Voyage II – Rastus & Bessie

My fellow voyagers seem friendly enough. I haven’t made any particular efforts to strike up a conversation but they come along and ask what I’m reading and I’m not unwelcoming. It’s not that I don’t want to socialise. It’s just that I’ve never really known how to do it. I can spout politics or art or religion until the cows get sick of it and go out again, but I can’t chat. Never could. Don’t know why. When you see a group of people – any age, any sex, out together, relaxed in each other’s company, getting pissed, flirting, “having a laugh” as they say, that’s the thing I envy. God, I want that. The only time I ever really felt any real closeness was in bed with a woman. I could have done that forever.
I like that no one can tell what age you really are here. I look about thirty I suppose. I don’t know why particularly. I asked Andy about it and he said ‘What age would you have chosen to be?’ and I said ‘About thirty.’ and he said ‘There you go then.’
That’s enough about me. The sky is pale, the sleet has let up and I’m togged up in my favourite lounger. I have a book on cinema from the library in my lap but it’s too cold to let my hands out so I sit and watch the waves go by. I could do with a coffee but I’m just too damned comfortable here. I think it’s best if I keep myself to myself as much as possible. It’s better that way. Maybe it’s too soon. Maybe we all need time to adjust.

I was sitting near a group of people at a table in the bar yesterday and I happened to overhear one of the women ask one of the men if he thought her dog, Bessie, would be alright. Her face looked empty and loose, like a collapsed balloon. She looked to be in her early twenties and yet at the same time she seemed like an old lady. I thought of my old dog Rastus. He was a handsome collie cross – like a black and white Alsatian. Wonderful dog – not wildly adventurous but fiercely independent, undemanding but never averse to a bit of fuss when it was on offer (much like myself, I like to imagine. Ha ha). I’m not one for intruding on other people’s misery, but this woman looked so sad, and I suppose I wanted to show some solidarity so I turned around and told her about Rastus. None of them seemed to know how to take this. They just looked awkward and somewhat suspicious. I thought the woman might want to talk about Bessie but she just looked even more upset. Why do I always have to say something? I should just keep quiet.
I go along to the forward lounge, where it’s quieter, but close and humid. The cold outside fogs the windows up and consequently there’s a dense, muffled atmosphere in there. I quite like it. I take a book and sit with my coffee and my mind drifts. I feel oddly at ease – disconnected, free.

Another time I was at the bar and a chap came up and ordered some wine. I made a comment about the good stuff on offer here, just to be sociable, and he looked me up and down and sneered slightly. ‘Someone like you would think so I suppose’ he said and headed off.
‘Not as good as his cellar at home I don’t expect’ said the barman.
I suppose I still just look like some old crusty to them. You’d think being dead would make people a bit more insightful, wouldn’t you. Some people just seem to be pissed off that they haven’t got their money with them. I wonder if the ancient Egyptians turned up here with all the stuff they’d been buried with, as they expected to or, if not, how outraged they were.

So I stay out of the way for the most part. I look forward to seeing Andrea every few days and that, dear friend, will have to do me. I spend a lot of time in the library – partly because nobody expects conversation there, partly because it feels quite homely. I spent an inordinate amount of time in the public library at home, when I was a kid and then later on too, and not just to get warm. I read art, philosophy, history, psychology, ecology, some novels too although I preferred non-fiction. I used to go to the university library too, until they stepped up security in the nineties. I always tried to look more like a penniless student than a hobo anyhow so they never challenged me until I didn't have an ID card.
I always wanted to go to university – not for the qualification so much – I just wanted to be a student. I wanted to go to student parties and hang out in student bars and go see local bands and, most importantly, I wanted to sleep with student women. It all seemed very glamorous at the time. They used to take the piss, my sisters – said I was The Rebel Without a Course.

The titles at this place are unfamiliar and by authors I’ve never heard of. I study the illustrations – exquisitely detailed or savagely expressionistic pen and ink drawings, woodcuts and watercolours (never any photos) – plants and invertebrates, and buildings and maps and landscapes that I’m sure have no equivalent in life. I find myself concentrated, lost in the evasive reasoning and subtle design. In retrospect I can remember nothing specific of what they’ve told me and couldn’t begin to explain it. Nevertheless I am left with powerful new perspectives that sit deep in my consciousness – like a strange new filter on my vision in a hitherto unknown primary colour, or drawings made using a completely new spatial dimension alongside the usual three. By comparison, the insights I gained from books in life seem of thin and insubstantial stuff.

I saw some sort of giant squid today – at least I think that’s what it was. I remember a passage in ‘The Voyage of the Kontiki’ where a huge eyeball passes under them during the night, peering up at them through the dark water. It was the fifties of course, so inevitably they chucked a spear at it, as one did in those boy’s own days, and it disappeared – they never did find out what it was. That’s what I saw here – a bloody great luminous eyeball, big as an umbrella, peering up at me. I could see the green phosphorescent cells racing about its perimeter, turning electric blue and shocking pink. I didn’t tell anyone. Nobody I know here would be interested. Justine might have been.

Joe XIII – Sisters

‘The trouble with all that school stuff we were talking about before’ Joe begins, ‘I believe it’s all based on early childhood experiences, and as you pointed out at the beginning, even if you can change how you react later on it can still be there, in your subconscious, affecting everything you do, undermining your confidence. A lot of what Freud said has been discredited since, but I think that part holds true. I don’t envy you.’
He sits, hunched, looking about, I don’t know what’s coming next.
‘All the same’ he says, ‘it doesn’t seem enough, considering what came next. There has to be something else.’
‘Like what?’
‘I can’t tell – some childhood trauma? Something your parents did? Some other family member? Do you see what I’m getting at?’
‘But maybe that’s just how I was’ I shrug. ‘Maybe I was born that way.’
‘What? Thinking you were a useless prat and everything you did was probably wrong? Oh yes, children are born like that all the time.’
‘Maybe it was school then’ I say. ‘I think things were alright before I went to school.’
‘Do you remember anything from before you went to school?’
‘I know we lived on a farm. It was a little place out in the country. I don’t know exactly where. Apparently I was always running down the garden in all weathers with no clothes on. Justine says they used to call me nature boy. I remember there was a big garden. I used to come in freezing, covered in mud and scratches and grazes and bruises but I never complained about it – I just carried on. That’s what they told me. I don’t think anybody remembers much about that time do they?’
‘Just as well sometimes’ he says. He seems sort of angry – I’m not sure what about. I don’t know if I’ve said something wrong. I mean, they weren’t bad parents. Maybe I was just difficult. I don’t know. I don’t miss them at all – I know that. I feel terrible about that. I feel like I should miss them but I don’t. I miss my sisters.
‘Do you want to know about my sisters?’ I say, conversationally.
‘Er... yes, I do actually. Tell me.’ He looks relieved to change the subject. ‘They were quite a bit older than you weren’t they?’
‘My first memories of them they already seemed like adults to me. I suppose they were just teenagers but they seemed so... grown up. And they had all these really exciting friends round and all this amazing music was going on in the next room. They let me stay in with them sometimes if I was quiet. I loved that.’
‘And they helped look after you?’
‘When my dad was at work. I have this memory of the three of us on the sofa and I’m squashed in between them in my pyjamas, like a little puppy or something, and I can feel that fatty bit over Amelia’s hips through the horrible acrylic material she’s got on and I was just fiddling with it and making her giggle. She wasn’t fat – both of them were quite slim, but she was nice and soft too. And she had this really strong smell – I think my head was right up under her arm pit and I was so warm, and it was dark except for the gas fire and I remember thinking “I want to be here for ever”. I think I must have been about four.’
‘So they’d have been, what? In their mid teens?’
‘About that.’
‘Describe them for me.’
This is good. I like talking about my sisters. ‘Well, Justine was the older one, about twelve when I was born. She was quite tall, nearly six foot I think, and she had very straight red hair and this very long, very serious sort of face and you’d think she was really going to give you a hard time and then she’d say something ridiculous and it was just hilarious. She was quite a serious person though. She wanted to go to university but changed her mind. I don’t know why. She was the one that looked after me most. Mum used to say she was the one that could be trusted. I think a lot of people were a bit scared of her but she was always good with me.
And then with Amelia, the younger one, she had this long dark hair, like mum, and really lovely dark eyes. I loved her eyes – they were almost black sometimes, the irises. I used to love watching her getting ready to go out, putting on her make-up and getting dressed. She was always going out and getting into trouble, having to phone dad to come and fetch her in the middle of the night. But she did look after me sometimes too. Nothing bad ever happened.’
‘What happened when they left home?’
‘Oh god, that was terrible. I was about ten I think when Amelia got married, and then Justine moved out soon after. It was just horrible. Mum said I made a terrible fuss about it. They were trying to get me to cheer up for ages.’
‘How did they do that, cheer you up I mean?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. They just, you know, told me to go out more, make some proper friends my own age...’
‘Which you did?’
‘Not really. I don’t really remember. It doesn’t matter...’
I can feel him watching me. I focus hard on the legs of the table – curved, shiny.
‘Just take it easy Gabriel’ he says. Joe has that worried look on his face again. I wish he wouldn’t. He sits and looks at me for quite a while.
‘Do you want to go on?’ he says quietly.
‘I don’t know’ I say. And I don’t. I don’t know anything. He lets me go.
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Voyage XVI – Fantasies

I go back to my cabin and get out my drawing things. It’s getting dark now but the lighting in here is really good – like one of those daylight bulbs you can get. I lean back and look at what I’ve been doing lately. The fact is they’re mostly of Lucy, but not from life obviously – from my imagination.
Back home, when I was about thirteen I suppose, I started making my own pornography. I just started one day when I didn’t know what to do next and I was doodling and the lines of a woman’s body just emerged from the pen like magic. I suppose I’d spent so much time looking at the magazines they’d just got printed on my brain. So, I never could get hold of enough real porn, and most of it was pretty dreary to be honest, so I started making my own.
I didn’t have a type – I drew redheads with freckles and olive skinned women with black hair, slender women and voluptuous women, mature women and teenage girls, shaved women and hairy women, women undressing, women masturbating, women together. After a while I didn’t draw anything much else, and I think I got quite good at it, considering I’d never actually seen a real live naked woman in my life (and certainly not an actual vagina) and still haven’t to be honest.
God knows what would have happened if mum had found any of it.

I’ve been thinking about what Joe said, about being gay. It’s funny but I never really thought about it before. Freud said that everyone naturally has homosexual tendencies (and other tendencies too). I never really wanted to put men in my drawings at all. I’m not really sure why. I tried once or twice but it felt sort of, I don’t know, sort of ugly. If I think of men having sex it just seems sort of clumsy and a bit disgusting to be honest. I don’t know where that idea comes from. I try to think of Joe like that, sexually I mean. He’s a nice enough looking bloke I suppose. If I was going to handle someone else’s penis I suppose his’d be as good as anyone’s. I just don’t really fancy it. I suppose I should be a bit more broad-minded, in a ‘don’t knock it until you’ve tried it’ sort of way but I think I’d have some sort of sense even without trying it, that I’d like it, but I don’t. Margaret Mead said that extreme heterosexuality is actually a sort of perversion. Anyway, I just like looking at women. I think they’re absolutely fantastic, and if that makes me a pervert, well, so be it.

Sometimes I spent almost all night in the Wendy house, looking at porn, thinking about women. It was really dark and a bit dingey in there, damp and dusty, with the ivy coming in and the spiders and such like, but it did feel very peaceful, especially if the rain was really battering down outside and the trees were whipping about on the railway embankment or the fog-horn down at the harbour was going. I usually went down there in just my dressing gown and wellies so I could cover up immediately if anyone came, and I kept the drawings and photos in a sketchpad so I could close that up quickly too. Nobody ever did. My mum used to wonder why I was exhausted in the morning. Sometimes I couldn’t get up in the morning at all.
I used to think about women I knew – the one who ran the pet shop for example – she was a little weird looking (quite a long nose and big googly eyes) but you could tell she would be a good shape under her clothes, and then there was Amelia’s friend Katrina. She was fucking amazing. Really tight jeans – you could see the outline of her vagina when she sat down. And then there were some of the girls at school – Camille especially, and then later on there was Gill of course. She was the best. I used to imagine coming across her while I was out walking on the Downs in the wind and rain – her in just a plastic mac and boots after she’d been out riding. I imagined seeing her sit down on the wet grass, open her coat, letting the rain wash over her pale breasts and belly (not caring if anyone was looking), watching her slip her knickers down over her boots and throw them aside and then begin to touch herself. Or else I imagined her walking up the hill ahead of me – seeing her bare arse under her coat and watching those two fleshy folds between her legs squeeze and slip together as she walked. I don’t know why but it was always cold and drizzling, or else snowing in these fantasies. I always liked the feel of the cold air on my skin and the wet grass. I don’t know why.

Of course the actual girls at school thought I was a joke. I don’t think I ever actually made an appearance in my own fantasies – that would have been just too ridiculous. I was just forced to watch them, but that was ok.

Actually though, don’t laugh, but I don’t think it was just about sex. I really wanted more than that. I suppose I’m a bit of a romantic too. Honestly, I really wanted to sit on a balcony by the sea with a girl and watch the sun go down and sip champagne or something, and pick flowers for her, and make her sloppy compilation tapes with people like Dusty Springfield and The Walker Brothers. I wanted to slow dance with her to Body Talk. I know, I know. It’s a ridiculous record. I can’t even remember who recorded it now, but every time I hear it I despair. I just wanted that, to do that – to hold onto her (whoever she was), moving together, lost in each other, oblivious, going round and round on the dance floor, breathing into her hair, my hands on her hips at the end of the evening, and her not embarrassed and wanting to get away but there with me, as relieved and amazed as I’d be. And when they turn the music off and the lights go on, to look shyly into each other’s eyes and hope that this was not all.
Jesus Christ I wanted that. I never asked any of them to dance, I admit. If they weren’t going to say yes in private they certainly weren’t going to say it in public.

Well anyway... I don’t know if any of the other blokes felt the same way – we never talked about it, but that was what I wanted – I wanted to be in love. I still do, more than anything in the world. I want a girl who will come to parties, and come for walks in the country, and most of all I want her to share my bed. I want someone to sleep with, and that’s not a euphemism. Ok, I admit I want her to be sitting there on the balcony watching the sunset with no knickers on, but I also want to bring her croissants and orange juice in the morning.
That’s what all this is really about. All that stuff Joe talks about – about careers and so on. I can’t tell him all this. Of course I’d love to earn a living doing something I like, and rent a nice room in Brighton or out in the country, go to university, maybe travel a bit. I’d love to do those things, for myself. But really, the main thing is, when I do those things, maybe I’ll meet her, and what’s more, maybe she’ll want to get to know me and I’ll have a proper relationship. I don’t feel very manly for admitting it, but that’s what I want.
And then we have the reality, as mum would have said.
I don’t know where all this comes from, this hope. Mostly my life has been fairly useless, but somewhere, part of me has always had this idea that, if only I could meet a girl and she got to know me properly, without all this shit about money and living with my parents in the way, that it would be alright, and I’d stand a chance.
To continue reading, either go to Lulu to buy or download the book, or let me know when you want to read the next bit and I'll post it on the blog.