Alison XIV – Fame and Fortune

‘So how did you do at college? Your results I mean.’ asks Alison the next time I see her. It’s raining out and we’re back in our little room again.
‘I did ok – a good 2.1. They said I was “technically very proficient and had a good eye.” I think that was their way of telling me I didn’t have much originality but there you go. Back then a lot of what was going on was about framing each other’s faeces, so no, I was just a bit too workman-like for them. One of them actually called me an artisan, as if that was a criticism. I didn’t care. It got me onto a post-grad project.’
‘Like a Phd?’
‘More like a master’s.’
‘How was that?’
‘Good. I learned a lot – there was a lot of history and anthropology involved – stuff I didn’t know about music and film and so on. Then after that there was an arts council funded project that took me on. I think at the time, despite the feint praise, I still had this idea that I might actually really make a name for myself, make a difference, all that stuff – be important, if you know what I mean.’ I feel defensive and self-conscious talking about it now, but she reassures me.
‘You genuinely felt your work could be successful.’
‘Well, like I say, I really liked what I was doing, and I just thought, well if I like it there’s a reasonable chance others will too.’

Mum and dad wouldn’t have seen it that way. They’d have assumed that if I liked something it was pretty much a given that nobody else would, but I was learning to ignore their opinions. At the time I was doing a lot of small pieces, some very small, as well as the larger panoramas. I painted back rooms in old houses, attics and basements, pantries and outside loos. I did deserted beach huts, garden sheds full of old tools and overgrown corners of gardens. Anywhere where there was a lot of broken, decaying, rusting and cobwebbed junk, or even just some bare dusty floorboards and some grimy windowpanes. I found some wonderful ready-made collages of bits of old newsprint, labels and advertisements in an off-licence that was due to be pulled down. A lot of my work was unashamedly nostalgic but I just thought – this is not some sanitised cosy image of our lives – this is our history. This is what we’re losing. Nostalgia literally means homesickness and that’s what it was about. I called the exhibition Nostalgia anyway, just to let them know I knew. I liked to think of it as post post-modern.

‘Did you sell anything?’
‘Not too bad. I didn’t lose money but it wasn’t really enough to live on so I had to do other things to make ends meet.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well, I got commissioned for this big council project – something for a health centre out on one of the estates.’
‘And that was good? Making a difference?’
‘You’d think so wouldn’t you? But it was all just so much bullshit – all the politics – grovelling about for funding, cutting corners, using cheap crappy materials to save on costs, having to stick to ridiculous deadlines, and constantly having to make changes because some dipshit who knows nothing about art has a friend on the committee. Anyway... when that didn’t pan out I applied for some other things – media jobs, galleries and so on... I don’t know if you’ve found this, all employers seem to expect everyone to be a people person, a team player or whatever... Doesn’t matter what else you might have to offer, you’ve got to be an extravert. It’s as if wanting to quietly just get on with your job is some sort of mental illness...’
‘It’s the triumph of ambition over talent’ she says wryly. ‘All too common these days I’m afraid.’ Clearly she knows exactly what I mean. The truth is there was a time when I believed, despite everything my family said, that I could be someone remarkable, someone exceptional, a person to be reckoned with. I don’t know where that came from, but in the end it didn’t matter all that much. It wasn’t worth the stress, the long hours and pretending to be someone I was not.
‘I just didn’t have the motivation I guess. I do my best work if I have time to wander about and think and work things out for myself. Anyway it’s their loss. I just got on with doing what I was good at.’
‘You could have put your prices up surely, to make enough money.’
‘I suppose so. I don’t know. I was told I could easily have charged six times what I did. I don’t know. I loved my work. I couldn’t really justify it. I mean, it’s only painting. It’s not life and death is it? It’s not like I was baking bread or delivering babies or something. I worked it out once, the hours I spent painting and including all my materials, rent and a generous dollop of other expenses and I would have been on twelve times what my dad earned, hour for hour, doing something I loved, whenever I felt like it.’
‘So how come you didn’t make more money?’ she asks. ‘You could have asked for, say, three times what he earned’
‘I did. I just couldn’t paint enough. I could never do it as a full-time job. If I tried to work too much all the inspiration went out the window. It just became plodding and dreary. I couldn’t really work more than about three full days a week and stay keen. I had to go and do other things, and get some proper rest too.’
‘So how did you make ends meet?’
‘I did a bit of teaching.’
‘What did you teach?’ she says brightly, consulting her notes.
‘Painting, drawing, life classes, at the tech. That was good. I liked teaching.’

It was handy too. I found I could teach the equivalent of three days a week and still earn enough to live in a manner considerably better than that to which I had become accustomed, and spend much of the rest of the week (and the long academic holidays) travelling and painting. The fact that I was not making a name for myself as the new Lucien Freud did not trouble me much. I’d found myself a place in Lewes – a room at the top of one of those very tall, very narrow Georgian town houses down one of the twittens. It was a wonderful pokey four-storey place, full of light and life and Mit, the owner was generally easy going. The rest of the house was crammed with her books and plants and miscellaneous bits and pieces and the kitchen, although tiny, had every possible spice, grain and pulse known to man, neatly labelled in jars on three of its walls. For the fourth wall there was an old lean-to greenhouse she’d filled with coriander, tomatoes, basil and cannabis plants making a thick herbal miasma to sit in of an evening. She rarely cooked but when she did the result was mountainous and we had to invite in teams of random friends to help us consume it. Mit was a real old hippy – doyenne of the festival circuit and purveyor of circus skills. Everybody knew her and although she could be very tetchy at times, she knew when to leave well alone so we got along fine. She’d been there a good ten years before I turned up but she was not controlling and she always apologised when she knew she’d been unreasonable. Anyway, it meant I could have the occasional freak out too without being taken for an escaped lunatic.
She was the one who introduced me to the festivals and everything that went with them. After the first one I went to I had my own djembe, a set of runes, a sacred basil plant and the phone number of a very sexy redhead called Andrea who’d given me a deep tissue massage and told me to lay off the coffee and eat more cabbage.

Voyage XI – Post viral

Lisa has met someone. It shouldn’t bother me but he seems so insipid, so weak. I think she could do better. He’s been hanging out with us up on deck, very self-consciously, being very friendly, evidently expecting me to ‘bond’ with him in some way. I haven’t been very welcoming so far I must admit. I note with relief that she stays up with us as usual when he turns in for the night. I smile and try to be jolly about the whole thing. Raz eyes me with amusement. I don’t know what she expects me to do.
‘Not seen anything of Ruth lately’ says Lisa, blatantly avoiding the subject.
‘Good riddance’ says Wen quietly from deep in her sofa. Lisa, commendably still seems to think we shouldn’t be so mean but none of us are missing her.
‘Tell us about Trevor then’ says Raz. ‘What’s he like, what does he do, have you shagged him yet?’
Lisa blushes fiercely. ‘Oh, I don’t know’ she says eventually. ‘He seems like a nice enough chap but I don’t know. What do you think, honestly?’
‘He seems nice’ says Raz. We all nod and agree he seems nice, as far as any of us can tell from what little he’s said.
‘What do you think Gabe?’ says Raz, leadingly.
‘Oh God, I’m no judge...’
‘Do you think he’s good enough for our Lisa?’
Wen smirks at me. Lisa seems preoccupied with her hair, looking for split ends or something. I shrug. She knows I can’t lie. I don’t want to.
‘He’s not really my type’ I say flippantly. Lisa turns and looks at me sideways. I pretend not to notice. ‘He’s a bit, I don’t know... I feel that she, or you, rather... He’s not the sort of person I imagined you with I suppose.’
She mumbles something and slumps back in her chair, holding the strands of hair in front of her face, sorting out some tangles. It’s what she does when she’s unhappy about something I’ve noticed.
‘Sorry darling. Didn’t catch that’ says Raz.
‘I said maybe I just want him for sex. Maybe that’s all I want.’ She continues to run her fingers through her hair, untangling non-existent knots. Then she gets up, neatly picks up her books and says goodnight, avoiding eye-contact with any of us. After she’s been gone about ten seconds Raz hisses at me to go after her. I attempt to prevaricate but go anyway. I find her on the stairs, apparently making up her mind what to do, or possibly waiting for one of us to come and look for her. She looks very unhappy. I stand there at the foot of the steps, unable to think of anything useful to say and she sits down on a step half way up, her shawl drawn tight around her. She still won’t look at me. Almost immediately someone wants to get past.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to...’ I begin.
‘It’s ok. I know anyway. I just wish sometimes...’ and we lapse into silence again.
‘Come back to the bar. Talk to me, to us, I mean’
‘I can’t’ she says. ‘Maybe later’ and she looks so sad I can’t bring myself to leave her so I sit down on the step two down from her and inevitably another three people need to come past.
‘Come up on deck and talk to me’ I say and hold out my hand. She takes it and we go up and find a seat. It’s very peaceful up there tonight, just the birds and the Spanish guitar to keep us company. The waves are slightly phosphorescent. As we sit down she keeps hold of my hand and puts her head on my shoulder. I feel a sudden panic rise in me. It’s as much as I can do not to jump up and run. I feel so incredibly guilty, like my wife might appear and catch us at any moment, or she’s maybe watching us. Except she wouldn’t have minded. She trusted me and I never let her down. I need to remember that. I look down at Lisa’s head on my shoulder and smooth her hair a little. It’s very soft and silky. Baby hair. I need to tell her that I’ll be her friend but nothing else without her feeling rejected. I suspect she’d deny she wanted anything else anyway, and maybe that’s true but she’s so proud and touchy I can’t be sure. Anyway I don’t want her to have to expose herself like that. ‘Lisa’ I say, softly, without knowing what comes next and she looks up at me and I think I might kiss her. She has the loveliest lips.
‘It’s ok’ she says ‘I do understand.’
Now I definitely don’t know what to say.
‘You love your wife. I admire that. I never really thought... Anyway...’
‘What about Trevor?’ I say.
‘Oh God, what about Trevor?’ she says and slumps back against the chair (but still holds my hand.) ‘I don’t know what to do about him. Isn’t he hopeless? Actually I think he’s a little like me.’ She lets go of my hand.
‘What? How do you work that out?’
‘Oh I don’t know. He’s sort of lost. I don’t think he ever got any either. Oh look, can we go down again? It’s not that warm up here is it.’
I say ‘fine’ and we head down again to sit with Raz and Wen. Wen goes to get more food and drink. There’s a good seafood platter on offer and Lisa, uncharacteristically wants to try some.

‘I died of ME’ says Lisa, wiping her hands on a napkin having polished off an obscene number of oysters and crevettes.
‘Really? What, the yuppie flu? Can a person die of that?’ says Raz and immediately regrets it.
‘You know, I really hate all that “yuppie flu” nonsense. Sorry Raz but I do.’
‘Sorry sweetheart, my mistake. Carry on.’
‘I died of kidney failure. They just packed up. My body was just shutting down completely but my kidneys went first.’
‘Bloody hell’ says Wen, reaching forward and taking another prawn.
‘Anyway. That’s all really.’
‘How long did this go on for?’ I say.
‘Since I was about twenty-three’ she says matter-of-factly. ‘It came and went for years but then when I was fifty-three it just took over. I couldn’t move.’
‘Did you have anyone to help you? Family? Friends?’
‘Not really. Mum tried but she was too old to cope.’
‘And what is it, a virus or something?’
‘They still don’t really know. They can test for it now though, so it’s not actually all in the mind.’ She glances pointedly at Raz.
‘I never said...’
‘But you thought it. It’s ok. I do it myself. I hate it. If you have a condition with no visible symptoms everybody just thinks you need to pull yourself together. I used to think so too. The number of times I thought if I could just force myself, push through it and keep working but it just made it worse. I still felt guilty though, like I just wasn’t trying hard enough.’
‘I’m sorry sweetie. I didn’t mean to...’
‘It’s really ok’ she says and gives Raz a hug. Suddenly Raz looks very small, like the little old lady she was when she died.
‘What did you do about treatment?’ asks Wen.
‘Oh the usual. I tried all the “complementary” therapies’ (she does the air quotes thing with her fingers) ‘but to be honest I didn’t really believe in them very much. I think they mostly work by placebo effect and you need to have a bit of faith in whatever they’re giving you for that, don’t you. I don’t know. I had this homeopath giving me remedies and then I’d get worse and she’d say “it often gets worse before it gets better”, and then I’d maybe get better for a while but then I realised it did the same thing whether I took any remedies or not, so it all seemed a bit pointless, and expensive too.’
‘What about diet?’ asks Wen.
‘Yep, I did all the detox thing, vegan, probiotics, antioxidants, everything’
‘And?’
‘Hard to tell. The thing is, I believe it’s actually a symptom of the whole way we live – all the food additives and solvents and other pollutants in the air and so on.’
Wen sits forward and takes a deep breath. I glance at Raz who gives me a little smile.
‘I mean do you know how many completely new chemicals are invented and released into the world each year?’ continues Lisa. ‘It’s thousands, hundreds of thousands, and they don’t really know what any of them do to the body long term.’
‘No I’m sorry love’ says Wen ‘this is plain anti-scientific new age hokum Lisa.’
‘I’m not anti science’ says Lisa, clearly quite offended. ‘Excuse me’ she insists, ‘I am not anti science.’
Wen shakes her head. ‘It’s based on the same howler as the whole organic food movement Lisa – natural chemicals good, artificial chemicals bad. All life on earth has been exposed to environmental poisons since the year dot. There’s absolutely no evidence whatsoever that any of these “detox diets” have any therapeutic value whatsoever. Your body is perfectly capable of dealing with toxins and has done so since time immemorial. I mean if you look at all the phytotoxins, sorry, plant toxins we ingest...’
‘We know what phytotoxins are Wen’ says Lisa irritably ‘but no...’
‘I didn’t know’ I say, raising my hand timidly.
Lisa shakes her head. ‘The point I’m making is that yes, we evolved over millions of years to deal with all these naturally occurring poisons in our environment, but here now there are all these totally new molecules about that could be doing all sorts of weird things to us...’
‘Well there’s very little evidence...’ says Wen, more impatiently.
‘They haven’t done the proper long-term studies. This is what I’m saying. The problems are likely to come out slowly and they’ll be almost impossible to pin down to a definite cause. And then there’s interactions and they probably affect different people different ways. Look at the kinds of things people are suffering from these days – tumours, autoimmune problems, food intolerances, migraines, premature births, depression, lack of energy, infertility – all disorders at the molecular level.’
‘Lisa, look...’
‘It’s like, if you do any biology at all – really study how the body works – it’s amazing it functions at all, it’s all so finely tuned with all these specialised cells with their receptor sites and these incredibly intricate protein molecules – hormones and enzymes and antibodies and then there’s the DNA itself, and nerve function and friendly bacteria and it’s all so delicate and then we have these weird new molecules coming along maybe reacting with them and distorting them. Radiation too. I don’t mean actual radioactive waste, although that is a problem, I mean radio waves and microwaves. Up until about a century ago there wasn’t any of it but now we all have wi-fi and satellite TV and tracking devices and the air’s full of it and...’
She quite suddenly comes to a self-conscious halt, somewhat out of breath. ‘Sorry. I go on a bit...’ she says fanning her face. She’s actually gone quite pink.
We all sit there a quietly for a while. I don’t know about the others but I’m impressed. But then, I’m no scientist. Wen leans in.
‘But seriously Lisa, that’s all just idle speculation. We can all...’
‘There’s nothing idle about it Wen’ says Lisa loudly and she’s off again. ‘You say there’s “no evidence” and you think that means there’s no problem but I say there’s no evidence because the research hasn’t been done.’
‘Lisa’ says Wen, more stridently this time. ‘This doesn’t work. I could claim there’s a teapot in orbit around Mars. There’s no evidence to the contrary and no way of obtaining it.’
‘But my claim makes sense Wen. It makes logical practical sense – unlike your teapot hypothesis. And by the way, I was older than you, although I may not look it.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Well you do talk down to me Wen – like I’m just some silly girl. I’m not a child you know.’
There’s an awkward silence. Wen actually looks embarrassed, which is a first. ‘So what do you propose Lisa? More research?’ she says after a pause, as respectfully as she can, visibly suppressing her irritation.
‘Maybe, but I just don’t think they’ll find it. It’s too big and the connections will be too hard to make. It’s like that thing with microwave ovens they discovered a couple of years back.’
‘But that wasn’t anything to do with the microwave radiation itself.’
‘No but the radiation was altering the plastic which then reacted with the fruit acids and caused the autoimmune disease. You can look up the studies. It’s all there in the literature Wen.’
‘Ok...’
‘And it took them thirty years of everyone eating ready meals before they even noticed the connection.’
‘Ok, so what are you proposing?’ says Wen.
‘I just think, if you look at the whole picture, how much things have changed over the last century and you think how short a time that is for anything to evolve at all, you’d simply have to conclude there’s bound to be a problem. I’m actually not saying we should do more studies to see if there is a problem. I’m saying we should assume there probably is a problem.’ Wen goes to say something but Lisa goes on ‘And then there’s nano-particles, and GMOs too. We have no idea what new substances they might be releasing into the environment. Sorry Wen, you were going to say something? Sorry.’
‘Never mind’ she says, laughing a little.
‘I know. I’m doing it again. Sorry.’
Raz looks appraisingly at her, with a little smile on her lips.
Lisa goes on ‘I mean, people these days are allergic to milk, and peanuts, and fruit for God’s sake. I mean, what’s that all about? They’ve been part of a healthy diet for centuries and then wham! No good. I just think we’ve rushed ahead and we haven’t really thought about what we’re doing at all. The chemical firms just want to make money and they just don’t care. I’m sorry but it’s true.’
‘No need to apologise sweetie’ says Raz ‘I actually worked in pharmaceuticals.’
‘Really? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to...’
‘No no. I have to confess I’ve been thinking a lot about what we were up to since... well you know, since I wound up here. The thing is sweetheart, there’s too much money at stake. They’d never agree to what you’re saying.’
‘I know that.’
‘I know it must piss you off something rotten.’
‘It’s just, all my life everybody’d look at me like I should just bloody well snap out of it, like I enjoyed being in bed all the time and not going to work but I’d have loved to have the energy... I so envied them, well, people like you two for example, because you could just get up and do things, and just take that for granted. There were so many things I wanted to do...’ And she looks away and refuses to cry. ‘I think I need some sleep’ she says eventually, and we all decide it’s time for bed and accompany her along to the cabins.

Next day Lisa joins me for breakfast. We’re sitting there and she’s stirring her coffee, round and round, very preoccupied. I look around the room. Not many of us about yet. It’s early. Outside the weather looks less overcast but it’s still raining nevertheless. It rains a lot in the afterlife it seems. Finally she taps the spoon on the rim and puts it down.
‘I never drank coffee in life, well, not after I got sick. Everybody told me I shouldn’t and yet it has all sorts of health benefits, did you know that? Apart from keeping you awake at night it has almost no down side. Isn’t that interesting? It’s pure prejudice, and I went along with it. How silly is that?’
‘You did a lot of research into foods and things I take it.’
‘Oh, absolutely everything.’
‘What did you want to do, I mean before?’
‘Oh, I don’t know’ she shrugs, cutting her pain au chocolat into slices. The melted chocolate gets onto her fingers and lips. She licks it off but then gets more of the chocolate on her face in the process. I hand her a napkin. ‘I never ate these either’ she says, taking it from me and dabbing her cheek. ‘Chocolate and butter, sugar, wheat. Maybe I should have. I might have been happier anyway, even if I was still sick. There’s evidence that chocolate is good for ME. No I wanted to work with children actually. I trained as a child-minder but then, obviously you can’t go into a collapse when you’ve got a load of kids to look after, so...’ and she shrugs again. She tries to act like it’s all in the past but I can see it’s not.
‘I still think sometimes if I could just have tried harder maybe...’ she muses, distractedly. ‘I think it was when I hit forty... It’s a weird feeling, when you reach a certain point in your life, and you’ve been living with this thing and always thinking one day it’ll go away and your life will begin properly... And then one day, it just hits you that this is it. This is your life. You’ve only got one, and this is it. This is how it’s going to be. I can’t explain it. It just feels like the ultimate... well, disappointment I suppose. I’m not explaining myself well. It’s like, normally a “disappointment” is something fairly trivial that makes you sad or fed up or whatever but you get over it. It’s something you deal with, like not getting to go to the pictures or not being allowed more gateau, or getting dumped. You move on. But this, it was exactly the same kind of feeling – of disappointment, but magnified so it just filled everything. It was just impossible to get over. It’s the rest of your life that you’re not going to get. All those ideas and plans and hopes you had are not going to happen. There isn’t something else you can do instead. There aren’t any more fish in the sea, just this one big one, and it’s dead. Do you see what I mean?’
‘Actually you’ve explained it very well’ I say. ‘I’d never thought about it like that before.’
‘I suppose everybody who dies young feels that way’ she adds.
‘Still...’
‘Oh sod all that’ she says, vigorously shaking her head. ‘Tell me about you.’
I act surprised and too modest and bluster for a bit, still recovering from what she’s just told me. When she insists, I begin ‘Well I went to Art College’ and her eyes light up.
‘Oh I wanted to do that. I used to love painting. I loved life drawing and doing portraits. I did everyone I knew. Sorry, you were saying...’
‘No, go on.’
‘Oh no, don’t encourage me. Once I get started, you’ve heard me.’
‘I don’t really want to talk about me to be honest. Maybe another time...’
She reaches across to hold my hand again.
‘Tell me more about your life’ I say. ‘I insist.’
She sits back, letting go of my hand slowly. ‘There’s not a lot more to tell to be honest.’
‘You wanted to know about my relationships with women’ I say. ‘Why was that?’ She blushes and smiles nervously.
‘Oh well, you know... I thought, maybe. Oh I don’t know. I always approach things the wrong way...’ and her smile turns to a tearful grimace and I go around the table, sit beside her on the sofa and put my arm around her. It’s awkward because she’s so tall but she puts her arms around me and sits there sobbing for a while with her head on my chest. I hate this place. The sadness is so close to the surface, I can see it in everyone. Then it occurs to me that maybe it was like that in life too but we hid it better. Maybe this is better. It is at least more honest but it’s very hard sometimes. Times like this it would just be so easy to lift her head and kiss her and take her to bed and maybe we’d both be happier. I have no idea. I’m afraid of doing more damage but who knows? Would it be worse than this? I compromise by holding her tightly and kissing the crown of her head. She seems to quieten a little and then looks up at me through her hair. It would be so easy just to lean forward a little and... She sits back and the moment passes. I’m not sure if I’m relieved or not. She drags the soggy strands out of her mouth and I move the hair from the other side of her face. She looks very pink and mucusy and I give her the napkin. She blows her nose then laughs at the noise she’s made ‘Not very lady like...’ she says, apologetically, and sits with the cloth in her hands. ‘I know you were married’ she says. I realise she is determined to probe and I think why not? Maybe it’ll do me some good. ‘Did you have kids?’ she says.
I shake my head ‘She had one, from before.’
‘Didn’t you want any of your own?’
I hesitate to answer. Not wanting to have children must be unthinkable in her world but I had my reasons.
‘Not really. I mean, I would have, if it had been that important to her.’
She frowns ‘Do you think that’s a good idea, I mean, if you don’t really want them?’
‘I think it might have been ok actually. Everybody said it’s different when they’re your own but I wasn’t so sure. I mean, I think that’s a myth. Not everyone loves their children. I think I’d have probably been an ok dad actually. Everybody said so.’
‘But you didn’t want to.’
‘No.’
She looks at me as if I’m someone who never saw the sun. Poor me. But I don’t feel sorry for myself. I had so many other things to do.
‘The truth is I just never really understood children, even when I was one. They never made any sense to me. They just seemed so, I don’t know, alien... It’s not that I don’t like them. I just can’t really relate to them.’
She looks at me, nodding slightly. I think maybe this puts some profound distance between us and I’m sorry about that. I imagine it’s an article of faith for her that everybody must want children and that children are somehow perfect beings, until we adults get our grubby mits on them. I, on the other hand, think children are just small people and some are easier to like than others.
‘I think that’s very brave actually’ she says at last.
‘Most people just have kids without thinking about it. It’s rare for anyone to say “no, I have different priorities.” I can respect that.’
‘Oh’ I say. ‘Well. A lot of people think it’s selfish.’
‘Selfish to whom? The unconceived child? I don’t expect they know much about it...’
‘No, just selfish about ones own life, like I’m too preoccupied with my own petty existence.’
‘You think that might be true?’
‘Not really, although I didn’t really achieve what I wanted to in the end.’
‘But just having a child because you’ve failed at everything else is the most selfish thing of all.’
We order more coffee and sit there together on the squashy sofa, close together. I love the intimacy and hate it at the same time. Raz tells me later that she and Wen came in and saw us together and left discretely so as not to embarrass us but at the time I was wondering where they had got to. When the coffee arrives we sit up and compose ourselves, smiling meekly over our cups. ‘There was someone’ I say, ‘wanted to have children with me but I broke up with her. I know I really hurt her. It was horrible.’ This is what I’ve been avoiding, that and the other thing, the end. ‘You knew about this didn’t you.’
‘Sorry?’
‘How did you know?’ She looks at me quizzically. ‘That I’d broken somebody’s heart?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. You reminded me of someone. But I guess everybody does, sooner or later, don’t they?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘How long had you been together?’
‘Six years, give or take.’
‘Did you tell her you didn’t want children at the start?’
‘I wasn’t sure myself to be honest. I don’t know. I kept on thinking maybe my feelings on the subject would change and then she was getting into her late thirties and it just wasn’t fair on her. I feel like I wasted so much of her time when she could have been with someone who would do that for her.’
‘But you loved her?’
‘I think so.’
‘Then it wasn’t a waste.’
I smile thanks to her but I’m not reassured. ‘I don’t think she’d have agreed. Tell me about your broken heart.’
‘What makes you think...?’
‘Oh come off it...’
‘Ok. Oh, did your girlfriend find another man to give her children in the end?’
‘I don’t know. We lost touch. Anyway...’
‘My broken heart. Hmm... It was this guy I met at university. We were going to get married and have kids and everything but then...’
‘ME.’
‘You guessed it. Oh he tried. I know he did. He kept saying we’ll work through it, it’ll be ok...’
‘But it wasn’t.’
‘I don’t really blame him. I was off sex and I didn’t want to go out anywhere or do anything really. I got quite depressed.’
‘Not surprisingly.’
‘Well, quite. I still can’t work out if it was too much to ask. Anyway I discovered he’d been having sex with other women behind my back. I mean, I don’t think I’d have minded so much if he’d had the balls to tell me. I wasn’t much fun in bed unless you happen to be into necrophilia. Oh I’m not being fair to myself, again.’
‘Presumably you were at least still warm.’
She laughs a little at that ‘Death warmed up, yes, but actually I was only like that some of the time, at least at the beginning.’
‘How much of the time, roughly?’
‘Oh I don’t know, two or three months a year.’
‘Well that’s not too bad. God, I’d have... Well anyway, maybe you just weren’t right for each other. Maybe the ME was just a convenient excuse, for him I mean.’
‘I know, I’ve thought of that. It wasn’t his fault. We were young, he wanted to travel and do all sorts of exciting things and I just wasn’t up to it a lot of the time. We were together until I was twenty-seven anyway, then I discovered about all these other women he’d slept with and that was it.’
‘Did you have other relationships, afterwards I mean?’
‘Some, briefly. That’s what Ruth and I talked about – internet dating. It was hopeless, and I didn’t even care about how tall or rich he was.’
‘Glad to hear it.’
She smiles and sinks back down beside me, leaning against me, looking out of the window. I put my arm over her shoulder and she holds my hand.

I think about what she said about this ultimate disappointment of hers, that her life wasn’t going to happen after all, and I think, not for the first time, how bloody lucky I was. I had the chance to take my life in hand and change it – make it be different. She never had that. I suppose I could have got myself involved in some stupid accident, like last time, but at least I’d have known what to avoid next time. She can’t do that. And yet she is so very sweet and clever and funny, and I feel very humble all of a sudden, and grateful for some reason.
‘It looks like the rain has settled in for the day’ she says.
‘I think we’re better off here, don’t you?’ I say and we snuggle down further. I kiss the top of her head again and whisper ‘I’d have loved you. You know that don’t you’ and I feel her relax into me, sighing with her entire body.

Journey XI – Sanctuary

I spend the next few days out on my own, coming home just to sleep and check the house is still there. I leave a note for Kevin or whoever so they won’t worry. Each evening I go out into the garden to find someone’s been watering my seedlings. On the fourth day I find flowers in a vase from Sonia but I still don’t think I can face her. Shouldn’t I be the one sending flowers anyway?

I decide to explore the river. I start in the tidal channel at the front of my house (assuming that’s what it still is) and in my sandals and shorts, wade up through the pools and riffles along the edges and under the overhanging vegetation until I am deep into the forest. With each step, tiny iridescent fish scatter then follow, scatter and follow. I stop and watch them search among the disturbed sediment. Deeper down, larger fish loom ominously. I may come back with a mask and snorkel. It’s certainly not cold.
Further up I find the water emerges from a deep gully and I can’t follow it because of the tangle of vines and tree roots in there. Instead I climb up onto the edge and try to find a path along the top. It’s very slow going and eventually I have to move further into the trees where there is less undergrowth. With relief I break out into an area where the canopy is too dense for anything much to grow on the forest floor and I can wander about freely, looking up the towering trunks to the branches a hundred metres above. I stand still and wait. Nothing happens. Not a sound, and yet it’s a strange, fizzing, living silence, like I can hear the sap gurgling under the bark and the fungi creeping in the soil. There’s ants - charcoal black but with golden abdomens in a line all the way from the ground to as far as I can see up one of the trees. On another tree a vine clings completely flattened against the bark. The leaves shimmer like silk. The trunk is as wide as a house and rises almost perpendicular out of the forest floor. The vine is like a tiny green thread embroidered there.
I head on into the forest, trying to keep the sound of the water on my left. Everywhere, the more I look the more I see things alive – a tiny porcelain mushroom here, an emerald beetle there, and then unexpectedly I am in full sunlight again and suddenly the magnifying glass glare of every single tiny drop of moisture seems to be scarring my retina. I can’t see a thing and the heat and humidity turns my clothes to wet dish rags. The stink of rotting vegetation makes my brain slide sideways. Slowly the over-exposed scene resolves itself and I find a giant tree lying on its side, so massive I can’t see over the trunk. Many smaller trees lie broken underneath it and a throng of saplings and vines and all manner of weeds stand around and crawl over it, feeding off of it. You can almost feel them clamouring for the space, for the air, for the light, rejoicing in it, flinging tendrils and flowers into it with total abandon. The air is live with birds and insects. All around, the rest of the forest stands about like the pillars of a ruined cathedral – mute witnesses to the vegetable cannibalism going on down here.
I follow the trunk up to where the branches begin two hundred yards along and find a mass of lost and dying vines and epiphytes lying on the ground, bravely trying to carry on living down here in the mud. I find an orchid and a bromeliad lying on their sides still fixed to a broken branch and I decide to take them home with me.
It suddenly occurs to me that I might be in danger. Supposedly I can’t be killed and yet if a jaguar or a dinosaur came and chewed me up and crapped me out could I still come back from that? It doesn’t sound very likely. I pick up my babies and head back the way I came.

Kevin comes by at dusk and finds me trying to contrive some sort of framework for my branch, to keep it upright. It’s not cooperating. I’ve filled the bromeliad’s central reservoir with water and a tiny jade frog has popped out from between the leaves. I’ve called him Wally.
Actually I’m knackered from carrying the thing back all that way through the undergrowth and across the river and I need to stop but I don’t feel I can just leave it lying on its side like this, not after giving it so much hope. Kevin takes hold of it so I can really get in there to wedge rocks around its base. I’m almost in tears with the exertion.
Once we’re inside making a drink he says ‘You could have just propped it up against the wall for the time being.’ Now he tells me.
I have a shower and he puts some music on. There weren’t any speakers for the player for some reason but he’s been able to scrounge some up for me from somewhere.
My fingers are still very sore so he chops the veggies for the curry. He has some fenugreek seed for me from Ross, some to plant, some to grind up for flavour, some to sprout for salads. I’m endlessly grateful to them all.
I ask him how the monk is doing and he says he’s making a good recovery. Apparently I went at him with some broken glass. I don’t want to know. I remember thinking it was the only weapon available at the time.

‘What religion is it?’ I say, once we are settled and the curry is simmering away to itself.
‘Religion?’
‘The monks. Who do they worship?’
He shrugs ‘I don’t know. Does there have to be a religion?’
I take a moment to mull that one over. ‘But what about the building itself? It’s a church or a temple to something isn’t it?’
‘Not necessarily’ he says.
‘But I felt it’ I say, ‘when I went in there, like a presence... I felt, I don’t know...’
‘Beauty? Love? Peace?’
‘Yes.’ But immediately I think also fear, horror, darkness. I want to ask him what the carvings mean but I don’t want to go there just yet. It’s nice here, like this – peaceful, generous, good-humoured. I don’t want to spoil it.
‘It’s a powerful place alright’ he says eventually and I expect him to add something to that but he doesn’t. He just gets up and puts the rice on to boil.

That night I have visions of a frozen place – terribly dark and unbelievably cold. I’m in that tent – the standard issue one. There’s a cool grey green light on everything, like an old black and white photo. All I can see is my sleeping bag with my legs in it, and various things scattered around – food wrappers, clothes, bits of kit. I’d given up trying to keep things tidy a while ago. I just stayed like that, in a nest of my own junk, waiting. What was I waiting for? I don’t remember. I just remember the cold and the loneliness.
That’s important. There was someone supposed to be there. That’s how I remember it – a terrible feeling of being lost and alone, and of how I’d been so stupid to get separated from them like this. I remember passing the time thinking how I should have been more careful, and that now I’d never see them again and I remember crying a lot, grizzling in the dark. I think I spent most of my time though sleeping, just letting time pass, but then I’d wake up and there it was again – no one.
I lost that feeling later on. By the time I was in the war zone I didn’t feel that at all. I was alone and I had to survive. I just had to keep going. I’d forgotten who it was I had lost, or that there had ever been anyone to lose.
I wake up abruptly and find Kevin sitting beside me telling me I was crying in my sleep and I can’t help it, I just have to hold onto him, and he says it’s ok, it’s ok, and shhh, but I plead with him that they can’t make me leave, not now, and I’m sorry, so sorry, and all in all he doesn’t know what to do. After a while he prises himself loose and I watch him get up and go to the phone to call someone up. I think he’s calling for someone to come and take me away but he calms me down and tells me Sonia and Miguel are on their way over and no one is going to make me go anywhere. I try to believe him but I know there’s a silent ‘yet’ there. We go down and he puts more coffee on and I find some music to listen to. It’s going to be another one of those nights.

So I sit down to write now. The computer is up and humming and I’ve spent the last couple of days or so transcribing my long-hand. I’ve also begun to work on a plan for a big painting of the forest clearing. There are no sizeable walls in the house without things on them so I’ve had to tape my paper to the floor up in the bedroom – three big sheets arranged lengthwise under the far window. Somehow I want to contrast the darkness and peace of the forest with the frenetic pace around the fallen tree – a diptych perhaps.
Sonia didn’t come over that night. She thought better of it. Miguel came over on his own and punched me in the face. It seemed fair enough. I deserved a lot worse. After that the three of us sat around and played backgammon until dawn. I couldn’t concentrate though. Once morning came they were fidgeting and I told them they could go. I lay down on the sofa and wondered what to do...

Alison XIII – Art

Alison makes an impatient expression and says ‘Gabriel, you might think that the rest of your story is unimportant but we have the other versions filed away somewhere and maybe someday someone will want to see what happened next and it won’t be there.’
I sit for a while and look at my hands, wondering where to start. She’s right. I can’t just leave it there like that, although I’d like to.

‘It seems sad’ I begin, ‘to think that the only way I could sort my life out was to cheat’
She raises her eyebrows at me.
‘You know - by knowing what happened here in the afterlife.’
‘On the other hand’ she says, ‘who knows how many other, supposedly gifted individuals, only achieved what they did in the same way?’
‘Hmm.’
‘Well. I’ll leave you to think about that. Tell me what happened next.’
‘Ok...’ I say, ‘um... well, I went to college the following October. Brighton. I could have gone to Glasgow. I nearly did, but then, I don’t know, I love Brighton and I thought “Why not?” Really the main reason for moving away would have been to prove something to someone or other and I didn’t really feel I needed to do that sort of thing any more.’
‘How did your family respond?’
I shrug some more. ‘Pretty much as you’d expect really.’

The day I got my results I remember very well. (I passed three of the four exams and got an A for art, which gave me my place at Art College). It was a Saturday. I was at the breakfast table across from Justine and she was just beaming all over her face and crying at the same time. I just sat there stunned and looked around and I knew I’d done it. I mean, I knew there’d be new things to cope with, but at that moment I knew I’d broken the circle. After she’d left for work I sat there looking out the window, watching the birds in the apple tree and I felt the world shift. I could feel the old me move away, like he was saying “my work here is done.”
I got myself a room in a house up on Montpelier sharing with two Belgian girls and a Nigerian and settled into my Bohemian student lifestyle...

Brighton back then, back in the eighties, was a very good place to be if you didn’t fit in anywhere else, although sometimes it felt like there was this other orthodoxy to adhere to – the right-on, politically correct one. One of the other students accused me of being racist because I didn’t have much black music in my record collection. I once told a guy who fancied me that I didn’t want to sleep with him because I wasn’t ready to come out, rather than tell him the truth, which was that I wasn’t gay.
But there were plenty of places to go, people to meet, things to do. We went to see major acts like the Smiths or The Nukes at the Top Rank or the Dome. This was in the days before a headlining act could only be glimpsed as tiny aliens across a whole solar system of heads at some giant stadium event. I stopped going to gigs in the late nineties, not because there was no one I wanted to see but because it seemed that ‘being there’ had become more important than being able to see what was going on.
There was a certain amount of partying and clubbing and we did our fair share of skiving off, sitting in coffee shops and bars, perusing second-hand clothes and records and trying to get a little cash together working in said bars and second-hand shops. We went up to London to march against apartheid and we occupied the admin block for a few days (I can’t remember what for). The Great Storm of ‘87 was a big deal. We all went down to The Steine next day and looked at the great toppled elms and the multitudes of the dead starlings that had been roosting in them. Then we went to the Green Dragon and drank real ale by candle light because the wind had cut the electricity.

I think back and wonder if my past life experiences taught me anything at all – were there moments when my old self stepped forward and egged me on or warned me off? All I can think of is a perhaps greater than usual sympathy for the homeless guys that were very conspicuous on the streets at that time. I didn’t do anything especially to help (a few coins here and there) but I felt like I understood better than most how an intelligent and talented person could end up that way. Of course in those days, as students, we identified with oppression and poverty wherever we found it. None of us back then had loans, cars, or went back to live with our parents after we’d graduated. We signed on during the holidays, hitched in of a morning and a few of us actually lived in squats. We were not obsessed with being celebrities or getting rich. I suspect we actually believed in what we were doing – egotistical and pretentious though it often was.
Ah the good old days.
Suddenly I feel very aged.

‘Sorry. What?’
Alison smiles and repeats the question ‘I asked what sort of an artist you were? Abstract? Conceptual? Surrealist? I’m sorry I really don’t know anything about all this stuff. Actually’ she adds, flicking back through her notes ‘you haven’t told me anything about your work at all, besides the pornography.’

I smile and look around at the room. It seems rather dull in here all of a sudden. I say ‘Why don’t we get some drinks and go and sit up on deck?’ She nods and says ‘Alright’ and gathers her papers. I feel the mood should be lifting now but she’s quite obviously still on duty. I get a glass of bubbly at the bar and she asks for peppermint tea. Raz spots us as we head up and gives me a quizzical look. I give her a ‘Duty calls’ sort of expression. Alison and I go up and find a place in the shade. The sky is fabulous with tropic birds swooping high among the cumulus.
I don’t know what to tell her about my work. I like talking about it – don’t get me wrong, but when it comes to it, a voice whispers to me ‘They don’t want to listen to you going on about all this stuff. They’re just being polite.’

‘It’s difficult to know where to start’ I begin. ‘I suppose technically you’d call it surrealism because it was all about dreams and the subconscious.’ And I know already she’s thinking Salvador Dali, which is wrong.
‘As I recall I was interested in the way a place in your dream can suddenly become a completely different place but your mind still treats it as if it all makes sense. One person can turn into another and yet it still seems like a coherent story. I read somewhere that linear time is an illusion, stitched together by our memories. I remember trying to capture that in my drawings. Even when I was a kid I was fascinated by my dreams. I went through a phase of trying to paint them, like a visual dream diary.’

My early attempts were rather embarrassing of course – full of evil spectres and torture chambers and scantily clad nymphs but as time went on I understood that the power of dreams is that they are set in ordinary, almost familiar rooms and streets, and feature people you feel you’ve met, but there’s always that something not quite right – something disturbing. Something threatening.
I tried for ages to get that flow – that elusive narrative into a picture.
I realised early on that I needed to master making the scenes and the people more real, more literal – figures and landscapes, so that I could then just subtly alter something and make it feel wrong. And then I discovered I liked just painting real places anyway – down at the harbour – the rusty machinery and the grime and the weeds, the waste ground and the derelict buildings, the railway, the allotments, the edge of town - anywhere where things are coming apart, going back to nature. Mould, dust, discolouration. Things lost or discarded.
My paintings remained somewhat creepy though and there came a time when I didn’t have to contrive the effect. They just came out that way. You’d have this perfectly ordinary scene, a patch of trees in bright sunlight or a girl sitting on a rock but there was always a sense that something terrible had happened or was about to happen – some tiny catastrophe on a sunny day.

‘That was where I’d got to when I started college.’
Alison smiles at me. ‘You got a lot of satisfaction from your work, didn’t you.’
‘I did. I was never one of these tortured artists who frets and agonises over every piece and ends up setting fire to it. I loved it all – even the rubbish.’
‘And it sounds like you’d already achieved a great deal even before you went to college.’
‘Ha! Well don’t lose sight of the fact that you haven’t actually seen any of this stuff. You’ve only got my word for it.’
‘True. But if anything you tend to underestimate your achievements, so I’m inclined to take this at face value. I’d like to have seen some of your work.’ She smiles warmly upon me. It occurs to me that she’d have been an excellent mother.
‘Go on’ she says. ‘How was college? What was it like being taught how to paint?’
‘Ah well. Of course I was an arrogant arse – thought they had nothing to teach me. And the first year was a bit basic – getting everyone up to speed I suppose. I just played about really, if you want the truth. Have you ever been in the studios at an art college?’
She nods and shrugs.
‘There’s always shed loads of junk lying about – bits of fabric and welded steel and piles of paint splattered timber and you’re not sure if it’s an exhibit or due for the skip? You know what I mean. It was like that. I didn’t really know what I was doing there. I’m still not sure. I gave up painting for a while – tried some other stuff – sculptures and prints and stuff. Video. I think I was trying to recreate something I’d done before, but not in this life, something about self-contained spaces, artificial environments, maybe underwater? I don’t know. It was all really gloomy and claustrophobic, and anyway it didn’t work. I just wasn’t like that any more. Isn’t that interesting? All my work was just completely open and full of light now. I couldn’t do the little boxes any more.’
She smiles at me and I can feel that old, confident, maybe over-confident art student in me coming back – passionate, combative, opinionated, totally self-involved, trying to explain about what he does and why it’s so important, and yet at the same time making it clear that he knows full well that it’s all bullshit. I’d forgotten that feeling. It seemed so important at the time. I miss it. ‘Anyway, by the beginning of the second year I’d pretty much gone back to paint and canvas, or paint and boards anyway.’
‘And you were happy with that.’
‘I was. It was exactly what I wanted to be doing. I know it wasn’t hugely ground-breaking but I liked doing them and I even sold a few. I included more figures in the later ones but it was more difficult. Usually it was just a solitary figure, sometimes naked or with just a mask or in fancy dress, in the middle distance maybe, or off to one side, involved in some obscure activity. Often it just made the picture look a bit contrived, but sometimes they worked. I still think the best ones were just deserted though. There was definitely a feeling of suspense.’
‘What did your parents think?’
‘Oh God, I don’t know. They came to my final year show but I think it scared them. I gave them one of the smaller, more innocuous pieces – of the back garden actually but it ended up in the attic. In the end I went up and rescued it because I liked it even if they didn't. I don’t think they even noticed it was gone. They didn’t really try...’
And I still can hardly believe it. They’d say things like “Well if it’s what you like doing...” as if I’d told them I liked sucking worms.
‘In the end I just didn’t even try. It was like trying to get mud to sit up and take notice (irritable, stubborn mud at that). They just didn’t know how.’

Voyage X – Ruthless

The day things came to a head with Ruth was a bit of a shock to all of us I think. It turned out Wen had been saving something up for her. It came out when, inevitably, the subject of all the men who’d failed to appreciate her comes around and Ruth concludes that they simply couldn’t cope with a rich, successful, and what’s more, beautiful woman (her words, not mine). Lisa nods sympathetically. Wen nods too, but not because she agrees. She’s considering when to make her move.
‘The thing is Ruth’ she begins, ‘you think because you’re generally considered an attractive, successful woman that you are therefore all but entitled to a man but you’re not. Men won’t commit for exactly the same reason you won’t commit – because they’re waiting for the right woman to come along and you, honey, were not it. All those “losers” you go on about, the “commitment-phobes”? They feel exactly the same way about you. I’m sorry Ruth. You were not God’s gift to mankind.’
Ruth looks at her speechlessly. Lisa looks shocked too. Raz waits for the next move, trying not to look too interested.
‘You patronising cow’ says Ruth eventually, with conspicuous restraint.
‘I’m not being patronising Ruth’ says Wen calmly, ‘but I see your mistake. Sometimes the tone of voice you have to adopt when the person you’re talking to is not very bright is very similar.’
‘And what the heck do you know?’ says Ruth, standing up. ‘Like you’d be such a catch.’
From where I’m sitting I can see her eyes shine slightly. I wonder if Wen can see it.
‘Oh I had plenty of offers’ says Wen.
‘Well I suppose some men are into that sort of thing.’
Wen smiles venomously. She’s been waiting for this.
‘And what exactly do you mean by that?’ she says.
Ruth stands defiantly. I watch Wen squinting up at her. She knows exactly what Ruth means but she’s looking forward to getting her to say it anyway.
‘Well, you know...’ She gesticulates vaguely. Her arm movements suggest expanse, bulk, unwieldiness. ‘Well, you’re not exactly...’
‘You think a man wanting to sleep with a fat woman is some sort of sick perversion don’t you, like coprophilia, or felching perhaps.’
Wen looks up directly into Ruth’s face, smiling slightly, goading her.
‘No’ says Lisa, also standing up, coming to Ruth’s rescue. ‘I’m sure she doesn’t mean that...’
‘Thank you Lisa’ says Ruth acidly. ‘I can handle this.’
Raz gently takes Lisa’s arm and gets her to sit down again. Lisa looks really upset.
‘I’ve seen how you look at me Ruth’ says Wen calmly. ‘You find me disgusting don’t you.’
‘No. Of course not. But I mean, it can’t...’
‘You think, looking the way you do, why would anyone not want to give you children? Hmm?’
‘Well I worked hard to look like this, yes. You’re not going to give me all that inner beauty crap are you, because if you are...’
‘And what really pisses you off is that someone like me had a husband who adored her and three gorgeous children – someone as disgusting and gross as me.’
‘No.’
‘Yes Ruth. This physique you worked on, all this haute couture and the shoes. Men don’t give a toss about all that.’
‘And you’d know I suppose Wen, from your field work?’
‘No, from just living and observing and marvelling, actually, at people like yourself. It’s a kind of fascism, these endless diet regimes and fitness fanaticism. Actually it’s feminism in its purest form. You want to know how I came to that conclusion? Because it’s a whole female way of life that has absolutely nothing to do with what men want.’
‘You haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, now if you’ll excuse me...’
‘That’s it, scamper away, as usual.’
Ruth stands there, glaring, with her things in her arms. ‘Do you realise what you look like?’ she says.
‘Do you?’
‘Oh no. I know who I am, what I achieved. Nothing can take that away from me.’
‘Good. I’m happy for you.’
‘You are, are you?’
‘But make no mistake Ruth, who you are, what you achieved, how you lived, is the reason you had no children. That’s all I’m saying.’
‘That it isn’t possible to be a successful woman and have a family?’
‘No, that isn’t what I’m saying. The problem is that you see being “a success” as who you are. But the trouble is, it’s all you are.’
‘I have no idea what you’re on about. Now...’
‘You define success too narrowly. It leaves no room in your life for anything else. You don’t know how to do anything else.’
‘That’s crap...’
‘Ok, if you say so.’ Wen holds her hands up and stops, simply, bringing the debate to a close. She’s made her point.
Ruth stands, looking at her adversary. She’s exhausted. It’s obvious now. I almost feel sorry for her.
‘That’s not fair and you know it’ she says. ‘I did everything. I worked bloody hard day and night to have what I had – everything, I should have had... If I’d been a man’ she looks around, grasping for her words. ‘If I’d been a man, well, success would have got me everything. Women would have been all over me – the money, power...’
‘And more fool us’ says Wen calmly.
‘You’re a bloody idiot’ she says through her tears and realises that this would normally have been the point at which she leaves but now can’t, or not without losing face. She decides to go anyway. She refuses to wipe her eyes and nose, which are now quite shiny and bright pink.

‘That was extremely harsh’ says Lisa, clearly very upset with Wen but not, I note, prepared to go after Ruth.
‘She had it coming’ says Wen.
‘How?’ says Lisa. ‘I don’t see how.’
‘Because she seems to think the world owes her a family. She’d have been a terrible mother anyway. She’d have been obsessed with her children being “successful” all the time, hitting those milestones or whatever.’
‘I was “successful” Wen.’ says Raz ‘You don’t give me a hard time.’
There’s a definite feeling of damage done around the group and even Raz is subdued.
‘And you are happy as you are. You’re not whingeing that you were entitled to children just because you could afford them, which is basically what she was saying. You knew who you were and you got on with it, and I admire you. I was “successful” too don’t forget, maybe not by your standards but I did what I believed in, and I had to make hard choices. In the end it cost me my marriage but I never took it for granted, and I never lost my children to it...’
‘Plus there was all that stuff she said about you to her “friends” in the sauna’ I say.
‘What?’ Lisa looks incredulous again. ‘What did she say?’
‘Thank you Gabriel’ says Wen sarcastically.
‘What are you talking about?
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘No. I don’t believe you’ says Lisa.
‘I heard her Lisa’ says Raz. ‘I was there. It wasn’t very nice.’
‘She has to have everything her way Lisa’ says Wen, ‘and she doesn’t much care what she has to do to get it. She was having a go at Raz behind her back too.’
‘And you sweetie’ says Raz.
‘What did she say about me?’
‘Oh, about your illness. You don’t want to know.’
Lisa looks mortified. ‘I told her all that in strict confidence.’
‘I know darling. The thing is she’s used to playing people against each other. I don’t think she’s used to having friends.’
Raz emphasises that last word to Lisa, placing her hand on her knee, but Lisa isn’t receptive at the moment. She looks away.
‘Or her friendships don’t last very long. Always the other person’s fault of course...’ adds Wen. She leans forward and takes Lisa’s hands. ‘Lisa, she’s bad news. Forget about her.’
‘I trusted her. I told her everything.’
We all sit with her, wondering what to do. It’s getting late. There’s a small group at the other end of the boat, sitting around a candle and strumming a guitar but otherwise all we can hear is the swell, slapping against the hull below. We’ll probably just get some blankets and things and settle down here for the night. It’s what we’ve been doing lately.
‘Did she have anything to say about you?’ says Lisa to me after a while.
‘What do you think?’ I answer knowingly but actually I don’t know. I look over at Wen and she raises her eyebrows.
‘She just wondered what kind of loser you were, hanging out with a bunch of women’ says Raz happily. ‘She implied you must be gay.’
‘Ha! I get that a lot’ I say.

Journey X – Sightseeing

Over the next few days we go back into town again, to eat, drink, see that band play, look at the sights, and generally wander around. The tall terraced buildings and the narrow stone streets winding among them, the tall windows with their shutters and curlicued railings and dangling geraniums, the little squares with their awnings and pot plants, the shade trees, the people sitting out on benches, nodding to passers-by, some in western dress, some in robes, black, brown, olive and white skinned, young and old, men and women – it could be anywhere in the Mediterranean or the Middle East or Latin America. Little house front parlours sell sweet or salty snacks, parasols, radios, flowers, shorts and tee shirts. Sonia buys me a tee shirt that says ‘I’m sure to go to Heaven because I’ve done my time in Hell’ on the front, and a picture of a mean looking marine. She thinks it’s funny anyway. I let her have her little joke. (It could have been worse. There was the one that said ‘I went to Paradise and all I got was this lousy tee-shirt’). Sonia and Miguel seem to know a lot of the people and we hang around endlessly chatting to almost everyone. She introduces me to everyone. It’s exhausting.
They show me around the sanctuary, a broad, massive building with the bell tower. It opens up inside into a vast airy space under a broad white dome. The coolness of the air makes me want to drink it in like water from a spring after the heat outside and the slow reverent tread and whisper of the people stills me and makes me wonder. People sit about on the floor or on chairs, meditating or maybe praying. I look up into the vault above. Stained glass windows around the rim of the dome make shards of azure and vermilion light on the pale marble floor. I see Sonia and Miguel wander off together, leaving me to look about in awe on my own.
Exploring some of the galleries and corridors that lead off from the main hall I find exquisite tapestries hung there, lively and intricate mosaics in the floor and stone carvings set here and there presiding over all who pass by. I wander at random up and down staircases broad and narrow, along corridors and across rooms of all shapes and sizes. Everything is fresh and alive and yet could be of immense antiquity. It is impossible to judge the age of any of it. Everywhere I look there are exquisite images and objects and yet none of it is ostentatiously displayed. Everything fits. Everything is at once a part of the whole and worth studying in its own right. I find myself alone in some remote corridor with arched openings along one side, high above the town. Several enormous moths rest as if pinned to the low arched ceiling. I look out and down into a garden. A person stands there far below in a broad sombrero with a hose, watering a newly planted tree. Beyond there are the rooftops and then the mountains in the distance, blurred and distorted by waves of rising heat. The sound of the people in the streets seems a very long way away. Looking down I see a face looking up at me from a window below, and then disappear. I spin around and immediately realise I have no idea how I got here. The stone figure there by the door seems to be watching. I look down at the gardener and he’s still there, watering as if nothing’s wrong. Of course, this is how they planned it. This is what happens. I run to the end of the corridor to a staircase I don’t remember. I turn right down another passage and hear the bells in the tower above, calling people – calling them to what? I dread to think. I keep running. I don’t recognise anything. What temple is this anyway? What kind of God do they serve?
Entering a gallery, in a frieze above a door I find a baobab above a mound of intertwined bodies. Then there is a tall stone figure guarding a door that is a reptile in armour and I realise it’s all been a sham. It’s all part of the same thing. How could I have been so stupid? I turn a corner and there is a large man in a white robe with a huge beard standing there and he is asking if I am lost and I know I am – completely. I look around for weapon.
I don’t remember the rest.

I come to on a grassy bank beside a stream. I can hear it chuckling beside me. I can feel the faint tickling of the grass on my hand. I look up into the branches of a tree with sharp rays of sunlight breaking through and I squint my eyes. I sit up suddenly and back away against the trunk. A girl in a blue dress is sitting there looking at me. It takes me a while to realise it’s Sonia. She looks different. She doesn’t say anything. I glance about hurriedly. There are other people here, sitting with their feet in the water or lying down in the sun. A girl hitches her dress up and paddles, looking at something in the water in front of her. What are they doing? Behind us, on the other side of the track an ancient looking wall rises up and obscures the view. Across the stream there are fields as far as I can see. I look at Sonia’s face and see her begin to cry. My first thought is that it’s a trick of some sort but then I realise she is really upset and I reach out to her. She draws back. My hand is bound with a very bloody rag. I have a deep gash across the palm. I don’t remember doing that.
It’s all so confusing.
Then Miguel comes along and he’s being angry and protective, like I’ve done something bad but I don’t know what.
‘Where are we?’ I say eventually. They just look at me. ‘What’s happened?’ They still won’t answer. I sit back and try to think. Beyond the fields are the mountains, like before, and behind me the bell tolls again. It does that several times a day I remember. Sonia told me – midday, mid-afternoon, dusk, mid-evening, midnight, dawn, mid-morning – just so people can arrange to meet and so forth. I like this system – it’s not about cold numerical hours and minutes. It’s about break times and mealtimes and rest times.
‘Are you feeling any better?’ says Miguel coldly.
‘What happened?’ I say and then notice a big bruise on Sonia’s cheek. I’d taken it for a shadow. ‘Did I do that?’ I say but the expressions on their faces tell me all I need to know.
Eventually Kevin arrives with his cart and I get in and they see me off. I sit silently in the back, among the nets and crates, letting myself get jostled about, letting myself get some bruises of my own. I don’t care about that. Poor Sonia. What have I done?

Kevin sits with me in my lounge. Apparently I went on some sort of rampage through the sanctuary. I hurt one of the monks quite badly – he’s in the infirmary but he doesn’t want to press charges. In view of this I’m amazed Kevin is prepared to be here with me. My knuckles and fingernails are broken and bleeding. He helps me bandage them up then sits me down with a brandy.
‘Tell me what happened’ he says, simply and I go back over it as best I can, until I get to the gargoyle in the doorway, and the tree of death. He sees me hesitate. I don’t know if I should tell him. I can feel a worm crawling in my belly deep down, telling me he’s one of them but I know it’s ridiculous. Really, I know that.
‘Tell me’ he says, kneeling in front of me. ‘I promise it’ll go no further’
I want to trust him. ‘Can you give me some time?’ I say. ‘Let me work it out. I think I need some time alone.’
He backs off reluctantly and nods. ‘But I will be coming to check on you’ he says giving me a warning wag of the finger. ‘Don’t think I won’t.’
‘Ok. That’s good. Thanks.’ He turns to go and already I feel so terribly alone. ‘Kevin’ I say.
He turns and waits. ‘Say sorry to Sonia for me will you, and to that other guy too, if you can. I am really sorry.’ He nods and leaves me to the bird song and the sun and the bobbing leaves in the suddenly empty doorway. I lie down and try not to fall asleep.

In the purple darkness I see terrified children, cowering down among the crushed plants. I have blood on my hands. Where did I get the blade? I must have brought it with me from the war zone, concealed in my clothes. They have turned me into a monster.

Alison XII – My Summer of Love

The next few months went very well, even if I say so myself. I felt intensely young and powerful, like adults say a teenager should but so rarely does. Besides all the hedonism, I even found myself for the first time in my life staying up late to finish assignments, spending hours in the library and even going to the university library for more. I didn’t do this for all the assignments, only the ones that interested me but that was enough. The tutors found the change a little disconcerting but had to admit I was on track for a good pass –  maybe even As in Spanish and art. What was more, it was an extraordinary feeling to arrive in the refectory in the morning and really feel I belonged there, even that I was a person to reckon with. I confess I became a little full of myself but in retrospect I think maybe I owed myself that, after all the years of feeling so very bad about it all. Maybe I went too far, but like Blake said, you don’t know what’s enough until you’ve gone too far, or words to that effect.
I noticed Camille and some of the other girls were looking at me differently too. Part of me, my old self, suspected they were probably just taking the piss but I knew they saw a change in me. Camille in particular chose to spend more time in my company and sometimes I could tell she knew she’d had something to do with my new confidence but we never talked about it. There was always something between Camille and I, although nothing romantic ever occurred between us. The following winter, when her parents were going through a bad patch and on the verge of splitting up it was me she came to talk to about it and to have a good cry on and I felt very honoured. We got off with each other once experimentally just before our final exams but it never took. We still kept in touch though, right up to the end.
Yve was the one though. I introduced her to the others at a gig (Julian Cope I think it was) and was pleased to see her getting on with pretty much everyone, Tom especially as it happened. She was a terrible flirt I know, and when we were out she had a tendency to veer between disappearing into the crowd without saying anything so that I felt completely abandoned, and monopolising me completely. One night at a club I watched her from the balcony. I admit I was feeling insecure. I watched her chatting and flirting but mostly just bopping about wildly down the front, her dresses and jewellery flailing about. Then I saw her stop and look around and go back to where she’d last seen me. I went down and she threw her hot sweaty self at me and fused her lips to mine. She was fiercely independent but she liked being with me and she didn’t play games. That was what I liked about her, or one of the things anyway.
Another memorable occasion was when cousin Karen got married in the June and Yve met my uncle Len. I don’t think I’d ever known him to not have some sort of ‘witty’ comment ready but he just sat there, unable to not look at her cleavage. Auntie Jen said she thought she was ‘gorgeous’, and that I was very lucky. I had to agree on both points. Later on Len took me aside and tried to engage me in what I suppose was meant to be a bit of male bonding – now I had proved myself to be one of the lads. He gives me a beer and tells me ‘I always said you were a bit, you know...’ He gives me the limp wrested salute and a knowing grin.
‘Gay?’ I say, flatly. I watch him flinch.
‘We don’t like to use that word’ he says, sounding more like my gran. ‘It’s a bit...’
‘Bent? Queer? Homo-sexual?’ I’m grinning back now. He can’t touch me any more. He feels he needs to press his point nonetheless.
‘Well you never did show no interest in the fairer sex...’
He says that last word through his teeth, like we’re discussing sneaking out to look at porn together.
I say ‘And so you naturally assumed I was into boys.’ I say this in my most affable voice and with a pleasant smile. He’s not sure what I’m up to.
‘Well we never seen you taking no interest before.’
‘Well you wouldn’t have. I’m very discrete. To be fair though, you never seen me take no interest in boys neither...’
At this moment Yve arrives, all pale skin and red silk and we kiss a bit too much. After a few too many seconds of that, when uncle Len doesn’t know where to put himself, I announce to Yve that ‘Uncle Len is very disappointed. He thought I was going to turn out queer.’
Exit Len.
Hilarious.

In late June, Phil confirmed that he wanted me to start the first week in August if possible and I told Yve I wanted her to come out with me, at least for a couple of weeks, if she could. I wasn’t entirely sure about this. There was something about this Spanish adventure I knew was about me doing something for myself, on my own but on the other hand I didn’t want to be without her for the whole summer. She wasn’t happy about it. Although she admitted she’d known this might happen I could tell she was upset. I asked again about the possibility of her coming out and she said she’d think about it. She’d be going to uni in the October and had a lot of things to do before that, plus a job at a restaurant in Brighton that was busiest in summer, so she didn’t feel she could just leave. In the mean time we tried to carry on as normal, going out in the evenings and hanging out at her place weekends. Her parents went away quite often so we spent a lot of time in her bed.
It seemed strange at the time but it makes more sense now. Once, in previous incarnations, if I’d met a scrumptious girl like Yve I’d have clung to her, thought of nothing else, changed all my plans, neglected my studies and probably made her highly uncomfortable in the process. This time I could not deny that, gorgeous as she was, I would not be spending my life with her. I knew there would be other women, and I wanted to try quite a few of them before I committed myself, if ever. It was an odd, worldly, almost cynical knowledge and part of me mourned the loss of innocence – of that desperate, romantic, urgent young man I had been before. But it was only a small part. A much larger part of me looked forward to the future and all the opportunities it might bring.

Mum and dad made the usual disapproving noises about treating the place like a hotel and saying ‘hello stranger’ when I came in but didn’t really give the impression that they actually wanted me around more. They just liked the opportunity to express their disapproval.

As for Spain, the whole idea of hitching all that way was beginning to seem very frightening, although I believe I’d have done it if I’d had to. Justine rescued me – she was living with her bloke in Hove by then, and I tried to reassure her that I’d be ok but she didn’t look convinced. Then I mentioned how much the fare was and she immediately offered to pay. I don’t think I did it on purpose exactly – I was not a calculating person, but I think maybe, unconsciously I’d hoped she might. Anyway I arrived in Malaga on the third of August and caught the bus out to Linares. A friend of Phil’s, Carlo, picked me up from there and took me to the house, such as it was – a building site – basically just a tarp with a makeshift bed underneath and the foundations of the actual house nearby. Carlo pointed out the road to the village and the moped to get there on, which he started up for me (it started first time). He gave me some money for food and disappeared. I looked around. It was late evening and the silence and the space were overwhelming. There was light from a house, miles away across the valley but otherwise no trace of civilisation. I was in a low wide valley full of olive trees. Some pines and other natural vegetation clung to the crags to the south and I could see the river sparkling below. The only sound was insects and it was still very hot. I’d never been in heat like this. I dropped my pack and took my shirt off. The darkness was coming in swiftly and I could watch the stars appear as I stood there. I took my boots off and kicked about in the dust a bit, coating my stinking feet. I heard a dog somewhere, and a donkey. Everything seemed to come from so far away, like I was on a tiny planet orbiting the earth alone and just catching tiny cryptic signals from across millions of miles of cold empty space. The planet revolved around me. I took my shorts and pants off too and stood there naked, feeling the breeze dry the day’s accumulation of grime and sweat, and then, before it got totally dark I took out my towel and put on my flip-flops and made my way down to the reservoir and got in. As I lay there in the greenish, lukewarm water I gave a high shrieking ‘Yeeha!’ because it was the most amazing thing I’d ever known. They must have heard me for twenty miles in all directions. Then I couldn’t stop giggling.

Alison is beaming broadly at me, chuckling a little. I chuckle a little myself at the memory. There was something very important about that time, those few weeks – the landscape and the colours – bleached and over-exposed on the one hand and deeply saturated on the other – strong, uncompromising and yet full of beauty, and the people were like that too. They always welcomed me in, bought me a drink, gave me something to eat, and I managed to speak some Spanish and occasionally I even understood what they said back to me.
‘I only realised later, when Yve arrived, that really, the people who get really fluent are the kind of people who are naturally very sociable. I used to go and sit quietly in the bar and eat lots of tapas and watch the football with them, but she’d talk to anyone. She only had O level Spanish but she was better at it than I was by the time we left.’
‘But you were happy together.’
‘We were. We really were...’
I could easily end the story there but Alison wants some more.

‘How was it when you returned?’
‘Oh well that wasn’t so much fun. I had to go back and start my second year and Yve was leaving for Sheffield in October so it was all a bit subdued. It was a weird time generally, what with mum gleefully pointing out that I’d just have to ‘knuckle down to it’ whatever that meant, and I pissed Dad off because I’d bought a real cafetería in Spain. He just looked so betrayed but I wouldn’t give in. I honestly think he’d have been happier if I’d had a bottle of scotch with my breakfast. Anyway, Justine’s bloke had just recently walked out on her so she was really miserable and she said why didn’t I move into her spare room? It was only about twenty minutes in on the train. And she was happy for Yve to come and stay, which she did a few times, and later on I hitched up a couple of times to see her in Sheffield too but it didn’t really work. I think it was one of those relationships where it’s either full on all the time or it just peters out. I went with her to Matt’s funeral the following year – the friend from the pub, died in a car accident. That was the last time I saw her. Otherwise I just got through the next nine months or so, going in for lectures, getting my assignments done, going out sometimes.
‘Passing your A levels?’
‘Yes, that and getting accepted to go to Art College.’

After a respectful pause I say ‘So, that’s about it then.’
She looks at me, bemused ‘I’m sorry?’
‘It was the early part that we were interested in, wasn’t it – the part that really changed things, the early memories, actually living with the previous experience there. That was what you wanted to know wasn’t it?’
She doesn’t answer immediately. She looks about, maybe trying to remember something.
‘It must have been extraordinary’ she says at last. ‘Or did it come to seem normal?’
‘No. It always seemed... well, surprising. How can I explain it? It was like waking up from a bad dream sometimes and realising it wasn’t like that any more. Sometimes, I’d look at what was happening and I’d feel this sense of doom encroaching on me from somewhere, like night unexpectedly approaching when it should be daytime, like my own personal nuclear winter, and I’d be so weighed down with it, so desperate and hopeless. But then, suddenly I’d realise, that isn’t how it is now. I’ve made it different, and I’d feel like I was walking out into daylight again, just like that.’
‘But the dark sky was always there.’
‘Yes. I never forgot it, but it never really got close to me again, not after that summer.’
‘You will come back and finish your story though won’t you. I’d like to hear the rest.’
‘Oh’ I say, surprised. ‘Well, the rest is fairly ordinary to be honest. I don’t want to bore you.’
‘Don’t worry. You won’t.’