Joe XI – A levels

‘Tell me about school, and try and do it without saying “It was alright” or “I don’t know.” Go.’
‘I hated it. It was shit. How’s that?’
He looks impressed ‘Brief, to the point, certainly. What happened? Did you get into trouble a lot, or get bullied or what? I seem to remember, before you said not.’
I look about. I don’t want to talk about this shit. Can’t he tell?
He flicks through some papers, finds something, reads rapidly, moving his lips and gesticulating a little as if re-enacting our conversation. ‘Blah blah blah... invisibility. You relied on being inconspicuous apparently.’ He raises his eyebrows. I nod.
‘What were you avoiding?’
‘Attention.’
‘Obviously. Why?’
I want to say I don’t know but I stop myself just in time. Then I decide I really don’t know and just say so.
‘Did you think you might get into trouble?’
‘Not really. Mostly it just seemed less complicated that way.’
‘Dealing with people was complicated?’
‘Definitely.’
‘But you had friends.’
‘Sort of. There were a few I hung around with at breaks sometimes, but we weren’t close. Actually they were really irritating. I spent a lot of time on my own.’
‘So, why didn’t you go and make other friends?’
‘I don’t know... Shit, sorry.’
‘I’m going to install an “I don’t know” box if you’re not careful, except there’s no money here of course. Anyway, go on. Other friends?’
‘I just didn’t want to hang around them, make a nuisance of myself. That sounds pathetic doesn’t it.’
‘It didn’t occur to you that they might want to be friends with you?’
‘No. And I’m fairly sure they didn’t. Everybody was just in their groups already – they didn’t want me coming over and saying (I do a whining voice)“Can I be in your gang?” It would have sounded feeble anyway, like I thought they were so cool.’
‘But other kids do that all the time, though not usually in that voice. They go up and say “Can I join in?” or, you know, “Can I come along?” well, Kirsty did anyway.’
‘But she was a kid wasn’t she, and girls are different anyway.’
‘I don’t know. Little girls can be complete b... I don’t know whats.’
‘Well, maybe I was too proud.’
‘So you stayed with the losers because that way you didn’t have to risk rejection. Is that it?’
I think about this. Was I just too proud?
‘No, I really think the other groups didn’t want me around’ I decide finally. ‘I was a bit of a weirdo. It would have just been pointless humiliation, and actually, if I’d been in with the cool kids it would just have been complicated in a different way.’
‘How?’
‘I think they were quite, like show-offs, you know, joking around, being cheeky, taking the piss out of the girls and so on.’
‘You weren’t really like that I suppose.’
‘It would have been really hard work.’
‘Whereas with your loser friends you didn’t have to try at all. Wasn’t there anybody else you could hang around with?’
‘I can’t think of anyone in particular. We didn’t mix much with other classes, so that was it – weirdos or dudes – take your pick.’
‘Or girls presumably.’
‘There weren’t really any boy-girl friendships then.’
‘What age was this?’
‘Secondary school, up to about sixteen. It was better later, in the sixth form.’
‘How was that?’
‘Well I hung out with the people who’d been in the class above and they were kind of weird, but cool too – university types I suppose. Some of them went travelling – inter-railing and or went to a lot of concerts. Some of them were really clever. Some of them actually discussed chemistry in free periods...’
‘God how dreadful.’
‘I know...’

‘How was your school work?’
‘I don’t remember much about it actually. It all seemed a bit of a mess – I was always handing stuff in late, getting into trouble.’
‘And yet you were always near the top as I understand it – one of the brighter students.’
‘That’s not how it seemed at the time. It just all seemed like a huge mess.’
‘Did that worry you?’
‘I just didn’t think about it really. ‘
‘But it must have become a problem, with dead-lines and so on.’
‘I suppose it was always in the back of my mind. It just all looked like a horrible muddle, and then it got worse because I missed stuff or didn’t really understand and then we moved on to the next topic and I was just completely lost. I have no idea how I passed my O levels.’
‘But would you describe yourself as fairly relaxed about it?’
‘No, I just stayed away from it as much as I could. I think if I’d actually thought about all the stuff I was supposed to be doing I’d have had a breakdown or something. I had quite a lot of time off, feeling sick, headaches and stuff. Or in the sixth form I just went away.’
‘Where to?’
‘Over the Downs. I’d set out for college in the morning and just walk straight past the school and up onto the hills.’
‘And the teachers? What did they do?’
‘I don’t think they knew really. I mean, obviously they knew I wasn’t doing very well. They didn’t know what I was doing.’
‘Did they ask?’
‘Ask what?’
‘Did they talk to you about why you were having trouble?’
‘Well, they did the whole “Pull your socks up or else” speech. Everybody was just fed up with me.’
He gets up and begins to pace about ‘You see this is what really pisses me off’ he says. ‘They can see you’re struggling, or something’s not right anyway and they know you’re bright, so if you’re not stupid they assume you can’t be bothered and the only strategy they have available is to give you a bollocking, like that’ll do the trick. It really gets my goat – I mean, it’s not the fifties any more – haven’t these people heard of educational psychology?’
‘But it’s not all that easy to talk to teenagers...’
‘What? Who the hell told you that?’
‘Er... well my mum, for a start...’
‘I bet she did. I bet she did.’ He’s really pacing now, double time. ‘Shit I can’t believe it’ he says. ‘Really makes me mad. So I suppose when you came to do your A levels that’s when it all fell apart because you couldn’t just muddle through any more, and I bet they still didn’t ask you what was going on, just told you to buck your ideas up.’
‘I don’t think I knew what was wrong either, to tell them I mean.’
He shakes his head frustratedly. ‘How long is it since this all happened?’ he says.
‘A year, eighteen months? It was before the end of the first year things started to go really wrong.’
‘You think you’ve changed much in that time? Apart from having died and so on of course.’
I shrug.
‘But we’re having this conversation now, and are you “hard” to talk to? Are we not having a conversation?’
‘Yes but...’
He leans over me, a hand on each arm of the chair. He looks intently into my face. ‘I could have helped you’ he says fiercely ‘and I’m not even a trained fucking shrink. Even I could have got you your passes. Shit!’ he says and bangs his fist down. He goes and resumes his seat. ‘I wish we had more time’ he says.
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Joe VIII – The Big Frieze

‘So what happened? Why didn’t you get to college?’
I’ve relaxed a lot with this process now. I sit back and look at the ceiling before attempting an answer. ‘Maybe I had better things to do?’ I suggest.
‘Bullshit’ he offers, levelly and after some consideration. ‘You were scared. Tell me I’m wrong.’
It’s ok. I can take it. I think about it a bit more. ‘Scared of what?’
‘You’re stalling. You know what. At least be honest with yourself.’
‘Ok. Err...’ I stop again. I think he’s partly right but I don’t know what to say about it.
‘Ok’, he says. ‘You were afraid you’d try your hardest and fail. How’s that?’
‘I don’t think so’ I say. I sit and try and work out what it actually felt like to be in that situation. I think about what it was like when I had to try and find a job after I failed my exams – with all those adverts in the paper, all those forms they sent me. I couldn’t imagine what the employers wanted to read about me and anyway I knew what they would think of me even before I started. What was the point? It was just a waste of time.
‘I just couldn’t start – it was too complicated’ I say. ‘I didn’t know where to begin. It was like getting lost... or something like that.’ 
‘You were afraid of getting lost?’ He looks doubtful.
‘I think I’d have been ok if I thought I was heading in roughly in the right direction but it all felt so – I don’t know – muddled, like a big mess I didn’t know how to get through. It actually felt like, if I’d started something, and tried, even reasonably hard, and done ok, or even if I’d failed, it’d’ve been ok, but I couldn’t even start... do you see...what I mean...at all?’
‘Tell me something that feels like that – something you couldn’t start. No, forget that – is there something you did start, failed at and still felt ok with?’
‘That’s easy’ I say. ‘I was in this competition – they wanted a frieze for a doorway at a local community centre. They specified how big it had to be, colours, materials, cost. Only the subject matter was left up to us. I had this big idea for an underwater scene that fitted perfectly – it was down at the harbour, this building, the sea scouts and kayak club were going to use it. It was a bit of a dump but they were going to do it up. Anyway, I think my scheme was a bit dark for them. They wanted something sunny and bright – yachts, sunshine, mer-fucking-maids, whatever, but the sea there isn’t like that, it’s dark and encrusted and oily and rusty, not ugly, you know, but not pretty-pretty. Anyway – I had all that. I was going to use all these layers of colour – to get the depth of water – like glazes... anyway, they didn’t like it. I could see they wouldn’t get it, although – they had this local historian on the panel and he was really into it, really pushing for it, and I could see he really understood it....’
Joe is watching me, half smiling. ‘Go on’ he says.
‘The thing is, I was a bit pissed off, because I knew it was the best, and I knew these other judges were a bit, you know, tra-la-la, happy birds and flowers, but it didn’t matter. I’d done something I knew was good. It just didn’t appeal to them. But I had impressed the person I could respect. 'Course, I’d like to have won, and I could have done with the book tokens, but it was ok. I didn’t have to win. I was satisfied with my work. It was enough. So...’ I smile at the memory. It had been a good experience, frustrating, but good.
And Joe smiles too. ‘Ok. I get it’ he nods and looks at me. ‘So what did your family say?’
I look down at my feet. I’ve stopped wearing shoes. It’s not hot out, but it’s pleasant. I never wore shoes before if I didn’t have to. People were always going on at me “you’ll catch your death” or “you’ll run something through... don’t come running to me” but I never did. I’m not stupid.
‘I don’t think they were very interested really. Amelia liked it.’
‘Didn’t they talk about it? Didn’t you talk about it with them?’
‘I don’t think there’d have been much point.’
‘How old were you when all this happened?’
‘Fifteen, sixteen...’
‘So what did they say about it at school?’
‘It was the art teacher got us started on it – entered us in the competition.’
‘What did he say – she say about it?
‘She – she was cool, but the school wasn’t really very supportive – I think she was going to retire, and they all thought she was a bit weird...’
‘But you liked her?’
‘No, she was weird – probably should have retired ages ago. Hairy legs under her stockings.’ I shudder a little and Joe smiles. ‘I know, I know’ I say. ‘But it was a rough school.’ I feel a little guilty. I know they thought I was a weirdo too. ‘We should have stuck together, us weirdos, huh?’
‘I didn’t say that’ says Joe holding up his hands and feigning innocence, but I know he was thinking it.
‘But your parents didn’t know about this competition? Why not?’
‘They’d have just said something like “won’t get you a proper job”, or “what about your O levels?” They’d have agreed with the vicar.’
‘The vicar?’
‘He was on the panel.’
‘Tra-la-la?’
‘Exactly.’
Joe smiles, and chuckles to himself and shakes his head. I think he’s laughing at me.
‘What?’ I say.
‘Oh...’ he looks around the room, thinking about how to put it. ‘It’s just... You seem very sure of yourself. No no, don’t get me wrong. It’s a good thing.’
He studies me. I watch him.
‘It’s not a criticism – believe me. It’s just, given the rest of your story, you don’t seem to have had many doubts about your abilities, as an artist I mean. And I’ve no doubt your confidence was well-founded. That’s quite interesting don’t you think?’
I’d never really thought about it. It makes me feel quite proud. Joe looks very pleased anyway. Somehow I always knew I could paint. I wonder where that came from?
I also always knew it didn’t mean anything at all about my chances of success. To get on in life it’s more important to please people, say the right things, wear a tie. It has nothing to do with ability. If you want to be a ‘success’ it’s better to be mediocre, predictable, ordinary, inoffensive. Popular in other words.
   
He’s still watching me but now looks uncomfortable. ‘So what about your O levels?’ he says after a pause.
‘I did ok. Passed. It’s not exactly MENSA.’
‘And you went on to do A levels?’
‘Only person in my class to try. Headmaster didn’t like to take risks.’
‘What happened?’
‘Failed. Completely. Couldn’t even get a pass.’

Journey III – The ridge

My walking at last has brought me out on a high outcrop. It’s bright spring weather and in the short turf, exquisite flowers are scattered about. I’ve never really looked at flowers before, but here among the mountains, under a blindingly blue sky, everything is fresh and new. There’s still snow in the shady hollows (sprouting tiny fringed purple bells), and gullies where the melt water runs clear and frigid (and edged with tiny silk white buttercups, stained with red at the edges). The crevices in the otherwise bare rock are stuffed with tiny green cushions, studded with crystalline wine red stars. I feel sure nothing so wonderful could possibly exist back in the world, although I admit to being dizzy with the clear air and the sun (although it’s still very cold) after all that damp and shade. Mountains, still half clad in snow stretch on forever in all directions. I drink the water and find a sheltered place to lie down naked, and spread all my belongings out on the grass so I can finally dry everything out properly. Tiny birds hop among the outcrops, and a huge furry iridescent black bee savagely molests a nodding jade green, bowl shaped flower, wrestling it to the ground just beside my head (What’s the point in a green flower? What a strange place).
Still, it’s freezing out of the sun and the wind picks up at dusk so I set my tent up just below the tree line for shelter.
I wonder where she is. I can’t bring myself to go back and look. I call for her sometimes but there’s no answer. Partly I doubt she even exists, but part of me knows I’m being selfish. Going backwards is just more than I can stand. ‘I’m sorry’ I call. I hope she’s alright.

Morning comes. I look at the view. My good mood of the previous night has turned sour. Each ridge, exposed above the tree line gives fresh hope, and just as quickly dashes it. Part of me wants to avoid them – to avoid the disappointment of having to re-enter the forest after. But the respite is too good to miss. I love the air, and the light, and the chance to dry off, and the fellowship with other living things. You’d never think a moth could be a kindred spirit until you’ve had the company of nothing but millipedes and spiders for weeks on end. Oh colour and movement my soul! I sit and steam in the sun, or rinse in the rain - either way it’s too good to pass up. And then there’s the snow – so white after so much gloom. Looking at it I can feel my retina burning away and it feels wonderful.
I cast my mind back, and I can’t say how many tree lines I’ve crossed. It all begins to merge and repeat. I have had nothing to eat in a long time and I don’t miss it that much. I would like to arrive somewhere some time soon, but it is remarkable that I’m not going mad for it. I just keep going. That’s what there is to do, so I do it.
It gives me time to think though, which I suppose is the point. Kevin said something about there always being a purpose – a meaning – to what happens here, unlike in life, which I know had come to seem completely meaningless to him after he lost his family. I always used to believe in fate – in destiny (I’ve never been sure what the difference is) because I never really felt like I had much of a say in what happened. Here though, it’s different. This is what it’s really like to feel a subtle presence acting on events, making things happen. I know I’m being tested.
I endlessly go over what happened with Ray and the others, and with Lucy of course and I just feel like punching myself. Why couldn’t I just act like an adult like everybody else for fuck’s sake? What was wrong with me? I should have either had the balls to tell them to fuck off or... Or what? Or been like them? Tried to fit in? Hah! No way.

So what was I supposed to do? If I couldn’t be myself convincingly, and I couldn’t stand to be like them, what was I supposed to do? To be honest I’m not even sure I wanted to do anything much. When I was alive I was happy to stay home, drawing and writing stories in my room, reading, listening to music. Well, not happy, but I could stand it. I knew how it worked. Sometimes I couldn’t even get it together to sign on and I’d have to go in all shame faced and apologise for being crap and fill out a whole load of new forms. Then I got the shop job and I was crap at that too – I didn’t know a hawk from a hacksaw but it got mum off my back. I don’t know. Up until my exam results actually arrived I still thought there might be some sort of miracle. I’d always got through somehow before without doing much work at all. It was a shock, and yet I wasn’t surprised when I found I’d just utterly failed. The staff giving out the result slips just shook their heads and looked away and I went home. Nobody said anything about it.

If you want to know the real reason why I wanted to go to university it was because I wanted a girlfriend. Pathetic isn’t it.
I met Naomi at a family do and started going out with her the autumn after I left school. At the time I don’t think I took her very seriously. She was only sixteen and kind of mad I thought. She made me feel quite mature by comparison.
I didn’t even think she was particularly attractive, not initially, but I did what I thought boyfriends did – went round to her house a lot, even took flowers once. We didn’t do anything much, hardly said anything to each other – just snogged, or I sat and watched telly while she studied for her A levels which she was due to take a year early. Seems strange now. Of course I desperately wanted to go further but she wouldn’t let me – she just giggled and made sarcastic comments. It was only then that I realised she was, of course, absolutely gorgeous. Suddenly her ‘madness’ was really sexy. I spent my days waiting to be with her and my nights fantasising about her. That was when I bought her the flowers – I was that desperate. I told her I loved her.
As with the A level results I saw it and I didn’t see it coming when she finally broke up with me. The fact that she was applying to Oxford and was clearly very bright didn’t make me feel any better. She’d been increasingly unpredictable, playing stupid jokes on me – inviting her friends around on the evenings I was there and excluding me from the conversation, giggling and flirting with the boys, pretending to play fight with me but actually hurting me quite a lot, pinching and scratching, and I had to pretend it was cool in front of everyone because I was more mature or something.
No doubt she was hoping that if she treated me badly enough I’d ‘get the idea’ but of course I didn’t. I now know that this is a cheap and cowardly strategy and probably never works on the besotted (After all – you always hurt the one you love, or so my dad used to sing, and he should know) but at the time I didn’t understand at all. In the end she was the mature one and told me very calmly and articulately one day that she didn’t want to be with me any more because I was still living with my parents and didn’t seem to have a future, and she was very sorry and there was even a little tear. I spent the next I-don’t-know-how-long working on my script to get her back, writing letters I never sent (Thankfully. My common sense hadn’t completely given up on me) and wandering about town aimlessly, half hoping to bump into her, half dreading it. The whole thing lasted about two months.

I know now I wasn’t in love, and we didn’t even have anything to talk about but it doesn’t help. No one else wanted me even as much as she did. How fucking pathetic. I did the right thing that night, up on the Downs, just brought the whole stupid thing to an end – done with it.
And now here I am, trudging through wet undergrowth alone for all eternity for all I know. Terrific.

Actually, the forest can be more interesting than I’ve admitted. The trees are not all one kind for instance and I’ve been collecting bits to compare. Although, like everything here, large numbers are difficult to keep track of, I think there are at least twenty different types, plus miscellaneous climbers, ferns and other weeds, not to mention fungi – especially in the clearings and lesser ridges. The best places (except the high tree-less ridges of course) are where the path runs along the side of a precipice. There you see enormous birds, and streams dropping hundreds of metres into the void. I look from above at the top of a huge tree that has its roots somewhere far below, and watch herons nesting in the uppermost branches. Even on some of the smallest twigs there are tiny ferns and mosses clinging, beaded with moisture and supporting bustling colonies of ants. In some places the trees exude a foam of tiny flowers strongly scented of honey. I tasted some and nearly fell into the abyss in the process.
I don’t want to spend an eternity doing this, but actually, it’ll do for now.

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Voyage III – Nerds.

Next day I was on my way through to the bar and Harry was there with Solly. I thought I might as well join them, to take my mind off things. Harry said ‘You still got that bloody handbag?’ Solly laughed and shook his head.
They hadn’t mentioned it before. I’d taken to carrying my things around in this canvas shoulder bag – just some paper and pencils, my book, some chocolate, the plastic fish.
They stood there, leaning on the bar and watching me, grinning and chuckling. Then they went back to what they had been doing, chatting up one of the bar staff.
Why shouldn’t I carry my things around in a bag? I used to when I was alive. Everything just got lost otherwise.
I went and sat in the library.

One of the men there noticed I was looking at a book on marine ecology and it turned out that that had been his field of research. He said the book was quite up to date, but not one he was familiar with, which surprised him. ‘I’ve been supervising some students for their doctorates. You have to know the literature, so...’ He paused and flicked through again, pausing here and there. ‘Of course, this is what you might call “popular science” but still... it’s pretty good. I’ll have to put it on their reading list, next term er...’ He realized what he’d said and looked up toward the portholes but without really focusing. Finally he took his glasses off and, squinting down at them, polished the lenses with a tissue. ‘I’m sorry’ he said. ‘Fergus’ he added, and held out his hand to me. ‘Gabriel’ I said and shook his hand. I was happy to notice he refrained from crushing mine. Why do men do that? He pointed at the book with his glasses and put them back on. ‘It’s an interesting book’ he said. ‘Probably not available yet, in the, you know, ordinary world. I expect publishing’s a bit different here’. He seemed a bit confused and upset so I asked him about some of the amazing things I’d read in it and couldn’t be sure were real; mid ocean ridges, larvacean houses, turbidity flows, spiral shit animals. ‘Yeah, they’re all real’ he said, and sat down and explained a lot of other things to me, some of which I frankly didn’t get, but which sounded fabulous. My science has never been very strong although I enjoyed biology and should have passed... But I told him that the thing I drew and painted most was the sea, or things from the sea, and he seemed really interested and said he’d like to see some of my work some time. I didn’t know if he was just being polite, being a scientist and all. My stuff must seem pretty woolly by comparison with all his instruments and equations and so on...
Anyway, Fergus must have been an excellent teacher. I learned a lot. He said he really missed his students. I said I was glad to fill in for them. He smiled and shook my hand again and headed up to the deck. ‘See you around’ he said in the doorway.

After that I spend a bit of time thinking about things. I glance at the pages of the book but I can’t focus on it any more. I look around at the other people sitting there. Some of them are chatting quietly and there’s a woman over in the corner reading. I sort of feel that other people would go over and make conversation. I keep thinking I could but I don’t know what I’d say. She doesn’t look like she wants to be disturbed anyway and the others already seem to know each other. They don’t need me, coming and making a nuisance of myself. I don’t really know how other people manage to make friends and so on. I always feel I might be doing something weird, or say something wrong. It’s easier just to keep to myself I find but I sometimes wish I could do it, fit in I mean, if I wanted to.
On the other hand, sometimes I used to look at them, the other boys at school and just think ‘Oh my God, look at them. What a bunch of wankers.’ Either they were obsessed with sports and just ran around the place yelling and hitting people or they were the nerds, and just looked weird and talked a lot of rubbish all the time. I wasn’t into science fiction comics or building model aeroplanes. I just didn’t get it. The only alternative on offer as far as I can see, if you wanted to be ‘different’, was being gay, like Mark Almond or Tom Robinson.
I suppose most people would have put me in with the nerds. Everybody said I read too much and was always ‘off in my own little world’, but they were wrong. It wasn’t a little world at all. It was enormous. There were landscapes and characters they wouldn’t even have come across in their weirdest dreams. I spent a lot of time getting it all down on paper – writing about it or drawing and painting. I did some huge scenes – part map, part landscape, with gargantuan shaggy beasts and archaic birds, engaged in incomprehensible behaviours among misshapen trees and alien fungi. Offshore, vast dead-eyed fish and primitive whales turned among forests of coral and kelp. I don’t know where it all came from. Nobody ever asked me about it. Dad and mum just shook their heads and tutted and went away. In my world there were settlements too; some of exquisite architecture and peopled by gentle and tolerant souls. Others bristled with armaments and dripped with pollution. And always there was a woman, and she looked past all the crap and saw me as I really was, and we’d be happy together. I always imagined that happening but it never did.

Everybody thinks, if you’re not one of the sporty types that you don’t really think about sex, that it’s just how you are; sexless, celibate, virgin, because the girls are never interested in you, because you’re ridiculous. They think it doesn’t matter to you because you don’t really care about that sort of thing anyway, so you don’t miss it. You don’t mind. Some people seem to think being one of the nerds is maybe sort of cute or funny, like Charlie Brown or that obnoxious weed Adrian Mole.
So the worst part, the final indignity if you like, is not that we are sexless and ridiculous, but that they imagine we’re happy that way, laughable, harmless nonentities. We just smile apologetically and go back to our wargaming and our comics, with our innocent minds and our greasy hair and our no doubt tiny atrophied penises.

But we don’t, we fume and rage in private and we fantasise of terrible things, pumping relentlessly on our immense engorged cocks, craving it, probably more than they do. And we’re desperate and obsessed and maybe that’s what makes us look weird because we’re just so cramped up with it, and twisted, having to hold it in. Sports guys can only look that cool because they’re not that bothered about it. They’d prefer to play with a football.
I don’t know. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do, given the chance. To have a woman there, beside me in bed, sharing that small space, with her heat and her odour and her moisture and looking at her and touching her... I’d never do anything else if I could have that.
I can’t believe it. I died when I was nearly nineteen and I reckon I’d been looking at the girls since I was eight at least. I fantasised about Donna Redmond even in Miss Williams’ class and I didn’t even know what sex was back then, so that’s over a decade of total frustration. Sometimes I looked at a girl and I had to stop myself just... doing something violent, just forcing her to... to just look at me properly and say... I don’t know what. Sometimes, the way they looked at me, like I was just a smear of something on their perfectly polished shoes... Sometimes, I just wish I could have talked to one of them properly for long enough so she’d understand.
Then I’d catch sight of myself in the mirror and I’d think ‘Yeah, right.’
Why would she want that? Why would anyone want that?

I’ve got tears in my eyes again. I need to find a tissue from somewhere. I wonder where they keep them. Maybe I could find Angie or Joe and ask them. That woman’s looking at me. I can’t really see her expression in the dark. I expect I’ve pissed her off. I’d better leave her in peace.
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book 1 ~ Exposure

No horizon
Apparently, at sea level, back in the world, the horizon is always about twenty-two miles away.
Some apparently have used this as an argument for the earth being flat, with the horizon as the edge. But if that was the case, how come you could sail to France from England?
Did anyone really ever believe the world was flat?
Anyway, if it was it would look like it does here – with the view simply going on and on into the distance, the landscape just steadily getting more and more indistinct until it’s just a blue haze. At some indiscernible point the sea becomes the sky.

And the sun wouldn’t rise and set. Here it appears out of the east as a tiny light in the sky and gets bigger and bigger all morning. It sails overhead at noon and drifts away, smaller and smaller, into the west in the evening.
The difference is subtle and usually there’s a mountain range, or just some hills in the way, so you forget. Sometimes though I’ll be crossing a plain, as I am here, or standing by the sea, and there it is – no horizon, and I remember where I am.


Death # 1 – Half in Love...
In the after life you don’t need to worry about hypothermia. You feel the cold, and it feels miserable, but it can’t kill you. You’re already dead.

I’ve been walking through this forest, alone for what seems like months now, going up into the mountains. The path is hard to follow at the moment, but I can just make it out during brighter spells as a string of puddles reflecting the pale sky among the roots of these ugly, stunted trees with their ash grey flaking bark. This is not an attractive forest. The trees seem to be mostly made of dead stuff - a dense mat of little brown needles held onto the branches by old spider webs and grey mould. The trees are no great size but still tall enough to obscure any landmarks. I just follow the path. I haven’t seen more than fifty yards ahead for what seems like weeks and when I did it was an almost vertically sided valley off to the left. I couldn’t see the bottom but I could hear rocks and water falling. The sky is either a shade of grey (almost black when it’s raining) or with an odd khaki yellow glow where the sun should be. Mostly all I see is this trail of puddles ahead and behind. Then the mist comes down, or it gets dark and everything disappears. I feel like Frodo on my way to Mordor or wherever it was.

My name is Gabriel Fortune. People call me Gabe. I don’t really like it but what can you do? I died on the nineteenth of November 1983. I was eighteen. It all seems such a long time ago now.
It wasn’t exactly a suicide. You hear all the time about supposedly bright teenage boys (everything to live for) doing themselves in. There’s a national crisis apparently. But I never seriously thought of killing myself. I suppose I just allowed it to happen. I let myself go.

There was this party, somewhere up on the Mile Oak Road, and I went with some of the lads from work, from the DIY shop. It was dark and wet and I really don’t remember exactly where it was. I wasn’t really concentrating. I know I was full of excitement inside. The thing is, I’d not been to a real party before. You may not believe this, but you have to understand, I wasn’t a ‘normal happy teenager’, if there is such a thing. I didn’t fit in. I didn’t have a lot of friends, or, any, really, and most of the people I’d known in the sixth form had gone off to university. I... Well I don’t want to go on about it. The A level results arrived in July and that was it - I wasn’t going to go to university. That’s all there is to it. I got a job at the DIY shop, even though I knew sod all about DIY. And I stayed home with my parents. We didn’t really talk about it either.
So when the news of Elaine’s party reached me and they said apparently anybody could go I realised that that could be taken to include me and I knew somehow that this was it – make or break time. That previous, rather fanciful (and extremely fuzzy) image I’d had of what my future might be, going to university and everything, had been finally shown to be an illusion – a badly painted and carelessly tethered backdrop instead of an actual view. It had come loose one night at the end of the summer and flapped away to reveal this. This was my new life and these were the people I was going to be sharing it with. I knew I should at least try to fit in but I was not optimistic. Usually these people just ignored me.

Anyway, I’d been a few weeks in this job, so I said to Tim, ‘Can I come with you lot to Elaine’s party?’ which took a lot of nerve for me. Frankly, I didn’t want to be a nuisance, but then I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask, so I did, and he was really nice about it, which surprised me a bit. I sat with them at tea break, which I didn’t normally. Normally I just read my book or went for a walk. I didn’t really say anything, but I was very excited. It was a party, with Tim and Terry and Gillian too (who was gorgeous). I was on my way.
That’s what I thought that afternoon - ‘I’m on my way’, ‘My life has begun.’ It seems pathetic now. There’ll be women there, I said breathlessly to myself on the way home, and booze and maybe drugs (I wasn’t sure how I felt about that), and some good music. (I thought maybe I should take the new Bum Child Nukes album along). Who knew what might happen? I might even have a girlfriend by this time next week I thought. How stupid could I get?

I asked Tim and he said meet at the Cricketers at nine and we’d head up at closing time, so that’s what I did. Gillian, Adrian (Tim’s brother), Terry and Lee and a couple of girls were there, and Gillian smiled at me, but I didn’t want to push into the group so I didn’t really get the chance to join in the conversation. I felt alright though. I just sat at the bar and ‘observed’. I felt pretty cool. I knew I was not exactly one of that group so it was ok. I really didn’t mind.
Later I realized I didn’t have a bottle to take so I went to the off licence and picked up some cider. When I got back to the bar though there was no sign of them, and I admit I panicked a bit. Finally I found someone who knew where they’d gone and I had to run. When I caught up they said they hadn’t noticed I was missing. I’m sure I’d told them, but anyway I didn’t want to argue, so I followed them. I felt a bit pissed already. Maybe it was the running, but to tell the truth, I never drank that much usually. Anyway, I followed them, and at one point Gillian grabbed my arm and skipped along with me up the hill singing Love Cats.
When we got there I was literally just quivering with anticipation. It was just what I was expecting. It was in this big house set back from the street, and there was a load of people outside, and you could hear the music from the road – Rhythm Stick, Crispy Spiced Duck, Sex Dwarf.
I walked in grinning. The lighting was dim, and I swerved from room to room – people sitting on the floor in red light, people burning something under a broken bottle on the stove under strip light, people sitting on the stairs in the dark. I saw people I recognized from classes below me from school, people who left at sixteen or seventeen. Was I one of them now? A guy called Dave who I’d been scared of all through school said ‘Hey!’ and pulled me down to sit on the floor with him and asked how I was. He looked totally different now – very cool in fact, very Midge Ure. I was still wearing my old school shirt because, well, they weren’t worn out yet. I wished I wasn’t, but Dave was really friendly and the girls he was with – one was only fourteen, I’m pretty sure, were quite friendly and I sat with them. I didn’t know what to say, and I couldn’t really hear what they were saying anyway because of the music, so I just sat and smiled and bobbed my head to All the Waters Smell of Meat while they went somewhere else. Then I explored a bit more on my own. I couldn’t see anyone I knew and my mood was slipping a bit I have to say. I asked someone where Gillian was and they said upstairs. I went up but I couldn’t really see who was who, and I didn’t want to interrupt them so I went and stood in the line for the loo and said ‘Hi’ to a girl but she just looked away. Other girls behind me were giggling. I don’t think it was because of me but I didn’t feel too good anyway – quite angry actually and a bit sick. I went and sat down by the wall and watched them.
That was when it hit me. No one gave a toss if I was there or not. No one wanted me to be there especially. It was completely pointless. None of the girls fancied me, that was for sure. It was all wrong. I hated it. I was furious. I felt so stupid.
I stayed for a while after that. I’m not sure how long, and I don’t know what time it was when I left, but I tried to make the most of it. I danced to (I Feel Like a) Goddamn Sexual Tyrannosaurus and Lust for Life. No one else was dancing, but I thought hey, what the hell? Then I nearly collided with the speakers. That’s when I decided to go outside. I remember quite clearly thinking ‘Shit, I’m really pissed’. I squatted down against the wall out the back of the house feeling the cold air and looking closely at the stones in the wet path. I didn’t feel like I was actually going to throw up but the night seemed blacker than usual somehow. My face was burning hot and my shirt was stuck to my back with sweat. That was when Adrian and some girl I didn’t know lurched past, and gave me a half full bottle of Southern Comfort. He said something funny and I nodded and smiled. I remember thinking ‘This is a rueful smile.’ Debbie Harry sang Die Young, Stay Pretty and  I took a swig and pushed myself up against the wall into a standing position.
When things got too much at school I used to go up onto the downs, or down to the harbour, so I thought, ‘That’s what I’ll do’ and I walked, quite straight I thought, out the back gate and across a sports field. There was a gap in the fence beyond I remember and then just a field. It was really dark.
I don’t remember a lot after that. I must have walked for miles. I wasn’t happy. I know that. I was angry and tearful. Looking back on it I suppose I was just lonely and sexually frustrated like any number of other teenagers, but it seemed like everyone else was having fun. Everyone else was ok. I thought it was just me.
I do remember sitting down under an old hawthorn to get out of the wind and suddenly realising how cold I was. I’d been wandering about for quite a while and I thought I should head back. I just kept thinking sooner or later I’d see some lights or something, but when they found my body apparently I was half way to Devil’s Dyke. I just remember the ploughed fields going on and on, up and down, and occasionally coming up against a barbed wire fence or a thorn hedge, and having to make huge detours round the edges of fields, trying to find a way through. I completely lost my sense of direction. When I sat down I distinctly remember thinking that I’d had enough – not just of the Downs in the rain that night but of everything. Maybe it was the booze making me melodramatic, but I remember quite clearly thinking ‘This is it. I’ve done what I can. I’m sick of this. I’m going to stop.’ So I suppose that’s what I must have done. I just stopped.
I remember sitting down in the grass there, watching the rain drip off of my hood, and feeling the wet seep into my pants. Then after a while the cold went away and everything just seemed wonderfully peaceful. I remember observing the drips on the twigs near my face turning to ice and thinking how fascinating it all was.

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