14 January
The Assassin (1)
The writer hit the alarm clock, switched on the bedside lamp and thought about the day ahead. He intended to begin a new story that morning, and this was a disquieting prospect. However, he was always nervous at this stage of the process, so he also felt strangely calm.
He brought his arm back under the covers because the room was cold. He remembered that he had woken at some point during the night and seen his wife standing at the window.
‘What’s the matter?’ he’d asked.
‘Nothing,’ she’d said. ‘It’s snowing. Come and see. It’s beautiful.’
But he had been very comfortable where he was and had declined her invitation.
His wife was asleep. He fitted himself against her back and put his arm round her.
He decided to sketch out the opening sentences of the story in his head before getting up and going downstairs to his desk.
The writer hit the alarm clock, switched on the bedside lamp and thought about the day ahead. His wife was asleep. He fitted himself against her back and put his arm round her.
Outside, a character from his new story was walking through the snow. Glancing up at the house he saw a faint light through a gap in the curtains at one of the windows. He imagined a bed in that room, with a man like himself lying in it. Perhaps there was someone there with him, a wife or lover. The man would not want to face the day, cold and snowy as it was. He’d prefer to stay in bed, warm and safe. But he’d have to get up, because he was a writer and he intended to begin a new story that morning.
The man outside was not a writer. He did not yet have a name, or an occupation. These were things over which he had no control: he might turn out to be a farmer, or a policeman, or a tramp, or even a hired assassin. This was a disquieting prospect. However, he was always nervous at this stage of the process, so he also felt strangely calm. If he was required to kill someone, he would do it.
15 January
The Assassin (2)
When the postman came out onto the street, the man with the umbrella was just going in. The postman hardly glanced at him. Later he would have only a vague recollection of anyone having passed him. He would feel some guilt, but not much: it wasn’t his job to stop people going into buildings. He would also feel a thrill, knowing he had been so close to what happened.
The man with the umbrella climbed the stairs. People, he thought, didn’t realise that they were always on the edge of life, that something was always happening in the next house, in the next street.
The man with the umbrella did not feel guilt. He was past that. And he didn’t feel much of a thrill either, just a slight quickening of the pulse, caused mainly by a concern to make sure he left no trace of himself anywhere along the route.
He had a moustache, a hat, glasses and a scarf. Later he would not have any of these. Nor would he have the umbrella.
The flat was on the fourth floor. He paused briefly on each landing, to catch his breath and to listen. Below him he heard a door being closed and locked. He waited while the woman – he could tell from her walk – went downstairs and out. When the street door slammed and all was quiet again, he proceeded to the fourth floor.
It was dry outside, but it might rain later. Many people were carrying umbrellas that day, as a precaution.
There were three doors on the fourth floor, which was also the top floor. The door he wanted was at the far end of the landing. He did not particularly like this situation, as there was only one exit route. On the other hand, there was little likelihood of his being disturbed.
He thought, if after I give the password he does not open the door, I will simply walk away. He will be too frightened to come after me. If, however, he opens it …
He unscrewed the cap on the tip of the umbrella. He was careful not to let the blade touch the ground.
He rang the bell.
16 January
The Disenchantment
The observatory tower, now an empty, roofless shell, stands as a landmark on the hill, visible for many miles in all directions. People from the area, returning after a holiday or even years of absence, say that as soon as they can see the tower they know they are home.
It was built some two centuries ago for a local laird with an interest in the stars. It was not long before it fell into disuse – perhaps because the amateur astronomer found that he could see little more of the night sky from that lonely spot than he could from a room at the top of his own house. There might, however, have been another reason for its abandonment.
One summer’s night, studying the moon through his telescope, the laird found that he could see the lunar surface in the most remarkable detail. As he swivelled the instrument something astonishing came into view. He called to the servant waiting below with their horses.
‘Come up here and look through the glass!’ he shouted. ‘Tell me if you cannot see what appears to be a building of some kind on the moon.’
The servant had long ago concluded that his master was mad, yet through the telescope he too could see a tower, very similar to the one on which they stood, perched on a ridge of the moon.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘What’s more, there are two figures on the ramparts, and they are mocking us.’
Frantically the laird pushed the man out of the way, and peered again.
After some minutes, during which time the laird’s whole demeanour became less and less animated, and more and more disconsolate, he stepped back. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It was a delusion after all, doubtless caused by shadows on the moon. Go back to the horses. I will be with you soon.’
The servant never again visited the observatory with his master. But years later, with a drink inside him at the fireside, he would recall what he had seen through the telescope: the men on the moon, their backs turned, their breeks dropped, their coat-tails flicked up, and their large, pale hindquarters gleaming at him across space.
17 January
Democracy
A lioness one day lay down in the shade of some trees to escape the afternoon heat. While she slept some elephants came wandering among the trees. One elephant was about to step on the lioness when she woke up, and roared to alert him to her presence. His front foot rested on her body, trapping her, but he had not yet applied his full weight, which would instantly crush her to death.
‘Spare me,’ she said. ‘You and I are the strongest, proudest, fiercest beasts in the land, yet we coexist peacefully enough. Lift your foot and I’ll leave this cool spot to you and your clan.’
‘It is nothing to me whether I kill you or let you go,’ the elephant replied. ‘You are no use to me dead, since I cannot eat you, but you lions, working together, will sometimes attack an elephant on its own, kill it and devour it. Why shouldn’t I reduce that future risk by killing you?’
‘If you ever find yourself in such circumstances,’ the lioness said, ‘I will tell the others that you spared me when you had me at your mercy.’
The elephant weighed up the arguments and decided to release the lioness, who hurried away and rejoined the pride.
Not long afterwards, on a night hunt, the pride surrounded a solitary elephant. Despite his size and strength, gradually they exhausted him, and he realised that he was in grave danger. Just then he recognised the only lion who up till then had not been clawing or biting him.
‘Traitor!’ he cried, as he sunk to his knees and the lions mauled him ever more ferociously. ‘I thought you were going to put in a good word for me.’
‘I am no traitor to you,’ the lioness replied. ‘I already pleaded your cause, but I am only one among many, and was overruled. The most I can do now is not participate in your death. However, since I accepted the majority decision, I will be allowed to share in the coming feast. You probably now wish you’d killed me when you had the chance, but it wouldn’t have made any difference to your fate. Sorry.’
18 January
The Decision
They stopped
at the bealach* to share a bar of chocolate, and tea from the flask.
‘I don’t like the look of that,’ he said, nodding westward. ‘That’s an awful lot of snow up there.’
They both considered the thickening sky. Behind them the broad white shoulder of the ridge they had just descended hid the first summit from view. The ridge looked much steeper from below. The thought of climbing back up was not appealing.
‘What are you thinking?’ she asked.
It was still only one o’clock. Neither of them was keen to retreat.
‘In distance it’s almost as far to go back as it is to go on,’ he said. ‘But there’s another three hundred metres of ascent if we carry on. Won’t be much fun if the snow gets really bad.’
The sensible thing would be to err on the side of caution. Come back another day for the second peak. But they were both fit, experienced hillwalkers, and they had all the right gear. They were not reckless people.
They had seen nobody behind them. Whichever way they went, they’d be the last ones off the mountain.
‘You know what will happen,’ she said. ‘If we turn back the sun will come out and it’ll be blue skies all the way to the car.’
‘Whereas if we go on there’ll be a blizzard and we’ll get lost, and the mountain rescue boys will say we were bloody idiots, and it will be very embarrassing. Assuming we don’t die.’
‘Let’s not do that,’ she said. ‘Not yet.’
They watched the western sky a minute or two longer. ‘More tea?’ she asked. ‘No, thanks,’ he said, and she shook out the lid, stuck the flask in her rucksack and loaded up.
‘There’s certainly no point in hanging about here,’ she said. ‘The light’s good for another three hours, but it’s a long walk out.’
A few snowflakes were falling. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘It’s decision time.’
‘What the hell,’ she said. ‘When are we going to be here again? Not for years.’
He thought how good they would feel if they completed the route. They smiled at each other.
‘Let’s do it,’ she said.
19 January
Jack and the Tin of Beans
Jack was driving his cow home from market. He was fed up. Yet again, he had failed to find anyone prepared to buy the beast, at any price. He was not looking forward to telling his mother this depressing news.
So when a man coming in the other direction stopped to inspect the cow, Jack’s hopes were raised.
‘How much will ye gie me for her?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I’ve no money,’ the man said. ‘All I can give you for that old cow is this tin of beans.’
It was just an ordinary tin of beans in tomato sauce, but Jack thought this was better than nothing. The deal was struck, the man went on his way with the cow, and Jack bore the tin of beans homeward.
When his mother heard what he’d done she went berserk. ‘Ye’re naethin but a pure eejit, Jack,’ she said. ‘Whit use is a tin of beans? We canna even plant them so they grow intae a beanstalk. And noo we dinna hae a coo.’ And she took a broom and beat him with it till he was covered in bruises, kicked him out of the house and flung the tin of beans at his head.
‘That’s aw there is for yer tea,’ she yelled, ‘so if ye want tae eat, away and open it!’
Well, Jack tried every way he could to break into that tin. He used a tin-opener, knives, a hammer and chisel, he smashed it off rocks, he even took an axe to it. But after all his efforts, there the tin was, without so much as a dent or a scratch on it.
‘Tae hell wi this,’ Jack said, wiping his brow. ‘That tin’s no right. I’d have mair chance gettin at thae beans if I shouted “Open sesame!” ’
No sooner had he uttered the magic words than an enormous genie dripping in tomato sauce stood before him.
‘I am the genie of the tin of beans,’ this being intoned, ‘and your every wish is my command, O master.’
‘Aye, well fuck off, will ye?’ cried Jack. ‘And gie me back ma fuckin coo.’
And in an instant these things were done.
20 January
The Crow
The metal pole had once had some road sign or other at its top, but now a crow was perched there instead, cawing angrily at every passer-by. Against the snow lying on the pavements the crow looked exceedingly black, and in the quiet of a Saturday morning his cries echoed loudly round the surrounding buildings.
Nearby, a man in orange overalls was at work picking litter into a black bag. The crow seemed particularly to direct his rage at him.
‘Och, shut it,’ the street-cleaner said.
A middle-aged man and woman were strolling arm in arm along the pavement. They could not ignore the crow’s raucous display.
‘What are you making that racket for?’ the woman asked it.
The cleaner pointed his litter-pickers at the creature, provoking another round of corvine abuse.
‘There’s something spooky about that bird,’ he said. ‘I was in Melville Street five minutes ago and he was there, behaving just the same. Then I come round here, and here he is again. He’s following me.’
‘They’re intelligent creatures, crows,’ the woman said. ‘People can train them to do all kinds of things. My mother used to have a jackdaw that sat on her shoulder. She wasn’t bothered by it at all, even when it pulled her hair. She liked birds.’
‘Well, I don’t like that one,’ the cleaner said. ‘It’s like Dracula or something. It’s got an evil way of looking at me.’
‘She’s reading Dracula at the moment,’ the man said. ‘My wife, I mean, not her mother.’
‘My mother’s dead,’ the woman said.
‘You see?’ the cleaner said. ‘Spooky.’
The woman frowned. ‘You’re depriving it of its breakfast,’ she said. ‘It’s saying feed me, feed me, and you keep putting last night’s chips and things in your black bag.’
‘Well, why doesn’t it go ahead of me, and save us both some trouble?’ the cleaner said. ‘But it won’t. It’ll follow me, just you watch.’
And the crow did follow him, cawing ceaselessly as if he might at last relent and empty the contents of his bag out onto the pavement. Every so often they stopped and eyed each other malevolently.
‘My money’s on the crow,’ the woman said.
21 January
A Wintry Tale
It’s snowing again, hard. You wonder how it cannot be snowing everywhere else. How can the sun be toasting people lying on beaches? How can there be a dry wind blowing sand across deserts? The snow is falling, thick and steady and constant, and what you can see of the sky is full of more snow – so much that it must surely fall for days, burying pavements, benches, bushes, bicycles, cars, trees, houses. You look through the window and it is hard to imagine it ever stopping.
Yet a man came by this morning who lives six miles to the north, and he scoffed at the paltry depth of what’s lying here. ‘Call this snow?’ he said, and boasted of eight-foot drifts around his house. After calling on you his job was going to take him up one of the glens. He might not make it, he conceded, if the ploughs had not been up that road, and perhaps even if they had. The folk in the glen would scoff at the snow he has.
You are reminded of a story written by a famous writer, set in one of those glens. It was the last story he ever wrote, and it had a subtitle: A Wintry Tale. The narrator, a minister, is keeping a diary, a record of his life during the weeks in which the glen is ‘locked’, by which he means when, because of the snow, no one who is in the glen can get out, and no one who is out can get in. That phrase, ‘the glen is locked’, has always appealed to you. In the story, this is the prelude to doubt, delusion and madness.
Six pigeons and a blackbird are sitting in the naked branches of the birch tree in the garden. Earlier they fed off crumbs and seeds on the bird-table. What are they waiting for now? Their shapes are silhouettes in the afternoon light. Are they waiting for it to stop snowing?
You go back to the scree
n, type and shape these words; ponder whether you are saying anything of any use or interest. When you turn back to the window, all the birds have gone.
22 January
The Wee Man
The queue shuffled forward a few feet, stopped, then moved again. The folk in it turned their collars against the cold rain. They hoped the lecture would be worth the wait.
A man and a woman emerged from a taxi. They were important people. Their clothes were expensive but not very waterproof.
The important man smiled confidently at the wee fellow with the beard who was taking the tickets.
‘Good evening, do we go straight in?’ he said in one important breath.
‘Not without a ticket you don’t,’ the wee bearded one replied, barely glancing up. ‘And the back of the queue is down there.’
People nearby had recognised the important man: a politician, a former leader of his party, now ennobled and with his lady beside him. Immediately life was interesting again.
‘I understood that the lecture was free.’
‘It is,’ the wee man said. ‘Free, but ticketed. Hence the queue.’
‘Well, the speaker and I have been friends for years. I told him we would certainly be here.’
‘You certainly are,’ the wee man said, tearing tickets and letting others past. ‘But you still need tickets.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ the important man said. ‘Don’t you know who I am?’
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