Lord Jim at Home

ONE

The house on the cliffs is furnished with an eau de nil carpet and a rosewood desk. In the garden are rhododendrons and tamarisk. In the dining room is an oval mahogany table polished so that it reflects, like a camera obscura, the blue of the sky and muted green of the lawn. A soft, blurred pyramid of light in the dark room, smelling of meat.

At the rosewood desk the Queen is writing letters. She has a round face, pink and gentle. Her hair is thick, light brown, with soft waves. Her ankles are also thick. She is small, but a cloak trimmed with ermine suits her, and a crown or tiara sits easily upon her head. She has written many letters at this desk. One is to that famous newspaper the Times, asking them to find for her the very best nurse for her expected child. Only the very best will be good enough for this infant, wrapped in inherited lace, to be christened in the church where his forefathers have been christened.

A nurse with red hair like flame, and azure blue eyes and a stone face, travels down from another kingdom in the North, where the princes and princesses have grown old enough to be sent away. She joins the cook, the maid and the gardener as a servant of the household. The only slave is the infant Prince. He is the necessary foundation of the structure, but he doesn’t know it. And the foundation is at the bottom.

He is kept under control by two weapons; just enough of his desires are satisfied to prevent open rebellion, and fear.

He is regularly fed, washed and powdered. ‘Can’t abide a child who smells,’ says the nurse to the maid. At one month, his sagging body, hairless, toothless, clad only in a smocked angel top, is precariously balanced after each feed on a tiny enamel pot. At seven months, gasping, half blinded, mouth and nose full of shit and the stench of ammonia from his own nappies, he is clean and sometimes dry during the day.

All day he lies in his cot, arms tucked down, and stares at the white ceiling of the nursery, or in his pram and stares at the dark rhododendron leaves against the sky. At night he lies alone in the deep velvet blackness, no living body beside or around him, no thudding heart, breath, movement or voice, strapped flat on his back so that he cannot turn and smother himself in the lacy pillow.

Once a day, in the eau de nil drawing room, among the guests and teacups, he is transferred from the starched arms of his nurse to his mother’s soft bosom and powdery smell, and fed, when the nurse has gone, with kisses and licks of sugar. ‘Oh dear, nurse would be cross, but he is such a darling.’ Then comes the exquisite pain, torn away from this tender sweetness, fingers clutching, body arched, screams of despair. Even a rat would have learned that a broken string of pearls and knocked over teacup meant that next day there would be no love, no sugar. The Prince learns in the end, but a rat would have learned sooner.

The Queen has no real understanding of discipline. She professes to agree that her child should not be allowed downstairs unless he can behave himself properly, but during the day she sometimes creeps up the back stairs when the nurse is busy elsewhere, to coo at and caress the infant as he lies in his cot. The door opens. The Queen’s pink face and brown hair become a blur as she moves away. Her soft voice turns into a guilty whine. Her presence fades through the dark cavern of the open door. The nurse’s skin holds the light like marble. She is the strong arm of the establishment. It is her duty to ensure the propagation of its self-righteousness. Her position is that of a servant, but her authority is second only to that of the King himself. She is the éminence grise, and conscious of her power.

Fear as a weapon of control. Fear of deprivation is useful. Deprivation of food shows, but deprivation of the affection and presence of the mother does not. It also has the advantage of letting everyone at court see where the power lies. Fear of pain is of little value until the infant’s nervous system is sufficiently developed to understand what pain is and where it is coming from. Fear of the dark, and of solitude, on the other hand, can be used almost from birth.

The Queen, returning from a banquet, listens anxiously to the choked and exhausted sobs, screams, hiccups from the nursery. She creeps up the stairs, holding her long skirt round her. Her hand is on the door. Nurse appears in a white flannel nightgown. ‘Oh dear, nurse, I’m sorry, I just thought I might…’

‘There’s nothing wrong with him, Madam. If you go in now you will only upset him.’

‘But…’

‘He’s got to learn.’

‘But surely isn’t four hours…?’

‘You must do as you think fit, Madam.’

The door closes behind her turned back. The Queen stands outside the door of the nursery wringing her hands. The breathy screams and cries continue. Long strings of saliva tremble, sticky, no longer wet. ‘I’m here darling. It’s mummy. Don’t cry, mummy’s here.’ A soothing whisper on the other side of the door. After some time the choked screams die down. The child is sleeping. The Queen, cold and stiff, creeps downstairs.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ asks the King, humped half asleep in the turquoise and white bedroom.

‘I’m worried about the baby. He cries so much.’

The smooth, soft skin of her forehead creases with anxiety. She is making her own small rebellion.

‘He’s got to learn who’s master,’ says the King, pulling the satin covered eiderdown up round his shoulders and tucking it under his chin. The infant Prince is his enemy, gathering strength to put his eyes out, chop his balls off, take his kingdom. I am bigger than you, and I am stronger than you, thinks the King, and I will win.

‘Don’t blame me, darling, it’s not my fault, I’m only trying to do what’s best for you.’ The Queen still wrings her hands, kneeling before the awful figure of her son. She steps out of her crepe de chine cami-knickers and lays them over the back of a chair. ‘She’s been trained, you see. She knows how to deal with children. I’m such a silly old thing, darling, I never know what to do.’ She pauses before putting on her nightdress, and smiles at herself in the mirror.

In the morning she is astonished to see how small he is. His pink, creased face, unfocused eyes, and jerky, wavering movements do not after all express revengeful and accusing rage. It is perfectly all right. Everything is normal again. Hugged and kissed, in smock and sausage curls, he is only mummy’s darling baby boy—and being so good today.

Later the floor of the nursery becomes the Prince’s territory. Increasing movement has given him the freedom of a cage. He sits on a tartan woolen rug behind his wooden bars, and waits to see what the world will offer him. The rug is fringed at either end, and he spends one morning chewing part of the fringe into wet strings with his gums. The next day both fringed ends have been neatly sewn down. Turn your attention, Prince, to a teddy bear and a jointed wooden doll. Far away, across the large expanse of mottled green linoleum, in front of the fireplace, lies a rag rug; a forest, a jungle—black and beige and pink and maroon.

This becomes the centre of his attention. Who wants to shake a rattle when by a process of inherited sensual knowledge he knows that some at least of those crushed and flattened pieces of rag, the beige ones certainly, the pink perhaps—and the maroon? don’t know, to be determined by experiment—if pulled will stretch themselves out softly, changing their nature, becoming thin and tall instead of short and fat, and then, let go, will fall back with a sudden sharp movement into their original softness. The infant Prince groans and squeals and humps himself up onto his knees and rubs his head from side to side. Softness and elasticity and shape that changes as you pull and press it, pink and beige. In the tiny cushions of his fingers and his lips the sensations exist.

Once, when his nurse is out of the room, the Prince by cunning manipulation of his heels and bottom manages to slide the rug across the linoleum and push the playpen after it until he almost, stretched hand through the bars, one finger touching, clutching, ouch! oh! oh yes, pain has become a useful method of control.

Pain and humiliation. Not so much the soiled nappies pressed over his mouth and nose, as the brisk, impersonal unpinning and flipping from back to front, and wiping. Is she wiping shit off the Prince’s bottom or off the table? Impossible to tell from her expression or her voice. Does that sensation belong to me? wonders the Prince. Does that expression belong to me?

The hair at her temple is orange, and pulled back tightly under her cap. If it was released it would spring into a curve, round and full. Flattened, it retains the fossilised impression of a curl. It cannot be straight. It twists back on itself.

She is very competent. The child is always clean. His white boots are neatly laced up, without a mark on them. His white socks, showing just above the top of the boots, bite softly into the shiny flesh. His dimpled knees are bent double, as if they were made of plasticine. Carried, in a rush of air, on a bony arm, along corridors covered with linoleum and down wooden stairs to wider stairs covered with green carpet. Sudden silence of the clumping foot- steps. The crackling of starched cotton becomes loud. The light upstairs is white and cold, the stairs dark. The carpeted corridors and rooms muted, pale and green. The air becomes warmer and more voluptuous as they descend. The smells are different. So are the sounds. Doors open and shut. Voices murmur and rise musically. Sharp, stifled, bell-like notes of silver on china. The teacups are translucent. Light lies in them dark amber or pale gold. Today Father is there as well, the King himself, not properly contained either in his clothes or his body. Squeeze him a little, prick him with a pin, and blood will gush forth. His shoulders burst out of his dark grey suit, his neck bursts out of his shirt collar. It is as wide as his face. There is no difference between his neck and his face. The blood pulses, thick and dark purple, behind his skin. His brown eyes shine hotly, squeezed outwards by remorseless pressure. The resonance of his voice makes the teacup tremble faintly against the saucer. His hair is dark and thin and neatly brushed. He wears no crown. He does not approach the Prince too closely. He remains at the other end of the room, talking to other large, grey men. But his voice makes the Prince’s throat ache, and gives the sugar a strange taste, in spite of the cooing circle of ladies-in-waiting, with their soft hands and pale skirts and swaying waves of hair.

It is pleasant to be back in these surroundings. Passivity becomes, after all, pleasure instead of shame. The Queen’s bosom is soft and full under her pale green blouse. Her neck is soft. He can feel her skin tremble as the blood pulses beneath it. A touch as delicate as a butterfly’s wing. She raises her hand to brush away a strand of hair. The Prince’s eyes stare, pale blue, unfocused, towards the ceiling. They stare out and see inside himself sensations woven together, black, flecked with grey and red. He sucks on his tongue. His hand flutters downwards. Impossible that any human touch could be so soft. The Queen shakes her head impatiently, but does not take her eyes from her friend, whose lips are different shades of red inside and out, and whose cup is stained with an imprint of the skin texture of her lower lip.

‘Geoffrey goes before the selection board on Friday.’ She speaks and drinks with her upper lip flaring backwards. The Prince’s hand finds a different texture at the base of his mother’s neck. Rougher and cooler, but still soft—crepe. A raised seam round the neck, and others leading downwards, little raised patterns covering his mother’s body. The Prince’s hand follows a path downwards; gently, slowly, aimlessly, with the tip of one finger. The Queen says,

‘Geoffrey’s just the sort of man we need.’ The Prince’s hand comes to rest over his mother’s nipple, and an expression of faint anxiety on his face is noticeable in retrospect as he relaxes. A gush of milk, which has never before flowed for her child, rises from the springs of the Queen’s bosom and stains her dress.

‘Oh Lord, darling,’ cries her friend, ‘the little beast has wet you.’

The Queen springs to her feet with a scream of shame and astonishment. The Prince is banished to arm’s length. No one wants to take him from her. On the Queen’s breasts are two round stains of deeper green. The resonant voices are silent. The grey men turn to look at the Queen.

‘Nurse! Nurse!’ But there is still half an hour before the nurse is due to collect the Prince. Someone rings the bell. The Queen presses the Prince to her bosom to hide her shame. ‘I must go and change.’

He is privileged. Because of his wickedness and the Queen’s shame he is privileged to fly upstairs in her arms and lie on the ice cold shiny satin counterpane while she pulls off her clothes, sobbing.

‘Beastly, horrible little boy.’ Her lips are trembling, they turn down at the corners like a child’s. She sniffs. Her voice trembles.

‘Oh I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it.’ There are little buttons and buttonholes at the back of her blouse. She cannot undo them. Her friend has followed her upstairs. She helps undo the buttons.

‘They’re such filthy little pigs. One really ought not to have anything to do with them until they’re at least two.’ Light is reflected from the shiny satin counterpane and the white walls. The triple mirror on the dressing table under the window is dark except for the white faces of the two women. Tears are running down the Queen’s face. She takes off her blouse and throws it on the floor with a shudder. She looks down at herself and says in a thin, frightened voice, ‘It’s come right through.’ The coffee coloured lace is sticky. To take off her camiknicks she first has to take off her skirt. Now she knows the taste of humiliation. The nurse taps on the door.

‘Shall I take him away, Madam?’

‘Yes. Take him away.’

Away from the cool white light of his mother’s bedroom, from the powders and scarves and lace. From the dumpy woman in her stockings and girdle sitting on the stool in front of the dressing table, with her friend starting to undo her brassiere, and tears on her cheeks.

The more the Prince’s desire for his mother increases the more he is deprived of her. The long emptiness of nursery days turns bitter. He holds himself in suspension, waiting for her. He no longer releases gifts of himself into the cold tin potty or the marble hands of his nurse. He takes food into his mouth but does not swallow, or swallows but does not digest, and vomits it up again, later, unchanged. ‘I shall not breathe, or grow, or live until I am in the arms of my mother.’ He is not doing the right thing, so Mother is not allowed into the nursery, and he is not allowed downstairs for tea. Sometimes his mother comes upstairs and stands in the doorway of the nursery looking at him. But however much he screams and struggles she does not take him in her arms. She looks at him, anxious, troubled, but wary now, of his power.

‘He’s got to learn, Madam.’ She goes away, relieved.

The nurse is a fighter. She has strength, courage, skill. She is not to be beaten. She revels in the sound and smell of battle. The harsh crack of her hands on desperately flailing limbs, the webbing straps that bind the child to his mattress pulled tighter every night. She glories in it. She glories in an adversary worthy of her strength. The savage must be controlled, he must be tamed. He must learn how to be a child. He cannot know, poor ignorant, screaming wretch, what a child should be. But she, the nurse, has been taught, over many years, by the expectations of those who employ her. A child should be quiet and malleable. He should have no desires. He should have no will. Willfulness is the devil. He should eat and sleep, eat and sleep again. Occasionally, clean and neatly dressed, he should gurgle and coo at selected relatives. Of the dark battles of the nursery nothing should be seen. This child is a worthy adversary in the strength of his desires and the violence of his struggle, but he has no cunning. He can find no other means to achieve what he wants. She feels a certain amount of pity for him, and contempt. In a harsher society he would never have survived. There is no bounce, no spring to his character. He cannot swallow a defeat and then attack from a new angle. He continually proclaims his misery and his despair. The nurse, bored and disgusted, shuts him in the toy cupboard when she can stand his screaming no longer.

There at least he has plenty to occupy him. But he can’t concentrate. Locked into the uneasy blackness he is possessed by fear. He lacks light, warmth, comfort. There is no soothing voice to answer his cries, no arms to hold and rock him.

Stupid child, do you not see that if you do what I desire, if you eat and excrete, and are silent, and grow fat, then you shall have your heart’s desire? Then you will be held in loving arms for one hour every day unless the Queen goes out? Do you not understand? Why are you so ignorant, stupid and uncouth? If I shut the door of the toy cupboard, and the door of the nursery, and the door of my own room, and sit quietly sewing or knitting there, I can hardly hear your screams. I am not aware of the unnatural extravagance of your feelings. When I take you out, after several hours, you will be limp and quiet. You will eat, between hiccups, and quite probably sleep as well. You and I are engaged in a private battle. It has nothing to do with that damp and ineffectual lady the Queen. I am on your father’s side. I understand him better. He is the King. He knows the meaning of authority. He can take decisions and bear responsibility. He is not afraid to hold lives in the palm of his hand. There is a flame of understanding between us. I am a strong woman, and not afraid of my strength. I submit to no one. I owe my allegiance only to the King.

The Prince does not know where he can find support. He sees the Queen, but she will not hold out her arms to him. The nurse is an iron hand, pressing down upon his head. Her red hair, the crackling of her apron, and her cold, hard hands are a barrier that keep the softness of the world away from him. It is true that he is ignorant and stupid, and does not know how to adjust himself. The hysterical passion of his crying prevents him from seeing how life could be made easy. He learns too slowly. In any other experiment he would have been abandoned.

One day the Prince is taken to visit the old Judge, his grandfather. They have a lot in common. They both dribble and are incontinent. The old Judge, in his wheelchair, wrapped in rugs, leers at his grandson with contempt. His eyes sparkle. He hides a secret knowledge to himself in the sun porch. His secret knowledge is his age. Ha ha ha, he says to the child, you have to wait till you get to be my age. You’ll never get to be my age, miserable, puny thing. I am ninety-one years old and I can shit in my pants and nobody rubs my nose in it. After dinner I sit in my panelled dining room, alone, with a servant standing behind my chair, a docile audience if I have no other, and I suck on my cigar and roll the port around my tongue for as long as I like. I am respected. I wear a velvet smoking jacket. I am a judge. I have worn the black cap and sentenced men to death. That is why women