The Four-Gated City

  Martha sat in a comfortable chair in the middle of the room, watching: and Lynda, ignoring Martha, worked her way around. Yet it seemed to Martha that while Lynda seemed to be ignoring her, might even try to walk right through her if she had been in the way of her circular progress, she was really waiting for her to say something, or do something; for in her posture, the set of her head, even in her furtively directed glances was the suggestion of a defiance held in check, but kept ready: I’m not going to do what you say! But Martha had no idea what was expected of her: what Lynda’s experience made her expect. When Lynda fell off to sleep, which she did in a huddle near the wall, like a prisoner dying against an obdurate barrier behind which she has been shut, Martha went up to Mark. It was nearly two days after this bout or fit had started: Martha had napped, slept in the chair; as far as she knew, Lynda had not. Mark was in his study, not working, but lying in a deep chair trying to absorb what the walls said. (There was a new wall, hinged, with the facts and figures about mental hospitals, asylums, patients, mad people, people incapacitated, in the countries of the world.) He also had the appearance of listening to what was going on in the basement, or following it in his mind.

  ‘When Lynda goes around and around the walls, what do you do? ’

  There isn’t much to be done. I keep reminding her: “You aren’t locked in, Lynda, you can walk out any time you like.’”

  ‘Oh, I haven’t been saying anything at all.’

  ‘Well, keep her in touch with reality-that sort of thing? ’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  When Martha had bathed, and eaten, she returned to the basement and found Lynda sitting on the floor, like a child, humming to herself, and swaying back and forth. She looked contented: or at least gone far enough inside herself not to care about the outside world. She saw Martha and shot her a look of hatred. It was theatrical. Then she got up and began her progress around the room, shooting her angrily inquiring glances towards Martha.

  Martha tested: ‘Lynda, you aren’t locked in, you can walk out any time you want-there’s the door.’

  This had an astonishingly large effect-though Martha had half-expected it. Lynda moved faster, using her fists in a series of short violent bangs on the walls, looking at Martha all the time. It was very theatrical. Somewhere in Lynda someone watched what she did, so that the look of challenging defiance at Martha was-funny? No; yet Martha needed to laugh-hysterical gusts of laughter were suppressed. Lynda moved faster, waiting for Martha to say it again. Martha kept quiet: Lynda’s movements became wild and angry and her eyes widened in prepared fury. ‘Lynda: those are ordinary walls. This is where you live. You can walk out any time you like.’

  And now Lynda whirled around on Martha, picking up a heavy Victorian leather chair, and holding it over Martha’s head. It was incredible that she had the strength: yet she held it there, grinding her teeth at Martha, until, when Martha did not move, but confronted Lynda with a smile kept as cool as she could make it, she put down the chair, muttered to herself, and shook her head, which looked as if she were saying: You can’t hear what I’m saying, because I don’t want you to-and then continued her progress around the walls. Faster than she had; muttering angrily, darting her theatrically furious glances, playing the role: Leave me alone: you aren’t there.

  So Martha said nothing. Lynda wanted Martha to be ‘reasonable’ so that Lynda could then defy her? Or, Lynda wanted Martha, or somebody, to be there, but didn’t want them to be anything, say anything-merely wanted to be left alone? At any rate, for a day, then two days, Lynda continued around and around, while Martha stayed in the chair. Lynda did not sleep during that time and after a while, since Martha did not say: ‘Those are your walls, they aren’t a prison cell, ’ she began moving more slowly; then might stand for an hour or so, hardly conscious of Martha, her head resting on her fists that rested on the wall. Yet her eyes were open. She had gone completely inside herself, and never looked at Martha, yet once Martha dozed off, and found that Lynda was crouching beside her staring into her face, the way a child stares for the first time at a frog or an ant, or some new creature. Then she saw that Lynda had pushed a cushion against her head to stop it slipping. And once Lynda said, in a perfectly normal voice: ‘It’s cold in here, shall we have the heating on? ’

  Yet she did not eat, or drink, nor did she need, or so it seemed, to sit down, or to lie down and sleep. Another day passed. There was a small crisis that could have been worse when Lynda returned from a visit to the bathroom with some pills laid out on her palm. She did not look at Martha, yet she laid them down on a table in a row, like prettily coloured little toys, or sweets, and made as if to take them. Her desire to challenge Martha into starting up and forbidding her to take them, was so strong that Martha had really to fight to keep quiet. But she did keep quiet. Then Lynda swept the pills, without taking any, into the palm of one hand with the edge of her other hand and dropped them into a saucer. There they stayed, untaken, as if Lynda said: Look, you see, I’m not taking them.

  And now Martha was unable to stop herself worrying about Lynda’s not eating, not drinking. She was always too thin: now she was a branch of bones over which an old dressing-gown was tied, and the skull grew strong while eyes, cheeks, sank into it. Martha made some light food in the kitchen and brought in a tray, and, without speaking, put it on a table. At once Lynda went into her posture of defiance, she sparked angry eyes at Martha, muttering inaudibly.

  ‘If you don’t drink something, you are going to be ill, ’ said Martha; at which Lynda picked up the tray and flung it on the door. She then continued on her way around the walls. Martha got out cleaning things and began to clean up broken crockery, spilt eggs, milk. Lynda watched, in her way of observing everything while appearing not to do so. Then she came from the wall to the carpet, knelt down, and lapped milk that lay in a half-broken saucer. She watched Martha as she did so. Martha felt an extraordinarily strong compulsion to do the same. Yet she realized it was no impulse of Lynda’s that had brought her to lap like an animal on the floor: she had worked it out: she had known what she was doing. Now Martha, kneeling on the floor beside Lynda, worked out what she should do: she realized that her ‘if-I-do-this-she-will-do-that’ was the counterpart of Lynda’s calculation. There was a danger here. What sort of danger? Being ‘reasonable’, ‘sensible’? was always wrong-or so it seemed: it was that which had turned out to be dangerous, ending in threateningly wielded chairs and thrown traysful of crockery. Thinking: This is dangerous, to me, not to Lynda, ’ she nevertheless poured an inch of milk that lay in the bulge of an overturned glass jug, into a plate, held this to her mouth (she did not go down on her hands and knees to the floor to drink) and drank symbolically, not quite lapping. And now Lynda sat up, from her all-fours position, and watched, smiling. It was a sour smile. Triumphant? No. She was acknowledging something, admitting something? Martha had no idea. Then Lynda got to her feet, went into her kitchen, and came back a moment later with a large glass jug filled with water and a glass. She poured water, unsteadily, spilling a lot, into a glass, and drank it. The unsteadiness, speaking of weakness due to not eating, not sleeping, alarmed Martha but she made herself keep quiet. Lynda drank glass after glass of water, without looking at Martha, with an air of someone in a desperate hurry to get on with her real business of checking, or challenging, or acknowledging, or holding up, the walls. Which she proceeded to do.

  It was stifling inside this large low room, with its burning lights because of the drawn curtains, and the heat full on. But Lynda would not hear when Martha suggested opening the window. There was a strong smell of sweat. Lynda sweated badly. Lynda ought to bathe; Lynda ought to sleep; Lynda ought to eat; Lynda ought, ought, ought, ought … Time passed. Upstairs, presumably Mark sat in his study, ‘working’, or trying to make what was on the walls into a pattern of sense. Outside in the street life went on. Indeed the sounds of workmen lifting the road to mend the drains or gas or electricity or telephones could be heard; there wa
s a drill at work somewhere close. All around and above, London worked, ate, slept, talked, went to parties, but here it was like being under water, or shut away, or looking at ordinary life from another dimension.

  Martha found she was longing for movement: she said to herself, that she was an active person, not made to sit day after day, controlling movement, controlling words. Her limbs were restless and longed to be in use. Then she understood that with part of her she wanted to join Lynda in her journey around the walls: she did not want to go out of the flat at all. Of course not-how could she ever have thought anything so irrelevant as that it was possible to go out of the flat? How could Lynda go out, as she was, skinned and flayed, exposing herself to a world that would judge her ‘sensibly’? And how could Martha go out, since she was part of Lynda?. In one moment she, too, would get up and progress around those walls, around and around and around.

  To sit here, an observer, while Lynda worked on this task of hers, was callous? Ought she to join Lynda as she had (almost), lapping from a saucer like a cat or a dog? Almost… she hadn’t actually done it.

  She could not bear to sit still another moment. She got up, holding what felt like a potential explosion of energy, and, having cleared a space on the carpet still stained by spilled milk, slowly did physical exercises, taking no notice at all of Lynda.

  To move, to use one’s muscles, after long sitting, long inactivity, what a joy, what a gift, what a blessing! She went on slowly, enjoyably, stretching and bending and reaching, working out the restlessness from her body. And Lynda leaned against the wall and watched. Not at all aggressively, not at all needing to defy or to challenge; nor saying, Leave me alone; or, You can’t reach me.

  When Martha had finished the exercises, she said to Lynda, I’m going upstairs to bath-I’ll be gone some time. For she had thought it out: in all these years of Lynda’s being in hospitals or having to be guarded by nurses or by Mark, she had never hurt anyone, had not even much hurt herself. There had been things thrown, a fight or two, a broken window. They said she was violent; she said of herself that she was violent when being silly. Yet the fact was, she did not do hurt-no one had been hurt. Martha spent a long time in the bath; changed her clothes, ate. She even slept for an hour or so. She came down again to find Lynda sitting in the middle of the carpet. Lynda did not look at Martha, but got up and went to the bathroom and bathed. Slowly and messily; water could be heard sloshing about; and things were thrown. Lynda was singing and muttering. Snatches of songs, bits of conversations, a yell of gutter laughter. It was filthy, disgusting; but the obscenities had a rapid, repetitive almost ritual sound to them. Lynda, like women in the street shouting envious obscenities at a famous whore, or a film star; or like Mrs. Quest; had decided to visit that particular region of the human mind; and, like Mrs. Quest, had decided not to stay there. She came out of the bathroom like a good clean child in another dressing-gown, this time a dark pink cotton, and her hair was washed and newly tied. She returned to sit on the carpet. She and Martha looked at each other and this look said, on Martha’s side: Lynda, are you ready to become normal again? And on Lynda’s side: No, not yet, I don’t want to.

  And now Lynda sat swaying, and singing little songs to herself, nursery rhymes and children’s songs, while Martha cleared up the swamps in the bathroom and washed Lynda’s sweat-soaked gown. Then she came and sat down. Time passed: days and nights. They did not sleep. Or they slept in snatches, but it was not a real healthful sleep. Lynda drank water. She would not eat. But Martha observed her dabbing at some crumbs on the kitchen shelf, and so brought down packets of biscuits from the other kitchen upstairs. Mark came from his study to meet her there. She noted that she now observed him, not with hostility, but critically, from a distance where she also observed an abstracted-looking woman in a faded blue cotton overall and fingers stained with nicotine to the knuckles, who moved in a climate of stale air and smoke. A shaved, clean, strong man, with intelligent eyes, put arms around this woman, and inquired: ‘Are you all right? ’

  She listened carefully: What he said sounded extraordinary, every word had a weight to it which compelled attention-she had never heard them before, certainly never thought about them. She understood suddenly that when Lynda muttered, protecting her words from Martha, it was because she was listening to them, to how they sounded; and knew that if Martha handled them, used them, it would be destructive of their real sense. She had not answered Mark, and now she saw alarm on his face. In this alert, clear state she was in, this look, alarm like other emotions, or reactions, was printed on his features as clear and fresh as if she saw alarm, concern, for the first time in her life. But she had to speak; and finding a normal smile and the right words, she said: ‘Yes, I’m all right and I think she will be soon.’ As she spoke, what she said seemed ridiculous: the sounds the human race made when communicating among itself, they were absurd: why did these creatures put up with them? For the fact was, if Mark and she, this lean woman vibrant with a nervous tension that derived from some finer, or at least, more potent air, had not said one word during this encounter, they could have communicated well enough: Mark knew she was all right, in spite of her exhaustion, and the way the flesh was going off her frame of bones: he had known as soon as he had set eyes on her-the rest was a formality paid to custom.

  He kissed her. Lips, a slit in the flesh of a face, were pressed against a thin tissue of flesh that saved them from pressing a double row of teeth which had lumps of metal in them. Then these lips moved to touch her own slit through which she was equipped to insert food or liquid, or make sounds. A kiss. That part of Martha which observed this remarkable ritual was filled with a protective compassion for these two ridiculous little creatures-as if invisible arms, vast, peaceful, maternal, were stretched around them both, and rocked them like water.

  The observer and Martha went downstairs with biscuits and a slab of fruit cake. Yes, she had indeed gone a long way inside of Lynda’s country. Yet she was-sane? In control, certainly. And not afraid. She was curious, and angry with herself that she had not done this before-good God, this door (like so many others, she must suppose) had been standing here, ready for her to walk in any time she wished. And she had not, she had not.

  Lynda ate some biscuits. She drank water. She had a bath. How long after the first? How long had Martha and Lynda been at work? They could not be bothered to calculate. They did not sleep. Martha believed she had forgotten how to sleep. She regarded, with incredulity, that world where people lay down to sleep at regular intervals-but she had been here before. When? Many years ago. Where? Yes, it was on a boat, a ship. She could feel the swing and the sway of the vessel and smell salt air. On the boat she had felt this: how extraordinary that people could voluntarily, indeed, eagerly, throw away their precious lives in sleep.

  She knew very well this area of the human mind where the machinery of ordinary life seemed more than absurd, seemed a frightening trap. And she knew it from before the boat. When? Where? Her mind seemed to be a thin light texture through which other textures, feelings, sensations kept passing. Oh, it had been long before the voyage to England … suddenly Martha was in a room she had forgotten, looking at enormous people, giants, engaged in … yes, she had been a child, she had felt this as a tiny child, looking at grown-up people, as they sat around a table, dressed in clothes that made them seem like her dolls, talking and smiling to each other with put-on false smiles and looks. For they did not mean what they said. They were afraid of each other, or at least had to placate each other: the small child had called this activity ‘lies’. She had watched (how old? Small enough for a knee to seem large and dangerous, like a horse’s trampling legs), and judged these giants as cowards and liars, engaged-incredibly-in meaningless activities and rituals of dressing and undressing and eating and talking, and their fear of each other, their wariness, was so great that two of them could not meet without going stiffly on guard and stretching their mouths and making movements which said: I won’t hurt you if yo
u won’t hurt me-look, I’m so nice and kind, don’t hurt me … Martha had seen all this, understood it, had even said to herself in an anguish of fear that she would be swallowed up: Don’t let yourself be sucked in, remember, remember, remember-but she had not remembered, she had been sucked in, she had become a liar and coward like the rest.

  Martha wept bitterly for the wasted years. And Lynda, sitting on the floor, looked up and smiled her a knowledgeable smile-which Martha now understood very well. It was not sour; it was not even critical. It was sad. Martha cried: and Lynda sat quiet until she had finished crying. Then Lynda said ‘Yes-but how to get out, get out, get out…’ And she began again on her circumambulation.

  Martha was sitting there saying to herself, exactly as she had when she was-how old? Remember, remember, don’t forget, when you go back to ordinary life, don’t forget-but she was also frightened. For she had said this before, awake; and had been poisoned and hypnotized; and what was to stop it happening again? She sat watching Lynda. Now she understood very well what it was Lynda was doing. When she pressed, assessed, gauged those walls, it was the walls of her own mind that she was exploring. She was asking: Why can’t I get out? What is this thing that holds me in? Why is it so strong when I can imagine, and indeed, half remember, what is outside? Why is it that inside this room I am half asleep, doped, poisoned, and like a person in a nightmare screaming for help but no sounds come out of a straining throat?

  Lynda moved around and around because she had said to herself once, long ago perhaps, perhaps when she was a child? -Remember, don’t let yourself go to sleep; and if you go on always, testing the walls for weakness, for a thin place, one day, you will simply step outside, free.

  It will be as if the walls, in that one place, have crumbled and gone. And the room will seem like a horrible little cell that an animal fouled.