This was a travel piece written for and published in The List magazine. Two things to know: 1. soon after this came out Nova collapsed for various reasons and currently exists in a fragmented form. 2. There is a clause in the Nova contract that holds you liable for any negative publicity directly attributable to you. I won't do a James Kelman and point out all the bits that were edited out, rather I will bow to sub-editor knowledge and give you the version as it appeared in The List. With one caveat. The headline wasn't mine.
Scottish writer Iain Maloney spent two years teaching English in Inuyama, a small town in Japan. Here, he writes about his experiences:
The door slid shut with a bang and all four customers turned and stared. I squeezed my way along the narrow space between walls and stools, perched myself on an empty one and opened my phrase book.
‘Biru . . .’ Pause to look at book.
‘. . . Kudasai.’
My beer arrived and with it the questions. By 10pm my new friends were leading me to a pub-cum-tattoo shop so I could be introduced to the English-speaking Bosnian owner. We played darts, ate tacos and drank sake infused with ginseng and snake venom.
‘I’m a bit tired,’ I emailed my mother, ‘but Japan seems very nice.’
I spent my first evening sitting on the balcony of my new flat with a can of Asahi beer and a cigarette. It had been one hell of a day. I’d been told that I would be arriving in the middle of the rainy season. ‘Fair enough,’ I thought, ‘I’m from Scotland; I can cope with rain.’ But after being in the country for three minutes I was soaked through, even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Humidity is something the Scottish weather just doesn’t do, and I don’t like it: leaving the airport was like walking into a hangover. I felt physically deflated, every ounce of energy I’d held in reserve sapped by the simple act of walking.
On the train I was squashed against strangers, face against glass, struggling to breathe. Between stations and stolen gasps I caught glimpses of my new home. The architecture was Soviet-style, functional and featureless rather than the futuristic Blade Runner look promised by the guidebooks.
I was met at the airport by my new boss. We reached Inuyama and confidently followed the map to my flat. I stopped and bought some noodles from a convenience store and stood eating them as my boss looked from the cross on the map to the multi-storey car park we were standing in.
‘I don’t think this is it,’ he said.
‘No?’
‘No.’
On one side of the car park was a temple. On the other a corrugated structure reminiscent of a crack house. I was too jet-lagged to care. An old woman looked at the map, and confirmed that we were indeed in a car park.
The view from my balcony: to the north the Japanese signs blinked invitingly and traditional roofs curved over Zen gardens. The south was reminiscent of small-town America: a long straight Main Street lined with neon burger and bar signs. Karaoke bars and sushi shops on one side, Denny’s and McDonald’s on the other. East meeting West with my flat at the epicentre.
I worked for Nova, the biggest private language school in Japan. Unlike JET, which places teachers in state schools, Nova is for fee-paying students of all ages. It is ideal for the first-timer to Japan: the company organises all the paperwork and accommodation and arranges for you to be met at the airport.
I had pictured teaching as a distraction from the important business of travelling, drinking heavily and belting out Green Day tracks in karaoke bars. It wasn’t. My pupils were aged between two and 78, and as Nova is a conversation school they practice chatting by, well, chatting. You don’t have to worry about students repeatedly asking you to explain the ‘present continuous past perfect subjunctive’; you’re more likely to be asked, ‘why don’t westerners take their shoes off in the house?’ or ‘How do I get a British girlfriend?’ Two questions I am still unable to answer.
Teaching the children was an absolute joy as they were energetic, fun and mostly well-behaved. Forty minutes of stomping and shouting around a classroom, playing baseball and snap, and getting paid for it? If this is work then I’ll do a 14-hour shift. Besides, nothing can beat the overwhelming feeling of Mr Mayagi-like wisdom you get the first time a child bows low and says: ‘Good morning, Sensei’.
Although I arrived in Japan a virtual illiterate, the language wasn’t the obstacle I expected it to be. Staff in train stations speak enough English to get you to Tokyo and even the ticket machines speak more languages than your average UN translator. Living in the country does require some effort if you want to converse with more than ticket machines, though; smiling and pointing is fine, but I don’t believe that illiteracy is a virtue and I wanted friends not charades partners.
Japanese, with only two tenses and no plurals or articles, comes as a welcome relief for anyone forced to conjugate être and avoir at school, and finding a victim to practice on is easy in such a friendly country. Usually within ten minutes of sitting at the bar by myself, someone a few sakes braver would sidle over to practice their English. Invariably they were part of a larger group and would invite me back to their table for drinking games, amusement and, once, an arm-wrestling competition.
Japan is so varied and wonderful that everyday something surprises you, whether that be women in traditional kimono belting out Pink’s ‘Just Like A Pill’ at karaoke, fertility festivals with three metre tall wooden penises or peerless Mount Fuji standing 3776m high with a cigarette vending machine at the top. But nothing beats Japan’s people. Unparalleled in hospitality, warmth and friendliness, their example strips the cynicism and selfishness of Europe off you like so much excess weight. In this job I became both teacher and student. I fell in love.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Silhouette
Apathetic? Bored? Banging your head against a brick wall? Call 080074566745 today. No commitment. 7-day trial period.
Tom looked at the paper again.
- Here, listen to this he said, reading out the advert.
- What’s that mean?
- Dunno, bit weird innit.
Tom grabbed his coat, put his fags, zippo, keys and phone into the right pocket, fished them out of the lining and moved them to the left. Stuck the paper in the inside pocket.
- Off out?
John liked to state the obvious.
- Yeah, I’m working at 4 and I need to get some food first.
- See ya.
- Aye.
He was getting bored of living with John. They’d only moved in together because John’s previous flatmates had thrown him out. Of course that wasn’t the story John told but with every passing week it was the story Tom believed more and more. Still, he paid the rent, though where he got the money was anyone’s guess.
Stepping over the wino sitting on his doorstep Tom wandered down George Street squinting into the sun. Typical, he thought: first sunny day in weeks and I have to spend it in an underground pub. He went into the Italian café and sat down at the corner table facing the window. When his pannini, salami and onion arrived he took the paper out of his pocket and opened it at the jobs section.
Nothing. Again. He’d bought a paper every day for the last month just to get the jobs. He didn’t mind where the job was as long as it paid well. It was getting him down. Two months since he’d finished uni and he was still living in the same flat, doing the same job he’d got in first year.
Friends. One in Glasgow working for a publishing company, two doing PhDs, one teaching English in Nice and another in China. He was still in Aberdeen earning peanuts in a pretentious wine bar frequented by alcoholic bankers. He turned the page and his eyes landed on that advert again. It stood out from the others only because it contained no naked pouting women. It looked almost like a sympathy card.
Draining his juice he thought of the night ahead. Even the thought sapped his strength. He glanced at his watch. 3:30. If he was feeling conscientious, as he had when he first got the job, he’d be there by now. Get the banking done and out of the way, take his time, make sure everything was done to the best of his ability. Not now. He’d probably sit here until after four. Blame the buses if the boss phoned. Fuck it, he could set the bar up in ten minutes and it didn’t open until five.
He wondered what John was doing. Watching another Star Trek DVD no doubt. One wall of the living room was covered with sci-fi DVDs. Tom liked Star Trek but being subjected to it day in day out had reduced its appeal. John had this theory that each episode was another chapter in the Star Trek continuum rather than a story in its own right. And you don’t read random chapters of a book do you? No. You start at the beginning. So if he wanted to watch DS9 episode 32 then he had to watch the previous 31. Inevitably he sat there watching every series of it from start to finish, pilot to conclusion. Either that or he’d be taking advantage of Tom’s absence to watch one of his porn films. Not that his absence was a prerequisite. It had reached the point where Tom rarely entered the living room. Jesus it was depressing. He looked down and noticed that he’d been drawing on the paper – circling and re-circling the advert. His phone rang.
- Hi Andy.
- Tom, where are you?
He glanced at his watch. 4:05. He was fast today.
- On my way to the bank, we need some change.
- Oh okay. Phone me when you get back to the pub.
- Okay.
*
High wall, granite blocks. No breaks, smooth. Curves away left and right, east and west, no end in sight. Moss covers sections, hangs on to the vertical, fearful of releasing for a second. How high? Unsure. Too high. Must be a way in, over, through, round. Under? Wall continues past the crust. He knows this instinctively, no need to question the answer. Why in? Just…because…that’s why. Nothing to do on the outside. He rests his hand against the wall. It is warm. It gives, relents like a sponge. He can push into the wall; its stone bending with him until a natural balance is reached and it will budge no further. He steps back, surveys. He studies. He tries other blocks. Each identical. No difference between high, low, left, right. The edge and the middle are the same. The moss stretches to accommodate. He varies his force, now pushing hard, now soft, now quick, now imperceptibly slow. The wall moves with him, each time responding with an equal reaction. He begins to walk, keeping his hand against the stone, palm and fingers, caressing, searching. Nothing. No clues. He stops, scans 360. Nothing. Dirt and sand stretch to every horizon, the surface curve obvious on the uninterrupted terrain. A panic wells up, burning like bile in his chest. He doubles over, pain seeping into every cavity, every organ, every bone, pulsing through his veins. He must get in. Will die otherwise. The pain reaches and breaches every threshold until he runs, screaming, at the wall. He hits, face first. His nose explodes, dyeing the moss, fragmenting bone and skin. Nothing. When he comes round the wall has moved farther back. He is now about a mile from it. Still he can see no end, no top. Just a fortress wall, curving with the earth away from him. No sign of a gate, even a crack in the stone. He sits in the sand and cries, the tears washing blood and dirt from his skin, staining his bare chest black and red. The sun beats down. There is no wind. The air he breathes enflames his lungs, scorches his throat. He lies back. The sun is in the exact place it has always been. There is no night here, not that he can remember. Will there be night on the other side? Respite. Intoxicating blindness. To be able to sleep, dream, wake refreshed. He stands, pain surging through his cracked feet, blood seeping into the arid land. Nothing here but stone and the heavy press of time. He spits into cupped hands, the measly offering almost bubbling in the heat. He spreads it around his palms then attempts to wash his face. He turns his attention to the wall. He begins treading wearily towards it, ready to begin again, though where and how he refuses to even consider. He wonders what is beyond the wall. Water. Green. Others. The memory of a towered city, resplendent with running water, parks, people, sunlight gleaming off glass towers, imposing but finite. Anything is manageable but infinity. He wonders briefly where this image came from but casts it aside. It merely distracts from his goal: survival to see the opposite side.
*
Something was wrong. He knew from the moment he opened the door. Voices. Not TV voices - those are easily distinguishable from reality - no background music, no orchestrated set pieces. Normal conversation never flows like TV. Certainly not like Star Trek. There was more than one person in the flat. His first thought was burglars. A more rational explanation than the other – that John had someone over. Like a burglar himself he eased the door closed and tiptoed to the living room. Definitely John and someone else – someone female. They were laughing.
This was unbelievable. In all the time he’d lived there, John hadn’t brought a friend or family member to the flat, let alone a woman. That she might be a prostitute flashed through his mind but no, John wasn’t a renowned conversationalist. If he’d hired a woman for sex the last thing he’d bother to do was make her laugh. He stepped into the living room.
- Not interrupting anything am I?
He stopped. Siobhan. What the fuck was Siobhan doing here?
- Hi Tom, she said. How was work?
- Oh great, some twat liked his drink so much that he had to taste it twice – all over the stairs. How are you? I didn’t expect to see you here.
Siobhan had been in his year at uni, in some of his classes. He had lusted after her for as long as he could remember. Shoulder length dark hair – not black but not really brunette either – high cheekbones, pale face, deep brown eyes. Tom suddenly realised he was staring at her.
- Oh, John phoned me up and invited me over. I had nothing better to do so I thought why not?
- What are you watching?
- Dazed and Confused, said John. I bought it the other day and Siobhan hasn’t seen it.
- You don’t have any grass do you? she said. I took some over but it’s all gone. There’s a bit of wine left if you want?
- Sure, I’ve got a bit.
The joint wasn’t shaping up well. Never the best of rollers, his attention was currently divided between what his hands were doing and what his flatmate was doing. Well more what she was doing. John was just sitting watching the TV, no obvious signs of enjoyment. Siobhan was draped across John’s lap, running her hand up and down his thigh. This man should play poker.
Fuck this, he thought, roughly pushing the narrow roach into the massive expanse at the end of the spliff.
- Here, it’s a bit shit but I’m fucked, I’m going to bed.
Lying on his bed, still dressed he laughed. That really summed John up. Obviously bored and horny he had got Tom’s address book and phoned the first woman in it. Siobhan Adams. He’d met her a few times but they hadn’t seemed to get on. He randomly phones a woman he barely knows and she comes over, just like that. Unbe-fucking-lievable.
Tired as he was, he knew he wouldn’t sleep for a while. He looked at the books on his shelf. Read them all. Nothing demanding to be read again. He still had the newspaper. Shit. It was in his jacket in the living room. Oh well. He swung his legs down and padded into the room. Ignoring them he pulled the paper from his coat and was about to leave when he noticed that Siobhan was going down on John. Oh for Christsake. John was still watching the film, as glazed as ever. More so now that the joint had been smoked. A slight smirk crossed his face as Tom passed. Siobhan either didn’t notice him or didn’t care.
Fucking wanker. He’d been after her for years, made a complete tit out of himself in order to get her phone number and always nothing. Never even a rejection, simply a complete lack of acknowledgement. He kicked his shoes off in disgust, inadvertently knocking over a pot plant. He flopped back onto the bed and hid his head under the pillow.
*
Exhausted by walking he fell to the ground. He did not know how far nor how long he’d been moving but where his footprints had been red feet, dogging him, they were now red streaks, indistinct smears where the effort to actually take a step had proved impossible. If only there was some other way to travel. If he could fly up, over. Even if he couldn’t fly over then round so that he could cover the ground quicker. There may still be a gate he has been unable to find. There must be a gate. Why build a wall which encircles, without entrance or exit? To keep people out? Which people? He was the only one here. To keep people in? Why? Keep them away from what? Sand? The only other thing out here was him. He touched the wall, pushing it in, checking it still conformed to his expectations. At least if it moved then there was some hope. If he could find some way of pushing it harder then it might move far enough to admit him. Some of the moss came away in his hand. It was wet. He peered at the wall where the moss had been. There was a liquid trickling out. He wrung the moss into his mouth. Water. He gathered more, ripping and squeezing as fast as he could, water running over his face, down his body and into the cracked ground. Energy pulsed through him, he felt renewed. He could go on, wouldn’t die, a desiccated vegetable rotting in this infernal oven. He heard a noise. A rumble. Water, instead of dribbling, was beginning to run from where the moss had been. Fissures opened and more water followed. The bricks began to move, their uniform appearance breaking before his eyes. He stepped back, in fear.
*
Typical. It was always the same after working. Insomnia. During working hours the mind goes to sleep yet as soon as the shift finishes it reawakens like a hunger. He’d already gone through his repertoire of activities designed to encourage sleep: tidying the room, catching up on emails, wanking, reading Dickens. Even that hadn’t worked. The thought of Siobhan, in his flat, stoned and horny, wasn’t helping matters. He’d played the computer for a couple of hours, the act of shooting Nazi fuckheads usually allowed a release of tension but no such joy. He couldn’t get past the fire breathing zombie thing and the fact that the Germans spoke in bad accents with American phrasing had merely added to his irritation. Like those Hollywood films where the foreigners always speak to each other in English. Sean Connery in The Hunt For Red October – the only Russian in history to have a strong Leith accent. His mind was going round and round. His thoughts mimicked his life: circular and pointless. They’d never make a film about this life.
He heard the front door close, Siobhan’s step on the stair. Should he go out? Confront John? What was the point? He would just say something like “chill man, worse things happen at sea you know.” Cheers John, helpful as fucking ever.
He flicked through the paper, back to front. Coming to the end of the season, usual Celtic Rangers battle, speculation about transfers in the summer. Williams just won the Snooker World Championship, missed the fucking final. Why? Oh yeah, TNG episode 14. He looked at the crossword. Pet, three letters. Fucking tabloids.
His eyes alighted on that odd advert, circled again and again by thick biro, shutting it off from the rest of the page. He pulled his mobile out and keyed in the number. It rang.
*
The wall burst. A granite block exploded into his shoulder, spinning him to the ground. Everything was water. He felt his legs lift, cycling over the back of his head as the torrent flipped him downstream. His forehead collided with something painful and he gasped. Instantly the water sensed an opening and poured in, overcoming his gag reflex in a moment and filling his lungs. He could feel it spread through bronchioles and into air sacs like ink through fingerprints, could visualise his body filling. He could see nothing, couldn’t even open his eyes. Blackness choked him. The desert filled, the dam finally broken. The fissure in the wall grew, each block pulling others into the river. The moss still clinging began to grow, first covering the whole wall, then sprouting marram grass, then bushes, then finally trees, growing horizontally from the wall, curving up towards the stationary sun. As the reservoir settled, every available space filled, the initial force exhausted, the trees began to rot, crumbled to dust and floated calmly like algae. An ichthyosaur burst from the steel surface, arced through the air and hit the water as a dolphin. The sun dropped vertically from the sky leaving a moon, like an afterimage, in its place. The moon began to rotate in wider and wider circles until it covered the whole horizon in the space of a few seconds. The water responded - primal instinct woken by the moon’s presence - and began circling itself, creating a giant whirlpool. At the centre of the whirlpool, spinning so fast it looked stationary, was a body. It sank and bobbed like a fish-fly, disappearing, reappearing. The water level was dropping perceptibly, evaporating as the rotation increased speed. A few minutes passed and there was no liquid anywhere to be seen. The body, already dry, lay in a crumpled heap between the ruined edges of the wall. A twitch passed through him, then he vomited, streams of water boiling as they hit the already parched sand. He lay still, letting his wounds take care of themselves as the intense heat sutured the gashes curling round him like tiger stripes. His head pounded and his ears were ringing. He opened his eyes and saw a pair of feet, dark skinned, a ragged robe ringed the ankles. Using the last of his energy he rolled onto his back. and looked up at the face that blocked the sun.
Tom looked at the paper again.
- Here, listen to this he said, reading out the advert.
- What’s that mean?
- Dunno, bit weird innit.
Tom grabbed his coat, put his fags, zippo, keys and phone into the right pocket, fished them out of the lining and moved them to the left. Stuck the paper in the inside pocket.
- Off out?
John liked to state the obvious.
- Yeah, I’m working at 4 and I need to get some food first.
- See ya.
- Aye.
He was getting bored of living with John. They’d only moved in together because John’s previous flatmates had thrown him out. Of course that wasn’t the story John told but with every passing week it was the story Tom believed more and more. Still, he paid the rent, though where he got the money was anyone’s guess.
Stepping over the wino sitting on his doorstep Tom wandered down George Street squinting into the sun. Typical, he thought: first sunny day in weeks and I have to spend it in an underground pub. He went into the Italian café and sat down at the corner table facing the window. When his pannini, salami and onion arrived he took the paper out of his pocket and opened it at the jobs section.
Nothing. Again. He’d bought a paper every day for the last month just to get the jobs. He didn’t mind where the job was as long as it paid well. It was getting him down. Two months since he’d finished uni and he was still living in the same flat, doing the same job he’d got in first year.
Friends. One in Glasgow working for a publishing company, two doing PhDs, one teaching English in Nice and another in China. He was still in Aberdeen earning peanuts in a pretentious wine bar frequented by alcoholic bankers. He turned the page and his eyes landed on that advert again. It stood out from the others only because it contained no naked pouting women. It looked almost like a sympathy card.
Draining his juice he thought of the night ahead. Even the thought sapped his strength. He glanced at his watch. 3:30. If he was feeling conscientious, as he had when he first got the job, he’d be there by now. Get the banking done and out of the way, take his time, make sure everything was done to the best of his ability. Not now. He’d probably sit here until after four. Blame the buses if the boss phoned. Fuck it, he could set the bar up in ten minutes and it didn’t open until five.
He wondered what John was doing. Watching another Star Trek DVD no doubt. One wall of the living room was covered with sci-fi DVDs. Tom liked Star Trek but being subjected to it day in day out had reduced its appeal. John had this theory that each episode was another chapter in the Star Trek continuum rather than a story in its own right. And you don’t read random chapters of a book do you? No. You start at the beginning. So if he wanted to watch DS9 episode 32 then he had to watch the previous 31. Inevitably he sat there watching every series of it from start to finish, pilot to conclusion. Either that or he’d be taking advantage of Tom’s absence to watch one of his porn films. Not that his absence was a prerequisite. It had reached the point where Tom rarely entered the living room. Jesus it was depressing. He looked down and noticed that he’d been drawing on the paper – circling and re-circling the advert. His phone rang.
- Hi Andy.
- Tom, where are you?
He glanced at his watch. 4:05. He was fast today.
- On my way to the bank, we need some change.
- Oh okay. Phone me when you get back to the pub.
- Okay.
*
High wall, granite blocks. No breaks, smooth. Curves away left and right, east and west, no end in sight. Moss covers sections, hangs on to the vertical, fearful of releasing for a second. How high? Unsure. Too high. Must be a way in, over, through, round. Under? Wall continues past the crust. He knows this instinctively, no need to question the answer. Why in? Just…because…that’s why. Nothing to do on the outside. He rests his hand against the wall. It is warm. It gives, relents like a sponge. He can push into the wall; its stone bending with him until a natural balance is reached and it will budge no further. He steps back, surveys. He studies. He tries other blocks. Each identical. No difference between high, low, left, right. The edge and the middle are the same. The moss stretches to accommodate. He varies his force, now pushing hard, now soft, now quick, now imperceptibly slow. The wall moves with him, each time responding with an equal reaction. He begins to walk, keeping his hand against the stone, palm and fingers, caressing, searching. Nothing. No clues. He stops, scans 360. Nothing. Dirt and sand stretch to every horizon, the surface curve obvious on the uninterrupted terrain. A panic wells up, burning like bile in his chest. He doubles over, pain seeping into every cavity, every organ, every bone, pulsing through his veins. He must get in. Will die otherwise. The pain reaches and breaches every threshold until he runs, screaming, at the wall. He hits, face first. His nose explodes, dyeing the moss, fragmenting bone and skin. Nothing. When he comes round the wall has moved farther back. He is now about a mile from it. Still he can see no end, no top. Just a fortress wall, curving with the earth away from him. No sign of a gate, even a crack in the stone. He sits in the sand and cries, the tears washing blood and dirt from his skin, staining his bare chest black and red. The sun beats down. There is no wind. The air he breathes enflames his lungs, scorches his throat. He lies back. The sun is in the exact place it has always been. There is no night here, not that he can remember. Will there be night on the other side? Respite. Intoxicating blindness. To be able to sleep, dream, wake refreshed. He stands, pain surging through his cracked feet, blood seeping into the arid land. Nothing here but stone and the heavy press of time. He spits into cupped hands, the measly offering almost bubbling in the heat. He spreads it around his palms then attempts to wash his face. He turns his attention to the wall. He begins treading wearily towards it, ready to begin again, though where and how he refuses to even consider. He wonders what is beyond the wall. Water. Green. Others. The memory of a towered city, resplendent with running water, parks, people, sunlight gleaming off glass towers, imposing but finite. Anything is manageable but infinity. He wonders briefly where this image came from but casts it aside. It merely distracts from his goal: survival to see the opposite side.
*
Something was wrong. He knew from the moment he opened the door. Voices. Not TV voices - those are easily distinguishable from reality - no background music, no orchestrated set pieces. Normal conversation never flows like TV. Certainly not like Star Trek. There was more than one person in the flat. His first thought was burglars. A more rational explanation than the other – that John had someone over. Like a burglar himself he eased the door closed and tiptoed to the living room. Definitely John and someone else – someone female. They were laughing.
This was unbelievable. In all the time he’d lived there, John hadn’t brought a friend or family member to the flat, let alone a woman. That she might be a prostitute flashed through his mind but no, John wasn’t a renowned conversationalist. If he’d hired a woman for sex the last thing he’d bother to do was make her laugh. He stepped into the living room.
- Not interrupting anything am I?
He stopped. Siobhan. What the fuck was Siobhan doing here?
- Hi Tom, she said. How was work?
- Oh great, some twat liked his drink so much that he had to taste it twice – all over the stairs. How are you? I didn’t expect to see you here.
Siobhan had been in his year at uni, in some of his classes. He had lusted after her for as long as he could remember. Shoulder length dark hair – not black but not really brunette either – high cheekbones, pale face, deep brown eyes. Tom suddenly realised he was staring at her.
- Oh, John phoned me up and invited me over. I had nothing better to do so I thought why not?
- What are you watching?
- Dazed and Confused, said John. I bought it the other day and Siobhan hasn’t seen it.
- You don’t have any grass do you? she said. I took some over but it’s all gone. There’s a bit of wine left if you want?
- Sure, I’ve got a bit.
The joint wasn’t shaping up well. Never the best of rollers, his attention was currently divided between what his hands were doing and what his flatmate was doing. Well more what she was doing. John was just sitting watching the TV, no obvious signs of enjoyment. Siobhan was draped across John’s lap, running her hand up and down his thigh. This man should play poker.
Fuck this, he thought, roughly pushing the narrow roach into the massive expanse at the end of the spliff.
- Here, it’s a bit shit but I’m fucked, I’m going to bed.
Lying on his bed, still dressed he laughed. That really summed John up. Obviously bored and horny he had got Tom’s address book and phoned the first woman in it. Siobhan Adams. He’d met her a few times but they hadn’t seemed to get on. He randomly phones a woman he barely knows and she comes over, just like that. Unbe-fucking-lievable.
Tired as he was, he knew he wouldn’t sleep for a while. He looked at the books on his shelf. Read them all. Nothing demanding to be read again. He still had the newspaper. Shit. It was in his jacket in the living room. Oh well. He swung his legs down and padded into the room. Ignoring them he pulled the paper from his coat and was about to leave when he noticed that Siobhan was going down on John. Oh for Christsake. John was still watching the film, as glazed as ever. More so now that the joint had been smoked. A slight smirk crossed his face as Tom passed. Siobhan either didn’t notice him or didn’t care.
Fucking wanker. He’d been after her for years, made a complete tit out of himself in order to get her phone number and always nothing. Never even a rejection, simply a complete lack of acknowledgement. He kicked his shoes off in disgust, inadvertently knocking over a pot plant. He flopped back onto the bed and hid his head under the pillow.
*
Exhausted by walking he fell to the ground. He did not know how far nor how long he’d been moving but where his footprints had been red feet, dogging him, they were now red streaks, indistinct smears where the effort to actually take a step had proved impossible. If only there was some other way to travel. If he could fly up, over. Even if he couldn’t fly over then round so that he could cover the ground quicker. There may still be a gate he has been unable to find. There must be a gate. Why build a wall which encircles, without entrance or exit? To keep people out? Which people? He was the only one here. To keep people in? Why? Keep them away from what? Sand? The only other thing out here was him. He touched the wall, pushing it in, checking it still conformed to his expectations. At least if it moved then there was some hope. If he could find some way of pushing it harder then it might move far enough to admit him. Some of the moss came away in his hand. It was wet. He peered at the wall where the moss had been. There was a liquid trickling out. He wrung the moss into his mouth. Water. He gathered more, ripping and squeezing as fast as he could, water running over his face, down his body and into the cracked ground. Energy pulsed through him, he felt renewed. He could go on, wouldn’t die, a desiccated vegetable rotting in this infernal oven. He heard a noise. A rumble. Water, instead of dribbling, was beginning to run from where the moss had been. Fissures opened and more water followed. The bricks began to move, their uniform appearance breaking before his eyes. He stepped back, in fear.
*
Typical. It was always the same after working. Insomnia. During working hours the mind goes to sleep yet as soon as the shift finishes it reawakens like a hunger. He’d already gone through his repertoire of activities designed to encourage sleep: tidying the room, catching up on emails, wanking, reading Dickens. Even that hadn’t worked. The thought of Siobhan, in his flat, stoned and horny, wasn’t helping matters. He’d played the computer for a couple of hours, the act of shooting Nazi fuckheads usually allowed a release of tension but no such joy. He couldn’t get past the fire breathing zombie thing and the fact that the Germans spoke in bad accents with American phrasing had merely added to his irritation. Like those Hollywood films where the foreigners always speak to each other in English. Sean Connery in The Hunt For Red October – the only Russian in history to have a strong Leith accent. His mind was going round and round. His thoughts mimicked his life: circular and pointless. They’d never make a film about this life.
He heard the front door close, Siobhan’s step on the stair. Should he go out? Confront John? What was the point? He would just say something like “chill man, worse things happen at sea you know.” Cheers John, helpful as fucking ever.
He flicked through the paper, back to front. Coming to the end of the season, usual Celtic Rangers battle, speculation about transfers in the summer. Williams just won the Snooker World Championship, missed the fucking final. Why? Oh yeah, TNG episode 14. He looked at the crossword. Pet, three letters. Fucking tabloids.
His eyes alighted on that odd advert, circled again and again by thick biro, shutting it off from the rest of the page. He pulled his mobile out and keyed in the number. It rang.
*
The wall burst. A granite block exploded into his shoulder, spinning him to the ground. Everything was water. He felt his legs lift, cycling over the back of his head as the torrent flipped him downstream. His forehead collided with something painful and he gasped. Instantly the water sensed an opening and poured in, overcoming his gag reflex in a moment and filling his lungs. He could feel it spread through bronchioles and into air sacs like ink through fingerprints, could visualise his body filling. He could see nothing, couldn’t even open his eyes. Blackness choked him. The desert filled, the dam finally broken. The fissure in the wall grew, each block pulling others into the river. The moss still clinging began to grow, first covering the whole wall, then sprouting marram grass, then bushes, then finally trees, growing horizontally from the wall, curving up towards the stationary sun. As the reservoir settled, every available space filled, the initial force exhausted, the trees began to rot, crumbled to dust and floated calmly like algae. An ichthyosaur burst from the steel surface, arced through the air and hit the water as a dolphin. The sun dropped vertically from the sky leaving a moon, like an afterimage, in its place. The moon began to rotate in wider and wider circles until it covered the whole horizon in the space of a few seconds. The water responded - primal instinct woken by the moon’s presence - and began circling itself, creating a giant whirlpool. At the centre of the whirlpool, spinning so fast it looked stationary, was a body. It sank and bobbed like a fish-fly, disappearing, reappearing. The water level was dropping perceptibly, evaporating as the rotation increased speed. A few minutes passed and there was no liquid anywhere to be seen. The body, already dry, lay in a crumpled heap between the ruined edges of the wall. A twitch passed through him, then he vomited, streams of water boiling as they hit the already parched sand. He lay still, letting his wounds take care of themselves as the intense heat sutured the gashes curling round him like tiger stripes. His head pounded and his ears were ringing. He opened his eyes and saw a pair of feet, dark skinned, a ragged robe ringed the ankles. Using the last of his energy he rolled onto his back. and looked up at the face that blocked the sun.
Redemption Song
Rope ringing against mast brought him back to the moment: cigarette burned out between fingers and the head of his Guinness brown. The French couple to his left were fiddling with guidebooks and cameras, reading about the dramatic scenery and photographing tide-stranded boats fringed by rust seaweed. Behind him a Scottish fishing village arced the bay: whitewashed houses and tourist trap restaurants fronted by a smaller arc of cars and 4-by-4’s, each with nationally idiosyncratic number plates. In front the hills and islands seemed to lock the bay.
He’d arrived that morning, driving the rental car north through the night to avoid the traffic. He’d listened to his tapes, to the memories burned into their reels, beaches, bars, jamming with guitars to Redemption Song. He tried to keep his thoughts with them, there on Australian sand, in Paris bars, but as the signs counted down it became harder. He was unprepared for the shock of seeing the place. Ten years travelling, moving, yet he’d never been able to shake the village from his memory. It was always there, lurking over his shoulder, waiting to pounce. And now it had.
He fingered the letter in his pocket, flinching at its touch. It had been there since he’d picked it off the mat, stretching his pocket with its tension. He knew what it contained before he opened it, could tell by the writing on the envelope. There was only one thing that could force his father to get in touch.
He stood, turned and walked across the road into the hotel bar, ducking through the low door, searching pockets for change. He was sure he knew the barmaid, looked familiar, about his age, but he’d been getting that all day. Anyway
she’d shown no signs of recognition, barely glancing as she handed him his pint and 30p change. Prices gone up as well, inflation reaching even these parts. It was strange to be using pounds again. Didn’t seem real, monopoly money.
Sitting back down at the picnic bench he looked at his pint. He’d had a fair few and felt worse for it, yet he’d still bought this one – refusing to acknowledge, even now, why he was here. Just another pub, another pint. The location was immaterial. He lit another cigarette, hoping the smoke would ward off the midges and wasps that insisted on joining him. He shivered as the wind picked up. Should’ve taken the jacket from the car. He glanced down at his mobile which was slowly revolving like a weather vane, pirouetting round its clip axis. No reception. You’re not in Kansas anymore.
They say drowning is the most peaceful way to die. After all the struggling you just float away and become yet another piece of driftwood, a bottle with a nightmare message. He imagined himself floating; face down, arms spread, at peace. A corpse has no past or future, only the moment, the stopped clock. Regardless of decay it would still be the body of a 28-year-old man. He shuddered. He had always been claustrophobic. Still it was preferable to familial straitjacketing. Disrespecting his heritage his father would say. You are where you come from. The destination was everything, but he had still to arrive. Travelling ten years and yet he was home. Scotland. Been there, done that, wear the scars. The parochiality of it clashed. He’d spent thousands of nights in candlelit fantasy, imagining himself in the world of myth, Icelandic sagas, Homer’s Odyssey: anything as long as a journey was involved. Nothing thrilled him more than to be in a place where the names of the birds were different. Seagull. He hadn’t meant to say it aloud but now he had he realised how unsatisfactory the word was, how strange English had become. L’oiseau de la mer he supposed the French was. Bird of the sea. Seagull. Albatross. The language, his accent hung around his neck in every country. This village and his father. His father’s accent. The accent he had tried so hard to kill.
Fit wy div ye wantae talk like sum posh kid?
It makes me sound less stupid.
He heard a shout and looked up. Three small boys were playing in the mud left by the tide. Wearing shorts, jumpers and wellies they built castles, played tag and pelted each other with mud. Their cheers and whines mixed with the screams of gulls scrounging the bins. He remembered his own childhood here, climbing the hills, building huts, trying to swim to the island only to turn back halfway.
- It’s like quicksand; this is what quicksand’s like.
One boy was splashing in the deepest puddle, the water flooding into his boots. Yes. Quicksand. That familiar feeling. It wasn’t just another pub, another pint. This was his father’s local. The one he’d spent every night in, probably still did. Had his own glass behind the bar, the only one with a handle. The bar he’d come home from late at night. It hadn’t been a problem leaving his father. Leaving his mother with him though. He couldn’t touch her now.
In his mind, his aunts crowded round as they had when he was a child:
Ah he’s jist like his faither.
Here he was, pissed at his father’s pub.
The funeral would be tomorrow, maybe the next. Always a Wednesday or Thursday. Why? The French couple left and in their place sat a guy, about the same age. They both looked up at the same time but as the synapse fired both looked away. Stuart.
He’d briefly logged onto the Friends Reunited site, morbid curiosity overcoming any aversion to the people. At least it was anonymous and he would be dealing with text. Having no real friends to find out about, he was drawn to those he particularly hated. There is no greater ego trip than to find that the folk who made your life hell are now wallowing in a mire of dead-end jobs and nostalgia. It should have made him happy – to return from seeing the world to find everyone wallowing in the same mire. But it didn’t. He was part of that mire, it was part of him. What had he achieved? Sure he’d seen a lot but he had no job, no money, no prospects. He was alone. No ‘local boy done good’ headlines for him. It was this town. No one from here had ever achieved anything worthwhile, never would.
Stuart hadn’t posted an entry and no one had mentioned his name. He had been the most popular guy in the year. He was brilliant at football. He had an older sister, knew many of the older kids and was used to his sister’s friends so he never got embarrassed when a girl spoke to him. He was someone to look up to. The fact that no one had mentioned him was strange: he should still be the centre of whatever circle remained. He didn’t look happy, sitting nursing a pint of heavy, alone. He had an aura of being alone, a kind of desperation for company that exuded from every pore. It was easy for a traveller to spot: always on the look out for someone to hang out with, you learn to tell whether someone is alone or just on their own. The fresh air swilled around his head, mixing with the beer. He felt light headed and heavy at the same time, his bones refusing to relax, eyelids straining to close.
Stuart finished his pint, rose to leave. Without knowing why, he put his hand out.
- Stuart.
- Dave. Hi.
- How’s things?
- Alright. Yourself?
- Alright.
- I heard about your ma. Sorry.
- Yeah well. You leaving?
- Yeah.
- Will you join me?
- Em … you sure?
- Aye, get yourself a pint and sit down.
Now why had he done that? Force of habit? No. He just didn’t want to be alone. This place was freaking him out. Stuart sat down.
- Been here long? he said, nodding to the empties and the full ashtray.
- Yeah. Arrived this morning. Don’t want to go up to the house.
Stuart looked really nervous, couldn’t stay still, was constantly taking little sips from his pint, moving to put it down then, just before it touched the table, lifting it again. Physically he still looked the same: dirty blond hair in curtains round his forehead, darkish skin, bit of stubble. He’d grown: shoulders filled out and a bit of weight round the middle.
- Smoke?
Pushed the packet across the table. Stuart quickly pulled one out and lit it, inhaling deeply.
- I didn’t think you’d want to speak to me.
- Why?
- Experience.
- Why did you think I wouldn’t want to speak to you?
- You’re lucky. You got out of here. What’s it been? Ten years?
- Something like that, yeah.
- Where you been? asked Stuart
- Everywhere. Everywhere except here.
- That’s the trick isn’t it? Seen anyone else?
- From school? No.
- I’ve bumped into a few recently. Kinda hard not to here. Paul, James, Susie. A few others.
- How are they?
- Dunno. They were all drunk, kept meeting them in pubs.
He stopped. Finally let his pint sit on the table. Looked straight across.
- I’m sorry.
- What?
- It has recently been brought to my attention that I was a complete cunt at school. I’m sorry. I never realised.
- Is that what they told you? Paul and that?
- Yeah. Shouted at me. James even took a swing at me.
- That’s a bit fucking rich.
He didn’t respond to that. He looked like he was going to cry. He’d been a prick at school; there was no denying that. Dave remembered the time they’d found the old crypt. It was under the Kirk ruins in the north of town. The Kirk had burnt down a hundred years before and rather than repair it a new one had been built on the south side. Five kids, including him and Stuart had biked up. The crypt was a spooky place – dark with a stifling, sombre air. They’d locked Dave inside. Underground where they’d kept the bodies. Left him for hours. He’d had nightmares for months: hands pulling him back into the dark, sealing him underground forever. But the past is the past. Easy for you to say, he thought, touching the letter.
- You should get out man.
- Yeah. Easy for you to say, you did it. Where would I go?
- Go anywhere man, that’s the point. Just leave.
- What about my family, my job?
- Just leave.
Yet back. No matter how far you get you always come back. This is the last. Now that she’d gone he had nothing here. Nothing but bad memories and hatred. Any down mood, any moment of introspection will, like a ferris wheel, return to this one, original, permanent point.
Stuart finished his pint.
- I’m off home. Thanks. And sorry again about your ma.
- Cheers man.
All efforts have failed, the slate wiped clean by one afternoon. Ten years of travel erased by the act of homecoming. What is arrival? Arrival is to end the journey, the signification that there is nowhere else to go because you are already there – the destination. But he was at the starting point, back at the drawing board. What did that mean? That he’d taken the wrong path? A dead end, a cul-de-sac leading straight back here? No. That was no good; a horrible thought he couldn’t allow light.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. Stuart.
- Isn’t that your Da?
Oh no. He turned. Sure enough his father was standing in the pub doorway, pint in hand, staring at him. How long had he been there? Had he been inside when he bought the last pint? Earlier?
Stuart stopped and spoke to Dave’s father, offering condolences. He nodded thanks and went inside. That’s that then, he thought. He knows I’ve been here all day. I can’t go home now, he’ll kill me. Unsteadily he rose. His glass was empty and the sun had finally dipped. He put the fags, lighter and mobile in his pockets, downed his drink and walked off. He reached the car, parked outside the pub. He felt really rough now. He decided to get in the car and drive off, never come back. Sorry mum but I can’t face it. He started scrabbling for his keys. Money, fags, all manner of junk fell from his pockets, littering the ground like snow. But no keys. He cursed, searched more violently but still nothing. He picked up a rock, swung: a crash, a crumple as the window caved. He wrenched the door open and fell onto the seat. He cradled his bloody arm as tears rolled down his face. He leant over and switched the stereo on, screaming as the steering wheel knocked his hand.
Home. Home is where the heart. Home front. Home guard. Home repairs. Home insurance. Home from. Home run. Homestead. Home sweet. He saw his mother’s face, eyes filled, his aunts leering in a ring round him cooing. The pub had emptied at the sound of glass breaking and now his father was walking towards him.
- Whit a fuckin mess.
- Hi Da.
- Hi. You got ma letter en?
- Aye, got back the day.
- So a see. Will ye be stayin?
- Dunno. Cannae drive now.
- Better git that seen to.
- No the doctor.
- At sum point but a nip should see ye thru the nicht.
- You buyin?
- Suppose so.
He got out the car and followed his father into the pub, tripping every few steps, dripping blood across the road. When he reached the bar his father pushed a pint towards him.
- Guinness, just the way you like it.
- Ta.
He grasped the handle and drank deep.
He’d arrived that morning, driving the rental car north through the night to avoid the traffic. He’d listened to his tapes, to the memories burned into their reels, beaches, bars, jamming with guitars to Redemption Song. He tried to keep his thoughts with them, there on Australian sand, in Paris bars, but as the signs counted down it became harder. He was unprepared for the shock of seeing the place. Ten years travelling, moving, yet he’d never been able to shake the village from his memory. It was always there, lurking over his shoulder, waiting to pounce. And now it had.
He fingered the letter in his pocket, flinching at its touch. It had been there since he’d picked it off the mat, stretching his pocket with its tension. He knew what it contained before he opened it, could tell by the writing on the envelope. There was only one thing that could force his father to get in touch.
He stood, turned and walked across the road into the hotel bar, ducking through the low door, searching pockets for change. He was sure he knew the barmaid, looked familiar, about his age, but he’d been getting that all day. Anyway
she’d shown no signs of recognition, barely glancing as she handed him his pint and 30p change. Prices gone up as well, inflation reaching even these parts. It was strange to be using pounds again. Didn’t seem real, monopoly money.
Sitting back down at the picnic bench he looked at his pint. He’d had a fair few and felt worse for it, yet he’d still bought this one – refusing to acknowledge, even now, why he was here. Just another pub, another pint. The location was immaterial. He lit another cigarette, hoping the smoke would ward off the midges and wasps that insisted on joining him. He shivered as the wind picked up. Should’ve taken the jacket from the car. He glanced down at his mobile which was slowly revolving like a weather vane, pirouetting round its clip axis. No reception. You’re not in Kansas anymore.
They say drowning is the most peaceful way to die. After all the struggling you just float away and become yet another piece of driftwood, a bottle with a nightmare message. He imagined himself floating; face down, arms spread, at peace. A corpse has no past or future, only the moment, the stopped clock. Regardless of decay it would still be the body of a 28-year-old man. He shuddered. He had always been claustrophobic. Still it was preferable to familial straitjacketing. Disrespecting his heritage his father would say. You are where you come from. The destination was everything, but he had still to arrive. Travelling ten years and yet he was home. Scotland. Been there, done that, wear the scars. The parochiality of it clashed. He’d spent thousands of nights in candlelit fantasy, imagining himself in the world of myth, Icelandic sagas, Homer’s Odyssey: anything as long as a journey was involved. Nothing thrilled him more than to be in a place where the names of the birds were different. Seagull. He hadn’t meant to say it aloud but now he had he realised how unsatisfactory the word was, how strange English had become. L’oiseau de la mer he supposed the French was. Bird of the sea. Seagull. Albatross. The language, his accent hung around his neck in every country. This village and his father. His father’s accent. The accent he had tried so hard to kill.
Fit wy div ye wantae talk like sum posh kid?
It makes me sound less stupid.
He heard a shout and looked up. Three small boys were playing in the mud left by the tide. Wearing shorts, jumpers and wellies they built castles, played tag and pelted each other with mud. Their cheers and whines mixed with the screams of gulls scrounging the bins. He remembered his own childhood here, climbing the hills, building huts, trying to swim to the island only to turn back halfway.
- It’s like quicksand; this is what quicksand’s like.
One boy was splashing in the deepest puddle, the water flooding into his boots. Yes. Quicksand. That familiar feeling. It wasn’t just another pub, another pint. This was his father’s local. The one he’d spent every night in, probably still did. Had his own glass behind the bar, the only one with a handle. The bar he’d come home from late at night. It hadn’t been a problem leaving his father. Leaving his mother with him though. He couldn’t touch her now.
In his mind, his aunts crowded round as they had when he was a child:
Ah he’s jist like his faither.
Here he was, pissed at his father’s pub.
The funeral would be tomorrow, maybe the next. Always a Wednesday or Thursday. Why? The French couple left and in their place sat a guy, about the same age. They both looked up at the same time but as the synapse fired both looked away. Stuart.
He’d briefly logged onto the Friends Reunited site, morbid curiosity overcoming any aversion to the people. At least it was anonymous and he would be dealing with text. Having no real friends to find out about, he was drawn to those he particularly hated. There is no greater ego trip than to find that the folk who made your life hell are now wallowing in a mire of dead-end jobs and nostalgia. It should have made him happy – to return from seeing the world to find everyone wallowing in the same mire. But it didn’t. He was part of that mire, it was part of him. What had he achieved? Sure he’d seen a lot but he had no job, no money, no prospects. He was alone. No ‘local boy done good’ headlines for him. It was this town. No one from here had ever achieved anything worthwhile, never would.
Stuart hadn’t posted an entry and no one had mentioned his name. He had been the most popular guy in the year. He was brilliant at football. He had an older sister, knew many of the older kids and was used to his sister’s friends so he never got embarrassed when a girl spoke to him. He was someone to look up to. The fact that no one had mentioned him was strange: he should still be the centre of whatever circle remained. He didn’t look happy, sitting nursing a pint of heavy, alone. He had an aura of being alone, a kind of desperation for company that exuded from every pore. It was easy for a traveller to spot: always on the look out for someone to hang out with, you learn to tell whether someone is alone or just on their own. The fresh air swilled around his head, mixing with the beer. He felt light headed and heavy at the same time, his bones refusing to relax, eyelids straining to close.
Stuart finished his pint, rose to leave. Without knowing why, he put his hand out.
- Stuart.
- Dave. Hi.
- How’s things?
- Alright. Yourself?
- Alright.
- I heard about your ma. Sorry.
- Yeah well. You leaving?
- Yeah.
- Will you join me?
- Em … you sure?
- Aye, get yourself a pint and sit down.
Now why had he done that? Force of habit? No. He just didn’t want to be alone. This place was freaking him out. Stuart sat down.
- Been here long? he said, nodding to the empties and the full ashtray.
- Yeah. Arrived this morning. Don’t want to go up to the house.
Stuart looked really nervous, couldn’t stay still, was constantly taking little sips from his pint, moving to put it down then, just before it touched the table, lifting it again. Physically he still looked the same: dirty blond hair in curtains round his forehead, darkish skin, bit of stubble. He’d grown: shoulders filled out and a bit of weight round the middle.
- Smoke?
Pushed the packet across the table. Stuart quickly pulled one out and lit it, inhaling deeply.
- I didn’t think you’d want to speak to me.
- Why?
- Experience.
- Why did you think I wouldn’t want to speak to you?
- You’re lucky. You got out of here. What’s it been? Ten years?
- Something like that, yeah.
- Where you been? asked Stuart
- Everywhere. Everywhere except here.
- That’s the trick isn’t it? Seen anyone else?
- From school? No.
- I’ve bumped into a few recently. Kinda hard not to here. Paul, James, Susie. A few others.
- How are they?
- Dunno. They were all drunk, kept meeting them in pubs.
He stopped. Finally let his pint sit on the table. Looked straight across.
- I’m sorry.
- What?
- It has recently been brought to my attention that I was a complete cunt at school. I’m sorry. I never realised.
- Is that what they told you? Paul and that?
- Yeah. Shouted at me. James even took a swing at me.
- That’s a bit fucking rich.
He didn’t respond to that. He looked like he was going to cry. He’d been a prick at school; there was no denying that. Dave remembered the time they’d found the old crypt. It was under the Kirk ruins in the north of town. The Kirk had burnt down a hundred years before and rather than repair it a new one had been built on the south side. Five kids, including him and Stuart had biked up. The crypt was a spooky place – dark with a stifling, sombre air. They’d locked Dave inside. Underground where they’d kept the bodies. Left him for hours. He’d had nightmares for months: hands pulling him back into the dark, sealing him underground forever. But the past is the past. Easy for you to say, he thought, touching the letter.
- You should get out man.
- Yeah. Easy for you to say, you did it. Where would I go?
- Go anywhere man, that’s the point. Just leave.
- What about my family, my job?
- Just leave.
Yet back. No matter how far you get you always come back. This is the last. Now that she’d gone he had nothing here. Nothing but bad memories and hatred. Any down mood, any moment of introspection will, like a ferris wheel, return to this one, original, permanent point.
Stuart finished his pint.
- I’m off home. Thanks. And sorry again about your ma.
- Cheers man.
All efforts have failed, the slate wiped clean by one afternoon. Ten years of travel erased by the act of homecoming. What is arrival? Arrival is to end the journey, the signification that there is nowhere else to go because you are already there – the destination. But he was at the starting point, back at the drawing board. What did that mean? That he’d taken the wrong path? A dead end, a cul-de-sac leading straight back here? No. That was no good; a horrible thought he couldn’t allow light.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. Stuart.
- Isn’t that your Da?
Oh no. He turned. Sure enough his father was standing in the pub doorway, pint in hand, staring at him. How long had he been there? Had he been inside when he bought the last pint? Earlier?
Stuart stopped and spoke to Dave’s father, offering condolences. He nodded thanks and went inside. That’s that then, he thought. He knows I’ve been here all day. I can’t go home now, he’ll kill me. Unsteadily he rose. His glass was empty and the sun had finally dipped. He put the fags, lighter and mobile in his pockets, downed his drink and walked off. He reached the car, parked outside the pub. He felt really rough now. He decided to get in the car and drive off, never come back. Sorry mum but I can’t face it. He started scrabbling for his keys. Money, fags, all manner of junk fell from his pockets, littering the ground like snow. But no keys. He cursed, searched more violently but still nothing. He picked up a rock, swung: a crash, a crumple as the window caved. He wrenched the door open and fell onto the seat. He cradled his bloody arm as tears rolled down his face. He leant over and switched the stereo on, screaming as the steering wheel knocked his hand.
Home. Home is where the heart. Home front. Home guard. Home repairs. Home insurance. Home from. Home run. Homestead. Home sweet. He saw his mother’s face, eyes filled, his aunts leering in a ring round him cooing. The pub had emptied at the sound of glass breaking and now his father was walking towards him.
- Whit a fuckin mess.
- Hi Da.
- Hi. You got ma letter en?
- Aye, got back the day.
- So a see. Will ye be stayin?
- Dunno. Cannae drive now.
- Better git that seen to.
- No the doctor.
- At sum point but a nip should see ye thru the nicht.
- You buyin?
- Suppose so.
He got out the car and followed his father into the pub, tripping every few steps, dripping blood across the road. When he reached the bar his father pushed a pint towards him.
- Guinness, just the way you like it.
- Ta.
He grasped the handle and drank deep.
Once you’ve said “I love you”, you can’t take it back
This train is depressing, moving too slow. Sounds like a clock. The seats grey, the floor grey. Walls and ceiling beige. Neon Pachinko parlours jerk past, then nothing. A supermarket, then nothing. A station. The doors hiss open close. No one passes through. The drab inside reflected back by the night.
Another day at work on too little sleep.Rhythm of the Saints. I cannot run but…
Sore throat. Churning stomach. Blocked nose.
Drink. Smoke. Fast food.
I can’t run but.
Cellphone internet. Terror on Reuters. All the usual, names and dates. You can run but.
Once you’ve said “I love you”, you can’t take it back.
A story during the war. Three guys and a girl on a beach holiday take the car and go to buy grass. They meet the guy in an outdoor café on a beautiful day, share a drink and some chat. No problem. A done deal. It’s 1991. They get back in the car to drive home. One guy holds the grass, no pockets. They meet a check point, Croatian, and are flagged down. Stopped at gunpoint, searched at gunpoint. The soldiers smoke York Filters. They are called Zenge. Camouflage and Kalashnikovs. Standing at the roadside are K (skinny, tall, long hair undercut), G (well built, a Cure fan with Robert Smith hair), M (thick eyebrows, almond eyes, tall and thin) and N (long dark brown hair, shapely, heavily bitten nails). The Zenge find the drugs. All four think they’re going to die. K tells N he loves her, always has. The soldiers laugh, let them go.
Once you’ve said it, it’s out there. You don’t own the words anymore.
Standing shivering, bollock naked beneath a pathetic dribble of water trying desperately to scrub the smell of travelling and drinking from a body shattered by too much alcohol, not enough sleep and the caress of a concrete floor and the nylon stubble of the carpet on my skin. Shampoo still in my hair I gave up grabbed my towel/duvet regretting my earlier labour-saving ingenuity in leaving my sleeping bag and camping mat on my bed. Standing, still shivering in front of the bathroom mirror desperately trying to get dry, to get dressed in the cramped confines of someone else’s bathroom.
Did you know a ducks quack doesn’t echo? No one knows why. Did you know that banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour? Yet every time you lick a stamp you consume a tenth of a calorie?
Standing on the castle wall, having climbed the steps with aching legs and seeing the fjord before me, the pearl string of islands to the lefts, the black and white ferry chugging out of the harbour, the marina of posh yachts moored at the shore-front bars. The feeling of womb-like peace that always comes over me when faced with water, be it river, loch or ocean. My limbs were soothed. I stopped grinding my teeth for the first time in months. Standing there on the wall I felt an almost uncontrollable urge to leap from the wall onto the grass below, run and dive into the steel surface.
The wild beauty of Norway, the spring joy of Oslo. An island in the fjord. Woodsmoke and rabbits. A story about Eva forms, a woman in a black poncho escaping something, sitting on a ferry with something sinister in her bag. Ideas find words, words build into sentences. Eva has dark hair, pale skin. A secret.
It’s not something you can say then forget about.
Pax is going to be a father. Got lucky. Not even out of uni and already his life is over. He’s honourable, will do what’s called for, fall on his sword, sacrifice his future for the sake of a life, all the work of a few minutes drunken grunting.
Your words can and will be used against you…
Everyday becomes something clearer, the unfamiliar ebbs and settles into vague normality. I fear that knowledge will usher the inevitable boredom. The heat subsides slow. The final cicadas chirp their electric hum. Flu virus soars through my body like gulls on a trade wind, white against the black red blood. Flags flutter in the neon breeze, sleepily waving at J-boys break-dancing outside the station and a kimonoed woman slowstepping, feet clacking into the night.
David loosened his tie, slipped his shoes off and settled into the train seat. Cracking a can of Asahi he mussed up his hair and stared down the track.
He sat at the very front, beneath the driver’s cockpit.
“Konan. Konan desu.”
Just under twenty minutes to Kanayama. He’d been out in Konan a few times. A guy he did a few shifts with had lived there and took Dave along to The Bebador after work. David felt like getting off the train and going back to the little bar, listening to the 1940’s jazz Shinichiro played on vinyl and drinking himself into oblivion.
The shrill sound and the doors slammed together. He sipped the beer. He’d pretty much rather do anything than get off at Kanayama and take part in the inevitable scene. He felt like such a shit. But he’d let the situation develop, knowing fine where it would end up.
Once you’ve said “I love you”, you can’t take it back.
Paradise Lost
The war had ravaged Glasgow. Black smoke perpetually covered the skyline. Searchlights swept over rubble and ruin. The Argyle Street flat Danny was born in no longer stood. Not much did. In a few places Glasgow was still recognisable: the Umbrella connecting the two sides of Central hung, seemingly immovable, though the station itself was nothing more than a husk, two barely standing walls and a bridge, wreckage of tracks hanging from either side. The road underneath was grooved from tank tracks, pitted with grenade craters. The University tower, decapitated by a downed helicopter, stuck into the skyline like a rotten tree. Bodies littered the streets. Only three buildings in the city remained untouched. Hampden, Ibrox and Celtic Park.
This was no accident. When war was declared, the Enemy’s communications director, a fat officious fool called Gibson, had broadcast on all TV and radio channels, and over the net.
In one week we will begin our bombardment. You will know what to expect from our victories elsewhere. Defeat is inevitable. Your Executive has had enough chances to avoid this but has failed you. However we are not barbarians. All civilians under the age of twelve should be placed in the three main football stadia where they will remain untouched. We have no quarrel with the young. Anyone found outside these locations will be considered fair game. The stadia will be guarded by our troops. Anyone not included in the above category found inside will be in breach of these conditions and will be dealt with appropriately.
At first people didn’t know what to do. Some were defiant, refusing to accept defeat as a possibility. Those who’d closely followed the other invasions knew what to expect and wanted to hang on to normality while they could. Many tried to run. Airports saw the first violence as families fought over tickets, tried to force their way onto already overcrowded planes. By the time the deadline came round, Glasgow, like every other Scottish city, was in a state of high anxiety. Some parts of the city had descended into anarchy, fighting and looting doing the work of the troops before they’d even arrived. Other places were eerily calm. The city centre was like the eye of a storm as families said their goodbyes, quietly preparing for the next day.
Around the football grounds it was chaos. Those, like Danny’s Gran, who were taking no chances wanted to see their children safe inside. Fights broke out as the crowd were bottlenecked into the narrow channels, gridlocked. Many fell in the crush; parents were prematurely separated from their kids by the swinging mass of bodies. Some never made it to the doors. Other got there only by climbing over the prone forms of the unlucky. Inside the children wandered about in shock. For many their last glimpse of a mother or father had been of them throwing a punch, shouting run, just get inside. Whatever you do get inside. Their parents had turned into animals before their eyes. Celtic Park echoed with the sound of crying.
That was six months ago.
Danny sat in row F and looked out over the pitch. All available space from touchline to touchline was filled with tents. Flags, shirts, poles with shoes hung on top rose above the originally regimented ranks. Markers so Danny and his fellow inmates could find their homes easily and quickly. Not that it mattered. Every minute of every day for six months had been spent on the pitch, in the stand, and in the back rooms. There was no one here who couldn’t wind his way through the canvas maze and find their own tent, even in pitch darkness.
Sections of the stand had been destroyed. Black gaps like missing teeth interrupted the three white stripes that circled the seating. The paintwork, green, white and gold, was chipped, peeling. Doors hung from their hinges and advertising hoardings lay snapped where they’d fallen. Few of the lights still worked, and those that did cast disturbing shadows across the tents at night. The roof sign now read CELT C F OT ALL CL 888, the missing letters, knocked clean by the nightly bombardments, had been appropriated by the kids. One, Bob, had managed to get his hands on the letters that spelt his name and leant them against his tent. The weight let the rain in but he refused to relinquish his prize. The beautiful stadium, Mecca for every Bhoy, the Church of Celtic, had been desecrated. Paradise lay in ruins, lost.
Rubbing his closely shaved head Danny closed his eyes and tried to imagine Parkhead as it had been.
Despite his father’s promises he’d never been to Celtic Park until the day he was left here. But in the last six months he’d wandered every corridor, been in every room, studied everything. He’d each picture memorised, down to the finest detail. He’d read every history, watched all the documentaries, all the archived matches. Six months had solidified Danny’s status as a Celtic fan.
In his mind’s eye he erased the tents, the people, the decay until the stadium was returned to its pristine pre-match beauty. He then added the sixty-odd thousand fans, each decked in the green and white hoops, waving scarves and flags, all focused, together, on one passion: for football, for Celtic. He added the camera flashes, the commentary voiceover’s, the policemen lining the pitch. Only then, when everything was right, did he mentally look to the tunnel, see the players emerge. The roar shook him; his seat seemed to bounce as each imaginary person jumped up and down, celebrating the very existence of the players.
The team that marched out had never played together, but it was the perfect team, the ultimate Celtic eleven. Billy McNeil led them, calm, focused. Behind him Jimmy Johnstone skipped out, full of energy, bursting to get stuck into the opposition. Henrik Larsson, dreadlocked, casually sauntered out, nodding briefly to the fans. Kenny Dalglish, Bobby Murdoch, Ronnie Simpson, Bobby Lennox. Generations of legends. Finally Jock Stein, the epitome of everything Celtic, strolled towards the dug out, smiling in the sure knowledge of a victory.
“What you grinnin at?”
Danny reluctantly opened his eyes though he’d no need to. The nasal voice alone was enough to tell him that Tracy had found him. Tracy was the same age as him, would’ve been in his year at school if they went to such a place. His days were spent trying to avoid meeting her, while hers seemed to be filled by following him around like an irritating dog.
“Nuthin”
“You’re mental, you know that?”
“Aye, you’ve told me every day for the last six months.”
She sat down next to him, played with the flapping sole of her shoe.
“What you been up tae?”
“Well ah was gonnae go tae the pictures but ah decided ah couldn’t be bothered so ah thought ah’d hang around here for the rest of ma life.”
“Okay, ah only asked.”
Tracy was from Bridgeton, was one of the last people to get in. Her Granda had decided it was a good idea only hours before they locked the doors. She’d lost him in the crush but, being small, had managed to slide through the crowd and slip in. Another day and she’d have been dead. Danny almost wished she was. He just wanted to be left alone. How could you dream your way out of this place if every five seconds you got dragged back?
Today was Danny’s twelfth birthday. Not that anyone knew. He didn’t exactly feel like celebrating. What was a birthday when you’d no parents or friends to spend it with? No presents, no cake. Tracy was the closest thing to a friend he had, and he didn’t like her that much.
They rarely got any news in here, but they could tell from the nightly flashes, bangs and earthshaking explosions that the war was still going strong. Generally, they could sleep through the noise, but every so often it just couldn’t be ignored. Last night was like that for Danny. It’d been worse than he could remember. A huge battle had taken place. Happy Birthday Danny. What was it about his birthdays? All his life he’d been unlucky. His birth had been marked by another battle. 21st May 2003. Seville. He’d come into the world as extra-time began. They’d moved a TV into the delivery room. His mother had been caught between screaming in pain and demanding to know the score. His entrance had been met by hysteria followed by gloom. His Da had called him a jinx.
“Ma heids cauld”, Tracy said, jerking him from his reverie.
“Aye, mine too.”
The doctors had been through yesterday, checking all the kids. Full medical and a head shave to keep the lice away. It was like some alien world, Danny thought. All those bald heads, not a hair in sight. He didn’t mind too much, something less to think about. Besides, as it grew back in he thought he looked like Larsson, after the dreads. And that wasn’t something to be angry about. The girls were far from impressed though. Most still put up a fight. Tracy had a black eye from where the rifle-butt had caught her as she fought the clippers away.
“What were you thinking about?” she asked again.
“Ma Da.”
He surprised himself. He hadn’t meant to say anything at all, let alone that. Too late. It was out there.
“Aye. Ah miss ma folks tae”.
“Ah wonder where they are. What’s happening?”
He didn’t expect an answer and she didn’t offer one. They both knew. Everyone harboured fantasies that their parents were members of the Resistance, brave heroes of Scotland hiding underground, travelling through the tunnels that laced beneath the city and no doubt some were, but the safe money was on death.
Danny never spoke about his family but, now that he’d mentioned them, he found he couldn’t keep quiet. “Ma Da was a huge Celtic fan. Came tae aw the games, travelled tae a lot of the away matches. He said he’d take me when ah was older.” He paused. “Funny. All that time ah jist wanted tae come here. Now ah jist wantae get away.”
Danny fell silent again. Tracy watched him. Something was different. Normally he was off-hand with her, as if her presence annoyed him. Today he seemed distracted, deflated. She’d heard him crying in his tent and it worried her. Sure, everyone cried at some point but Danny usually seemed so resilient.
“Did you ever find the statue?” she asked quietly. She knew it was a touchy subject but he seemed to be in the mood to talk.
“It’s no here. Ah asked wan of the doctors if he knew anything about it. Said that kinda thing would’ve been destroyed.”
Danny’s Great-grandmother had worked here selling pies. When she left, she’d donated a three-foot-high statue of the Virgin Mary to the club. It’d been on display somewhere in the ground and Danny had spent months trying to find it. It was his by rights and he wanted it for his tent. If he couldn’t be with his family he’d be with their statue. But it wasn’t there. It is a relic of this country’s past and as such will have been smashed. Your country and your religion don’t exist. There is no country and no religion but ours anymore. At least the doctor hadn’t seemed too pleased about it. Danny quite liked some of them. They weren’t like the soldiers who referred to the kids as ‘it’ and took great delight in beating them for the slightest infraction.
“You hungry?” Tracy asked looking at him side on, her head at an angle like a Labrador.
“Aye. Missed breakfast.”
“Ah noticed. Where were you?”
“Upstairs.”
Tracy didn’t say anything. She knew what upstairs meant. He’d been watching one of the games, one he knew his parents had been at. Trying to spot them in the crowd for the hundredth time.
“Here.” She handed him two chunks of bread wrapped in a napkin. “Ah figured you’d be hungry.”
“How’d you get this out?” he asked in awe. Every child was searched when leaving the dinning room in case they were smuggling food. They all tried but Danny had never been successful.
He’d a scar above his right eye to remind him what being caught meant.
“Ask me no questions an ah’ll tell you no lies.” Gratefully he bit into the stale bread.
“Ma Da took all ma brother’s tae the games,” she said. “Wouldnae take me though. It’s no a place for a lassie. Figure ah’ve spent more time here than he ever did.” She laughed bitterly.
“Still, Ma took me shoppin when they were away. Lunch at Macdonald’s, new claethes from the Galleries.” She looked down at herself. All the children wore layers of rags, whatever the troops bothered to get together. Some had bloodstains. At first they all hung onto their own clothes, but wear and tear meant that eventually they’d had to accept what was given. Sleeping under canvas in Glasgow wasn’t a pleasant experience, so they all wore as much as they could.
“Ma was as Celtic daft as Da.” Danny said. Tracy looked at him. He’d never mentioned his mother beyond the fact of having one. “She went tae all the home games with him. Right pair they were, decked out in all the kit. Used tae leave me with Gran. Ah’d stay the night coz they’d go tae the pub after. She’d give me burgers and ice cream for dinner. Try tae make it special.”
Losing his father had been hard on Danny, but he’d coped, to a point. Losing his mother was different. She’d doted on him: Ma wee man she’d say. Give him a hug. He could feel the tightness in his gut, the tears welling up. No, ah’m no gonnae cry. No today. The last night he’d seen them: Danny, his parents and his Gran had gone out for dinner, a bar supper. He’d never been inside a pub before and was fascinated by the smell, the look of the place. His Da had given him a few sips of his pint. When ah get back ah’ll buy you a pint. Every boy’s first pint should be bought by his faither. Danny could still taste the beer, could still remember the wooziness that followed. He knew the first thing he’d say to his Da: You owe me a pint. Danny wouldn’t hold him to his second promise though: Ah’ll buy you a pint, an then it’s off tae Paradise. First game that’s played, you an I, son. No chance. A pint and then home.
Danny smiled, but it didn’t last long. His thoughts inevitably ran on to the end of that night, when he and his Gran had gone across Jamaica Bridge, and his parents had gone in the opposite direction. His Ma had held him so tight, wouldn’t let go. His Da had taken hold of her, said It’ll be alright, you’ll see. It’s only for a bit. Till all this is over.
“You okay?” Tracy’s voice took him back to the moment. He looked at her. She wasn’t that bad really.
“Aye, fine. Just thinkin about after.”
“Goin for that pint?”
He’d forgotten that he’d told her.
“Aye.” Suddenly angry he kicked the seat in front. “If we ever get out of this place.”
“We will.” The way she said it made him turn. Such belief and determination in her voice. “They cannae keep us here forever. Eventually they’ll have tae dae somethin.”
“Aye, but what?”
“Whatever, it’s no up tae us.”
Out on the pitch something was happening. Heads appeared from tent flaps, bodies popped up and looked about like Prairie Dogs. There were shouts and, as one, they ran towards the tunnel.
“What’s happenin?” Tracy asked, standing and trying to see what was different.
“Mibbe it’s over.” Danny said sarcastically. At the beginning this happened a lot. Rumours went round that it was peace, that the Resistance had won, and everyone ran to the windows and doors. False alarms. It would never be over, Danny thought.
Tracy sat back down but fidgeted. Her brain fought with her emotions. If they were getting out she wanted to be at the front, be the first outside. Claustrophobia tried to overcome her but she fought it back. Six months had killed her childish optimism, had installed pessimism in its place.
“We’re no here for safety,” Danny said. “We’re hostages.”
“What do you mean?”
“If the Resistance begins winning they can say stop fighting or we kill them all.”
Like a chimney suddenly exploding smoke the children burst back onto the pitch. Behind them marched the troops, guns pointed. Hundreds of them spread from the tunnel and encircled the pitch. They stood like the police at an Old Firm game, but much harder, much more sinister. Danny and Tracy slowly rose and walked down the steps. Those already on the pitch were backing off, pushing towards the centre circle. Others appeared in the stands, forced from the inner rooms at gunpoint. A soldier, khakied and helmeted, gestured to them with his M16: Come on. They kept their pace, tried to act casual. Danny felt the dirt through the holes in his shoes as they stepped onto the pitch. A magpie floated down and rested on the nearest crossbar, watching. The giant screen flickered on, and Gibson’s smug face appeared, God-like above them.
“It’s ma birthday the day,” he said.
“Happy Birthday.”
“Thanks.” He broke the last piece of bread in half, gave her a piece.
In unspoken solidarity they joined hands, raised their heads. Silence spread through Paradise as Gibson began speaking.
(commissioned by and published in The Celtic View)
This was no accident. When war was declared, the Enemy’s communications director, a fat officious fool called Gibson, had broadcast on all TV and radio channels, and over the net.
In one week we will begin our bombardment. You will know what to expect from our victories elsewhere. Defeat is inevitable. Your Executive has had enough chances to avoid this but has failed you. However we are not barbarians. All civilians under the age of twelve should be placed in the three main football stadia where they will remain untouched. We have no quarrel with the young. Anyone found outside these locations will be considered fair game. The stadia will be guarded by our troops. Anyone not included in the above category found inside will be in breach of these conditions and will be dealt with appropriately.
At first people didn’t know what to do. Some were defiant, refusing to accept defeat as a possibility. Those who’d closely followed the other invasions knew what to expect and wanted to hang on to normality while they could. Many tried to run. Airports saw the first violence as families fought over tickets, tried to force their way onto already overcrowded planes. By the time the deadline came round, Glasgow, like every other Scottish city, was in a state of high anxiety. Some parts of the city had descended into anarchy, fighting and looting doing the work of the troops before they’d even arrived. Other places were eerily calm. The city centre was like the eye of a storm as families said their goodbyes, quietly preparing for the next day.
Around the football grounds it was chaos. Those, like Danny’s Gran, who were taking no chances wanted to see their children safe inside. Fights broke out as the crowd were bottlenecked into the narrow channels, gridlocked. Many fell in the crush; parents were prematurely separated from their kids by the swinging mass of bodies. Some never made it to the doors. Other got there only by climbing over the prone forms of the unlucky. Inside the children wandered about in shock. For many their last glimpse of a mother or father had been of them throwing a punch, shouting run, just get inside. Whatever you do get inside. Their parents had turned into animals before their eyes. Celtic Park echoed with the sound of crying.
That was six months ago.
Danny sat in row F and looked out over the pitch. All available space from touchline to touchline was filled with tents. Flags, shirts, poles with shoes hung on top rose above the originally regimented ranks. Markers so Danny and his fellow inmates could find their homes easily and quickly. Not that it mattered. Every minute of every day for six months had been spent on the pitch, in the stand, and in the back rooms. There was no one here who couldn’t wind his way through the canvas maze and find their own tent, even in pitch darkness.
Sections of the stand had been destroyed. Black gaps like missing teeth interrupted the three white stripes that circled the seating. The paintwork, green, white and gold, was chipped, peeling. Doors hung from their hinges and advertising hoardings lay snapped where they’d fallen. Few of the lights still worked, and those that did cast disturbing shadows across the tents at night. The roof sign now read CELT C F OT ALL CL 888, the missing letters, knocked clean by the nightly bombardments, had been appropriated by the kids. One, Bob, had managed to get his hands on the letters that spelt his name and leant them against his tent. The weight let the rain in but he refused to relinquish his prize. The beautiful stadium, Mecca for every Bhoy, the Church of Celtic, had been desecrated. Paradise lay in ruins, lost.
Rubbing his closely shaved head Danny closed his eyes and tried to imagine Parkhead as it had been.
Despite his father’s promises he’d never been to Celtic Park until the day he was left here. But in the last six months he’d wandered every corridor, been in every room, studied everything. He’d each picture memorised, down to the finest detail. He’d read every history, watched all the documentaries, all the archived matches. Six months had solidified Danny’s status as a Celtic fan.
In his mind’s eye he erased the tents, the people, the decay until the stadium was returned to its pristine pre-match beauty. He then added the sixty-odd thousand fans, each decked in the green and white hoops, waving scarves and flags, all focused, together, on one passion: for football, for Celtic. He added the camera flashes, the commentary voiceover’s, the policemen lining the pitch. Only then, when everything was right, did he mentally look to the tunnel, see the players emerge. The roar shook him; his seat seemed to bounce as each imaginary person jumped up and down, celebrating the very existence of the players.
The team that marched out had never played together, but it was the perfect team, the ultimate Celtic eleven. Billy McNeil led them, calm, focused. Behind him Jimmy Johnstone skipped out, full of energy, bursting to get stuck into the opposition. Henrik Larsson, dreadlocked, casually sauntered out, nodding briefly to the fans. Kenny Dalglish, Bobby Murdoch, Ronnie Simpson, Bobby Lennox. Generations of legends. Finally Jock Stein, the epitome of everything Celtic, strolled towards the dug out, smiling in the sure knowledge of a victory.
“What you grinnin at?”
Danny reluctantly opened his eyes though he’d no need to. The nasal voice alone was enough to tell him that Tracy had found him. Tracy was the same age as him, would’ve been in his year at school if they went to such a place. His days were spent trying to avoid meeting her, while hers seemed to be filled by following him around like an irritating dog.
“Nuthin”
“You’re mental, you know that?”
“Aye, you’ve told me every day for the last six months.”
She sat down next to him, played with the flapping sole of her shoe.
“What you been up tae?”
“Well ah was gonnae go tae the pictures but ah decided ah couldn’t be bothered so ah thought ah’d hang around here for the rest of ma life.”
“Okay, ah only asked.”
Tracy was from Bridgeton, was one of the last people to get in. Her Granda had decided it was a good idea only hours before they locked the doors. She’d lost him in the crush but, being small, had managed to slide through the crowd and slip in. Another day and she’d have been dead. Danny almost wished she was. He just wanted to be left alone. How could you dream your way out of this place if every five seconds you got dragged back?
Today was Danny’s twelfth birthday. Not that anyone knew. He didn’t exactly feel like celebrating. What was a birthday when you’d no parents or friends to spend it with? No presents, no cake. Tracy was the closest thing to a friend he had, and he didn’t like her that much.
They rarely got any news in here, but they could tell from the nightly flashes, bangs and earthshaking explosions that the war was still going strong. Generally, they could sleep through the noise, but every so often it just couldn’t be ignored. Last night was like that for Danny. It’d been worse than he could remember. A huge battle had taken place. Happy Birthday Danny. What was it about his birthdays? All his life he’d been unlucky. His birth had been marked by another battle. 21st May 2003. Seville. He’d come into the world as extra-time began. They’d moved a TV into the delivery room. His mother had been caught between screaming in pain and demanding to know the score. His entrance had been met by hysteria followed by gloom. His Da had called him a jinx.
“Ma heids cauld”, Tracy said, jerking him from his reverie.
“Aye, mine too.”
The doctors had been through yesterday, checking all the kids. Full medical and a head shave to keep the lice away. It was like some alien world, Danny thought. All those bald heads, not a hair in sight. He didn’t mind too much, something less to think about. Besides, as it grew back in he thought he looked like Larsson, after the dreads. And that wasn’t something to be angry about. The girls were far from impressed though. Most still put up a fight. Tracy had a black eye from where the rifle-butt had caught her as she fought the clippers away.
“What were you thinking about?” she asked again.
“Ma Da.”
He surprised himself. He hadn’t meant to say anything at all, let alone that. Too late. It was out there.
“Aye. Ah miss ma folks tae”.
“Ah wonder where they are. What’s happening?”
He didn’t expect an answer and she didn’t offer one. They both knew. Everyone harboured fantasies that their parents were members of the Resistance, brave heroes of Scotland hiding underground, travelling through the tunnels that laced beneath the city and no doubt some were, but the safe money was on death.
Danny never spoke about his family but, now that he’d mentioned them, he found he couldn’t keep quiet. “Ma Da was a huge Celtic fan. Came tae aw the games, travelled tae a lot of the away matches. He said he’d take me when ah was older.” He paused. “Funny. All that time ah jist wanted tae come here. Now ah jist wantae get away.”
Danny fell silent again. Tracy watched him. Something was different. Normally he was off-hand with her, as if her presence annoyed him. Today he seemed distracted, deflated. She’d heard him crying in his tent and it worried her. Sure, everyone cried at some point but Danny usually seemed so resilient.
“Did you ever find the statue?” she asked quietly. She knew it was a touchy subject but he seemed to be in the mood to talk.
“It’s no here. Ah asked wan of the doctors if he knew anything about it. Said that kinda thing would’ve been destroyed.”
Danny’s Great-grandmother had worked here selling pies. When she left, she’d donated a three-foot-high statue of the Virgin Mary to the club. It’d been on display somewhere in the ground and Danny had spent months trying to find it. It was his by rights and he wanted it for his tent. If he couldn’t be with his family he’d be with their statue. But it wasn’t there. It is a relic of this country’s past and as such will have been smashed. Your country and your religion don’t exist. There is no country and no religion but ours anymore. At least the doctor hadn’t seemed too pleased about it. Danny quite liked some of them. They weren’t like the soldiers who referred to the kids as ‘it’ and took great delight in beating them for the slightest infraction.
“You hungry?” Tracy asked looking at him side on, her head at an angle like a Labrador.
“Aye. Missed breakfast.”
“Ah noticed. Where were you?”
“Upstairs.”
Tracy didn’t say anything. She knew what upstairs meant. He’d been watching one of the games, one he knew his parents had been at. Trying to spot them in the crowd for the hundredth time.
“Here.” She handed him two chunks of bread wrapped in a napkin. “Ah figured you’d be hungry.”
“How’d you get this out?” he asked in awe. Every child was searched when leaving the dinning room in case they were smuggling food. They all tried but Danny had never been successful.
He’d a scar above his right eye to remind him what being caught meant.
“Ask me no questions an ah’ll tell you no lies.” Gratefully he bit into the stale bread.
“Ma Da took all ma brother’s tae the games,” she said. “Wouldnae take me though. It’s no a place for a lassie. Figure ah’ve spent more time here than he ever did.” She laughed bitterly.
“Still, Ma took me shoppin when they were away. Lunch at Macdonald’s, new claethes from the Galleries.” She looked down at herself. All the children wore layers of rags, whatever the troops bothered to get together. Some had bloodstains. At first they all hung onto their own clothes, but wear and tear meant that eventually they’d had to accept what was given. Sleeping under canvas in Glasgow wasn’t a pleasant experience, so they all wore as much as they could.
“Ma was as Celtic daft as Da.” Danny said. Tracy looked at him. He’d never mentioned his mother beyond the fact of having one. “She went tae all the home games with him. Right pair they were, decked out in all the kit. Used tae leave me with Gran. Ah’d stay the night coz they’d go tae the pub after. She’d give me burgers and ice cream for dinner. Try tae make it special.”
Losing his father had been hard on Danny, but he’d coped, to a point. Losing his mother was different. She’d doted on him: Ma wee man she’d say. Give him a hug. He could feel the tightness in his gut, the tears welling up. No, ah’m no gonnae cry. No today. The last night he’d seen them: Danny, his parents and his Gran had gone out for dinner, a bar supper. He’d never been inside a pub before and was fascinated by the smell, the look of the place. His Da had given him a few sips of his pint. When ah get back ah’ll buy you a pint. Every boy’s first pint should be bought by his faither. Danny could still taste the beer, could still remember the wooziness that followed. He knew the first thing he’d say to his Da: You owe me a pint. Danny wouldn’t hold him to his second promise though: Ah’ll buy you a pint, an then it’s off tae Paradise. First game that’s played, you an I, son. No chance. A pint and then home.
Danny smiled, but it didn’t last long. His thoughts inevitably ran on to the end of that night, when he and his Gran had gone across Jamaica Bridge, and his parents had gone in the opposite direction. His Ma had held him so tight, wouldn’t let go. His Da had taken hold of her, said It’ll be alright, you’ll see. It’s only for a bit. Till all this is over.
“You okay?” Tracy’s voice took him back to the moment. He looked at her. She wasn’t that bad really.
“Aye, fine. Just thinkin about after.”
“Goin for that pint?”
He’d forgotten that he’d told her.
“Aye.” Suddenly angry he kicked the seat in front. “If we ever get out of this place.”
“We will.” The way she said it made him turn. Such belief and determination in her voice. “They cannae keep us here forever. Eventually they’ll have tae dae somethin.”
“Aye, but what?”
“Whatever, it’s no up tae us.”
Out on the pitch something was happening. Heads appeared from tent flaps, bodies popped up and looked about like Prairie Dogs. There were shouts and, as one, they ran towards the tunnel.
“What’s happenin?” Tracy asked, standing and trying to see what was different.
“Mibbe it’s over.” Danny said sarcastically. At the beginning this happened a lot. Rumours went round that it was peace, that the Resistance had won, and everyone ran to the windows and doors. False alarms. It would never be over, Danny thought.
Tracy sat back down but fidgeted. Her brain fought with her emotions. If they were getting out she wanted to be at the front, be the first outside. Claustrophobia tried to overcome her but she fought it back. Six months had killed her childish optimism, had installed pessimism in its place.
“We’re no here for safety,” Danny said. “We’re hostages.”
“What do you mean?”
“If the Resistance begins winning they can say stop fighting or we kill them all.”
Like a chimney suddenly exploding smoke the children burst back onto the pitch. Behind them marched the troops, guns pointed. Hundreds of them spread from the tunnel and encircled the pitch. They stood like the police at an Old Firm game, but much harder, much more sinister. Danny and Tracy slowly rose and walked down the steps. Those already on the pitch were backing off, pushing towards the centre circle. Others appeared in the stands, forced from the inner rooms at gunpoint. A soldier, khakied and helmeted, gestured to them with his M16: Come on. They kept their pace, tried to act casual. Danny felt the dirt through the holes in his shoes as they stepped onto the pitch. A magpie floated down and rested on the nearest crossbar, watching. The giant screen flickered on, and Gibson’s smug face appeared, God-like above them.
“It’s ma birthday the day,” he said.
“Happy Birthday.”
“Thanks.” He broke the last piece of bread in half, gave her a piece.
In unspoken solidarity they joined hands, raised their heads. Silence spread through Paradise as Gibson began speaking.
(commissioned by and published in The Celtic View)
A True History of Our Lord Rene Descartes
The purpose of this essay is not an in depth discussion into the myths and legends surrounding Rene Descartes but rather an introduction for the uninitiated student of Cartesianity. All that will be discussed here are known facts, proven time and again by philosophers, with no embellishments or bias for any point of view.
Descartes was born after immaculate conception at the time of year we now refer to as Cartesmas Time around 2000 years ago in 0 BC. His mother, the Virgin Candy as the Roman Cartholics refer to her, was on her way to Tours for the annual Solipsist’s Convention when the angel Gary came to her in a dream and informed her that she was heavily pregnant with the Son of God. Candy was delighted with this news as it meant that she could satisfy her biological ticking without dealing in all that ‘messy business’ and that her son would never fear unemployment. Hoping that she could still reach the convention she decided to continue driving for Tours but her labour pains began as she was passing through the village of La Haye. Pulling into the car park of the local Hilton she soon discovered that not only were there no parking spaces but there were no rooms available either. Left with no other alternative, the Lady Candy reluctantly gave birth to the Baby Rene in the back of a Ford Cortina.
After a difficult childhood being raised by a single parent in those repressed times and suffering the stigma of illegitimacy, young Rene eventually realised the calling of his birth and entered into the Holy Order of Philosophers at La Fleche where he remained until it was felt that his education was complete. At the Order he became involved with a gang of revolutionaries who called themselves the “Rationalists”. These were twelve students including a young David Hume who was later to turn Rene over to the “Empiricists”, the sworn enemies of the Rationalists. Their philosophy was that the world is an optical illusion which could only be made sense of by the use of reason. Feeling the pull of spirituality that all in this Holy Order recognise as their own, Rene applied this philosophy and meditated upon the world. Thus, like an alchemist, he concocted his most famous theories: the abolition of famine by the division of two or three loaves and fishes amongst the third world countries; his treatise on the possibilities of walking on water and, perhaps most importantly, his realisation of the existence of the great malignant demon Santa. This demon, he theorised, came once a year among the mortals, entered their abodes through the chimneys and gave the occupants found therein false knowledge of the world.
He now entered the most important stage of his life. Upon realising that all knowledge was suspect to doubts he set off for the deserts of France and Belgium (at that time situated near the equator) where he would not be disturbed by others nor found by Santa. His aim was that, by eschewing reason, he should completely forget everything he knew and so begin his system of knowledge over again. Unfortunately, as any psychology student tell you, if a man spends prolonged time without the company of others, he will undergo a period of self-discovery. Rene realised that he had a split personality and that there were two distinct people living within his body. Finding that he could never be truly alone he began dialogues with the other and, instead of forgetting everything, he began to unearth hitherto unknown facts which, he argued, could not be doubted since his dwelling had no chimney for Santa to enter through. Thus came such foundations of our intellectual lives as the theory that all our thoughts relate in some way to our mothers and that man could not survive without the invention and integration of a system of politics. However the field to most benefit from Descartes’ meditations was the field of mathematics. Just before his tragic death whilst protesting against the liberties being taken by carpenters and joiners, he stood up at a maths convention during a heated debate into which symbol should be used to signify “does not equal” and screamed “Cognito Error Sum”. Now the language in which this is stated is unknown and is thought by many to be of Rene’s own invention but we are assured that it can be interpreted as “I think like a machine therefore I can make no mistakes in mathematics”. This idea instantly became popular with maths students who frequently quoted it in examinations until the departments were forced to allow it onto the syllabus. From this point on human understanding of mathematics progressed in leaps and bounds.
After this Descartes disappeared from public attention for a few years but eventually resurfaced, styling himself as an ageing hippy, and began protesting against many of the worlds inadequacies. This led to his death when, after chaining himself to a wooden cross in a bid to show the world that every man could be a carpenter and didn’t have to pay their ridiculously high call out fees, he couldn’t unlock the chains. He refused the help of a locksmith claiming that they were involved in a conspiracy with the carpenters. He died after the cross became rotten due to forty days and nights of rain; he had neglected to apply varnish and it snapped leaving him face down in three inches of water. Since his feet were chained and he could not walk upon the liquid he had no choice but to breathe deeply the aqua vitae and promptly drowned.
(published on www.defenstrationmag.net)
Descartes was born after immaculate conception at the time of year we now refer to as Cartesmas Time around 2000 years ago in 0 BC. His mother, the Virgin Candy as the Roman Cartholics refer to her, was on her way to Tours for the annual Solipsist’s Convention when the angel Gary came to her in a dream and informed her that she was heavily pregnant with the Son of God. Candy was delighted with this news as it meant that she could satisfy her biological ticking without dealing in all that ‘messy business’ and that her son would never fear unemployment. Hoping that she could still reach the convention she decided to continue driving for Tours but her labour pains began as she was passing through the village of La Haye. Pulling into the car park of the local Hilton she soon discovered that not only were there no parking spaces but there were no rooms available either. Left with no other alternative, the Lady Candy reluctantly gave birth to the Baby Rene in the back of a Ford Cortina.
After a difficult childhood being raised by a single parent in those repressed times and suffering the stigma of illegitimacy, young Rene eventually realised the calling of his birth and entered into the Holy Order of Philosophers at La Fleche where he remained until it was felt that his education was complete. At the Order he became involved with a gang of revolutionaries who called themselves the “Rationalists”. These were twelve students including a young David Hume who was later to turn Rene over to the “Empiricists”, the sworn enemies of the Rationalists. Their philosophy was that the world is an optical illusion which could only be made sense of by the use of reason. Feeling the pull of spirituality that all in this Holy Order recognise as their own, Rene applied this philosophy and meditated upon the world. Thus, like an alchemist, he concocted his most famous theories: the abolition of famine by the division of two or three loaves and fishes amongst the third world countries; his treatise on the possibilities of walking on water and, perhaps most importantly, his realisation of the existence of the great malignant demon Santa. This demon, he theorised, came once a year among the mortals, entered their abodes through the chimneys and gave the occupants found therein false knowledge of the world.
He now entered the most important stage of his life. Upon realising that all knowledge was suspect to doubts he set off for the deserts of France and Belgium (at that time situated near the equator) where he would not be disturbed by others nor found by Santa. His aim was that, by eschewing reason, he should completely forget everything he knew and so begin his system of knowledge over again. Unfortunately, as any psychology student tell you, if a man spends prolonged time without the company of others, he will undergo a period of self-discovery. Rene realised that he had a split personality and that there were two distinct people living within his body. Finding that he could never be truly alone he began dialogues with the other and, instead of forgetting everything, he began to unearth hitherto unknown facts which, he argued, could not be doubted since his dwelling had no chimney for Santa to enter through. Thus came such foundations of our intellectual lives as the theory that all our thoughts relate in some way to our mothers and that man could not survive without the invention and integration of a system of politics. However the field to most benefit from Descartes’ meditations was the field of mathematics. Just before his tragic death whilst protesting against the liberties being taken by carpenters and joiners, he stood up at a maths convention during a heated debate into which symbol should be used to signify “does not equal” and screamed “Cognito Error Sum”. Now the language in which this is stated is unknown and is thought by many to be of Rene’s own invention but we are assured that it can be interpreted as “I think like a machine therefore I can make no mistakes in mathematics”. This idea instantly became popular with maths students who frequently quoted it in examinations until the departments were forced to allow it onto the syllabus. From this point on human understanding of mathematics progressed in leaps and bounds.
After this Descartes disappeared from public attention for a few years but eventually resurfaced, styling himself as an ageing hippy, and began protesting against many of the worlds inadequacies. This led to his death when, after chaining himself to a wooden cross in a bid to show the world that every man could be a carpenter and didn’t have to pay their ridiculously high call out fees, he couldn’t unlock the chains. He refused the help of a locksmith claiming that they were involved in a conspiracy with the carpenters. He died after the cross became rotten due to forty days and nights of rain; he had neglected to apply varnish and it snapped leaving him face down in three inches of water. Since his feet were chained and he could not walk upon the liquid he had no choice but to breathe deeply the aqua vitae and promptly drowned.
(published on www.defenstrationmag.net)
Things I Know Are True Because Hollywood Says So
You’d better be ready. Seven o’clock remember. I’ll ring twice.
I hang up. Hand still on the receiver I rest my head against the wall. The painkillers no longer deal with the headaches. It feels like my eyeball is being forced out. I swivel so my back is to the wall and sink to the floor. Everything important has been done: just the trivial things left. That’s where things will go wrong. Something small is liable to slip the net.
How long has the CD been skipping? I listen to the disc slipping, trying to work out at which point. In films you play vinyl, and vinyl always sticks at an ideal part of the song, at the revealing repeated phrase In real life CD’s don’t repeat phrases they just make an interminable tick tick tick like a metronome. It isn’t helping the headache. I wonder how long it’ll take for the irritation to rise to the level necessary for action. Not long. I get up and fall through the open door of the lounge.
My flat’s nice. It’s small but it suits me. I used to love this room. It’s such a mess now, the walls nicotine stained, newspapers and magazines spread over the floor. The curtains haven’t been open for months.
I think deciding to work from home was a mistake. The people at work were so jealous: no boss looking over my shoulder, no commuting, and no office politics. No structure. Slapping the open/close button I stare at the row of discs along the mantelpiece. Decisions. The CD LED flashes 00:00. It looks like a bomb.
I select The Beatles, the White Album. As usual the disc isn’t in the box so, straining like an old man, I get onto my knees and start searching through the carpet of silver plastic that surrounds the stereo.
It was fun at first. I installed all the relevant technology, geared myself up. Got the best of everything: the kind of laptop powerful enough to override the communications system of any invading alien society.
I was a film reviewer for the local paper. I got paid to watch films and then complain about them. Soon I realised that I could get any movie I wanted on the internet before its release. I would never have to go to the cinema again. Never have to suffer the chatting, fidgeting and munchings, the forced plasticity of the whole experience. I could lie on my sofa, alone in silence and work. I could stop the film for a toilet break. I could smoke. I could eat real food. It was perfect.
I find the disk and insert it, hitting shuffle. Disc one, I’m So Tired. Maybe this kind of thing does happen in real life. I’ve got to get ready. I’ll probably not sleep tonight. Should’ve got another prescription but it’s too late now. Hopefully they’ll have pills at the clinic. Hopefully they’ll give me pills at the clinic. They’d better considering the price. How can Iceland be so expensive? It’s hardly an economic power. Maybe that’s the reason. I wish I knew more about Iceland. At least they’ll all speak English. Should’ve rented more films. The only one I could find was 101 Reykjavik which isn’t going to help too much. Everything you need to know can be found in films.
To begin with I revelled in the fact that I had no need to set the alarm, could rise when I wanted, go to work naked. After a while I began to sleep on the sofa with the phone in one hand, the remote in the other. I ordered all my food, paying by credit card. I watched films all day, sometimes watching the same one seven or eight times in a row. All my work, banking, daily nutritional requirements could be achieved via the phone and the internet. The video shop would deliver and collect my films. During the day I kept the curtains closed so the sunlight wouldn’t interfere with the screen.
My mother took my films away. She came round eventually. I missed Christmas, she never saw me on my Birthday. It was always just the two of us – an only child and a divorcee. I never saw anything wrong with the way I was living. I was happy. She said I smelt dead. I no longer washed or changed. She called in someone who killed my pet mouse. She took me to the doctor who gave me pills. She took away my films.
I love my mother. I lived with her until I was twenty-eight. She cried when I moved out. She came round every day with food for me. She got upset when I stopped answering the door. She panicked. People always said she was over-protective. I don’t see how that can be the case; surely over-protective is just extra careful. It was always just the two of us. She just didn’t want anything bad happening to her only child.
I got fired. I submitted a review for a film which had been released in America but which was not being distributed over here. They were unhappy that I hadn’t been going to the cinema, said I hadn’t been entering into the spirit of things. I told them that I had been watching the films, that it made no difference where I watched them. I told them it showed that we were at the cutting edge, reviewing films that our readers hadn’t seen. They said something about expenses.
My mother found out about the clinic from a friend. I have problems distinguishing between reality and fantasy. It is expensive but she says she can afford it. It is called Overlook and is out in the middle of nowhere. The brochure looks nice. It doesn’t look like a hospital, more a kind of health farm. Mum says they can help me. They were unclear as to how long it would take so we’re letting out my flat. She’s going to deal with it all so I don’t have to worry. I’ve never flown before but I’m not scared. I wish mum could come. She hasn’t flown since her honeymoon. She says it’s amazing. If you go high enough you can see where the sky stops being blue and becomes black. Space. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was young. It’s beautiful up there with the spaceships dancing.
I would like to leave in the evening rather than the morning. The hero always rides off into the sunset. In horror movies people emerge into the dawn, stare up at the new sun glad that the demons are gone. I don’t want to be the hero in a horror film. I want to be in an intelligent comedy where I have a few mishaps along the way but can look back on them and laugh. I walk through to the kitchen as Don’t Pass Me By begins. On the table is a plate of mince and tatties with cling film covering it. I am to heat it up in the microwave.
On the wall behind the table is a poster of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. I wonder if the clinic will be like this. I hope there’s an Indian who can’t speak and a boy with a stutter. I hope there’s no Nurse Ratchet.
The headache is still there. I rake through the top drawer to find some paracetemol though I know there isn’t any. The headaches started when I began taking the pills, a side effect. Mum said I could cope with them if they made me better. I suppose she’s right but it doesn’t make them any easier to suffer. They make my hands shake. What do I still have to do? I have a list somewhere. My suitcases are packed; mum has my passport and tickets. I won’t need much money while I’m there but she changed about a hundred quid for me just in case.
At first I found it hard to live without films. I didn’t know how to fill my day. I scanned magazines like Empire and Total Film, marking the new releases I was missing. I wandered aimlessly around the flat, restless, unhappy. One day I tried to go to the cinema. Mum had asked me not to but I couldn’t help it anymore, I needed to see something. My head was empty without them. At this point I hadn’t been outside for about six months. I had a shower, put on clothes that she had cleaned for me. I felt good. I couldn’t get beyond the end of the path. I stood, I don’t know how long, at the gate unable to open it. When my mum came around after work she found me there.
The thought of all those people intruding on my viewing made me shake. The idea of the world, a world that didn’t follow the rules of film was terrifying. There wouldn’t be clues as to what would happen next, there would be no climax to build towards. It simply happened, completely unscripted. I didn’t try again. After that I found it much easier to fill my time and I only left the house with my mother. We went to the park a lot. It is right behind my flat, through the gate in the back garden. It is big enough that I can watch what’s going on without taking part. I stand at the gate and it is all spread in front of me like a giant Imax screen.
My father left us while I was in the cinema watching Star Wars. He dropped me off saying he’d pick me up after. When the film ended he was nowhere to be seen but my mother was sitting in the foyer crying. I went to see Star Wars every day while it was out. He never met me. I never saw him again. If someone says "I'll be right back", they won't.
I want to see Star Wars just now. It always calmed me down. I should really go to bed. I don’t like my bed – it’s not comfy and the sheets are wrong. Mum says that even if I don’t sleep just lying in bed will rest my body. I don’t think that’s true. I am always too restless to rest. I must sleep sometimes; the doctor says I’d be dead otherwise. He gave me pills to help. I slept a lot until they ran out. I kept forgetting to go back. I like being awake at night anyway. It’s much more peaceful than daytime. As long as I’m ready for seven it’ll be fine. It’s good to have that kind of structure.
After making coffee I go out into the garden and stand at the gate. The sun is setting but it is not yet dark. The park is circular, bordered by trees and houses. During the day it is busy with children and dogs, at night it is home to tramps. I sip my coffee and watch. I am not of the scene; I am the camera. I am the director. As the light fades a man in a suit enters from the left. He is dishevelled. He is carrying a large rucksack and a heavy suitcase. He is crossing the grass with some purpose, heading deliberately for the large clump of trees opposite me. The only other person in the park is a tramp asleep on a bench. I run back into the flat and get my camera. It has a large, powerful zoom lens. Back at the gate I train the camera on the trees. The man has dropped the bags and is digging, half-hidden by the Copper Beech.
I start snapping, the camera freezing moments as he continues to dig. He stops, throws down the shovel and wipes his brow. Snap. He drags the suitcase to the hole. Snap. He pushes it in. Snap. The rucksack follows. Snap. All the years my life was normal. All those disappointments. My headache has gone. The light is blue. He begins to fill in the hole and I begin to run, slow motion, across the grass. I can hear music. From a window somewhere A Day In The Life is playing:
I saw a film today, oh boy.
(included in Latitude: Writing from the Phillipines and from Scotland)
I hang up. Hand still on the receiver I rest my head against the wall. The painkillers no longer deal with the headaches. It feels like my eyeball is being forced out. I swivel so my back is to the wall and sink to the floor. Everything important has been done: just the trivial things left. That’s where things will go wrong. Something small is liable to slip the net.
How long has the CD been skipping? I listen to the disc slipping, trying to work out at which point. In films you play vinyl, and vinyl always sticks at an ideal part of the song, at the revealing repeated phrase In real life CD’s don’t repeat phrases they just make an interminable tick tick tick like a metronome. It isn’t helping the headache. I wonder how long it’ll take for the irritation to rise to the level necessary for action. Not long. I get up and fall through the open door of the lounge.
My flat’s nice. It’s small but it suits me. I used to love this room. It’s such a mess now, the walls nicotine stained, newspapers and magazines spread over the floor. The curtains haven’t been open for months.
I think deciding to work from home was a mistake. The people at work were so jealous: no boss looking over my shoulder, no commuting, and no office politics. No structure. Slapping the open/close button I stare at the row of discs along the mantelpiece. Decisions. The CD LED flashes 00:00. It looks like a bomb.
I select The Beatles, the White Album. As usual the disc isn’t in the box so, straining like an old man, I get onto my knees and start searching through the carpet of silver plastic that surrounds the stereo.
It was fun at first. I installed all the relevant technology, geared myself up. Got the best of everything: the kind of laptop powerful enough to override the communications system of any invading alien society.
I was a film reviewer for the local paper. I got paid to watch films and then complain about them. Soon I realised that I could get any movie I wanted on the internet before its release. I would never have to go to the cinema again. Never have to suffer the chatting, fidgeting and munchings, the forced plasticity of the whole experience. I could lie on my sofa, alone in silence and work. I could stop the film for a toilet break. I could smoke. I could eat real food. It was perfect.
I find the disk and insert it, hitting shuffle. Disc one, I’m So Tired. Maybe this kind of thing does happen in real life. I’ve got to get ready. I’ll probably not sleep tonight. Should’ve got another prescription but it’s too late now. Hopefully they’ll have pills at the clinic. Hopefully they’ll give me pills at the clinic. They’d better considering the price. How can Iceland be so expensive? It’s hardly an economic power. Maybe that’s the reason. I wish I knew more about Iceland. At least they’ll all speak English. Should’ve rented more films. The only one I could find was 101 Reykjavik which isn’t going to help too much. Everything you need to know can be found in films.
To begin with I revelled in the fact that I had no need to set the alarm, could rise when I wanted, go to work naked. After a while I began to sleep on the sofa with the phone in one hand, the remote in the other. I ordered all my food, paying by credit card. I watched films all day, sometimes watching the same one seven or eight times in a row. All my work, banking, daily nutritional requirements could be achieved via the phone and the internet. The video shop would deliver and collect my films. During the day I kept the curtains closed so the sunlight wouldn’t interfere with the screen.
My mother took my films away. She came round eventually. I missed Christmas, she never saw me on my Birthday. It was always just the two of us – an only child and a divorcee. I never saw anything wrong with the way I was living. I was happy. She said I smelt dead. I no longer washed or changed. She called in someone who killed my pet mouse. She took me to the doctor who gave me pills. She took away my films.
I love my mother. I lived with her until I was twenty-eight. She cried when I moved out. She came round every day with food for me. She got upset when I stopped answering the door. She panicked. People always said she was over-protective. I don’t see how that can be the case; surely over-protective is just extra careful. It was always just the two of us. She just didn’t want anything bad happening to her only child.
I got fired. I submitted a review for a film which had been released in America but which was not being distributed over here. They were unhappy that I hadn’t been going to the cinema, said I hadn’t been entering into the spirit of things. I told them that I had been watching the films, that it made no difference where I watched them. I told them it showed that we were at the cutting edge, reviewing films that our readers hadn’t seen. They said something about expenses.
My mother found out about the clinic from a friend. I have problems distinguishing between reality and fantasy. It is expensive but she says she can afford it. It is called Overlook and is out in the middle of nowhere. The brochure looks nice. It doesn’t look like a hospital, more a kind of health farm. Mum says they can help me. They were unclear as to how long it would take so we’re letting out my flat. She’s going to deal with it all so I don’t have to worry. I’ve never flown before but I’m not scared. I wish mum could come. She hasn’t flown since her honeymoon. She says it’s amazing. If you go high enough you can see where the sky stops being blue and becomes black. Space. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was young. It’s beautiful up there with the spaceships dancing.
I would like to leave in the evening rather than the morning. The hero always rides off into the sunset. In horror movies people emerge into the dawn, stare up at the new sun glad that the demons are gone. I don’t want to be the hero in a horror film. I want to be in an intelligent comedy where I have a few mishaps along the way but can look back on them and laugh. I walk through to the kitchen as Don’t Pass Me By begins. On the table is a plate of mince and tatties with cling film covering it. I am to heat it up in the microwave.
On the wall behind the table is a poster of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. I wonder if the clinic will be like this. I hope there’s an Indian who can’t speak and a boy with a stutter. I hope there’s no Nurse Ratchet.
The headache is still there. I rake through the top drawer to find some paracetemol though I know there isn’t any. The headaches started when I began taking the pills, a side effect. Mum said I could cope with them if they made me better. I suppose she’s right but it doesn’t make them any easier to suffer. They make my hands shake. What do I still have to do? I have a list somewhere. My suitcases are packed; mum has my passport and tickets. I won’t need much money while I’m there but she changed about a hundred quid for me just in case.
At first I found it hard to live without films. I didn’t know how to fill my day. I scanned magazines like Empire and Total Film, marking the new releases I was missing. I wandered aimlessly around the flat, restless, unhappy. One day I tried to go to the cinema. Mum had asked me not to but I couldn’t help it anymore, I needed to see something. My head was empty without them. At this point I hadn’t been outside for about six months. I had a shower, put on clothes that she had cleaned for me. I felt good. I couldn’t get beyond the end of the path. I stood, I don’t know how long, at the gate unable to open it. When my mum came around after work she found me there.
The thought of all those people intruding on my viewing made me shake. The idea of the world, a world that didn’t follow the rules of film was terrifying. There wouldn’t be clues as to what would happen next, there would be no climax to build towards. It simply happened, completely unscripted. I didn’t try again. After that I found it much easier to fill my time and I only left the house with my mother. We went to the park a lot. It is right behind my flat, through the gate in the back garden. It is big enough that I can watch what’s going on without taking part. I stand at the gate and it is all spread in front of me like a giant Imax screen.
My father left us while I was in the cinema watching Star Wars. He dropped me off saying he’d pick me up after. When the film ended he was nowhere to be seen but my mother was sitting in the foyer crying. I went to see Star Wars every day while it was out. He never met me. I never saw him again. If someone says "I'll be right back", they won't.
I want to see Star Wars just now. It always calmed me down. I should really go to bed. I don’t like my bed – it’s not comfy and the sheets are wrong. Mum says that even if I don’t sleep just lying in bed will rest my body. I don’t think that’s true. I am always too restless to rest. I must sleep sometimes; the doctor says I’d be dead otherwise. He gave me pills to help. I slept a lot until they ran out. I kept forgetting to go back. I like being awake at night anyway. It’s much more peaceful than daytime. As long as I’m ready for seven it’ll be fine. It’s good to have that kind of structure.
After making coffee I go out into the garden and stand at the gate. The sun is setting but it is not yet dark. The park is circular, bordered by trees and houses. During the day it is busy with children and dogs, at night it is home to tramps. I sip my coffee and watch. I am not of the scene; I am the camera. I am the director. As the light fades a man in a suit enters from the left. He is dishevelled. He is carrying a large rucksack and a heavy suitcase. He is crossing the grass with some purpose, heading deliberately for the large clump of trees opposite me. The only other person in the park is a tramp asleep on a bench. I run back into the flat and get my camera. It has a large, powerful zoom lens. Back at the gate I train the camera on the trees. The man has dropped the bags and is digging, half-hidden by the Copper Beech.
I start snapping, the camera freezing moments as he continues to dig. He stops, throws down the shovel and wipes his brow. Snap. He drags the suitcase to the hole. Snap. He pushes it in. Snap. The rucksack follows. Snap. All the years my life was normal. All those disappointments. My headache has gone. The light is blue. He begins to fill in the hole and I begin to run, slow motion, across the grass. I can hear music. From a window somewhere A Day In The Life is playing:
I saw a film today, oh boy.
(included in Latitude: Writing from the Phillipines and from Scotland)
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