Nicholas Mosley - Hopeful Monsters

My mother was gazing at me with a crumpled look as if there was too much weight on her from the light from the window behind her.

I said — 'Well what made Freud think that these were fantasies and not facts?'

My mother said 'The whole theory of psychoanalysis is built on the idea that they were fantasies.

I said 'But is it true?'

After a moment my mother said 'You do see what you are doing by asking me, don't you?'

I thought — She thinks I am talking about her and me?

At that moment, as so often happened at our family gatherings, the conversation had to be broken off because Watson the parlourmaid came in with tea. There were tomato sandwiches and cakes, which had been old favourites of mine since childhood; so I had to chat to Watson and thank her and tell her how glad I was to see her. I thought — How could anyone ever have thought that spoken words are to do with the imparting of information?

When Watson had gone I said to my mother 'I came across this girl in the north of England — '

My mother said 'I knew it!'

'What did you know?'

'I knew as soon as you came in that you were going to be horrible to me!'

I said 'This girl is nine or ten. She has difficulty speaking.'

My mother said 'You looked so pleased with yourself!' She laughed.

I thought — Freud did not get round to seeing that Oedipus might have wanted to give some sort of nasty shock to his mother?

I said 'This girl has been involved in an incestuous relationship with her father. It seems that this has affected her, and her ability to speak, traumatically. I wondered — this is your line of business — if you could help me do something about her.'

After a time my mother said 'Why do you think this?'

I said 'Why do I think what? That she has had some incestuous relationship with her father?'

My mother said 'My point is, what are you yourself doing when you are telling me this now?'

I thought — If my mother has been drinking, this is simply dull.

Or — If she goes on thinking I am talking about her and me, I can use this?

I said 'What do you mean, what am I doing when I am telling you this?'

She said 'It is not for me to tell you what you are doing.'

I said 'Look, I came here to talk to you about a nine-year-old girl who either is, or acts as if she is, deaf and dumb. You know special schools, don't you? You know people who are involved in child analysis?'

My mother said 'You want to rescue her from her terrible father — or mother?'

I said 'The trouble with psychoanalysis is that it is an evasion of responsibility. Analysts turn any request for help back on to a question of the motives of the person requesting it. I think this is perhaps what causes the real traumas in children: what Freud called the "death wish".'

My mother said 'I see.'

I said 'What if the people being analysed just turned all questions back on to the motives of the analyst? They would usually be too kind — or too sober.'

My mother said 'Get out.'

I said 'But these are facts, not fantasies. What are you going to do about facts?'

My mother said 'You want me to be responsible for a nine-year-old girl?'

I said 'She has to be got away from her father.'

She said 'Like you have to be got away from your mother.'

I said 'We all have to grow up. Will you help this girl?'

My mother said 'You find her attractive, do you, this nine-year-old girl?'

I said 'Did you find me attractive when I was ten?'

My mother said again 'Get out.'

As I went to the door I thought — But I have handled this badly. Then when I was going out of the room my mother called 'Come back!'

I thought — So now we are coming to something interesting in this experiment?

I said 'I'm sorry.'

She said 'What are you sorry about?'

I said 'I don't know. I wanted to say I'm sorry.'

She said 'Of course there is always something attractive about helplessness.' Then — 'But you do know now how to put the boot in, don't you!'

I had come back into the room. I thought — So here is the great goddess Deva, or Kali, dancing in her circle of fire. I said 'I just wanted to help this girl.'

My mother said 'All right I'll help you. What do you want me to do?'

I said 'Is there anything practical you can do about getting her into some special school? She is being looked after at the moment by nuns.'

My mother said 'Nuns are sometimes all right.'

I said 'Will you pay?'

She said 'Yes.'

I said 'Thank you.' Then — 'For God's sake, let's both get sloshed.'

I was standing in front of my mother. She took me by the hand and pulled me towards her. She said 'You stay away the whole summer: you come back and insult your old mother — '

I thought — Yes, this sort of thing -

I said ' — And then I turn up with a ten-year-old bride — '

She said 'You noticed I was tiddly?'

I said 'Yes.'

She said 'How brave of you to tell me!'

I said 'How brave of you to say, how brave of you to tell me — '

She said 'Ah, you see, you're quite fond of your old mother!'

There was a day when I went on my bicycle into the countryside. I was reminded of the time when, as a boy, I had gone to the ruined boathouse: there had been that itch, that pressure, like a demand to be put to the test: to suffer heroically for some phantom: to perform experiments on myself concerning the interactions between creation and destruction. This pressure was here again: I thought — So what do people do: start revolutions, win empires, sail round the globe: pull down roofs over their heads, break up orderliness within atoms. I went on the road which led to the ruined boathouse (one looks at one's childhood from time to time in order to imagine one might be free of it?) but I found that the huge country house had been demolished; there were tractors on the path going down to the lake and the boathouse; this part of my childhood was being erased. I thought — This pressure comes out somewhere, but where, if not in a ruined boathouse on a broken chair? I bicycled on to a country pub and got some beer and sat on a bench outside in the autumn

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sun. I thought — You mean, as we grow up, there are less harmless methods of destruction and creation? There were one or two couples in the bar of the pub; I had not paid much attention to them as I had ordered my beer. Now, looking through a window, I saw two men moving quickly and quietly to a door at the back of the bar: one of them was Mullen. The other was a short man with a round bald head wearing a brown suit. Mullen glanced in the direction of my window as he went through the door: it was as if he had seen me when I had been at the bar, and was now trying to avoid me. The other man had looked like a Russian. I thought — But of course, I would want to imagine he is a Russian! Then — But don't be taken in by this, he really might be a Russian. The two of them had gone out through the door at the back. I thought — Or are they just going to the gentlemen's lavatory, to do just whatever people like Mullen do in gentlemen's lavatories. I went through the garden round the side of the pub; there was a yard at the back, yes, with an outside lavatory; there was no one in it; there was the sound of a car starting up on the road. I was sure that Mullen must have seen me when I had ordered beer. I thought — Well, what if that other man really was a Russian, and they wanted to avoid me? You see what you want to see perhaps; but what do you know? I went round to the front of the pub. There was no car on the road. I thought — This is it, this pressure: other people than myself become involved in images, plans, of destruction and creation.

I had a letter from you, my beautiful German girl. There was the address in your neat, formal handwriting that was like something cut on stone.