To The Lighthouse is the final chapter of Narcissus Goes-A-Courting published by the Signal Press in 1993, and incorporates post publication amendments made by Gallagher. Some copies of the original publication are still available and can be bought through AnotherSun at £5.00. All profits made on this publication go to The London Lighthouse.. See the publications page for more. |
TO THE LIGHTHOUSE It is a temperate habitat. The community is of a manageable size and there is plenty of space in which to blossom. Blossoming, in fact, is the major pursuit of the population. Not surprisingly, there are no exports and the only import to speak of is people. Like ourselves. I suppose I'm making it sound like a shutdown world; but welcome. There are more men than women here and this imbalance may go against your aesthetic sense. Try not to be such sticklers for harmony. These are early days yet. There's plenty of time for a balance to be achieved; and anyway, as men go, here is a peaceful crop. They'll make you feel secure. They'll make you believe you forgot to pack all your pretty nightmares. They are a friendly people. Excessively so, some might think. It's as though they've calculated they have neither the time nor the energy to be otherwise. It's like a craving to escape into one another. Their language is eager and fragile and, allowing for certain self-imposed restrictions, sincere. Though they seem happy enough, there is a sadness in the atmosphere. I suppose this is the nearest they get to a recognition of all those other worlds closing in -- |
To The Lighthouse (Prison Spell) by Timothy Gallagher |
THE CAPTAIN ADDRESSES HIS NEPHEW AS HIS CRAFT CLOSES IN It is a worthwhile voyage. It is the first time in my life I've ever been Captain. You wouldn't believe it. Nobody else does. I don't have the uniform, you see. I don't even know what the uniform is. I expect it's navy blue. It usually is. I feel happy though. Happy enough. My crew, my passengers, are like children. When I hear them speak I have to hold onto myself. Otherwise, I'd end up believing in the places they believe they're travelling to. But how are you, my one and only nephew? Are you still called Richard? I do hope not. The name's never suited you. It evokes sobriety and is forgettable. But you are not like that. You who make these lasting impressions on folk who have yet to meet you, on folk who never will, tell me, before I go, tell me your new name, the one you chose yourself. How's your love life? I do hope you haven't inherited that tendency to posit some infinite obstacle course between yourself and all representatives of Eros. How's my love life? It's funny you should ask me that. The other evening I was sitting all alone at the bar when this fascinating woman called Poppy accosted me. She had the most beautiful eyes. Eyes of a colour I would gladly name if I was familiar with the spectrum. I leave it to you, my tolerant posterity, to supply the colour of your choice. I leave it to you to do for Poppy what I couldn't do. Yes, it ended badly. I could be friendly with her for only a weekend. Then she had a couple of brain tumours. Then she was tetraplegic. Then the only thing that could be done with her was to prop her up in bed and watch her sucking whisky through a straw. Then she had to be cast away. |
TO FRET ABOUT ONE'S HEALTH I really ought to go visit my doctor. I have need of a doctor, you know. I never used to. I never used to give them the time of day... I have a nice doctor. She's pretty. Her eyes are bright and her skin glows and she smiles all the time. She has an excellent approach. She bangs the soles of my feet, listens to my chest, shines her opthalmoscope in my eyes. Sometimes I have portions of my blood extracted. Sometimes slices of my liver. Sometimes I am prescribed a half-empty tube of KY and told to get on with it. Sometimes I get on with it. Here I am, getting on with it. |
MR CHARLES I think I'd like to talk about what happened today. I must be honest though. Honest yes, but not fanatically so. Not to the point of sending myself to sleep. This morning I woke up at 9 o'clock. I didn't wake up here, in this cell. I woke up in another cell, on another floor, with another body. That of a certain Mr Charles. A Scotsman in his late 50s. You may have seen him around. He's brilliantly bald on top with wisps of grey hair at the sides. Ruddy cheeks he has. Unconvincing blue eyes. He's a wiry, sprightly character. In his youth he must have been an athletic sort. Quite dashing, in fact. He used to be an assistant bank manager. He used to take care of our accounts. One day he suddenly became an integrated human being. He was no longer able to separate the money he handled in the bank from the money he felt in his pocket. I neither like nor dislike the man. The only reason I woke up in his cell this morning is that one of his fantasies happens to interlock with one of my own. But not this morning. My chest was giving me hell. I was positively wheezing. I needed to let loose a series of rich coughs but was loath to reveal so much of myself. I fancy these coughs, though relished by myself, are, to the eyes and ears of others, at best unaesthetic; and, at worst, a permanent turn-off. I wouldn't know. I try not to put it to the test. Yes, a session with my doctor is definitely required. She never fails to put my mind at rest. As for my body, that's anybody's guess. |
JOB APPLICATION I want a job. I want a job because I want to talk about my job. That's what people with jobs do. I've heard them -- in pubs, in rush hours, on public holidays. Yes, if I had a job I could talk about the people I work with. I might be working with a Mary and a Jane and a Peter and a Derek. I think I'd take to Mary and Derek but have reservations about Peter and Jane. You know the sort of reservations I mean. How Peter unloads his work onto Mary, Derek, and myself, and how Jane's lunch breaks get longer the longer the days. How I could talk about the people I work with. I could talk about what the people I work with work at. Whether they administer or slave or a bit of both, which is often the case. I could talk about what I work at. I have a feeling I'd be in a position of some responsibility. It's only a feeling, mind; but it's to be credited. And then I could talk about what I get paid. What I don't get paid that I ought to get paid. I could justify my demand for higher pay by pointing out that I do far more than it seems. It's only my casual air that creates the impression that I do nothing. In reality I never stop and I'm not even taking into account how much of Peter's work I do; and it's invariably the hard bits. If I had a job I could talk about why I do the job that I do. Is it just to keep myself occupied? Distracted? Oblivious? Or is it that I want the opportunity to say that I really ought to read more but I simply can't the time? Or is it just money? Well, yes -- but no! Not money for myself but to the kids -- the kids? Yes, the kids -- an advantageous start in life. If I had a job because of the kids I could talk about the kids. What charming little interruptions they would be. All except Richard, the eldest. I can see him now at that problem age -- the age of acne, permanet erection, and all those tormenting questions about the sort of job he's going to do. Questions I'd be able to throw some light on if I had a job. Questions that might lead to talk of why I don't do some other job. Something more fulfilling and creative, something to give me greater independence, perhaps the ultimate independence of being my own man. Or, better still, I could talk about why I don't just give up jobs altogether. Fuck the kids and concentrate on myself for a change... Hit the roads, turn to crime, retire to some barbecued island; or, failing that, retreat to prison where at least there'd be no pressure on me to talk about my job. But I want to talk about my job. If only I had a job. If I had a job I could talk non-stop about my job. I wouldn't just be talking about what I'd talk about if I had a job. |
TO CLEAN ONE'S CELL I'll smoke a cigarette now and then stop all this chat. I really ought to spend the rest of the day cleaning my cell. It's so untidy and I know what they say about untidy cells. And then cleaning gives me a sense of satisfaction. It's nice to have a Before and an After. It's nice to notice the difference. It's just getting started that's hard. Getting started at anything is always hard when one is constantly waiting to be interrupted.Still,I'll get started. I'll start to clean my cell. My cell... It isn't really a cell. It's more of an apartment. What with the kettle and the fridge and my own key. And of course the garden... I must say the garden looks a bit neglected. I haven't been watering it recently. Though, to be fair to myself I did prune the buddleia bush the other day. And the hibiscus looks healthy enough; and I have started planting soggy tea bags in the vicinity of the rose bush. I've been told that roses like tea. Perhaps I'm a sort of rose. |
ALEXANDER This morning I picked up a copy of Capital Gay and, glancing through the Small Ads section, I suddenly found myself reading what sounded like Alexander's obituary. Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, it began. This was in inverted commas. Presumably it's a quote. Yes of course it is. It's from some hymn, isn't it? The sort of hymn the little children sing at sunday school. Who wrote it? I wonder. I imagine some 19th century Christian hippie who did not believe in death. But why was it in Alexander's obituary? Perhaps he quoted it on his death bed. Well, if he did, let's hope he was being ironic. Yes, he was being ironic. Perhaps he quoted it at one of his dinner parties: just another throwaway line for another chorus of sniggers. Yes, I can see him now, at his glass-topped table, being flippant, attracted to the idea of moving at 186000 miles per second. Jesus wants me for a sunbeam. You can put that in my obituary, he might have said. And his friends who, presumably, composed this notice -- took him at his word. Were they being ironic? Or were they in earnest? As they must have been in earnest when they followed it with the phrase, Deeply Missed. When they followed it with a list of themselves: seven of them in all: the Seven Friends of Alexander. As for myself, not being numbered among them, I was not consulted when it came to choosing the most telling thing to say. Now had it been left up to me -- just imagine! For starters, I would not have had it in the Small Ads section and certainly not in skimming distance of the Small Ads rates. I mean there I was this morning, quite prepared to feel bereaved, almost in the mood to be meditating on human fragility, when suddenly I am sidetracked by the information, 45p a word. Well of course I made my calculations. The fifteen words that constituted Alexander's obituary worked out at £6.75. About 96p a friend. If only this obituary had been left up to me. It might have gone something like this: Had Alexander been deeply missed by more friends this notice would have been dearer. |
AWAITING EXECUTION I've just finished this delicious breakfast of mushrooms, sausages, bacon, and fried egg swamped in brown sauce, vinegar, and mustard. And then I drank this really powerful coffee while smoking a cigarette. And now the prospect of a day of doing nothing. Which, when you come to think of it, must be the hardest thing of all. Practically impossible. Still, we live in hope. I feel amazingly lightheaded this morning, a bit chesty but then who cares? I feel almost hopeful, full of possibilities. During the last few days a couple of people have told me I snore in my sleep. What the hell. Why should I lose sleep over what I sleep through? I'm almost too excited to speak. It's such a brilliant morning: the world so well defined and the sun so easy, easy. How it rained yesterday. How yesterday is done. Last night, if I remember rightly, I spent hours and hours talking to myself. What did I say? Perhaps I told myself the story of my life. I do hope I got it right. Not that it matters now that I am forgetting. No, I won't do nothing today. I'll do practical things: clean my cell, make it look as fresh as the world, as free of the past as my mind will soon be. Goodbye Memory. I'll tend the garden, root out the weeds, sprinkle phostrogen on the soil. I'll contact Alexander. Who on earth is Alexander? Once upon a time I must have known. Otherwise, where would his name have come from? Goodbye Alexander. I think I feel happy. I feel happy. I am happy. Happy! |
To The Lighthouse is the final chapter of Narcissus Goes-A-Courting published by the Signal Press in 1993, and incorporates post publication amendments made by Gallagher. Some copies of the original publication are still available and can be bought through AnotherSun at £5.00. All profits made on this publication go to The London Lighthouse.. See the publications page for more. |
(c) The Signal Press 1993 All rights reserved. |
Timothy Gallagher (c) Anna Tully 1993 |