‘Wanting doesn’t come into it, I am that which responds.’
‘I think of you and Eurydice,’ I said, ‘and I wonder what the idea of the two of you is.’
‘I think of that constantly,’ said the head. ‘Over and over again I live that golden afternoon by the river when my song brought the strange and many colours of death into her dream.’
‘And yet,’ I said, ‘it was as if she’d been waiting for that song, as if the death in it awakened the life in her — she too is that which responds.’
Just then I heard Melanie’s bare feet on the floor behind me and I closed the fridge as she came into the kitchen. She was wearing my anorak for a dressing-gown and she looked wonderfully naked in it.
‘Anything good in there?’ she said.
‘Three cans of beer, most of a salami, a mouldering of old cheeses, half a tub of margarine, half a jar of marmalade, half a pint of milk, and the head of Orpheus.’
‘Let’s have a look at the head of Orpheus.’
I opened the fridge.
‘Oh my God,’ she said.
‘What do you see?’
‘It’s all right, it’s only a rather filthy old cabbage but I must be very suggestible because just for a moment I could’ve sworn I saw this dreadful-looking head with no eyes and the flesh all eaten away.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it’s a dreadful-looking thing.’ The head of Orpheus went on being itself but it kept its mouth shut as I carried it into the hall and put it in the larder under the stairs.
‘It was the head of Orpheus before it turned into a cabbage, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘For you, I mean.’
‘Yes, it was, and please don’t tell me what Tycho Fremdorf did with his head of Orpheus in the film.’
‘He didn’t do anything with it; he simply watched it go by as it swam upriver. Then he said, “Behind the front of the day the head of Orpheus swims unseen.” The subtitle was “NARDIM DEMSTRA VAJ ONDRA TSINTA ORFNANDO ULZVANJO.’”
‘Then it never told its story?’
‘No, it never spoke, it only uttered a strange unearthly melancholy cry. Istvan did it on the Fairlight; he used the cry of the great northern diver and that sound the rails make in the underground when a train’s coming.’
‘Wheats-yew, wheats-yew?’
‘That’s it; and then the rumble and clacking of the train.’
‘But the head never actually spoke.’
‘Not a word.’
‘It spoke to me.’
‘Well, it isn’t a competition, is it.’
‘I don’t know what it is but I’m trying not to lose.’
‘What did it say to you?’
‘We talked about Orpheus and Eurydice and that sort of thing.’
‘You still want Luise back, don’t you?’
‘How’d we get from Orpheus and Eurydice to Luise and me?’
‘You’ve just answered my question.’
‘No, I haven’t. Luise’s part of the past — it’s just that I’ve been finding it difficult to work my way into the present.’
‘What about what happened earlier this evening? Was that what you call working your way into the present?’
‘That wasn’t work.’
‘I hope not. What are you going to do with that cabbage?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe I don’t have to think about it just now.’
‘Maybe after I leave it’ll be the head of Orpheus again.’
‘I can’t say what it’ll do, we haven’t known each other that long.’
‘You and the cabbage or you and I?’
‘The head of Orpheus and I.’
‘I shouldn’t like to come between you.’
‘I think we’re all in this together, you and I and the head of Orpheus.’
‘In what?’
I was about to say, ‘This story,’ then I decided not to. ‘I don’t know.’
‘For a moment I thought you were going to say, “This story.” I’m glad you didn’t.’
‘So am I.’
12 In the Morning
In the morning I came awake as I always do, like a man trapped in a car going over a cliff. Melanie stirred, clinging to the sleep that was casting her off. I looked at the long line of her back, the sweet Velasquez curve of her hip, then I got up and parted the curtains to see under a dark sky the distant red and green lights of the District Line and the long grey curve of iron sweeping towards Fulham Broadway. It was Saturday; an idle train stood empty while from behind it a Tower Hill train slid majestically round the long and shining curve.
I went to the larder under the stairs and found the head weeping quietly. ‘What is it?’ I said. ‘What are you crying about?’
No answer except a quiet snuffling.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I said, ‘if you’re going to carry on like that at least tell me what’s on your mind.’
Still no answer. I heard Melanie in the kitchen. ‘I’ll talk to you later,’ I said to the head.
Melanie was naked under my anorak again, smooth and sleepwarm as we kissed good morning. I was looking forward to a slow and easy weekend together but in a few minutes she was dressed, had toast and coffee, and gathered herself for departure. ‘Sol’s going to drop off a typescript at my place,’ she said. ‘I’ll phone you later.’
When she’d gone I went to the larder to talk to the head but found only an exhausted-looking cabbage. ‘Once begun, the story must be finished,’ I said, ‘remember?’
Nothing. I put it in a carrier bag, took it to the river, dropped it in, came home and sat down at my desk and typed:
IN THE MORNING
In the morning I came awake as I always do, like a man trapped in a car going over a cliff. Millicent stirred …
No, Millicent wasn’t right.
trapped in a car going over a cliff. Monica stirred …
Definitely not Monica, women named Monica have never fancied me.
In the morning I came awake as I always do, like a man trapped in a car going over a cliff. Melissa stirred, clinging to the sleep that was casting her off.
Page one? I didn’t think so. Suddenly the idea of turning one’s experience into a story seemed not only bizarre but perverted; the idea of such a thing as page one seemed at the very least a monstrous vanity. Where was the beginning of anything, how could I draw a line through endless cause and effect and say, ‘Here is page one’? Well of course either one was a storyteller or one wasn’t, and it looked as if I wasn’t — all I could do was describe phenomena as I experienced them. I looked at the two sentences on my page one attempt until the telephone rang and it was Melanie.
‘There went today and tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Sol’s given me a twelve-hundred-page first novel by the ex-mistress of General Sphincter to read and I’ve got to give him my report on Monday.’
‘Twelve hundred pages! What size?’
‘A4.’
‘Good job they’re not foolscap. Why don’t you do it here? It’ll be really cosy.’
‘No, I’ve got to be in my own place with my own space-time. I’ll ring you Monday.’
Well, I thought as I hung up, there you have it: you need her more than she needs you.
The telephone rang again and Sol Mazzaroth jumped out of it and grabbed me. ‘How’s it going?’ he said.
‘GNGGX. NNZVNGGGG. NNVLL.’
‘Terrific. When can I see it?’
‘FNURRN.’
‘Great. Any time after three.’ He shook my hand and climbed back into the telephone as the dusk wrapped itself around me like a python.
Evening shadows make me blue, I thought in the voice of Connie Francis, when each weary day is through. How I long to be with you, my happiness. The dusk continued both as python and ambience as it filled the room with what the dusk brings, roads and faces long gone, action not to be revoked, the past that is always now and