Richard Penna's Writing

Index

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                                   Nomadic Ways

From: Prof. Elwin Dwight Jr., Dept. of Anthropology, University of Milt, USA.

To: Prof. Richard Mbisu, Dept. of Anthropology, The People’s University, Liberaville, The Independent African Republic of Esperanza.

Dear Professor Mbisu - I write to you informally and in advance of a longer letter which will be sent to your department this evening by our Committee of Social Concern & Grant Aid. Full details will be given to you after their meeting tonight but I thought it important that I should take it upon myself to inform you of the Department's general disappointment and misgivings re your apparent decisions in relation to the use of the Financial Aid offered to your department by this University.

I feel obliged to make the following points…

1. The Aid was offered with the idea, obvious we think, that this money should be used within Africa for strictly Anthropological research.

2. In a continent ravaged by Unstable Markets and Political Uncertainty, not to mention Aids, Poverty, Malnutrition, Starvation, War and Civil War, our university feels it to be self-evident that there is a desperate need for Anthropological investigation that might underpin research in other areas (market creation, financial infrastructure, political and social restructuring and, of course health, education, agriculture and tribal issues).

3. Your Response Document is wholly inadequate in that it does not answer the fundamental questions that we have asked.

4. And in any case it is for us unacceptable that you intend to use these funds to head a team to carry out 'intense research and enquiry' into ‘foreigners resident or semi-resident or itinerant in the South of France’. Frankly we fail to see your purpose.

5. We feel also that we should remind you, though we do not have precise knowledge, that the South of France (after New York, of course) must be one of the most expensive places in the world. Just how long do you expect to be able to keep your team in the field in such a place?

6. Nor are we comforted by the letter which you say you have received from the French Ministry of Culture saying that you would be most welcome in France. We know from experience that French understanding of these matters is sometimes imperfect and often downright wrong.

7. To be blunt, Professor, we smell Vacation, Exploitation and Free Rides. We need not emphasise, I am sure, that this university is able to offer such financial aid because it is supported by well-meaning patrons in the USA and that we have a duty therefore to respect their general wishes. (i.e. you could find me with my hands tied).

I think it best that you await the full letter from our Committee which will be sent tonight and then that we should talk on the telephone later in the week. I feel sure that we can reach an understanding.

I hope, in fact I am sure, that you understand the concern of my Committee in this matter and that your intended field trip can be drastically redesigned.

With best wishes, Professor Elwin Dwight Jr. (Dept. of Anthropology)

Dear Professor Dwight,

Many thanks for your nice warning letter received this morning. Of course, of course I understand the feelings of your people. Entirely. We have our commercial pressures here as well you know.

I have accordingly re-allocated the exceedingly generous funding from your university. It is now to be used to carry out a field study in the hills near Mnong (100 klms south of Liberaville). This area, as you rightly point out, is well known as a good example of an area ravaged by Aids, Malnutrition, Political upheaval etc. and certainly has no markets worth speaking of; we expect the research to reveal valuable results. We will send you full details of this Project in due course.

The research in the south of France will go ahead, however, funded now directly by our own university. No problem.

Our Board of Governing Control and Extra University Funding (BGCEU) has been convinced of the value of this research. They have been persuaded by our argument, and I quote, ‘that a proper and in-depth study and evaluation of the life structure, opinions, rituals, sexual customs, earning capacity, values, religious belief, educational standard and world view of Anglo-Saxons and Europeans dis-located or partially relocated or nomadic in the South of France during the summer months might shed some light on the nature of the Anglo-Saxon/European Attitude to Africa per se’; an Attitude which we admit we do not fully comprehend but which is, nevertheless, a Curiosity and which we feel, given the complex inter-reactions of the modern world, must contribute (directly and indirectly) towards a (relentless) continuation of the General Situation in Africa; and that a study of this Attitude might give to the people of Africa a clearer idea of the ‘stance’ that they should adopt, faced very often with insurmountable problems, insupportable debt, rampant corruption and unbearable distress...

We wonder, for example, whether a clearer post-colonial point of view might not be more readily visible amongst the foreign residents going about their daily and no doubt vital business in the South of France.

You are correct, I think, when you surmise that the French may have misunderstood our research project since they have offered us pitches for our assorted tents in such prominent places as Les Jardins des Anglais at Cannes and Les Jardins Van Gogh at St. Remy de Provence. Our team, in our turn, are to be observed by a French ‘team’, financed apparently by the Ministry of Culture; and it is true that we have become a little perturbed by the insistent use of words like ‘troupe’ and ‘cirque’, though these could, of course, be simply translation errors. Nevertheless we are to be welcomed and encouraged and that is, I am sure you will agree, the important thing.

You may rightly observe that the Project lacks precision and is open-ended; so much the better. We shall see what we shall see. Certainly I must say I am inundated by offers from experienced volunteers from all over Africa who are keen to join our team and this in itself, I think, indicates its importance and justifies its existence.

It may be, dear Professor, that there is nothing that we Africans can do; but I begin to doubt it.

I look forward to the letter from your Committee which, as you see, is no longer strictly necessary. And I will let you have full details in due course of Project Mnong (markets/poverty/peace etc.) which is to be funded by your University and, naturally, a full report of its field results. Frankly, we expect the research to reveal again that, against such odds, nothing but a vast input of resources, money and hope can possibly change the situation; but we intend to keep an open mind on the subject.

Our gratitude is boundless, of course and as ever, both for your financial generosity and your unstinting interest in the small efforts of our university; rest assured I shall be sending you a post card from Provence giving clues and news as to the, no doubt subtle, progress of our project.

With also best wishes to your nice wife who I remember so well meeting during my brief visit some time ago to warm Milt.

Yours faithfully, Professor Mbisu (Dept. of Anthropology)

© Richard Penna 2022

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Genarius

Vanessa is snoring, her body vibrating, the sound drowned out by the pouring rain. She lies alone in the big bed. Genarius, the mouse, is sleeping in the kitchen next to the stove. I wander about the house, unsettled, but return again to the bedroom. Now she is lying on her side, quiet and still.

Sensible, alert as we have been, we have allowed ourselves to become so alienated and afraid. No longer lying out on the earth under the stars to sleep. Occasionally, alienated from earth itself. Alienated from each other. Organised. Dutiful. Quite still, quite calm, quite dead, a late autumn of our souls.

In the kitchen I look down at the little box containing Genarius. Sentimental little bastard, I mutter. I lift one flap of the lid. He is grey, curled, breathing, well-fed, fast asleep. And lonely I suppose for some of his own kind, though there is no risk nor chance that we will let him go; he does not want to go. "Douglas lived with a mouse called Genarius; the mouse would perform tricks..."

Returning to the bedroom I undress and lie down against her in the almost dark room, knowing that I am trying to use the strength within her sleeping body to give myself courage, the strength to chase away fears and terrors; everything seems to be collapsing and nothing has meaning and the time of demons and devils has arrived. I stroke her hair carefully, as tenderly as I can, not to wake her, not to hear her say a word, but simply, if it is possible, to stir up some meaningful sentiment, to have it in the air like the smell of log fire. But eventually I become drowsy, unable to keep my eyes open or my body tense against her.

 © Richard Penna 2022

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 3...

                                        Dissociation

As in a dream, skimming down a water fall on smooth stone and the finest bright green weed; landing in the water silently. Though there are women standing at the end of the pond talking, he cannot hear what they are saying. He rubs his eyes and suddenly he can hear what they are saying but he can no longer see them; he can see nothing, he is blind. He blinks again to clear the blackness and now he can see them and hear them. But gradually he realises that he can feel nothing, has no sensation, not even of the water in which he swims nor of his own face when he touches it…

A woman swims towards him and draws him into the shallows. She has a magnificent face, strong and angular, and her wet hair is long and grey. She takes his hand and places it on her breast; but though he sees his upturned palm and his fingers which touch her nipple, he feels nothing. He blinks so that he is able to feel but is then blind again; so again he blinks and he can see and feel. He caresses her soft breast and leans forward to kiss her and as he does so she closes her eyes, yields so he thinks. The kiss is tentative, gentle, almost unbearable and his eyes close. He senses her lips, the tender curve of her breast, without seeing, without hearing…

When he opens his eyes she smiles and says something. He notices the other women, some of them young girls, cavorting at the edge of the small pebble beach; he sees the water falling silently into the pool, the bubbles rising and foaming, and where the branches of trees lean down to touch the water he sees the wind fluttering the leaves. All this in an unnatural, frightening, ineffable silence that becomes slowly a form of torture, literally an agony within his head because he knows that apparently his senses are functioning precisely as they should, yet so clearly, they are not.

© Richard Penna 2022

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4... 

                   Dame Daphne of Nyesandland:

on sex and men

I am of mezereon and spurge-laurel, you know; my greek is sweet bay. I am Lady in Waiting to Queen Jane.

Ours is a little country, now sadly of diminished importance in the world, sandwiched as it is between the mountains and the sea.

I have been the queen's masseuse since she was ten; now I am old, auntie-old, smooth and powder pink and large. From the beginning, almost from the time when she was eleven there has been an affectionate aspect to my role, which I think is only natural and lovely; I am her confidante; I notice, for example, her legs, which are in excellent shape still; and I caress her tummy. Sometimes as the culmination of our meetings and prior to her nap, I stay with her and doze on the couch, or in one of the easy chairs. She often has a little dream, a little royal, muttering dream, as I call it and I am delighted by this; if afterwards I concentrate and then relax and then concentrate again I will often experience a little springing dream myself…

I have a way of life, you see, with commitments and meetings and strangenesses that gives me a particular view of things and it was John Tattenberg (her majesty’s chief adviser) who encouraged me to write these words, himself encouraged by a casual remark to us both by the First Minister. (I want to say clearly too that Tattenberg has offered me a little reward, a little Money, for my efforts.)

But I must begin. I am quite nervous and confess that I much prefer to be quietly chatting with the Queen. But, to begin at the beginning. I simply love my job, my Queen and all the Cuddles with my queen and attending to the Queen’s every need…

(I stopped there, did you see? O dear! I was rambling through thoughts such as: well don't we all & is that important and what of it anyway?)…

What did Tattenberg mean when he said, Daphne you owe it to yourself and to the world to write it all down? What did he Mean exactly? Not court gossip, surely? Not, ‘I had the great honour to meet the Archbishop at a Tea; he is an extremely jolly fellow with a sprightly, slightly boyish sense of humour’...

Talking of boyishness, and humour, the First Minister says that work makes him randy and it must be true; is it not amazing that he can work a strenuous eighteen hour day yet need, apparently, at least four sexual encounters a day. Need them, for his peace of mind, stability, pleasure. The general public would not believe it, they would not believe anything about him, or her Majesty, or even about Tattenberg with his great glistening Organ seeming always to have been added onto his body afterwards, a grotesque and splendid afterthought; wonderful man among wonderful men and women...

When I walk in the street, read the newspapers, look at television I am convinced of the fact, and amazed, that most people, the masses, the man in the street does not seem to really Relish sex, or at least, not as we do; not as the court does; not as the Queen does...

But to facts: I wake at six, pick up my second pillow from the floor where I have flung it during the night and Masturbate at once. I shower. I check the list from the Her Majesty's wardrobe to make sure that I do not wear anything that is either similar or would clash with what ever she will be wearing. I have a light breakfast in my room. I go to the Queen's office at eight where, generally, she is already hard at work. Tattenberg is often standing at the window staring over the garden, awaiting instructions…

Oh yes, Tattenberg wanted me to mention, to state rather emphatically that Sex is Good; morally good. To which I must add my own thought here, that if this is so then to engage in it, to Do it, must be morally enhancing and uplifting. Though it is complex; you see, Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart, Bergman, Bunuel, Jesus of Nazareth, Nietzsche and the Queen, to name a random sample, have all given me strength, Spiritual strength - and Sexual strength; the former underpins the Meaning of Life, the second underpins the Continuation of Life, though both are intertwined, ecstatic, eternal and longed-for Pleasures in themselves...

Evidently, avoiding the gossip which of course exists, I must describe for you a Day in my life; a day in detail. The hesitancy that I feel within You makes this delicate, difficult task essential; the hesitancy within Your mind; within you, your brain.

(And as I write I feel a little Naughty and truthful and find a precise need to say, ‘And, yes, also a hesitancy within your Trousers and up your Skirts. But why, for goodness sake, Why?’)

But first a description of myself. I am sixty-ish, loyal, patriotic, fun-loving, irreligious, art-loving; terribly Young inside. Physically I am tall, I admit, a big woman; I wear straight down dresses because I must; I sway, my feet are ridiculously, Erotically small, my breasts very large. I move majestically. If I don't, I wobble; naked I Wobble Erotically. There you have it…

Young men, teenagers, are always trying to catch glimpses of my Breasts because young men of that age are still obsessed by them; middle aged men ignore me completely; they see only an overweight, uninteresting auntie figure. But Fellini would probably have loved me, and perhaps Pasolini also.

Very old Men, especially the particularly shrunken types, quiver with delight even when I come near them; they are sturdy little Blighters some of these, going at it Hammer and Tongs. After love and passion the conversation with them is often equally stimulating and interesting…

There was one old Colonel who took four hours to make love as he described with a Wetted finger on every part of my bare body the intricate manoeuvrings at the battle of Waterloo. Eventually the battle was over. I remember vividly his words, 'Wellington won'; I recall with delight the sighs and the sensations of that sumptuous victory...

But again I digress. But I suppose, too, Sex is a digression; a digression from sitting properly at table and eating up all ones Greens and pretending that butter would not melt in ones… Ah, but it will, of course, even in Auntie's, even in prim auntie's.

What clever, but deceitful people have been all my aunties, and what terrible harm they have done. Had I had a Willy, then to be sure that I would have Poked them all into confessions of utter Lust; lust the sin. But Jesus, bless his heart, meant that lust is a sin if you let it lie, if you let it fester, closed from the air, hidden from the sun...

There are some men, you know, who will lurk in a woman's shadow as if always about to Pounce, and to pounce and do harm. Women fear them and despise them. Such men do not understand that sex is in the street, across the table, on a Walk, in the Air; they do not realise that they can look, and Smile, and talk, and give; they do not see that we women are warmed and made happy and joyous by the sense of Attentiveness, the tinge of Admiration, by the slow, adoring movement of a man's lovely, open, smiling Eyes...

And that, I feel, is all there is to say.

© Richard Penna 2022

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5...

Falmen

Reason or motive or intention are not easily attributed to Nature, but one may conclude that a virus would like to flourish and multiply, as do humans and ants and ivies. Ivy pushes on, climbs until it discovers a limit. Human beings experiment and explore and reject all limits. The virus also experiments, takes risks and is careful, perhaps, to protect the host for as long as possible before a replacement is found. Viruses are the new heroes who will not erect statues to themselves but who will, nevertheless, reign like vulgar and obnoxious kings…

In the flooded valley of the Fal in Cornwall, a small, human population survives the deadly virus D-sloe. They do sometimes develop purple blisters but after a few weeks most of them recover their health. Realising that they are the sole race of survivors they seek a reason for their salvation. Some say that the ancient Celtic strength has revived here in this unpolluted place where there have never been factories or motorways. Others half believe that it has something to do with the nuclear warheads that were supposed to have been submerged in the deep tidal waters some years before. Then there are those who believe that it is simply fate, chance…

But in fact D-sloe, having annihilated most of the human population, has chosen this symbiotic relationship in this strange, damp, almost sub-tropical region; its safe haven and incubator, passing amongst these people like a ghost, seeking its own immortality. Occasionally, almost inadvertently, it is responsible for a death.

Falmen themselves live simple lives, eating fruit and fermenting grapes; they seem content with their precarious existence. When a baby is born they wait patiently for it to excrete a purple slime, proof that D- sloe has expired within it. Then, when the tide is out, they give thanks, hurling their naked bodies into the mud and thrashing around in frenzied and ritualistic celebration.

© Richard Penna 2022

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6...                

From The Sickroom

The house dominates the promontory. The garden, a jungle of small trees and bushes, patches of grass, wild flowers and scrub, falls away steeply to the cliff edge. Meandering throughout the vegetation are dark, hidden paths. There are steep steps winding their way from the garden down to the beach below; steps cut in the earth, their edges held in place by half buried logs, and steps lower down cut in the rock face. The beach is rock and shingle, as I remember, and very narrow when the tide is in.

I have been awake for some time and I am in my room on the top floor of the house. From the window I can see the garden stretching away to the cliff edge and beyond that the sea. White horses and the cold, dark sea.

It is true that I have not been down to the beach for a long time. During last summer I was unwell and hardly moved from my room. The summer before that was so poor, so windy and wet, if I remember, that it was impossible to climb down. So it must have been the summer before that when Jean arranged for the two workmen to come to the house and to carry me in the chair very slowly down to the beach. They had a great deal of trouble at the sharp corners on the path; there was a great deal of grunting and groaning and I remember the smell of their sweating heads under my nose. I recall too the half buried logs that stopped the path turning into a slippery slope.

On the beach it was difficult; the two men waiting at the far end of the beach impatiently, while the two ladies, the young and the old, sat draped in blankets, reading; or, if I remember correctly, also clinging onto each other, daring to paddle at the edge of the sea...

But memory does not deceive me about the path; it is steep and difficult, tortuous, even for a fit and agile person.

Therefore when I awake at first light, how can it be that the garden is full of cows? Cows wandering in all directions along the small paths, browsing on the leaves of shrubs and trees, very calmly, as if they had all the time in the world. And this is no dream, because I call down to Jean and though I do not think that she hears me, nevertheless she rushes from the ground floor of the house shouting and waving her arms at the animals. She is wearing a plastic mac and a plastic hood over her greying hair. It is raining slightly and the wind gusting against the window suddenly makes it impossible for me to hear what she is shouting; but with her arms raised she is shooing the cows towards the cliff edge, towards the path that leads down to the beach and the sea.  At first the cows stand and look at her, wondering at the fuss and noise; but eventually they turn and make their way slowly towards the cliff path and out of sight.

But what cows they were! Sandy in colour and stocky like French cows, like small bulls. Very clean, their hides very thick and furry and perfect. A lovely fold of skin on their necks, and thick tails as if they had been combed. And looking at their heads, their pure horns, the area between the horns, the soft sideways movement of their jaws as they ate, and, of course, their eyes, their enormously beautiful eyes, I know for certain, beyond all doubt, that I will never see such beautiful creatures again. I watch Jean coming back into the house. I return to my bed and lie down, quite exhausted and closing my eyes I imagine the cows in a trance wading deeper and deeper into the dark sea.

© Richard Penna 2022

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7...

                 Various Provocations

When Father Robinson knocked rapidly at the door of the small terraced house he was shown immediately into the front parlour; the girl was sitting in the corner of the room in her father’s armchair, her knees pulled up under her chin and her arms encircling them, a sullen expression on her face. The mother stood between the priest and her daughter, looking from one to the other as if she expected something strange and miraculous to happen. Father Robinson hesitated for a moment and then gestured to the mother to leave and sat down in the armchair opposite to the girl. Having hurried to the house at some speed in response to what had seemed an urgent request he was now at pains to calm himself; he ran his finger under his collar. He cleared his throat.

- Now Millie, what’s all this I’ve been hearing?

- It’s nothing.

- Well, now I’d best be the judge of that.

The girl pulled her knees up closer under her chin and eyed the priest suspiciously as if preparing herself for an attack that she was determined to resist. She was a girl of fifteen with a plain, boyish face, distinguished only by a pair of piercing blue eyes which fixed the priest now with a penetrating and unyielding stare. He looked away and down at his hands in his lap and took a deep breath followed instantly by a deep sigh.

- Your mother tells me, Millie, that you’re upset about the General.

He paused and dared to look the girl in the eyes.

- I’ve known you girl since you were a tiny child and you know that you can talk to me. So come on now, you’re not trying to suggest to me, your priest, that the General has in any way…

- It’s nothing like that. Nothing at all.

She spoke the words as if with a tired resignation.

Father Robinson leant further back in his armchair and again took a deep breath. Balancing his book on the arm of the chair he fumbled in his pockets and lit himself a cigarette.

- Would you be getting me an ashtray, Millie?

The girl leapt up awkwardly from her chair and went to the mantelpiece to fetch him the ashtray; she stood stiffly a yard in front of him distending the glass bowl for him to take, looking down at him, her tight lips held in a grimace of embarrassed distaste. Turning away from him she moved to the table and began to finger the fringe of the heavy, brown tablecloth. She did not look at him and spoke as if to herself.

- I only said I wanted to kill him.

The priest looked up at her quickly, anxious to catch a glimpse of her face and its expression. But he could see nothing but the tension in the tablecloth which she seemed to be drawing violently into her hands.

- But you said it a number of times Millie, if I heard right. In fact you mother says you screamed it out so that the whole street could have heard. Am I right in that Millie?

- You are.

She was almost inaudible and did not turn to face him. Father Robinson took a little courage from the softness of her voice and from the gentle folds in which the tablecloth was now hanging.

- Now why would you say that, my girl? Whatever has the General done to deserve such words? Mother of God, that’s no way for a young girl to be talking, now is it?

- I hate the man. Hate, don’t you understand?

She swung round to face him, spitting out the words. But suddenly her entire body seemed to shudder and go limp and she threw herself sideways into the armchair and covered her face with her hands…

Though the priest tried a dozen other questions, she uttered not a word more. He tried calm, patience, tact and the might of God, but nothing prevailed against her silence and when he approached her at one point and placed his hand on her shoulder her young body tensed and stiffened so that he felt obliged to withdraw it. Eventually he got up, pocketed his cigarettes and took up his book and left the room to converse in whispers with the girl’s mother in the hall. In his opinion, as he expressed it, there was cause for a certain concern and worry; the girl seemed a little frightened of him and why was that he asked the mother; he had, however, not the least doubt that she would talk to him and quite soon and for that reason the mother was to know that he would be at the church until late in the evening and the girl was to be allowed to come when she wanted. In the doorway he turned.

- Mrs Flynn will also be at the church until late, arranging flowers, you know.

But again he turned back and spoke hesitantly, cautiously.

- She is well, I suppose. I mean the doctor…

- Father you wouldn’t be suggesting…

- No, no, no, nothing of the sort, of course. I was just wondering if at some point the doctor might have a word with her, just the same.

At about seven o’clock that evening Father Robinson was interrupted during a rather quiet encounter in the confessional by a loud banging on the booth. It was Millie’s younger brother, panting after a hard run and shouting out to him.

- Father, Father, it’s Millie. You’ve got to come.

Taking the boy by the shoulder the priest led him away from the confessional.

- Calm yourself, calm yourself. Now what's the matter boy.

- It’s Millie, Father. She’s gone. Me mother sent me to fetch you. She’s not to be found. And me dead father’s drawers are all pulled out in a mess. There’s a revolver gone missing.

The priest stood staring at the boy, still gripping his shoulder and trying to take in what he was saying. Then his face cleared and he spoke urgently and rapidly to the boy.

- Alright now. Go back to you mother. Be telling her that I’m fetching the General and that I’ll be there as soon as I can.

At a quarter to eight Father Robinson, with a bewildered General in tow, arrived at the small terraced house and were let in by the panic-stricken mother. An urgent and anguished discussion ensued in the hall and, after some persuasion it was agreed that the agitated woman  should go off in search of the girl while the General and the priest should stay at the house in case she returned which Father Robinson had no doubt she would. Then they would have the matter out once and for all.

Mother and son set out in search while the priest and the General settled down in the parlour to wait.

They sat opposite each other, the priest in the chair that the girl had occupied that afternoon and the General in the armchair opposite to the mantelpiece. They spoke little to each other as they waited, the priest drumming his fingers on the book and the General, looking somewhat uncomfortable, gazing disinterestedly around the room.

The General was a tall, quite handsome, moustached gentleman in his mid sixties. He wore most often a slightly aloof, almost vague but genial enough expression, though now the wrinkles around his narrow grey eyes seemed that much more pronounced and his normally thin lips were drawn even tighter; there was a twitching at the corner of his mouth...

No one really knew where he came from nor whether he was in fact a General, but certainly he had been an English officer of high rank. This could be seen plainly enough even if one only caught a glimpse of him in the street as he strode along in his English clothes and with his chin held so high. He had been in the area a long time and everyone knew him, from the adults who passed the time of day with him, and the children who followed him in the hope of receiving the sixpence that he was wont occasionally to stoop and hand over with due solemnity, to the girls who sometimes giggled when he passed them in the street giving them that strange momentary bow. The General was part of the local scene and none seemed to mind his solitary and somewhat dignified presence in this mostly poor part of the city.

As he sat crossed legged with the priest it would have been difficult to know what he was thinking. Father Robinson got up to offer him a cigarette and then took him the ashtray which was still full of a dozen half-smoked stubs from his call earlier in the day…

As he settled himself again in the armchair he noticed a slight movement of something just over the General’s right shoulder. The door to the cupboard under the stairs was being pushed slowly open from the inside. The General, noticing the curious expression on the priest’s face, half turned in his chair to see what it was that he was staring at and immediately the small triangular door opened completely and Millie emerged, drawing herself up to full height in front of them. She was brandishing a large revolver.

Both men began to move, but her intense eyes fixed the priest as she lashed out at them.

- If you move Father, I’ll blast the General.

She stood stock still behind the General pointing the gun at the back of his head; the two men eased themselves tensely back into their armchairs.

- Now it’s I’ll do the questioning. This here General or whatever he is can do the answering and you can just do the listening Father.

Her voice was cruel and amazingly hard for one so young. The priest looked from the General to the girl and leant forward in his chair, raising a hand in appeal to her.

- Millie, for the love of God, what…

- Shut you face, Father.

There was such hate and violence in her voice that he was immediately halted, lowering his hand and sinking back into his armchair. The General’s eyes appealed to the girl and then to the priest but he remained still, slumped in the armchair with an almost tired, resigned air about his entire body.

The girl took a step back from the General’s chair and took a deep breath. She swayed a little on her feet. Then she continued in the same tone of voice.

- Right then General, tell me this and I’ll be wanting it straight. What are you doing here? By what right are you among us?

The General lifted his head a little, took a long draw on his cigarette and then took it to the ashtray and tapped it gently twice against the glass. But the General did not answer her question. Father Robinson was going to answer for him and was in the process of blurting out a question as to why in God’s name she thought he shouldn’t to be here - but in his agitation his elbow tipped his book off the arm of the chair. He made an unwise dive to catch it and young Millie, who was holding the revolver in both hands a few inches away from the General’s head, took half a step backwards, panicked and fired.

© Richard Penna 2022

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8...

                             Swinehearts

Can you believe when it all started?

Various research institutions around the world had already noticed some special or strange behaviour among the so called Swinehearts – those people, numbering now in their thousands in the West, who had had some organ transplanted from a pig, most often the heart. But the first proof that something odd was happening occurred when Eric Jones, who was a farm worker in Devon and who had a pig heart transplant at the early age of twenty seven, began to work with pigs. Eric enjoyed looking after the pigs whom he thought gentle, friendly and very intelligent creatures.

One morning in late February a pig spoke to him. It said something like:- ‘Morning, Eric. Everything okay?’. Within a few days all the pigs were talking to him and he to them, simple but not uninteresting conversations. The farmer overheard Eric one day in the barn and thought that he was talking to himself and said nothing. Apparently he could hear only the usual grunting of the pigs.

Eric was not unaware of the possible link between this ‘talk’ that only he could hear and understand, and the fact of his transplant; he was initially grateful that the pigs seemed to bear him no grudge despite the fact that one of their number had been sacrificed so that he might live. When he pondered the matter, as he did for some long time, he decided that the pigs thought that he was one of them. They heard his heart beat, felt its rhythm, and knew that he was in fact not just kith but also kin, a true brother; and when he spoke, the words sounded to them like meaningful grunts. But one day a certain combination of events brought about a further, bizarre development in his relationship with these swine...

Certain financial and matrimonial problems had caused Eric to drink a great deal of beer on the previous night. He arrived in the pig shed late and extremely hungover. As he worked at the cleaning and feeding, he told the pigs incoherently and in a soft, grumpy voice the details of all his anxieties and difficulties; about his desire to have what he termed an ‘erotic’ relationship with his buxom wife who so wanted to have a child; about his need to have just a bit more money, say a hundred pounds a month, so that he could save up and take her on a luxury cruise to Malta and such places. These were the vital and primary elements that would lead, eventually, to the achievement of his master plan. This was the dream:- to have  a farm of his own, a few acres of land and a horse, a stout, strong horse, on which to ride the boundaries of his domain, his children seated behind him, holding onto him and to each other; and he would rear special pigs of high intelligence who would almost look after themselves… in fact he would stop taking his pigs to market, he would keep them and instead eat bread and pickled onions…

The pigs stopped snuffling around his feet and came close and stood quietly looking up at him. They said, almost in a sweet chorus, ‘Perhaps we can help, Eric’.

He smiled and plonked down on his buttock in the straw amongst them which very much excited the pigs who crowded about him, nuzzling and nibbling and, as it seemed to him, kissing him all over.

Later that day Eric received a call from his wife to say that one of his pigs had escaped and was at their house racing around the garden and about to do all sorts of terrible damage. He checked the pigs and noticed that Brendan, the hairiest and grandest of the all the boars, was missing…

He drove to his house as quickly as he could and though he saw no pig in the garden, he certainly heard one in the house. His wife was squealing and so was Brendan. When he opened the front door she screamed out that she was upstairs trapped behind the wardrobe and that the pig was under the bed snorting as loudly as he could. And so it was.

‘Brendan’ said Eric, ‘You come down at once and sit in the car’. And Brendan, though he had a little trouble with the stairs, did as he was told. As Eric shut the car door on him Brendan said in a pig whisper, ‘Giddy-up, Eric’, which was unusually encouraging.

When Eric went back up stairs to calm his wife she emerged timidly from behind the wardrobe, still in her night-dress, and flung herself with massive relief into his arms. He fell back on the bed, and she with him. She squealed and hugged him, smelt pig on him and licked his neck voraciously and buried her red nose in his jumper. She rolled and he rolled with her; they toyed and tumbled for a good hour before they lay back exhausted and amazed, naked and smelly, pleased, happy and at peace.

‘Well.’ said Eric, ‘Well, well’.

A few days later the pigs, lead by Brendan, went on hunger strike. The worried farmer asked Eric what was to be done. Eric sat down among them and talked; later he told the farmer that in his opinion the animals wanted Eric to ‘give his all’ and this, he was prepared to do for a small increase in his salary. The farmer readily agreed…

So! Pigs and their heartfelt emotions! But one must not believe everything one reads even though it may make one happy and especially not if it happens to be true.

© Richard Penna 2022

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9...

                       In The Gallery

Every few moments I catch a glimpse of his empty, blue eyes staring down at me, waiting for me to start writing. I am reminded of a woman I met recently who had startling blue eyes and in spite of her skin, which appeared paper-thin, I found her beautiful. Her eyes were not empty.

I write: “He regards me with his pale blue watery eyes...”

Leaning down, he says in a low voice, “Please concentrate on your work.” I assure him that I will delete my opening sentences as soon as my story gets started.

In this flimsy, windswept building in a woodland clearing on the edge of Paris, being examined in a language not my own, my teacher passes again, expressing impatience that I have not yet deleted the words about his blue eyes. He has been kind to me and helpful; why then, today, is he so irritating? He advises against speaking directly to a reader… (and his eyes are fixed on me again, disappointed and scornful)... but I must speak.

I have not talked to anyone since Friday at six, nor have I listened to the radio; and I have read nothing. Nevertheless I have enjoyed the quiet, the stillness and the falling rain...

On Sunday, when it rained again, I decided to visit an exhibition of Central African ‘art', a way of warming myself. I walked there through the downpour.

As you can imagine, I arrived wet and dishevelled and was scowled at, first by the people in the foyer who were studying photographs of mud huts with ladders poking through holes in the flat roofs; and then again by the woman in the little glass booth who sold the tickets. As I knew well, you should not arrive on a Sunday afternoon (at an important gallery showing important ethnic objects) in a wet and dirty condition. But I got in without too much bother.

I enjoy galleries because I can observe the people who come to look at the exhibits. They pace gently, inspecting the objects, reading labels and inscriptions, leaning in close to them, trying to be as quiet as possible, trying to avoid all body contact and all expression of emotion. Some become lost, entranced, absorbed; others perform a strange, slow, whispering dance; a mime. They are pilgrims at a peaceful shrine where the god has become art; the act of faith here is the half-buried hope that one will be changed, transported; that one will emerge into a bright dawn with a yellow sun shining onto a wide open space, green and brown and beautiful...

And also, no doubt, the hope that within this space one might encounter a fellow spirit, a wandering dreamer, a silent lover... (I write quickly now, lest he pass by my table again...)

A woman stooped to look at a carving, and I could see the sad, greyness of her face; but she straightened up and turned slowly and her bright, blue, amazing eyes held mine and she did not smile but continued to stare back at me. And I stared at her; a long, unblinking, silent face à face, completely forbidden in this  strange, timeless atmosphere, within the gallery and within the rain.

Eventually, shakily I like to think, she went to sit down on a bench, her back to me. I made a brief tour of the room and left. At the door I turned and saw that she was looking at me again...

In my room I lay down on the bed and kissed her image very gently on its white, white forehead. I decided that a memory, a deep longing had been stirred within her, but it was not this that made me so pleased; it was the fact that she had been unable to mask her feelings. In my silent room in the slow, decadent rain of winter Paris, this seemed good news.

© Richard Penna 2023

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10...

                   Seeking a Refuge             

I arrived in the rain at the house of George, my brother, his wife, Vanessa and their dogs. I did not tell them that I had walked from the boat. At dinner, which they ate very early in the evening, I talked about nothing; I was calm yet hysterical at the same time. I watched television with them because I was drunk.

I enjoyed the soft bed and the pale, yellow, nylon sheets with the embroidered edge but I was awoken by one of the great dogs pushing at me excitedly with its wet nose. Vanessa came in, whispering at the dog, and dragged it from the room; she closed the door and sat on the bed. She placed her hand on my arm and gazed at me and asked how I was.

On the following night, in the dark I heard the dog outside my room again and I waited with baited breath for her to come in. She stood by the door almost naked. She gestured in a way that I found slightly lewd and beckoned me to follow her, down the stairs and out of the house. In the stable she pulled me down on top of her on the straw on the cold, hard, concrete floor. Though I heard them breathing, the horses did not move.

Later I wrote to Sylvia. ‘I am well. I miss you. I find it odd here. They are unsophisticated, even crude people yet they own a stable full of horses… I am weeping. I wish that you could be here, sharing the yellow bed with me, waking and talking and laughing as you did. I dream of the way that you make love, so quietly and slowly, arching yourself, stopping and starting. I will return as soon as I can, as soon as something can be arranged.’ I sealed and taped the envelope and hid it under the pillow.

I was on the top step of the landing when I heard O’Hara’s voice at the front door, asking to be let in. Luckily my brother distrusted him at once and was wary of his brute appearance and kept him outside.

At breakfast it was too early to tell them that I had no money; with them I was ashamed of my poverty and I knew that they would think it my fault, which is right, it was…

In the evening George came up the stairs with a decanter and two glasses and sat on the bed in exactly the same spot as Vanessa on the first night. My brother asked, ‘Who is O’Hara? Do you owe him money? What hold does he have over you?’

This is what I replied. ‘After the stabbing and the trial I thought that was an end to the matter. I would see Sylvia from time to time, if they permitted it, otherwise all that period of my life was over, tidied up and finished. But I was wrong. It seems that she was part of an organisation… But what organisation? I have no idea, something political and, I suspect now, more legal than illegal. I mean that it now seems that she worked for the state but in a department that was totally obscure, totally hidden from scrutiny. And it seems that O’Hara had discovered what she did…

‘When she stabbed me she said ‘Now we will both be safe’. I got rid of the house from my hospital bed and a year later, when I came to pay off all the bills I found that there was nothing left. Everything was spent. At first I could hardly walk… then O’Hara appeared, a sort of vagabond, wanting to know if I sought revenge.

‘Brother, O’Hara will soon tire and leave the island; let me stay and work quietly in the stables. Is that possible? I feel safe and secure for the first time in months. Let me have the room above the stable. I need rest but I can work. What do you say?’

‘I must talk to Vanessa.'

I could have pleaded with him. (I was tired and frightened and still cold, deep within my bones.) But I lay back, what more could I say. I rested my case.

© Richard Penna 2023

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11...

In The Meadow

It is evening, the sky is darkening, the sunlight weak. A young woman in a green field with cornflowers and poppies and buttercups; in the background, olive trees. Her face is silhouetted against the dark blue sky. Before her, spread out as if for a shroud, pure white linen.

The young woman stands, legs well planted apart, in the tall grass, her arms outstretched, her head thrown back in an attitude of ecstatic supplication to sun and sky. At her neck, what appears to be a red poppy.

Her simple white dress, dotted with lunar and fluid shapes in red and yellow, is gathered at the wrists and at the low, round neck. Her hair tumbles back from her head. Her feet, bare, are half visible amongst the green grasses and the flowers. Her mouth is open, her body motionless yet as if falling or flinging itself backwards. Tense yet free, the abundant material of the dress billowing slightly in the breeze, though drawn tight at her waist and falling freely from her hips…

But he has seen all this before, he remembers clearly. After a terrible, drunken night at some point in the past, his love crushed from him, he needed to hide himself so that she would not see him crying. He found himself in a tiny laundry room, slumped on a chair by the washing machine, staring at the image on a packet of washing powder; there she was with her pure white linen in the field of flowers…

But this is not the same. Someone has defiled the image; a passing shot, perhaps casual, perhaps mistaken; one cannot imagine who would do such a thing. She is not inspired, overwhelmed, exultant and it is not a poppy at her neck but a gaping wound from which the blood is beginning to gush.

© Richard Penna 2023

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