The Collected Short Fiction

Potential (1973)

On the poster outside the Cooperative Hall, forming from the stars twined in the foliage, Charles had read: 'BRICHESTER'S FIRST BE-IN—FREE FLOWERS AND BELLS!' But in the entrance hall, beyond the desk where a suspicious muscle-man accepted his ten shillings, two girls were squabbling over the last plastic bell. Searching in the second cardboard carton, Charles found a paper flower whose petals were not too dog-eared, whose wire hooked into his button hole without snapping. 'Bloody typical,' a boy said next to him. 'I'm going to write to the International Times about this.'

He meant it wasn't a true love-in, Charles supposed, fumbling with terminology. He'd once bought the International Times, the underground newspaper, but the little he had understood he hadn't liked. Uneasily he watched the crowds entering the ballroom. Cloaks, shawls, boys with hair like dark lather, like tangled wire: Charles adjusted his 'Make Love Not War' badge, conscious of its incongruity against his grey office suit. He glanced up at the names of groups above the ballroom door: the Titus Groans, the Faveolate Colossi. 'OK, guys and gals, we've got a fabulously faveolate evening ahead for you,' he muttered in faint parody. 'Come on,' said the boy at his side, 'let's go in.'

Through the entrance Charles could see swaying figures merged by chameleon lights and hear drums like subterranean engines; as they entered the guitars screamed, a spotlight plunged through his eyes to expand inside his skull. 'Let me adjust,' he said to his companion: anything to gain time. Threads of joss-smoke curled into his nostrils, sinuous as the hands of a squatting girl, Indian-dancing for an encircling intent audience. A middle-aged man left the circle, which closed, and wandered ill at ease: a reporter, Charles thought. He searched the vast ballroom; groups of thirteen-year-old girls dancing, multicolored spotlights painting faces, projectors spitting images of turbulent liquid on the walls, on the stage the Faveolate Colossi lifting guitars high in a faintly obscene gesture. 'Ready ?' asked the boy at his side.

They danced toward two girls: sixteen, perhaps, or younger. A crimson light found Charles; when it moved away his face stayed red. Each time he moved his foot it was dragged down by a sense of triviality; he thought of the file left on his desk last night, to be dealt with on Monday morning. He sensed the reporter watching him from the shadows. The music throbbed to silence. The two girls glared at Charles and walked away. 'Not much cop, anyway,' said his companion—but then he seemed to see someone he knew: he vanished in the murk.

On the balcony above the ballroom a girl wearily blew bubbles through the shafts of colored light. They settled, bursting when they touched floor or flesh: Charles saw his life. 'Are you a flower person?' a voice asked: it was the reporter, twirling a paper flower.

'No less so than you, I should think.' Charles felt cheated: the boys with flowers behind their ears, the girls dancing together like uneasy extras in a musical, the jagged lances of sound, the lights excruciating as the dazzle of scraped tin, gave him nothing: less than the fragments he'd retained from books on philosophy.

'I'm not one—Good Lord, no. I'm just searching.' Charles sensed sympathy.

'You're not a reporter?'

'Never have been. Is that what I look like? No wonder they've all been watching me.'

'Then why are you here ?'

'For the same reason as you,' the other said. 'Searching.'

Charles supposed that was true. He stared about: at the far end from the stage a bar had been given over to lemonade. 'Let me stand you a drink,' the other said.

At the bar Charles saw that the man's hands were trembling; he'd torn the paper petals from the wire. Charles couldn't walk away; he searched for distraction. On stage the leader of the Titus Groans was staggering about, hands covering his eyes, crying 'Oswald, Kennedy, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe—' The speakers round the ballroom squealed and snorted. 'Kill, kill!' screamed the Titus Groan, setting fire to a cardboard amplifier. Charles glanced away, at caped figures in a corner. 'Sons of Dracula,' he muttered in a weak Karloff parody. The other laughed. 'You're a good mimic,' he said. Charles thought of the office: moments when he'd felt the conversation move away from him and improvised an imitation to hold attention. He stared at the figures smoking gravely in the corner, until he saw the flash of a packet of Woodbines.

'If someone had given you LSD or hashish, would you have accepted?' the other asked, sipping a Coke and belching.

'I don't know. Perhaps.' Something to set him apart from the people at the office, though they'd never know: he hadn't even dared to wear his badge among them.

'You feel empty. You're looking for something to fill you, to expand your mind as they'd say.' The man's hands were shaking again: the glass jangled on the bar.

'Ja, iss right, Herr Koktor,' but it didn't work. 'I suppose you're right,' Charles said.

The Titus Groan was casting flowers into the crowd. Suddenly Charles wanted one—then immediately he didn't: it was trivial. Girls scrambled for the flowers; as they converged they changed from red to green. 'Gerroff!' yelled one. 'I think—' Charles said. 'I know,' the other agreed. 'Let's leave.'

In the entrance hall the pugilist behind the desk peered at them suspiciously. 'By the way, my name's Cook,' the man mentioned. 'Charles,' Charles said.

They emerged into the main street; behind the blue lamps the moon was choked by clouds. A passing couple eyed Charles' flower and 'Make Love Not War' and shook their heads, tut-tut. 'I know you bought that badge for the occasion,' Cook remarked. 'You might as well take it off.'

'I do believe in it, you know,' Charles said.

'Of course,' Cook said. 'We all do.'

Tomorrow Charles might say: 'Last night I met a philosopher'—but once he'd claimed as his own a description of a robbery told him by a friend, only to be taunted by his neighbor at the office: 'Yes, I saw that too. Last week on tv, wasn't it?' Two boys passed, tinkling with beads and bells. Charles was about to offer Cook a drink: he'd formed vague friendships at the office thus. But Cook was struggling to speak.

'I wonder—' he mumbled. The moon fought back the clouds, like an awakening face. 'I don't know you very well, but still—you seem sympathetic... Look, I'll tell you. I'm meeting some friends of mine who are experimenting with the mind, let's say. Trying to realize potential. It sounds dramatic, but maybe they can help you find yourself.' His head shook; he looked away.

He was nervous, Charles could see: it was as if he'd drained Charles' unease into himself, leaving Charles the power to calm him. 'I'll try anything once,' Charles said. Blinded by the lamps like photofloods, the moon shrank back into the clouds.

They walked toward a side street where Cook's car was parked. In the unreal light the shops rose to Victorian facades, annihilating time. Charles wondered what they'd give him: LSD, lights, hypnosis? In the Be-In the pounding sound and leaping lights had reminded him somehow of brainwashing. He didn't like the idea of hypnosis: he wanted to be aware of his actions, to preserve his identity. Perhaps he'd simply watch the others.

Down a side street, on a stage of light from a pub door, two men fought. Charles couldn't look away. 'I thought so,' Cook said. 'You're one of us,'

In the next street Cook's car waited, its headlights dull like great blind eyes. 'I hope you're not too perfect,' Cook mumbled, unlocking the door. 'They can't abandon me, not now. No, I'm just suspicious by nature, I know that.' Savagely he twisted the ignition key, and shuddered. 'They're in Severnford,' he said.

Darkness spread again over the last house like decay, and the road dipped. As they swept over a rise Charles saw the distant Severn: a boat drifted quietly and vanished. Hills were lit like sleeping colossi; over them the moon bounced absurdly before the clouds closed. Suddenly Cook stopped the car. The darkness hid his face, but Charles could make out his hands working on the wheel. Cook rolled the window down. 'Look up there,' he said, pointing an unsteady finger at a gap in the clouds exposing the universe, a lone far frosty star. 'Infinity. There must be something in all that to fill us.'

In Severnford they pulled up near the wharf. The streets were lit by gaslamps, reflected flickering in windows set in dark moist stone. 'We'll walk from here,' Cook said.

They crossed an empty street of shops. On the corner of an alley Cook stopped before a window: socks, shirts, skirts, bags of sweets, tins of Vim, along the front of the pane a line of books like a frieze. 'Do you read science fiction?' Cook asked.

'Not much,' Charles said. 'I don't read much.' Not fiction, anyway, and retained little.

'You should read Lovecraft.' Next to the tentacled cover a man fought off a razor, hands flailing, eyes pleading with the camera: Cook almost gripped Charles' arm, then flinched away. They entered the alley. Two dogs scrabbling at dustbins snarled and ran ahead. In a lighted window, above the broken glass which grew from the alley wall, someone played a violin.

Beyond the houses at the end of the alley ran the Severn. The boat had gone; tranquil lights floated against the current. Gas-lamps left the windows of the houses dark and gaping, shifted shadows behind the broken leaning doors. 'Over here,' Cook said, clearing his throat.

'Here?' Cook had headed for a disused pub, its dim window autographed in dust. Charles wavered: was Cook perhaps alone ? Why had he lured him here ? Then Charles looked up; behind the sign—THE RIVERSIDE—nailed across the second storey, he glimpsed the bright edge of a window and heard a hint of voices, mixed with some sound he couldn't place. Cook was swallowed by the lightless doorway; the two dogs ran out whimpering. Charles followed his guide.

Beer-bottles were piled in pyramids on the bar, held together by Sellotape; in the topmost candles flared, their flames flattened and leapt, briefly revealing broken pump-handles on the bar-top like ancient truncheons, black mirrors from which Charles' face sprang surprised, two crates behind the bar cloaked in sacking. POLICE ARE PEOPLE TOO was painted on a glass partition; for a moment it appeared like the answer of an oracle. 'Oh, the police know about this,' Cook said, catching Charles' eye. 'They're used to it by now, they don't interfere. Upstairs.'.

Beyond the bar a dark staircase climbed; as they mounted past a large unseen room, through whose empty window glimmered the Severn, the voices hushed, giving way to the sound which worried Charles. Cook knocked twice on a panelled door. A secret society, thought Charles, wondering. The door opened.

Sound rushed out. Charles' first thought was of the Be-In: a united shriek of violins, terrifying. Inside the long room faces turned to him. 'Take off your shoes,' Cook said, leaving his own in the row at the door, padding onto the fur which carpeted the flat.

Charles complied uneasily, postponing the moment when he must look up. When he did they were still watching: but not curious, clearly eager to know him. He felt accepted; for the first time he was wanted for himself, not a desperately mimicked image. The young man in black who had opened the door circled him, shoulder-length ringlets swaying, and took his hand. 'I'm Smith,' he said. 'You're in my flat.'

Cook hurried forward. 'This is Charles,' he stuttered.

'Yes, yes, Cook, he'll tell us his name when he's ready.'

Cook retreated, almost tripping over someone prone on the fur. Charles surveyed; boys with hair they shook back from their faces, girls already sketched on by experience, in a corner an old couple whose eyes glittered as if galvanized—writers, perhaps. They weren't like the people at the office; he felt they could give him something he sought. Against the walls two speakers shrieked; several of the listeners lay close, crawling closer. 'What's that?' Charles asked.

'Penderecki. Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima.'

Charles watched the listeners: in the violins the imaginative might hear the screams of the victims, in the pizzicati the popping of scorched flesh. Near one speaker Beyond Belief protected a veneer from a pub ashtray; next to it lay New Worlds Speculative Fiction, We Pass From View, Le Sadisme au Cinema, an International Times and a pile of Ultimate Press pornography, above which, mute, stared Mervyn Peake's Auschwitz sketches. 'Smoke?' Smith asked, producing a gold cigarette-case.

'No thanks,' Charles said; when he knew them better he'd try the marihuana, if that was what it was.

'I will,' Cook interrupted, taking a black cigarette.

The violins died. 'Time?' someone suggested.

'I'll make sure,' Smith turned to Charles apologetically: 'We don't use words unless they're meaningful.' He padded to a corner and opened a door which Charles hadn't noticed; beyond it light blazed as at the Be-in. Charles thought he heard voices whispering, and a metal sound. He glanced about, avoiding the faces; outside the window loomed the back of the pub sign. A wall hid the river from him, but he could still see the quiet boat in the moonlight. He wished they'd speak instead of watching him; but perhaps they were waiting for him to declare himself. He wished Cook wouldn't stand at the bookcase, his shivering back aware of Charles.

Smith appeared, closing the door. The faces turned from Charles to him. 'Charles has come to find himself,' he said. 'In there, Charles.'

They stood up and surrounded the door, leaving a path for Charles. They were eager—too eager; Charles hesitated. He'd wanted to be part of something, not alone and acted upon. But Smith smiled deprecatingly; the fur lulled Charles' nerves like a childhood blanket. He started forward. 'Wait,' Smith said. He stared at Cook, still trembling before the bookcase. 'Cook,' he called, 'you want to participate. You be guide.'

'I feel sick,' said Cook's back.

'You don't want to leave us after so long.'

Cook shuddered and whirled to face them. He looked at Charles, then away. 'All right,' he whispered, 'I'll help him.' Beckoned by Smith, he preceded Charles into the other room.

Charles almost turned and ran, he couldn't have said why; but he was inhibited against rejecting people he'd just met. He strode past the eyes into the blazing light.

At first he didn't see the girl. There was so much in the way: cameras on splayed tripods, blind blinding spotlights climbed by cords like Lovecraft tentacles, in the centre of the floor a rack of knives and razors and sharp instruments, carefully arranged. He heard what must be the whimper of a dog on the wharf. Suddenly he peered through the twined cords and thrust Cook aside. A girl was tied to the wall. Her arms were crucified high. She was naked.

The jigsaw fitted—International Times, pornography, the cameras, pornographic films—but Charles felt no revulsion, simply anger: he'd come so far for this. Then a glimpse of crimson drew his eye to the gap where the girl's left little finger should have been. Unbelieving, he stared at the floor, at the pattern of crimson tracing the agonized flurry of her hand.

'Make your choice,' Cook said.

Slowly Charles turned, sick with hatred. Cook had retreated to the door; over his shoulder the others craned for a better view. 'Make your choice,' Cook repeated, indicating the rack of knives: his voice trembled, and the girl looked back and whimpered. 'Let what is in you be you. Release your potential, your power.'

Charles couldn't look at the girl; if he did he'd be sick. He could feel her pleading with him. He approached the rack; his stockinged feet clung to the floor as in a nightmare. He touched a knife; its blade mutilated his reflection, its edge was razor-sharp. He clutched the handle and glanced with prickling eyes toward the door. It wouldn't work: too far to run. He struggled to remove the knife from the rack.

'Go on, Cook, help him,' Smith said. The girl sobbed. Cook turned about, trembling. 'Cook,' Smith said.

Cook sidled toward Charles, his eyes appealing like a dog's as they linked the girl and Charles: Charles was his nightmare. Almost at the rack, Cook stood shaking and glared toward the girl. 'My God!' he cried. 'You haven't—'

'My wife?' Smith called. 'Not even I.'

The knife slid from the rack and was at once in Cook's stomach. Yet Charles saw the blade flash on Cook's face, flayed not so much by terror as by knowledge. Cook fell on the knife. Charles closed his eyes. Blindly he wiped his hands on his jacket. At last he faced them, and almost knew what Cook had known. They were watching him with a new expression: worship.

Behind him he heard movement. He had to turn. The girl was pulling her hands free of the cords, flexing her little finger which had been hidden in her palm, wiping off the crimson paint on a cloth from the floor. As she passed Charles she stretched out her hand to touch him, but at the last moment lowered her eyes and knelt before Cook's body. Smith joined her and they linked hands. The others-followed and knelt, the old couple sinking slowly as their charge was drained. They turned up their faces to Charles, waiting.

You made this happen! he might have shouted to defeat them. You staged this, you invented it! It means nothing.

And all he'd done had been to perform their script—But his hand had held the knife, his hand still felt it plunge, his hand displayed the blade beneath which they cowered. Within him something woke and swelled, tearing him open, drawing him into itself. They saw; they knew. The girl stretched out her hands toward him, and they chorused a name.

At once it was outside his body, no longer part of him. For a moment he was filled by the innocence of oblivion. Then, finally, he knew. He felt what they had called forth sucking him out like an oyster, converting him into itself, the pain as his molecules ripped asunder as if his fingers were being wrenched loose. He cried out once. Then blood fountained from his mouth.

They moved whispering through the flat, eyes averted. Two of them supported Cook's body to his car. 'In the hills, remember,' Smith whispered.

He returned to the studio, head bowed. 'The river?' someone asked, pointing to the dry grey shape on the floor.

'It's nothing now,' Smith said. 'It won't be recognized. The front door.'

They gathered up the husk and piled it into a paper carrier, where it rasped, hollow. Someone took the bag down through the pub. The candles had guttered. He threw the contents of the bag into the street beneath the gas-lamps, and the dogs converged snarling to flight. Then he rejoined the others, as reverently they raised their eyes to what filled the flat, and waited for it to speak.