Sugar and rum, p.21
Sugar and Rum, page 21
“The train’s coming in,” Benson said. “What does it add up to?”
“He’s after a knighthood. He wants to be Sir Hugo.”
Benson got on the train and stood at the window. He was immediately convinced that Meredith was right. That must be why Slater, after the first rage, had been so surprisingly amenable: he hadn’t wanted to risk the slightest malodour; preferable to talk for five minutes to this little shit …
“He’ll get it too,” Meredith said. “You won’t forget we got a deal, will you?”
“No, I won’t forget.”
Meredith remained standing still on the platform as the train pulled out. At a distance of some hundred yards or so he made a half-salute. Benson waved. He felt sad to be leaving Meredith alone, dark and bulky on the deserted platform. The train was like a receding tide, leaving him beached there, with his life that was so wonderful to him, in fantasy or fact or their complex blending. Benson wanted to repeat his promise, wanted to shout that he would find someone, but Meredith was too far away to hear him now.
On his way back he discovered in his pocket the printed sheet, much crumpled now, which he had picked up from Slater’s desk. It was a programme of events for ‘Brunanburh’, which was what Slater had called his forth-coming show.
4
On his way to Rathbone’s Show he had the impression that there were more people about than usual and more police, especially in the streets running south from Upper Parliament Street; groups of black youths stood at corners, as if waiting for news.
There were empty seats in the hall but not as many as he had expected. A good number of those present would be acquaintances of Rathbone’s like himself. Or perhaps clients, he thought suddenly, glancing round. Yes, there were faces he knew, people met on the stairs or the landing. There would be a high degree of suggestibility in this assembly – he wondered idly if Rathbone had implanted the invitation while they were under hypnosis.
All the same there were more people here than could be accounted for in this way and he supposed they must have bought tickets on impulse or for obscure personal reasons. At the far end of the front row he saw a man with a professional-looking camera slung round his neck; probably some friend of Rathbone’s on one of the papers. Various of his fictioneers were scattered about the hall. He saw Carter’s unmistakable yellow and green sports jacket up near the front. Jennifer Colomb was sitting a couple of rows behind him. He caught her eye and nodded and smiled. She looked flushed and nervous as she did when awaiting his response to the doings of Lady Margaret and Sir Reginald. He saw Elroy Palmer, the creator of Zircon, coming in through the door in his invariable red woollen hat. He felt grateful to these people, who had come here, he knew, purely as a favour to him. By the clock on the wall it was twenty-five past seven: only five minutes to go and Alma had not come yet; perhaps she had changed her mind. He resisted an impulse to go out and look for her – they had arranged to meet inside the hall. When he turned to face his front again he saw that Carter was craning round to look at him and he raised a hand in greeting. In reply Carter lifted his green bag from its place in his lap and held it aloft shaking it to and fro in a triumphant gesture. He was smiling broadly. Benson nodded, resolving to make a quick getaway after the show if possible; it had been a hard day, the last thing he wanted was another dollop of Albert and Sheila to take home with him.
The lighting was not very good; it was not theatre lighting at all, just a row of bare bulbs set at intervals overhead. However, a spotlight had been installed and the white circle of light lay dead centre on the empty stage. There was a wooden box in one corner, about the size of a tea-chest, and in another a hat-stand with a wide brimmed white hat on it, of the sort women sometimes wear in summer. Two upright chairs stood just outside the circle of light.
The audience was quiet, sitting patiently on the hard little chairs. Benson felt anxious about Alma but at the same time he was relaxed and slightly sleepy. His eyes were fixed on the motionless circle of light, within which images formed, swam into focus, fused, dissolved: Thompson raised a blind face, the owl rose into the night, the doomed soldier combed his hair, Walters whispered his mimicry, the suicide leapt from the mild spaces of air, Slater smiled through the noise of the guns. But at the very centre of the circle, where the focus was sharpest, the light was unviolated; there was nothing – these lapping images did not reach so far, did not touch the heart of the light …
“Those places free?”
He knew the voice, the loud, strangled-sounding upper-class accent conscientiously but imperfectly flattened. Glancing up he saw Anthea Best-Cummings and Hogan coming down the row towards him. With something of a shock he saw that they were holding hands.
“These are free,” he said. “I’m keeping this one on the other side.”
“Just made it,” Hogan said. “That’s what I call good timing.”
He was transformed. Maroon tie, briefcase, business suit had gone as if they had never been; he was dressed now in a tattered blue denim jacket which brought out the colour of his eyes – eyes no longer slow and stricken but full of life and animation; his sparse hair was lighter, soft-looking, free of that sweet balm. Anthea too was changed; she was in her black leathers still but her skin was clear of disfiguring spots and her hair was clean and combed and tied back. She looked extremely happy. “This is a lark,” she said. “Never been to a hypnotism show before.”
“Well, how are you two getting on?”
“We’re living together now,” Anthea said. “At my place at Birkenhead. Michael moved in the same day we met.”
“We met at your apartment, if you remember,” Hogan said. “Lucky day for me.”
Anthea turned on him a face radiant with affection. “Lucky for me, you mean,” she said.
“I do remember, yes. Well, you are both looking very well on it, if I may say so.” He felt pleased, in a gratified, fatherly way, about the change in these two people. “Still writing?” he said.
“I’ve given up the novel,” Hogan said. “Given up thoughts of it, I mean.” He paused a moment, smiling. “There wasn’t really a novel to give up, was there? But I still want to write. Not stories. I’d like to write down what I see around me, keep myself out of it as far as possible. Sort of reportage, with pictures.”
“We thought, you know, that we might start up our own press,” Anthea said. “Just a small affair, of course. Bring out a sort of newspaper, real news, try to show what is happening in this city. No pompous bloody comment, no party line. Not really political at all – we just want to show what these bastards have done to the Welfare State.” She had spoken very loudly and Benson saw a certain stillness descend on the people in front of them.
Hogan said, “It was seeing these men in Birkenhead picking over a rubbish dump that started me off. There is a big municipal tip up near where we live. You go there early in the morning you’ll see maybe twenty fellers picking it over, raking about in it. Grown men, not boys. Unemployed men. Not tramps. Men like myself. Men who feel shame, Mr Benson. Parts of the tip were smouldering and there were gulls and crows picking about in it as well. I want people to see that picture – the dirty smoke, the smell, the birds and the men together in the rubbish. That is the truth, you can go there and you can see it. That is Birkenhead in 1988.”
“Michael has had his consciousness raised,” Anthea said fondly. “He was identifying with the wrong lot. They kicked him in the teeth then kept him quiet on tranquillisers – same lot of bastards, they’re all the same.”
“We’d need a camera too,” Hogan said.
“But how will you get the money for all this?”
“I think daddy would stump up if I put it to him in the right way,” Anthea said.
“I see, yes. Well, I wish you every success with the venture.”
“We’ll send you a copy of the first issue,” Anthea said. “Your friend hasn’t come. It’s twenty-five to now.”
Benson felt her eyes resting on him with a certain quality of curiosity. “Perhaps she couldn’t make it after all,” he said.
“She may have had some trouble getting through. There’s a lot of people about on the streets tonight. Something is—”
She was interrupted by a scattered burst of clapping. The tall, gaunt figure of Rathbone had emerged from behind the curtain at the rear of the stage. He was in a dinner jacket and wore a black turban tied in Sikh style, with a glittering stone pinned to it in the centre of his forehead. On that drab stage he was an impressive sight. In his husky, penetrating voice, which carried easily to every part of the hall, he began to talk to the audience – creating an atmosphere, Benson quickly realised, trying to make up for the bareness of the place, the bleak, unvarying light. He did it rather well. They were about to see a unique show, he said. One which had never so far been performed anywhere in the Western world. You would have to go back, for the nearest parallel, to the role-playing of so-called primitive societies, during which ancient myths and rituals were acted out. The participants in these ancient rituals were pastmasters in auto-hypnosis. They enacted age-old dramas concerned with the cycle of the seasons, placation of the gods, triumph over their enemies. In the course of this they assumed archetypal roles: scapegoat, healer, trickster, priest …
A form of mumbo-jumbo really, Benson thought. It didn’t matter how much the audience actually took in, so long as they were softened up. Rathbone had paused for a moment or two; now he began speaking again, moving slowly forward as he did so.
“Now we live in different times,” he said. “You often hear people say that a person cannot be hypnotised into going against his own nature. That may well be true, ladies and gentlemen. But what is this nature of ours that we speak so confidently about? Who can claim to know the capacities of his own nature? As an illustration of what I mean I should like to begin the evening’s entertainment with what we call in the profession chain-reaction hypnosis. This requires great concentration and I must ask you to cooperate with me to the full.”
He was standing now at the edge of the stage. “I’d like to ask for volunteers,” he said. “Anyone at all. I don’t distinguish between good subjects and bad ones. You are all good subjects to me. I assure you no harm will come to anyone. My methods are tried and tested. There is complete control at every stage.”
Nobody in the audience moved or spoke. “Come now,” Rathbone said. He looked down, scanning the faces. “What about you? What about you, madam? Can I request you to step up on the stage? What about you, sir?”
The man he had addressed said loudly, “You won’t catch me coming up there. I don’t believe in it.” A rustle of laughter and relief went through the audience. “Lot of hocus-pocus,” he shouted, encouraged.
Rathbone stood silent for some moments, looking directly down at the man who had interrupted. Then he said, “Your presence here gives the lie to that.” He was smiling but there had been an edge of aggression in his voice. “Real unbelievers stay away,” he said. “What about you, madam? That’s the spirit. No, bring your handbag with you.”
A youngish, stout woman in a green anorak had stood up and begun to make her way to the steps at the side of the stage. She had a heavy, expressionless face, one which he knew, and she looked half-hypnotised already. The audience had fallen silent again, but there was a different quality in the silence now: it was tense, expectant, alert to the prospect of conflict. Rathbone moved across to help the woman up, led her over the stage into the spotlight, placed her sideways to the audience. She stood silent there, a slight, self-conscious smile on her face, holding her large and shiny handbag.
“What is your name, madam?” Rathbone enquired with great suavity. “Will you tell the audience your name?”
“You know her name already.” It was the same man, the same voice, loud but without much feeling in it – the voice of a professional heckler. All the same Benson was sure that the accusation was true, he had recognised this woman as one of Rathbone’s clients. There had been no laughter this time at the interruption.
“You again?” There was no mistaking now the aggressive note in Rathbone’s voice. “Come on, sir, step up,” he said, and it was like a challenge to combat. “Come and have a chat with me up here. You are doing your best to ruin this show. The audience has come here to be entertained. If you think I’m a fake, step up on the stage.”
It was when the man stood up and began to move towards the stage that Benson began to feel that he might perhaps have misappreciated the situation. But there was no time to think much about it. Another man, elderly and high-shouldered, had risen in belated response to Rathbone’s appeal and was making his way forward.
Rathbone helped this man on to the stage, escorted him over to the box and seated him on it. Then he turned his attention to the heckler.
“Over here,” he said. “Come over here to me.” This obliged the man to walk the whole width of the stage. “Steady now,” Rathbone said. “Where are you going? No, I don’t want you here. Over there. Not there. I want you on one of those chairs.”
“Make your mind up,” the man said, but his voice had lost the heckling note and his face was uncertain and sheepish. He was short and poorly dressed, with a bony, sharp-featured face.
Rathbone watched the man retrace his steps, waited until he was in the act of sitting, then said in a sudden loud tone of displeasure, “Not that one. That is my chair.”
The audience was absolutely silent now, with the unmistakable silence of absorbtion. “Good God, what are you doing?” Rathbone said. The man had stood up hastily and kicked against the chair. It was clear to Benson that he was confused by the stage space, which is both vast and cramped at the same time to those not used to it. And Rathbone’s contradictory instructions were confusing him still further.
“The other chair,” Rathbone said. He moved lightly over and sat opposite the man at a distance of three feet or so. “Why are you looking at the audience?” he said. “Don’t look at the audience. Look at me.”
Benson saw the man’s head jerk round. With a sudden change of tone Rathbone said, “That’s right, that’s good. You don’t want to fight, you don’t want to argue, I’m your friend, listen to my voice, I’m your friend.”
Very quietly, in tones only partially audible to the spectators, he continued speaking, holding the other with his eyes. It seemed to Benson that the man made one or two restless movements with his head at first but after some moments he remained fixed in an attitude of attention. The rather sheepish smile he had worn on his face earlier had gone completely now. Benson saw the lowering of his shoulders.
“You are going down deeper,” Rathbone said more loudly. “Deeper … deeper. Concentrate on your hands. That’s right. Now I’m going to tell you to raise your hands and put the palms together. When you put your palms together, you will go down deeper. Concentrate on your hands. That’s good. Now raise your hands, put the palms together.”
With astonishment and a sort of uneasy pity, Benson saw the man raise his hands and place them together. Could Rathbone have seen something in the man’s face when he looked down at him, heard something in his voice? The bullying had looked genuine enough, unpleasantly so. Could he really have snared the man’s mind and will somehow, between a phrase and a phrase?
“You are pressing, pressing, your hands are pressing together. Your hands are chained together. You can’t get them apart. I’m going to count to five. When I reach five I’m going to snap my fingers. When you hear me snap my fingers you will go down deeper, you will know that your hands are chained together, you won’t be able to move your hands apart until you hear that same sound again.”
Rathbone stood up and moved forward to face the audience. “He’s saying his prayers,” he said. “Long overdue, I expect.” The audience tittered, nervous. Rathbone went back to the man, seated himself again and began counting in a slow, deliberate voice. When he reached five he waited a moment or two then snapped his fingers contemptuously under the man’s nose – a loud sound in that silent hall. He stood up, fished in his pocket for a moment, then held a hand up to the audience, turning a metal object this way and that. “This is an ordinary tin whistle,” he said. “You will observe that I am placing it here, on the stage.” He walked forward a few paces and laid the whistle a couple of yards beyond the circle of the spotlight.
The man had remained seated, looking mildly before him, his pale, sharp-featured face set in an expression of placid obstinacy, his hands before him, palms together. Rathbone was standing behind him now, looking down at the top of his head.
“When you hear me snap my fingers,” he said, “you will find that you can move your hands apart again, the chains will fall away. But you will have to do one more thing before you can be free. You will get up, you will find the whistle that is lying on the stage. You will pick it up and you will blow on it. Once, just once. When you have done that you will be free.”
Again he moved forward to address the audience. “He wanted to be the referee,” he said, “so we’ll let him, shall we? He can blow the whistle for us.” Again there came that nervous, half-unwilling rustle of response. Smiling, Rathbone moved across the stage to the woman, who was still standing where he had left her, near the hatstand. “Look at me,” he said. The tone was easier now, quite loud, almost conversational. “Listen to my voice, this is my voice, let yourself relax, let yourself go. You want to relax, your body wants to relax, don’t resist it, let yourself go …”
This time the effect was almost immediate, confirming Benson’s suspicion that this woman had been put under by Rathbone numbers of times before, though what she was being treated for he could only speculate. She had been visibly affected from the start, from the first words Rathbone uttered. Now Benson saw the shoulders relax, the stolidity of the face intensify.
“What is your name?” Rathbone said. “Tell the audience your name.”
