The Adventures Of Una Perrson

  'Come on baby, I'll show you how to dance. Let your hair down, baby, give me a chance. To show you the way to move.'

  Brian began to play the mouth-organ into the microphone. Though the noise threatened to give her a headache (Jerry was apparently not affected at all) she found its vitality and attack more thrilling than anything she had ever heard before.

  ‘That's right, baby, you're learning so fast, Gonna knock the future right back to the past. Now show me how to move!'

  Brian yelled and almost fell backwards as he struck at his guitar, possessed by a madness she could never have guessed at when he had been the cheeky, friendly little lad back in the dressing-room. She felt as if she had witnessed some kind of religious transformation.

  That's right, baby, move it for me.

  You got such hips, you shake 'em just for me.

  Let's show 'em how to move.'

  Brian was swinging his head from side to side so fast that it was a blur. Teah! That's right!' he shouted. 'Oh, yeah! That's nice!'

  The persistent beating of the bass, the high whining of the lead guitar, the swishing of the rhythm guitar, the rapping of the drums, produced in Catherine such a sense of joyful release that she wished now that she was in the audience, able to clap and sway with the others.

  Without pausing, the group went into another number, a slower twelve-bar:

  ‘I was driving down the highway minding my own mind, Taking it easy and watchin' the signs, 'Cause I was goin' nowhere, I had plenty of time. When I saw this little baby, she was jerkin' her thumb, Hitchin' a ride, lookin' blue-eyed and dumb . . . .'

  Gradually her headache vanished. The music shuddered through her and every change was like a wave bearing her over a magical sea, and Brian's inexpert, wailing harmonica was like the cry of an exultant bird.

  She stayed watching, even when Jerry returned to the dressing-room, still amazed by Brian's transformation from cocky youth to authoritative high-priest. It was as if she was privileged to perceive his whole being, all the secrets of a complex soul.

  When they came offstage, Brian in front, they were sweating and their eyes were blank. Brian didn't even see her as he padded to the dressing-room. She had observed that particular kind of blankness only once before, in her own face, just after she had been beaten. She became alarmed.

  'Aren't you going back in there for a drink?' The tall, gaunt guitarist was leaning over her. His face was as serious as ever. Terry's brought a bottle of rum.'

  'Oh, I didn't see you there.' She smiled. ‘You made me jump.'

  'It's the sudden silence,' said Paul.

  'Have you been watching them long?'

  'No, just the last number. We do "Not Fade Away," too, but they do it better, I reckon.'

  'You're in the main act, aren't you?'

  He nodded. 'Don't mean we're better, though, does it? We're just better-known. We're beginning to get a reputation, as they say.' He sniffed and rubbed his long nose. 'It's your brother, isn't it, who's one of The Blues Ensemble?'

  'That's right. Jerry.'

  'Yeah. They're not bad, either.'

  'I don't really know. I haven't heard them play. I saw your group on telly that time. It didn't sound anything like this, though.'

  'It wouldn't, would it? The BBC sound engineers are only happy if it's Gracie Fields or Alma Cogan. They don't know how to record an R & B group, so the sound always lacks power. They won't let you turn your amps right up in case it damages their equipment—and they balance out the bass until you can hardly hear it.'

  'I didn't know that.'

  'Yeah. If you want to hear any more, why don't you go out front and listen. It's better if you're in the middle. You get it all distorted from the side.' He smiled, tapping his ear. 'Like we do.'

  'I enjoyed it, though.'

  'Well, it's up to you.'

  'When are you on?'

  'First set's about half nine, I suppose. You gonna watch?' His mouth was thin and tight, but his eyes were steady, mildly insistent. 'Eh?'

  'I'd like to.'

  'Good.' He picked up his guitar. 'I'll be playing for you, then.'

  'Thank you.'

  'Don't mention it.' For the first time his smile was open. 'And I hope you like it.'

  'I'm sure I will.'

  'If you do, come and have a meal with me between the sets.'

  'All right. If I do.'

  'You will.' He hefted the cherry-coloured guitar like a broadsword. 'You'll like this.'

  As she watched him stride back into the darkness Catherine knew why those girls were prepared to spend so many hours hanging about in the dressing-room. Before long, she thought, I'll be hanging about in there with them. But she knew better than to consider imitating their style.

  SEVENTEEN

  In which Captain Persson and Major Nye consider the State of the Nation

  It's cold enough for snow,' said Major Nye, rubbing his thin blue-veined hands together. As he ushered her past the guards he hummed a few bars of 'White Christmas.' His offices, bare and poorly furnished, had, now that most of Whitehall was demolished, an uninterrupted view of St James's Park and the refugee camp in the bed of the drained ornamental lake. 'It's a great shame we can't get up some sort of entertainment this year. You know how much I enjoy your songs. "There was I, waiting at the church . . . " '

  ‘I haven't done much singing lately.'

  'And a great shame it is. Perhaps we could celebrate the season together?'

  ‘I must be on my way, I'm afraid. I came to apologize.'

  'You did your best, my dear. You always do. My regard for your courage and your determination remains as high as ever. Captain Persson.' His yellowed face broke into a trained smile. 'We cannot control this, any of us. The best we can hope for is to retain our personal,' he shrugged, 'integrity.'

  'You think your people will stay in power here?'

  'Power?' His smile became spontaneous. He attempted to straighten his stooped, thin shoulders. 'Oh, indeed. We'll try to keep things running, you know. There isn't anyone who wants the job. Not in London, at any rate.' There was no heating in the old suite and draughts seemed to blow from a dozen directions at once. He crossed a stretch of parquet flooring to close a connecting door. He wore his battle-dress, his balaclava helmet and a long grey scarf wound several times about his wrinkled throat. 'All we do is look after the refugees. The naked will has triumphed. Civilization is destroyed and most of those who would destroy it are now gone themselves. Their disciples scarcely know why they are still fighting. Who has the will to re-build? I feared anarchy, but this apathy is much worse. They are sitting down to die. Out there!'

  He waved at the window behind him. 'English men and women—sitting down to die!'

  ‘Too tired to dream,' said Una. That is why someone who will do their dreaming for them has the means to move them to action, as a voodoo man controls his zombies. What about the fighting in the West?'

  'Of course there's fighting still, but it's in the nature of a ritual. You'd be hard put to find any real anger. But they won't stop for a while—it's like an unconscious spasm, I suppose. It carries on under its own impetus, like an overshot bowling ball, eh? The jack has long-since been missed.' He offered Una a copper-coloured tobacco tin containing small hand-rolled cigarettes. 'Smoke?'

  She shook her head.

  He lit one for himself. The tobacco smoke was sweet. He puffed as he sat down on the edge of his desk. Take the armchair.' He motioned.

  She had not intended to talk, but she was tired. She had lost most of her initiative since her two abortive attempts to bring back order.

  ‘In the twentieth century,' said Major Nye, Tree will has come to mean pure will. The juvenile imagination triumphs and the Civil Service can no longer maintain the balance—a thousand busy, conscientious rabbits are no match for one confident fox. This has been a century of reaction. Captain Persson. All that has come of our hopes, our attempts to bring great justice to the world, is that robber-barons have become m
ore powerful, better able to justify their huge, crude romantic ambitions, more able to convince once rational men and women of the reality of their ludicrous visions. Bad poets. Captain Persson—bad romantic poets. It is awful, the power they held towards the end. Bards should be blinded, so that they can never become soldiers.' He rubbed his eyes. Tm rambling.' , 'When I was a little girl,' said Una, 'I was convinced that God was German. Every night, out of respect, I used to begin my prayers "Dear Herr God," and if I did wrong I expected the Archangel Gabriel to turn up to punish me. He would be dressed in field-grey, wearing one of those spiked helmets. He had a waxed moustache, sometimes, too.'

  'And if you were good?' Major Nye put his head on one side, his expression affectionate.

  'Nothing,' she said. 'To some people authority can only punish. It can never reward. Perhaps if one has the kind of temperament which responds to praise from authority or expects rewards from authority, then it has no need for free will.'

  ‘I see.' He re-lit his cigarette. 'Such a person has no interest, then, in the nature of that authority?'

  'Not really. And one who trusts no authority is in the opposite position. Irrespective of the nature of the authority, he mistrusts it, must forever be in a posture of resistance. It is, perhaps, because it is so attractive. Probably that is why I admire only revolutionaries who are powerless.'

  'I should have thought the problem more complicated than that.'

  'Which is why you are a civil servant and I am a political activist, or was.'

  'Oh dear, oh dear,' he shook his head from side to side. 'It could be part of the reason, I'll grant you. At any rate, you've helped us considerably. Don't we constitute some kind of authority?'

  'You were losing,' she said. 'Weren't you?'

  'Yet if we had won . . . ? '

  'I should have been on my way. Or joined your enemies. To keep the balance.'

  'Perpetually in opposition.'

  'It's the easier role to play,' she said. 'Free will is the curse of the twentieth century. I can choose to be anything: wife, mother, businesswoman, poet, politician, soldier—all of them. And if I am successful in these roles, all of them, have I any clearer sense of my own identity? Someone else might have, but not me. I refuse to relinquish that freedom, but I have no idea what to do with it. Not really. So many options confuse a person. You had the army and then the civil service. I had unspecific revolutionary fervour—a sympathy for the underdog, a romantic admiration for wild-eyed orators, a hatred of injustice. And I could choose to be so many things—helpmeet, partisan, leader.'

  'Of course, it has been hard for women . . .'

  'It is not only women who suffer from the burden of choice. So many of us, faced with free will, experience a huge desire towards enslavement. Any creed will do. The threat of freedom forces us to fling in with any passing flag, rather than be our own men and women. I have the same yearning. Major Nye—and I am not the only person to yearn for a Robin Hood, an outlaw leader. We cry out for a commander. We pine for princes. And who is the leader who betrays us worst? The one who turns around and tells us that the power is in our hands, that we must tell him and his councillors what we want. What we want! As if we know! Lobkowitz was that sort. A traitor to his people. Him and his Civil Service! Oh, if I could only give myself up to slavery—to a cause, to another individual, to enmesh myself so deeply that I could blame all ills, all frustrations, on a specific government, a particular sex, a class, a phenomenon.' She spoke lightly, with self-mockery. 'Once, Major Nye, I had the theatre. It was perfect.'

  'And so were you,' he murmured. They had first met at the theatre where she had been playing.

  ‘It was a shallow world,' she said, 'a world of ghosts.'

  'Aha.' He turned, significantly, to look out at the shanties in the park.

  This seemed more substantial.' She spoke almost with defiance. 1 had to keep trying.'

  'But you, of all people, should have known that the result was inevitable.'

  'I can't accept that. Besides, efforts I have made—in the past, as it were—have had better results. And who knows what good might eventually come from this complete collapse? You mourn only the civilization which conditioned you, Major Nye. Society does not collapse, it modifies. In a generation or two, something magnificent could come crawling from that pit over there.'

  'So you remain an optimist.'

  'I have seen far too much, been involved in far too many failures, to be anything else.'

  He replaced the remains of his cigarette in his tin. 'I've fought in four wars, served three political parties, and I can see little hope now for the future. Barbarism triumphs. We return to the Dark Ages.'

  'I've fought in a thousand wars,' she said, 'and have served many individuals and have been as depressed to witness the behaviour of those individuals in periods of enlightenment as I have been impressed by the nobility of men and women during periods of darkness. I cannot believe that temperaments are changed by conditions, only that they are modified.'

  'Very well. It is the same thing if those temperaments are radically modified. Captain Persson.' He seemed impatient. 'My forefathers were soldiers, scholars, politicians, all serving their society as best they could—my descendants will be savages, serving only their own ends.'

  'You're simply talking about what you fear, Major Nye, not what you know to be true.'

  ‘I'll grant you that.' He cleared his throat. I'm a bit off-colour this morning. My chest was affected by the smoke.'

  ‘This would be a good time to give them up.'

  'What?' He looked down at his cigarette tin. 'Oh, no. Not these. The smoke from the furnaces. We were burning papers. Files and so on. Mainly personal dossiers. There didn't seem much point in keeping them.'

  ‘There never was,' she said. She got up. She was anxious to part from him amicably.

  'Where are you off to now?' he asked.

  'I had thought of leaving altogether, but I'm curious to follow things through for a bit.' She was, in fact, wondering if there might be a convergence before the century was out. 'You never know, do you? There could be a sudden reverse. Some new development nobody could anticipate.'

  'So you'll stay in the country?'

  'In England? Yes.'

  'You could, in fairness, leave. I stay on because it's all I know. But you . . . '

  'Oh, it's all I know, too.'

  'There are parts of America, I hear . . . '

  'Yes. There little pockets of "order" in many parts of the globe. But the price of enjoying them is too great for me. At this moment, anyway. Civilization involves too much self-deception for me, too much hypocrisy—at least, the sort of civilization I am likely to find these days. I'll continue to take my chances amongst the savages for a while longer.'

  'You remain a remarkable young woman.' They shook hands.

  'And you are still a virtuous old man.' She smiled at him to disguise her sadness, her sympathy.

  EIGHTEEN

  In which Catherine Cornelius enjoys her Silver Days and Golden Nights

  'Well,’ said Mrs Cornelius amiably, giving the huge cafeteria the once over, ‘I don't know abaht this.' The place was reserved for the performers, the journalists and photographers, for management. Outside, visible through the walls of transparent glass, was the empty asphalt of a car-park. Around the fringes of the cordon could be seen knots of young people in Afghan coats, embroidered jeans, feather boas, long Indian skirts, sloppy felt hats, beads, buttons and glowing skin-paint; the ones who were still hoping to get tickets. The people inside the cafeteria looked much like their would-be audiences, only the materials of their patched and embroidered velvets, silks and satins tended to be richer. Here and there were journalists in Burton and Cardin suits, managers and publicists in very clean jeans and tan jackets, cafeteria staff in black and white dresses and aprons.

  'Where d'they race the dogs, then?' Mrs Cornelius clutched her port and lemon.

  ‘That's the White City, Mum. This is Wembley.'


  'Oh, the football.'

  ‘That's right.' Catherine looked down as a three-year-old boy, in a patchwork jacket and tiny jeans, pulled at the folds of her scarlet skirt. 'Stop it, you little bugger.' She bent to give him her glass of wine. 'Want a drink, then?'

  'Nah!' The boy glared at her as he backed off.

  Terence Allen, the manager, appeared and kissed her on the cheek. 'Hello, Cathy, love. Seen Jack?' He had on a dark denim suit.

  'He's in the dressing-room,' she said. 'I couldn't stand it in there.

  ‘Did you know Graham's turned up?'

  Terence slapped his furrowed forehead. That's all I need. How many with him?'

  'Only five or six.'

  ‘Five or six will do it. I hate those fucking Angels.' He glanced around him to see if he had been overheard. 'Don't worry. I'll handle them. Who invited them?'

  'Dunno,' said Catherine, though she knew it could have been Jack himself, in a euphoric moment. Trobably nobody. You know what they're like.'

  'Don't worry,' he said again. I'll handle it.' He sped off in the wrong direction and was almost immediately tackled by two angry roadies, with long, matted dark hair, who appeared to want him to settle a dispute they were having.

  'Listen, Terence,' they kept saying.

  'Don't worry!' Terence's voice was cracking.

  'As it started, yet?' asked her mum.

  'You'll hear it when it does.' At the moment it was just Jimi Hendrix records, played at the side of the stage by Mike, who travelled with the band as a permanent DJ, doing the warm-up before the live show actually got going.

  'You goin' aht there?'

  'Not me,' said Catherine. 'I've heard it before. I've brought my knitting, as usual.'

  'Knitting? Really?' Mrs Cornelius was pleased.