Christine Brooke-Rose: The Brooke-Rose Omnibus

— I was talking to myself. I was just saying that I forgot to ask Mrs. Jim to buy me a packet of gruel when she went to the market this morning. I couldn’t go myself because Mrs. Mgulu wanted the sheets changed in three of the guest-rooms, her friends from Kenya are leaving you see and others are arriving. She didn’t say where from. And then I remembered that I had an extra packet stored away behind the tins for just such an emergency.

It is not, however, January. Early December must be the latest possible time for flies to make love. For flies to have sexual intercourse. Unless perhaps a certain period has already elapsed since that episode, if indeed it occurred. The flies may have been a product of the fine network that functions in depth, in which case they will certainly have got caught in the cobwebs.

The squint, very wide and very blue, hovers in the doorway, a planet off course, a satellite out of orbit. The skin around the eyes, both the mobile eye and the static eye, is waxy. There is no reproach in the mobile eye. The emotion expressed is nearer to concern. The static eye expresses only off-ness, since it is static, and it is this off-ness which emphasises whatever emotion the mobile eye is expressing.

— Would you rather have your gruel now or later? It makes no difference to me.

— I’ll be along in a few minutes.

— I can bring it to you here if you like.

Sooner or later the other question will occur also.

— No, it’s all right.

Most eyes are an octave, one note repeating the other. These are a ninth, sometimes an augmented ninth. The two waves of light, like the two waves of sound, are not quite parallel, and may cause the minute voltages of the neural cells to rise from five microvolts to ten for example. An oscillograph might reveal curious fluctuations. These would not, however, represent the waves of light or sound emanating from the eyes or from the augmented ninth.

— The only snag about hiding things for emergencies is that one forgets, either that one has hidden them, or where one has put them. It was just by chance that I took down a tin of curried chicken to read the recipe — it’s a rather succulent one and I wanted to cheer myself up a bit — and there behind it I saw the extra packet of gruel.

— I used to be an electrician, actually.

— I thought so, from your delicate hands. Now let me see, there is a temporary vacancy for an oscillographer up at Government House. In the Gallup Poll Department. I take it you play all the instruments?

— Was there anything at the Labour Exchange this morning?

— I didn’t go.

— Oh, you said you would. You haven’t been for three weeks.

— And before that I went for eighteen months.

— Well at least you got the unemployment pills. Just look at you. Well, I promised Mrs. Mgulu you would go up and see her head gardener this afternoon. It’s very kind of her to have arranged it, you know. She takes an interest.

Beyond the tall wrought-iron gate the mimosas are in bloom, gracefully draping the top of the white pillars on either side. Single branches also droop over the white wall that separates the property from the road. Beyond the mimosas the plane-trees line the drive, casting a welcome shade. No. Beyond the mimosas the plane-trees line the drive, forming with their bare and upward branches a series of networks that become finer and finer as the drive recedes towards the big house, discernible through the leaflessness. One half of the tall wrought-iron gate is open, by remote control perhaps, unless it has been pushed open by an effort of the will.

— You have to go round the back, past the kitchen garden, you know. There’s a black painted door in the wall, and you ring the bell, it’s a cottage really, the head gardener lives there. He’s expecting you at three.

Sometimes the gruel is brought.

Mrs. Mgulu sits graciously at her dressing-table, brushing her thick black hair into sleekness and she takes an interest. Mrs. Mgulu sits graciously at her dressing-table, having her thick long black hair brushed into sleekness and she takes an interest. She takes an interest in the crackling electricity of her hair which is being brushed into sleekness by a pert Bahuko maid, whose profile is reversed in the mirror. Mrs. Mgulu does not choose to be touched by sickly Colourless hands. In the tall gilt-frame mirror the smooth Asswati face smiles, mostly at the front of the head framed by the long black hair, with self-love in the round black eyes and in the thick half-open lips, but occasionally with graciousness at the reflection of the white woman changing the sheets on the bed behind the head framed by the long black hair. The white woman can be seen in the mirror beyond the pert profile and beyond the smooth Asswati face, whose smiling black eyes shift a little to the right, with graciousness, and then a little to the left, with self-love. A psychoscope might perhaps reveal the expression to be one of pleasure in beauty, rather than self-love. The scene might occur, for that matter, in quite a different form. The personal maid, for example, could be Colourless after all.

— Oh, no. I mean, she’d have to assist me in my bath. Oh, no.

— Why not? says somebody or other representing some thing dead, but there is no person in the mirror.

— Even my husband Dr. Mgulu, who stands on an Inter nationalist Platform, would not let his white boy assist him in his bath.

— And yet, says somebody or other, his eyelids are the right colour.

The waxiness is due to a deficiency in the liver. The waxiness, hovering in the doorway, hides behind a curling wisp of steam. There is no reproach in the mobile eye, the emotion expressed is nearer to concern, veiled a little by the curling wisp of steam.

— The post has come. There’s one for you, it’s the Labour Exchange. I’ve got a letter too, I can’t think who from. It gets on my nerves the way Mrs. Ivan opens tins and leaves them out on the table in there. It smells even in the corridor. I wonder how they haven’t poisoned themselves. I can’t read the postmark.

The circle of steaming gruel in the bowl is greyish white and pimply.

— I know this writing, I know it very well, but I just can’t — let’s see — oh I do believe — yes it’s from Joan Dkimba née Willoughby, she was at school with me. You don’t know her, she married very well, dear Lilly I’ve been meaning to write for ages but I’ve been so busy I wonder how you are, well I hope, here all is well too except that the children all had measles one after the other instead of all together according to our records you have not reported to this Exchange for three weeks a terrible bout of gastric trouble but I’m better now, poor thing I must send her some Duodenica, Denton is doing very well he is Chief Spokesman now you must have seen his name he travels a lot too and unemployment benefit cannot be administered retrospectively. We cannot keep any person on our books who does not report daily. Your group’s reporting time is: 8 a.m. Daily from 8 a.m. a gnarled left hand lies immobile on the next human thigh at the Labour Exchange. Sooner or later a name will be called out and the thigh will slope up in a vertical position, slowly or suddenly according to this terrible wave of unemployment which I hope hasn’t reached you in any shape or form you being such a very active person well at least she remembers that about me, isn’t that nice, and er-er-er-er — ever down your way I’ll look you up though at the moment it seems unlikely. However one never knows and in the meantime do let me know how you’ve been faring yours ever Joan.

Some of the gruel’s white globules remain attached to the rounded white sides of the bowl. Sooner or later there will be a movement to make, a raising of the haunches, a shuffling of the feet, an emptying of the bladder. Sooner or later a name will be called out, and the next human thigh will slope up into a vertical position though not necessarily in that precise form.