by Jessica Fox
“Like when?”
“Like right now. I hate talking about these things.”
I moved away and slouched back into the desk chair, defeated.
“I don’t know, it’s just not very British.” Euan tried to smile but he wasn’t joking. “Can’t you just ignore it, bottle it up inside until it goes away?”
I didn’t look up.
“Jessy, I want you to be here.” Euan walked over to me. “Whenever I think of life without you, I get this feeling; it’s horrible and hard to describe.”
I wasn’t listening. If I had, I would have noticed how much he cared for me, but all my mind could focus on was his doubt. “Would it be easier if you had time and space to figure out what you wanted?”
I regretted it the moment I said it, but now it was floating out in the air between us, alive and buzzing.
Euan’s sincere blue eyes flashed with hurt. I wanted him to say it was a stupid idea, swat the suggestion away and repeat that he didn’t want me to leave. Instead, he tilted his head thoughtfully and then shrugged. “Maybe. I hadn’t thought about that before.”
My heart broke but I tried to smile. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I take what he was saying, that he wanted me, that he made space in his life for me, at face value? Why wasn’t it good enough? “Well, we should think about it,” I said, and walked out of “The Fox’s Den”.
Earlier that morning Euan had insisted we go out for the day, “to take our minds off things”, as he put it. Then it had seemed like a bad idea, as if it would be impossible to think of anything else but trying to steer our relationship away from crashing into the rocky shore. Now, however, stepping out into the sunshine, it seemed inspired. It was impossible to resist the sheer pleasure of flying through the warm air on a bicycle,
The car sped along, not through the soft greens and browns I knew well, but through a transformed universe. The barren winter landscape was now full of colour, as if van Gogh himself had redecorated Galloway for spring. Pink and white wild flowers lined the curvy country roads and lambs appeared in the green hills, as soft and white as the clouds in the bright blue sky. Everywhere was bursting with beauty and living things and a sense of joy, as if every atom in the universe was shouting, “I’m alive, I’m alive, I exist, I exist!”
Every atom, of course, but the carbon-based life forms in the Citroen Saxo. As we hopped out of the car, bringing the bicycles down from the roof, we said nothing. Our favourite path through the woods was now carpeted with bluebells. It was like a scene from a film about an enchanted wood, with large dark-brown trunks whose green leafed branches stretched over a sea of purple, glittering in and out of shadow. As we biked along the forest path, weaving between the trees, I flashed back to the happy times on my bicycle in Los Angeles, and to almost every birthday in my childhood when I would ramble through Walden Pond’s woods in Concord, Massachusetts. A bicycle, to me, had always been a source of bliss, and the woods here were magic at even the worst of times – together today they provided an antidote to my black mood. I felt myself smiling, which was dangerous, given the clouds of insects also enjoying the new lease of life spring had given the world.
*
We returned to Wigtown to the sound of bagpipes. The ancient, mournful blast of the pipes echoed off the stone houses, and Euan and I felt personally heralded as we parked the car in front of the Bookshop. There was an excited commotion in town and masses of people were heading down the street to the old cattle showground. A large plume of black smoke rose from behind the rooftops, covering the blue sky in ashy darkness.
As I opened the car door, I was hit by the smell of burning.
“What’s happening?” I said, swept up by the energy. The wind had picked up and I could feel raindrops on my head and arms.
Euan rounded the car and took me by the hand, obviously excited. “It’s Wigtown’s civic week and there is a massive bonfire. I completely forgot about it. You’ll love it, Fox.”
As we approached the cattle showgrounds, we saw cars and people gathered around what was the largest pyre of junk, wood and rubbish I had ever set eyes on. Through the wind and now pouring rain, I could see it was almost as wide as five cars, and higher than any tree or building in the area.
Euan and I took shelter under a tree as four men tried to keep the bottom of the pyre alight. Children ran around the burning mountain as ash and sparks filled the air. Caution tape broke loose and flew into the air, quickly melting as the flames grew larger. Suddenly, a DJ started playing music and “The Chicken Dance” blared out like some bizarre anthem as we watched pieces of Wigtown burn.
Once the first layer of wood on the pyre disintegrated, TV’s, computers and old sofas became visible underneath. Anything and everything, and things that you really shouldn’t be burning, had been chucked on the fire to make this impressive mound of rubbish. Euan wrapped his arms around me as black chemical smoke cloaked the sky above, and suddenly we were laughing, soaked and covered in ash. I felt alive, and free, in the mounting chaos. This was a rare window of anarchy in the land of health and safety. As the flames grew higher, I noticed two precariously perched recliners at the top of the pyre, and in each of them effigies of a hay-stuffed man and woman. Flames licked their legs.
“Euan, will leaving, and giving you time to figure out what you want, make things better?” I heard myself say as the wind and rain slashed against our faces.
“I think so,” Euan replied quickly. I hugged his arms around me tighter and watched as the two effigies caught fire.
“Will we be okay?” I asked, and turned my soaked face towards his. “Not in an existential ‘we’ll all be okay’ way but will you and I be okay, you know, together?”
“I can’t promise that,” Euan said, lifting his jacket to shield me from the icy rain, “but I hope so.”
Bright orange flames towered over the crowd and threw out sparks dangerously close to the children, who stood by as the burning pyre raged. Cries went up around us and the wind whipped debris through the air. Euan and I turned for home as the voice of Johnny Cash sang out, “Love, is a burning thing…”
Chapter 39
“Every man has to learn the points of the compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realise where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.” – Henry David Thoreau, WALDEN: Special editions, high shelf, by the feet of the skeleton in the gallery.
Airports have a smell akin to a doctor’s surgery. It’s a tangy smell of chemicals, air fresheners and stale, reused oxygen. I was becoming allergic to the scent of airports. This morning the smell was mixed with coffee and buttery baked things, as I sat across the way from Euan, slumped into a chair at Costa Coffee.
My chocolate croissant sat untouched before me, as did my tea, which created little steam swirls in the air between us, adding to the already palpable tension in the atmosphere. I was not hungry. I was not one of the excited travellers, about to embark on an adventure that I had been looking forward to, one that would be filled with new experiences and unfamiliar sights and sounds. I was one of those sad travellers, who make you feel uncomfortable by crying on aeroplanes and drinking too much of the complimentary wine.
I wiped the tears from my eyes and shifted uncomfortably. I hadn’t even left yet but I could just imagine what it would be like to wake up in my parents’ house, in my childhood bedroom, with Euan far away and without any evidence that my old life existed. The thought was too depressing to bear. I was already resenting Boston, hating the fact that its streets, people and pollution would soon feel more real to me than Galloway’s twisting country roads, Wigtown’s cast of characters and clean sea air. I was hating Euan’s absence although he was still here, sitting across from me.
“Fox, aren’t you going to eat your breakfast?” Euan looked at me, his blue eyes searching my face. He was smiling and was hoping for one in retur
n.
How could he be so stoic and calm? The selfish part of me wanted him to be a mess, to feel how the universe would cease to exist in the same glorious way once I was gone. Where I felt a great cosmic angst, Euan seemed only to be quietly concerned. I was in the depths of despair while he exhibited an annoying serenity that unnerved me.
“It will be okay, I promise, Jessy.” Euan reached across the table, stroking my arm with his warm hands.
“How do you know that?”
When Euan and I had agreed to have some time apart, we had also agreed not to chat between then and the date when he was supposed to “arrive on my doorstep”. The latter had been my addition to the plan and had seemed appropriate at the time I conceived it; if my extensive knowledge of period films had taught me anything, it was that men needed a hero moment, and this, perhaps, would be Euan’s. However, outside the comfort zone of the Bookshop, sitting on the precipice of losing him on the cold hard seats of Costa Coffee in the airport, my plan looked like a horrific gamble rather than an inspired stratagem. All I could think of was how nice his hand felt on my arm, and how I might never feel it again.
Euan shrugged and the corners of his mouth twitched. He was trying to suppress laughter. “I just do. We’ll be fine. Honestly.”
It wasn’t that he was enjoying the fact that I was leaving, but he was less worried about himself and more amused by my dramatic outpouring of emotion. I needed to stop my tears, and wondered where the valve in me was so that I could turn it off.
“You don’t have to promise me that,” I said. With a bold attempt to pull myself together, I smiled. “I want you to figure out what you really want. Whatever that is.”
“Jessy, you’ll be late if you don’t head to your boarding gate now,” Euan said gently.
I felt myself standing up and facing him. He wrapped me in his arms. This was a mistake. If we went through with this, I’d never see him again.
*
The plane seats were cramped and uncomfortable, but I stared ahead of me, uncaring. I couldn’t hear the roar from the engines, or the chatty woman next to me. Everything was deafened by my depression and grief. How had all my experiences come to this?
Last time I left Wigtown, the moment had been full of sweetness. I had been thinking of all the magic of the festival, the extraordinary series of events that had led me to Euan and the deep connection I felt both to him and Galloway. I had been sad to leave but I had known, deep down, in some mysteriously confident way, that I would be returning.
Now, I felt no such certainty. I felt no sweet connection to a deeper mystery. I felt chaotic and out of control. More than my destiny, my heart was not in my hands. The hands which held my future were no longer those of my imagination, nor those of Wigtown’s watchful spirits, but rather Euan’s dithering ones.
*
A jolt of turbulence knocked me sideways. Every bump meant that I was going to die. Every movement the buffeted plane made marked the end of my journey. I was no longer the one who made things happen and so I felt my invisible shield of protection had been lifted. Without a purpose, I felt vulnerable. Randomness reigned. Another bump sent me grabbing the woman next to me, who recoiled. I apologised and sat looking straight ahead. The PA system crackled on and the stewardess, in a curt tone, told everyone to return to their seats. My knuckles turned white as I gripped my armrest. I prepared for the worst.
When I was small, aged about eight or nine, on realising the impermanent nature of the universe, I started playing a little game. Whenever I was scared, I would ask myself: if I died now, would I be happy with where I was going? Not literally – what eight-year-old would be happy when they were going to the doctor’s or the dentist’s? – but figuratively: was I happy with the direction my life was taking, given what I wanted to achieve? (I was a very ambitious child.) If the answer was yes, then there was nothing to be afraid of.
Only once had the answer been no. It had been while I was living in New York, disappointed by my job and the city, despite my friends’ and family’s love for it; I felt crushed under the weight of the buildings, lost rather than able to rejoice in the anonymity that the place afforded.
On one particularly hot summer’s day, I had sat in the thick heat of the subway car, already soaked in sweat from an intense yoga session. The train had started quickly but soon got stuck in a dark tunnel. The lighting had shut off, as had the engine, and we sat in silence as the announcer told everyone that a mysterious package had been found on board. Whispers that it was a bomb suddenly filled the subway car.
I had asked myself the Question. Was I happy with where I was going; with where my life was headed? The answer had come back a resounding “no”. Terror had suddenly gripped my throat. I had been on my way to pick up pet food for my boss’s cat, in a production job that had turned out to be as enlightening as unemployment. I realised it was true – I wasn’t happy with the direction of my life; I had taken the more prescribed route of assistant work in production, hoping I’d slowly circle – through one crap job after another – closer to my goal of being a director. Why was I waiting for someone to give me permission to do what I wanted to do? I could wait for ever for someone to offer me an opportunity to prove myself. If I had been learning more about filmmaking and my craft, that would be something, but all I was getting better at was how to find less expensive cat food. I alone had the responsibility to learn and grow as a director and I was failing myself. I had not taken the risks I should. I hadn’t made the films I wanted to and I was not living in the city that was right for me. I had veered into the wrong universe. I had been the Jessica making the wrong choices and there was another Jessica, who had gone in a different, self-directed path.
The lights of the train suddenly turned on and the motor rumbled. The announcer apologised. The mysterious package had turned out to be an elderly woman’s shopping. As the subway started moving again, I felt no sense of relief, just an overwhelming desire to resolve my situation. I told myself I could be the Jessica who was on the more self-affirming path; it was all a matter of choice. So I went home and packed my things. I allowed myself to keep four boxes, mostly full of books, and the rest of my belongings I put out onto the street. I gave notice at my job and, as soon as I could, moved back to Boston and decided to make a film. A month later I had asked myself the question again – “if it all ended tomorrow, would I be happy with where I was going?” – and the answer had been an enthusiastic “yes”.
I felt the woman next to me inching away to the other side of her seat. I couldn’t blame her. I was shaking, terrified, and jolted with every shudder of the plane. She probably thought I was crazy and the assumption would have been justified – I certainly felt it. A “ding” sounded and the light for the seatbelts went off. Sighing, I relaxed into the chair, trying not to think about the fact that under my feet was a vault of sky and below that an endless expanse of shark-infested water.
I had done this to myself. Perhaps then I had it in me to make this trip home meaningful. I could change things, just like I had done in New York. I could take this time to finish my animation, to be with Cole, my old friends and my family.
My face suddenly flushed red at the thought of my parents. In the chaos of the past couple of days, booking my ticket, packing and leaving, I hadn’t called my parents once, or emailed. They had no idea I was coming home. In fact, no one did; only Euan knew that I was currently flying half way across the world again, and was barely two hours from arrival in Boston.
Chapter 40
“Madame Sosostris,
famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the
wisest woman in
Europe,
With a wicked pack
of cards. Here, said
she,
is your card
the drowned Phoenician
Sailor,
(Those are pearls
that were his eyes.
Look!)”<
br />
– T.S. Eliot, THE WASTELAND: Poetry section, right of the fireplace, under E.
The cab slowed at a toll booth and I stared motionless out of the window. Beyond my ghostly reflection, dusk settled in sherbet streaks behind the Boston skyline. My heart, in better condition, would have leapt at the sight of the shadowy, yet familiar tall buildings. Now, it remained heavy, full of remorse. I would have done anything to exchange the Prudential Tower for Cairnsmore and the sheer wall of glass on the Hancock building for Wigtown’s blue bay.
As the cab driver rolled down the window, the smell of exhaust smoke filled the car. He threw a handful of change into the toll basket, and the red light turned green. I flipped my phone over and over in my hand nervously. My journey home was underway.
The cab drove through a dark tunnel and I welcomed the feeling of being in a long cocoon. I shut my eyes. Blank screen. No one knew I was here; I could do anything without the burden of expectation upon me. I waited for that tingling sense of freedom and autonomy. But instead I felt leaden, like an anchor slipping into the ocean. As I fast-forwarded the movie of my sudden appearance in my mind, I sank deeper into the cigarette-smelling black seats of the cab.
If I appeared at my parents’ door, unannounced, I could imagine the anxiety it would cause. My dramatic entrance would ignite their concern and they would ask why, what had happened. I would be obliged to answer, to quell their sudden worry for my welfare. The last thing I wanted to do was explain myself, or talk at all.
As the cab emerged from the tunnel and I blinked in the cheery early-evening light, I wondered if I was clinically depressed. I hadn’t eaten anything in days, and I was happiest sleeping, my mind shut off, allowing me the space to not think about Wigtown, and Euan.
I flipped open the phone and called my father.