The Birdcage (15 page)

Casual sex, then? Sex as needed? Sex as medicine, as a laxative to keep one “regular”? There are women whose profession is to supply that need. There are cards on boards outside shops in Soho and districts north—“
ATTRACTIVE LADY MASSEUSE SPECIALIZES IN FRENCH AND GERMAN SYSTEMS. DISCIOLINE IF REQUIRED
” or “
RED-HAIRED MODEL, EARLY TWENTIES, AVAILABLE AMATEUR PHOTORAPHY. FULL STUDIO FACILITIES OR WILL VISIT HOME BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
”. But he didn’t want that. He didn’t mind paying for sex, he supposed, but the notion of making an appointment, as if going to the dentist, and spending half an hour or less with someone whose chief desire must be that he should get it done and pay her—No! Besides he had heard that prostitutes said that most of their clients were kinky, and, making an exception for the married men on an occasional outing, he could quite see that this must be so. “Having sex” was for Peter Ash, as it is for most men, in part an act of reassurance to oneself, an exercise of power over another, and in a professional relationship of that sort, the power is with the prostitute, who gives as much as
she
will, and exacts a fee. A mistress, then? Old-fashioned notion, but they still existed, the mistresses in mewses, making second homes for rich businessmen with families out of London. But that would be too expensive. Peter Ash was
not in that financial class. If he had a mistress, she must be that for love. And would be, in her way, just as much of an attachment.

Bunty had been a great convenience, and he missed her. If only people would be content to be that! If only they wouldn’t fall in love, and want one to meet their families! If only they would not, simply by existing, make emotional demands one was too cold to meet! Peter Ash began to stay out longer in the evenings, and to find it more and more difficult to get out of bed in the mornings. The preference which had woken already in Venice began to stir. Peter Ash closed his mind. He did not want
that
; he had done with that. But it was so easy. No attachments. No visits to the dentist either, but all done in the comfort and familiarity of one’s own home, and where there was professionalism, it was at least coupled with enjoyment, if what he had heard about the Navy and the Brigade of Guards were true. Abstinence was his alternative—but there was no need for abstention; he had no conviction that the preference was wrong in itself. The Christian Faith is a great sustainer against temptation of this kind, it is said, but Peter Ash was an agnostic, and in any case one notices that those unhappy clergymen and Youth Leaders who attempt to put the Christian Faith between themselves and their desires are not often sustained much beyond middle-age, when Faith and all cracks, and only the policemen are waiting in the public lavatories.

He had closed his mind, but the logic remained. It began to seem to Peter Ash that everything was pushing him towards a return to the world he had left, as he had thought for ever, nine years ago.

*

“He used to take me everywhere. Good hotels and everywhere like that. He said it didn’t matter about me
coming from the orphanage and that, only he liked me to dress proper in case we was to be seen, you know. He said I could have a job in his record shop any time, but I didn’t fancy it. We used to meet in the shop after closing time. He had a sort of couch there and everything, in the little room at the back. He was really educated, you know. I mean, he knew all about classical music and that. Then when people begun to talk, he put some money in the Post Office for me, and bought me a ticket to London. I didn’t mind. It was dead there really.”

“You’re Peter Ash, aren’t you? My friend and I always go to the pictures on Sunday afternoons, so I often see you. I never knew you were queer, though. I mean, you usually do hear, don’t you? It gets around. It’s awful really, the way people talk. No, well I work in a tobacconist’s really. Oh, I don’t know. It passes the time.”

“I had them stars put on special for the bike, you see. No, I don’t wear it all the time. I take it off in bed like. I mean, you get some geezers, like some of them as comes up to me like, kinky for leather like; I mean, they never want you to take it off at all, whatever happens. There was this geezer lived in Shooters Hill took me back there one night. Wanted me to belt him. He had one of them Boy Scout belts with a buckle and a motto on it like. Well, you feel a bit stupid, you know what I mean? So I belted him one with the old belt like, and he says,’ Harder!’, and then he says, ‘Harder!’ again, so I loses patience with him, and ‘Bugger this for a lark,’ I says, and I lashes out like, and the bloody buckle cuts his back open, and there’s a dirty great gash with blood an’ all. ‘Christ! I’m sorry, mate,’ I says, and he just lies there panting; he’s done his lot. ‘Oh, you beautiful boy!’ he says; ‘You’re so good to me,’ he says, leering up at the dirty great cross he’s got above the bed. You can’t make’em out, can you, them geezers? You
don’t know where you are with them…. Mind you, I could see you wasn’t one of them. You haven’t got that look about you at all. There’s a geezer, I says to meself, more interested in me than me jacket.”

“Oh,
he’s
queer. He came round to all the clubs, you know, and asked questions, and then wrote that article there was all that fuss about, and three of the clubs had to close. Well, I was talking to Tony—that’s Tony, the blonde in the dark blue suit—go with anyone,
she
would. Well,
she
says she’s had him, and she knows a lot of other boys who went home with him when he was doing his article.” (Peter Ash did not know the journalist under discussion. It seemed unlikely that Tony had indeed “had” him. There is a curious “In” game played by the sillier and more feminine boys who hang about the clubs and bars, Peter Ash discovered. One cannot mention a public figure of any eminence without receiving the immediate, knowing comment—“Oh,
he’s
queer” … every theatrical leading man … millionaires … television personalities … all dancers … most dukes … any M.P. whose name gets into the news…. “Oh, didn’t you know? Where
have
you been?
Everybody
knows
he’s
queer.” Peter Ash wondered how long it would be before the clear suburban voice at the bar said, “Peter Ash? Oh, I’ve had
him
. Didn’t you know? Oh … not bad. I’ll give you an intro, darling, if you’re interested.”)

“I don’t usually go to these places. It’s funny we should both be there—quite a coincidence really. I thought you looked different from the usual crowd. Well, I don’t usually get out very much. I live with my mother at Richmond—you could say Twickenham, I suppose, but I always think Richmond sounds better, don’t you? She gets lonely if I go out in the evenings.”

“Where I was living, the whole house was queer. It was
nice there. All the rooms done up differently. Well, I mean, like Regency and Contemporary, and there was one boy had all stuffed birds under glass, and there was another did his whole room in different shades of red. It was like a cathedral somehow. You lowered your voice when you went in. Only then he had a sort of craze for black and white, and changed it. I liked living there, only it was a bit expensive, so I moved out. I live with my friend in Baron’s Court now, but he had to go to Liverpool today for a conference, so he won’t be back. He’s in research. No, I don’t exactly
do
anything. I was going to be a secretary, and I took the shorthand lessons and everything, but then I gave it up.”

Of course they had always gone by the time that Mrs. Halliday came in to do the cleaning, but, living in the basement as she did, Mrs. Halliday knew very well that something was going on. She was a broad-minded woman, and what Mr. Ash did was his own business, provided that nothing was stolen from any of the other flats and there were no complaints from the neighbours, which, this being Chelsea, was unlikely. Just the same, Mrs. Halliday preferred the old arrangement. She considered making a journey to consult Norah Palmer, but was not sure how matters should be put. If Mrs. Halliday were to go poking her nose into other people’s business, she preferred first to be reasonably certain that some good was likely to come of it.

*

Peter Ash was troubled by a rash. In November one does not expect to suffer such vexation, the heat and midges of summer being past. He supposed that he must be allergic to something, and wished he knew what. Or perhaps it was the blood; rashes, he had read somewhere, were to do with the blood. He drank lemon juice in the
mornings, and took Vitamin C tablets in case the vitamin content of the lemons should have been destroyed by Forced farming or a chemical spray. The rash remained. Rashes are sometimes psycho-somatic; he was under tension, no doubt about it; if he waited, it would disappear. He waited, and it grew worse. Peter Ash decided he had probably caught something, and must see a doctor.

His doctor was an elderly man with a genteel practice, who seldom saw Peter Ash, because Peter Ash was seldom ill. But he knew who Peter Ash was, and his wife, as he said, was “quite a fan”. He asked, “Where is the rash exactly?”

“All over. Legs … arms … stomach.” Peter Ash stripped to the waist. Dried calamine lotion obscured the rash. “I thought it might be prickly heat or something,” he said. “I remember getting that during the war. And athlete’s foot. We all did.”

“You were in the tropics, Mr. Ash?”

“As good as. I was stationed just outside Calcutta. It was very humid most of the time.”

“Yes…. But you haven’t had anything like this since?”

“Occasional summer rashes. That’s all.”

“Perhaps we might just wash some of that lotion off your arm? …Yes….You’ve been scratching, I see.”

“I’m sorry. I try not to.”

“You do … take a bath fairly often, I take it?”

Ridiculous question. “Every day,” said Peter Ash.

“Yes … I’m afraid I haven’t much experience of skin infections. Or tropical diseases either, if it should be something like that.” The genteel ladies and gentlemen of the doctor’s practice did not contract ringworm or scabies, and it had been a long time since the doctor had dealt with any ailments which were not usual to his patients. “Perhaps you’d better see a specialist about it,” he said. “No harm in
a second opinion, eh? Might as well make certain, especially when it’s all on the National Health. I’ll give you a chit to the skin people at St. Ornulf’s. Do you think you can find time to go and see them? They’re quite central.”

Peter Ash made time, and presented himself next morning at Saint Ornulf’s Hospital for Diseases of the Skin. He was registered and moved formally, as out-patients do, from one bench to another, slowly nearer and nearer to the final door of power, behind which sits the medicine man who will effect the cure. Peter Ash held himself tightly inside his clothes, so as to avoid contact with his fellow patients. At last he was nearest to the room. A nurse called his name, and he entered to be received by a lady of severe appearance, clad in a white coat and surrounded by medical students.

She read the doctor’s letter, while Peter Ash removed his jacket, shirt and tie. She examined his arm, splayed his fingers, grunted, and said to the medical students, “Well?”

“Looks like scabies,” one of the students said dubiously.

“Quite clearly it is scabies. No interesting features about it whatever, and no reason for him to have been sent to us. Get dressed, please.”

Peter Ash had never heard of scabies. “What do I do about it?” he said.

“There’s a Public Cleansing Centre for cases of this sort. It’s open every day except Sunday. Next please, nurse,” said the severe lady. She was irritated at having been troubled by a complaint so trivial, and felt that a person of Peter Ash’s station in society (which could be guessed from his appearance and accent) had no business to have contracted scabies, which is an infection carried by dirt and close bodily contact—as most usually happens in bed.

Peter Ash should have asked where the Public Cleansing
Centre was, but he was embarrassed by the specialist’s curtness and by the presence of the medical students. He looked it up in the Telephone Directory, and took a taxi to an address in Victoria. There he regarded with disbelief a fleet of water-trucks, drawn up before a County Council garage. There was a door to the garage, but it did not open. Peter Ash walked timidly between the water-trucks, looking to right and left, and came eventually upon a large man in rubber boots.

“Is this the Public Cleansing Department?”

“That’s right.”

“I was told to come here.”

“What for?”

“To be cleansed, I suppose,” said Peter Ash, hating him.

There was a pause while the man in rubber boots considered what he had been told. “Streets we do,” he said finally. “Not people. We don’t do people here. We do streets. We go out with the trucks like, and do the streets.” Peter Ash stood in silence, and the man considered further. “There’s not the equipment, you see,” he said. “Not for people. We just do the streets. People now——” he thrust out his lower lip, and looked at the sky. “There
is
places,” he said. “Not here, of course, because we just do the streets, but if you was wanting, as it might be, a bath like——”

“Isn’t there a sort of … medical Cleansing Department?” Peter Ash said.

“Oh that? You mean like for the lice and that? Nits and that? It’s at Holborn,” said the man in rubber boots.

Peter Ash took another taxi to Holborn, and, after being re-directed from the Large Bath (Men) and the Steam Bath and the Iodine Rub found the department where people were cleansed. He wondered whether he would have to queue. Were many people cleansed? Would they all stand
in line to be hosed down with disinfectant by a smaller edition of the man in rubber boots? But in fact the Cleansing Centre was small, and consisted of an ante-room with a gas-ring, and two bathrooms. The attendant, a little elfin man advanced in years, seemed glad to welcome Peter Ash as his first customer of the day.

Peter Ash said, “I seem to have something called scabies.”

“Don’t you worry about that, sir,” said the elfin man. “Don’t you let that perturb you nor embarrass you in any way. I get all sorts here, you know. They all come to it. It’s a fact of nature. Bishops I’ve had here. I had a bishop here … now….” He led Peter Ash to one of the bathrooms, and began to fill the bath with hot water. “… Just the other day I had a bishop here. A suffragan bishop. Fine looking feller he was, on the full side as you might say, of life, but he carried it well. I’ll get you a scrubbing brush, and what I want
you
to do, sir,
if
you don’t mind, is to scrub yourself all over the body with that there brush, and with the soap provided. And here’s your towel for the drying.”