A Whistling Woman (25 page)

Chapter 13

From Kieran Quarrell to Elvet Gander

Thank you for your last, and for your mediation with the Spirit's Tigers. I shall personally drive my two “patients” to Four Pence, to hand them into your care, and that of the community. As I said, the problems of Lucy Nighby's future are becoming acute. Her husband, Gunner, is largely recovered from his wounds, and asserts vociferously that she attacked both him and their three children. One of the children is still quite sick and disturbed. Of the other two, one asserts that Lucy attacked Gunner and the children and the other that Gunner attacked Lucy and the children. There are witnesses to the finding of Gunner in the hen-house (at some distance from the farm. What was he doing there?) who met Lucy, covered in blood and apparently in a state of shock. They say she was “going through the motions” of egg-collecting. No one—that is to say, the police, and the social and medical experts—really believes Lucy instigated the violence. Gunner has a long history of heavy drinking and wife-beating (much of it hearsay, of course, and he was not drunk at the time of the attack). The courts cannot really move—either to prosecute anyone for assault, or to decide the future of the children—whilst Lucy remains mute. Gunner of course asserts that her silence is “her usual cunning.” My own view is that it is quite genuine. She
cannot speak
. It has been decided to try the experiment of bringing her to the more humane atmosphere of Four Pence, in the hope that a little TLC and openness will unlock her.

I am also bringing Josh Lamb. Not for the same reasons. But the protracted stay in Cedar Mount is killing something in him—he is a trapped animal with human eyes. He has a right to an exorcism of his terrible history, and here again the more relaxed, warmer, more “spiritual” atmosphere of the Tigers may be what he needs. I think he will intrigue you. I do not want to sound, old friend, as though I am an entomologist offering you a choice specimen. On the contrary—if the creature is a winged creature, it is a caged eagle, or trapped angel. He is not quite a human being—but he is institutionalised, wary, and battered. I should like to see what he is in freedom.

It will be v. good to see you. I too can do with an excursion outside these asylum walls. Institutions affect
all
their inmates, not only the “certified.” You can make mistakes with tongue, and facial expression, and lapses of attention, just as much as with hypodermics and electric shocks. I need a rest. An injection of
life
. You have always provided that, usually in surprising forms.

Yours ever,
Kieran        

Dear Avram,

I enclose three cassettes, for safe-keeping. Please put them away somewhere safe, so that you are not tempted to festoon the bushes with them, or wind them round your head when you are happily spaced-out. (I remember very clearly what happened to my unique record of the interview-candidate's conversation in Woolworth's.) If you have facilities in your Anti-University for getting things copied—without danger to the material—I should be doubly grateful, and will reimburse you.

You will notice, if you try to listen to the tapes, that they contain longish periods of silence. This is not because the tapes are defective. It is because they are covert recordings of Quaker “Meetings,” which alternate silences with extempore interventions. (The degree to which these interventions are genuinely extempore appears to vary. Some appear to be as well-prepared as the normal sermon. I shall have to work on the indications from which I formed this conclusion.)

I am not sure whether I am observing a therapeutic group, or a religious community. Various elements from various recognised organisations are present here, in official and unofficial capacities. There are the Quakers, several of whom double their functions as medical, or social workers. There are at least three Church of England clergymen, one of whom is definitely the “leader” of a group, which in this instance is a group-within-a-group, that is,
both
an “inner group” of the Church of England, called the Children of Joy, and also a “group-within” the Spirit's Tigers, though there is some conflict as to which—Tigers or Children—will, so to speak, “swallow” the other, and indeed, whether it is “better,” in this instance, to be a “swallowed” “inner” group, or a more loosely-formed, proactive “outer” group. There must be sociological studies of splinter groups which I wish I could consult. But I am constrained by my role here as a “member,” though it is not quite clear, since the boundaries keep shifting, what I am a “member” of.

You wrote a very interesting letter about the degree to which you were conflicted in writing ethnomethodologically about “teaching” ethnomethodology in an anti-methodological environment such as an anti-university. I think you are fortunate in that, in the context in which you find yourself,
you are at least
doing what you appear ostensibly to be doing
. You present yourself as an ethnomethodologist. You are part of the Anti-University. If you are observing and analysing it, this is only to be expected by all concerned. Whereas here, I am to some extent, to a great extent, playing apart, presenting myself as what I am not, at least by default. I present myself as a person desiring to participate in a group, indeed, to be a
member
of that group. I do
not
present myself as a sociologist studying the methodology by which the group defines itself, pursues its aims, achieves its coherence etc. etc. If I did so, I would change the dynamics of the group so that it was not what I was observing, or what I wished to observe. However, it could be argued that my very presence as a group member is not neutral. I am a visible woman, not an invisible “bug” on the wall of the jury-room. As such, I am faced continually with little conflicts of interest. For instance, it is perfectly clear to me that the “leader” of the Children of Joy, Gideon Farrar, rules, or leads, the majority of his flock or circle by a system (conscious, half-conscious or unconscious) of sexual manipulation—promises, threats and inducements. He makes people feel “special” by giving them the thrill of his attention. In some cases I am sure this goes quite as far as intercourse, certainly with the women, and I believe I have observed him to be in the process of extending his charisma to the men. You will hear various remarks of his on the tapes about love “without limits, without conventions, without exceptions.” When he says “love” he always includes the idea of “sex” as a sub-set, or maybe the other way round.

Here his vocabulary interestingly tangles with that of the psychoanalyst, Elvet Gander. Both are of course sexually interesting because they are professionally forbidden to offer sexual contact with patients or congregation. Both
use
this prohibition to induce desire. My question is, what effect do I have on the dynamics of the group(s) whose ethnomethodology I am observing, if I adhere to a strict scientific distance and objectivity when I am myself (as a female group member) the object of the charismatic seducers' attentions? This has, of course, happened, this is not a hypothetical question only. Gideon Farrar has stroked my buttocks repeatedly, and once accused me in a confessional session of being “numb” and “dumb.” Elvet Gander has stared “mesmerically” into my eyes and told me I am “an enigma.” This is tiresome, as I don't want to draw attention to myself. You see my dilemma, Avram, which is not without its methodological interest. I have always held as my ideal the exemplary behaviour of the two psychologists who got themselves admitted to hospital and
then behaved perfectly
normally
declaring themselves to be sane, and even stating that they were psychologists—which is, of course, a frequent delusion amongst the insane. You know the case? They had all the difficulty in the world in getting out of the hospital, since no one believed them, and the structure of the institution did not permit the idea of a mis-diagnosis, or a fraud. But I cannot, perhaps, behave perfectly normally, as an undercover observer of a therapeutic group/religious community. I have to ask myself whether, if I was “for real” I would have to either a) repel the advances of priest and doctor or b) give in to them, on the assumption that the dynamics of the group life would carry me along in that direction. If I was “for real” and was
repelled by
them, it is likely that I would leave the group, and be no longer in a position to observe it.

If I
were
to succumb, for my own research purposes, I should be dramatically shifting and deflecting the group dynamic. Anyway, I don't know if I could bring myself to. I have to record—as part of the total situation—that I personally find Gideon Farrar's “charm” and “vitality” and “spontaneity” somewhat manufactured—I must analyse how I came to that conclusion—and don't respond to it. I prefer Dr. Gander—but he thinks of himself as a wild force, an individual, and I don't think it matters to him so much if one doesn't respond. I'm more afraid of him “unmasking” me.

There is a man here—one of the other clergymen—who works with the Listeners (a telephone confessional) and seems to me to have the essence of the charismatic in him, if he wanted to use it. Only he turns it off. Quite deliberately. Like a tap. That isn't a scientific observation, it's simply a human observation. His name's Daniel Orton. Sometimes I think he's already unmasked me, and is simply watching to see what happens next. He's a watcher. He's a better watcher than I am. I don't know what he's watching
for
. He notices people's feelings, in the abstract, so to speak, if that isn't a contradiction in terms. He stops quarrels. Just because he knows how to do it, not because it adds glory to him. (Vide Farrar and Gander.) He appears to have no sexual atmosphere round him at all. He's fat, you might say ugly. I'd settle for him if we all had to have partners. I don't believe that absence of desire is “sexy.” But perhaps absence of anxiety is. He's not an anxious man. I was going to say, he's sad, dreadfully sad, but I have no evidence for that. It may be a projection of my own.

Now, Avram, please treat my tapes responsibly. Please. I
have
to rely on you. Please let me know what you think about my interesting procedural problem.

Till we meet again! Brenda.

From Elvet Gander to Kieran Quarrell
It was good to see you, old friend. I felt briefly we formed a group-within-a-group, of anxious analytic minds, to whom it was both a credit, and yet a regret, that we cannot “let go” and abandon ourselves to prayer, or loss of self (consciousness). I am reporting, as we agreed, on the comportment and presumed comfort, of your two additions to our company.

Neither of them has stirred very much. The analogy is peering into the reptile tank in the Zoo, watching coiled snakes for movement. I surprise myself—and may annoy you—with this image, but it sprang forcibly into my mind and it seems wrong to repress it. Everyone is of course
watching
them, waiting for them to make a move, and ostensibly looking the other way, in case he or she might be thought to be rude or intrusive. Lucy sits—always on a hardbacked chair, she eschews sinking into the pretty
fauteuils,
and always in a far corner. She presses her knees together, and she presses her lips together, and she clasps her hands together over her knees. One of the Quaker ladies brought her a little posy of flowers, and laid them in her lap, but this was not a great success. She gave them a nervous glance, but did not pick them up, and seemed to forget them. They fell to the ground when she stood up.

Josh Lamb, on the other hand, speaks when he is spoken to. Minimally, with a somewhat
vulpine
polite smile. Much of what he says, I have noticed, simply returns the observation made to him, slightly recast, as though he was playing a language-game.
“It's a fine day.”

“Certainly the weather is excellent.”
“We are working towards spiritual renewal.”

“There is indeed a sense of imminent change in the air.”
“The end of the world is nigh.”

“It appears that the world may come to an end fairly soon.”
I invented the last one. But he does look as though that is what he would say.
He did become more forthcoming—even vehement—oddly on the subject of television. There's been a lot of debate—polite, and heatedly
less
polite—in the group, about whether a television should be allowed in the farmhouse at all.

There are in fact,
two
at the moment, one in the Common Room, where we, in principle, relax together, and one in what is known as the “study room” where special groups meet irregularly on special topics. I don't know if you got as far as that on your flying visit. Many of the Quakers feel that the box is an unnecessary distraction in the contemplative life. They use the words “trivial,” “commercial” and even “worldly” about it. This is not the view of Frank and Milly Fisher, the owners of Four Pence, who believe that religious people should be in the world, but not of the world, and that they will do better, more caring social work for being alerted to the “mental pap” their “clients” subsist on. Richmond Bly, the Blake man, goes into paroxysms of disgust at the “
crass
” level of discussion, and general vulgarity of the “satirical” programmes. I have to declare an interest—which I did most forthrightly in their debates—since I am to appear on a new sort of programme called
Through the Looking-Glass.
I am to discuss the concept of Creativity with Hodder Pinsky and the young woman who moderates these discussions. Her name is Frederica Potter, and she turns out to be the Freda or Francesca to whom John Ottokar, the twin brother of my Zag, is apparently attached.
My
programme is the third, and I am nervous and narcissistic enough to want to watch the earlier ones, which do take place at times when I am resident here at Four Pence. Zag too is pro the Box. He hopes to be able to sing and dance on it with his syzygy/ziggy Zy-goats, of course. It is possible that he envisages it as the medium for a global dionysiac orgy. Gideon Farrar is largely opposed. He says the Joyful Companions should be sufficient unto themselves, and find in each other's eyes and speech all they need to engage their hearts and minds. They must work out their own salvation, which means avoiding distractions and snares etc. etc. I think Gideon was, at least to start with, in favour of a ceremonial unplugging of both Boxes and ritual shattering of both screens. (Ray tubes? Do you understand the mechanics of the thing?)