Saline Solution Read Free Page A

there's any point in going to Ireland,' I said. 'There's no peace there either. The human sickness is our addiction to fear, and we pass it on genetically. The Irish seek refuge in slavery as much as any other people. They're Catholics , for Christ's sake.'
    'For Christ's sake?' she said.
    'Not for Christ's sake. That's the problem. They've taken to religion the way the Germans took to National Socialism. But organisation is only the outer shell of fascism. And what would the four of us do there, anyway? Mope around like characters out of Lawrence? I can barely manage living with myself, and it's almost impossible with you. I'm a pervert by most standards. And you're pregnant and Bertha is into fidelity and Francis is pretending he's straight. There's just no point.'
    'Why do you make things so complicated?' she asked. 'Why can't we just go to Europe like ordinary people?'
    I snorted. ' Ordinary people? I don't know any ordinary people.'
    She went into the bathroom again. This time she closed the door. I poured another cup of tea. It would be several hours until I got sleepy. I didn't want to go out. I wondered how I would fill the time.
    II
    When, for whatever reason, a man and woman begin to live together, to share the intimacy of sex, their first contract is for exclusivity of genital contact. At first they seem to believe, and later force themselves to adhere to the notion that this human being now in constant geographical proximity has been qualitatively transformed into some property of oneself. A woman's cunt is her own, but her husband will not say so. The pristine articulated bond, arbitrary but conscious, soon succumbs to the corrosive power of habit, and the two of them are left with a smoldering possessiveness which is often tidied up into brisk, smiling hostility. The resulting years, no matter how varied in content, are riddled with the tension inherent in the psycho-emotional game known as marriage.
    The most invidious myth of our civilisation is the idea that any form of social contract can substitute for unrelenting moment-to-moment awareness by each individual. Lucinda and I attempted to laugh in the face of necessity by assuming a relationship in which all the emotional glue of attachment would be dissolved by acid sophistication. But life has a way of brushing our paradigms
    aside.
    We went back to the Island. There was immediate friction between Francis and Donna, the woman who had rented and sublet the house to us and the half-dozen other summer groupers. We dumped our bags and went into Ocean Beach, figuring that the worst way to deal with the problem would be through confrontation. We walked the narrow paths in silence, thankful to be in a place where no cars were allowed.
    We went into the ice cream parlour. The vibrations were jagged and intense. I watched a teenage girl, blonde spaghettini hair, roundly fleshy hips, a soft square arse, and a look of hungry innocence in her eyes. I sat at a table with Lucinda, facing Francis and Bertha. All round us teenage America did its vapid dance. The juke box played a lament for the students shot at Kent State. 'Four dead in O-O-hio . . .' The words snaked out of a very polished rhythm section. Three pinball machines let off raucous metallic shudders. A tall, big-shouldered fifteen-year-old strode across the length of the place, wearing a jacket with 'Mobile Environment Engineer' written across the back over the Power-to-the-People fist done in bright red.
    'It's amazing how in the United States every phenomenon of the left is immediately recast into a right-wing mould,' Francis said, his eyes riveted to the young Ecological Storm Trooper.
    The girl I was watching looked up and our eyes flashed. Such a sweet little cunt, bulging the jeans out. And how aware of it she was, and how she said yes with such burning naivete. My stomach dropped and I tingled clear down to my toes. Lucinda saw what was happening and feigned a look of benign amusement. I smiled insipidly