by Sam Lock
As for my friend Len, I know what he’ll be doing. With Thelma out at work he’ll be lost in reading a book. At the moment, he’s reading The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole, by Frederick Rolfe, a book that I enjoyed and a copy of which I have lent him. And Patrick, my Irish neighbour? Where might he be and what might he be doing? Smashing eggs? Making an omelette? Or out drinking in some bar? (‘Propping up a Guinness’, as he might put it.) And sensing, I hope, that I do think of him at times, and send him all my fondest thoughts and wishes.
As for Mark – well, I know where he is, don’t I? At work in his wine-bar in Fulham; and tonight he will be here with me. Just two youngish men who enjoy each other a lot; and who, like so many other friends or other couples in this world, are nothing out of the ordinary. Aren’t saints, or martyrs – aren’t kings or politicians: just two souls among so many, whose lives are not very interesting from an exterior point of view, as this journal of mine has shown; but who little by little, day by day, help to create the basic fabric of life; weaving together the past and the present, the old and the new, to create from it the future.
Having decided when I came home last night that I had already brought this journal to a close, I am now about to put it away; my plan being to wrap it in some thick brown paper that I have discovered in a drawer, and then hide it with all my treasures.
I must confess that I am half tempted to destroy this book, because I know that what Mark said of it is true: that it would take a clever old stick to decipher much of my scrawl and scribble. But, who knows? Someone, some day, might take an interest in it. Who or how I have no idea; but there are a few bits of it at least – a few passages – that are worth reading.
It could be some writer, perhaps. They’re always looking for copy – aren’t they? I don’t know any, unfortunately; but – well, at least it makes me not want to destroy what I have written.
Perhaps, eventually, I shall decide to give it to someone – someone I can trust. If not, then it will be here with me when I die; and then either Mark or Thelma or Len will take the decision for me.
So – here goes! Paper, string and a sticky label, saying what the parcel contains, will be enough; and then let its future be what it will be. Having written it, the best thing to do is to forget it, I think. I won’t ‘drown’ my book, as Shakespeare’s Prospero says he intends to do in The Tempest. I’ll just consign it to what I shall think of as a temporary form of oblivion by hiding it in my lumber room with all the evidence of my misdeeds; and there upon it the dust of time can settle.
POSTSCRIPT
Edwin carpenter died in 1990 at the age of fifty-four. According to Thelma Rillington, his relationship with his friend Mark had blossomed, and, because Edwin refused to move, they had lived together for quite a few years in Edwin’s flat.
‘Why it ended,’ she said, ‘I really don’t know; but they were happy, I do know that – or certainly Edwin was. I didn’t know then, of course, about Edwin’s troubles.’ (She meant his thieving.) ‘I only learned about that after his death – from his writing, I mean. But I remember Mark saying to me one day that he had helped Edwin cure himself of a very bad habit, and how pleased he was about it. It was something he said only lightly, so I didn’t take much notice of it. I thought, I suppose, that it was something small – something unimportant. Now, though, I know he meant the opposite, because I can still see the look in his eye as he said it.
‘It’s a pity Mark went out of Eddie’s life,’ she went on. ‘A pity we can’t contact him to let him know that Eddie has died. But perhaps he’ll read the book,’ she added with a laugh, ‘and perhaps one day we’ll get to hear his side of the story.’
When asked what she had done with Edwin’s ‘collection’, which he had left her in his will, she smiled radiantly. ‘Gave it all to charity,’ she said, ‘including the cash.’ As if by doing this she had made a kind of offering for her friend; one that perhaps would serve for him as an act of absolution.
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Copyright © Samuel Lock 2001
Samuel Lock has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
First published in Great Britain in 2001 by Jonathan Cape
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781473570962