer, locate and read the relevant entry (MORESCHI, Alessandro)
– Enough!
26 June
Oxford. A golden crust, hot from the oven. Me and Evie wander the city, hot and golden ourselves. My skin, her hair (lemon juice, like I told her) in love, why not, and, in a week’s time, with nothing to do for the rest of the summer. She’s coming to London with me. She follows me everywhere. She came to our show last night. He was not surprised to see her. He made a bitchy comment. A chick this time? Too quietly for her to hear. But then, this afternoon, she mentions it. Comes to meet me after rehearsal and we go down to the river. Lying on the grass, my head on her belly as usual. She has a horror of lying on mine, sensitive as she is to the sound of me. Her fingers twining the roots of my hair, as though her fingers themselves were trying to take root in my scalp. Lightly she says, So the last one was a boy? I say, Yeah he was, the boy in the play. Or the chick now. She said he was handsome and what was it like with a boy. Told her me and Jack would show her sometime. I asked if she was jealous (seems that’s always a rhetorical question). No, she says, just curious. I ask if she gets jealous when I’m on stage. What with everyone watching me. She said, No. Then she gives me this big speech, not really looking at me. About how when I’m miming, the audience, strangers to her, to me, to each other, all of them, and her, are looking at me. She says, We forget ourselves. We forget ourselves, and one another. Only you exist. And you? she says, You are oblivious to everyone except yourself. I imagine you to be moving in a different element, a heavy silence, the kind one might experience after a loud and sudden explosion, in the seconds before one’s ears begin to ring. Or some such scat. Then, to herself, Hiroshima after the bomb, what were the first sounds made after that? She went on. She couldn’t say she was jealous at these times cos I was trapped. Trapped in my own silence, or my illusion of it, up there on the stage, with everyone looking at me. She said that at those times she felt nothing but pity for me. For me! That made me angry and I pulled her fingers out of my hair so roughly it hurt, and still hurts. Can’t say exactly why I was angry, but as I write now, I think perhaps it was fear, fear that she was right. Fear of the loneliness that gets me sometimes. I went apeshit on her. Pity for me? You pity me? Look at yourself! You’re trying to dress like me, you follow my hairstyling advice, you’ve started to put on make-up now to make yourself more attractive to me, but you look like a monkey in a wedding dress! You know nothing about life, modern or otherwise, you don’t know what’s hip, you’ve got no sense of humour, no idea how to speak to people, how to behave, how to move or even how to fucking fuck for fuck’s sake! And YOU pity ME?
Here was the silence after the loud explosion. She sat staring at her hands with her pebbly eyes wide open, shining with tears that she would not allow herself to shed. I had no idea, she says. If I am so … pitiful (electric blue mascara now starting to run), why are you … with me?
I thought about the poor swallow and wondered why anyone loved anyone. Because I realized then that I loved her. I was in love with her. I just wanted to take the poor lost freak in my arms and kiss her and that is what I did and as I did I said, Why Evie Steppman, can’t you see, it’s because I pity you. She made a good job of trying to laugh then. Later that night, after we’d fucked she said, puzzled, No sense of humour? How could you say that? I am always laughing. Yeah, Evie, but at things no one else can dig.