Nicholas Mosley - A Garden of Trees

I closed my eyes. There was the sensation of spaces approaching and departing, the movement of machinery like the pumping of a heart. What is required, I thought, is a body to make love bearable. It is round us, outside of us, there are no veins by which the body might live. Man is inside the beating heart and the heart sends the blood of love pumping away from him and the blood gets lost on the floors of the sea. Man is a cell in a body that does not exist. Blood is on the sea and it calms it like oil, but it is lost, always lost, and the sea dilutes it. What is required, I thought, is a bubble to make love breathable. Love is outside a man, it is not inside him, and a space is required in which he may move. If the body is impossible because the body has been betrayed then a bubble is recreated to give air to breathe. Our bodies are at the centre, they are not the whole. A bubble that might form at the bottom of the sea a small loosening bubble silvering quietly straining upwards being held down tightly straining upwards silvering beautifully breaking free and shooting upwards and then the bubble is there. “Marius,” I called. “Marius!” I woke up. He was there.

He was walking along the pavement towards the entrance to the flats, and when he heard me he stopped and stood still and waited for me. I went over to him and I saw him peering at me through the darkness. “Hullo,” I said. I was shivering violently with the cold. He was waiting for me. My teeth were shaking and I could not control my voice.

“Hullo,” he said.

“I was looking for you earlier on.”

“Yes,” he said.

“I wanted to say something, but I am so damn cold.”

“Let’s walk,” he said.

I followed him in a fever, shaking like a maniac.

“I went back to the hospital,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “I went there after you.”

“You did?”

“Yes,” he said.

“I am so damn cold.”

“What is it that she wants from you? A tree?”

“And some fishes.”

“Let’s go and have breakfast,” he said.

We went to an all-night café. It was fairly empty. The clubs had not yet closed and most of the people there were tired servicemen with nowhere to sleep. “They have very good sausages,” Marius said.

“Yes. And chocolate.”

“Do you often come here?”

“Sometimes.”

“They are very friendly. Do you eat the chocolate with your sausages?”

“I drink the chocolate.”

“Oh yes, I see.”

A waitress came and took our order. It was marvelously warm.

“People do eat marmalade with bacon,” Marius said.

“Do they?”

“Yes. They have a special instrument to spread it with.”

“That doesn’t seem necessary.”

“No. It is strange how quickly time goes and yet it is static at four o’clock in the morning.”

“It is when the days change and nothing ever happens in a change.”

“It is very exciting,” Marius said.

Our sausages came and we ate them carefully.

“All terrible things are done between breakfast and lunch,” I said.

“We will go to sleep.”

“When time goes so slowly.”

“Some people can go to sleep at any time wherever they are. That has always seemed to me to be very dangerous.”

“Generals and politicians do it, I suppose otherwise they could not bear it.”

“I suppose not.”

“Do you think that something happens when there is nothing happening?”

“Oh I think so,” Marius said.

When we had eaten we sat for a long time drinking our chocolate.

“We have been here half an hour,” I said.

“Shall we sleep? There is quite a lot of time before we can see her.”

“Yes. Do you remember how during the two minutes’ silence on Armistice Day one always notices the birds?”

“If you give her a tree it will be like that and then it will not be frightening.”

“Come back and stay with me, there are beds in my room.”

“I will,” he said.

We went out into the night air where there was nothing happening, nothing happening at all, and yet there was something going on very quickly around us, the sun coming up and the sky lighting like a skin and the veins of the morning traveling static above our heads. There was an arm above the roof tops and a reach of air and the blood pumping quietly round the streets in which we walked. The world was a body and we breathed it, and we went to my room and slept till lunch time.

“Hullo,” she said. “You can put it over there.”

“It has got the most tremendous roots.”

“Oh Marius, you look like a chinaman.”

“I really don’t know oh isn’t it splendid,” a nurse was saying.

“Why do I look like a chinaman?”

“With a box in each hand that is how I imagine them.”

“There is water you see they are striped like silk.”

“Oh mind good gracious oh very attractive.”

“Where shall I put the tank, lady?” the workman said.

“Just here, please, will you put them into it quick?”

“Quick as rain, lady.”

“By the window the birds will come and you will see them.”

“The leaves are like fingers I will watch them grow.”

“That’s a rare old tree for your garden, lady.”

I put the tree in its tub by the window and looked at it. It was a sad little tree, rather bent.

“And what variety would it be?” the nurse said.

“It is a fruit tree.”

“A fruit tree, oh yes, they are very attractive fruit trees.”

“A pond and all for your garden, lady.”

“Is it heated and is there air?”

“It plugs into the wall there is a light that lights.”

“There is coral and a moonstone and a block of quartz.”

“Oh Marius, how lovely.”

“And a lump that looks like Abraham Lincoln.”

“Oh very attractive very really most unusual.”

“And are there bubbles that go on and on bubbling for ever?”

“For ever, lady.”

“I shall watch them,” she said.

We put the sand and the stones in the bottom of the tank and there was a weed that seemed to grow as we filled it with water.

“Do not touch them,” she said.

“They swim out you see you put them like this.”

“There is one with a face, I can see it.”

“They’ve all got faces, lady.”

“There is one very hungry, what do I give them to eat?”

“I have a package I will give you.”

“They eat oh yes certainly some food I believe.”

“Do I sprinkle it on the top like seeds like snow?”

“Just sprinkle it, lady.”

“They will not eat they are frightened.”

“An aquarium and a fruit tree are so unusual.”

“They will eat, lady.”

“Can you switch on the light then the bubbles will rise?”

“Switch it on, lady.”

“The bubbles I will count them they are warm I hope.”

“They are warm when the light shines they think it is the sun.”

We stood around while she sat up in bed and tapped at the glass with one fragile finger.

“Does that tree really have fruit and can I eat it?”

“Oh certainly, we’ll see, fruit is so quenching.”

“Does it matter if I eat it?”

“I do not think that it would matter if you ate it.”

“They are eating now, lady, fishes always eat when you stop from watching them.”

“They have eaten, then I can see their mouths.”

“That’s enough, lady.”

“Everything has eaten, I will eat my fruit.”

“Hope it makes you better, lady.”

“Oh we’ll be much better won’t we much more comfortable altogether.”

“I remember about trees once you have eaten them you go on.”

“The bubbles are like pearls.”