Nicholas Mosley - Hopeful Monsters

I wanted to send some message to you — Don't worry, this is all right, my angel, my loved one.

I said to Caroline 'I should have got in touch with you before, but I did hear from Melvyn that you were all right.'

Caroline said 'Melvyn says that you're now with some Fascist tart holed up in the north.'

I said 'She's not a Fascist tart, she's an agent in occupied territory.'

She said 'She is?'

I said 'She saved me when I was going to be shot; I mean, not by your friend, but by the other side.'

Caroline said 'It doesn't seem you were very popular.' Then 'But I never believe anything you say, you see.'

I said 'But you were all right?'

Caroline told me how she had made a great success of her reporting from Barcelona in the early days of the Civil War; her reports had been taken up by a national newspaper in England. She had come home, had gone out to Spain again in 1937, had been in Barcelona for the fighting between Stalinists and Trotskyites. She had, in fact, got a scoop because she had been with her boyfriend, the man with the beard, when he had been arrested by Stalinists. While Caroline talked she leaned towards me and I found that I was leaning slightly away from her: it was as if she were wearing scent to cover up some quite different smell.

I said 'Then you're on your way to becoming a top-class journalist.'

She said 'I am a top-class journalist!'

I said 'That's good.'

She said 'When you can't think of anything else to say, you always say "That's good"!'

I thought — Well, that's quite witty.

She told me a little about her life in Barcelona with Buenaventura, the man with the beard. I watched her mouth as she talked. I thought — People feed on the violence of war as they feed on Melvyn's pornography; then they spew it out again, chewed, like sick, to feed others.

Caroline was saying 'He did the most fantastic things with the co-operatives, he got them working round the clock.'

I said 'Did he hang little tassles on them?'

She said 'On what?'

I said 'The co-operatives.'

She said 'You are disgusting!' Then 'I'm not going to stay with you if you're still like that!'

I thought — Then good, it will be — God forbid.

She said 'And anyway what about you and Spooks?'

I said 'Why do you call her Spooks?'

She said 'Melvyn calls her Spooks.'

I said 'Do you still see Melvyn?'

She said 'Now don't start that again!' Then — 'Do you and she roll about in the snow in the frozen north?'

Caroline and I got rather drunk. I told her a fanciful version of the story of the battle I had been involved in in Spain — And there was this castle! And there was I like Jack on the beanstalk! I felt, as I listened to myself- But I am making myself sick. I found that I did not tell her of my shooting of the man with the machine-gun. I thought — This is not because I am ashamed: it is too heartfelt to be brought up as sick.

She said 'All right, let's go back to Auntie's.'

I thought — You mean, you want to make love at Auntie's?

Then — Well God, come on then -

Caroline put her head on my shoulder. She said 'As a matter of fact, I think he did want you shot!'

I said 'Who?' I thought — But you can't say that!

She said 'Buenaventura!' She giggled.

I felt I had to get out of the pub. On our way out we passed a group of people by the door. One of them was Mullen. I had not seen Mullen since I had been with him in the picture gallery in Moscow. There he had stood with his back to the painting of the

three Old Testament angels: he had been like a shadow against networks of light. He looked at me now, as he had looked at me then, with his sad yellow eyes. I thought — Perhaps he will not want to recognise me: perhaps he is once more waiting for that bald Russian man with whom he was in the picture gallery in Moscow, in the pub outside Cambridge. Here he was with a group of people I did not know.

I said'Hullo.'

Mullen said 'Hullo.' Then — 'I heard you'd been in Spain.'

Caroline said Tve spent much more time than him in Spain!'

Mullen said to me 'And now I hear that you're working at some university in the north.'

I said'Yes.'

Mullen said 'I wonder if you would like to have lunch with me sometime.'

I said 'I would.'

Caroline said 'What about me?'

I said to Mullen 'How's Kapitsa?'

Mullen looked at me with his almost expressionless eyes.

I said 'But, in fact, I've got to get back to the north tomorrow.'

Caroline said 'You're going back tomorrow?'

I thought — Why did I say that? Then — Yes, I see.

Caroline said 'Well, I'm not going with you to Auntie's if you're going back to Spooks tomorrow!'

I thought I might say — All right, God, thank you.

Mullen said 'You won't stay and have a drink?'

Caroline said 'I will!'

Mullen said 'I was talking to him.'

Caroline said 'Oh you two, have a nice bugger!' She went back to the bar and seemed to be ordering herself a drink.

I said 'Goodbye.' I seemed to be talking both to Mullen and to Caroline. I went out of the pub. I thought — Mullen is my guardian devil?

I was lying on the bed in the room we had borrowed from Melvyn when you got back from your evening with Bruno. I was still feeling very sad. You looked tired. I said 'How was Bruno!' You said 'He was all right.' I said 'I met Mullen.' You said 'Who is Mullen?' I said 'He's the one, you know, who really is a Russian spy.' You said 'Bruno thinks that my father may be alive.'

I said 'Why does he think that?'

You said 'Because he says they're not killing people other than Jews.'

I said 'So what will you do?'

You said 'Bruno will find out what he can. Then I'll see.'

I said 'Let's go home tomorrow.'

You said 'Yes, let's go home tomorrow.' Then — 'Oh God, let's very nearly blow up the world, but not quite.'

When we got back to our home in the north I found Donald Hodge's laboratory equipped with new and more elaborate devices. There were Geiger-counters encased in lead to guard against stray radiation; amplifiers connected to recording machines which had numbers showing on dials. We embarked on yet another series of experiments to check the results of the experiments of others. I sat and made notes of the numbers that appeared on the dials. I thought, as I had thought before — But we are trying to achieve two things here: one is to understand what might be going on in the nucleus of an atom; the other is to understand what is meant by understanding; and in this, of course, we are doing an experiment with mind. That which experiments is in a sense the same as that which is experimented on; but to understand understanding — would there not have to be developed some further level of mind? Perhaps it is just this for which I am waiting in front of these switches and dials — for some stray seed to be encouraged by this I that is watching and to be nurtured in this strange world of mind.

I said to you 'But those old alchemists of yours — did they feel they had to change what it was to be human?'

You said 'I suppose they wanted to know what it might be to be gods.'

I said 'So humans couldn't blame any more what they called "gods".'

You said, 'If you succeed in what you are doing in your work, I suppose we won't have anyone to blame except ourselves.'

I found it increasingly difficult to talk to Donald Hodge about our work. He took up rugby football and cricket: he played these passionately: I thought — He finds it easier to knock around these simple bumps and clicks and balls.

I said to you 'Gods made such terrible things occur.'

You said 'You think we can't make terrible things occur?'

I said 'Chip away at the stone — '

You said 'We can still call "gods" the knowing that there is shape inside.'