Voyage VII – Progress

‘I remember the day I heard that the last polar bear in the wild had died’ says Lisa sadly.
‘That was just scare-mongering’ says Ruth. ‘There were others about.’
‘There were’ says Wen with authority. ‘There were actually quite a few wandering about at the end but they were too far apart to find each other to mate.’
‘That seems so sad’ says Lisa, clearly very moved.
We sit and think about how sad it was.
‘You’re far too sensitive’ says Ruth. ‘They could have put them together if they’d tried, surely. You know, tranquillise them and move them?’
‘And put them where exactly?’ says Wen. ‘The reason there were so few in the first place was because their habitat was gone. It was only a matter of time.’
‘Well how should I know? You’re the big expert. What about Antarctica?’
We all know this is a ridiculous idea and have nothing to add. We’re in the sauna again. Ruth is with us today and although she has the most technically 'good' body of any of us (albeit rather too ‘athletic’ for me) she won’t take her towel off so we all feel we have to keep covered up too. Lisa resisted for a while but even she’s fallen into line. This tells us something profoundly sad about the world I feel but can’t be bothered to work out what. Wen is particularly angry about it.
‘It was worse than with the rhinos I thought’ continues Raz. ‘With the rhinos you could imagine that one day there’d be somewhere for them to be released if they could stop the poaching, but with the polar bears that was it. It didn’t matter how many there were in zoos. That was the only place they’d ever be. There’s nowhere to release them to. It’s terribly sad.’
‘Well you’re all cheerful company today’ says Ruth and she goes out to get showered and dressed.

After we’re all thoroughly steamed and showered we head to the bar for lunch. They’re doing grilled bass with ginger and lime so we all order that except Lisa who has the halloumi. Ruth picks up from where we left off earlier, debating with Wen. I want to join in but really, I had enough of that in life. We’re dead now. Time to let it all go.
‘All I’m saying is there was no point in them making all that fuss about emissions when the whole climate’s gone tits up anyway’ says Ruth. ‘I for one would not have given up my SUV for anyone. Oh do stop looking at me like that. It was mostly a safety thing.’
‘Aw. Did the nasty cars fwighten you?’ says Wen in a silly voice.
‘And I certainly wasn’t going to give up on flying’ she adds for good measure.
‘Does anybody actually travel that much these days anyway?’ says Raz ‘I thought “travelling” was all a bit twentieth century.’
‘I used to use my villa in Bulgaria quite a bit’ says Ruth, ‘you know, for weekends and so forth...’
‘Personally I would have been very loathe to give up flying’ says Raz. ‘I was brought up in the f..ties (mumbling the actual decade through her hand) and I did not go through all that post-war austerity to have a bunch of left wing do-gooders telling me what I could and couldn’t do.’
‘So as far as you’re concerned the world can go to hell in a dust cart because you don’t like being told off’ says Wen, bluntly.
‘Whereas you lot just revel in it don’t you?’ says Ruth, sharply. We all turn to look at her glaring at Wen. Wen observes her coolly.
‘You environmentalists just love the old hair shirt routine don’t you’ she continues. ‘So f’cking holier than thou... It’s like the f’cking cultural revolution, pardon my French.’
A moment passes, then Wen, at first calmly but with increasing volume and velocity says ‘You don’t know a thing about it Ruth. Do you really imagine I enjoyed having to think about climate change and exploitation and all the rest of it? Don’t you think I’d rather have just got on and enjoyed life and not worried about all that green crap? I loved to fly as much as anyone. When I was a kid, travelling was all I ever wanted to do. But then I had to grow up Ruth. I had to accept that I couldn’t just do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I didn’t like it any more than you did but I felt I had to take some responsibility. I loved my old V70.’
We sit silently for a while, tacitly agreeing it would be a good time to change the subject but Ruth has to come back with something.
‘Well bully for you’ she says. ‘I hope it made you very happy.’
‘Happy?’ spits Wen. ‘Why would I be happy? Do you have any idea, of the damage done, by...’
‘Not my problem’ she replies turning to look at something across the room and take a sip on her wine. ‘Not my problem at all.’
Wen glares at her. ‘I wonder what our children would have to say about that’ she says.
‘Well it’s hardly going to affect my children is it?’ snaps Ruth.
She glances pointedly in my direction, as if this is somehow my fault, that she died childless. I meet her stare defiantly, but can’t ignore the feeling that I am in some way, somehow to blame – me and my kind, and this is her revenge – to see the world destroyed.
‘Oh I’m sure they’ll manage’ says Raz, jovially moving things along. ‘My Kenneth – I’d put money on him being the last one standing when the whole bloody thing boils up.’
‘Oh I don’t doubt the human race will be there after everything else is gone’ says Wen, ‘along with all the other vermin.’
‘Now look here Wen, I worked hard all my life for what I had and I refuse to take sole responsibility for the state of the world.’
‘But we’re not saying you should’ says Lisa. She wants us all to be friends again. ‘What we’re saying is that everybody should have done their bit. I just felt so sorry for all those people in Africa having to keep moving about because there’s no water. You think we had it bad...’
‘But that’s always been the way it was in Africa sweetie, for as long as I can remember. What about Biafra back in the sixties?’
‘And Band Aid’ says Ruth, suddenly very animated and cheerful again. ‘We stayed up all night. Do you remember? I pledged fifteen pounds. I don’t think I ever actually sent it but there you are. Good intentions and all that.’
Wen can barely conceal her contempt but Ruth, as usual, is oblivious and begins to hum Feed The World, swaying slightly from side to side. Lisa looks like she might join in any moment.
‘Were you aware that other parts of Ethiopia were still exporting food through all that?’ says Wen.
‘Oh don’t be such a killjoy’ says Ruth, still swaying.
‘Is that true?’ says Lisa, somewhat shocked.
‘Apparently’ says Wen, picking up her glass and draining it. ‘The point is Ruth, the upheaval in recent years has been on an unprecedented scale...’
‘Unprecedented upheaval you say’ says Ruth in a silly nasal voice.
‘Everything that was happening in the horn of Africa, Sudan, Chad...’
‘Chad?’ says Ruth incredulous. ‘Is that a real place or a made-up name?’
‘You haven’t heard of Chad?’ says Wen, even more incredulous.
We all look at her.
‘Well...’ she says, hurriedly ‘but I mean, really...’
‘Well. I’m sorry about all the famine and everything’ interjects Raz, possibly to save Ruth further embarrassment. ‘We’ve all just got the one life... Ok, point taken. But you know what I mean. You’ve got to make the most of it. And look, they’ve solved the energy problem with the solar panel thing.’
‘Raz, don’t you get it?’ says Wen. ‘The climate’s going to take centuries to stabilise, and in the mean time it just lets us off the hook to deforest and pollute and concrete over the rest of the world willy-nilly.’
‘What it does’ says Ruth, keen to show she does after all know some geography ‘is lets places like Nigeria and Mexico off the hook so that their populations can aspire to the standard of living we enjoy in the west and...’
‘I think you’re being somewhat naive there Ruth.’
‘I’m being naive?’
‘All this “technology will solve everything” tripe... Does anybody still believe that? It’s pure utopian fundamentalist clap-trap.’
‘Hold on. You’re saying I’m being naive?’ she repeats, clearly deeply offended.
‘And it’s just a wild coincidence that it happens to make pots of money for people like you’ adds Wen. ‘Who’d have thought it?’
‘Well doesn’t it seem a little unjust to you, to deny them the opportunities we have?’
‘Terribly unjust’ says Wen, going back to her book.
‘Or maybe they could learn from our mistakes?’ I say quietly to no one in particular. They all turn to me. ‘We’re not really trying to say that the way we live in the West is all that enviable are we?’
Raz looks surprised at the question, and a little amused. Lisa frowns. I can’t see Wen’s reaction but Ruth sits up and says ‘God yes, and I don’t believe it’s for us to stand and preach and tell them what they can and can’t have, or maybe you think we should all live like a third world country.’
‘No, obviously not, but I mean, do we all have to have all the latest gadgets and designer clothes and several foreign holidays a year and a bespoke kitchen and a garden makeover and gourmet food, and then, because you spend so much time at work paying for all this, you have to buy a lot of ready meals and pay a cleaner to look after the house and you’ve got no time for the kids so you have to employ a nanny and you have to employ someone to do the garden and I don’t know, walk the dog and pleasure the missus, and that all costs more so you spend even more time at work and you spend so much time sitting at your desk or driving around you get obese or diabetes so you have to pay to go to a gym and then that doesn’t work so you have to go and get your bum sucked or your tummy tucked, so that’s more money, so you have to spend yet more time at work...’
Raz puts her hand on top of mine. ‘I think we get the idea sweetie’ she says.
Everybody looks at me, a little taken aback I suppose. I’m completely out of breath.
‘But it’s neurotic isn’t it’ I continue, ‘all this “busy lifestyles” crap, just constantly craving the next thing, not enjoying what you’ve got...’
‘Oh hang on darling. I hope you’re not implying we’re all insane’ chuckles Raz happily. She’s enjoying herself now.
‘It’s called “growth” Gabriel’ says Ruth, without amusement. ‘The economy can’t continue without growth. Do some economics.’
‘Your economics works that way but it doesn’t have to’ says Wen, putting her book down and leaning in again. ‘A sustainable economy is perfectly...’
‘Oh God if I hear the S word once more I shall puke. You’re talking about S for stagnation Wen. Do you want to go back to living in a mud hut and dressing in cast-offs? Really, if you want to go and live in Chad or wherever, go right ahead. Excuse me if I don’t join you.’
‘That’s just nonsense Ruth and you know it.’
‘It’s progress. You can’t turn the clock back’
‘Why not? Who made that rule?’
‘Oh now you’re talking nonsense.’
‘You like this so called progress because you stand to make money out of it but lets not pretend there’s anything inevitable or unstoppable about it.’
‘Oh for God’s sake Wen. I thought this brand of utopian hippy nonsense died out with the sixties. All this is old hat.’
‘Oh my God’ says Wen, covering her mouth. ‘You mean... my opinions are unfashionable? Oh my God that’s so embarrassing. Oh well, I give in. You win.’
Raz and I snigger quietly. I glance at Lisa. She’s watching them intently.
‘Oh grow up the lot of you’ says Ruth. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘You think I believe we should all to go back to being peasants’ says Wen, ‘or hunter-gatherers perhaps – some pre-industrial, anti-technological fantasy world...’
‘Well...’
‘You have no idea what I think Ruth.’
‘But I can imagine.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Well go on then. Enlighten us. I don’t hear any very constructive suggestions coming from your side of the table. Come on, what’s your alternative?’
‘Well...’ and Wen seems suddenly at a loss. ‘It’s a big question’ she begins. ‘I don’t think I can explain, not just like that. But if you really want to know, you could come to the library and...’
‘Boring!’ says Ruth, rather loudly.
Wen stares at her, amused or astonished – I’m not sure which.
‘Boring boring boring’ says Ruth, ‘and useless. I knew everything I needed to know to get where I wanted to be. Anyway how do you imagine we’d have modern medicine without progress, and what about transport? What about all the cheap food you all take for granted, and clothes and all the rest of it? How’s all that supposed to happen? Huh?’
‘I’m not saying we should all live in poverty’ says Wen, rather tersely. Ruth’s not listening.
‘What about, I don’t know, telecommunications? You at least had a phone I take it.’
‘Yes, I used the internet all the time.’
‘Oh so progress is fine when it suits you.’
‘Yes, that’s what I’m saying. If we could all simply...’
‘What? Ok, so are you going to decide what the rest of us can have now?’
‘Of course not. We all have to take some responsibility, make choices...’
‘Well I think, if it’s my money, I’ve earned it, I can spend it on whatever I like...’
‘Whatever the consequences? You think that anything you can afford, you should be able to buy?’
‘Well, yes...’
‘Anything? What about, say, child pornography?’
‘Oh well obviously not... Although, come to think of it, if the rest of the world was at it we’d be fools not to look at the possibilities – with the proper safe-guards in place of course.’
We all stop to look at her, not quite believing we’ve heard what we just heard.
‘Oh for God’s sake, I’m joking’ she says, once she’s registered our reactions. ‘God, you know, the worst thing about you lefties is your total lack of a sense of humour.’
(Later on, after Ruth’s gone, Lisa turns to us and says ‘You don’t think she meant it do you?’ and we all say ‘Nah, ‘course not’ but we’re none of us sure. I still suspect she’d consider it a serious proposition as long as it didn’t involve anyone she knew personally. Maybe some of those feral kids off the estates – they’d probably be glad of an extra bob or two...)
‘So, no...’ she resumes ‘Not child pornography.’
‘Ok. Why not?’
‘Well if you don’t know why not...’
‘I know why not. I want to know why you think not.’
‘Oh look. This is getting ridiculous.’
‘Because it would be immoral, yes?’
‘Yes of course but...’
‘So you concede that you should not necessarily be permitted to buy anything you want, simply because you can afford it.’
‘Of course...’
‘But you don’t think people’s lives matter enough, in Africa for example’
‘I do but...’
‘Destroying the environment – that’s not immoral?’
‘But I don’t think my gym membership or an M&S ready meal is in quite the same league Wen. And now if you’ll excuse me I have to meet my friend. I’ll see you all later.’ And with that she collects her belongings and heads out.
Everybody is very quiet. Wen picks over the bones of her bass in a cogitating way. Lisa looks about.
‘Well that was bracing’ says Raz.
‘Sorry guys’ says Wen. ‘She just pisses me off.’
‘Don’t apologise’ says Raz, lost in her thoughts.
We sit silently for a while longer.
‘Dessert?’ says Raz, cheerfully. She and Lisa peruse the menu.

Alison IX – Loss of innocence

There was one day I remember. I was down in the Wendy house and it was windy and wet. I was in my sleeping bag in the deck chair, looking out, watching the long tailed tits inspecting the buddleia seed heads. Looking down at my legs, my body and arms all enclosed in the silky quilted material, I thought about my future. I didn’t want to but I forced myself to. I’d never done it before, or never allowed myself to. It was like chess. Life is like a game of chess they said, but chess always made me miserable. No matter how often dad tried to get me to play it never made any sense. I understood the rules of course, and the first move was ok. There wasn’t that much choice there after all, and the second was fairly uncontroversial too, but after that the possibilities multiplied. How to work out what to do next? How many possible moves were there he could make, even assuming he plays well? (If your opponent plays badly the whole thing becomes chaotic.) Say my opponent has five possible moves available to him. Say two of them make sense to me, two others make no sense but he might make them anyway either as a mistake, or because he knows something I don’t. The fifth is one I haven’t even considered but I know it could happen. I have to plan ahead responses to all five (or the four I’m aware of anyway) and make a move. There may be a couple of plausible responses to each. And then how many possible responses to each of my moves could he then possibly make? Say it’s five again. I have to keep in mind forty scenarios, and that’s only one move ahead. And one move ahead doesn’t get you very far. You need a strategy. Dad always said I’d need to think at least three moves ahead. How on earth do people work with that? How did dad do that? He never let on. I just gave up and played using the ‘it seemed like a good move at the time’ method. I never won and I was never a gallant loser. I wouldn’t have minded if I’d won just occasionally, or come a good second, but I didn’t. I was completely thrashed every time. I don’t know why he kept on trying. It was like punishment.
And that’s how life felt to me, except there are no simple rules in life, and no neat little board, and no dinky little bits of wood to move about. You can start out with a move, or even a plan ahead, but then, as Lennon said, life happens and that’s it, you’re all over the place again. I should have had “It seemed like a good idea at the time” scratched on my gravestone.
Actually, to be fair, the only people I ever knew who believed in planning were those who could delude themselves that whatever actually happened was exactly what they had been planning all along. Unfortunately we seem to go along with the delusion and these people get elected or otherwise given top jobs.

Nevertheless I tried to work out what to do about my life. I tried to work out what was possible and what was probable. Then I realised that this was pointless because the people who really achieve anything in life rely on the improbable and hitherto impossible happening for them. I had to work backwards. What did I want in life? I started a list – I maybe wanted to be a painter. I wanted to travel. I wanted perhaps to work with nature, or live in the country. I wanted a woman to fall in love with but not straight away. I wanted a few other sexual experiences first. It occurred to me that the only thing I felt really strongly about was the sex. Working as a painter was ok in theory but I’d probably have to work ridiculously hard to make a living at it and there was a good chance my work wouldn’t sell anyway. I’d probably have to mow lawns or wipe bums for a living. It didn’t sound very promising. As for the house in the country, well maybe later. I could rent a room somewhere. I wondered what else I could do to make a living. Every other sort of work I knew about seemed repetitive and boring – shops, hospitals, the council – just the same old thing every day for years on end and not enough time for everything else and then you die. Every evening I saw mum and dad get home and try to get everything they needed to do done in the few hours before they went to bed. Before, I’d thought they were just naturally bad tempered but now I realised they were just extremely tired all the time. I was like that after I got home from college if they didn’t let me rest for a while. They never allowed themselves to rest. Couldn’t they see what it was doing to them? And then at the weekend, if they weren’t doing overtime they were getting frustrated trying to fit in all their chores and errands and getting pissed off at each other or usually at me for not helping (but then getting impatient with me for being too slow of clumsy when I did help). It was a nightmare. Dad talked disparagingly about my uncles who just slobbed out in front of the box or went down the pub evenings and weekends. I didn’t want that either. I wanted to do my art, go away and see places, meet up with friends, maybe go into Brighton or London and see a band or a film. In short, there was nothing about their lives I envied but that still didn’t tell me what I wanted to do for a living.
I’d been to a careers guidance officer back in the fourth year. I’d been embarrassed about telling him I wanted to be a painter and he’d looked at my O level options and suggested something in the local council or maybe working at Smith’s. I discovered later that he always suggested working for the council to arts students. I asked about being a librarian but he wasn’t very enthusiastic. He said I’d need a degree and at the time university was just unimaginable. Now I considered it again. I still couldn’t imagine my parents agreeing to it but if I got my A levels, or even just two of them I could, in theory, go, at least to poly. Nobody’d mentioned the possibility yet, or not for me anyway. Tom and Roy were already planning their Oxbridge applications but the rest of us hadn’t got that far. Anyway that was all a long way off. I had to get through the next year and a half first.
The next thing I wrote down came from nowhere – Hitch to Spain and find a job for the summer. It was a completely random notion. Somewhere in my mind I had the question – why am I learning Spanish? Then I thought – what do I want to do with my Spanish? And how could I get really fluent in Spanish? Or French for that matter? I had this image of arriving in the town square of one of those whitewash and terracotta hill towns and finding some work and maybe a girl and having a fabulous time – maybe get some amazing drawings done. And then, when I got back in September I’d be tanned and rugged and I’d have stories to tell and maybe an English girl would fancy me too because I was now so worldly and mature. Six weeks in Spain. Who could help me with that? I hadn’t a clue but the idea wouldn’t leave me alone.

Back at college the next week something in me had changed. I looked at what we were doing and saw it for the first time as part of a larger scheme. I picked out the bits of the courses that already made sense to me and made a list of the things that interested me. Then I looked at what I needed to know if I wanted to pass the A level and sorted out the gaps – the bits I didn’t understand and the bits I wasn’t interested in. I’d been wondering if I could get by by ignoring these bad bits and concentrating on the good bits. That was when I realised that the bad bits were not that big a deal – just a few gaps here and there. How had I come to let them dominate my thinking so much before? There was some stuff about using reflexive verbs, some acts of parliament, some technicalities about glazes and print making processes. That was about it. How come it had seemed so insuperable? Later I realised it was dad’s philosophy again. With any task it was his way always to ignore what was good and easy and to worry first at the intractable. Typically he would begin with the difficult parts and let it get him down and only at the end, if he had time, do the parts he was comfortable with, as a reward I guess. I resolved to start with the parts I felt happiest with and only do the difficult parts if I had time. I also realised I was going to have to prioritise. Four A levels was just too much for me I decided, and surplus to requirements anyway. I only needed three, with a good pass at art to get me where I wanted to be. I decided to let the French slip. I didn’t want to give it up but I couldn’t give it the attention it really needed if I was going to do well enough at the other three. I felt much better once I’d made that decision.
All this probably seems obvious to most people but to me it was a total revelation. As it was, in practice, with the easy parts out of the way, the few difficulties generally fell into place. Plus I began to have the wonderful sensation of getting through a lot of work quickly. The fact that the tough part was still waiting for me totally failed to dampen my enthusiasm. I worked quietly and efficiently until Easter and by then had almost totally caught up and was beginning to get good marks.
At the same time I’d become a lot more relaxed during breaks and with my new-found ease I felt a lot more confidant. Carly said ‘You’re actually quite a funny guy aren’t you’ which I reckon was the nicest thing anybody had ever said to me. I began to feel like more a part of the group instead of hanging on the edge. I started meeting some of the others outside college and discovered there was a whole extra-curricular life they’d been having while I trudged home and worried myself catatonic. Some of us got together for study sessions, or had modest parties if parents were away for the evening but then, as the summer term progressed there were actual gigs and proper parties to go to.

Of course ones personality doesn’t change, whoosh, just like that. I was still very much in the background but at least I was in the picture. Over the next six months we went to see Echo and the Bunnymen and The Psychadelic Furs, The Sex Objects, Southern Death Cult and The Nukes, plus a whole lot of local bands (The Virtuous Heathens I remember being especially good fun – decaying glam gothic in spandex and big hair). We saw Performance and The Hunger and Midnight Express at The Duke of York’s. We wandered around the North Laines looking at second hand clothes and sat in Zerb’s watching the freaks go by. Occasionally there was a real party to go to (as opposed to just sitting around in somebody’s room listening to their latest LPs and discussing college assignments). The real parties mostly tended to involve friends of James who were a wee bit older and had their own flat in Portslade. I tried smoking dope but found it rendered me even more unable to speak than usual. More importantly, parties meant I actually managed to meet some new women. This was of monumental importance.
Up until that point (and now I realise not just in this life) I’d tended to assume that everybody except a few obvious weirdos (including myself) had probably been shagging more or less continuously since they hit puberty. It was only after it happened to me that I realised I had entered a strange and secretive club. The girls I pretty much knew had been doing it for some time with their dodgy, possibly criminal boyfriends, but very few of the guys I hung around with seemed to be getting any at all. Graham had been seeing Rachel since they were in junior school and they were already talking about marriage so they didn’t count. James had had a semi-serious girlfriend and Gareth had slept with Rose. That was it as far as I could tell. So when I ended up spending the night with Yvonne everybody was as surprised as I was.

Journey VII – Go to Hell

It was about this time I started writing what you are reading now. I asked Sonia if she could get me some paper and pens and, as an after thought, maybe some paints and things. I said something about paying for it but she just hushed me with a swish of her hand. ‘It’s ok’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
I’d like to be more relaxed about it but I seem to be a bit anxious about money. Ross has commented on it. Must be my upbringing (about which I still remember nothing). This is why I wanted to write things down – to try to keep things straight, try to work out what has happened.

Some more things happened in the night. When I woke up someone was sitting on the foot of my bed. He smelled of fish and the sea. I was absolutely terrified until he went down to the pantry and came back with some lemonade. Somehow that didn’t seem a very terrifying thing to do so I quietened down.
‘You were shouting’ he said after I’d had a drink. ‘I came in to see what was up.’
‘And you are?’
‘Name’s Kevin. I was just on my way back from the beach. Fishing...’ he added, miming casting a rod. I could make out his face now – weather beaten and hairy and deeply tanned, although I could tell he’d been a white man once. His eyebrows and beard were very white. I passed him the empty glass. I don’t know why. I could have put it on the table like I normally would. He seemed awfully familiar somehow.
‘Anyway’ he said, turning to go. ‘I’ll bid you a good night.’
‘Oh I’m getting up now. It’s nearly light anyway’ I say. ‘Fancy a coffee?’ He looks at me doubtfully and then I follow him down. I tell him to make himself at home and he flops down onto the right hand sofa. For some reason I feel the need to talk to him. It’s only when I’m taking his mug over to him that I realise my legs actually feel more or less normal. Ross said the walk would do me good. Well well.

I start off by asking what he heard – what I was shouting about. At first he’s very vague about it and I suspect he’s not being entirely honest with me, or perhaps that he doesn’t want to get involved. The truth is though that I remember quite a lot of it myself. What I want is to know what it means.
‘It was fairly confused’ he says. ‘A lot of “No no no!” stuff going on, like someone was trying to force you to do something you didn’t want. Mean anything to you?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You seemed pretty angry, but scared too. You were saying something about something being wrong. You were saying “It’s just not right” a lot, over and over...’
‘Didn’t you used to be a guide?’ I say – again, something out of the blue. He sits forward now, on the edge of the chair, cradling his coffee in huge hands.
‘That’s a very long time ago’ he says.
‘Do you remember me?’
‘I remember you.’
We sit and look at each other for a long time and a smile slowly moves across his face, like it’s suddenly safe to do so. ‘I’m sorry I don’t remember your name’ he says.
‘Me neither’ I say with an apologetic smile.
‘You must have really been through it this time I guess.’
‘I think so.’
‘Bad nights.’
‘Really bad.’
He stands up and goes over to the window, bends and looks up at the lightening sky, still gripping his mug in both hands.
After a few more minutes he tells me he needs to get his catch home to chill but he reassures me he’ll be back. I wish him a good morning and watch him lead his horse off up the path toward the town. I look about me at the deep shadows under the trees and the giant ferns on the far bank, and the darkness makes me quiver. Anything could be hidden there.

Alison VIII – Epiphany

‘Didn’t the other students say anything?’ says Alison next time.
I shake my head. Do people really ever say what needs to be said? Wouldn’t we all rather be ‘tactful’ or claim it’s none of our business until the other person finally cracks and falls apart completely?
I look over at her. She’s looking hard at me. She knows what’s coming. She knows that this is the breaking point of the story – the fork in the road.
‘I was wondering, do you have notes on me, on any of us, from these sessions, from previous after-lives?’ I say. I want to make her wait.
‘Some’ she says, clearly a little weary of the delay, ‘at the academy.’
‘I’ve heard of that. They keep files do they?’
‘They do. Guides should submit their files at the end of each journey.’
‘Who says you should?’
‘It’s just what we do.’
‘What happens if you don’t?’
‘Nothing. I’ve lost one or two in the past for various reasons.’
‘So why do you bother?’
‘Same reason I’m here at all – to try to help.’
‘But who organises all this? Who built the academy originally? Where did you get this boat? Actually, that’s a point. I assume the cave men and the Romans and so on went through all this too. What did they travel in?’
‘We don’t know for sure. It appears the earliest people may have done the whole journey on foot, without guides.’
‘Across the sea?’
‘There is a land route I gather, although it’s frozen for a large part. They could have swam I suppose.’
I sit and wonder at this. Technically I know of course they couldn’t die of cold or drowning but it must have been horrific for them. ‘Did many of them make it?’
‘Some, apparently.’
‘Did they know where they were going, or that there was anywhere to go to?’
‘No. They must have just wandered around, naked of course. Many of the earliest accounts of hell are of a frozen place, not an inferno.’
‘Just wandering around forever?’
‘Or until they found somewhere to stay. Or they’d eventually come to the far ocean where they’d be reborn. Or they allowed themselves to be lost. I imagine most of them were lost.’
‘So, when did this start, all this... organisation?’
‘Since the technology, or the civilisation has existed, so it has been mirrored here. Previously it would have had a more mystical or mythical tone no doubt. Now, well, we just try to help. As long as there have been records there have been people willing to help, to act as guides.’
‘So this is just the latest version? This is the sort of well-meaning liberal psycho-therapeutic technological bureaucratic secular western version.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘So how come we can’t just fly wherever we’re going by 747? Why don’t you just look me up on a database and see what I did last time?’
‘Would you prefer that?’
‘Well, no, but...’
‘Well then.’
She looks at me intently, waiting to see what I’ll do next. There’s just the slightest trace of a supercilious smile on her face.
‘What’s wrong?’ she says ‘Don’t you believe me?’
‘I find it all a bit hard to believe to be honest.’
‘Whereas other notions of after-lives you’ve heard of seem more plausible perhaps?’
‘Well, no. They were just conveniently vague.’
‘Precisely. Gabriel, I don’t know any better than anyone else how this place runs. I do however have a better idea what it is not.’ I look quizzically at her. ‘It is obviously not, for example, a straightforward biology/chemistry/ physics sort of a place, and it seems to resist any attempts at experimentation or regulation. For example, although I shall submit your account to the library back at the academy, chances are I would not be able to locate it again if I went to look for it at a later date.’
‘So, that’s ridiculous. What’s the point?’
‘Well, as you may be aware it’s fairly impossible to keep track of anything here but there’s a good chance, at some time, that someone else will come across it and it will be useful. Some say information wants to be found. It happens a lot more often than one would expect by chance alone. So my manuscript will go into the archives when I get back and be lost, like all the other files. But one day someone may be working with a traveller like yourself, or you in another life and there's a good chance your file will be waiting for them.’
‘But you don’t have my old notes.’
‘I have a summary but the paper itself is missing. That’s fairly typical.’
‘Who wrote it?’
She smiles at me. I’m actually quite keen to know. I don’t know why. She looks at the top of the page. ‘A guy called Vincent.’
She shows it to me. ‘I remember him. He was African’ I say.
She nods and goes on ‘He references a woman called Andrea, a guy called Joe and before that another guy called Mick.’
‘Andrea’ I say, smiling and nodding my head. I knew I’d known her from somewhere.
‘You made a picture of her. Look...’
I look at it and it’s wonderful – not my drawing especially, but the way this scrap of paper has come to me now, from the other end of time. It’s miraculous. I look at Andrea’s face, cool but not unfeeling and remember how she made me feel. Magnificent cleavage.
‘Anyway’ she says, as if waking me from a reverie. ‘Tell me.’

At the time it felt like giving up or letting go. Everything was too much. It was all too much. Toward the end of that February I just kept up the pretence – to avoid hassle from parents and teachers but mainly because I didn’t want to get kicked out and have to find a job. I got up, I went to school, I attended lessons. Everybody treated me much as they always had – politely but guardedly, like I might contaminate them with whatever it was I was suffering from.
The Monday after my week AWOL everybody was carrying on as normal and I was being evasive. At the time I thought I just didn’t want to talk about it but actually I did want to talk. I just didn’t think anyone would want to listen. Anyhow, somehow it had got out, what I’d done, and people were being especially nice but extra careful at the same time. Adam just wouldn’t talk to me at all. He disappointed me. I’d thought he was different but these days he seemed extra keen to conform. He just wanted to “get on”.

Then, on the Wednesday we were all sitting having coffee in the refectory and I was trying hard to keep a normal expression on my face when Camille leaned over and said ‘You should talk to somebody.’ She had this really intense expression on her face – very serious, and then almost instantly went back to her normal urbane amused self. It was as if the room and the people and everything around me had been suddenly revealed to be a two-dimensional projection on a screen and a real three-dimensional face had emerged from behind it and spoken to me. I watched her go on talking, like nothing had happened.
At the time it didn’t seem like much but the idea took a hold. It seems silly now but it had simply never occurred to me that I could talk to someone about what was happening. Oh I could complain and make excuses and I often did. People might either pity me or tell me to buck my ideas up but what was the point? Either way I’d always assumed it was just my not trying hard enough, again, and ultimately I’d just have to get on with it, alone,as I assumed everyone else did.
It wasn’t until that evening that I realised what she had said. It implied that what I had to say was not mere whining – that maybe it was a genuine problem. Not only that, but it implied that there might be something someone could do to help, though I had no idea yet what. It was the first time I’d really seen myself as if from the outside and my first thought was ‘What the hell is going on?’
Next day I tried to get Camille on her own to ask what she’d meant but she just looked at me cryptically. I ran through all the teachers in my head and imagined trying to converse with them like a normal person. I couldn’t imagine it. I couldn’t imagine talking to anyone that way. Justine was the only person I could imagine even being vaguely sympathetic. She knew what had happened back in February and was there at the hospital when they released me. Mum was furious and dad was just silent but Justine looked confused and miserable and I didn’t want to upset her even more. She had enough to deal with in her own life. Once since then she’d taken me aside and asked what was wrong but I didn’t know where to start. I just told her what I’d told mum and dad – that I wouldn’t do it again and I’d try my hardest. I just wanted them to leave me alone and not to have to think about it any more.

I think I can point out the exact moment my life changed. I was sitting in the quiet study area – a room full of cubicles, trying to revise for a French test that was due first thing the next day. The words shifted and blurred on the page and wouldn’t sit still long enough to get a grip on. I remember I’d had a headache all day. I slapped the book closed and looked up. ‘What the hell is wrong with me?’ I said as loudly as I dared but nobody else was there to hear me. ‘How come everybody can do it except me?’ I snarled, opening the book again and glaring at the words which snarled and blurred back at me.
I looked over my shoulder to the window and the earliest of the spring sunshine was illuminating the trees outside. I considered going for another walk. It had been raining and the light sparkled dazzlingly on the drops. I knew Camille and Carly, Sally and Tina would have been here earlier, contentedly working through the pages together – relaxed and fluent, and I imagined them observing my struggle with condescension and a certain satisfaction, because, after all, I was not one of them. Well they’d finished for the day long ago and I was glad they were not here to witness my futile rage.
I went back to trying to force the words into my eyes, along my optic nerves and into the relevant part of my brain where, hopefully, something would eventually fall into place.
That was when I thought ‘Some things are hard Gabriel.’
It was not like the voices that normally crowded my head when I felt humiliated and frustrated. It was not telling me to pull myself together and not to be so pathetic. It was saying ‘No – we all have trouble. It’s nobody’s fault.’ And the voice was so full of care and sympathy that I almost wept.
I didn’t know where that voice came from (for the record it was a man’s voice – gentle and low, possibly with a slight French accent) but I understood almost straight away that this was the most important day of my life. It felt like a wide, cool, clear cavity opening up inside me, blue and light, like an underground lake reached by crawling through a low, damp, dark passage. I had no idea who he was but whoever they were they knew me and my limitations and they knew my talents. This was no mere positive thinking platitude. They were not saying 'You're wonderful. You can do anything. Everybody loves you', which was plainly not true. No, they were telling me - actually - things I already knew - that I was bright and creative and good hearted, but also that I didn't really believe that people wanted me around or that trying harder was likely to make things better. I was prone to panicking when things didn't go according to plan. When things began to go wrong I did and said stupid things and made people uncomfortable. Finally, when things got too hard, I simply absented myself, if not physically then mentally - retreating into my imagination. My family told me I was lazy and immature but now here was this other voice and it understood, and it was on my side and I was not used to that. I felt tears well in my eyes. It knew me perfectly and - there's no other word for it - it liked me. It understood. I was not alone any more. It was a completely new sensation.

I took a breath and looked around, feeling light, almost weightless. ‘Some things are hard’ I thought, and I looked down at the text book in front of me and it occurred to me that I could do this, if I wanted to. It would be hard, but I was capable of it. Hadn’t I after all got through my O levels almost without doing any work at all? Hadn't I stayed in the top ten percent of the school throughout, almost without trying?
Everybody had been going on at me about how desperately important all this was, how I would never get another chance if I didn’t pull my finger out, how my whole future depended upon what I did now and I had been paralysed with fear. I couldn’t do anything. Now suddenly I felt myself move forward.
It was getting on for four o’clock so I gathered my things up and stepped outside. The air was chill but the year was turning. Dad always used to say on June the twenty-second, ‘Oh, the nights’ll start to draw in now’, but in midwinter he never said ‘Oh the days’ll start getting longer now’. That’s what mum meant by facing up to reality I suppose – focussing on how things can only get worse. I began the walk home with the sentence ‘Some things are hard’ in my head, like a mantra. I marvelled at the fact that it was possible to say that sentence and not feel nagged and ashamed. Something had subtly altered in my thinking. I tried to think where it could have come from.

The new insights lost some of their power over the next couple of days - what with the day to day routine and mum ‘reminding’ me about what I should be doing. Dad tried to “talk some sense” into me. He’d begun to drop heavy hints about me giving up on this “time wasting exercise” of college and finding myself a job. He thought I was still at school mainly to avoid working, but that was only partly true. I was there to avoid the kind of work he and mum did but I had no clear idea what the alternatives might be. That morning he was going on again about my obligations and how I mustn’t lose touch with reality. He had this way of talking that made it sound like he was speaking for everyone in the world and that any disagreement could only be the ramblings of a deluded minority. Personal opinion was not in his vocabulary. As usual I said nothing as he went about his routine. He had to get to work by eight whilst I was only just out of bed and he almost always had to say something about that. I watched him move about the kitchen in his faded blue boiler suit and steel toecaps. I noticed he seemed smaller than I remembered. Strange how you live with your family all those years and never really look at them. Mum was moving about upstairs. I could hear her. She’d be down soon and without saying anything (unless she had a complaint), she’d eat her toast, then put on her makeup and leave at eight thirty. She and I spent that hour in a high-pitched silence, feelings too shrill to be detected by normal ears. For some reason she liked me to be about while she was there.
I was in my dressing gown still, nursing my cup of ‘proper’ coffee, prepared by myself with filter papers under dad’s baleful glances. He was pissed off because I wouldn’t drink their filthy instant coffee any more but I could hardly bring myself to sip mine until he’d gone. He had tea of course, strong and sweet. Mum had instant coffee, black, no sugar. He placed two eggs in front of me, meticulously timed, and toast, perfectly buttered. He insisted on making me breakfast every weekday morning. I wondered if when he did these things it gave him some personal satisfaction or if he believed it was just how things had to be done and personal satisfaction was irrelevant (or maybe the satisfaction came from simply doing what had to be done). I watched him and knew there would be no point asking. I opened the egg and saw it was perfectly soft in its yellow core and perfectly firm in its white. He had no opinion about how to boil eggs. This was simply how it was done. I never worked out how he did it. Someone later suggested to me he’d been a perfectionist but he wasn’t. Aspiring to perfection was for people who thought rather too much of themselves. No, things were either done right or they were done wrong. That’s all there was to it, and if you did as you were told and followed the instructions, well then there was no excuse for you not doing it right too. Wanting to do things your own way, he told me once, was like deciding to drive on the wrong side of the road – stupid, dangerous and essentially pointless.
And I had been measuring myself against this man all my life. As far as he was concerned I had only one option – to do as I should, as he did. Otherwise I would end up doing as I shouldn’t and if I wouldn’t be like him I’d inevitably end up doing as I shouldn’t. No other consequence was possible. Except now I had a sense of something else. I wasn’t sure what it was yet but one thing I did know was that a lot of what I wanted to do was not wrong. It wasn’t what he’d have done, but it wasn’t wrong. I also knew that things were a lot easier to get right if I did them because I wanted to, rather than because I thought I should. He would have had a problem with that too. He believed life should be hard. When I’d let slip that I was choosing to take Spanish because I was already good at it I saw him bluster with irritation. Neither of my parents had any time for self-confidence or natural aptitude which amounted to cheating and laziness. There was no excuse for laziness, and self-confidence was just plain bad manners.

I knew though, doing things his way, the hard way, I was failing. Even with the subjects I’d chosen – my ‘play’ subjects, it was too much. I was going to have to allow myself to be ‘lazy’ just to survive.

Voyage VI – Sauna

‘Hey Gabe! Coming for a sauna?’ says Raz as I wander past on my way from cabin to deck. Wen is with her and I haven’t seen either of them for a few days. I’ve missed them.
‘Where is it?’
‘Ah, it’s a secret. Not many of the others seem to even know it’s there’ says Wen conspiratorially. ‘Go on. Get your towel. We’ll wait here.’ And so they do. It occurs to me that this is exactly what I need. I haven’t had a sauna for years – not since we used to go to the festivals where the sauna consisted of a wood burner in a tent surrounded with wooden benches. We sat around naked in the gloom and it was fantastic. I couldn’t stand the one at the leisure centre after that.
‘It’s ok’ says Raz on my return, ‘you needn’t feel embarrassed. We can all keep our towels on.’
‘I don’t mind’ I say. ‘I’m used to sweat lodges and they don’t much bother with modesty there.’ I see Raz raise an approving and surprised eyebrow to Wen. Wen just says ‘Well let’s get going then’ and leads on.

The sauna is in a part of the boat I had thought was off limits – on the lowest deck under the cabins up in the stern beyond the bathrooms. It’s dark and the steel and wood skeleton of the ship is exposed and unadorned. We enter through a small wooden door and find ourselves in a dimly lit wooden chamber but not in the neatly carpentered Nordic style. These timbers are huge and dark and damply lustrous. There are three doors; one marked ‘men’, the other ‘women’. Raz peeps through the third door and says ‘It’s ok, no strangers’ and begins to disrobe. I’m a little surprised she doesn’t bother with the changing room but I’m determined not to appear bothered – I’ve only got shorts and tee-shirt on anyway and I’m undressed before they are. I stand and wait for them to catch up. Wen is fiddling with her enormous bra and Raz waits until Wen has sorted herself out to take her gown off. I offer to help and Wen turns her back to me and says thanks. I note Raz trying not to look me up and down too obviously. It’s nice to see her being more demure than me for a change. Once Wen is ready Raz drops her gown at the last moment and we follow her into the steam room itself. As we enter, the hot thick aromatic fug that I remember so well envelops me and makes me gasp. It’s very hot and I can feel my skin begin to gush even before I’ve sat down. The aromatic oil clears my head and lungs instantly and I feel my whole body soften and blur. It’s very dark inside and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. There’s the burner glowing orange in the centre and thick, heavy wooden benches all around and another door to the right. As I watch the others take their places I notice a fourth person in the corner and it takes me a moment to realise it’s Lisa, sprawled against the wall like a discarded doll, her long hair all but obscuring her face. Hoping she can’t see me I take in her plump white breasts and long white legs. ‘Hi guys’ she says, sitting up, pulling the lank heavy tresses off her face. She notices me there but makes no obvious reaction. I look at my penis – thankfully on its best behaviour.
I have a glance at the other bodies (as one does). Raz is rather skinny – too skinny for my liking. Apparently she had implants in life but ‘you can’t get them through customs here’ she says. ‘I miss my boobs.’ Wen mentions that all her fillings are gone too and shows us her perfect teeth. Actually, even for a woman in her prime, Raz’s breasts are rather insubstantial. Wen on the other hand seems almost as wide as she is tall – head upon breasts upon belly upon thighs, like one of those stone-age Venus figures. She makes me want to take up ceramics again.
I get past my initial curiosity and sit back and breathe in the fumes – sandalwood I think, and maybe tea tree. I’ve never been very good at identifying essential oils. I can feel the heat gradually invading my core and my internal organs slump into repose. My bum is beginning to slide on the wet seat and I get up and arrange a towel underneath myself. Ah bliss!
‘So, you were saying about working in Oaxaca’ says Raz.
‘At the botanical garden’ says Wen ‘Yes. I was there for four years.’
‘Was it very beautiful there?’ says Raz, with a yearning voice.
‘Exquisite. You’d love it. The people are fabulous.’
‘I went to that place on the Caribbean coast, what’s it called?’
‘Cancun?’ says Lisa.
‘No. Silly girl’ she says jovially, as if she obviously wouldn’t be caught dead in such a common tourist destination. ‘Begins with a C though. Oh I can’t remember. Beautiful place with cenote you can swim in. Fabulous spot. You ever been to Mexico Gabe?’
‘Once’ I say. ‘I visited Oaxaca too.’
‘Gorgeous isn’t it.’
‘I do envy you, actually living there.’
‘Ah, it was mind-blowing’ she says and we go on to talk dreamily about places we’ve been – all except Lisa who remains conspicuously reticent.
After a quarter of an hour or so of that I ask if there’s a cool shower. Raz points languidly toward the other door and says ‘I’ll join you in a mo.’ Wen asks if I’ll pour some oil water on the stove as I go. ‘You’re coming back though aren’t you?’ she says. I nod emphatically. I might never go anywhere else. This is marvellous.
Once through the doors I find it’s quite cold and I have to get used to even gloomier conditions than in the steam room, but as I do I realise there’s a large semi-circular pool in front of me. I dip my toe in and find it cold but not freezing. I can feel as well as hear the whole hull throbbing and groaning to itself, sub-sonic. I stroll along the thick heavy wooden boards. I can see the water below, slopping about gently under the planks, luminous sea green, as if faintly lit from beneath. The whole chamber smells of the sea and I guess it must be salt water in here. I can’t believe no one else has found this place. At the far end I find showers and places to hang towels. The walls curve in, hull shaped. It’s all a little spooky. I look into the water and see that the pool sides curve with the hull too. The deepest part appears to be under my feet. I find some steps and lower myself in and the cold water makes me gasp. I gingerly let go and take a few slow breaststrokes across the pool and stop in the middle, treading water. I look down and watch my feet beat against the absinthe depths. I put my head under the water. Nothing but green. Then the doors open and Raz appears with her towel on. ‘What do you think?’ she says. ‘Spooky’ I reply. ‘How deep is it do you think?’
‘No idea luvvie’ she says, drops the towel, holds her nose and drops in off the side. I decide I might as well go down and meet her. I find her trying to look about and I swim below her, forgetting I don’t have to hold my breath. I let my air out and let myself sink. The water gets gloomier and the sides narrow in until my feet slide down the side and I touch the bottom. I look around. Another advantage here is that your eyes accustom themselves to focussing underwater somewhat better than in life. There seem to be odd items down here – cutlery and stones and a shoe. I look toward the deepest part, under the boards above and notice a movement in the shadows. I move a little closer and am certainly no longer relaxed. There’s definitely something there.

‘There’s people living down there’ I say once I’m at the surface again. ‘Honestly, I saw them.’
Wen and Lisa are at the poolside now, crouched in front of me. Wen modestly uses her towel to cover herself but Lisa squats naked in front of me, balancing on her toes, her knees only inches from my face. I can see everything. Either she hasn’t got a clue or she’s doing it on purpose. I look away. Raz is treading water, turning circles with her face under, looking for signs of life. ‘If you don’t believe me just look for yourself’ I say. I see Lisa step back then do a perfect dive over my head and disappear.
‘She’s full of surprises isn’t she’ says Wen appreciatively.
‘I don’t think they’re dangerous’ I say. ‘I just got the impression they want to be left alone.’
‘Well you won’t catch me in there now’ she says, shuddering, and heads for the shower. Raz doesn’t appear too bothered but keeps periodically ducking her head to check nothing’s coming up to surprise her. Lisa then appears over the other side of the pool, pulling her hair away from her face.
‘They’re all huddled together down there. Maybe six or seven of them’ she reports. ‘Maybe we should go and tell the guides. What do you think?’
‘Maybe. Maybe they just want to be left alone’ I say.
‘They seem sad’ says Lisa, ducking under again then looking up at me. Then she turns on her back and floats away from me, her breasts bobbing in front of her face, her pubic tuft surfacing periodically. I decide to get out and back into the heat. Wen is finished in the shower and comes along with me.
‘She’s quite a girl, our Lisa don’t you think’ she says as we settle down in the heat again. I pour a cup of water on and watch the wet steam rise and fill the ceiling. At that moment a guide appears in his normal day outfit with some wood and kneels down to feed the fire. Wen asks him about the people at the bottom of the pool. He nods as he feeds the logs in through the narrow hatch. ‘Yes, we know they’re there’ he says, as if it’s all under control. ‘They get in through the filters.’

When he leaves I sit back, close my eyes and enjoy the smell of the burning wood. ‘You were saying?’ I say.
‘About Lisa. She’s quite a girl.’
‘She is. I don’t get her at all. Has she spoken to you much?’
‘A little. She likes you. I know that.’
‘She’s got a funny way of showing it’ I say and immediately have an image of her, soft and wet before me. My penis stirs and I try to think about the people in the bottom of the pool.
‘She doesn’t know how to show it. That’s my theory’ continues Wen. ‘I think she was quite ill for much of her life and now she’s not and she doesn’t know quite what to do with it.’
‘Did she tell you that, about being ill I mean?’
‘Little hints – about never having the energy for this and that and really envying the things other people had done as if it wasn’t really an option for her. Children – I know she wanted children and never did.’
We sit silently for a while, then Raz and Lisa come back in, dripping from the pool. Lisa’s body shines in the firelight as she squeezes past my knees. She could just as easily have gone around the other way with Raz. I catch her glance at me through her hair and look away. I try to think about what I want for dinner today.

Alison VII – College

‘What did your parents have to say about you hitching to Cornwall at sixteen years old?’

‘I never told them.’

‘What? Didn’t they realise something was up?’

‘I told them I was doing the South Downs Way or something, I gave them phone numbers of fictitious friends in Angmering and Lewes.’

‘So nobody knew where you were.’

‘I told Justine.’

‘And she didn’t feel the need to let them know.’

‘She’d fallen out with them by then.’

‘What about?’

‘Nothing in particular. Everything. It was the same old thing with all three of us in the end – not doing the right thing, not living up to expectations. My parents always claimed that they’d be happy for us to do anything as long as we were happy, but in reality they had a rather limited view of how a person can be truly happy. Basically it meant doing much the same as they had but, with the benefit of their greater wisdom and experience, making a better job of it than they had. 

Unfortunately none of us were sticking to their plan. Justine trained to teach nursery school kids, had various relationships with men and women and then, when she did move in with someone she didn’t marry him or have his kids. Amelia settled down and had kids but she’d already upset mum and dad long before – staying out late and getting into trouble. And now I looked like I was going to be a bloody artist of all things.’

‘Did they try to stop you?’

‘They didn’t. Mostly they kept quiet about it all. They hated discussing things properly more than anything and I can’t imagine they talked to each other. They said things like “We’ve just got your best interests at heart” and “We don’t want you to be disappointed.” Mum said the subjects I took were “play subjects” and I know dad was miffed that I wasn’t thrashing myself with physics and chemistry. And he hated the French – all that crap about the war and about the French surrendering and so on and I said we’d have probably surrendered too if it hadn’t been for the English Channel being in the way and he just completely freaked out. I’d never seen him lose his temper before. It was frightening and ridiculous at the same time. He was coming out with all this jingoistic crap about people dying for my benefit and the Battle of Britain and superior munitions and all the rest of it but I knew our tanks were crap, just like the French ones because I’d been reading up on the Blitzkrieg. I think that was when I realised my father really didn’t know what the heck he was on about. I wanted to say something about how we’d probably have been keener than the French to collaborate with the Nazis but decided to leave it.’

‘Probably just as well.’

‘Yes... He even said he thought German would have been a more worthwhile language to learn than Spanish – involving more serious study and application – like half the world speaks German these days, not. It was like, if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth making yourself and everyone around you thoroughly miserable for.’

‘Were they like that about their own lives?’

‘Absolutely. Mum would come in from work knackered and immediately start doing the cleaning because dad hadn’t done it properly, or so she said. There was just this frenzy about her, this mania. You could hear her when she came in, clattering about so everyone knew that she at least was “doing something useful”. Usually she’d end up breaking something or hurting herself and collapsing in tears and dad of course would make her a cup of tea and sit with her. He was always trying to get her to relax when she got in – just have a sit down and a fag but she just said “I just can’t. I look around and all I can see is mess...”

Alison grimaces. ‘It’s a women’s thing.’ 

‘I know. It’s just mad though, isn’t it?’

‘It is.’

‘But actually dad was just as bad. He never stopped either. He hated me staying in bed after seven in the morning – even at weekends. He was always saying “The early bird catches the worm” and I was just thinking, well, that depends what time the worms get up.’

She smiles and looks at me. ‘It’s a different generation’ she says, after some thought. ‘They were brought up to work and bring home the bacon, make sure the kids are fed and clean.’

‘I know. Mum and I were talking about this after dad died. She was still getting on at me even then, thirty years later. She just saw my life as pointless because I wasn’t working my fingers to the bone and worrying about everything and I said I didn’t think that was what life was about and she said – and I’ll never forget the look on her face, she said “What is it about then?” and I wanted to say something about enjoying life, or making a difference or being fulfilled but it all seemed so soft and squashy against this hard, stone-like thing she had.’

‘What did you say to her?’

‘I gave her the old non-committal shrug but it was cowardice. I did know. I just couldn’t tell her. I think if I could have made her truly understand she’d have broken down right there and then because she’d have really realised that she’d wasted her life.’

‘So, what was it like, being out on your own in Cornwall?’

‘Scary. I loved it.’

‘What did you do for money?’

‘I had saved a bit but Justine gave me £50 which was quite a lot back then.’

‘How was the hitching?’

‘Very good. I got down there in twelve hours. Everybody was excellent. I think it’s a terrible shame you can’t do that sort of thing any more. I hitched a lot over the next few years. The worst part was having to listen to some very tedious truck drivers and sales reps.’

‘You never had any trouble?’

‘Just getting wet, and a bit bored. Motorway service stations are of limited interest.’

‘And what did you do about accommodation once you got there?’

‘Asked farmers if I could stay in their fields mainly.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. Quite often they’d give you milk and eggs and a field with a tap in it.’

‘Wow. Didn’t you have any trouble at all?’

‘Not really. Honestly. People are basically sound if you give them a chance.’

We talk a little more about Cornwall and how lovely it is down there. I ended up down near Mevagissey and Gorranhaven. That was where I learned to snorkel and after that I spent as much time in the sea as I possibly could. Mum and dad had never been big on holidays – mostly just visiting relatives for a weekend or spending the day on Shoreham Beach, which has its moments, but does not have quite the same appeal. I loved the way the countryside rolls right down to the beach in the West Country, which it doesn’t do really anywhere near where I grew up in Sussex. At home there’s maybe fifty miles of suburbs, harbours or ‘amusements’ non-stop from Littlehampton to Seaford, and the water is grey because of the rivers and the chalk (not to mention the pollution). In Cornwall there were just cliffs and rocky coves and the gorse and the oak go right down to the water’s edge and the water’s so clear and there’s rock-pools with pink coralline and yellow lichen and sea anemones with fluorescent green tentacles with violet tips, and there were weedy spider crabs and purple sea urchins and orange trimmed cushion stars. And then in the evening I could stroll down into the village, go into a pub (they never asked my age – I looked that mature, ha ha), sit out on the terrace and drink a pint as the sun went down. I know it sounds corny but if you’d picked me up and put me on the beach at St Tropez or Bondi I don’t suppose I’d have been any more contented. 

The only slight problem as time went on was that it got a bit lonely. I always had a book with me so I didn’t look too lost but everywhere I looked there were attractive young women, with or without men. None of them, I don’t think, even noticed me. My one attempt to chat resulted in mystified expressions and embarrassed glances. I guess we English just don’t do that sort of thing do we – introduce ourselves to strangers I mean. I really should have known better.

Back home for the rest of the summer, getting back to ‘Real life’ as mum insisted on calling it, I spent as much time as possible out in the countryside or near the sea. It wasn’t the same but it was better than nothing. Anyway I worked at the shop, I hung out with Adam or one or other of the Colins quite a bit and I visited Justine and her new boyfriend in Worthing. My results came and went without celebration at home (they weren’t in anything very useful after all – just toy As and Bs) but Amelia took me to Camden and got me a leather jacket as a reward. 

The sixth form college was attached to the school so I knew almost everybody there. Perhaps it would have made sense to break out and go to Brighton or Worthing but I knew what to expect in Shoreham and in any case, it was just up the road. Adam and I were the only ones from our class (and the only ones from our junior school) to go on to take A levels. Otherwise it was us and the intelligentsia. They split roughly into the real boffins – prematurely middle-aged dweebs with ill fitting uniforms and overloaded briefcases who liked to discuss calculus during breaks, and on the other hand, a rather sexier breed with a worldlier perspective. The former group were more fun than they sound though – quoting Life of Brian and The Young Ones verbatim, comparing their record collections (Hawkwind, Led Zep and The Floyd), or discussing religion and science. The latter group went to more parties, talked about travelling and frankly, were much more likely to get laid. Temperamentally I felt more at home with the former but yearned to spend more time among the latter. In reality I found myself sinking into a space between the two groups. That was what had happened before. I’d felt safe with the geeks. They were not threatening and although I didn’t know what they were on about much of the time I could sit in and enjoy the show. 

Actually the groups were much less well defined than that. In a bigger college they’d have had nothing to do with one another but there were only about thirty of us and we all hung out together a lot of the time. What was more, almost all of them had been together in the same class for the last four years and knew each other very well. I’m not saying there was no bitching going on at all but even the most socially inept geek had come to be treated as a loveable (and harmless) freak by even the most sophisticated of the girls. Besides, some of the geeks were frighteningly witty and most of the more worldly were easily bright enough to keep up. Our position, Adam and I, was different, not because we were less intelligent (although we probably were), but because we didn’t have the shared history. I hadn’t realised this before. 

There were a few notable characters I remember. Adam was very much on the business studies track by now and we rather drifted apart. Camille I’ve mentioned. She was doing mostly languages and history so we met quite a lot. Conspicuous on the sexier side of the room were Carly, Sally and Tina. Carly was the archetypal ‘Most Popular Girl’ in the tradition of all the best American teen flicks. My feeling is that they would have all been complete cows under any normal circumstances but things were different here and we were glad they were on our side. I know Carly was spelling her name Kali for a while, which gives some idea of her attitude to men. Also on that side of the room were Gareth and James – the kind of easy going, good humoured and yet astute guys everyone likes to be associated with. Gareth was going to be a doctor and James planned to read classics. Previously I’d have considered myself unfit to even approach such paragons, but now I discovered they were actually ok as human beings. They were the ones who knew where the parties were, and the ones to chat to about which gigs to attend. Gareth was our charismatic leader, James was his affable lieutenant. It was possible to get an idea off the ground without their input, but it was a heck of a lot easier with. They just made things happen. 

On the geekier side of the room, Tom was the closest thing I had to a close friend. Although he was invariably sardonic and off hand, it wasn’t personal and he was never actually malicious. You’d feel something was wrong if he didn’t tell you to fuck right off at some point in the day. He ate nothing but Weetabix as far as anyone could tell. Roy was our resident God-botherer. To his credit he never seemed offended by our derision but nor did he see the joke. Graham and Trevor were fellow geeks and all as far as I can remember were on double maths, physics and chemistry. 

Being one of only two art students meant I wasn’t expected to be like the others. I realised in fact, and for the first time in my existence probably, that being a bit weird (but not in a super intelligent way) was even expected of me. While the others were either anticipating a place at Oxbridge on the one hand, or a career in banking on the other, I could drift about among them, keeping odd hours and wearing colourful shirts without causing much embarrassment. I was their link to the subjective, the woolly, even the spiritual side of life – the pagan, the irrational, the heart-felt. It was kind of sexy. 

The other artist was Rose. She wasn’t one of us at all because she was one of a small group who’d joined the college from elsewhere and I had the honour of inducting her into the group. She was actually rather timid and conventional but she got off with Gareth almost immediately. Unfortunately she brought no girl friends along for me. 

And so I got on with it. Spanish, French, art and history. (I’d wanted to do biology instead of French but the timetable wouldn’t allow it.) For the first few weeks all went according to plan. I went to the lessons and I took my notes. I went to the library and read up. I went home and I completed my assignments. I tried to write legibly and get everything in on time. My assignments came back and I passed. Good enough. My parents didn’t hassle me and let me get on with what I had to do and I still had time to paint and go out. Life was on track. I was managing. It was ok I told myself. This time it would be different.

Unfortunately, as that first term progressed and the work began to pile on I was aware of a familiar sense of panic rising. I told myself it had nothing to do with what was happening in the here and now – my work was progressing well enough and I seemed to be getting on with everyone ok but the anxiety persisted nonetheless. I suspected it had a link to what had happened before. Sometimes, in the middle of a lesson I’d feel a kind of drunken nausea rise in my chest. I’d manage to ignore it for a while but then be taken by surprise as the sickening swirl of worry became a roaring gyre and I’d look at whatever it was I was working on and it would mean absolutely nothing and I’d done no preparation and I didn’t understand any of what was in front of me and I was in reality falling behind once again. As the term went by, each week added another layer to my burden. As Christmas approached this feeling came up closer to the surface, like a submerged precipice just a little way out, just beyond where I was paddling. The edge could crumble away and there I’d be, falling into the abyss. Times like that I had to sit down or excuse myself. I told them I felt dizzy. It wasn’t just that the past was so near and so vivid but that it was so tempting. To just step off and not have to deal with all this – to just drift down, let myself go, be swallowed up and crushed would have been such a relief. It was coming for me and calling out. It was all I could do just to stand still and cover my ears.

By Christmas I really was falling behind. At first I at least attended the lessons, but often, instead of getting on with my homework I wandered the streets or went down to the harbour. Some days I didn’t even make it into college but went straight past and walked on over the hills. I was in a strange trance-like state. I was always aware of what trouble I was heading for and it gave me headaches and backaches and heartburn and yet somehow I managed to simply go off and be free for the day. I don’t even remember what I thought about during that time, apart from fantasising about women. By now I was even more preoccupied with that and it left little room for any other sort of rational thought. Needless to say my anxiety did nothing for my attractiveness and I found myself becoming more and more isolated again. I took time off sick and mum sent me to the doctor but they couldn’t find anything wrong. Immediately after Christmas the head of the college called me into her office and threatened me with expulsion if I didn’t “pull my socks up” but it made no difference because I didn’t know how. It simply made me feel sicker and less able to think straight. I came home from college and went straight to bed quite often. Even my drawing had ceased, apart from the homemade porn of course. I wanked incessantly. 

The fact that I was dimly aware that this had happened before did not make matters better. It provided no helpful insights or motivations. It just meant I was screwing up all over again. In February I disappeared completely for a week. I still am not sure where I went – I had some money and I stayed at a Youth Hostel some of the time but otherwise I just found barns and other farm buildings to rest in. I had a very good sleeping bag by then and a lot of new outdoor gear so I don’t know how much actual danger I was in, but the fact that a lot of it is a blank is worrying in itself. Interestingly, my parents did not alert the police and mum just gave me a ticking off when I got back. The college gave me one more chance.

Journey VI – Into town

I’m awoken by someone mowing, or at least that’s what it sounds like. Sonia is not beside me, which panics me momentarily, but then I detect the tiny sounds of careful activity in the kitchen below. I guess she’s making coffee but all I can smell is cut grass spiced ever so slightly with a hint of fuel ethanol. I know that smell from somewhen way back. I used to do that too – cut grass. I wonder what’s happening. I don’t think I own a lawn, do I?

Sonia tells me they’re working in the orchard behind my place. I’d assumed it was a woodland but no, apparently not. My place backs onto one of the town’s fruit farms. I’m still slightly shaky so she carries the coffee things up onto the patio. Ross’s hammock is empty. ‘He’s made an early start’ she says, putting the tray down on the table. I see her glance apprehensively at me, as if she wants to ask something but thinks maybe later. I pull up a chair and look around. It’s still very early and pleasantly cool. Even so, the scent of crushed grass is powerful and the noise makes conversation difficult. Whoever is mowing must be just the other side of the wall. She’s looking at me funny again.
‘What is it?’ I say, taking a sip. She doesn’t answer immediately. She’s thinking about it.
‘You were talking in your sleep’ she says at last. ‘You kept me awake half the night with it.’
‘Oh’ I say. I feel I should ask what I said but I’m not sure I want to know.
‘That place you talked about. Were there children there?’
I feel horribly awkward answering, although I tell myself I have nothing to be ashamed of.
‘I’m not sure’ I say eventually, which is the truth, sort of. ‘They said they weren’t really children. They just looked...young. Why? What did I say about them?’
The expression on her face tells me it’s not good. I know there are no dreams as such here, just memories that come in the night. She looks into my face, then suddenly away. ‘Did you ever... take part, you know, join in?’ she says.
‘I don’t think so’ I say. ‘No. I’m sure I didn’t.’
But the truth is I don’t really remember. I’ve forced myself back there from time to time, briefly, in my memory but I can hardly bear it.
I can still see that clearing – the group around the fire place, sitting about, tapping irregularly on some drums, or kneading clumsily at each other’s shoulders or doodling in henna on each other’s hands. Not one of them shows any real talent whatsoever. I watch bemused as yet another monotonous drumming session falls apart as soon as someone tries to make a more interesting rhythm.

And then toward dusk the children began to gather and to associate themselves with one or other of our little community. I wondered where they all came from. Perhaps they were the spirits of lost street children, trafficked here from Bangkok or Rio. I wondered if they were lost souls, or perhaps old souls. I never saw the same faces from one night to the next. I sat for much of the second night next to a girl in awkward silence and then crept away to sleep. She followed me but I politely put her off. I wasn’t sure if she was disappointed or relieved. It seemed that in some way they wanted to be with us – for the warmth perhaps, or the comfort. Perhaps the things that were done to them seemed like a fair price. I have no idea.
The next day some of the guys chided me about my lack of performance and reassured me that I should ‘Get in there. They love it.’ I tried to smile politely but they knew, and their suspicions increased nightly.
One man, the one I came to refer to as the Apple Man because of the shape of his body, which he never even attempted to cover up, tried to reason with me.
‘If you don’t, somebody else will, somebody less... considerate’ he said. I sat there trying to sort out a coherent response. As time went on it became increasingly difficult to arrange ideas in any real order at all – something in the air...
‘But if nobody does it’ I began weakly, knowing already that this argument wasn’t going to work. Heartbeat sat nearby. She was rocking slightly and talking to herself as she chewed. ‘Calmer, not calmer, you’re calmer...’ she mumbled, as if trying to convince herself that it would all be alright. ‘Not calmer, am I calmer, not you’re calmer...’ I didn’t realise until later she was actually saying karma – ‘My karma, not my karma, not your karma...’ as if trying to work out how we’d come to be in this situation.
‘Don’t worry yourself about them’ continued the Apple. ‘Relax. It’s never going to change. It’s the way it is. You’re weak. We all are. It’s what everybody wants, deep down and it’s up for grabs here. Go with it. Let yourself go. They don’t know any different anyway – look at them.’ I do look and they all look vacant and aimless and yet somehow knowing. He offers me a handful of crushed red petals. I bury my face in them and breathe deep as he suggests, and fall backwards. It occurs to me as I lose consciousness that if I can just stay comatose all the time I might not have to...

Falteringly, and with much prompting I tell Sonia some of this but I can’t tell what she’s thinking.

One of the women, whom I called Mango, took me further up the creek to what they called the tree of life. It was just up around a bend – a huge baobab like thing – big swollen trunk and leaves of many colours. When we got there the woman dropped her gown and pressed herself against the trunk and hummed at it. I looked up and saw that the branches were in fact leafless but festooned with all sorts of bits of cloth and strings with beads and other bits of plastic tied on. ‘Listen’ she said, ‘It’s breathing.’ I went up to it and touched the trunk. The bark was dry and loose and the wood underneath was also lifeless – spongy and dry and riddled with worm. Parts of it look like they might be held together with fibreglass, or a resin of some sort.
‘The bark has extraordinary properties’ she said dreamily and peeled a piece off to chew on. I didn’t know if I should tell her I thought the tree might be dead. I wasn’t sure in fact if it had ever been alive. I settled for asking her why it had no leaves, only rags and she told me it was not spring yet. I looked around at all the flowers and butterflies and chose not to say anything about it. She couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t take my clothes off and rub myself against it or chew the bark and she grumbled about it all the way back to the camp.

‘Did you find out what all the screaming was about?’ says Ross.
I have my back to the house so I don’t see him arrive and his voice makes me jump. I feel terribly on edge.
‘Screaming?’ I say.
Sonia looks at me slightly guiltily. Evidently she hadn’t got to that part.
‘Ever since you arrived. Every night. You didn’t know?’
I didn’t.
‘Something about the lizard men – am I right?’
I feel faint and can’t say anything at all. I shake my head. It’s coming back to me, just all rolling in. I feel myself getting swamped by it and have the sensation of dropping into a cess pit and drowning even as I sit there in the sun looking at them looking at me. At least they look worried. I couldn’t stand it if they looked disgusted or scared. I have images of some very dark places – before I found the Nirvana place – some sort of devastated city or industrial complex. It was always night but always lit by fires and always there was the sound of gunfire and yelling, and everywhere was littered with bodies – bodies in terrible states of injury and yet still alive. I can still smell them. It was just horrible, all of it. How did I end up there?

At length Ross gets himself up off the ground and says to Sonia ‘Well, we’d better get going’ and she immediately starts busying herself with the tray and it suddenly hits me that these people could well decide they don’t want me around any more and decide to throw me out, back into the dark and the thought of that is so terrible I almost break down begging and pleading with them right then and there. Instead I get awkwardly up to my feet and touch Sonia’s sleeve as she is about to go down the steps. Ross is already at the door. She turns and looks into my face, still inscrutable and I say ‘Sonia, please. I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t. But I was just so scared...’
She puts the tray down on the ground and calls to Ross that she’ll be along in a while. She leads me back to the table, all patience and understanding. We sit down. I’m waiting for the worst to happen – for her to break the news to me. But instead she just says ‘I know’ and takes my hand.
After a little while, waiting for me to calm myself and go back to breathing normally she says ‘Come into town with us’ and I really don’t want to but I don’t really see how I can refuse.

Back at the house now, alone in the bed I feel this odd bubbling sensation just under my diaphragm that makes me want to giggle. It takes me a moment to realise this is not some kind of gastric problem but happiness. It’s been a really good day. Sonia’s friends seem to be very nice but the main thing was the town itself. At one point, after I’d finished the little crab meat things I had for my starter, while I was toying with my wine glass, I looked about me, the conversation carrying on among the others, oblivious and I watched a small mauve pigeon take off from the flagstones with a strand of straw in its beak. It turned and rose up over the gold and purple awning at the front of the café, past the big glossy leaves of the fig tree that hung out over the crumbling honey coloured stucco wall, up into the sharp hot air, to flutter up to join the others among the hazy columns and sills of the bell tower beyond. In the cobalt sky a wisp of cloud hung motionless and as I sat there my hearing passed from the animated conversation at our table to the murmur of the people strolling about, accompanied by a van or scooter, to the calls of the market vendors and their animals, to dislocated snatches of guitar and trumpet and then back to the gurgle of the pigeons. The place smells of jasmine, wine, garlic and something else, something I remember from somewhere in the past – something rich and sexy...
I suddenly realise they’ve been trying to get my attention.
‘Sorry?’ I say. They’re all looking at me, smiling politely, Miguel, Ross, Cleome – the girl from the other day, Leo, Mo, Phoebe, and some others who’s names escape me (although I was only introduced to them all about a quarter of an hour ago). Two guys at the adjoining table go back to what they were talking about.
‘Leo wanted to know what you do, for a living’ says Ross. ‘I told him we thought you were a gardener. Leo works with the fruit trees.’
‘Ah’ I say, ‘it wasn’t you with the mower at stupid o’clock this morning was it?’ He looks confused and I’m afraid I might have offended him. ‘I’m not really a morning person’ I say, lamely. I feel like I should apologise.
‘Leo’s trees are over the other side of the valley.’
‘But if you like mowing...’ says Leo, grinning broadly. I smile and make vague demurring, modest noises, not wanting to cause any further upset. Actually I’d like something physical to do but it took us nearly twice the time we expected just to get here with Sonia having to support me a lot of the way and take a lot of breaks. Eventually Ross came back to find out where we’d got to and he helped me along the rest of the way. I guess it was only about a mile in all, so that’s embarrassing.
‘I’m a painter actually’ I say, surprising myself. I don’t know where the information came from, but suddenly there it is.
‘You never told me’ says Sonia. She looks upset, like I’ve been deceiving her.
‘It just came to me’ I say, shrugging. She’s sort of possessive.
‘What sort of painting?’ says Phoebe, ‘because we really need our hall ceiling done, don’t we.’ She looks at the chap beside her and grips his hand. Simon I think his name is.
‘Um... ok’ I say vaguely, not wanting to put her off as well as Leo.
‘Do you mean portraits and things?’ says Sonia
‘Portraits, landscapes, life studies...’
‘Murals?’ says Mo.
‘Er... possibly. I think so...’ I say, wondering what I’m letting myself in for. They all look knowingly at each other, like they’ve suddenly realised something important. It transpires that there’s need for something for the entrance to the main hall of the sanctuary.
‘Something lush, big, colourful.’
‘Not too colourful.’
‘Something with flowers.’
‘Maybe some trees.’
‘You and your trees...’
‘You should talk to the warden. We’ll introduce you.’
I feel a little overwhelmed. Sonia notices and puts her hand on mine reassuringly. I look at Miguel and see him look at it, then at me, then away. I think I’m going to upset everyone today.
‘What do you normally paint?’ says Cleome. ‘I mean, on canvas or paper, water colours?’
‘Normally oils, or acrylics. I don’t mind really. It depends on the subject’
‘Could you paint me perhaps?’ says Sonia and I feel Miguel’s uneasy gaze on me again. I say maybe. I hope she doesn’t mean nude.
The conversation moves on, about another painter they know and a painting of hers that hangs in the sanctuary. I drift in and out again until the conversation comes to an abrupt halt for the arrival of the fish course.

On the way home we get a lift on a small mule cart. It’s been a long day and none of us can be bothered to walk. After a fabulous dessert and some more sitting around over coffee we had a look around the market stalls to see what was on offer. Sonia pointed out a set of elegantly designed hand-blown glasses, a neat little leather wallet, some almond and honey cakes and a tray of tree seedlings, grown from seed collected locally in the forest. Anything like this back in life would have been unaffordable but ‘no’ she said ‘we can buy them, if you like.’ No ‘executives’ here to drive prices up apparently. I shrugged. I couldn’t really imagine wanting anything much but even in my addled state I could tell it was all beautifully done. I smiled and nodded at the stallholders and they smiled back, happy apparently just to have their wares admired. After that we went to another place, a bar-cum-coffee shop in a basement up one of the side streets – a low, cool, shady cellar with broad leather seats. We spent the late afternoon drinking coffee and brandy, watching a couple of guys practising on mandolin and tablas, and playing with a tame lemur-like animal with a taste for salted cashews.
I have so many questions but it can wait. The cart bumps heavily along the way we came, a broad rutted track (virtually a river in the rainy season I’m told) past fields of fruit trees and beehives, sheep and sunflowers. The sun is now low in the sky and the hills glow like coals. I look up into the palms that line the road and see hornbills battling over the fruit. A ghostly moon emerges from behind what I’m told is a tamarind tree – a huge thing, towering over everything. It occurs to me I’ve not seen the moon for a long time, nor a sunset for that matter. Crickets tune up for the evening concert.
‘Do you want to go and see those guys at the weekend?’ says Ross vaguely from his position with his back to the driver.
‘Huh?’ I say.
‘The musicians we saw rehearsing. They’re part of a band. There’s a marimba and a clarinet. It’s very cool.’
I feel I want to ask about money. I know someone else paid for the food and drinks today. I say ‘That’d be good’ in a vague way and hope I get the chance to ask Sonia about all this at some point. I don’t even know what day it is, let alone when the weekend is.

Back at the house Ross heads off, leaving Sonia to help me get settled for the night. My legs are aching and shaking badly after the day’s exertions and I suggest it might be better to stay on the sofa. I don’t want to share the bed with her again. She won’t hear of it however and helps me up the ladder and onto the bed. She’s changed the sheets. Then she kneels down and takes my sandals off, inspecting my previously ruined toes as she does so and then lifts my legs around. I look up at her, now silhouetted against the ceiling. I can’t see her expression.
‘We should visit the beach tomorrow’ she says before turning the lamp out and going downstairs. I hear the door open and close and although I miss her I’m happy to be alone. I lie there grinning, looking at the ceiling, thinking about everything, not believing my luck, ignoring my fears.