Chapter 38 And the Meek...
By the time Con had reached his camper beside the avenue his anger with Wolf had faded to a morose self-pity. It was obvious that he had little chance with Shen - not only because of the charisma and bearing of Hayden, but also because of Con’s own inability to get over the events of the previous year. And why should I? I lost my sister. One does not simply walk away from that. He remembered the weeks following Melissa’s death – how he felt he was walking in a different world, a horrid dream-world that he begged some higher power to wake him from; how different things would be if she was still here – he would have his sister, and maybe he would have Shen. Fate had denied him both. Fate was a cruel power. The universe sucked; it was a horrible mistake that should never have happened. He cursed whatever had caused that original static nothing to open into this nightmare of forms, where every good thing was shadowed by bad. His sister’s soul was with the demons – not free as it should be.
The camper was sweltering; he opened the side door and the windows; the sun was at least on its downward path so the day would not be long to cool, he reasoned. He opened a cupboard and fished around for something to eat; a pack of noodles fell to the floor and he took this as a sign; filled the kettle and rolled a cigarette while the kettle boiled. He threw it on the road after two or three puffs in disgust.
After the meal Con had lain on the sofa bed listening to the doves cooing; he had slept on and off and then awoke with the orange orb of the sun shining through the windscreen. It was about eight o clock. He cleaned his teeth and left the van for the pub.
The village was quiet and bathed in a warm sepia tinge from the dying sun it resembled a publicity shot for English tourism; the white pub with its thatched roof and black beams seemed cottage-box twee - the English village idyll – something only shattered on crossing the road towards the beer garden when it became apparent to Con that some kind of heated argument was taking place inside; and it was Wolf’s voice that rang loudest.
‘I’m one of the most practical people I know, mate – don’t you accuse me of not living in the real world.’
The other voice, softer and condescending, replied, but Con couldn’t make out the words.
‘Look, I practically built my van from scratch, mate – see these wristbands – I tanned the fucking leather myself, from raw fat covered deer-skin; I’m a fuck sight more adapted to life in this world than you are, mate’
Conall peered round the door nervously; Wolf was standing at the bar, turned to face a small group of men, one in a visi-vest with ‘Wessex archaeology’ on its back, and another man, in a polo-shirt and thick black glasses, his hair hidden under a black baseball cap with an English Heritage logo above the peak. This man was speaking.
‘Yeah, because dressing up in skins and making leather jewellery is so bloody useful. Why don’t you just get a real job like the rest of us have to?’
‘because I played that particular mug’s game for 20 years; I was a builder, and I gave up a two grand a month job to do what I do now.’
‘More fool you.’
‘It was my fookin choice, mate; I’m happier now than I was then. Look at you with your smug fucking grin and EH hat; you’re an unthinking selfish fucking twat; I’m taking responsibility for my life – trying to live as close to nature as I can; I’m not a fucking parasite like you; if society collapsed today you’d be dead in a week; I’d be fine – I can hunt, fish, live in the woods. You’d be robbing Tescos like all the other sad fucks and dying of food poisoning cos you couldn't find a way to cook yer fuckin' chicken nuggets without a microwave!’ He laughed. ‘Western civilization is a fucking cancer and you know what we ‘useless hippies’ are?...' Wolf walked over to the man, speaking steadily and slowly, and glaring into the other's wide eyes '...We’re the fucking antibodies – we’re the bloody cure, Gaia’s own immune system kicking in to save her from her immanent death at the hands of a rogue fucking disease… so you’d better… bloody…. Watch…. out.’ He said, jabbing his finger in the man’s face as he spoke.
It was obvious that despite his bravado the other man had no wish for this to escalate into a brawl. Wolf, his chest still stained with ochre, looked like some madman. The seated man shifted uncomfortably and then stood and left, casting a barely audible ‘fucking twat’ in Wolf’s direction as he left the pub.
‘Aah – missed all the fun!’ Wolf grinned as he saw Con by the door.
‘What was all that about?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I think some of them got a bollocking for not dealing with the protest effectively, he he – and thought they’d take it out on me – "don’t you have anything better to do"’ he mimicked ‘"why don’t you have a shave and get a real job you hippy layabout" and that kind of shit. Normally I’d have ignored them or twatted them but still got a thumping bastard of a headache, so they got off lucky.’
Con smiled and was about to offer Wolf a drink when Ananda appeared behind the bar holding two pints. ‘On the house’ she whispered, winking.
***
An hour and a half later Con and Wolf were drunk; there had been a number of goodbyes from those who had come to protest and had to head off – most of whom wished to buy Wolf a drink; and a number of others had stayed and sat in small groups around the pub. Then Shen and Hayden had arrived; in the general hubbub Con and Shen hardly had the opportunity to share any words, and so he hadn’t been able to explain his earlier departure, nor smooth over the general air of tension that now lingered between them. To make matters worse Hayden had sat himself between them, squashing himself where there wasn’t really room for another, so Con couldn’t even turn and talk to her, being forced into the corner by Hayden’s large frame. In his inebriated state Con wasn’t in the mood to just sit and stew, either. He was angry, frustrated, upset and spoiling for confrontation.
Hayden wasn’t helping matters by launching into a diatribe against the protestors and their lack of ‘reality’, and the uselessness of any kind of beliefs, pagan or otherwise.
‘Right. Look, science is science…’ he was saying; ‘– it keeps the bullshit at bay; last week we had to cut a 19 year old girl out of a car, and she died by the roadside; she was beautiful. Where was God when she was dying? Would she have been helped by a power animal, or drumming? That’s all crap. It’s all done out of fear – a defence against the dark; it protects people from the nuts and bolts reality that this is all there is and one day, probably sooner than they think – they’ll be on a fucking slab. Where was God or the ancestors when she was dying, or the two old people who died of smoke inhalation on Christmas Day last year thanks to faulty tree lights, eh? Or my own cousin who died when he was eleven, hit by a fucking lorry? I remember my parents and my aunt and uncle going to church after that and all I could think was ‘why would you pray to a God that had taken your son away?’ Fucking ludicrous.’
Hayden’s usual glibness had been replaced with an intense seriousness, but then his swagger returned as he downed his pint.
‘It’s all pretence – look at you with your red paint and your bangles and shit – it’s playground stuff,’ Hayden said. ‘I’m sorry but it’s bullshit – dressing-up like cavemen.’
Wolf looked him squarely in the eyes.
I’m not playing at anything my friend; ochre is one of the oldest body paints used by man; it’s the blood of Mother Earth.
Hayden held Wolf’s gaze, his eyes swimming and his face wearing an expression that looked as if he was wondering if he were brave enough to openly laugh. Con, even though he sided with Wolf, for a moment could hear Wolf’s statement from Hayden’s perspective. Using phrases like ‘the blood of Mother Earth’ wasn’t going to score any points with Hayden.
‘Okay – that’s up to you –‘ Hayden managed to say, straight-faced, ‘but it’s when the place is full of hippies all trying to be like Red Indians, it’s just laughable.’
Con had tried to see Shen’s reaction to the phrase Red Indian; from his limited view he thought he had seen her blanch and sink back into her seat from where she had been leaning forward, nursing her brandy; he couldn’t tell if it was embarrassment or withheld anger. Whatever its cause, his own response was angry.
‘You can’t use that phrase’ he said, his voice shaking.
‘What phrase?’
‘Red Indian; you should say Native American or Canadian or First Nation…’ he corrected.
‘Oh it’s only a figure of speech, man, Christ!’
‘Maybe to you.’ Con answered, looking towards Shen.
‘Oh Shen doesn’t mind, do you?’ Shen just looked at him sternly.
‘Don’t you tell me what I do or don’t mind.’
‘Oh for fucks sake – lighten up you lot. It’s all the same – fucking whingeing on about the past and righting wrongs – but the past is past – we can’t change it; I don’t expect every bloody German I meet to apologise for the war; I’m not gonna fucking apologise for something white people did to the Indians a couple of hundred years ago. I wasn’t there – I didn’t call them those names originally or take their homelands.’
There was a silence. Hayden swallowed a mouthful of beer.
‘It’s like those bones – they ain’t gonna move them ‘cos its irrelevant; you can’t have them back as those days have gone – it’s like the Indians wanting their lands back – that ain’t gonna happen either. Most of those Indians took those same lands from other tribes in the past, and they lost them in turn to superior forces and better fighters – that’s the way of life. Deal with it.’
‘It’s not as simple as ‘might is right’… it was overtly racist; the Indians weren’t seen as human – it was as ideologically based as the holocaust – the only good Indian is a dead Indian.’
Hayden shrugged. Well, obviously you can’t condone it - but what I’m saying is that we’re primed as a species to do this stuff; survival of the fittest, yeah? They didn’t survive. They fumbled the ball… nature judged them by eradicating them…the meek are never gonna inherit the earth, mate.’
Con shook his head. ‘Nature didn’t eradicate the Natives. Man did. Man working against nature, which as a conscious being he can easily do.’
How’s it against nature? It’s fucking evolution, man! It IS nature!
Con tried to think of an example; ‘Nature makes us crave sweet and fat stuff, right? Because there’s not enough in the natural world to really fuck you up. You’d have to eat about 12 feet of sugar cane to get as much sugar as in a can of coke. So… let’s say you’re diabetic… do you just eat all the fucking sugar because ‘nature makes us want it?’ or do you see that man, in a can of coke, has created something unnatural and so you have to rein in the desire, in order not to ultimately kill yourself?
'Where are you going with this?'
'Small scale tribes can do what they want basically as there’s not enough of them to harm the environment – but when you get large numbers of people, technologically advanced, changing the planet, inventing coke, and factory farming, and motorways, then you, like the diabetic, have to rein in the desires that would, given the unnatural nature of modern society, cause death – and I also mean planetary death. So, you choose not to drink the coke, not to drive a car, not to fuck people over for a short-term fix that going to fuck everything up in the long-term.
‘What I’m saying is that the westerners killing off the Indians might seem to be ‘survival of the fittest’ in terms of short-term human goals, for a few generations, but in terms of planetary goals, the Indian, or the modern hippy, is the fittest – the most use for the planet, as he’s the one not burning his own home, the planet; therefore he’s the one most likely to survive, long-term…
‘And maybe the planet knows that. Which is why it’s producing antibodies’ he looked at Wolf who smiled back, ‘whose job is to kill off those after a short-term fix and re-establish a new kind of person who is fittest by their sense of harmony with nature.’
‘But they’ll lose.' Hayden said; 'The normal, greedy, car-driving person is always going to win – just like your bronze age horse-riders killed all the fucking stone age hippies here like you were saying earlier – the only way change will happen is by law, and no politician is going to vote for the changes you suggest because no one will vote for them – give up your cars, phones, air-travel… yeah sure! No one wants that because at the end of the day we’re all selfish.’
‘Then nature will wipe them out. Somehow.’ Wolf said.
‘Well it’ll have to, because despite putting limits on temperature rise and all that stuff, planes are gonna keep flying, cars will only increase in numbers; it’ll take a plague or a comet to knock us back to the Dark Ages – that would work, granted; but not by choice; people are too selfish.’
‘Not everyone; the people here today, that’s a start.’
‘It’s a drop in the ocean, mate. You could go as green as you like, it won’t make one iota of difference.’
Despite feeling anger at what he was saying Con knew Hayden was just stating the facts. People didn’t want to change. They didn’t want climate change yet they also didn’t want to stop eating burgers or driving to work, or any other labour-saving device that saved labour at the expense of the planet. So how will things change? The myths told how. The wave; the flood; mans’ hubris punished by disaster; he wished there might be another way – but until the majority of people turned round and decided, willingly, to forego comfort and pleasure for long-term goals, it was the only way… and they would only change through pressure, not by choice, or, somehow, by a change of mind – maybe like Wolf’s antibodies, upping resistance bit by bit, until a new kind of person existed, one who actively turned back against the myth of progress and decided to walk another, older path; but it wasn’t really an older path – but a wholly new one; one of sacrifice and humility; and it wouldn’t be easy. It wasn’t that long before, two millennia roundabouts, that they’d crucified someone for saying exactly that.
‘Anyway – what you’re saying is shit.’ Hayden continued. ‘How can the earth create these new people? Evolution has always been about eat or be eaten; it’s an inherent system, a drive – how can the planet create a new type of man? That’s bollocks. The earth isn’t some conscious being that decides what to create; it has no concept of future, or how to remedy this; if something does happen it’s an accident, a random mutation… that’s all this is, random. The earth isn’t sitting there thinking, ooh, I’m a bit hot, better make sure the next generation of humans are yoghurt-weaving fucking stoners who will destroy the motorways and plant trees on them.’
Once more, Con found himself trying not to laugh at Hayden’s observations. He sounded like the voice of reason; his was the sarcastic and amusing mockery that the modern western worldview enjoyed bating any alternatives with; and Con, having been brought up in that culture was torn between alternatives. He, too, could have laughed at this ‘bollocks’, at Wolf, with his red-painted chest and necklaces, talking about Gaia; it was risible. Yet, at the same time, the humour was only skin-deep – a defence, an all-too clever attempt to deny an alternate point of view through what amounted to insults. Con knew that everything Wolf defended was important – not only important, necessary. Necessity demanded, as a species, that we forego our sarcastic modern superior mindset, or we would find ourselves undone by the nemesis brought on by this hubris. He had never experienced, so clearly, how the modern mindset had been so efficiently established in his psyche, from moment to moment, in school and in the media, changing, altering, establishing his thinking, his very perception of the universe, so that he, too, might look on someone as sincere as Wolf and feel like sniggering at his childish and unscientific posing. What a load of bollocks. It would be so easy to say those words, clap Hayden on the back, and breathe easily having fallen back into the dominant culture, normal, safe (for a couple of generations, anyway); he could then laugh at himself, at his childish superstitions – see his unfolding and re-emerging sense of connection to that White Goddess of his youth, as an amusing reversion to an earlier state. He could dismiss it as magical-thinking, as the delusion of youth and grief; feel solid again; fit in; breathe…
…except…except….
Except Hayden was simply wrong. The dominant culture, in its hubris, was crumbling; and Wolf, and others like him, Con included, had felt another call – the beat of a different drum – and from where? Con had always felt some sense of connection to nature – and his dreams had presented him with alternative ways of thinking and being; dreams, visions, intuition… this is how the earth would speak…
Whether it was a throwback to earlier times or not, this growing sense among people of a need to return to what were older, archaic values was an attempt, Con saw, to step back to a point in time where man had taken a path towards planetary destruction, and to turn and take another path.
And even if I am a drop in the ocean, he thought, I cannot but act from what I feel to be right; even if I was the only one doing it, and it seemed to make not a jot of difference on a global scale… I, as a natural man, a child of this earth, choose, here and now, to cast off the snide, cynical attitude that I have been indoctrinated with all my life – that has led me to dismiss any sense of connection I ever felt – that made me think I was becoming mad for feeling ‘different’, so that I cast those feelings from me; but you can’t cast nature out; it rises in you like a sap, building and building; and for too long it’s been welling within me, and I’ve been scared of it, scared of my very nature… Con felt a bubbling rage and joy churning within him; and I’ve tried to dam its flow; like someone trying to block a spring with rock and concrete… but it can’t hold; I won’t let it hold any more.
Con, eyes swimming with tears of some emotion he couldn’t name – didn’t dare name – not wanting to further categorise, name, define, catalogue and dismiss what was but a flow of life – leaned forward and took from where it sat on the edge of the table, the small clay pot of greasy red-ochre and oil from Wolf’s tote bag, dipped his fingers in and ran two parallel lines across his face from one cheek to another, across his nose.
Wolf beamed at him.
‘I am the land, that is all that I am.’ Con said, the room suddenly lurching; he was aware, all of a sudden, that he’d drunk a lot more than he’d intended. But fuck it. Fuck it!
‘Jesus!’ Hayden muttered. ‘Here we go…’
‘Oh, just fuck off’
The two men, unbeknown to either, not fully consciously, were tied together in a state of conflict that neither could have, at this moment defined; what seemed on the surface an ideological spat was a much deeper conflict: on the exterior it was a reaction against unwanted aspects of their own personalities seen in the other – Hayden’s sneaking admiration for these ‘hippies’, their sheer enthusiasm and drive, their nobility, which the cynical Hayden wished he might express – and Con’s hard-headed scientific rationalistic side, a product of the west, that threatened the existence of his soul, newly born again in this glorious inebriated moment; but underneath, a deeper current ran that involved jealously on both sides for what they thought were Shen’s affections for the other; for what else had they been arguing over? What was this but that perennial battle for the hand of the sun-maiden? Who else was the earth each wanted to inherit but the dark-haired embodiment of life-to-be-lived, vivacity and promise, that was this girl, and no other, Shenandoah Derdriu Mac Govan-Crow, whose thunderous looks betrayed a discomfort at the prehistoric chest-beating going on to her right.
Hayden looked at him open mouthed.
‘Go get me another pint and I may overlook that comment.’
Conall stayed in his seat, feeling a drip of ochre running down his cheek.
‘Get your own fucking pint.’ Con hissed, aware this was an attempt for Hayden to assert alpha-status, and drunk enough not to let it go unchallenged.
‘Now don’t take the piss, mate… Get me a fucking drink and we’ll let this lie…’ and then, out of the blue, ‘– I’ve seen the way you look at Shen. You’re another fucking dreamer with no idea of the real world...’ he leaned over, pulled Shen towards him; ‘survival of the fucking fittest mate, survival of the fittest’ and he kissed her on the mouth.
Con was not a brawler; wits before fists was his way, yet in his drunken frustration, with all that had built up within him over the last couple of days, he acted before thinking, pulling Hayden back from his embrace with the clearly uncomfortable Shen, whose hands were up trying to push Hayden away.
‘What the fuck, Hayden?’ she spat, angrily.
And then Con was slammed into the table, glasses knocked aside – one shattering on the floor; he’d been elbowed rather than punched; and he struggled to get up feeling dizzy and mortified, his t-shirt soaked with beer – everything seemed far away as if seen down the wrong end of a telescope; Wolf had reached over the table, helping Con to his feet, and mouthing words but Con wasn’t understanding; he could see Shen and Hayden snarling at each other but as he found his feet he lunged at Hayden and swung his fist at the latter’s face, and missed – Hayden pushed forward and grabbed Con by the upper arm and seemed ready to punch him in return, but Shen was pulling him one way and Wolf had slowly extended his hand to hold Hayden’s arm back.
‘Calm it mate. Calm it,’ he was saying; Shen glanced a cross at Conall with what could have been a look of disdain or pity, and Con turned, pushed through the assembled bodies, and walked from the pub, still reeling.
By the time Con had reached his camper beside the avenue his anger with Wolf had faded to a morose self-pity. It was obvious that he had little chance with Shen - not only because of the charisma and bearing of Hayden, but also because of Con’s own inability to get over the events of the previous year. And why should I? I lost my sister. One does not simply walk away from that. He remembered the weeks following Melissa’s death – how he felt he was walking in a different world, a horrid dream-world that he begged some higher power to wake him from; how different things would be if she was still here – he would have his sister, and maybe he would have Shen. Fate had denied him both. Fate was a cruel power. The universe sucked; it was a horrible mistake that should never have happened. He cursed whatever had caused that original static nothing to open into this nightmare of forms, where every good thing was shadowed by bad. His sister’s soul was with the demons – not free as it should be.
The camper was sweltering; he opened the side door and the windows; the sun was at least on its downward path so the day would not be long to cool, he reasoned. He opened a cupboard and fished around for something to eat; a pack of noodles fell to the floor and he took this as a sign; filled the kettle and rolled a cigarette while the kettle boiled. He threw it on the road after two or three puffs in disgust.
After the meal Con had lain on the sofa bed listening to the doves cooing; he had slept on and off and then awoke with the orange orb of the sun shining through the windscreen. It was about eight o clock. He cleaned his teeth and left the van for the pub.
The village was quiet and bathed in a warm sepia tinge from the dying sun it resembled a publicity shot for English tourism; the white pub with its thatched roof and black beams seemed cottage-box twee - the English village idyll – something only shattered on crossing the road towards the beer garden when it became apparent to Con that some kind of heated argument was taking place inside; and it was Wolf’s voice that rang loudest.
‘I’m one of the most practical people I know, mate – don’t you accuse me of not living in the real world.’
The other voice, softer and condescending, replied, but Con couldn’t make out the words.
‘Look, I practically built my van from scratch, mate – see these wristbands – I tanned the fucking leather myself, from raw fat covered deer-skin; I’m a fuck sight more adapted to life in this world than you are, mate’
Conall peered round the door nervously; Wolf was standing at the bar, turned to face a small group of men, one in a visi-vest with ‘Wessex archaeology’ on its back, and another man, in a polo-shirt and thick black glasses, his hair hidden under a black baseball cap with an English Heritage logo above the peak. This man was speaking.
‘Yeah, because dressing up in skins and making leather jewellery is so bloody useful. Why don’t you just get a real job like the rest of us have to?’
‘because I played that particular mug’s game for 20 years; I was a builder, and I gave up a two grand a month job to do what I do now.’
‘More fool you.’
‘It was my fookin choice, mate; I’m happier now than I was then. Look at you with your smug fucking grin and EH hat; you’re an unthinking selfish fucking twat; I’m taking responsibility for my life – trying to live as close to nature as I can; I’m not a fucking parasite like you; if society collapsed today you’d be dead in a week; I’d be fine – I can hunt, fish, live in the woods. You’d be robbing Tescos like all the other sad fucks and dying of food poisoning cos you couldn't find a way to cook yer fuckin' chicken nuggets without a microwave!’ He laughed. ‘Western civilization is a fucking cancer and you know what we ‘useless hippies’ are?...' Wolf walked over to the man, speaking steadily and slowly, and glaring into the other's wide eyes '...We’re the fucking antibodies – we’re the bloody cure, Gaia’s own immune system kicking in to save her from her immanent death at the hands of a rogue fucking disease… so you’d better… bloody…. Watch…. out.’ He said, jabbing his finger in the man’s face as he spoke.
It was obvious that despite his bravado the other man had no wish for this to escalate into a brawl. Wolf, his chest still stained with ochre, looked like some madman. The seated man shifted uncomfortably and then stood and left, casting a barely audible ‘fucking twat’ in Wolf’s direction as he left the pub.
‘Aah – missed all the fun!’ Wolf grinned as he saw Con by the door.
‘What was all that about?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I think some of them got a bollocking for not dealing with the protest effectively, he he – and thought they’d take it out on me – "don’t you have anything better to do"’ he mimicked ‘"why don’t you have a shave and get a real job you hippy layabout" and that kind of shit. Normally I’d have ignored them or twatted them but still got a thumping bastard of a headache, so they got off lucky.’
Con smiled and was about to offer Wolf a drink when Ananda appeared behind the bar holding two pints. ‘On the house’ she whispered, winking.
***
An hour and a half later Con and Wolf were drunk; there had been a number of goodbyes from those who had come to protest and had to head off – most of whom wished to buy Wolf a drink; and a number of others had stayed and sat in small groups around the pub. Then Shen and Hayden had arrived; in the general hubbub Con and Shen hardly had the opportunity to share any words, and so he hadn’t been able to explain his earlier departure, nor smooth over the general air of tension that now lingered between them. To make matters worse Hayden had sat himself between them, squashing himself where there wasn’t really room for another, so Con couldn’t even turn and talk to her, being forced into the corner by Hayden’s large frame. In his inebriated state Con wasn’t in the mood to just sit and stew, either. He was angry, frustrated, upset and spoiling for confrontation.
Hayden wasn’t helping matters by launching into a diatribe against the protestors and their lack of ‘reality’, and the uselessness of any kind of beliefs, pagan or otherwise.
‘Right. Look, science is science…’ he was saying; ‘– it keeps the bullshit at bay; last week we had to cut a 19 year old girl out of a car, and she died by the roadside; she was beautiful. Where was God when she was dying? Would she have been helped by a power animal, or drumming? That’s all crap. It’s all done out of fear – a defence against the dark; it protects people from the nuts and bolts reality that this is all there is and one day, probably sooner than they think – they’ll be on a fucking slab. Where was God or the ancestors when she was dying, or the two old people who died of smoke inhalation on Christmas Day last year thanks to faulty tree lights, eh? Or my own cousin who died when he was eleven, hit by a fucking lorry? I remember my parents and my aunt and uncle going to church after that and all I could think was ‘why would you pray to a God that had taken your son away?’ Fucking ludicrous.’
Hayden’s usual glibness had been replaced with an intense seriousness, but then his swagger returned as he downed his pint.
‘It’s all pretence – look at you with your red paint and your bangles and shit – it’s playground stuff,’ Hayden said. ‘I’m sorry but it’s bullshit – dressing-up like cavemen.’
Wolf looked him squarely in the eyes.
I’m not playing at anything my friend; ochre is one of the oldest body paints used by man; it’s the blood of Mother Earth.
Hayden held Wolf’s gaze, his eyes swimming and his face wearing an expression that looked as if he was wondering if he were brave enough to openly laugh. Con, even though he sided with Wolf, for a moment could hear Wolf’s statement from Hayden’s perspective. Using phrases like ‘the blood of Mother Earth’ wasn’t going to score any points with Hayden.
‘Okay – that’s up to you –‘ Hayden managed to say, straight-faced, ‘but it’s when the place is full of hippies all trying to be like Red Indians, it’s just laughable.’
Con had tried to see Shen’s reaction to the phrase Red Indian; from his limited view he thought he had seen her blanch and sink back into her seat from where she had been leaning forward, nursing her brandy; he couldn’t tell if it was embarrassment or withheld anger. Whatever its cause, his own response was angry.
‘You can’t use that phrase’ he said, his voice shaking.
‘What phrase?’
‘Red Indian; you should say Native American or Canadian or First Nation…’ he corrected.
‘Oh it’s only a figure of speech, man, Christ!’
‘Maybe to you.’ Con answered, looking towards Shen.
‘Oh Shen doesn’t mind, do you?’ Shen just looked at him sternly.
‘Don’t you tell me what I do or don’t mind.’
‘Oh for fucks sake – lighten up you lot. It’s all the same – fucking whingeing on about the past and righting wrongs – but the past is past – we can’t change it; I don’t expect every bloody German I meet to apologise for the war; I’m not gonna fucking apologise for something white people did to the Indians a couple of hundred years ago. I wasn’t there – I didn’t call them those names originally or take their homelands.’
There was a silence. Hayden swallowed a mouthful of beer.
‘It’s like those bones – they ain’t gonna move them ‘cos its irrelevant; you can’t have them back as those days have gone – it’s like the Indians wanting their lands back – that ain’t gonna happen either. Most of those Indians took those same lands from other tribes in the past, and they lost them in turn to superior forces and better fighters – that’s the way of life. Deal with it.’
‘It’s not as simple as ‘might is right’… it was overtly racist; the Indians weren’t seen as human – it was as ideologically based as the holocaust – the only good Indian is a dead Indian.’
Hayden shrugged. Well, obviously you can’t condone it - but what I’m saying is that we’re primed as a species to do this stuff; survival of the fittest, yeah? They didn’t survive. They fumbled the ball… nature judged them by eradicating them…the meek are never gonna inherit the earth, mate.’
Con shook his head. ‘Nature didn’t eradicate the Natives. Man did. Man working against nature, which as a conscious being he can easily do.’
How’s it against nature? It’s fucking evolution, man! It IS nature!
Con tried to think of an example; ‘Nature makes us crave sweet and fat stuff, right? Because there’s not enough in the natural world to really fuck you up. You’d have to eat about 12 feet of sugar cane to get as much sugar as in a can of coke. So… let’s say you’re diabetic… do you just eat all the fucking sugar because ‘nature makes us want it?’ or do you see that man, in a can of coke, has created something unnatural and so you have to rein in the desire, in order not to ultimately kill yourself?
'Where are you going with this?'
'Small scale tribes can do what they want basically as there’s not enough of them to harm the environment – but when you get large numbers of people, technologically advanced, changing the planet, inventing coke, and factory farming, and motorways, then you, like the diabetic, have to rein in the desires that would, given the unnatural nature of modern society, cause death – and I also mean planetary death. So, you choose not to drink the coke, not to drive a car, not to fuck people over for a short-term fix that going to fuck everything up in the long-term.
‘What I’m saying is that the westerners killing off the Indians might seem to be ‘survival of the fittest’ in terms of short-term human goals, for a few generations, but in terms of planetary goals, the Indian, or the modern hippy, is the fittest – the most use for the planet, as he’s the one not burning his own home, the planet; therefore he’s the one most likely to survive, long-term…
‘And maybe the planet knows that. Which is why it’s producing antibodies’ he looked at Wolf who smiled back, ‘whose job is to kill off those after a short-term fix and re-establish a new kind of person who is fittest by their sense of harmony with nature.’
‘But they’ll lose.' Hayden said; 'The normal, greedy, car-driving person is always going to win – just like your bronze age horse-riders killed all the fucking stone age hippies here like you were saying earlier – the only way change will happen is by law, and no politician is going to vote for the changes you suggest because no one will vote for them – give up your cars, phones, air-travel… yeah sure! No one wants that because at the end of the day we’re all selfish.’
‘Then nature will wipe them out. Somehow.’ Wolf said.
‘Well it’ll have to, because despite putting limits on temperature rise and all that stuff, planes are gonna keep flying, cars will only increase in numbers; it’ll take a plague or a comet to knock us back to the Dark Ages – that would work, granted; but not by choice; people are too selfish.’
‘Not everyone; the people here today, that’s a start.’
‘It’s a drop in the ocean, mate. You could go as green as you like, it won’t make one iota of difference.’
Despite feeling anger at what he was saying Con knew Hayden was just stating the facts. People didn’t want to change. They didn’t want climate change yet they also didn’t want to stop eating burgers or driving to work, or any other labour-saving device that saved labour at the expense of the planet. So how will things change? The myths told how. The wave; the flood; mans’ hubris punished by disaster; he wished there might be another way – but until the majority of people turned round and decided, willingly, to forego comfort and pleasure for long-term goals, it was the only way… and they would only change through pressure, not by choice, or, somehow, by a change of mind – maybe like Wolf’s antibodies, upping resistance bit by bit, until a new kind of person existed, one who actively turned back against the myth of progress and decided to walk another, older path; but it wasn’t really an older path – but a wholly new one; one of sacrifice and humility; and it wouldn’t be easy. It wasn’t that long before, two millennia roundabouts, that they’d crucified someone for saying exactly that.
‘Anyway – what you’re saying is shit.’ Hayden continued. ‘How can the earth create these new people? Evolution has always been about eat or be eaten; it’s an inherent system, a drive – how can the planet create a new type of man? That’s bollocks. The earth isn’t some conscious being that decides what to create; it has no concept of future, or how to remedy this; if something does happen it’s an accident, a random mutation… that’s all this is, random. The earth isn’t sitting there thinking, ooh, I’m a bit hot, better make sure the next generation of humans are yoghurt-weaving fucking stoners who will destroy the motorways and plant trees on them.’
Once more, Con found himself trying not to laugh at Hayden’s observations. He sounded like the voice of reason; his was the sarcastic and amusing mockery that the modern western worldview enjoyed bating any alternatives with; and Con, having been brought up in that culture was torn between alternatives. He, too, could have laughed at this ‘bollocks’, at Wolf, with his red-painted chest and necklaces, talking about Gaia; it was risible. Yet, at the same time, the humour was only skin-deep – a defence, an all-too clever attempt to deny an alternate point of view through what amounted to insults. Con knew that everything Wolf defended was important – not only important, necessary. Necessity demanded, as a species, that we forego our sarcastic modern superior mindset, or we would find ourselves undone by the nemesis brought on by this hubris. He had never experienced, so clearly, how the modern mindset had been so efficiently established in his psyche, from moment to moment, in school and in the media, changing, altering, establishing his thinking, his very perception of the universe, so that he, too, might look on someone as sincere as Wolf and feel like sniggering at his childish and unscientific posing. What a load of bollocks. It would be so easy to say those words, clap Hayden on the back, and breathe easily having fallen back into the dominant culture, normal, safe (for a couple of generations, anyway); he could then laugh at himself, at his childish superstitions – see his unfolding and re-emerging sense of connection to that White Goddess of his youth, as an amusing reversion to an earlier state. He could dismiss it as magical-thinking, as the delusion of youth and grief; feel solid again; fit in; breathe…
…except…except….
Except Hayden was simply wrong. The dominant culture, in its hubris, was crumbling; and Wolf, and others like him, Con included, had felt another call – the beat of a different drum – and from where? Con had always felt some sense of connection to nature – and his dreams had presented him with alternative ways of thinking and being; dreams, visions, intuition… this is how the earth would speak…
Whether it was a throwback to earlier times or not, this growing sense among people of a need to return to what were older, archaic values was an attempt, Con saw, to step back to a point in time where man had taken a path towards planetary destruction, and to turn and take another path.
And even if I am a drop in the ocean, he thought, I cannot but act from what I feel to be right; even if I was the only one doing it, and it seemed to make not a jot of difference on a global scale… I, as a natural man, a child of this earth, choose, here and now, to cast off the snide, cynical attitude that I have been indoctrinated with all my life – that has led me to dismiss any sense of connection I ever felt – that made me think I was becoming mad for feeling ‘different’, so that I cast those feelings from me; but you can’t cast nature out; it rises in you like a sap, building and building; and for too long it’s been welling within me, and I’ve been scared of it, scared of my very nature… Con felt a bubbling rage and joy churning within him; and I’ve tried to dam its flow; like someone trying to block a spring with rock and concrete… but it can’t hold; I won’t let it hold any more.
Con, eyes swimming with tears of some emotion he couldn’t name – didn’t dare name – not wanting to further categorise, name, define, catalogue and dismiss what was but a flow of life – leaned forward and took from where it sat on the edge of the table, the small clay pot of greasy red-ochre and oil from Wolf’s tote bag, dipped his fingers in and ran two parallel lines across his face from one cheek to another, across his nose.
Wolf beamed at him.
‘I am the land, that is all that I am.’ Con said, the room suddenly lurching; he was aware, all of a sudden, that he’d drunk a lot more than he’d intended. But fuck it. Fuck it!
‘Jesus!’ Hayden muttered. ‘Here we go…’
‘Oh, just fuck off’
The two men, unbeknown to either, not fully consciously, were tied together in a state of conflict that neither could have, at this moment defined; what seemed on the surface an ideological spat was a much deeper conflict: on the exterior it was a reaction against unwanted aspects of their own personalities seen in the other – Hayden’s sneaking admiration for these ‘hippies’, their sheer enthusiasm and drive, their nobility, which the cynical Hayden wished he might express – and Con’s hard-headed scientific rationalistic side, a product of the west, that threatened the existence of his soul, newly born again in this glorious inebriated moment; but underneath, a deeper current ran that involved jealously on both sides for what they thought were Shen’s affections for the other; for what else had they been arguing over? What was this but that perennial battle for the hand of the sun-maiden? Who else was the earth each wanted to inherit but the dark-haired embodiment of life-to-be-lived, vivacity and promise, that was this girl, and no other, Shenandoah Derdriu Mac Govan-Crow, whose thunderous looks betrayed a discomfort at the prehistoric chest-beating going on to her right.
Hayden looked at him open mouthed.
‘Go get me another pint and I may overlook that comment.’
Conall stayed in his seat, feeling a drip of ochre running down his cheek.
‘Get your own fucking pint.’ Con hissed, aware this was an attempt for Hayden to assert alpha-status, and drunk enough not to let it go unchallenged.
‘Now don’t take the piss, mate… Get me a fucking drink and we’ll let this lie…’ and then, out of the blue, ‘– I’ve seen the way you look at Shen. You’re another fucking dreamer with no idea of the real world...’ he leaned over, pulled Shen towards him; ‘survival of the fucking fittest mate, survival of the fittest’ and he kissed her on the mouth.
Con was not a brawler; wits before fists was his way, yet in his drunken frustration, with all that had built up within him over the last couple of days, he acted before thinking, pulling Hayden back from his embrace with the clearly uncomfortable Shen, whose hands were up trying to push Hayden away.
‘What the fuck, Hayden?’ she spat, angrily.
And then Con was slammed into the table, glasses knocked aside – one shattering on the floor; he’d been elbowed rather than punched; and he struggled to get up feeling dizzy and mortified, his t-shirt soaked with beer – everything seemed far away as if seen down the wrong end of a telescope; Wolf had reached over the table, helping Con to his feet, and mouthing words but Con wasn’t understanding; he could see Shen and Hayden snarling at each other but as he found his feet he lunged at Hayden and swung his fist at the latter’s face, and missed – Hayden pushed forward and grabbed Con by the upper arm and seemed ready to punch him in return, but Shen was pulling him one way and Wolf had slowly extended his hand to hold Hayden’s arm back.
‘Calm it mate. Calm it,’ he was saying; Shen glanced a cross at Conall with what could have been a look of disdain or pity, and Con turned, pushed through the assembled bodies, and walked from the pub, still reeling.