“PHIL, I’VE been thinking about what you said the other day,” Vicky said, sipping her drink.
“About what?”
“Your astrology …”
“What about it?”
“What you said about the sun signs and the animal signs and all that …”
“Yeah?”
“It makes a lot of sense … that is, if one accepts that the sun and the planets influence the baby in the womb …”
“Baby in the womb?” Philippa asked with eyebrows raised.
“Yes. I myself reckon it’s while the child is forming that these strange forces come into play. There’s plenty of time for that.”
Philippa interrupted again, “That doesn’t matter. If the astrologers had not fixed the key date at birth, then the whole system would be nine months earlier and …”
She saw Vicky open her mouth to say something and put up her hand to silence her while she continued, “The birth date is so much easier to work with and there’s all the problems of the early and late births if one considers conception.”
Vicky couldn’t wait any longer.
“But it does matter. If these planetary forces were so strong man would have found them and would have measured them. They are subtle but effective over time. Like the cooking pot I referred to the other day, they have their effect on the embryo as it forms in the womb. I cannot believe that at one precise instant of birth the astrological forces can have such a major effect. Let me finish.” For she saw that Philippa was going to interrupt again, disagreement written all over her face.
“So the hour of birth doesn’t matter. All that nonsense about ascendants and positions of heavenly bodies at the exact moment of birth can be thrown out. It’s the time the planets have to radiate their whatevers than counts. Cooking time of the pot on the fire. That’s why the slow fellow Jupiter has an effect.”
Philippa frowned.
“Interesting … But western astrologers, and that includes the Indian and Arabic ones, have placed so much weight on the precise time of birth. The houses, the …” Philippa’s voice trailed off.
Vicky sat back, now listening with satisfaction. It was not often one could say something that Phil had not thought of. She had obviously stimulated Phil.
Philippa looked into space and spoke. “You know, I had always thought that if the sun and planets affect us they should also affect animals. Then I read in Linda Goodman’s book that she too had had the same thought. Now if you are right … Then the period of gestation …”
“What’s that?”
“Time in the womb, lah! The period of gestation is important. This can be studied. With animals. Yeah … but small animals have less mass of brain or heart or spleen or kidneys or …”
“Or scrotum,” Vicky added, laughing.
“So that brings in another factor …” Philippa ended, ignoring Vicky’s attempt to break her drift.
“And if you are right, the most important thing to know is whether one was a premature baby or a late birth baby.”
Philippa was not listening. She was thinking. They sat silent for a while then Philippa said, “Your thought about time in the cooking pot raises many other questions. Nine months in the womb means that one is influenced by nine of the 12 sun signs. That can’t be right. There must be a critical period.
“Let’s say it’s the first month. That first month could coincide with the sun sign month or it could stretch across two sun signs. Then it will be influenced by two sun signs.”
Vicky cut in, “But astrologers are quite adamant that one can never be a mixture of both …”
“Yah. Even if one is born on the cusp.”
“What’s cusp?” Vicky asked.
“The change date of the sun signs. The change-over point.”
She continued before Vicky could ask another question, “You see, I keep saying that the astrologers use the birth date as a convenient clear date. If in fact your time of cooking theory is correct, then the personality characteristics of the sun signs must change gradually. In other words there is really some sort of overlap. See what I mean?”
“Er …” Vicky left it at that.
“I mean there cannot be sharp changes of the different sun sign personalities which are close together. There must be some similarity between Libra and Scorpio, for example. The September and October signs. Hmm … I must look into that aspect …”
VICKY BROUGHT up astrology again a week later.
“Remember that evening when I said I was going to show you the lists and calculations I made? About the language of astrology books?” Philippa asked Vicky.
“Yah.”
“I’ve made a long list of all the adjectives and phrases various astrology books use to describe different personalities. Because it’s no use knowing what sort of traits the stars give you if you can’t describe them fully.”
“So where did that get you?”
Philippa smiled. It was an anticipated question. Still the teacher leading with her cards to bring out the suits she wanted drawn from the other players’ hands. Like the way Auntie Della played whist.
“Good question, my dear …”
“Oh you sound like such a prig of a teacher, Phil.”
“It would have got me nowhere if I didn’t have a reason, a plan. You see, when I was trying to get a picture of, say, the pig’s character, from various books I realised that I had a huge problem.”
“For one thing the books never give much on the bad side,” Vicky cut in.
“It’s the total shape of a personality, I mean.”
“Twelve types of sun signs, twelve types of people.”
“And multiply by 12 for the animal signs, 144.”
“Brilliant!” Vicky said mockingly.
“Oh shut up. It’s not the numbers. It’s the description. Look. Could you have classified all your customers …”
“Yes. Those who paid on the nail and those that …”
Philippa continued with a frown, “Then I realised that it was a problem the psychologists had been struggling with for years. I know hardly anything about the subject.”
“Don’t you do educational psychology when training?”
“Yah, but. I’ve seen some personality tests. The one I zoned in to was the sixteen P.F. test. Devised by a fellow called Cattell …”
“A kine man?”
“God, Vicky, save your humour for your nieces and nephews. Cattell’s sixteen personality factor test was designed to measure the main traits. But sixteen is a hell of a lot of traits. And they overlap a lot.
“I also looked at the ancient thing called an Enneagram which started in the Muslim world and is now being studied and used by the Jesuits. There are nine personality types in the Enneagrams.
“But nine is still a big number. So I devised my own system. Seven traits. Using Cattell’s factors as a base.”
“Only seven?”
“That’s still a helluva lot. Just suppose that for every one of these traits one can have seven degrees of variation. Then there would be about eight hundred thousand different types of people. Seven to the power of seven, you see.”
“I don’t.”
“Anyway it’s a probability calculation.”
“What are those seven?”
“It doesn’t matter. If we can work with seven it becomes practical. You know, the other day I was giving a lecture at the Institute of Education and I threw out the problem of sorting out seven factors to describe a student. You think about that. The obvious ones are brains and emotion. And of course artistic talent.”
“Just artistic talent? Not whether it’s art or music or…”
“Oh Vicky. Don’t go down the side roads.”
“It’s not a side road. One cannot lump different artistic talents together. Music is different.”
“Anyway, I got my seven and I work on those seven. With this limited number of personality traits it is possible to form outlines of the personalities of dragons, Virgos and all that and make comparisons of human character.”
“Or dogs’?”
Philippa changed the subject. Vicky was obviously getting bored.
ABOUT A week later she brought it up again as soon as Vicky had been served with a drink. That was the best time to get her to listen.
“So you see, Vicky, now I have a unit to use to measure personality … however good it is. I admit that …”
Vicky interjected, “Who was it who said that once you can measure something, your knowledge of it increases? And of course you can study it …”
“So I can compare what they say about the Chinese animal signs and the western sun signs on some concrete basis. And I can measure individuals against the same scales.”
“But, of course, without the precision of science, eh?”
“Yah. That’s the frustration of it all.”
“What a waste of time!” Vicky said, knowing that Philippa would react strongly to her words.
“Yes and no.”
“For gawd’s sake, Phil, don’t give me that civil servant’s stock answer!” Vicky burst out loudly. She had been ready for Philippa’s reaction but not in that woolly way.
Philippa glared at her. She made some grimaces with her face muscles before she continued. “I believe that I am collecting data which someone could pick up later. Fingers pointing vaguely in some directions which need to be explored. This is the first stage. The explorer’s crude sketch map of the country.”
Philippa was lost for words to express more of her thoughts.
They were both silent for a few minutes.
Vicky with her years of experience and habit of trying to read as much as possible in her customers’ physical and verbal expressions and Philippa striving all through her past to get her concepts across to her students. Both faced blank walls.
Philippa spoke first.
“Individual personality. If we can tape it, I mean get the outline clearly, life would be better.”
“Personalities, you should say. Some have many …”
“I’m not talking about the masks. I’m talking of the core.”
“The changing core …”
“No. Definitely not that. The inner immutable core.”
“Soul, huh?”
“Yeah …”
Vicky sat up and spoke. “The lines of the hand have it, haven’t they? And handwriting …”
“Bumps on the head. Shape of the chin. The nose. All that’s nonsense, in my opinion. Well, not quite nonsense. Handwriting may reveal behavioural patterns. Or palmistry. Like how the hand lines are formed by the way one moves one’s hands. The nervous type always clutching and unclutching their hands. The determined type with tight-balled fists so often. But do these reveal the true inner soul? To use your word.”
Philippa stopped. Vicky saw that she was not walking on her usual ground of solid self-confidence. She was groping.
“The possibilities of finding something truly basic do lie in the astrologer’s recorded knowledge. Forces beyond the earth, beyond the characteristics of hereditary traits and the character moulding forces of parents, teachers and all society …”
“Hmmmm … the system God set up when he created the universe, eh?”
“Yes. It’s the system. Knowing the system could even allow one to predict the future. But let’s not go into that. It’s the same system that gives you the shape of your nose and the colour of your skin. Brains and …”
“Hang on, Phil. Hereditary isn’t everything.”
“Yeah. The old one. Nature versus nurture.”
“Oh don’t give me your educationalists’ set pieces.”
“You keep going at my vocabulary, like a nagging wife.”
“Because after so many years you are still …”
“Oh. Shut up, Vicky.”
Philippa stood up suddenly, picked up Vicky’s empty glass and went behind. Bloody old woman, she said to herself silently, I don’t know why I take all her shit. The answers came swiftly to her mind. She brushed them aside, measuring out the brandy with her eye and reminding herself to refill the ice tray and put it back in the freezer.
Vicky sat on the balcony of Philippa’s flat waiting for Phil to return with her brandy soda. That should be the last for tonight, she said to herself. Dear Phil. Still charging around like a cat on a hot tin roof. Tennessee Williams, wasn’t it? Elizabeth Taylor? No. Marlon Brando. But maybe Phil’s got something there. Marrying the Chinese astrology with the western.
Surely nobody could do that better than a Eurasian? Ha, ha, she chuckled to herself, you’re getting senile, sweetheart. Keh would have said that.
Philippa returned with the drinks.
“If we had some sort of clue to a person’s personality it would certainly help us to deal with them,” Philippa said to Vicky.
“Yah. It sure would have helped me to size up my customers.”
“But even if the sun signs are accurate enough, how would you be able to get their birthdays?” Philippa asked, showing up Vicky’s inaccurate generalisations and loose statements as usual.
“It would be easier than getting the year of their birth. Especially with women.”
“But there are still so many cases where … Like job applications, schoolchildren, one’s employees, doctor’s patients, even parents, children … You know, the teachers used to say that they had a good batch this year or a pack of devils another year. I reckon it was the Chinese animal years that made the difference.”
“Yah. I suppose so.” Vicky said in a flat disinterested voice. She had to let Philippa have her run before she tried to change the subject.
“Relatives,” Philippa continued. “Take my grandfather, for example.”
“Alfonso Rosario?”
“He was a Leo and a golden horse.”
“Isn’t that a terribly strong combination? A horse and a lion?”
“As a Leo he was bold, showy, extravagant, and a whole extravaganza in himself when he was telling one of his stories. They got more and more embellished every year. Bit of a bully. Cocky.”
“Rooster-like …”
Philippa shot a dagger glance at Vicky for interrupting with one of her asinine quips and continued, “Not so very smart, but quite good at organising things. Impulsive.”
“And as a horse?”
“The horse in him reinforced his great love for talking. And it also reinforced his showiness, his pride and elegance, and added to his being a good mixer as a Leo. The horse is never dull.”
“Yeah. Come to think of it the old man seemed to know almost everybody. Not just the Serani. But didn’t some of that come out of his office as the Regidor?” Vicky asked.
“The other way around, Vicky. Leos are power-mad. He just had to be the Regidor. And it really was the job for him. It’s part of the great showmen that all Leos are. They are as much lion tamers cracking their whips in the centre of the circus ring as they are flamboyant lions. They play the father role. The king. The teacher.”
“The teacher,” Vicky cut in. “The teacher, king of the class, mother, father …” She stopped for a second and added with a sly smile, “Miss Philippa Rosario, sovereign ruler of the J.C., empress, goddess almighty, representative of the whole galaxy.”
“Oh shut up, Vicky.”