'Methinks I see a thing arm'd with a rake that seems to strike at me.' (The Duchess of Malfi)
Dorothy always had a book in her hand — or on her lap, or by the side of her chair. She had grown up fondling pages, devouring sentences. These days she read in short sharp shocks, in shots. Knocked back words like protein, as her mother had taught her to drink milk. Now she was a lady of leisure, she could knock back sentences.
Milk.
Creamy milk.
Milk with the cream on top.
Watch it drop slowly like ripe plums.
Perhaps I should keep a cow she mused? A nice mahogany coloured cow; there is plenty of space behind me. We can knock down a wall, the council won’t mind, no one is using that patch of grass. In truth, Dorothy could not quite remember what lay beyond the wall. She had not stepped outside for sometime; her memory of the world was vague — she could not quite recall where the boundaries lay — all that is mine is yours, what’s yours is mine — surely they could find a fallow patch of grass? Dorothy would like a pastoral.
Hey now brown cow.
Someone was humming —- who was that humming, was it her? She was never quite sure of these days who was speaking, but she could hear the tread, tread, tread of something getting closer: bird, beast or fowl?
The man with the gentle face — it was him — he had come to fix her pond. To thin out the weeds, to feed the fish (did they need feeding? Didn’t fish find their own food? Dorothy mused.) She wouldn’t tell him of the toad, of the Cardinal — of her court. She wouldn’t tell him of her fairy tale. And in any case I haven’t told you yet what I mean by these things, my motifs. I haven’t told you about the play - The Duchess of Malfi — that is Dorothy’s play, that is her book - it is in her hand - that is her part, they did it at school. It is a Jacobean play and they were a corrupt lot. Plots, plots, plots to undo the duchess, to undo the Queen - she was undone, she died, so wan and pale - Elizabeth I mean. So James moved in, her cousin — James I - hence Jacobean, James VI from Scotland. James who pushed out the Queen. Poor Elizabeth, and no son. Now, that’s enough of your history — you must recall, recall those old lines — I know so well.
‘Methinks I see a thing arm’d with a rake that seems to strike at me.’
That line, that’s the line she wants, that’s Dorothy’s line, from her play. Or rather it’s the Cardinal’s, her brother. He’s a haunted man. Murky shadows cross his soul. Sits up too late drinking, he’s positively dyspeptic. I can’t tell you anymore now. Go on and read the play! You’ll find swearing beneath dim candle light. Damn Damn and more damn. Purgatory and hell. Death by drowning. Murky souls, dirty ponds filled with filthy leaves. You’ll need a rake, it’s a clotted play, the language barks and squawks, its fur gets knotted and sometimes you won’t be able to breathe underneath the water. Poor drowned pet. Methinks I see a thing arm’d . . .
Strike him, strike him out! Dorothy raises her arm to strike as the man with the gentle face passes by with a ladder. He’s often carrying a ladder Dorothy notes —she’s noted much about him — she watches him lower it into the pond, twist and bend, extend. It is pleasurable watching such things, his slow grace, soft and pliable, easily mistaken for a fisher king.
(From POND LIFE: NOVEL FORMS OF LIVING, a work in progress)