Peter Carey - Collected Stories

He begins to dress now. No one knows what to do. They watch him hand Florence Nightingale her items of clothing so she can dress beneath the sheet. He sits in front of her then, partially obscuring her struggles. Florence Nightingale is no longer trying to smile. She looks very sad, almost frightened.

Eventually Finch says, this is more important, I’m afraid, more important than knocking on doors.

He has accepted some new knowledge and the acceptance makes him feel strong although he has no real idea of what the knowledge is. He says, Fantoni is planning to eat Florence Nightingale.

Florence Nightingale, struggling with her bra beneath the sheet, says, we know, we were discussing it.

Milligan giggles.

The-man-who-won’t-give-his-name has found his dressing gown in the cupboard in the corner. He remains there, like a boxer waiting between rounds.

Florence Nightingale is staring at her yellow dress on the floor. Glino and May bump into each other as they reach for it at the same time. They both retreat and both step forward again. Finally it is Milligan who darts forward, picks up the garment, and hands it to Florence Nightingale, who disappears under the sheets once more. Finch finds it almost impossible not to stare at her. He wishes she would come out and dress quickly and get the whole thing over and done with.

Technically, Florence Nightingale has deceived no one.

Glino says, we got to stop him.

Florence Nightingale’s head appears from beneath the sheets. She smiles at them all. She says, you are all wonderful … I love you all.

It is the first time Finch has ever heard Florence Nightingale say anything so insincere or so false. He wishes she would unsay that.

Finch says, he must be stopped.

Behind him he can hear a slight shuffling. He looks around to see May, his face flushed red, struggling to keep the door closed. He makes wild signs with his eyes to indicate that someone is trying to get in. Finch leans against the door, which pushes back with the heavy weight of a dream. Florence Nightingale slides sideways out of bed and Glino pushes against Finch, who is sandwiched between two opposing forces. Finally it is the-man-who-won’t-give-his-name who says, let him in.

Everybody steps back, but the door remains closed. They stand, grouped in a semicircle around it, waiting. For a moment it seems as if it was all a mistake. But, finally, the door knob turns and the door is pushed gently open. Fantoni stands in the doorway wearing white silk pyjamas.

He says, what’s this, an orgy?

No one knows what to do or say.

18.

Glino is still vomiting in the drain in the backyard. He has been vomiting since dawn and it is now dark. Finch said he should be let off, because he was a vegetarian, but the-man-who-won’t-give-his-name insisted. So they made Glino eat just a little bit.

The stench hangs heavily over the house.

May is playing his record.

Finch has thought many times that he might also vomit.

The blue sheet which was used to strangle Fantoni lies in a long tangled line from the kitchen through the kitchen annexe and out into the backyard, where Glino lies retching and where the barbecue pit, although filled in, still smokes slowly, the smoke rising from the dry earth.

The-man-who-won’t-give-his-name had his dressing gown ruined. It was soaked with blood. He sits in the kitchen now, wearing Fantoni’s white safari suit. He sits reading Fantoni’s mail. He has suggested that it would be best if he were referred to as Fantoni, should the police come, and that anyway it would be best if he were referred to as Fantoni. A bottle of Scotch sits on the table beside him. It is open to anyone, but so far only May has taken any.

Finch is unable to sleep. He has tried to sleep but can see only Fantoni’s face. He steps over Glino and enters the kitchen.

He says, may I have a drink please, Fantoni?

It is a relief to be able to call him a name.

19.

The-man-who-won’t-give-his-name has taken up residence in Fantoni’s room. Everybody has become used to him now. He is known as Fantoni.

A new man has also arrived, being sent by Florence Nightingale with a letter of introduction. So far his name is unknown.

20.

“Revolution in a Closed Society — A Study of Leadership among the Fat” by Nancy Bowlby

Leaders were selected for their ability to provide materially for the welfare of the group as a whole. Obviously the same qualities should reside in the heir-apparent, although these qualities were not always obvious during the waiting period; for this reason I judged it necessary to show favouritism to the heir-apparent and thus to raise his prestige in the eyes of the group. This favouritism would sometimes take the form of small gifts and, in those rare cases where it was needed, shows of physical affection as well.

A situation of “crisis” was occasionally triggered, deus ex machina, by suggestion, but usually arose spontaneously and had only to be encouraged. From this point on, as I shall discuss later in this paper, the “revolution” took a similar course and “Fantoni” was always disposed of effectively and the new “Fantoni” took control of the group.

The following results were gathered from a study of twenty-three successive “Fantonis”. Apart from the “Fantoni” and the “Fantoni-apparent”, the composition of the group remained unaltered. Whilst it can be admitted that studies so far are at an early stage, the results surely justify the continuation of the experiments with larger groups.

1.

The mornings in the Lost and Found were better than the afternoons. In the mornings she didn’t think about the afternoons, yet the knowledge of their coming hung behind her eyes like great grey cloud banks that would soon blot out the sky.

Few people came to the Lost and Found at any time. Sometimes in the mornings they would have a businessman looking for an umbrella or a schoolgirl looking for a lost coat. But few came to collect the great library of treasure that was stacked in its high dusty canyons. Sometimes in the mornings she would simply wander through the great grey alleyways between the metal shelves and then she would visit her favourite objects: the cases of butterflies that were stacked in the high shelves above the railway goods yards, the old gardening books on the top of the ancient gramophone, the strange and beautiful building materials that lay in a tangled heap just near the loading dock. She would sit here sometimes, perched on a bag of concrete looking at the big lumps of four by two and imagining what she might do with them if she had a chance. The wood was grey and heavy, each piece marked with the name “Williamson” and she often wondered who Williamson had been and how anyone could be so careless as to misplace such a wonderful treasure. She longed to steal that four by two, to grow even taller than her five feet ten inches and somehow put it under an overcoat and walk out with it in the same way that Jacobs walked out each day with watches and transistors and small items of value. Mr Jacobs used the Lost and Found as a private business, as if the whole sawtooth-roofed warehouse had been built by the government for the express purpose of making Mr Jacobs rich.

Mr Jacobs didn’t give a damn for butterflies or books or four by two. He cared solely for money, and he cared for it with a fierce energy that she found alien and disturbing.

In the mornings when he spoke to her he often talked about money, its value, its uses, the freedom he would purchase with it. In two years, he predicted, he would no longer use his battered brown briefcase to smuggle goods from the Lost and Found, but instead use it to collect rents in the afternoons. In the mornings he planned to stay in bed.