The Face That Must Die

Chapter XXVIII

In Peter’s head a loud metallic voice said “We have lift-off.” Symbols were crystallising rapidly and unstably on the walls. When he looked in the mirror, his pupils were spectacularly dilated; he had the eyes of a mummy’s mask. Instead of a face he had a set of masks that played over one another constantly, like shuffled cards. Today he would find himself beneath them.

Sue lay on his bed; Anne was sunk in the deepest chair. He was glad he’d decided to take the trip with them. Already he felt closer to them than he’d felt to Cathy for a while. He didn’t feel criticised, even implicitly. They accepted him for what he was.

He oughtn’t to take acid while Cathy was near. Her anxiety for him only made him feel threatened by a bad trip. If she had been here, her obsession with the atmosphere of the house would have infected all of them.

Like an oracle, Sue announced “I’m not going to work tomorrow.”

“ We’ll report sick,” Anne said.

He nodded sagely. You shouldn’t work the day after taking a trip. Reporting sick was funny, though: acid was ultimate health. Still, work was a game, and lies were a way to win like any other.

They were sharing visions now. They watched the elaboration of the trees beyond the window. He couldn’t remember when he’d felt so safe. Was he secure enough to reach down into himself, to the part of him which he knew was there but which he could never quite perceive, the part that would solve all his problems?

“ We got some nice sounds from the record library,” Anne said. “They’d be good now.”

Without her asking aloud, Sue and Peter waited on the landing, so that she didn’t feel alone in her flat. Eventually she returned with a record of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. Mozart made Peter think of Craig: he’d liked that sort of thing. A faint stench drifted out of the dark stairwell. It was all right. Cathy wasn’t here to make them apprehensive. He seemed to recall having heard some nice sounds by Mozart.

The music sounded deft and sinuous. Fat Germans danced over fields. Peter saw Mozart performing rapid conjuring tricks, waving his wand which was the baton he used to beat the orchestra, capitalism’s club beating the workers, all of whom had to lock themselves into evening dress to look middle-class. Bright caricatures raced through his mind, a speeded-up cartoon film.

In the park a dog was barking. It tried to join in the music, then it began to snap at Mozart’s heels. All three of them giggled uncontrollably. Mirth exploded from them like farting.

The second movement of the concerto was slower. The long notes of the clarinet seemed oily. Peter moved uneasily in his chair. A huge worm oozed along. Its moisture clung to his skin. The worm was dying. A corpse was near him.

Fear paralysed him. It was all right, the images must be coming from the girls, they weren’t his. The acid couldn’t be as strong as this; they’d split the tab three ways. Just let it slow down, just for a moment, just so he could see what was coming, please stop for a moment, he wouldn’t take acid again, ever, he promised – But death had entered the room, and held him immobile. If he opened his eyes they would burst, putrefy.

At last he opened them, to escape the sight of Mozart’s face collapsing. The face was there on the record cover, squirming. Mozart was dead, that was all! The acid strobe flashed in his eyes like an unavoidable warning. Trees were bones on which writhed remnants of flesh. In the clouds Craig’s face was flaking away beside a woman’s face. Death was total disintegration, the core of yourself flying apart into a void. Sue’s and Anne’s faces were coming away from the bone, pried loose by their terror.

He managed to stand, on legs that felt scrawny and fleshless. The light seemed not to reach him, as though he were unable to perceive it properly – as though his eyes had died. Dimness was advancing. Beneath the floor, which felt thin as ice, lay an eager grave. For a moment he meant to flee and leave the girls. “Let’s go in the park,” he blurted.

They stood up gingerly, as if going blind. Their slowness clung to him like the moisture of the worm. A pair of Cathy’s tights hung like the skin of a starved child, a terrible sexless absence between its legs. He mustn’t scream. He guided them as far as the landing. The stairwell was an enormous dark pit that shifted and crawled like earth.

Sue drew back trembling. “It’s too far,” she wailed.

“ Come on. We’ve got to try.” He sounded like dozens of films. It wasn’t how he sounded that mattered, only what he did. He poked the time-switch. Wide bare staircase, stark unsteady bulbs: Psycho.

“ Come on. We’re all right. Come on,” he repeated all the way downstairs, and led them out of the horror film.

So that was all. It was so simple. He need only act masculine, instead of holding back for fear of failure. He’d led them all to safety. He closed the front door carefully, like a home-owner protecting his house.

They walked in the park. Never before had he seen so many colours. Piercingly vivid ripples passed through the grass. Trees unfolded patterns, mysterious and Oriental. Primitive hieroglyphs appeared on stone. He was an archetypal man, guiding and guarding his women. They sat by the lake and became the movement of light on water.

A dog ran past them. Its red pelt glowed; each hair was separate. They watched the play of its muscles, complex and graceful. “You ought to become vegetarian,” Anne said.

“ Cathy cooks vegetarian once a week.”

He sensed their silent contempt. Was it justified? He felt disloyal to her, and alienated from the girls. Perhaps they could tell, for Sue said “We’re going on.”

It didn’t sound like an invitation. “I’ll stay here,” he said.

Climbing the grassy slope, they held hands. It occurred to him that neither of them seemed involved with men. Did they have sex together? That was irrelevant. Though he’d pretended to accept it, he had never really believed lesbianism existed. Now he saw it, it seemed in no way startling. The acceptance made him feel more masculine, less vulnerable.

Eventually he managed to read his watch. Cathy would be home soon. Should he be there when she arrived, to rid himself of the lingering sense of disloyalty? He strolled towards the house, which moved wakefully.

Someone was ahead of him on the stairs: a man, who looked deformed. Strangers often did when you were tripping. The face looked elusively familiar, but its masks were shifting. He must be moving into one of the flats; he was fumbling in his pocket, no doubt for a key. His stare made Peter paranoid – but perhaps it was the trip that made the stare seem odd.

Peter hurried upstairs. The slam of his door calmed him slightly. He sat at the window to watch the mystical gestures of the trees, the temple dancers. He tried to inhale calm. Shit, it was Cathy’s fault. She was infecting him. Just now he’d felt as panicky on the middle landing as she had behaved.