One Tuesday morning Lady Rice woke from her sea of sorrow and went to work as usual, getting into the Volvo as Angelica, preparing to leave it as Jelly, when she found herself howling aloud. She howled as in films the man who turns into a werewolf howls, body and mind stretching and deforming: they had gone into overload. She was giving birth to yet another self. Its name was Angel, and no angel, it.
Ram the chauffeur, seated behind the glass partition which cut off employer from servant, stopped the car, turned his head and fixed Angelica/Jelly with startled eyes. His eyes were dark, well-fringed, kind, albeit male. Angelica’s dress was up to her knees. She was changing her slimming black stockings to Jelly’s ankle-thickening beige. But her leg from ankle to knee, whatever she wore, remained long, slim and fetching.
‘Is that my exhaust holed?’ the driver asked. ‘Or is it you?’
Lady Rice, Angelica, Jelly, Angel howled again. They howled because it was a Tuesday morning, and on Monday nights Anthea often stayed over at Rice Court, so Lizzie, Lady Rice’s detective, had told her. (These days Lady Rice had detectives as other people might have hairdressers, astrologers, chiropodists, aerobicists. It is the most urgent desire of the divorcing person to know what goes on behind closed doors.) It had been the habit of the female combo that was her to drug herself to sleep on Monday nights, so heavily that it would be nearly Tuesday lunchtime before the three awoke. But the exigencies of employment had made that impossible, and here they were, caught halfway between Angelica and Jelly, at eight thirty on a Tuesday, knowing that this was when her husband’s enjoyment and capacity for sex was at its highest – many’s the time she had slipped out of bed early so as not to encounter it, as she remembered to her pain – and, worse, the chance thereby increased of his saying something intimate, loving, and kind to her rival. And at that very moment, if she thought about it, that rival, like as not, would be in the marital bed. Of course the entity howled.
They made no further effort to move their legs together. They were in any case wearing French knickers which hardly hid a thing. In fact they found themselves moving their legs further apart.
‘For God’s sake, what are you doing?’ pleaded Angelica, suddenly alarmed. ‘This is no answer to anything.’
‘You don’t know this man from Adam,’ warned Jelly. ‘Remember AIDS.’
‘I do as I like,’ said Angel, for it was she, moving her legs further apart. ‘And I have what I want, and what I want, as ever, is sex.’
‘What is going on in here?’ demanded Lady Rice, who had been dozing, but was startled sufficiently to be back at least notionally in charge. ‘I know I said I wanted a fuck, but I was speaking theoretically.’
‘Oh no you weren’t,’ said Angel.
‘We don’t want you interfering,’ said the other two. They were already ganging up on her. ‘You had your chance and a fine mess you made of it.’
And Lady Rice retired, part hurt, part glad to have been given permission, to some brooding part of her being, to rock in her sea of sorrow and absorb its nutrients. She was glad now she’d been an only child, had never had sisters.
‘Please don’t make that noise,’ Ram pleaded. ‘It makes it difficult to drive.’ He was, Angel supposed, for she was looking at him closely, as Jelly never did and Angelica never would, in his late twenties. He was fair-complexioned and had well-manicured nails which rested with confidence on the well-padded wheel; he was blessed with the strong jaw and sharp eyes of a business executive. Only the chauffeur’s cap suggested that the car was the tool of his trade, not the badge of his status. But the emergent halfway woman didn’t really care who he was or what he said, or indeed what he saw – one stocking half rolled off, the other un-suspended, and the suspender straps with their plastic button device falling loose – tights are tricky to change in confined surroundings: stockings less of a problem, but still provide some difficulty. That person halfway between a couple of I’s and a you uttered another howl, and tears ran down her face.
Ram turned the Volvo without so much as a comment, let alone asking for permission from his multi-faceted employer, into an underground car park. ‘Spaces’ flashed out in red lights in the narrow street outside. As the car turned in, the barrier to the entrance rose, apparently of its own accord. The electronic world is so much in tune, these days, with the living one, it is not surprising we get confused, see ourselves programmed, incapable of political or social protest, as we go about the routine of our lives. The car approached, access was willed, the barrier rose: the horror of the scene thus revealed – the dark mouths of concrete stalls, the puddled floor, the scrawled tormented walls, the stench of urine – seem an inevitable consequence of that very willing. Forget it, don’t argue, don’t fight, don’t attempt to reform; technology doesn’t, why should you? You are less than the machinery which serves you, and by serving you controls you; more prone to error, the ramshackle entropy, than when you were poorer but more in control. The human spirit splits and fractures, it has to, to make an amoeboid movement round technology, to engulf it, as flesh forms round a splinter, the better to protect itself. The four-fold entity of Lady Rice is not yet commonplace, but may well yet be.
Ram took his vehicle deeper and deeper underground. Angel swayed, first this way, then that, as the car traversed the descending levels, the bare stretch of thigh above her stocking tops sticking, first this side, then that, on hot leather, until there was nowhere else for the car to go but the furthest, deepest, blackest stall, after which the entrance signs turned to exit signs. Ram McDonald reversed the Volvo into this small space, with considerable skill. The vehicle’s windows were of darkened glass. The occupants could see out: no one could see in. The rich like to travel thus, and the journeys, after all, were on Sir Edwin’s charge account. Ram left the front seat and joined Angel in the back. She did not protest. Anthea clasped Edwin, Edwin clasped Anthea: the sun did not go out, let alone society disapprove. What matter then who clasped whom, in lust or love, since decency and justice had foundered anyway?
The core of the amoeba is fluid; its outer parts jelly-like. When the amoeba wishes to move, fluid is converted to jelly at the leading end of the body, and jelly is converted to fluid at the other end, and so the whole animal moves along. The concept of ‘wish’ is vague, and there seems no point within this single cell creature which could generate an emotion, or drive, yet ‘wish’ it does. It wishes to move, or chooses to move, or fails to remain still. However you put it, the amoeba demonstrates intent: just so Lady Rice’s body, flowing, incorporating, changing from fluid to jelly, jelly to fluid, announced to her and demonstrated to her parts its joint intent to experience a unified and unifying orgasm, as Ram strove and stroked.
‘That’s better,’ said Angel to the others, shuddering and juddering. Ram pulled her close to him. ‘That’s what you lot needed. A good fuck.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ said Angelica. ‘It was the last thing I ever wanted,’ and she turned her mouth away from Ram’s. ‘Edwin and I always got on well enough without. I liked being wooed and I liked being kissed, but I hate being out of control.’
Angel made Angelica turn her mouth back to Ram’s. His lips were heavy on hers and Jelly could feel the bristles of his chin roughening the delicate skin of her cheek, but had to let the matter rest.
‘He’s not even wearing a condom,’ agitated Jelly into Lady Rice’s ear: surely that would make an impact. ‘For God’s sake, put a stop to all this –’
‘It’s beyond me,’ murmured Lady Rice. ‘My mother used to tell me there was no stopping a man once he’s begun, or you get yourself raped. Just get it over. Aren’t you going to be late for the office?’
Jelly and Angelica wept, Lady Rice sulked, Angel responded to Ram in kindly fashion, though her own gratification had been long since gained.
‘We must do this again,’ said Ram.
They wondered what to reply.
‘Get involved with a chauffeur?’ demanded Angelica. ‘You must be joking.’
‘Impossible. I must keep my mind on my work,’ said Jelly. ‘I can’t afford diversion.’
‘Never, never, never,’ cried Lady Rice. ‘Edwin might find out.’
But they discounted her. She was the one who loved Edwin. The others had long given up. Love, they could see, was a luxury they could ill afford. The humiliation of love spurned was what made women on the edge of a divorce give up their rights so easily.
‘Take it all,’ they cry. ‘I don’t want a thing.’
Later, when love’s over, they can see their mistake. He has no such qualms. Winner takes all.
‘We’ll do it again tomorrow,’ said Angel, and, as she had use of the mouth and the whole body felt good and at ease, it was Angel Ram heard.
‘Unless you’re free this evening. But shall we concentrate on now?’
‘Slut, whore, bitch! Anybody’s! Stone her to death,’ came Angelica’s response.
She was in a temper. Angel bit her own lip and let out a yelp. Ram licked the sore place better.
‘And what time of the month is it?’ Jelly asked.
‘Forget AIDS, what about pregnancy? Christ, you’re irresponsible.’
Lady Rice just gave up and thought about other things. Let Angelica, Jelly and Angel emote; it left her free to reflect in tranquillity. She had wanted a fuck and got one but, when it came to it, this was no kind of answer. She supposed she was in the power of the statistic, yet again. She was one of the thirty-four per cent of women who engage in untoward sexual activity when first apart from their husbands and suffering, as a consequence, from low self-esteem. Her own behaviour, she could see, was nothing to do with her, not her responsibility at all.
Interesting, she noted, that Angel’s stretched arms fell apart from around Ram’s neck at the moment of orgasm. Jelly would have clasped hers the tighter, in surprise. Angel, on orgasm, felt gratification, not surprise. Angel’s body fell automatically loose and languid at such a moment. Angelica would have tautly stretched and sidestepped: first the stretch to better experience, but then the last minute sidestep to avoid the fluid to jelly, jelly to fluid of orgasmic takeover. Fidgeting, defensive Angelica; self-interested, manipulative Jelly; serve them both right to be overwhelmed by the desires of lustful, conscienceless Angel!
What pleasure then, and what rejoicing should there not be, as out of the sepulchral gloom which surrounds the death of marriage, this brilliance dawned, this angel, sweeping away humiliation, self-interest, discrimination, with such powerful wings. This new source of lustful energy now streamed out waves of stormy, light-dappled dark; and in the flickering blackness that still was light, Ram McDonald gained his power; hairy male arms and legs entwined with her own smooth white limbs. Or, look at it this way, a king crab crawled out from under a rock, perfectly at home in his watery parking lot; monstrous yet everyday; the handsome, healthiest crab you ever saw; king of the rock pool, all-important till you got a glimpse of the ocean. A chauffeur today, but whom tomorrow?
If Angel fluttered through clouds of sexual glory, it was to rejoice in their turbulence. Good Bad Angel, thought Lady Rice; her little sister Angel, who loved to feel the stickiness of hot leather on naked thighs, who rejoiced in the rush of non-identity to the head, the feel of long skinny legs opened, the satisfaction of the thrust of strange hard flesh felt between; and the familiar flurry and panting begin, the search for the soul of the other, buried so obtusely in flesh. Leave it all to Angel.
Then Angel cried out in the sheer delight of her coming to birth.
‘Be quiet,’ begged Jelly. ‘Don’t make that dreadful noise.’
‘Don’t overdo it,’ said Angelica. ‘He’ll think you’re faking.’
Good Bad Angel, little sister! Lady Rice denied maternal status. She would be Angel’s sister; that much she could allow, but she could never see herself as mother in charge. She had had enough of all that, in marriage. In charge of Rice Court, in charge of her husband’s happiness, in charge of everyone’s morals, as good wives are: inexorably, little by little, simply by virtue of knowing best, being turned into mother. What even halfway decent man could allow himself to stay married to his mother, once that status had become unequivocal?
‘By the way,’ said Angel into the quiet of spirit which follows orgasm. ‘My name’s Angel Lamb.’ (Lamb was Angelica’s mother’s maiden name.) ‘I am the Angel and the Id together,’ she introduced herself. ‘I am the internalised sibling of Lady Rice, Angelica Barley (a passing stage name) and Jelly White, our father’s daughter. Now just shut up and let me get on with this. There’s no stopping me now I’m here. The time you’ve wasted; the journeys you’ve taken with this gorgeous hunk of manhood and done nothing about it! Too bad!’
Angelica winced at the phraseology, and Jelly lamented the folly of what had been done, and Lady Rice drowsed and sniffed her unhappiness, and they all adjusted their dress and Ram took his place in the front seat and took them to the very door of the office.