Rob Doyle - This is the Ritual

Watches films with no sound in scarcely furnished Belgian lodgings, or empty cinemas in undistinguished German cities. ‘All this furious activity. . Is it merely a prelude to universal war?’ She can’t utter the phrase ‘spiritual struggle’ without a sneer or tragic irony. Postcards to her sister out by the Pacific: ‘A sky bereft of sun, yet still blue, still containing birds. . Moorish cafés at noon. . “Beauty is a promise of happiness”.’ Twilight, late summer, the burning sun. .

Absurdity of our dreams.

*

He emerged from catastrophe clutching a red bandanna. Collaborators. Failure and destruction. That vulgar being, ‘God’ — son of a war criminal. . Recuperates in Paris for a few months, then slips back across the border to Spain to ignite the Republic. ‘No one knows — not even God!’ (Hysterical laughter.) A tormented community, but such beautiful women. . ‘I would gladly give up my life for one night with her.’ The older man laughs. ‘You may not need to.’ Inland, he enters the Basque Country. ‘We crouched around the radio all night when we heard the capital was falling.’ ‘My child, remember this day.’ ‘Yes, Papa.’ Gunmen with the certainty and zeal of youth roar slogans as they storm through the streets. ‘I’ve seen all this before,’ says the old woman. ‘Don’t ask me to applaud your fervours. Just let me dissolve like the rest of nature.’ (She’s seen it a million times, literally.) Piety and patriotism, the dignity of any creed at all. A nation is reborn.

I wake in a hotel room with the taste of petrol in my mouth.

Loch Ness

We were hitch-hiking on a freeway at the limits of the capital. The situation incited a fearful joy. ‘Cruelty? That’s just like you.’ ‘This is my country, I don’t have to tolerate anyone.’ ‘ Natürlich ,’ I replied. Cars zoomed past us, a monstrous violence inherent in the world today. We were young and in love and nothing else mattered.

*

Watching the dreary procession, standing over her grave in the rain. . I remember the day like a death sentence. ‘Nothing will ever be the same again.’ Once, during a trip to the provinces, she told me that being alive is just like staying in a hotel. ‘Then again, when you’re in a hotel, you may as well have sex,’ she added huskily.

*

Rob Doyle out walking along the cliffs on a grey afternoon. His lips move, he talks to himself, frowns for no obvious reason, makes sharp gestures with his hands. ‘You’re a tourist, and you’re disappearing just like this coastal land.’ He ignores my voice and gazes out to sea. ‘I wish I had one day of life to spend in pure happiness. I also wish I had a dog, having proven already that I can’t live with women.’

Still this struggle to write, fretful and serious in a house on the coast. Listens through the wall to his neighbour having sex, though he was under the impression that she lived alone. ‘Maybe she’s not having sex.’ One bad review and he almost dies of it. Doesn’t leave the house for nearly a week. I email him a quote from Ezra Pound: Ignore criticism from men who have never written notable works . To which I add, ‘For comfort, bear in mind the unreality of life.’

*

Visits the grave of E. M. Cioran in Montparnasse cemetery with a slender blonde who stands slightly back, her features suggesting keen observational faculties and a cool temperament. A cloudy afternoon, the cemetery all but deserted. ‘This is as fine a place to make love as any.’ They lie down together and couple efficiently, though without any great passion. ‘Beckett is buried here too,’ he murmurs afterwards, fixing himself. She remains sitting on the ground for a spell, silently contemplative. ‘Pessimism as a philosophy is about as interesting to me as heavyweight boxing.’ They go for coffee in a nearby café.

*

Phrases from the philosophers of Despair start appearing on advertising billboards: Man? A twilight sigh. . All thought craves the Night in which it will capsize. . Gaze into the corpse — know thyself!

In a nearby motel, the champion fighter holds his head in his hands. ‘I’ve lost my ferocity. May as well be a limp-dick sonofabitch.’ His young wife (blonde, Caucasian) tries to soothe him: ‘Don’t fret, baby.’

‘I fear everything.’

Their marriage dissolves.

*

Done with hitch-hiking, we perch on a hillside overlooking the freeway, out where the billboards are. Binoculars, a blanket, a selection of cheeses, two wine glasses. ‘Cities are becoming conscious, let’s hope they’re benign.’ Through the binoculars, she sees a car with tinted windows glide towards the desert.

‘You love me. But is it for ever? Youth is fleeting, a wild fuck astride a grave. In a matter of hours we’ll have changed beyond recognition.’

*

She can never tell her husband about the erotic dreams she has of heavyweight boxers. Black, glistening men who make her cry out in her sleep. ‘I’m a brutal tyrant, a vicious ruthless killer, I live on fear and nails, there’s no one like me.’ When she wakes, she still loves him, but her love is frayed at the edges by contempt and a mild disgust. Lying beside her, he smiles and looks towards the ceiling, speaking softly of his hopes, always of his hopes. Men are redundant, she decides, little more than playthings. This year, she will take a holiday alone. Madagascar, Barbados, Jamaica. .

*

Another billboard: Your bitterest enemy lives in your own home .

*

‘I wasn’t looking for the “Grand Love”.’ He cracks open a beer and slugs savagely. ‘You have no idea how hard I’ve worked to keep this family together.’ ‘Yeah well, all I ever learned from you is the art of skulduggery. Is that what marriage is? That and nothing more?’ They agree to stay together for the kids, though they soon fuck them up. (Round of applause.)

Saddest thing I ever heard.

The Closest I Ever Got

A dead body rolled up in a carpet and kicked down the basement stairs. The barman kept pouring till all the glasses overflowed. ‘It’s worth it in the end.’ ‘Not really,’ said the blonde. ‘Aggressive, ready for violence — the usual sexual competition between young men. I get it everywhere I go.’ This broad drinks to forget, the barman thinks.

*

A fountain in the main square. An Australian psychologist admiring the quality of the European light. Those glamorous years. . The same canals, the hot, sensual cities. A beautiful girl on the back of a motorbike, rides off down the Calle de Noche Triste. Traces of a higher culture, though all of that has long passed. . A young author types rapidly with the blinds drawn in a small, hot apartment (green T-shirt, trilby). Hearing the laughter of teenagers down in the street, he sighs, then goes out and stands on the balcony. Black lace panties . The phrase captivates him; he returns to his desk and types it out seven times, then stares at the screen, mesmerised. The teenagers are flirting. A boy in a black leather jacket rides off on his Vespa with a girl whose body justifies everything. Later, the author opens a bottle of port and weeps.

*

Through cigar smoke, they regard the loose pages: shards of text, impressionistic photographs, a semi-coherent polemic. ‘Pessimistic novelists, a veritable production line of them. What are they trying to do, overthrow our civilisation? They’ll only overthrow themselves.’ ‘One of them has made a million since last February. . Anyway, how do you know the blonde has beautiful eyes?’ ‘Because every time she walks into a bar, some guy buys her a drink.’ They say nothing, sip their cognac. Two jaded ex-revolutionaries, sitting in this sepulchral bar all week, like they’re afraid. This stale, stinging air.