Colin Wilson - Ritual in the Dark

Unreality. Unreality is loss of subjectivity. For five years I have lived in an unreal city. Now it is my city.

It was becoming more difficult to bear the insight. He made a mental act of turning from it, closing his perceptions. A sort of cool darkness supervened. As the first movement of the symphony came to an end, he reached out and turned it off, then lay down.

Before sleeping, he set the alarm for half past four, remembering Caroline. He felt exhausted and purified, and the thought of seeing her was pleasant.

When he woke, the fire was out. The winter afternoon was already turning dark. It was not yet half past four. He reached out for the clock and pressed in the switch that would prevent the alarm from ringing, then got out of bed and switched on the light. He took the new trousers out of the wardrobe and put them on; the knees of the other pair were still damp. As he was transferring his money into the new ones, and searching for a shilling for the gas, he sneezed. It cleared his head. He filled a cup with cold water, drank it down without lowering it from his lips. It dissipated the last of the drowsiness. The mood of certainty had still not disappeared. He put on his jacket, took his heavy overcoat from the wardrobe, and went downstairs. There was a winter smell in the air, a mixture of smoke, coldness and dusk. He walked down Great College Street, past the lighted shop windows, and found it necessary to suppress a desire to run and laugh aloud.

When he let himself back into the room, it was a quarter to six. The shops had been crowded with late Friday shoppers, and hung with banners with the inscription 'Shop Early for Christmas'. He stood the two bottles of white wine on the windowsill, near the open window. For the next quarter of an hour he swept the room, dusted the books, and re-made the bed with clean sheets. He collected together the greasy plates, still unwashed from the supper of the previous night, and the cups and glasses and took these up to the kitchen. While the kettle boiled, he read the evening paper, sitting at the enamel-topped table. The front page dealt with the letters received by the police, and quoted both of them in full. There was a photograph of one of them with the caption: Do you recognise this writing? The writing itself was an illiterate scrawl, with two blots, but no visible fingerprints. The first letter read:

Dear Boss, So the police are looking high and low for me are they? They'll have to look bloody hard to find old kiddo, because he's allergic to flatties. But he'll keep you all entertained with more saucy work if you don't try to rush him. Next time, he'll clip off the ladies' ears and send them to you. I'm not a commie, so don't let the sods take credit for my risks, your faithful servant: Leather Apron. P.S. Please keep this letter back til I can do some more work.

The second letter was shorter:

Dear Boss, I was not kidding when I promised some more work. Got interupted on both jobs, so couldn't get the ears. Will send later. I got some of the real red stuff to write this but it went thick. Thanks for keeping back my first letter, your faithful servant: Leather Apron.

The report stated that both letters were written in red ink, and that both were free from fingerprints.

Hello, Gerard!

The voice from the bottom of the stairs startled him. As she came up, he said:

Blimey, sweet, you nearly gave me heart failure!

Sorry.

He put his arms round the heavy overcoat and kissed her, then lifted the large collar and pressed it against her ears, kissing her cold nose and eyelids. She said: Mmm! You need a shave!

I know. I'm just about to have one.

Can I help you cook?

No thank you, sweet. You can go and sit in front of the fire and play yourself some music.

As her lips brushed past his cheek, she whispered:

I don't have to go home tonight. I've told mummy I'm staying at an all-night party.

Good.

She asked: Why are you smiling?

At what Gertrude'd think if she found out…

The neon lights at Camden Town gave him a sense of well-being. He walked with his arm around her, and was suspicious of the pleasure he took in feeling her next to him.

He could never cease to be conscious of her inexperience, of the fact that she was nearly ten years his junior.

She said: Darling, I feel horribly drunk.

That's all right. You can sleep it off.

Will your landlady mind, do you think?

She won't know. Nobody need know if you leave fairly late.

He felt a kind of pity for her. Her inexperience made her offer herself with no reservations; it was pleasant and a little frightening.

He opened the front door softly, and sent her in first. As they were mounting the first flight of steps, the telephone started to ring. He said, groaning: Oh, Christ, if that's Austin I'll have kittens… Go on up to my room, sweet. I'll answer it.

He said: Hello?

Could I speak to Carlotte, please?

I'll get her for you.

He called into the basement: Carlotte! He went back up the stairs, muttering underneath his breath: Thank God!

She was lying on the bed, still wearing her overcoat. She said:

Oh, sweet, I feel so drunk…

Well, sit up! It makes you feel drunker when you lie down.

Does it?

He collected the greasy plates off the table, and the two empty hock bottles, and took them to the kitchen. He scraped the plates into the wastebin, then placed them in the bowl. He felt too sleepy to go to the bathroom for hot water.

When he got back to the room she was in bed. He felt disappointed; he had hoped to watch her undressing. Her clothes lay across the chair. She lay with her back to him, her face buried in the pillow. He smiled at the blonde head that was almost completely concealed by the sheets; there was something endearing and childlike in her complete lack of any attempt at feminine mystery. Within a few seconds he was in bed beside her, his bare arms encountering the nakedness of her shoulders with a physical shock.

He had been right in supposing her sleepiness would not withstand the strangeness of sleeping with a man for the first time. She turned over immediately, and put her arms around his neck. Exultation bubbled up in him; he remembered the frustration on the boat, and later on her bed at Gertrude Quincey's, and his suspicion that something might prevent him from ever feeling her naked body beside him in bed. It was not true, and the realisation seemed to involve some more general truth that he was too excited to examine. A phrase from the Sibelius third symphony came into his head, and combined with the pleasure that rose in him as he touched her breast. They lay there in the dark, not speaking, only exploring one another's bodies. At that moment, he felt a desire to engulf her, to absorb her completely. She stopped him as he moved his weight across her.

Is it… will it be safe, sweet? I don't want a baby yet!

It'll be all right… don't worry…

He felt her tense under him. He said:

Bite my shoulder if it hurts. Don't worry.

Oh sweet… it… it hurts… oh, it does hurt. Stop it, please.

Her loins tensed, and she writhed away from him. He was not disappointed; on the contrary, he was delighted that he continued to want her, that he had not experienced the usual lurch of the stomach and paralysis of desire, the feeling that it had all been a mistake. He said gently:

Don't get so tense, sweet.

I can't help it. God, does it hurt all girls as much as this?

I expect so.

Have you ever… done it before?

Yes… but let's not talk about it.

I don't mind, really I don't. I wouldn't like you to be a virgin too.

She suddenly began to giggle.

God, imagine what it must be like when the man's a virgin too..!!!

They recognised that in the Middle Ages. You know about the droit de seigneur?