‘Did anything,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘you know, happen?’
‘What should happen?’ said Schwarzgang. ‘A couple of chapters I still have in a box somewhere, that’s as far as it went. I’m a small businessman, a tobacconist, that’s all. It’s a living. The world is full of people who write a few chapters.’
‘On yellow paper,’ said Kleinzeit.
‘Yellow paper, blue paper, white. What’s the difference.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘See you.’ Redbeard was laughing silently in his bed.
Kleinzeit stopped at Piggle’s bed. He’d never had much to say to Piggle, but they’d smiled occasionally. ‘How are you?’ he said.
‘Pretty well, thanks,’ said Piggle. ‘Out in a fortnight, I should think.’
‘Good,’ said Kleinzeit.
‘Actually,’ said Piggle, ‘I wonder if you’d do me a favour?’
‘Certainly,’ said Kleinzeit.
Piggle took a scrap of yellow paper from the drawer of his bedside locker, wrote a telephone number on it. ‘They still won’t let me out of bed,’ he said. ‘Would you ring up my wife and ask her to bring Conrad’s The Secret Agent next time she comes? Here’s the 2p.’
Kleinzeit took the yellow paper carefully in his hand. Same kind.
‘Sure it’s quite all right?’ said Piggle. ‘You look a little odd. Oughtn’t to bother you with it, really.’
‘No, no,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘It’s all right.’ He could have picked it up anywhere, he thought. After all, they wouldn’t make yellow paper if it weren’t in general use. Maybe I should ask Ryman’s. Ask what? Don’t be silly. ‘All the best,’ he said to Piggle. ‘Cheerio.’
‘Cheerio,’ said Piggle. ‘Thanks for the phone call.’
‘It’s nothing at all,’ said Kleinzeit. He left the ward without talking to anyone else, said goodbye to Sister, hurried down the stairs with Hospital making lip-smacking noises after him, found himself in the Underground. He went to a telephone, stood in front of it with Mrs Piggle’s yellow-paper telephone number in his hand. Had Piggle meant anything by asking for that particular book? He dialled the number.
Ring, ring. ‘Hello,’ said Mrs Piggle.
‘Comrade here,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Secret agent.’
‘Who’s that?’ said Mrs Piggle.
‘This is Morton Taylor,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Mr Piggle asked me to ask you to bring a book next time you visit: The Secret Agent, by Joseph Conrad. Yellow paper.’
‘What do you mean, “yellow paper”?’ said Mrs Piggle.
‘Fellow patients is what I said,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘I said we’d been fellow patients.’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Piggle, ‘and that’s certainly a place where fellows have to be patient, isn’t it. Very difficult for Cyril, he wants to be up and doing.’
‘Yes indeed,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Doing his …’
‘Work, you know,’ said Mrs Piggle.
‘Of course,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘At …’
‘The office,’ said Mrs Piggle. ‘Thank you so much for giving me the message, Mr Fellows.’
‘Taylor,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Yellow paper.’
‘Fellow patient,’ said Mrs Piggle. ‘Quite. Thank you so much. Goodbye.’
Fellow patient, thought Kleinzeit. Fellows patient. Patient fellows. Code? He went to the platform, got into a train, read Thucydides, came to one of the places where he’d opened the book at random before beginning to read it. Demosthenes was talking to the Athenians at Pylos as they waited for the Spartans to attack the beach:
‘ … I call upon you, as Athenians who know from experience all about landing from ships on foreign shores and how impossible it is to force a landing if the defenders stand firm and do not give way through fear of the surf or the frightening appearance of the ships as they sail in – remembering this, stand firm now yourselves, meet the enemy right down at the water’s edge, and preserve this position and our own lives.’
Yes, said Kleinzeit as he escalated to the street, that’s it all right: ‘the frightening appearance of the ships as they sail in.’ The pain was big and smooth and quiet now, like a Rolls-Royce. My place, said Kleinzeit, and they drove off.
Caterpillar Tractor Horse
Right, said Kleinzeit as he lit the candle at the plain deal table. The frightening appearance of the ships as they sail in. Do not give way. He uncovered the yellow paper, it bit his hand.
Don’t do that, said Kleinzeit. You know me, we have a paragraph.
I never saw you before in my life, said the yellow paper. You’re absolutely bonkers.
It’s all right, said Kleinzeit, it’ll all come back to you.
Death began to hammer on the door. HOO HOO HOO! it yelled. LET ME IN!
Go away, said Kleinzeit. Not your time yet.
HOO HOO! yelled Death. I’LL BLOODY TEAR YOU APART. ANY TIME’S MY TIME, I WANT YOU NOW AND I’M GOING TO HAVE YOU NOW. NOW NOW NOW
Kleinzeit went to the door, double-locked it, fastened the chain. Go away, he said. You’re not real, you’re just in my mind.
IS YOUR MIND REAL? said Death.
Of course my mind’s real, said Kleinzeit.
THEN SO AM I, said Death. THERE I HAVE YOU, EH? It stuck its fingers through the letter box. Bristling black and hairy, with disgusting-looking long grey fingernails.
Kleinzeit grabbed the frying-pan from the kitchen, slammed the hairy black fingers with all his strength.
I’LL GET YOU LATER, said Death, SEE IF I DON’T.
Right, said Kleinzeit. He went back to the plain deal table to start the second paragraph.
You’re so brave, said the yellow paper. So strong, so virile. Take me.
In a minute, said Kleinzeit. He scratched his head, ruffled his hair, shook dandruff over the yellow paper and the plain deal table. What I need, he said, is to get things sorted out. Before I can get on with the second paragraph I have to have a better idea of where I am with things in general. He made a list:
A to B – The beginning. Of what?
Yellow Paper – Barrow full of rocks, Bonzo Toothpaste
Creative Director – ‘You’re fired.’
Dr Pink – ‘Do it to stretto before stretto, you know, does it to you.’
Sister –
Drs Fleshky, Potluck & Krishna – Krishna said good luck.
Hospital– Can take no responsibility for death or other mishap.
Flashpoint – Dead.
M. T. Butts – Dead.
Schwarzgang – Blip blip blip blip.
Redbeard – Last one before me. STAFF ONLY?
Piggle – Code?
Thucydides– ‘The appearance of the ships.’
Death – ‘I’ll get you later.’
Shiva – ‘Let it get moving, you know.’
God – ‘Give the yellow paper a whirl.’
Underground – ‘Are you Orpheus?’
Folger Bashan – ‘I’ll get you after school.’
Wife – Remarried.
Children – ‘Bye bye, Dad.’
Father – ‘I didn’t know.’
Mother – ‘I knew.’
Brother – ‘Nobody can tell you anything.’
Tracksuit, socks, running shoes – Buy tomorrow.
Kleinzeit studied the list, drew brackets in the margin connecting various items. Then he made another list:
Barrow full of rocks.
Harrow full of crocks.
Arrow in a box.
YARROW – Fullest Stock
SORROW; FULL SHOCK
Morrows cruel mock.
He shook some dandruff over that list, made a third one:
Flashpoint – Distended spectrum – Hendiadys – Zither? – Yellow paper?
M. T. Butts – Ullage – Fruity buns
Schwarzgang – Ontogeny – Tobacconist – Yellow paper
McDougal – Glaswectomy
Smallworth – Enlarged proscenium
Raj – Hesperitis
Damprise ??
? Efflorescence
Piggle – Imbricated noumena – Office? – Conrad? – The Secret Agent? – Code? – Yellow paper
Drogue – Fusee trouble
Old Griggs – Palimpsest
Redbeard – Slipped fulcrum – Yellow paper – Mouth organ – Fruity buns
Kleinzeit – Hypotenuse – Diapason – Asymptotes – Stretto – Glockenspiel – Yellow paper
Kleinzeit pondered the three lists for a long time. Very good, he said. I don’t know any more than I did before. The yellow paper had gone to sleep. Without waking it up he wrote a second paragraph, a third, finished the page, wrote a second page and a third.
He went to the door, listened, heard Death breathing. You there? he said.
Not half, said Death.
Do me a favour, will you, said Kleinzeit. Run down to the off licence and get me twenty Senior Service. I’ll give you the money through the letter box.
I’m bloody not fagging for you, said Death. You run down yourself.
You won’t do it because you’re not real, said Kleinzeit. If you were real you’d take this real money and nip down to the real off licence and buy the real cigarettes. Here’s the money. He dropped it through the letter box, heard the coins fall on the floor outside.
You there? he said.
No answer. Kleinzeit unlocked the door, opened it. Nobody there. He picked up the money, went down to the off licence, bought the cigarettes himself.
When Kleinzeit got back he picked up Thucydides, held the book in his hand while he thought about things. When all the existing data have been correlated and analysed, said Kleinzeit, we find nothing whatever.
That’s firm thinking, said Thucydides.
Thank you, said Kleinzeit. There may be, however, some evidence, as yet unconfirmed, of the existence of a group of yellow-paper men. There may possibly be a whole ward of them in Hospital. Dr Pink diagnoses, prescribes, operates, Drs Fleshky, Potluck, Krishna, assist, Sister and her nurses minister to the patients in Ward A4. I am one of the A4 men.
Be patriotic, said Thucydides. Don’t let the side down.
The etiology of the various malfunctions and diseases in Ward A4 is unknown to me, said Kleinzeit. If, as we suspect, yellow paper occurs in all cases, it might be interesting to learn the histories of those who recover.
He rang up Sister at the hospital. ‘Do you know anything about the men in A4 who’ve been discharged?’ he said.
There was a silence.
‘You know,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘the ones who’ve recovered and gone home.’
No answer.
‘Are you there?’ said Kleinzeit.
’Yes,’ said Sister. ‘There haven’t been any since I’ve been here.’
‘How long is that?’
‘Three years.’
‘But that can’t be. I mean, look at me.’
‘You discharged yourself. There haven’t been any who were discharged. And you’re the only one who’s discharged himself.’
‘But they aren’t all the same patients who were there three years ago, surely,’ said Kleinzeit.
‘Oh, no. We’ve lost a good many.’
Surprising how cold it is in here, thought Kleinzeit. Redbeard needn’t have flogged my electric fires.
‘Are you there?’ said Sister.
‘For the time being,’ said Kleinzeit.
HELLO, LOVER BOY, shouted Hospital into the telephone.
HOO HOO! yelled Death through the letter box.
‘But it isn’t,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘a terminal care ward or anything like that, is it?’
‘No,’ said Sister. ‘It just sort of happened that way.’
Kleinzeit said goodbye, rang off. If the Athenians lost I’m not sure whether I can keep going, said Kleinzeit.
Think Athenian, said Thucydides.
Kleinzeit read for a while, came to the part where the Spartans asked the Athenians to stop the war. They had a good chance for peace there, he said to Thucydides. Why didn’t they take it?
You know how it is, said Thucydides. You’re winning, so you think why quit now.
I’ve done three pages, said Kleinzeit, but nobody’s making peace offers.
Win some more, said Thucydides.
I feel a little faint, said Kleinzeit. He leaned back, found that he was leaning against Word.
Yes, said Word, in the immortal words of William Wandsworth: ‘hoof after hoof …’ Keep that in mind, my boy.
Wordsworth, said Kleinzeit. Wandsworth is south of the river.
But ahead of his time, said Word, and don’t you forget it. After all, he conceived the caterpillar tractor, or at least the caterpillar tractor horse. Army tanks and all that. Where would modern warfare be without Wormswood?
Wordsworth, said Kleinzeit. What are you going on about?
What I said, said Word: the caterpillar tractor concept. ‘My horse moved on,’ he said, ‘hoof after hoof’. It’s perfectly obvious, I should think, that he had in mind an endless revolving tread shod with horses’ hooves, thus prefiguring today’s machines of war and peace. The industrial revolution, the breaking up of rural patterns. All that, you know. He was a deep one all right, was Whatsisworth. And under and over it all, ‘hoof after hoof,’ red in tooth and claw. Like Old Man River, it just keeps rolling along, eh?
Kleinzeit had stopped listening. I’ll start running again in the mornings, he said. Buy a tracksuit tomorrow.
Good show, said Thucydides. A running mind in a running body.
Right, said Kleinzeit. He went into the bathroom without turning on the light, washed his face and brushed his teeth in the dark, peed by ear.
What’s happening? said the mirror. Who am I?
Morton Taylor, said Kleinzeit with a sinister chuckle, and went to bed.
All in Blue
The next day Kleinzeit took time out from his business in the Underground to buy running gear, also a shirt, trousers, underwear and socks. Still enough in his cheque account for three months, and the busking was covering his daily expenses. In the evening he went to the hospital.
‘What do you think now?’ said Redbeard. ‘Still nonsense? I heard what Schwarzgang said. I saw Piggle give you a piece of yellow paper.’
‘Two cases don’t make a whole ward,’ said Kleinzeit.
‘Two plus two is four,’ said Redbeard. ‘You forgot to count you and me. Try some more.’
‘I’m not sure I want to.’
‘Brave, aren’t you?’
‘I never said I was.’
They stared at each other for a while without saying anything. Kleinzeit went over to Nox’s bed.
‘How’s it going?’ he said.
‘I don’t think I’ve got much time left,’ said Nox. He looked and sounded not much more than a shadow.
‘Nonsense,’ said Kleinzeit like a pipe-smoking vicar with twinkling eyes. ‘You’re looking much fitter than you were when I first came here.’
‘No, I’m not,’ said Nox. ‘And they’ve done three refractions already. It’s going to be total eclipse for me next time, I think.’ He laughed. ’A to B is how it began, but Z is coming up quite soon.’
A little more blackness in the air than usual, thought Kleinzeit, staring hard. Pollution.
‘A to B,’ said Nox. ‘At one time I even thought of writing a story about it. Never finished it, though. Actually, I think I’ve got it here somewhere.’
Kleinzeit shut his eyes and held out his hand. He heard Nox shuffling papers in the drawer of his locker, felt several sheets of paper put into his hand.
‘Why’ve you got your eyes shut?’ said Nox.
‘Sometimes I get headaches,’ said Kleinzeit without opening his eyes. ‘It doesn’t feel yellow.’
‘It isn’t yellow,’ said Nox. ‘It’s just ordinary foolscap.’
‘Ah,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Ordinary foolscap.’ He opened his eyes, looked at the paper. Ordinary feint-ruled foolscap. Nox’s writing was a firm black chancery hand. Kleinzeit read:
Ther
e it was again, like a shadow on the sun: a rounded shape of black overlapping a bright circle, intersecting the perimeter at A and B.
Kleinzeit closed his eyes again. ‘Difficult to read,’ he said. ‘My eyes are bothering me. What happens next? Do you pick up a piece of ordinary foolscap in the Underground, go to your office, ring up your doctor, write something on the paper, and get sacked?’
‘How in the world did you know?’ said Nox. ‘I picked up the foolscap in the corridor, it was lying on the floor, quite clean. I went to the department store where I work (Glass and China, Ground Floor), rang up my doctor, then had an absolutely overwhelming urge to write something on the foolscap, which I did.’
‘What did you write?’ said Kleinzeit.
Nox took from the drawer a folded sheet of foolscap that looked as if it had been carried in a rear pocket and much sat on. The chancery script was larger and less firm than the writing on the other sheets. Kleinzeit read:
Narrow, cool. The flock.
‘I had a display of Spode to arrange,’ said Nox, ‘so I set up a pair of steps by the shelves and got on with it. There’s a pattern called the Italian Design, quite pretty, all in blue. Dotted clouds, lacy trees, an attractive ruin, five sheep, and a lady kneeling by the river while the shepherd approaches her from behind, flourishing his staff. Nearby in a posh little cave sits an indeterminate figure telling beads perhaps, or meditating. Well, there I was standing on the steps with a teapot in my hand when I found myself possessed by a strong desire to get into the picture, push the shepherd to one side and have a go at the lady myself while the indeterminate figure in the cave either looked on or didn’t.’
‘Did you,’ said Kleinzeit, ‘get into the picture?’
Nox stared at him for a moment. Kleinzeit’s eyes were closed again, but he could feel it. ‘No,’ said Nox, ‘I didn’t. I became aware that my governor was standing there looking up at me, had been for some time. He’s got a face like a baboon’s bottom but deeply lined, which baboons’ bottoms generally aren’t, I believe. “Well, Nox,” he said, “when you’ve finished posing for the monument or contemplating infinity or whatever it is you’re doing, perhaps you’ll get on with it.” All this time I was more and more inclined, quite literally I mean, towards the lady kneeling by the river. I inclined so far that I toppled off the steps, grabbed at the shelf as I fell and brought it, with about £100 worth of crockery (retail price, that is) and myself down on the governor’s head.