I am going back to Chapter 2. It will take me literally a couple of lines to rework the whole thing …
So, from page 57, two paras down.
‘There’s a small issue with the bailiff,’ Charles explains, ignoring this.
As they walk up the road and approach Charles’s house they stroll past a tiny, elderly man who is wearing a giant pair of dark glasses and holding a white cane. He is standing next to a large, blue, waste disposal bin. He is perfectly still.
The blind old man is illumined.
I have actually changed the font into AMERICAN TYPEWRITER as a gentle ‘screw you’ to Gyasi ‘Chance’ Ego – Ebo
Ebo Ebo.
The revised version runs:
‘There’s a small issue with the bailiff,’ Charles explains, ignoring this.
As they walk up the road and approach Charles’s house they stroll past a handsome, dark-skinned, willowy youth who is leaning, nonchalantly, against a large, blue waste disposal bin. Avigail’s eyes return to him, several times, slightly perplexed, to peruse his pretty, yellow raincoat (there is no sign of rain).
This yellow raincoat man is illumined.
I don’t think it works so well. Begs more questions. But what the heck. It’ll do.
Then Chapter 6. Second from last page, first paragraph:
Well, whatever the story Charles is living now about this situation –
Poltergeist?
– it is 99.9 per cent unlikely that his story (creative as he undoubtedly is, inventive as he undoubtedly is) involves a fiercely intelligent, immaculately attired, twenty-three-year-old Ethiopian professional carer called Gyasi ‘Chance’ Ebo riffling furiously though his teddy bear collection.
Now changed to:
Well, whatever the story Charles is living now about this situation –
Poltergeist?
– it is 99.9 per cent unlikely that his story (creative as he undoubtedly is, inventive as he undoubtedly is) involves an incredibly persistent, highly intelligent, terrifyingly indignant, partially sighted seventy-eight-year-old man of diminutive stature called Denny Neale (wearing filthy, green dungarees with a neatly plaited Robert Crumb’s Mr Natural-style beard and a giant magnifying glass) riffling furiously though his teddy bear collection.
Actually, I think this works better.
Overcompensating with too many descriptive words, though.
Screw Gyasi ‘Chance’ Ebo.
Need to bring Denny Neale completely TO LIFE!
Ka-pow!
7. (revised)
IF YOU BELIEVE IN TELEKINESIS, PLEASE RAISE MY HAND
While Denny Neale is extremely intelligent, he has no way of knowing that Charles is running scared of the bailiffs. Lucky for Denny, though, Charles announces this fact as soon as he discovers him (up to his knees in kapok and rifling carelessly through large piles of teddy-related detritus) in his sewing room.
Charles all but bellows: ‘This is forced entry! Which creditor are you here for? What have you taken control of? I demand to see documentation!’
‘The door was open,’ Denny responds with a shrug, waving his giant magnifying glass at Charles, almost airily. ‘This is peaceful access.’
Denny has a rare, inherited vision disorder called Achromatopsia which means that he cannot see colour and is unbelievably sensitive to bright light (in certain circumstances this often renders him all but blind).
The sewing room is very small – it’s really just a large cupboard which an optimist trying to sell Charles’s house might call ‘an office’. Charles is a tall man but he is extremely good at compressing himself into small spaces when needs must. He is also highly attuned to the idea of work/life balance and therefore refuses to let his work take up too much space (literally or metaphorically).
Charles has no intention of becoming a workaholic. He’s way too complacent and savvy for that.
Bear making is ‘just a job’. It’s not ‘a calling’. It’s not ‘a drive’. It’s not ‘a passion’.
Charles continues to charge forward as Denny speaks and is now standing in the sewing room alongside Denny. He is towering above Denny. There is very little room in the sewing room, so ‘normal’ ideas connected to ‘acceptable notions of personal space’ cannot apply here. Charles is quickly joined in the sewing room by Avigail who feels a (possibly excessive) sense of responsibility with regard to people currently occupying/inhabiting Charles’s home (even Charles himself is included in this schema. Certainly Morpheus).
‘What’s going on?’ she demands. Avigail also towers over Denny Neale who stands at four feet seven inches in his socks (he is currently wearing a pair of plain black plimsolls with thin rubber soles – the kind you’d wear in school PE classes. He treasures the notion of pliability).
Denny Neale likes women and so takes the opportunity to hold his giant magnifying glass up into Avigail’s face to scrutinise her.
‘Who are you?’ he asks. ‘The wife?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Charles snorts.
‘Who are you?’ Denny asks, moving the giant magnifying glass across to Charles.
‘I’m Charles!’ Charles says.
Charles is currently feeling:
Indignant.
‘Charles is the vendor,’ Avigail adds (as if Charles’s identity must always henceforth be closely bound up with his selling of a property).
‘What does your T-shirt say?’ Denny asks. Denny is eye-level with the slogan on Charles’s T-shirt. He applies his magnifying glass to Charles’s T-shirt.
Charles refuses to tell Denny what his T-shirt says. Why should he tell this tiny, odd, invasive old man in dark glasses what his T-shirt says?
As if reading Charles’s thoughts Denny adds, ‘I am legally blind.’
He is still holding up his giant magnifying glass to Charles’s chest and trying to read the slogan on his T-shirt but its meaning eludes him.
Denny smells – very strongly – of quince (although Charles does not know what quinces smell like. Charles has never encountered a quince. Or if Charles has encountered a quince, then he hasn’t been aware of the fact that it is a quince. Quinces are basically an unknown quantity to Charles).
‘Are you wearing Britney Spears’s Fantasy?’ Avigail wonders, sniffing.
Avigail is scent-savvy.
Avigail has a great nose.
Charles frowns at Avigail. He has no idea what the hell Avigail is talking about.
Charles is currently feeling:
Mystified.
Indignant.
Irritated.
Invaded.
Wrong-footed.
‘Quince.’ Denny nods. ‘I make a special perfume from quinces by steeping the fruit in oil. Then I rub it on to my beard. Sometimes, at season’s change, I rub it on to my feet and on to my hands. Oh. And on to my elbows and on to my testicles.’
Charles is struggling to work out why a legally blind man (smelling very strongly of quinces – or so he says … Charles has no particular incentive to trust this man who has, after all, just broken into his home) would be working as a bailiff in North Wales.
‘I’ve been told before that Fantasy has a strong whiff of quince to it,’ Denny adds. ‘The other quince-heavy one is by Chanel – Chance Eau Tendre – but the Roman name that the scent is traditionally known by – although the Arabs used it, and the Greeks – is Melinum. It’s very comforting, very warm – somewhere between a pear and an apple.’
‘It’s an amazingly evocative scent.’ Avigail nods, remarking to herself on how many clauses there are in Denny Neale’s sentences (although she doesn’t actually know that this tiny man is called ‘Denny Neale’). Generally, Avigail finds, when someone you’ve only recently become acquainted with speaks in this particular fashion they are either incredibly interesting or intensely boring. Because they are so confident. And considered. They colonise space (air, the human/social geography) with language.
Just following these thoughts (in addendum – drawing up beh
ind the thoughts with a dramatic skidding of brakes) is the word ‘testicles’.
The after-shock of this word hangs in the air between them, vibrating. And there are exclamation marks. Plenty of them. Invisible to the human eye. Yet palpable.
Testicles?
!!!!!!!!!!!
‘I once ate a quince jam – a kind of jelly or … I don’t know … paste while on holiday in Spain,’ Avigail says …
Testicles?
‘They serve it with cheese.’
‘Membrillo.’ Denny nods. ‘You bake the quinces and then sieve them, set it in trays …’
Quince oil on his testicles?
It would be fair to say that Denny is something of an authority on quinces.
Charles imagines Denny wearing a T-shirt that reads: I AM AN AUTHORITY ON QUINCES.
Charles didn’t register the comment about testicles because he was too busy asking himself how he was feeling:
Claustrophobic.
Bemused.
Focused.
Unfocused.
But are ‘focused’ and ‘unfocused’ feelings, as such?
No.
Not feelings. Yet they are certainly ‘felt’.
Not feelings, as such.
So what are they?
States?
Hmm. What would the score in Scrabble be for the word ‘quince’? Charles wonders.
Off the cuff he guesstimates 18 – which isn’t a bad score.
Although ‘guesstimates’ is probably around 14.
Although it probably wouldn’t be allowed.
Although words are words and exist and flourish and gain in plausibility simply by dint of being used.
Words are promiscuous, by nature.
Even so.
As he ponders Charles has a nagging feeling that there’s something he should be getting to grips with. Oh yes. This tiny man with the magnifying glass has broken into his home and is taking an itinerary of all his possessions in the hope of relieving him of them in the short to medium term.
Testicles?
Having said that, Denny Neale (although Charles has no idea what this little man is called) isn’t carrying a clipboard with him, or pen (attached with a bit of string to the clipboard) for the making of lists etc. Although he has professed to being legally blind so a clipboard would be of limited use to him, surely? Even with a giant magnifying glass? Charles finds himself at once impressed and appalled that Llandudno Council have seen fit to employ this man. Perhaps his blindness is a recent thing?
Um …
Testicles?
‘Have you been blind for long?’ Charles asks.
Charles actually interrupts a conversation between Abigail
AV-IGAIL, CHARLES!
AV-IGAIL!
AV-IGAIL!
AV-IGAIL!
AV-IGAIL!
AV-IGAIL!
Morag doesn’t get paid for correcting every, tiny mistake, Charles. Morag gets paid for copy-editing the entire book. Morag already wasted several precious hours yesterday afternoon checking the lyrics to that ridiculous song about China that Ying Yue sang in the last chapter and is currently feeling pretty pissed off. So you are really wearing her down by doing this. Just get it into your thick head already:
AV-IGAIL!
AV-IGAIL!
Yes.
Good enough is more than enough. For me.
But not for a copy-editor.
And certainly not for a high-grade copy-editor, like Morag.
Good enough is not enough. For a high-grade copy-editor, like Morag.
‘… a special kind of blue cheese …’ Avigail is saying.
Fucking hell! Avigail inhales, sharply, mid-sentence. Did Charles just ask a virtual stranger how long he has been blind for? Did he seriously just do that?
What kind of a …?
What kind of a social retard is he?! A fifty-year-old man! Behaving like a twelve-year-old boy!
(Charles is actually a forty-year-old man behaving like a nine-year-old boy.)
Ying Yue suddenly enters the room. Ying Yue runs into the room. She’s just very anxious not to get left behind. Although the room is already full to capacity so she’s more like a line-backer charging, aggressively, into a scrum, than a normal, boundaried human being.
Ying Yue tends to be immensely vague for extended intervals (and there’s no pattern to this behaviour – it seems essentially random and erratic) but then to overcompensate (or make recompense – although to whom exactly it is uncertain, even to Ying Yue) by a brief spate of intense hyperactivity. She will (for example) stand staring at herself, blankly, in the bathroom mirror for entire minutes on end, and then suddenly start brushing her hair with demented levels of ferocity.
Brush!
Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!
Then more stillness.
No rhyme or reason.
Then a sigh.
Then
Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!Brush!
So far as she is aware, Ying Yue is still on a house viewing. Ying Yue is slightly confused by the fact that Avigail and Charles have disappeared from the kitchen at high speed. So she follows them – after some intensive scrutiny of a cracked floor tile – also at speed.
She is conforming … although a certain amount of time has passed in between. But this is of no significance to Ying Yue. Time is something inessential – redundant, cosmetic – to Ying Yue.
And she is breaking away from Wang Shu (who is talking on the phone in Chinese) so she needs to move quickly in order to smash through Wang Shu’s powerful force-field. Like a tiny rocket defying the pull of gravity.
When Ying Yue sees Denny Neale she simply presumes that he is another client of Avigail’s who has turned up early for his own viewing of Charles’s property.
Yes.
Either that or he is Charles’s father.
Yes.
Denny Neale looks like Charles’s father.
Denny Neale is small (unlike Charles) but he does breathe and have two hands and two eyes, like Charles. Although not like Charles because Charles is different. Very different.
Father and son are very, very different.
It is almost a miracle that these two individuals hail from the same gene-pool.
Life is extraordinary!!
‘World is crazier than we know it,’ etc.!
Ying Yue is very big on first impressions. Ying Yue actually finds it difficult to move away from her first impressions. First impressions are gut led. They are raw. They are natural. They are instinctive. They are deep. And Ying Yue lives by them. So Denny Neale (although Ying Yue does not know that this little blind old man with quince-oiled testicles is Denny Neale) will now always be Charles’s father AND Avigail’s other client (therefore a rival) at one and the same time in Ying Yue’s mind, even though these two notions are, at some level, mutually exclusive …
When Ying Yue and Charles marry (approximately a year on from this house viewing), Ying Yue will feel a slight pang of anxiety that Denny Neale is not present at the ceremony (which will be held, at Wang Shu’s insistence, on the end of Llandudno’s remarkably long pier), and as Charles pushes the ring on to Ying Yue’s finger, she will wonder, idly, whether Charles’s father (Denny Neale) ever managed to find a nice house for himself.
And she will think, almost wistfully, of quinces.
But it would be a shame to spoil the present moment by glancing, casually (head tilted, almost squinting), into the future.
Ying Yue has such a marvellous, generous, porous mind.
Let that – and that alone – suffice for now.
Hmm.
But why would Charles’s father be trying to buy Charles’s mother’s old house from Charles (with Avigail’s assistance)? Unless Avigail was, in fact, Charles’s sister?
His long-lost sister?
Does that work?
Of course it works!
Of course it does!
Oh my goodness – this is a very small room!
It’s like being crammed into a tiny elevator!
Hardly any space at all!
And …
Oooh!
Oooh! Teddies! Look! Teddies!!
Everywhere!
Teddies!
Just like in heaven which is ONLY teddies! Oh! Yes! And tiny squirrels with little silver wings and angel-faces! And dragons who breathe bubbles not flames!
Ying Yue’s own sweet face is now wreathed in smiles.
She bounces up and down with uncontrollable excitement.
Lots and lots and lots and lots!
Teddies!
Teddies!
Teddy-love!
I Am Sovereign Page 9