kagablog

From The Life of Henry Fuckit, 1950-2015

“Hello Henry. Nice to meet you at last. Come in, take a seat. Hope I haven’t dragged you away from something important.”

So this was the man himself. Of average height he appeared fit and wiry, must be all that swimming. His dark brown hair was thick and wavy and had no trace of grey in it. A well-tended French moustache made him look slightly foreign and Henry judged him to be in his mid forties. He had an easy, even familiar manner and his humorous brown eyes looked with a disconcerting directness, as if they already knew the sight of Henry well.

Glancing about the office he realised it was directly above that of his and Whitehead’s. The wall facing the window was almost entirely covered by an enormous world map dotted with coloured pins and criss-crossed with interconnecting lines drawn in fluorescent pink. He was pleased to note the absence of that old arsehole the State President. The wall behind the Director’s desk was blank except for a framed reproduction that Henry recognised in a flash. An enthusiastic admirer of Paul Klee’s work he knew it well - the Mystical City Scene, from around 1920. On the opposite wall to the right of the door stood a large bookcase loaded with interesting looking reading matter - they certainly didn’t look like volumes on Stores Control.

“I thought we’d have a little chat and begin to get to know each other. Jack Ponchielli told me about you some time back, said you might want to join us. He told me quite a bit about you and you sounded ideal material. Jack’s a good sort. A fine musician, too.”

Henry liked the look of this man but knew how unreliable first impressions could be. And there were many questions that needed to be answered. A fog of mystery was preventing his uncompromisingly sceptical mind from finding the logic behind what was happening to him. Bergson detected caution in his reticence and continued.

“By way of an explanation, a kind of introductory prologue, I thought I’d give you some background information about myself. Then I’ll tell you about some of the things we get up to in this dockyard. I understand you once worked for an insurance company?”

The sudden unexpected mention of the two words elicited an involuntary response in Henry. His body jerked as if it had been subjected to a high voltage jolt, his face contorted in anguish, his pupils dilated and his pulse raced.

“Yes. It was the briefest of careers but it has affected me for life. You could say it was a formative experience that told me, quite unequivocally that Henry Fuckit and gainful employment are as incompatible as fire and water. But why do you mention this unpleasant topic?”

Bergson sat slightly askance to his desk, tipping comfortably in his chair and rocking almost imperceptibly. “Well, I mention it because I share this in common with you: I too used to be in the insurance world.” Henry was mildly surprised. This man didn’t look as if he had ever suffered brain damage. “Unlike yours, my career spanned several years. Sixteen years, in fact.”

“Holy shit!” Henry was horrified.

“Quite so. It was a terrible episode in my life. More than an episode. Sixteen years! I can give long and painful testimony to the degrading depths to which I sank before I was saved nine years ago.”

“Oh no!” The disappointment in Henry’s voice was obvious.

“What’s the matter? Oh! Ha, ha, ha.” He laughed fruitily and then cut his mirth short. “You think I might be a born-again Christian, do you? Bloody insulting! Don’t you look at people’s eyes? When you gaze into a born-again Christian’s eyes you encounter two layers: first the superficial sincerity and sweetness, then the intolerance and suspicion of a bigot. And behind that, nothing - a terrifying vacuum.”

“Well, actually… er, um.” Henry was embarrassed but relieved.

“Alright, forget it. I was telling you about my insurance career. The Old Mutual, the biggest life assurance and pension company in South Africa. I was at Head Office at Mutual Park in Pinelands. A vast double-storey box of a building set in extensive grounds with its own swimming pool, squash and tennis courts, rugby and hockey fields, athletics track, clubhouse. It had two restaurants and a recreation hall for dances and functions. Even its own railway station on the commuter line.”

“Sounds intimidatingly impersonal. There must have been hundreds of people working there.” Henry didn’t like the sound of this place.

“Thousands. But it wasn’t intended to be impersonal and dehumanising. If you became a Mutual Man it was supposed to be for life. You joined the family and every aspect of your life was catered for. I joined The Mutual when I came out of the army at twenty, and I was there for sixteen years. I was ambitious, I did well, and everybody thought I was top management material. But from the very outset there was a small voice in my head asking subversive questions.”

“I can well imagine. You know, I’ve thought about this on many occasions and come to the conclusion that most people never hear that voice, or if they do it’s in a foreign tongue and they’re unable to translate the questions.” Henry was beginning to relax, and when he was relaxed he became generous with his own perceptions and insights. “But of those who do understand what’s being said the majority are driven to throttle the voice immediately, silencing it forever. Only…”

“Yes, I see you know what I’m talking about.” Bergson also saw the danger of letting Henry get carried away with a subject that was dear to his heart. “The small voice asked me whether I really wanted to devote my life to The Old Mutual. I began to engage in a dialogue. What else? What was wrong with becoming an efficient cog in a big machine? What was wrong with earning a good salary and becoming a respected member of the family? What was wrong with securing a good pension and safeguarding my old age? The voice would sneer at me, chastising me for not having the courage to get out and experience life more fully whilst I was still young. I had some friends in those days, good friends, maybe the best friends I’ve ever had, who were heeding their voices and urging me to do the same. But did I follow their advice? No. Not then.” It was clear from his expression that these recollections were strongly coloured with regret. “I heard that voice every day of my life for sixteen years. I explained, I argued, I prevaricated. Whilst I still had them, I promised my friends I was biding my time before breaking loose. I pretended I was one of them, a free agent with an independent mind and a happy-go-lucky spirit. But it was a sham. My whole life became a sham. After a few years I had become a compulsive liar, a pathological confabulator. At first it started as humorous exaggeration, light-hearted tall stories told for the sake of entertainment. Then I began to see these creations in my mind as a way of impressing and manipulating. I began to lose track of what I had said to whom. I even began to believe some of my own embellishments and fabrications.”

“What kind of things did you lie about?” As an inveterate manipulator of reality himself Henry was curious to hear more about someone else’s ability to invent.

“Oh, at first, it was pretty harmless stuff. It was more like boastfulness than downright mendacity. My sporting and academic achievements, progress at work, sexual prowess - that sort of thing.”

Henry was not impressed. “Sounds as if you were a bullshitter. Plenty of those around. On a far more creative level is the teller of tall stories. You tell a story that is fantastic or exaggerated but almost plausible. The skill is in placing it just beyond the bounds of logic, so that an intelligent listener is able to pick up the clue that makes the story nonsense or an impossibility. The drawback comes when you have an audience too stupid to get it. You find yourself faced with an irritating dilemma - do you allow them to swallow the crap you’ve been dishing up, and thereby turn yourself into a cheap liar, or do you labour on, heaping one absurdity upon another until they finally see what you’re up to, and in the process turn subtlety and wit into coarse buffoonery?”

“Mmm. No choice, really.” To his surprise Bergson felt slightly piqued at having been described as an ex-bullshitter. Then he smiled ruefully. “Yes, I became a habitual bullshitter.” He laughed at the turn of phrase. “I was a Mutual Man trying to preserve a part of me which was supposed to be Bohemian - and true to my nature. It was a disastrous process. My friends became impatient, exasperated and disappointed. One by one they drifted away, avoiding me when they could, confining themselves to platitudes and frivolous banter when unable to elude me. And I went through two wives.”

“Wow! So you’ve been married three times, have you? That sounds a real mess. I’ve never even been married once and I reckon life’s complicated enough. Three times? Jesus! Any children?”

“Yes, two from the second marriage.” His voice had gone a bit flat and he spoke quickly, as if to hurry on, away from these painful memories. “My first wife never recovered and even now is in and out of Valkenberg. My second wife, despite being an intelligent woman, took refuge and comfort in a sect where they sing, clap, shout in tongues and then fall down laughing.”

“Shite man, that’s bad. And yet you seem to have been able to shrug off the burden of guilt. I mean, at least on the surface, you don’t appear to be eating your heart out with remorse.”

Bergson wasn’t happy with the way this part of the conversation was going and he was determined to move on to firmer ground. “You know, all those years I remained faithful to The Old Mutual I was systematically abusing my friends and loved ones. And of course I was destroying myself. I gradually lost the ability to discern the difference between reality and delusion, truth and falsehood, honesty and deceit, duty and self-interest. Because of this blurring of moral outlines, I was able to justify any action, no matter how base. But all the time the dialogue was continuing, and when my second wife finally walked out, and I was left isolated and estranged, the voice took on an identity separate to my own.”

“How were you coping at work?” Henry found this emerging picture of a man descending into psychological chaos particularly interesting, having had his own small share of the same experience. “Had the insidious and gradual reduction in your ability to engage in meaningful social relations followed a parallel course in the workplace? Surely your ability to call on inner resources had been progressively lessening. Your shallow and inappropriate emotional responses towards family and friends must have manifested themselves in some way towards your colleagues as well. Did you ever act in a hebephrenic fashion? Was your behaviour considered foolish or bizarre? Were you beginning to entertain false beliefs and false perceptions? Or, on the contrary, had you become catatonic, often assuming a statuesque position and remaining in a state of almost complete immobility for long periods. Mutism? Did you go for days without opening your mouth, not even saying good morning to your seniors? And possibly there were unpredictable episodes when you impulsively burst into excessive motor activity and excitement. Did you ever physically attack items of office furniture? Did you express yourself scatologically? I can well imagine your frightful condition, unable to engage in rational thought and swinging wildly from delusions of persecution one day, to delusions of grandeur the next. And all the time hallucinating like an acid freak on the third day of a pop festival. Was it like that?”

“No.” Harry Bergson sighed indulgently. He was a wise man, and with wisdom comes patience. “No Henry, not quite like that. It was only at work that I seemed able to function normally. I realised later that this was because there was a tacit understanding in place. No one ever spoke about it but it was acceptable, even expected of one, to be a bombastic fraud. I was alright at work. It was when I left work that the nightmare recommenced. I won’t trouble you with the painful details any more. You now have an idea of where I was at, after sixteen years working for The Old Mutual. And then one day my life changed.”

Ian Martin’s controversial novel Pop-splat is now available from http://www.pop-splat.co.za