Berg E-Book

Ann Quin

• Herausgeber: And Other Stories
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Seitenzahl: 233

Beschreibung

'A man called Berg, who changed his name to Greb, came to a seaside town intending to kill his father. . . ' So begins Ann Quin's first novel, a debut 'so staggeringly superior to most you'll never forget it' (The Guardian). Alistair Berg, hair restorer, shares a mistress with his father. He will, he decides, eliminate his rival. After mutilating a ventriloquist's dummy, he finds himself accidentally seduced by the man he needs to kill. Mordant, heady, dark, Berg is Quin's masterpiece, a classic of post-war avant-garde British writing.

Leseprobe

This edition published in 2019 by And Other Stories Sheffield – London – New Yorkwww.andotherstories.org

First published in Great Britain in 1964 by Calder and Boyars Ltd

Copyright © Ann Quin, 1964

Cover image of Ann Quin by Oswald Jones (1929–98) / Private Collection / © Estate of Oswald Jones / Bridgeman Images

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transported in any form by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book. The right of Ann Quin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or places is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-911508-54-0 eBook ISBN: 978-1911508-55-7

Proofreader: Sarah Terry; Typesetting and eBook creation: Tetragon, London; Cover Design: Edward Bettison.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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For Mother

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Contents

Berg

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‌Berg

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A man called Berg, who changed his name to Greb, came to a seaside town intending to kill his father…

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Window blurred by out of season spray. Above the sea, overlooking the town, a body rolls upon a creaking bed: fish without fins, flat-headed, white-scaled, bound by a corridor room—dimensions rarely touched by the sun—Alistair Berg, hair-restorer, curled webbed toes, strung between heart and clock, nibbles in the half light, and laughter from the dance hall opposite. Shall I go there again, select another one? A dozen would hardly satisfy; consolation in masturbation, pornographic pictures hanging from branches of the brain. WANTED one downy, lighthearted singing bird to lay, and forget the rest. A week spent in an alien town, yet no further progress—the old man not even approached, and after all these years, the promises, plans, the imaginative pursuit as static as a dream of yesterday. The clean blade of a knife slicing up the partition that divides me from them. Oh yes I have seen you with her—she who shares your life now, fondles you, laughs or cries because of you. Meeting on the stairs, at first the hostile looks, third day: acknowledgment. A new lodger, let’s show him the best side. Good morning, nice day. Good afternoon, cold today. His arm linked with hers. As they passed Berg nodded, vaguely smiled, cultivating that mysterious air of one pretending he wishes to remain detached, anonymous. Afterwards their laughter bounced back, broke up the walls, split his door; still later the partition vibrated, while he paced the narrow strip of carpet between wardrobe and bed, occasionally glimpsing the reflection of a thin arch that had chosen to represent his mouth. Rummaging under the mattress Berg pulled out the beer-stained piece of newspaper, peered at the small photograph.

Oh it’s him Aly, no mistaking your poor father. How my heart turned, fancy after all this time, and not a word, and there he is, as though risen from the dead. That Woman next to him Aly, who do you suppose she is?

He had noticed the arm clinging round the fragile shoulders; his father’s mistress, or just a friend? hardly when—well when the photo showed their relationship to be of quite an affectionate nature. Now he knew. It hadn’t taken long to inveigle his way into the same house, take a room right next to theirs. Yes he had been lucky, everything had fallen into place. No hardship surely now in accepting that events in consequence, in their persistent role of chance and order, should slow down?

Meanwhile he’d find out how they lived, the time they actually spent together. One more clue today: a letter on the hall table, addressed to Mrs. Judith Goldstein, room 19; where then Mr. Goldstein—a hundred feet deep, or perhaps only twenty feet away, yet someone else betrayed, scheming, scratching behind another wall? Berg pushed back the newspaper cutting under the mattress, and sat on the edge of the bed, head reclined from the eclipse that settled over the room, rumpled bed, the chest of drawers, that refused to close; the half open wardrobe doors, the chipped enamel pot with its faded blue flowers; the wallpaper making everything else collide; this morning’s dirty dishes, half a brown loaf—a monk’s cowl—perched on the pale yellow plastic table cloth; pin-striped trousers over the rose-chintz chair; pants, string vests; the case full of bottles, wigs, pamphlets: BUY BERG’S BEST HAIR TONIC DEFEAT DELILAH’S DAMAGE: IN TWO MONTHS YOU WILL BE A NEW MAN. Beside the bed, piled neatly, letters from Edith Berg, devoted unconditionally to her only son:

Oh Aly I don’t like you going off to see him like this. I’m sure it’s not the proper thing to do, I mean he won’t ever recognise you, let alone acknowledge you after all these years.

Through a gap in the curtain, made by one stained finger, and if parted wide enough for a spider to slide through, Berg could watch the illuminated palace across the road lighting up the solid Victorian blocks, surrounded by parked vehicles. On the right a triangular patch of churchyard; perhaps that’s what accounted for the burnt smell that invaded his room every night, if some paper was stuffed in the cracks, and he remembered to close the window, then the smell might be kept out. He pulled the window right down, and remained gloating over the couples that entered the dance hall. Once he had ventured across, and brought back a giggling piece of fluff, that flapped and flustered, until he was incapable, apologetic, a dry fig held by sticky hands. Well I must say you’re a fine one, bringing me all the way up here, what do you want then, here are you blubbering, oh go back to Mum. Lor’ wait until I tell them all what I got tonight, laugh, they’ll die. Longing to be castrated; shaving pubic hairs. Like playing with a doll, rising out of the bath, a pink jujube, a lighthouse, outside the rocks rose in body, later forming into maggots that invaded the long nights, crawled out of sealed walls, and tumbled between the creases in the sheets. Beyond this a faint recollection of a grizzled face peering over, being lowered, on string, to kiss—but no surely to smother you? Edith calling, stifled giggles with Doreen; wanting desperately to go somewhere, how it had come, a shower of golden rain over her new scarlet dress. Later Uncle Billy, home on leave, drunk, drenched with sweat and tobacco smells, drawing you over his knees; kissing taboo, you just confirmed, it’s dirty, not the thing to do, leads to other things. Like photos of nudes, Nicky and Bert kept pasted in their scripture books, relieving the laceration of Miss Hill’s vagina; spinsterhood personified, with her sadistic fascination for boys’ backsides. Alistair Berg come here, bend over please.

Darkness, radio on. Inside something stirred—a child murmuring in its sleep. A moth bumped against the wall, the door, the light. Berg’s fingers strayed, lingered on the switch. The moth sizzled against the bulb, now wingless fell. The stairs creaked, could it be the old man, by himself? Berg switched the light off, and opened the door a little. Striking a match he waited, unaware that the flame licked his hand. A movement nearby, followed by a woman’s voice. Soon Judith appeared, groping her way along by the landing walls. Berg heard the jingle of keys, the sound of their door being opened, closed.

She was, without doubt, a good deal younger than his father, attractive, he supposed, in the artificial style, and who would wish to go beyond the surface in a woman anyway? But what did she see in the old man, certainly not the lure of money, to all intents and purposes he seemed to be living on and off her. A form of mutual perversion? But their sex life hardly concerned him, not at the moment anyway; let the interpretation of their relationship remain in the abstract.

He must present himself one evening, suggest a drink, which would certainly be taken up by his father; every night the old man stumbled up the stairs, followed by raised voices for half an hour or more, then the creaking of their bed the other side for hours, literally hours, while he buried himself under the blankets.

He yawned, stretched; the music distracted, he went to the window. A microscopic eye upon a never-changing scene, except perhaps the weather. Youths nonchalantly leaned from the windows, behind them twisting shapes of couples could be seen, and as from an umbilical cord Berg strung himself through their weaving arms and legs. An eye, then two, stared across. He pulled the curtains, and leaned against the wall, choking over a cigarette. Gradually he calmed down, and pushed his face against the window. Another eye gazed as through a telescope, held his own, then fell. He faced the room. Why get into such a state, just because someone had seen him, surely there was nothing to fear, nothing to be ashamed of? He drew back the curtains, the lights swirled in and round every available object, frantically searching for something, heard of perhaps, but never allowed to see. Berg remained in one beam of light, trying hard not to expose the internal rustle, or lay bare the final draft: abide by the rules and regulations of your chosen part; surrendered, sealed. Full signature here please ALISTAIR CHARLES HUMPHREY BERG, born third of the third, nineteen hundred and thirty-one. Father’s profession: gentleman of unknown origins, scoundrel of the first order. Mother: lady of unequalled measure, mother of genius…

Now you’re out of the Army Aly you’ll have to find a job.

At seventeen discovered to be sterile, followed by secret injections: incurable. But think of the others, those who inevitably fulfil their obligations, he was one of the lucky ones, be thankful for small mercies, at least he wasn’t impotent.

Well my boy what are you thinking of taking up eh, following in your father’s footsteps I suppose, or is it the Civil Service—they look after you well there you know?

No denying that, never forgotten once filed away, numbered, documented. Respectability was what Edith had regard for, expected of him to be a good, solid-working citizen.

You see I’ve never had the better things in life Aly. Of course I don’t expect you to understand, but what I haven’t had I want you to have.

The martyred airs, the coughing, sometimes all night long, over the weekends; a special shave, blunt blades, her pleasure in putting on the dabs of cotton wool.

When will you be down again Aly? Now you know that’s not true, I’m just wondering that’s all, as I like to know, but then you have your own life to lead, and I’ll not stand in your way.

Confronted by her flushed face from the neck up, her hands fluttering; the faded brilliance of a saved-up birthday brooch on her nylon-fur coat lapel, the rusty pin at the edge that always caught something in your throat; the tear-glazed eyes, intake of breath not allowed to escape until the train’s steam merged with the clouds going West. Screwing his eyes up, Berg lay back; the waves of jazz, or a slow waltz crowded in upon the necropolis of cells, like hard-polished beads, one pull, how far would they roll? You see if I tried explaining—no it isn’t any use, why the continual persistence to lubricate the conscience?

Time meaningless for you exploring the mysterious regions of mountains, lakes, jungles within a blanket territory. I pull my eye through a keyhole, on a string the days are declared; thoughts are switchbacks uncontrolled.

Threading experience through imaginative material, acting out fictitious parts, or choosing a stale-mate for compromise. Under this fabrication a secret army gathers defeating those who stalk the scaffolding of comparisons. Yet they still haunt with their pale perplexities, and resentful airs. Then you had nothing to give, apart from a spinning top once seen, or a blue windmill worshipped. Idea and image juxtapositioned, spinning between myth and rationality, the odd years spent at a right angle; if I over-reach, can I be sure of reclaiming a formula outside habitual movement? How easy it would be to finally slide over, allowing the rest to absolve itself. But remember society owes you nothing, therefore, doing yourself in isn’t the answer, no reward for the resentment, and how would I know if it had proved freedom? Remember the swings, the shoots, and roundabout horses; dizzy and dazzled, sticky fingers on a stray cat, a dead thrush, a rabbit stunned; cornflowers sprayed against stained glass; poppies in cornfields, the first, second, or was it the third kiss given, not on the lips, in the hay; rats scuttling, and the kisses later chalk-marked on park benches: I’ve got the most. Days of sun and smells of home-made cakes, toffee, fallen apples; Edith’s face haloed in the blitzed outhouse window. You digging, climbing, dressing up, poking tongues, touching one another there, what would they say if they knew? Hills meeting sky, and those who charmed paths with snails, or put Catherine wheels in hedges; rockets misfired from other planets; the whole galaxy: a giant’s chair, oneself a splinter in the leg. Daisy-chained to the girl next door, and envious of those who held between their legs a bigger daffodilly than your own.

Aware that the clock had stopped Berg switched the light on. Without knowing the time he felt out of orbit. He strained against the partition. Were they in bed yet, had someone coughed? He went to the window, the dance hall closed down, which indicated it was well past eleven. He leaned out, but failed seeing the pub clock. Very well he’d wait until a clock struck. He looked through the accounts, but these proved too depressing. He flicked through a magazine, stared for a time at the girl soaping herself in a turquoise-coloured bath. Yes he might have done better in the soap line, large lemon-shaped ones, held out to neglected house-wives, giving them, himself pleasure for a stipulated time. Hair-growth after all only interested men. Apply twice nightly, feel its satin-smooth goodness. Then why haven’t I a lion’s mane, and roaring round the town? The partition, hadn’t it moved? He pressed against it. Were they both just the other side, the old man, mole-like, crawling over her mounds of flesh? Use the excuse of enquiring the time, the clock as evidence.

Knocking on their door, a panther’s paw that rubbed until it became a pounding no one responded to. He tried the handle. They were there all right, fancy pretending like that, it wasn’t as if he had disturbed them from sleeping. He coughed, and gasped, while walking rapidly up and down the landing. Should he go back into his room, shout from there, scream in fact, as though in the middle of a nightmare? He remained at the top of the stairs, cut off from the rest of the house, the neighbourhood. Had they gone out, or were they dead—copulating too fast, too much? He moved down one stair head bowed considering the best way into the next event. The other doors had, during his stay, remained part of the walls, a slight murmur or hum of a radio escaped occasionally through a crack. But if he knocked, enquired the time, wouldn’t the crack immediately be sealed, not even space for an eye, let alone his finger? He hovered on the front door step, two hundred yards from the Palais de Dance. Coloured tickets, spent out balloons, contraceptives divided pavement from road. Berg leaned slightly forward in order to see the pub clock. On his back he stared at the buildings that were giants advancing. Snatch the stars, pull out the moon for my navel, a button hole for my own personal identification.

A shadow pushed itself across his face. He spread out his arms. I implore to be left where I am, as I have been given, I am satisfied, attuned to my world. He shut his eyes, and foetus-curled from the pavement. His lips dry leaves slowly parted. Have I ever been inside?

Edith’s tears, not coping, timid amongst robust mums. You discovered: dormitory pleasures, what is considered a pretty boy at the age of nine, to be taken advantage of.

Oh Aly I would rather you had died than bring me this dreadful shame, this terrible sorrow. I don’t understand the evil lust in you, you’ve taken all the joy out of my life.

Round scarred knees, hair that curled; he’s a cissy, just a common cissy; hasn’t got a dad, his mum pawns herself to pay the fees; silly cissy Berg, he’s so cold he can’t even crap. Was it a game then, to be given something, have it taken away sooner or later? He placed his fist in the palm of his hand, contemplating it, as though a pimento that might suddenly open, reveal other more delicious things. Could the exterior world denounce him, when he was so willing to resign—but are you that willing? Contradictions seemed the very symbiosis of an age that refused accepting a one-way ticket to no-man’s land. I’ve torn mine up a long way back, in gardens, smooth terraced lawns, butterflies and rare specimens of flowers, lying there, spying through channels of light that flickered on the boy who was left the other side of the hedge. A sticky sickly child, who longed to be accepted with the others, by those who were healthy, tough, swaggered in well-cut suits, brilliantined hair. Your stained, rat-bitten cuffs, and collar, patched behind, the mud squelching through your shoes. But once on your own when you lorded it with beast and flower, striding the hills, welcomed by a natural order, a slow sensuality that circled the sun, rode the wind through the grass-forests, then nothing mattered, because everything comprehended your significance. He swayed in the middle of the road, looking into his father’s eyes; eyes that rolled inwards, joined by a thread through the bridge of his nose, run off from the mole on his right cheek with its one dark hair. Berg stepped back, away from the smell of alcohol and stale tobacco. The old man tottered a little towards him, trying to roll a cigarette. Hey wait a minute, aren’t you the chap who’s taken the room next door, Number 18? Yes thought it was, had a bit too much yourself I see, well why not I say, gives a chap a break doesn’t it? Tongue along paper, a lizard hesitating, then flick, flick of its tail, gone. That I come from this? No, no should have rested with the image of a mellow self-respecting father, who had died in thought alone. The plan had worked too well, almost accidentally, surely to be mistrusted: the beast without the reins? But I must go on, as before, as planned. Disclosure of identity now would be fatal. Berg took hold of the old man’s arm, but found himself pushed firmly away. All right, all right I can manage thanks. He watched his father stumble towards the house.

Such an opportunity squandered. Even now he could pick a fight, antagonise the old chap, in a matter of seconds he would be stretched out. And the remains? Well he would remain, wasn’t that enough? But like a love affair, it seemed too easy, therefore, the preliminaries must be prolonged; flirt a little with the opportunities. There he was lurching in the doorway, go now, take him by the arm, pull him down, cut out the mole, split the hair, smash the brain, smother him. It’s your son, do you hear, yes remember a woman you once saw and fancied, got into trouble, as they say, condescended to marry, and afterwards…

He wanted a cause your father Aly, some cause, the Spanish war? Yes it might well have been that one. Anyway he went out one evening, said he was popping down to the local, and never came back. It wasn’t until a few weeks later that I found bits of jewellery missing, my fur coat, and the piggy I had kept specially for you.

Berg approached the house. His father draped over the banisters, stared into a pool of vomit. Positively no connection, there can never be any kind of communication between us. But already the ideal has been harboured too long, that paradoxical dilemma one desires to rub, formulate into a gigantic cloud-burst, ride past the sun, driven by one’s own power, power unequivocal.

Be detached, the considerate neighbour, do what is expected of you. He dragged the old man up the stairs, at the top he let go. His father moaning sank back against the banisters. Now, just a little push, down you go dear. Who would know, in his drunken state? Poor Nathaniel Berg, we knew him well, always said the booze would get him in the end. The sound of Judith calling out made him stand back. The old man whimpered, a dog whose mistress is cross. Go now, drop at her feet, lick her, lick her there, lick her here, in between, above the hair, sweet-scented nuzzle, rush of spring tides. The door closed. His father shivered. Berg lifted him up, holding him under the arms, pulling him into his own room, where he pushed him on to the bed. How ancient he looks—what age, late fifties, over sixty perhaps, and Judith? Behind the dyed hair, the well-powdered face, difficult to tell, he hadn’t been that close, at least not yet. The old man’s skin like vegetable matter, the eyes rusty pin heads. Berg undressed him, came to the soiled underwear, torn at the back—three bullet holes—and on the yellow wrinkled skin were the large tattoo marks.

He had them done once you know, just for fun, at least that’s what he said. Still if there’s one sure identification I suppose you couldn’t do better.

Berg slowly traced the lettering with his forefinger EDITH MY LOVE AND JOY; further down: IN MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MOTHER. His eyes strayed up at the bulb swinging above, near, nearer. Pluck out, fill up with flowers, pick the petals off, one by one, lie under the fragrant softness. He became aware of the burnt smell again, invading the room, a smell of flesh. He covered the old man with a blanket, closed the window, though he realised the smell would now last the rest of the night, but if lucky it might be gone by the morning. Perhaps the place across the way is a crematorium?

He squatted by the gas ring and watched the milk simmer—a fly about to fall in. It had been a ghastly mistake bringing the old man into his room, things could have waited until another day. As he hovered over the milk he noticed a brown blur floating about. He scooped the moth out, and pressed it on the edge of the saucer. He settled back against the lumpy cushion, the broken springs, the peeled leather arms. He looked once or twice at his father, whom he thought for a moment was awake, in fact, was watching him, but upon inspecting from closer quarters, only a prostrate body covered the bed, one foot flung from the blanket, now and then jerking, nodding in secret communication with the partition. He heard Judith moving about, the sound of plates, and strange sucking noises—perhaps she licks herself? She wasn’t a bad-looking woman really, not his type though. He stirred the milk, and taking a layer of skin off, he put it over the moth in the saucer. She really wasn’t bad at all; large breasts were quite a compensation for anything else that might be lacking. He reached for the mirror. If she accepted a man approaching his sixties, what would she reject? He rubbed his unshaved chin, smoothed his hair down, and searched for the clip-on bow tie. Almost suave, certainly giving that added touch, an almost gracious air.

There’s definitely something about you Aly, a natural aristocrat, your father was the same, or so he liked to think.

He noticed his father’s stained threadbare coat, the socks with holes, and smiling he went out, locked the door, putting the key on the ledge above. It paid to be cautious, wouldn’t do if his father suddenly woke up, and flew out. Perhaps I presume too much? He knocked softly on their door, eventually opened by Judith, breathless, flushed and frowning. Berg tried fixing the smile he had played with while clipping the bow tie on, but it drooped into the corners of his mouth, as Judith half closed the door. Could she possibly tell him the right time? She sniffed, looked him up and down, then disappeared, but soon swept back. What was she wearing to make such a rustling sound—leaves stirring in the wind? Sorry I don’t know, but it’s well past closing time. He noticed her glance down once more, at his uncreased trousers, the shiny knees, the smudges between buttons. You haven’t by any chance seen Mr. Berg perhaps down the road? Well now she mentioned it he thought he had, yes it must have been Mr. Berg he’d seen talking to someone in the pub. Her fingers that had played with a button between her breasts, now flew, dived into a thin gold net which encased her yellow bush of hair. The gap between their room and the landing widened. He looked at his feet, the laces of one shoe were undone. He bent and played with the ends. Perhaps she’ll cry, fall into my arms, I will soothe, pacify her—and then? He gazed at the closed door, and listened, but heard nothing. He made for his own room, reached for the key, fingered it, went back and knocked on their door again. He heard Judith call out, like a child. The door remained locked. Her voice rose—how women’s voices altered to suit the occasion, to gratify their ends. The gap widened. Well what is it this time? Berg stepped back, almost in a bowing attitude. A shilling, oh well you better come in, I’ll have a look.

On the threshold of their room, a room draped it seemed entirely in purple velvet, reminiscent of an Egyptian tomb, square and dimly lit. Judith’s mouth opened, shut, an over-ripe melon hanging in mid-air. He entered further.

Squatting furniture—senators in conference. In one corner a large gilt-edged cage in which a budgerigar pecked its feathers, or tapped a silver bell. A Siamese cat stretched, uncurled from a velvet cushion. Heavy Victorian ornaments surrounded the room, and taxidermal creatures stared from their glass houses at the wax flowers and fruit. He heard Judith rustle behind a screen, the ticking of a clock. He edged towards the bed—had the partition moved? Judith appeared, bent over her handbag, straightened up, clasping the two jewelled clips. Flutter of wings startled the cat, its tail quivering—large caterpillar against the side of the couch; owl-eyes searching Berg’s, revolving in orbits of fire and water, while Judith handed over a shilling. Now how about a night-cap before turning in Mr. Greb, it is Greb isn’t it, or perhaps you fancy something stronger? He pressed the warm coin in his pocket. A cup of hot chocolate would be very welcome. Motioned to the couch, which was covered in cat’s fur. Clerical grey pin-striped suit draped over the wardrobe door, a pair of suede shoes leered from under the bed, with a pair of blue fluffy mules. Judith behind the screen again. Berg went over and leaned across the bed. Not a sound, had the bastard meanwhile lost all consciousness, cheated me in fact? I must leave, leave instantly, find out. He scrambled off the bed. Judith peered round. He gestured towards the partition. Left the kettle on, forgot, better see about it, won’t be a minute. Pulling his sleeves over the frayed shirt cuffs, he made for the door. The cat sprang, pressed against Berg’s legs; eyes yellow spools circling outwards, inwards, narrowing into daggers.