Nicholas Mosley: Hopeful Monsters

He uncovered the coin and held it out towards Max. Max said 'But you wouldn't let me fix the choice in the first place.' The child said 'It's all the better if you know the trick.' He rocked from side to side with laughter. Bert put out a hand and took the coin from the child: he turned it over. On one side there was the head of a bird carrying what looked like a flower in its beak: on the other there was the image of a snake with its tail in its mouth so that its head, but not its tail, was visible. Bert handed the medallion back to the child: he said 'You're learning.' Lilia had gone to the end of the bed and was making cooing noises at Judith's baby.

I had brought with me a bag that contained a bottle of champagne and some plastic mugs. Judith said 'We've got glasses.' I said 'I suppose I think no one but myself ever has glasses.' Lilia said 'How typical.' We stood round the bed and toasted Max, for his birthday, with champagne. Max held a plastic mug on his chest. He seemed to be having difficulty in opening his eyes. The child had some sips of champagne and was allowed to hold the baby. He took it to the window to show it the sun and the sea.

We were, I suppose, waiting for Eleanor to arrive. The news was that she had been with her horse in the north of England; she had said that she would be with us sometime in the evening. Bert, however, had heard that she had had a fall from her horse. Judith said 'But she's always having falls from her horse.' Bert said 'So, how typical.' We stood around Max's bed: he seemed to like hearing us making these noises around him.

When Eleanor arrived the door swung open and no one came through it for a while: the door was set in a dark alcove: you had to move to see who might be outside. When Eleanor did appear she was on crutches: she seemed to be trying to get herself rearranged: she carried a scarf, a woollen hat, two paper bags: she wore a long multi-coloured cloak which she was draping over her crutches so that they were like wings. When we went to help her there did not seem to be any space in which to do this: she began to laugh; when she came into the room with her bits and pieces it was, yes, as if she were a juggler on a tightrope. She was an old lady with a nut-brown face and dark hair streaked with grey. Before she had appeared it had seemed that it might be Death waiting outside: now, with her cloak like plumage and her movement on crutches that made her seem to float above the ground, it was as if she might be an angel that had won a brief contest with Death in the corridor. By the time she got round the corner of the alcove and thus in sight

of Max he had opened his eyes and was watching her. They smiled at one another. There were tears on Max's cheeks: between him and Eleanor there seemed to be bits and pieces of light like a glass screen breaking. It was odd, since we knew each of them so well, how seldom in fact we had seen Eleanor and Max together. He said 'Hullo.' She said 'Hullo.' She moved to the edge of the bed and she put both her crutches in one hand so that she could pivot round to sit on the edge of the bed beside him. Max said 'Why are you on crutches?' Eleanor said 'So I could get up the stairs.' She had managed to lower herself on to the edge of the bed; she now had her back to Max. Jason — or I — offered her a glass of champagne: it seemed that she might produce an extra hand, like one of Shiva's, to take it. Max said 'Then why have I got this cancer?' She said 'Well, why have you?' She seemed to be trying to swing herself round on one hip so that she would be facing Max: this would be a difficult feat; she would have to get half on her back, holding champagne, on her tightrope. Max said 'Perhaps it was so that I could be looked after by Judith.' Eleanor said 'Well, you are being looked after by Judith.' There was a moment when Eleanor was in fact on her back with her arms and legs in the air; she was like some giant baby; then she was over on to her other side, facing Max, her legs coming down over his, her head suddenly a few inches from him. Max kissed her. Eleanor said 'So now, what is it?' Max widened his eyes as if he were about to explode: a sun speeding across a desert. He said 'I can't die!' Eleanor said 'Why not?' Max said 'Because I'm too happy!' Eleanor put an arm round him and held him. They stayed embraced. They were like one of those everlastingly happy couples on an Etruscan tomb. We watched them. The child had come from the window carrying the baby; he seemed to be pointing out to it Max and Eleanor. Max said 'For God's sake, something sometime has to die!' Eleanor said 'I think it is the cancer that is dying.'

The 'Catastrophe Practice' Series of Novels

Humans can learn through catastrophe. Evolution can take a step forwards. We can't change things by efforts of will; what we can do is 'practise' a state of mind that may be able to deal with catastrophe when it comes.

1. Hopeful Monsters (U.K. 1990; U.S. 1991): Max and Eleanor are students growing up in the 1920s in Cambridge and Berlin. They have to come to terms with the rise of Communism and Naziism, the crack-up of old ways of thinking in science and philosophy, the self-destructiveness of the Spanish Civil War, the making of the Bomb. What they learn can be passed on, eventually, to the protagonists of the books that follow.

2. Imago Bird (U.K. 1980; U.S. 1989): Bert is a student in the 1970s. Through his family he finds himself involved with Establishment politics; through his girlfriend with the revolutionary Trotskyites. He is helped to make his way through this crazy social and political maze by a psychotherapist, Dr Anders— Eleanor from Hopeful Monsters.

3. Serpent (U.K. 1981; U.S. 1990): Jason is a scriptwriter. He is writing (in the 1970s) a script for a film about the Roman/Jewish war in A.D. 70. He is married to Lilia, Bert's sister, who was previously living with Max. The film people, bored, hatch a plot to break up Lilia and Jason's successful marriage. This is paralleled by the destructiveness/self-destructiveness mocked by Jason in his script. Jason and Lilia have learned to survive— and their child.

4. Judith (U.K. 1986; U.S. 1991): Judith is an aspiring young actress in the 1970s. She goes into some sort of crack-up with promiscuity and drugs. She is rescued by Professor Ackerman — Max of Hopeful Monsters — who gets her to a healing ashram in India. Later, all the protagonists of these stories come together at an

anti-nuclear demonstration outside an American airbase, where there is an explosion. They have all had a hand in the survival of the child; the child now has a hand in their survival.

5. Catastrophe Practice (U.K. 1979; U.S. 1989): This was the first book written of the series — it was the 'seed' of the other books — now it is more clearly seen at the end. (This was the book that earned the 'experimental' tag; the other books are not conventionally experimental.) Catastrophe Practice is in the form of four essays, three plays, and a short novel. It was trying to say — what is important about any 'act' is likely to be that which is going on offstage; it is by watching and listening for this that one might be ready for catastrophe — and something new might be born, and survive.

— Nicholas Mosley