Voyage VI – Muslims

The Muslims are up on deck again. Three of them, huddled around a table – an older couple in more traditional dress and a young woman in western clothes. What with the sleet and fog they’re all but unidentifiable under coats and hats, but I’ve noticed them before in the forward lounge – the mother in her head scarf, the father with his beard, and the daughter, dark, olive-skinned with long blue-black hair and striking olive-green eyes. Today I caught the father’s eye and I smiled at him and he smiled back, tentatively at first, then warmly.
I’ve always had a thing about foreigners, well, ever since my first year at college. We like to think of ourselves as very cosmopolitan in jolly old Be-right-on, but we don’t really do ethnic minorities, or, at least, they’re not very conspicuous. Takeaways and corner shops – that’s about it. I met my first foreigners en mass at the college – mostly Europeans but also a few Indians and Pakistanis, a Japanese girl, a Mexican chap, a couple of Brazilians, a Nigerian or two and one bloke from Russia who was very strange. Plus a heck of a lot of Aussies and Kiwis but they’re not really foreign are they.
I have this prejudice about foreigners, or some of them anyway. I always tend to assume they’ll be nicer than English people. Whereas, walking into a bar full of my compatriots, I would avoid eye contact, keep a straight face and make sure I had a book with me, if I come across an African, or hear people talking Spanish I can’t help but smile and nod. I know it’s a weird generalisation but I’m rarely disappointed. Whereas if I nod and smile at a bunch of English lads they’ll wonder what I’m looking at and probably assume I’m gay, with the Latinos at college they called me over and bought me drinks. I thought at first maybe it wasn’t a very representative sample, them being abroad, and therefore perhaps a more outgoing type of people, but then I went travelling and found they were all like that – at least in the Mediterranean, and in Scotland and Ireland as well for that matter (but not in Wales for some reason. They were more English than the English). I also thought maybe it was something to do with my expectations of my fellow countrymen. Maybe I’m more cautious. Maybe it’s me that looks shifty, but then I’m not exactly Mr Personality abroad. I never had to be. It was just easier. They fed me, gave me lifts, the women flirted with me. They even took me out for the evening.
I admit it’s also easier to find something to talk about – you know – where are you from? What are you here to do? Or the reverse if I’m over there. So when Mr Sadeghi smiled back I just had to go over and say hi and introduce myself. I asked what they were doing sitting out here in the rain. Mr Sadeghi said they liked it but his women folk didn’t look so sure. The younger woman turned to me and gave me a radiant smile from under her sou’wester. ‘Take a seat’ she yelled up at me through the wind and she budged up to let me in. I looked doubtfully at the view and the banks of wet cold weather rolling across it, then down at the wet bench. I didn’t like to say no so I tucked my waterproofs under my bum and sat.
‘My wife Amireh...’ he said, patting her arm ‘...and my daughter Shamim. Amireh was from Granada in Spain, originally’ he told me. I said I’d seen the Alhambra and my wife had been Spanish too and he really liked that. ‘We are from Iran now, since the revolution.’ I didn’t know what to say to that. I’d read a lot about what happened there of course, with the Ayatollah and so forth.
‘What were you doing in England?’ I say. ‘You know, when you died’ I hope he doesn’t think I’m implying they weren’t welcome. His face shows no untoward reaction.
‘Visiting Shamim. She’s at university, in London’ he says.
I turn to her. It’s a complicated manoeuvre, with all the folds of waterproof between us. ‘What were you studying?’ I shout at her. The weather really is appalling. What the hell are we doing out here?
‘I’m going to be a journalist’ she yells back. I had stupidly assumed she was the dutiful daughter, more or less forced to stay with her parents, but apparently not. I ask her about living in London and she tells me about the clubs she goes to and the bands she’s seen. ‘I don’t drink though’ she adds, possibly for her father’s benefit. He looks very proud of her.
‘I don’t want her to come home’ he says. ‘There is no future for a modern woman.’
‘I want to work for Al Jazeera’ she says and her father shakes his head in mock despair.
‘Bit late for that now’ I say.
‘Maybe next time’ she says, grinning cheekily at her father. He feigns a scowl for her. She leans in toward me and pretends to whisper ‘He can’t stand it that the Hindus were right about all this.’
‘Not really’ says her mother, reprovingly. Shamim gives her an indulgent, slightly mocking smile and pats her hand.
It occurs to me that I don’t feel comfortable talking about religion with these people. I’m afraid of offending them in a way I wouldn’t be with Olly or Keith or even Vincent. But there’s been so much going on in the Middle East for as long as I can remember – Libya, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Beirut, Palestine of course. It seems ridiculous now but I never had the chance to talk to some actual Muslims before. On the other hand I don’t even know if they’re particularly interested. It’s probably like them asking me what’s happening in Serbia at the moment. Still, they are Muslims. I’d like to ask them about that some time if I can think of a way to do it tactfully. I’ll leave it for perhaps another time. I do want to ask how come they all arrived here together.
‘M25’ says Mr Sadeghi, sadly and needn’t elaborate. Then he rises a little. ‘It really is bloody horrible out here. Shall we go in?’ he says.
‘At last’ says his wife, gathering her things. She seems to have some knitting with her. Shamim smiles and roles her eyes at me. We all get up and go down to the forward lounge for some warmth and dryness.

Voyage III – Boredom

I’ve had a good look over the boat. It seems to be some kind of old pleasure steamer – the kind you see in those Hollywood films from the thirties with Cagney or Bogart. I don’t know quite what to do with myself to be honest. There’s some sort of library here with what appear to be some very rare books, and I’ve found a storeroom with some art materials but I just can’t seem to settle down to anything. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Well, I do. I’m dead – supposedly, but I don’t see much evidence of it. At least the food’s good. It all just seems so, I don’t know, claustrophobic. I’ve not seen more than a hundred metres out beyond the railings at any time so far, and apart from the fact that I can see the bow-wave and the wake, you wouldn’t guess we were moving. I wonder if the word ‘wake’ is connected to the funeral wake? It’s an interesting thought... The funeral gathering as a trail left after the life has passed. And what about ‘wake up’? Interesting. Sophie would have known. I wonder if there’s an etymological dictionary in the library.

I look at the wall of fog and around at the strange gloomy light and it’s like being in a box. I know where I’ve seen it before – in my degree show installation. I created the outdoors – a scene by the sea, enclosed in a room. I tried to get the light right, but it just felt gloomy and claustrophobic. I had this dream about people living in a city where it never really gets light and the cloud is like a lid on their world. They have moving picture windows instead of real windows – video links to other, sunnier places, or places long extinct but still stored on digital media. And then of course there’d be a technical problem, or they’d forget to pay their bill and there it would be – just a concrete wall. It would have been a really interesting idea for my degree project but the trouble was I didn’t really want to do gloomy futuristic dystopia. I wanted to do current, vibrant life. I wanted to make people care about the future, not give them an excuse to give up on it. Anyway I hope there is a view out there somewhere, because if not I’m joining the fishes. Assuming there are any fishes down there. Oh god, or whoever is out there – get me out of here. Please.

I’ve had a look at the other inmates. I was one of the last to wake up properly (typical) and they all seemed to have formed their little cliques already. I don’t really feel I can intrude now. Ned and the others are a good laugh, but I do feel very young compared to them. It also bothers me that there’s no women in their group. I always think a mixed group is more interesting – the women stop the men getting too pompous and the men stop the women getting too personal. It’s obviously a very sweeping generalisation, but there it is. I’ve had a good look at the women of course. A few seem interesting but I’ve had no indication that any of them want anything to do with me so that’s that. Sue is very sweet – she’s one of the guides. I’ve chatted to her a few times but I don’t think we’re supposed to fraternise. Ho hum. I suppose I should be hanging out with blokes nearer my own age. I look a lot younger than I did at the end, which is nice. I guess death agrees with me. There’s a group of cool-looking surf dudes that tend to congregate by the bar, but they’re not really my type – a bit too young if truth be told.
It wouldn’t be like this if I’d been on a Spanish boat. They wouldn’t have let me mope alone. If only they’d let me die in Spain instead of flying me home to England. I’ll never forgive them for that. What was the point?
I still keep looking around for other people to bother, but no one looks approachable. In Spanish, the word for ‘to bother’ is molestar. It seems appropriate. Nobody really wants to be molested.
Whenever I see a little word slip like that I think of Sophie. She was really into things like that. Anyway, I do another circuit of the deck. The boards are slick and the hull runs with rust and oil and everything drips with salt water. Up above there’s the usual sea-going paraphernalia of masts and ropes and funnels and vents, and, up in the bridge, shadowy figures we never see face to face. Davey Jones et al I shouldn’t wonder. Behind me, there’s the misted-up portholes of the bar, the forward lounge, the library and the games-cum-music room. Down below, the cabins. I can’t complain about my quarters, although they’re small they’re not cramped, and they’re nicely designed in marine ply and William Morris prints. Maybe that’s where I’ll go. I’ll get my dinner and a book and head down to my cabin and then maybe after that I’ll settle down and have a damn good mope.

book 3 ~ Misadventure

Landscaping by Leonardo
This landscape has no truck with geology. It’s like something by one of those old French painters - Claude or Poussin or somebody. As we walk along I see chiselled pinnacles and gaping grottoes with trees grasping at their lips and curved escarpments with wind-carved spinneys at their summits. Fossils protrude randomly from the strata as if placed there for the express purpose of convincing any doubter that evolution had most certainly not occurred here. At any turn I half expect to see a temple on a promontory or a tower on a crag, wreathed in mists in the middle distance, or, worse, some seventies prog-rock band doing a photo shoot.
I mentioned this to our guide when we arrived - said something clever about this place being like some sort of Tolkein rip-off, and she looked at me, paused, smiled, and said ‘No, quite the reverse actually.’

I look at these improbable rock formations, cresting and flowing around us, encrusted and impregnated with life of all kinds and I realise suddenly – all the painters and writers I loved most, all those disorientating perspectives and airless spaces – this is what they were on about  –  the afterlife.

Death # 3 - Pratfall
I remember reading that news story about Rod Hull. Remember him? He was big in the 70s, him and that preposterous emu glove puppet. Anyway apparently he died when he fell off his roof whilst adjusting his TV aerial. I have this notion (I’m sure I’m not alone in this) that the emu was up there with him that day. And the emu of course was tugging the aerial out of Rod’s hands, and Rod snatched it back. A hilarious tussle no doubt ensued, and Rod, as they say, was history.

I’m fairly sure it wasn’t like that. I don’t suppose the emu was involved at all but I can’t, off hand, think of a better example of the Ludicrous Death – more literally tragic-comic than all the Beckett plays put together – to die idiotically, comically, but (and here’s the punch line) with a little time to lie there, look at the sky, and think ‘What a bloody stupid way to go.’ Friends and family would turn up in due course, do what had to be done, shed a tear etcetera, but along with the grief there’d be the unspoken consensus that after all, he always was a bit of a prat.

Furthermore, if it’s a truism that people tend not to contemplate their own mortality until fairly late in life, it’s completely unthinkable that death will not be taken seriously. Whether it is horrific and sudden, ugly and protracted, or (if you’re lucky) peaceful and dignified, it’s a matter of grave concern. But what if you die ridiculously, embarrassingly, through your own idiocy, doing something moronic? It must happen all the time.
It is further unquestioned that obviously you won’t be around to suffer said embarrassment. Wrong again.

My name is Gabriel Fortune, late of Brighton, England, but I died at the age of thirty-four on a mountain in Spain. There were four of us – my wife, Mar (short for Maria del Mar – Mary from the sea. Isn’t that nice?), and a couple of Spanish friends, Carmen and Riqui. We hadn’t been getting on very well lately, Mar and I. She really was a stereotypical Spanish woman. She’d looked magnificent dancing sevillanas (very Surfarosa), but would never ‘demean’ herself now. She had a powerful certainty of opinion on everything and a frightening temper to go with it, but she also had a doctorate in African women’s literature. We’d been together about three and a half years, married less than two, and I’d been utterly besotted. We’d travelled together for a while, and then lived in various places in the UK. Eventually she got a job – in the local college library, and taught Spanish in the evenings, and we rented a place together in Brighton. Meanwhile I was trying to set up my workshop, get some studio space and start my career as a painter (I’d only finished with college the year before). That was when the problems started.
Up until then I’d found her fiery rudeness amusing, even sexy. I kind of liked being told how foolish I was. How could I possibly have imagined I knew how to make, say, a veggie lasagne when after all, I was just a man, whereas she of course was a Woman, and a Spanish Woman at that! Previously I’d been widely considered ‘a pretty good cook’, but Oh no, it was all wrong. Early on in our relationship I’d chuckled at being sent across the kitchen to do some menial chore, like chop onions (‘no no. You do it like this’) or open a bottle of wine. I knew she was fond of me (why would she be living in England with me otherwise?) and the sex was pretty good. I found the sight and the feel and the smell of her body enough to keep me going for hours and she liked being massaged and caressed. I couldn’t get enough. In retrospect I'm not sure she felt the same way.
In any case I came to live for those moments when she would look across at me and... Well, the fact is that I was living for those occasional, fleeting delicious scraps of indulgence. I’d say the honeymoon period lasted about six months. The actual honeymoon lasted a week and was the last truly loving time we spent together – in a tiny hotel in the Sierra de Cazorla. I’d had this dream of us making love in the mountains, in the sun under the pines, maybe near a waterfall, somewhere where we could swim naked afterwards. That wasn’t when I died, in case you were wondering. That would have to be a minor species of the Heroic Death – a category I forgot to include in my list above, but which would still be considered an impressive and serious way to go I think. I wouldn’t have minded being remembered that way.
Anyway, it didn’t last. Things got rather mundane on our return. She didn’t like her job, which she considered beneath her. I tried to tell her it might take some time for a suitable position to come up at the university but she dismissed my opinion. And we had a lot of rows. I might sound very self-righteous when I say that our arguments consisted of her screaming and me trying to reason with her, but trust me when I say I am well aware of how infuriating that must have been for her. She didn’t want reason. She wanted anger, and she didn’t much care what she had to do to get it. She’d get in from work, tired and frustrated, find something (socks under the bed, tomato pips on the bread board) to bitch about and start on me. I wasn’t like that. I was scrupulously sincere. Somehow I just couldn’t bring myself to use any argument that I couldn’t rationally defend. I tried irrationality once – some sarcastic half-truth about her faking orgasms but the fury of the response was terrifying and I didn’t try it again. Eventually the exchange would reach a crescendo with me shouting to be heard above the fury, pleading that she couldn’t possibly mean the things she was saying about me. Finally I would run out, flayed by the contempt spewing from the mouth of the woman who was supposed to be the love of my life.
The first time I ran out she was so soft and sorry when I came back some hours later, and so worried (I’d gone up on the hills, it was dark and raining). She held me and we cried for hours together. On later occasions my exit just became the subject of more contempt – how typical it was of me, running away and so forth. Frankly, as time went on I ran away because if I hadn’t I’d have hit her. And of course, a man must never hit a woman, no matter what the provocation.
Having said all this I wouldn’t want to give the impression we did nothing but argue. I suppose this kind of thing happened about ten times in the entire relationship, and at first it was ok. We felt we learned something on each occasion, but as time went on it became clear we were learning nothing. I had no money for studio space and she gave up on her academic career.
It seems laughable to think now that there was a time when I’d be strolling along some country lane and I’d come across some scruffy little cabin or bungalow or a caravan perhaps, sunk in billows of briars and nettles and potato plants, the ground strewn with chicken wire and rusting mowers, climbing frames and paddling pools half deflated, and it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t one day find a place like that and do it up and plant trees and grow some veggies, maybe get a dog.
But then when it came to it, and even though we were both working hard, with property prices being what they were, we had to accept it wasn’t going to be like that. We simply wouldn’t be able to afford it.
I even suggested we go back to Andalucia, maybe go live on the finca with Mar’s parents but she wouldn’t hear of it. So there we were, stuck in that miserable little flat together, ’til death did us part.

That last trip to Spain I had no high hopes for a reconciliation. We met up with Carmen and Riqui and went into the mountains in a borrowed hatchback. It was a fantastic day – we saw eagles and picas and swam in a river. I loved Spain. I had some ideas for a series of pictures and began to formulate a plan for coming back alone to do some drawing. Mar was civil but distant.
That afternoon I’d been doing the driving, which always wound her up. I wasn’t too confident driving on the right-hand side of a narrow twisty mountain road with bloody great trucks coming in the other direction, so I was taking it slowly. I was very aware of her mood.
The problem really started when I was manoeuvring in a car park, and the car rolled backwards over a dip so that one of the front wheels was slightly off the ground. It was front wheel drive and we couldn’t get any traction. The three Spaniards were all talking at once. My Spanish was ok but not that good and I left them to it, walking around the car, trying to look useful. Mar was getting more and more heated, but the others seemed to be taking this in their stride. Riqui was laughing and shrugging a lot. Carmen was as loud as Mar, but good humoured. After a few minutes Riqui got the jack out and was propping the rear up and Carmen was running the engine, trying to get a grip. Mar and I were sitting on the bonnet trying to weigh it down. I could feel the full heat of her derision radiating at me along with the stultifying heat of the midday sun. ‘This is no bloody good’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go do something useful?’ I knew it was my fault that we were in this situation, and I couldn’t think of anything else to do about it but I still didn’t feel I deserved this treatment. It was just a silly mistake. Everyone makes mistakes, but somehow, being with Mar just made me feel like I was the most stupid useless person in the world. It felt like I was full of hot, acid vomit, burning my chest, ready to burst out of my head. I could feel it leaking out of my eyes. My teeth were clenched so hard my jaws ached. And yet I couldn’t yell or cry. I held it in. I got down and looked under the car. It occurred to me that the jack could go a little higher. It was on some loose stones and had shifted. I got down to have a look and to hide the tears that were leaking out.

So that was when it happened. You can see it coming can’t you? Carmen was revving the engine, and Riqui was bouncing on the bonnet, amidst much yelling and gesticulation. Somehow, I don’t really remember how, I had my head in the wheel arch when the jack slipped.

I had quite a lot of time to think, or so it seemed. The weight of the car on my shoulders and neck was enough to stop me breathing, but I think I kicked and scrabbled for a while. I was vaguely aware of people around me, shouting, running around, but I couldn’t really hear anything over the engine and the sound of my heart in my head. Eventually someone turned the engine off and I stopped struggling. It was over. I remember thanking God for the silence. I had a final image of my poor sweet girl and how sorry I was it had come to this. Everyone’s voices seemed very far away – like I was underwater. I could see gravel and pine needles under my nose. I could picture my predicament – my body splayed out, my head stuck in the side of a car. It looked very funny. It would have been a great slapstick moment in a circus with a clown car perhaps and all the clowns running about ineffectually beeping horns. I don’t remember any pain. I don’t remember being aware of my body at all in fact. I just remember feeling ridiculous, and somehow, not surprised.
‘Typical’ I thought ‘What a prat.’

Voyage XXI – Anticlimax

The next few days passed quickly. I didn’t see much of Lucy and her crowd nor of Ray and his. I stayed in my room, up on deck or in the library.
I didn’t actively avoid them however and what I saw of Harry was quietly gratifying. Apparently Liz had got a cabin to herself and was much more lively than before, flirting and joking with all the men. It was quite disgusting actually. She slid up to me on deck one night and said something about me being a nice young man. I backed off a little too obviously and she told me laughingly not to flatter myself, whatever that meant, but then she slid closer again and whispered in my ear about our ‘little conversation’ of some while back. I nodded conspiratorially, going along with her. ‘Don’t tell anyone will you’ she said without moving her lips. ‘It’ll be our little secret. Hmm?’ and without waiting for a reply, minced off to accost some apprehensive looking men who I knew to be Spanish – expired in a house fire whilst visiting family in Maidstone poor buggers.

And so the coast draws nearer. I can see houses with red roofs and white walls and some very surreal looking trees. Some are completely vertical, like black candles. Others are flat topped - like black mushrooms. Purple mountains provide a backdrop. I make some colour sketches. I love the light here, the warmth, and I can smell something new. One of the Spaniards – I can’t remember his name, tells me it looks a bit like Almeria and I tell him I’d like to go there next time in that case. He grins and slaps my back.

I know I have a very long way still to travel but I want to get going now. I understand that we’ll be in mule carts and apparently the scenery going up from the coast into the mountains is magnificent. It certainly doesn’t sound very arduous. And the guide we’ll be travelling with, Kevin, I’m told is a really nice guy. I’m looking forward to it. It’ll be great to get away from everything that’s happened here anyway. It can’t possibly be worse.
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