Love Your Enemies

The baby was called Charlie, short for Charlotte. She was four months old. Sammy Jo tossed the nappy into the (thankfully close) washing basket and carefully laid Charlie’s head down again. She picked up a clean nappy and formed it into the requisite shape. The baby wheezed quietly.

Sammy Jo stared out of the window for a moment and caught sight of her husband Jason hanging out some nappies on the line. She rolled her tongue around the long nappy pin with its baby pink tip which she had stuck in the corner of her mouth – like a metal cigarette – while she felt around sightlessly on the table for some baby-wipes and talc.

The telephone rang. She grimaced to herself, let go of the tin of talc and then reached over to pick it up. Charlie screwed up her face at the sudden sharpness of the ringing – she couldn’t decide whether to cry or not – and then relaxed again when it stopped. Sammy Jo carried on staring out of the window. ‘Yes?’

She never said anything but ‘yes’ when she answered the telephone. Her biggest mistake in the past had been repeating her name and number on answering. She now knew that if you say your name and number some strange people copy this information down when they hear a woman’s voice. Then they telephone you again and again and turn your life into a living hell.

Sammy Jo’s telephone number was ex-directory. All the people who now had her number were people that she definitely trusted; a mere handful. This system had hitherto proved virtually foolproof.

A voice said, ‘What can we be sure of in our life? What two things can we infer – almost immediately – without needing to resort to empirical information?’

Sammy Jo’s eyes snapped away from the window and focused, somewhat pointlessly, on the telephone receiver in her hand. The voice continued, ‘By empirical I mean “information derived from experience”. Does all this sound rather confusing? Don’t let it confuse you. I’ve already confused myself. Bringing in the notion of empirical experience – Locke, Hume, remember those names – has confused things already. Let’s start again.’

Sammy Jo slammed down the receiver. She stood up and searched around for some paper and a pen. She found a thick telephone pad with slightly sticky adhesive edges which she had been given (months before) by her local independent pizza restaurant and takeaway. Each piece of paper was shaped like a red and yellow pizza, intermittently round, with the address and telephone number of the restaurant in small print at the top.

She placed the pad on the table in between the telephone and the baby and began to write: Man, Thirty/forty, deep but weak voice – muffled? Breathy.

She paused and thought for a moment and then wrote: Rubbish, not offensive. She crossed out the word offensive and then wrote sexual instead. She bit her lip. The telephone rang again. She stared out of the window towards Jason (who still seemed rather preoccupied) and then slowly, hesitantly, picked up the receiver. A voice said, ‘Hi! Sammy Jo?’ Sammy Jo breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed visibly. She smiled. ‘Hello. Yes?’

‘Hi Sammy, it’s Lucy here, Lucy Cosbie. How are things?’

Sammy Jo pinched the receiver between her shoulder and her ear while using her two free hands to grab a tissue and wipe Charlie’s bottom. Charlie let out a small whimper, but Lucy Cosbie heard it. ‘Is that Charlie there?’

Sammy Jo grinned. ‘Yeah. I’m changing her. I haven’t seen you for a couple of months, Lucy. You must pop around when you’re free. Jason mentioned you only the other day …’

Lucy’s laughter echoed down the telephone line. ‘Wow! I must be making progress if Jason’s asking about me!’

Sammy Jo clucked her tongue and picked up the talc. ‘Don’t be stupid. In a way I think he kind of misses you.’

Lucy stopped laughing and said, ‘Well, this is just a semi-professional informal call. I wanted to make sure that things are fine, that everything is going well, you know …’

Sammy Jo finished talcing the baby’s bottom and put the talc bottle down on the table. She stared guiltily at the pizza pad in front of her and touched what she had written on the pad with her index finger. She then said, ‘Honestly, Lucy, everything’s great. I already have my midwife coming around every other week to check up on Charlie’s progress. She’s doing just fine. I think enough of the council’s resources have been spent on me already without you worrying too …’

Lucy was sensitive to Sammy Jo’s tone. She said lightly, ‘Sammy Jo, relax. I’m not checking up on you. I know how sensitive young mums can be. I’m honestly not intruding, just interested.’

Sammy Jo interrupted, breathless with embarrassment. ‘Lucy, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound like that, honestly. I’m just a bit uptight today. You’re more than welcome here any time. In fact, why don’t we make a date for a visit right now? How about Thursday afternoon?’

Sammy Jo could hear the busy noises of an office and a typewriter behind Lucy’s voice. Lucy said, ‘Hey! I’m quite a busy person, Sammy Jo. I’m afraid Thursday’s a bit tight for me. I tell you what, why don’t I ring in a couple of weeks’ time and we can make an evening arrangement? Something purely social. That way the neighbours can’t possibly have anything to gossip about, especially if I arrive on your doorstep after six-thirty with a bottle of wine. How about it? Purely informal. I’m desperate to see that gorgeous baby again.’

Sammy Jo smiled. ‘I don’t care what anyone thinks, Lucy. I’d love to see you, any time of day. Telephone soon, OK?’

They exchanged their farewells.

Sammy Jo put down her receiver and reached out to pick up Charlie’s legs, lifted them up a few inches and slid the nappy underneath her whitely talced bottom. Before she could complete her nappy-tying, Jason had strolled into the room with the bag of remaining clothes pegs tucked under his arm. He said, ‘Did I hear the telephone ring?’

Sammy Jo nodded. ‘Yes. It was Lucy Cosbie.’

He raised his eyebrows, rather cynically. ‘Checking up? I didn’t think you were her department any more.’

Sammy Jo smiled. ‘I’m not. Just a social call, that’s all.’ She pushed the nappy pin into Charlie’s nappy and, picking her up, said, ‘Look, Jason, Charlie’s left you a little present in the washing basket.’

Jason looked down at the basket and let out a howl of horror. ‘Bloody hell! You’d think we had a production line of babies in here, not just one, with the amount of waste she produces. I’m sure that when she eventually gets around to speaking, her first coherent words will be “More washing, Daddy.”’

Sammy Jo was looking around for one of Charlie’s clean romper suits. Before she could say anything Jason said, ‘In the pile on the sofa. Would you mind putting on some rubber knickers this time so it doesn’t get soaked in twenty seconds?’

She winked. ‘Oh, Jason, you never said you liked me in rubber before!’

He smiled and shook his head. ‘I know that I agreed to take responsibility for the washing of nappies and stuff if we had a baby, Sammy Jo, but tomorrow I have a lot of work on so I might just pop out and buy a packet or two of disposables, all right? Just for one day.’

Sammy Jo shrugged, unmoved, ‘I don’t care, Jason, go ahead. You’re the one who’s so bothered about the environmental angle concerning disposables, not me. Buy them if you want to, feel free.’

Jason picked up his jacket, which was slung over the back of the sofa. He said, ‘I’ll pop out now. Do you want anything else?’

Sammy Jo smiled obsequiously. ‘I’ll write you a list.’

She looked around her and then saw the pizza pad on the table. Jason was watching her as he pulled his jacket on. She saw the few words that she had scribbled on to the top of the pad and, trying not to frown, ripped the page away and screwed it up in her hand. Jason said, ‘What’s that? Beginning of your thesis?’

She grimaced. ‘Very funny. Actually it was a trial shopping list, but I’ve now thought of several items extra, including five years’ subscription to Parenting magazine.’

She wrote down a couple of things and then handed him the piece of paper. He took it and perused it for a second. ‘For a frightening moment there I thought you were serious.’

She shrugged, ‘You know me, Jason, happy with sterilizing liquid and rosehip syrup. I don’t need anything else in my life.’

He raised his eyebrows in disbelief, chucked Charlie gently under her chin and said, ‘I’ll only be gone ten minutes or so, enjoy yourself.’ Sammy Jo smiled.

When he had gone, she found a pair of rubber knickers, put them over Charlie’s nappy and then manoeuvred the baby’s tiny body into a yellow lambswool romper suit. She pulled a small, soft blanket from her cot by the window and wrapped her up in it, then lay her down inside the cot. Charlie squawked her disapproval as soon as Sammy Jo set her down. Sammy Jo steeled herself to ignore these noises and strolled into the kitchen to make a mug of tea. As she switched the kettle on the telephone started ringing. She paused for a moment and then went to answer it.

‘Yes?’

A voice said, ‘Forget all that crap about empirical information. I don’t want to alarm you with big words before you’ve even got a grip on the basic ideas.’

Sammy Jo bit her lip, and then said violently, ‘What makes you think that I don’t understand what that word means? What the hell makes you presume that?’

Her heart sank. She hadn’t intended to participate in this conversation at all. She knew that participation was half of the trouble with anonymous callers. It meant that you were condoning the act. Implicitly. She felt ashamed and stupid and thought, ‘After all I’ve been through, I’m still a silly, stupid novice. I haven’t learned anything. I don’t deserve people’s help and advice.’

The voice continued, ‘Let’s go back to what I said first, Sammy Jo. That question about two things in life that we can be sure of. Two basic things.’

Sammy Jo’s heart plummeted. She thought, ‘My God, he knows my name. Did I say my name when I answered this time? Why did I answer him in the first place?’

She said, ‘I guess I can be sure that you are telephoning me, irritating me, involving yourself in my life when all I really wish is that you were dead in a room somewhere or dying of a terrible disease, or at the very least in some fundamental physical discomfort.’

The voice cackled, ‘Well done! That’s part of the answer, Sammy Jo, very well done. To put it simply, the two things that we can really be sure of in life are (a) that we exist. We can be sure of ourselves. Are you in any doubt that you exist, Sammy Jo, any doubt at all?’

Sammy Jo sighed. ‘The only thing I don’t doubt is that you are a pain in the fanny. That’s all.’

The voice paused for a moment and then said, ‘I get your point. We know that we exist because we can feel pain. Our bodies feel pain. I can be sure of two things, to quote Russell: “We are acquainted with our sense-data and, probably, with ourselves. These we know to exist.” Sense-data is a silly technical word which I’ll explain to you later.’

Sammy Jo was biting her nails and looking around for the pen she’d used earlier to write her shopping list. To pass the time she said, ‘Go away. I don’t want to talk to you.’

The voice said, ‘Imagine yourself in any situation, any situation at all. It doesn’t matter what you imagine yourself doing.’

He paused. ‘I knew it would come to this, he’s going to talk dirty. I knew it,’ Sammy Jo thought instantaneously. She felt familiar feelings of outraged passivity seeping into her chest. ‘Go on, say it, you dirty bastard. Don’t pretend that this is about anything else,’ she said.

But the voice continued, ‘No matter what you think, do or imagine, the only constant element is you. You can’t get away from yourself. You can imagine that the world is a figment of your imagination, that the sky is yellow but just seems blue, that your body doesn’t really exist and that you are just imagining that it does, that you are in fact asleep and dreaming and not awake at all. Close your eyes.’

Automatically Sammy Jo closed her eyes and quickly opened them again. She hung up. The phone rang immediately. She let it ring about ten times until the repetitive noise it made began to upset Charlie and she began to splutter and howl. Sammy Jo felt guilty about letting it upset her and also couldn’t help thinking that perhaps it was someone else. Eventually she picked it up. ‘Yes?’

The voice continued, ‘If you close your eyes it’s possible to reject almost everything that seems predictable in everyday life.’

She sighed and then said bitterly, ‘I can’t deny the fact that you exist, though, can I? You exist, don’t you?’

The voice was urgent and persuasive. ‘No way. Think about it. Nothing exterior to your mind and your thought is necessary. Don’t be confused by my use of the word “necessary” here. I used it in its philosophical context. By it I mean a Necessary Truth, something that cannot be denied. For all you know my voice could be just a figment of your imagination.’

Sammy Jo laughed, a guttural, cynical laugh. ‘Oh, so now you’re going to tell me that this telephone call, this infuriating interruption in my life, is my own fault. Is that it?’

‘Could be.’

Sammy Jo sighed loudly. ‘Well, if I made you up, how come you won’t go away?’

There was a short silence. During this silence Sammy Jo picked up her pen and wrote the words NECESSARY TRUTH on the pizza pad in large capitals. The voice then said, ‘Try and remember this phrase: I Think Therefore I Am. In Latin it goes Cogito Ergo Sum. I think is “cogito”, c-o-g-i-t-o. Therefore is ergo, e-r-g-o. I am is sum, s-u-m. Got that?’

Sammy Jo finished writing down the last letter, then slammed her pen down on the table. ‘What on earth makes you think I give a damn? You’re boring me. Go and bore someone else.’

The voice said calmly, ‘I want you to read something by a guy called Descartes tonight. He was the founder of modern philosophy – circa 1600. He invented something called “The Method of Systematic Doubt”. If you can get hold of his Meditations I’d recommend the first chapter. It’s only short.’

Sammy Jo said quickly, ‘Forget it. I’ll be much too busy this evening committing sodomy with my household pet and watching Emmerdale Farm.’

This time he rang off.

She picked up her pen again and wrote down the name Descartes (although she spelled it Deycart), then threw the pen down, tore off the top page of the pad, crumpled it up and threw it at the paper bin in the corner of the room. The paper missed the bin and hit the wall. She got up and went into the kitchen to finish making her cup of tea. While she was pouring in the milk Jason returned carrying a couple of bags of Pampers. He pinched her arm, ‘Tea! Yes please!’ She grimaced and bent down to get out another cup.

That night when they were both lying in bed waiting to go to sleep and listening out for Charlie’s whimpers from her cot nearby, Sammy Jo took hold of Jason’s arm and said, ‘Jason, have you ever heard of Descartes?’

Jason yawned and turned over on to his back, ‘I don’t know, Sammy Jo. I have some vague ideas about him. Probably read him at college at some point. Why?’

Sammy Jo shrugged. ‘Is it rude?’

Jason laughed. ‘Not so far as I know. He was French, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he was a kinky writer.’

Sammy Jo sighed. ‘Oh.’

Jason paused for a moment, then said, ‘Sammy Jo, I didn’t mean to be off-putting. If you’re interested I might have a book on ancient philosophy downstairs that features him, but I can’t be sure.’ Sammy Jo smiled. ‘I don’t think so, Jason. Apparently Descartes was the founder of modern philosophical thought.’

Jason opened his eyes and stared at her in the dark.

The following afternoon Sammy Jo had just returned from taking Charlie out for a walk in her pram and was taking off her coat and combing a hand through her rather windswept short, red hair, when the telephone started ringing. She picked Charlie up and went to answer it. It was the man again. She pulled the telephone over towards the sofa and sat down, balancing Charlie on her knees, supporting her with one hand. The man said, ‘Hello, Sammy Jo. I suppose it would be optimistic of me to expect you to have read that chunk of Descartes’ Meditations that I recommended to you last night? The first chapter, remember?’

Sammy Jo snorted. ‘Why don’t you just sod off?’

The man continued, ‘After I rang off yesterday it occurred to me that I hadn’t been particularly encouraging towards you, and that was very wrong of me. I think you did extremely well, all things considered. You are obviously an intelligent woman. I think you just need stretching.’

Sammy Jo shook her head, ‘No, I don’t need stretching. The only person who needs stretching around here is you, and by that I mean stretching on the rack. Ancient forms of torture. I like that idea.’

The man said quietly, ‘Try not to be so combative, Sammy Jo. Let’s just get back to Descartes and his Method of Systematic Doubt.’

Sammy Jo hung up. As she tucked Charlie up in her cot a good fifty seconds or so later, the telephone started to ring again. Sammy Jo finished arranging Charlie’s covers and then, grabbing hold of her pizza pad and pen, went to answer it.

‘Yes?’

The man said, ‘Do you understand the word ‘scepticism’, Sammy Jo? Try and give me a working definition.’

Sammy Jo was writing on her pad in untidy capitals. She wrote: I WILL NOT GIVE IN. I CANNOT GIVE IN. I SHALL NOT GIVE IN. I MUST TAKE POSITIVE ACTION … TELEPHONE JASON? TELEPHONE LUCY COSBIE? WHISTLE DOWN THE TELEPHONE?

The voice said, somewhat more harshly, ‘Sammy Jo? Do you understand the meaning of the word scepticism?’

Sammy Jo threw down her pen and ripped the top page away from her pad. She shouted, ‘Of course I do. Don’t patronize me. Of course I do.’

‘Well, give me a working definition, then.’

‘Why should I? Why?’

He sighed, ‘Just to prove that you know.’

She laughed. ‘I don’t need to prove anything to you.’

‘Well, prove it to yourself then.’

Sammy Jo hesitated for a moment, then picked up her pen again. She said quietly, ‘All right then, I don’t really understand what it means, properly. Tell me and I’ll write it down.’

That night during dinner Sammy Jo asked Jason if he could get her a proper lined writing pad from work and a couple of spare biros. Jason was cutting up his fish fingers with one eye on the television, watching Wogan. Wogan was interviewing Candice Bergen. Jason put a mouthful of the battered fish into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully without replying. Sammy Jo glared at him. ‘Jason, do you mind paying me some attention? I’m talking to you!’

He turned towards her. ‘Something about paper and pens, right?’

She nodded. ‘Would you get me some from work? They supply you free don’t they?’

He frowned. ‘What do you want them for?’

Sammy Jo turned her eyes towards the television screen and focused on Wogan’s tie. ‘Nothing in particular. Telephone messages, addresses, sometimes on daytime television they have interesting babycare tips and recipes and stuff. They’d just come in handy.’

Jason carried on eating, ‘OK, I’ll try and remember.’

The following day Sammy Jo left the house at eleven o’clock with Charlie tucked up in her pram, and went out shopping. She collected Charlie’s child benefit money from the post office, then caught a bus into the centre of Milton Keynes. In her pocket was a piece of the pizza pad with the address of a bookshop scribbled on it. She found the bookshop and pushed her way clumsily inside. The short, dark man standing behind his desk in the shop came forward to help her. He said, ‘These places aren’t designed with prams in mind.’

Sammy Jo smiled. ‘Next time I’ll remember that and leave the baby on the bus.’

He grinned. ‘I didn’t mean any offence. Leave the pram here by the till and I’ll keep an eye on the baby while you browse.’

Sammy Jo let go of the pram and strolled around the shop. After several minutes she returned to the assistant and said, ‘If I keep an eye on the baby, would you mind finding copies of these books for me?’

She handed him her piece of paper which he took from her and perused. He smiled – ‘No problem’ – and quickly located the volumes in question. She held the three thin books in her hands and looked guiltily at the prices. The assistant noticed her concern. He said, ‘Specialist books are expensive on the whole, but I think you’ll find that those are quite reasonable. Russell was a bit of a popularist – excluding his works on mathematical logic, of course – so his more general works are very reasonably priced. The Descartes is a fraction more expensive, but the Sartre isn’t too bad. That’s fiction though, The Age of Reason, it’s a great book.’

Sammy Jo smiled at the assistant. He seemed enthusiastic and well read. She said, ‘One day I hope to be as well informed as you are. Which book do you think I should read first?’

He shrugged. ‘It depends on what you’re after. If I were you I’d read The Age of Reason first. It’s good to introduce yourself to ideas in an informal sort of way. Then the ideas just pop into your head and it’s no strain to pick them up.’

Sammy Jo looked at the synopsis on the back of the Penguin paperback. ‘It looks a bit heavy going.’

The assistant smiled sympathetically. ‘You haven’t bought it yet. You could always change your mind.’

Sammy Jo looked at him quizzically. ‘Do you think I should?’

He chuckled, ‘I’m playing the devil’s advocate. The story is about free will, about a man’s search for personal freedom. You should use your free will to decide whether you really want to buy it or not. If you choose to buy it then you will have made a commitment to the book. In fact you will have involved yourself in the book’s fundamental dilemmas.’

His face glowed as he explained this to her. His green eyes shone and he seemed excited. Sammy Jo handed him the three books and said, ‘All right, I’ll have them. I’ll read the …’ she paused. ‘Why are all these names so hard to pronounce?’

He took the books and put them into a bag. ‘Say the word “start”.’

Sammy Jo repeated after him, ‘Start.’

‘Then take out the first letter t so it’s “sart”.’

She copied him: ‘Sart.’

‘Then say the word “rough”.’

She smiled. ‘Rough.’

‘But forget about the “ugh” part and just say “ro”. Then altogether it’s “Sartre”. Obviously that’s the simple English pronunciation, but people will know who you mean.’

Sammy Jo said the name out loud to him a few times and then handed him some of her child benefit money. She said, ‘I’m going to start the Sartre on the bus home. I hope I enjoy it.’

He finished wrapping up her books and handed them over to her. ‘That’s entirely up to you.’

She grinned. ‘That’s a joke, right?’

When Sammy Jo got home she changed and fed the baby and then made herself a sandwich and sat down on the sofa to start Chapter Two of The Age of Reason. Her main thoughts about its central character, Mathieu, were that she was glad that he wasn’t looking after her baby. He didn’t seem responsible enough. When the telephone rang she told the man on the line these thoughts. She said, ‘Ideas are all right, but ideas can’t guide your life, it isn’t practical or realistic.’

He laughed. ‘So what do you think should be man’s main motivation? The acquisition of food? Making cups of tea?’

She raised her eyebrows – fully cognizant of his cynicism – and stared out of the window. ‘I wasn’t saying that. I’m not quite so stupid. All I mean is that people can’t afford to be so self-indulgent, so luxurious. You have to get on with things. My life would be in a fine mess if I suddenly decided that I wanted to be free, that I couldn’t be bothered to look after my young baby any more because she gets in the way of my freedom and independence.’

The man sounded irritated. ‘No, you’re trivializing the issue. You decided to have the baby, you made that decision freely many months ago. You could have aborted the child had you felt otherwise. The character Mathieu isn’t entirely unhindered in his decisions about whether he wants Marcelle’s baby … that’s silly, what I mean to say is that obviously he doesn’t want a baby but he has other considerations to take into account; Marcelle’s feelings, money, the illegality of abortions …’