Staring at the Sun Read online

  The first night she leafed through the book carelessly, skipping whole chapter called Sleep, Children, Society and Appendix. If she did this, it didn’t really count as reading. Even so, phrases dropped from the page and stuck like burrs to her flannelette nightdress. Some of them made her laugh; some of them made her apprehensive. The word turgid kept appearing, as did crisis; she didn’t like the sound of those two. Enlarged and stiffened, she read; lubricated by mucus; turgid again; soft, small and drooping (ugh); maladjustment of the relative shapes and positions of the organs; partial absorption of the man’s secretions; congestion of the womb.

  At the back of the book was an advertisement for the author’s play, the one called Our Ostriches, “first produced at the Royal Court Theatre Nov. 14, 1923.” Punch said it was “full of humour and irony, admirably interpreted.” The Sunday Times said it “begins in excitement and keeps it up all through.” Jean found herself giggling and became suddenly shocked at herself. What a dirty mind. But then she giggled again as she imagined another review that read: “admirably turgid.”

  She told Michael that Mrs. Barrett had given her the book. “Good show,” he said, looking away. “I’d been wondering about all that.”

  She thought of asking him about prostitutes, but they were approaching that part of the lane where he hummed, and she decided this wasn’t the best time. Still, he clearly thought it a good idea that she was reading the book; so that night she went back to it more purposefully. She was astonished by how often the word sex seemed to be married to some other word: sex-attraction, sex-ignorance, sex-tide, sex-life, sex-function. Lots of hyphens everywhere. Sex-hyphens, she thought.

  She tried hard, but couldn’t understand a lot of what was being said. The author made great claims to write plainly and straightforwardly, but Jean got lost almost at once. Soul structures, she read, and the rift within the lute, which she didn’t much want to think about. The clitoris corresponds morphologically to the man’s penis. What could that mean? And there weren’t many jokes around. The Queen of Aragon ordained that six times a day was the proper rule in legitimate marriage. So abnormally sexed a woman would today probably succeed in killing by exhaustion a succession of husbands … That was the nearest.

  Even the parts she could understand without difficulty didn’t seem to correspond to her experience. The opportunities for peaceful, romantic dalliance, she read, are less today in a city with its tubes and cinema shows than in woods and gardens where the pulling of rosemary or lavender may be the sweet excuse for the slow and profound mutual rousing of passion. Admittedly it was wartime, but Michael and she might as well live in the city for all the pulling of lavender he had proposed. She couldn’t offhand think of where it might grow locally. And why was it herbs that were suggested? What was wrong with flowers?

  Then there was something called the Periodicity of Recurrence, a sort of graph showing how a woman’s desire came and went throughout the month. There were two charts, one showing the Curve of Normal Desire in Healthy Women, the second showing the Feeble and Transient Up-Welling in Women Suffering from Fatigue and Overwork. At the end of the second graph the Level of Potential Desire suddenly shot up and down like a Ping-Pong ball on a water fountain. A caption explained: “Shortly before and during the time of the crest d Alpine air restored the vitality of the subject.”

  Finally, there was a piece of advice she noted in the section called Modesty and Romance. Be always escaping. Escape the lower, the trivial, the sordid. So far as possible ensure that you allow your husband to come upon you only when there is delight in the meeting. Whenever the finances allow, the husband and wife should have separate bedrooms, failing that they should have a curtain which can at will be drawn so as to divide the room they share.

  When she next saw Michael she had three questions.

  “What does morphologically mean?”

  “Give up. Anything to do with sandwiches?”

  “And do you ever want to go out and look for lavender and rosemary?”

  He glanced across at her a bit more seriously. “Is the wind blowing from Colney Hatch or something?”

  “And can we have separate rooms?”

  “Isn’t this a bit sudden? I haven’t laid a finger on you yet, darling.”

  “But you’re supposed to be the hunter who ever dreams of coming unawares upon Diana in the woodlands.”

  “Gathering lavender and rosemary?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Then I’d better go get me a hoss.” They laughed together, then Michael added, “And in any case, why should I want Diana in the woodlands when I’ve got Jean by the front hedge?”

  That night, she put away the book. It was clearly rubbish. Three days later, Michael said casually, “Oh, by the way, I’ve made an appointment for you.”

  “Who with?”

  “In London. She’s very nice, apparently. So they tell me.”

  “She’s … not a dentist?”

  “No.” He looked away. “She’ll … sort of inspect you.”

  “Do I need inspecting?” Jean felt surprised rather than offended. Presumably everyone had to be inspected. “Will you send me back if I’m defective?”

  “No, no, of course not, darling.” He took her hand. “It’s just something that … women have to do. I mean, nowadays, they do.”

  “I’ve never heard of anyone being sent off to London to get inspected,” said Jean, rather crossly. What had country people done before the railways?

  “Oh, it’s not that, darling, not just that. It’s … things like babies.”

  It was her turn to look away. Oh dear, she thought. But didn’t men take the responsibility for that? Isn’t that what responsibility meant in the book? Suddenly, she thought of other words: turgid, and the rift within the lute, and lubricated by mucus. The whole thing seemed an awful idea.

  “Can’t we just be friends?” she asked.

  “We are friends now. That’s why we’re getting married. When we’re married we’ll still be friends; but we’ll be … married. That’s what it’s about.”

  “I see.” She didn’t really. She felt miserable.

  “Will you take me off for some Alpine air if I’m defective?” she asked.

  “Just as soon as Private Hitler allows,” he promised. “Just as soon as Private Hitler allows.”

  Dr. Headley would have made an excellent dentist, Jean thought. She was bright in manner, professional, informative, articulate, friendly and utterly frightening. She wore a white coat open over a suit which might as well have been a uniform. She sat Jean on a couch and relaxed her with small talk about the Blitz. It seemed the wrong way round to Jean, who suddenly said, “I’ve come to be inspected.”

  “Of course you have. We’ll do the inspection today and the fitting next week. I find most girls don’t like to rush things.”

  “I see.” What fitting? Oh dear.

  Dr. Headley then asked questions about Jean and Michael, some of which seemed very circumstantial.

  “And what do you know about the sexual act? Tell me frankly.” Jean mentioned the book in the maroon cloth binding, the one by the woman whose play about ostriches began in excitement and kept it up all through. “Splendid. So you must know most of it by now. Always best to get some reading under your belt. And what do you think of the sexual act—I mean, about it generally?”

  By now Jean had more confidence. Nothing would shock Dr. Headley. Her hair was swept off her face and piled into a neat but lopsided bun; Jean was reminded of a cottage loaf.

  “I think it’s funny.”

  “Funny? You mean strange. Yes, it can be at first. But you get used to it.”

  “No, funny. Funny-ha-ha. Funny-ha-ha.” Turgid, she thought; rift in the lute; lavender; the Queen of Aragon. She allowed herself to giggle.

  “Funny, my girl, is the one thing it is not.” Oh dear. “It is intensely serious. It is beautiful, and it can be complicated, but it is not funny. Do you see?” Jean nodded, blushing at her ga
ffe, yet still only half convinced. “Now slip behind that screen and take off your nether garments.”

  Chastened, Jean did so. She wondered about her shoes. Were shoes garments? Should she put them back on? Oh dear. She should never have said that sex was funny. Of course, it could well turn out not to be. Perhaps her Periodicity of Recurrence would astonish her; perhaps she wouldn’t need any Alpine air. She tried not to, but she couldn’t help thinking about Michael’s penis. Not the thing itself, which she had yet to imagine, let alone see; but the idea of it. The thing that would join their bodies together—the sex-hyphen.

  She came out from behind the screen. She was asked to lie down, and then … oh dear. Wild horses, she thought. The silence was terrible. Jean began to hum quietly to herself. “Heads we marry, honey …” Then she stopped in embarrassment. Dr. Headley probably disapproved of humming, even if the tune was appropriate.

  “This may feel a little cold.” Jean braced herself. Was she going to be doused with cold water, as punishment for her levity in humming? But no: it was only … she stopped thinking about her nether regions. Her eyes were tight shut, like blackout curtains closely drawn; but through them came the red glow of life outside. Black and red, the colour of the war: the colour of Tommy Prosser’s war. Tommy Prosser in his black Hurricane out in the black night with the hood back and the red glow from the instrument panel softly lighting up his face and hands. Tommy Prosser in his black Hurricane looking out for the red exhausts of returning bombers. Black and red …

  “Well, the nursery’s fine, and there’s nothing wrong with the playroom,” said Dr. Headley all of a sudden.

  “Oh good.” What was she talking about?

  Dr. Headley pulled open a drawer and extracted three circular tins with numbers written on them. She put away the two larger ones with a jovial “Mustn’t frighten the horses,” and opened the third. A haze of French chalk rose as she unscrewed the lid. “Now I’ll just show you the principle of the thing, and next week you can try it for yourself.”

  Dr. Headley extracted the Dutch cap and tapped the chalk off it. “Quite simple, see? Spring round there”—she compressed the cap into a slim figure eight—“flexible, tough, completely safe if you put it in right. You try.”

  Jean picked it up. It looked enormous. Where did it go? Perhaps you wrapped it round the sex-hyphen like a piece of ground-sheet and lashed it down with rope. Tentatively, she squeezed the edges of the thing. It seemed quite resistant. Then she laid it flat on the blotter in front of her and tried again. The spring yielded, and a fold of black rubber came bellying up into the palm of her hand. She squealed.

  “You’ll soon get used to it.” Jean had her doubts. Anything for Michael, of course; but couldn’t they just be friends? “Now this is the lubricating jelly.” Dr. Headley suddenly had a tube in her hand. Oh dear. What had happened to lubricated by mucus?

  “Don’t … is that … necessary?”

  Dr. Headley gave a chuckle and didn’t bother to answer.

  “I thought you said it wasn’t funny?” Jean felt cross with this woman she had been lured to see.

  “No, I wasn’t laughing at it. I was laughing at you. You girls always want it both ways; all the pleasure and none of the responsibility.” As she said that word responsibility, she began to smear some jelly round the cap’s rim, then into the soft central hammock of rubber. A brief demonstration, then she passed it over. “No, grasp it firmly, it won’t bite. No, more firmly. Thumb and fingers, thumb and fingers, haven’t you ever done glove puppets?”

  Jean put it down before it squirted out of control. That was surely enough for today.

  At Paddington, waiting for her train, Jean found a heavy, green-painted machine with a large clock face. In place of the hours there were letters of the alphabet. You turned a big metal pointer, and for a penny could print fifteen letters onto a thin strip of tin. A chipped enamel plate suggested that you might like to send a message to a friend by this means. Jean didn’t think she had any messages to send. She didn’t have the confidence for self-pity; she felt merely forlorn. Laboriously, she moved the metal pointer among the letters, pressed a handle and printed out JEAN, followed by SERJEANT. That left her with three spare letters; Father, even though he probably considered such expenditure frivolous, would have wanted her to get her money’s worth. Name, rank and number, that was the phrase, wasn’t it? Jean didn’t have a rank, nor did she own a number. After a little thought, she printed XXX, extracted her tin strip from the side of the machine and put it in her handbag.

  Jean assumed, rather vaguely, that something must have happened to Tommy Prosser in the last year; something specific and identifiable. Before, he had been a brave Hurricane pilot, now he was grounded, ratty and frightened. All she had to do was locate the source of this fear, allow him to talk about some dreadful, scarring incident that had taken place, and he would be on the mend. This much Jean understood of psychoanalytic principle.

  One afternoon, she sat at the kitchen table with a tin of Silvo and the forks drawn up before her like soldiery. Prosser sounded less belligerent than usual. He began talking of 1940 as if it were Mons or Ypres: something distant that hadn’t happened to him.

  “The first time I put the wind up myself, it was real music hall. I was having a bit of an argument with a couple of 109s over the North Sea. It wasn’t turning out to be a good idea, so I ran for some cloud, dodged around a bit and headed back to base. Fast as I could. You dive when you want to go fast, you see. Anyway, there I was, and suddenly, machine guns. One of the 109s must have followed me down. I hauled the stick back quick as a flash and went into a big, looping turn. Had a good look round, but couldn’t see anything. Must have shaken him off.

  “So, nose down for base again. Faster and faster. Then, guess what, more guns. I haul the stick back and just as I do the firing stops. I was climbing hard and looking for cloud when it suddenly dawned on me. I was fair bumping along in the dive and I must have been gripping the stick tighter and tighter. The button’s on top of the stick, you see. So what I was doing was setting off my own guns and scaring myself silly. Wheeling about the sky like a proper Charlie.”

  Jean smiled. “Did you tell them when you got back?”

  “No. Not at first. Not until someone else admitted a bigger goof. And then they thought I was shooting a line.”

  “Do people always own up when things go wrong?”

  “Course not.”

  “What didn’t you own up to?”

  “What didn’t we own up to? The usual things. Getting scared. Getting scared of letting the chaps down. Thinking you wouldn’t come back. Mind you, you could always tell the signs, when someone was thinking about not coming back. You’d be sitting in the dispersal hut, and you’d notice someone being polite. I mean, really polite, all of a sudden. And you’d realize he’d been like that for a couple of days, always passing the sugar, talking quietly, not putting anyone’s back up. All the time thinking about not coming back. Wants to be remembered as a nice chap. Doesn’t know he’s doing it, of course—hasn’t the foggiest idea.”

  “Did you get like that?”

  “How would I know? You don’t know you’re doing it. Maybe I was doing something else—rattling the pennies in my pocket or something.”

  “You aren’t allowed to admit you’re scared?”

  “Course not. Bad form. Even if you know the other chaps can tell.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “You already have, haven’t you?” Prosser flicked a smile at her, as if to say, Yes, I am in a better mood today. Jean looked down: it was like being caught rattling the pennies in her pocket. “Fire away.”

  “Well, I wondered what it was like being brave.”

  “Being brave?” This wasn’t what Prosser had expected. “What do you want to know that for?”

  “I’m interested. I mean, it’s all right if …”

  “No … it’s … just that it’s difficult. I mean, it varies. You can do something no
rmal and the other chaps decide you’ve been brave; or you can think you’ve put up quite a good show and they don’t even mention it.”

  “So who decides what being brave is? Them or you?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose you do in a way, but they do when it comes to gongs and so on. You don’t really think about it that way round, you see.”

  “Now you’re being modest.” Jean had noticed the ribbons on Sun-Up Prosser’s uniform. You didn’t get them for nothing.

  “No, no. I’m not. I mean, you don’t decide, ‘Now I’m going to be brave,’ or sit back afterwards and think, ‘Gosh, that was brave.’ ”

  “But you must make some decision. If you see someone’s in trouble and you say, ‘I’m going to help him.’ ”

  “No. You say much less printable things than that. And then you do it. It’s not like making a decision in civvy life. It’s whouf, and you’re in it. Sometimes things are a bit clearer and you’ve got time to think, but what you think is what you’ve been trained to think in the circs, and sometimes it’s a bit hazy as if you’re tipsy, but mostly it’s whouf, there you are.”

  “Oh.”

  “Sorry to disappoint. It may be different for others. I can’t tell you what it’s like being brave. You can’t pick it up and look at it. When it’s there you don’t feel it’s there. You don’t feel excited or dizzy or something. Maybe you feel a bit more as if you know what you’re doing, but that’s the limit. You can’t talk about it. It isn’t there.” Prosser began to sound a bit het up. “I mean, it isn’t the sensible thing, is it? The sensible thing is to be so scared your pants are falling off. That’s the sensible reaction.”

  “And is that different? I mean, is that like having something, being frightened?”

  “Ah, fear. Yes, that’s quite different.” He seemed to calm down as quickly as he had heated up. “Quite different. You want to know about that?”

  “Yes, please.” Jean suddenly became aware of how different talking to Prosser was from talking to Michael. It was harder in some ways, but …