‘Naw,’ says Jack, ‘but I’ve heard a lot aboot him. They say he’s a terrible fierce strang fella, so I widna like tae see him.’
‘Well,’ says the witch, ‘I’ll let ye hae a wee look at him, and then ye’ll no be feart. Because he’s no as bad as ye think.’
So she tells Jack if he goes down to the millpond and bends right over the fence he’ll see Death at the bottom of the water. It’s a very still day, and she conjures up a special gust of wind to blow across the millpond. When Jack gets there, the water is as flat and still as a mirror, and he bends over the fence and peers down into it, and along comes the witch’s wind and runkles up the water just where he’s looking. And what he sees down there is a wee, wrinkled, auld man with a crooked back looking back at him with a worried look on his face.
‘Is that Death?’ Jack says to himself. ‘That auld bodach* couldna hurt a flea! I’m no feart frae him.’
So he went home happy, and of course, because he was just a young lad, it would be many, many years before he saw Death looking at him again.
17 March
Self-Control
At the interval, as the applause dies away and people begin to make for the exits, the woman in blue turns and smiles nicely at the young man behind her. He and the girl beside him are the last to stop clapping.
‘Did you enjoy that, then?’
‘Oh yes, it was very good. Wonderful.’ His hair is black and unruly, his jaw unshaven. He has some kind of foreign accent. She already knows this because, before the concert started, he leaned forward and asked if he could see her programme. She felt exploited but as she and her husband had only glanced at it she felt she couldn’t refuse. He took it eagerly. ‘Thank you, thank you.’ After a few minutes he returned it. ‘Thank you,’ he said again.
‘You liked the pianist?’ the woman says. The pianist, along with the conductor and orchestra, took three bows.
‘He is genius,’ the young man tells her. ‘This is why I must hear him. It is hard to come to this concert but I must.’
‘You’ve come a long way, you mean?’
‘No, I mean expensive.’ He laughs. ‘I am student. I do not eat for two days, but is worth it.’
Obviously he must be exaggerating. It fits with his borrowing her programme.
The woman in blue’s husband says, ‘Shall we get a drink?’
‘In a minute.’ To the student she says, ‘It’s a shame that the andante was spoiled.’
‘Spoiled?’ He looks astonished.
‘By the sniffing.’ She nods at the girl. ‘Your friend sniffed all the way through it.’
The girl says, ‘I did not sniff.’
‘It was very distracting.’
‘No,’ the student says. ‘She did not sniff. She only cry a little, when the movement finish. She cannot help it.’
‘It was so beautiful,’ the girl says.
‘You should learn more self-control,’ the woman in blue says. She is still smiling nicely. ‘When you come to a concert like this, to a place like this, you should be more considerate of others.’
‘It was the music,’ the girl says. She looks as astonished as the boy.
The woman in blue stands. ‘Yes, gin and tonic, please,’ she says to her husband. ‘Shall we go?’
18 March
The Man on the Bus
I used not to be able to read on buses. It made me feel sick. But recently I’ve found I’ve got over that. Maybe it’s a benefit of maturity. I’m glad, anyway. There is so much still to read, and not much time left. Or maybe there is, but how would one know?
I was deep in a collection of stories by a writer new to me, recommended by someone whose opinion I respect. The stories were powerful. They told of a section of society about which I knew nothing, yet I found the characters completely convincing.
I was hardly aware of the man in the seat next to me until I heard him say, ‘Excuse me,’ twice, and realised he was addressing me.
‘I’m sorry?’ I said, looking up.
‘Are you enjoying that book?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I am,’ I said, slightly annoyed.
‘I’m glad,’ he said, smiling. ‘I wrote it.’
I looked at him more closely. His claim seemed unlikely, judging by his dishevelled clothing, malodorous smell and bloodshot eyes. But as soon as I thought this, I realised how flawed my reasoning was. He was, indeed, not unlike some of the very characters I had been reading about.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘if you did, I congratulate you. It is excellent.’
‘You don’t believe me?’
‘You must admit,’ I said, ‘this is not something that happens every day.’
He smiled again. ‘On the contrary, I meet characters from my stories every day of my life.’
‘That’s not quite the same thing.’
‘It is if you are me,’ he said. ‘Of course, the people I meet don’t usually know it, especially if they have yet to appear in one of my stories. Well, this is my stop. I hope you continue to enjoy the book. Goodbye.’
I watched him make his way to the front of the bus and get off.
It was only then that I remembered that on the inside back cover of the book was a photograph of the author. The picture was grainy and distant, and showed a much younger, neater man than the one who had been sitting beside me. But that, I understood, did not prove a thing.
19 March
The Fabairseidh Thistle
for Joseph Bonnar
‘And how did you come by it?’
‘It was my grandmother’s. I inherited it when she died. She was born in Scotland but fled when she was nineteen, at the time of the revolution. Her father was a lawyer. They escaped with absolutely nothing, just the clothes on their backs. Oh, and a small trunk packed with jewellery.’
‘And do you know where they lived?’
‘Yes, Edinburgh. In the old Georgian quarter.’
‘Which of course was terribly damaged in the revolution. Well, that all fits perfectly with this beautiful item, because the Georgian quarter was the redoubt of the old moneyed class – the aristocrats and oligarchs and, crucially, the legal establishment. And so what we have here is a rare survivor from that age, and we know exactly its provenance not only because of your story but because it’s in its original box with the jeweller’s name and address printed on the silk interior. An address, sadly, that no longer exists.
‘Do you recognise the central motif ? The purple top rather gives it away, doesn’t it? Yes, it’s a thistle. In pre-revolutionary Scotland it was customary for people to give each other thistles. In the countryside they plucked real thistles, in the housing estates they exchanged cheap plastic ones, and in high society they traded incredibly ornate variations on the thistle theme, such as this.’
‘So was the thistle some sort of love token?’
‘No, it represented antagonism and deep loathing. But a piece like this was designed with, as it were, a postmodern knowingness, and would have been given as an expensive joke. “Darling, I detest you,” that kind of idea. It’s 24-carat gold, and the diamonds are charming, but it’s the exquisite enamelling that is really impressive. And the little mark on the back? Well, that denotes a name we’re all familiar with, doesn’t it? There was quite a fashion among the upper classes for using Gaelic orthography even though none of them could speak the language. It’s a lovely thing, and rather poignant in the light of your family’s history. As to value, well, I can see this easily fetching €150,000 at auction. Thank you so much for letting us see it.’
20 March
The Experiment
I was an experiment.
I knew this suddenly and intuitively. How old was I, seven, eight? Lying on the floor, playing with some plastic soldiers, I saw the shadow of my hand pass over them. I moved my hand back. This time I did not so much see the shadow as feel it, as if I were one of those soldiers and a dark, terrible force – of which he was ignorant but had, just then, some imperfect perception
– had disturbed the air he breathed.
Those soldiers were inanimate, I understood this, yet alive to me: I could and did make them live. And somehow they – or one of them at least – had become conscious of my life-giving, my power.
The next thing I understood was that I was being watched. I picked up a man with a rifle slung on his back, about to throw a grenade. His face betrayed no knowledge of me: he was intent only on the act of throwing. I replaced him, and continued to play studiously as if nothing had changed. I learned from that soldier not to let them see that I knew.
Them. Yes, there were several, wherever or whoever they were, and I was their experiment. Years later I would see the film The Truman Show and recognise in its artificial construct something like the world as I began to perceive it at that moment. But my situation was not an entertainment for millions of viewers, nor would I be able to find an exit, a door out of that artifice into reality. This was reality, and I was in it. My bodily functions, my behaviour at home and at school, my sleep patterns and mood changes – everything was being captured and analysed. But could they access my thoughts? I didn’t think so. I chose to operate on the basis that they couldn’t.
I am an adult now, and have put away childish things. I have also become so skilled at the game of bluff which commenced that day that I often completely forget about it. But then some small thing reminds me. The experiment continues. They think they are still running it, but they are wrong.
21 March
To the Airport
Amid the fumy, head-pounding traffic, on the other side of the glass, upside down almost, a tangle-haired, grinning face. Hand making a winding signal. What was he saying?
She reached for the button, depressed it. Nothing happened.
‘Don’t look at him,’ the driver said. ‘Look in front, please.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t make eye contact.’ She saw only his dark glasses in the rear-view mirror. He had his hand on the master switch, preventing her from opening the window.
‘It’s just a boy,’ she said. ‘Is he selling something?’
‘No boy. Bad man,’ the driver said. He revved the engine, jerked the car half a foot forward. The lights stayed red. Horns blasted around them. The boy slipped. She thought he was going under the wheel.
‘Careful!’ she yelled at the driver.
The lights changed. The car shot forward, crunching over potholes, braked, moved again. The boy was gone. She felt sick. The last twenty minutes had been like this. Crowds spilling off the pavements at every junction; trucks, scooters and cars jostling for space on the hot tarmac. Engines backfiring, she hoped.
She saw the white silhouette of an aeroplane on a blue road sign.
‘Don’t worry, soon be out of here,’ the driver said, but the set of his mouth was not reassuring. It was the mouth of a man who hated everything outside his car – the other vehicles, their drivers, the road surface, the beggars, kids on the make, women under their huge loads, women selling fruit, selling themselves. Most of all he hated the flurries and eddies of young men, smiling till you denied them, then suddenly banging on your roof, shaking fists at your windscreen, yelling abuse in whichever of five languages they thought matched the look of your passengers.
And she knew all this. She’d been warned often enough. If she’d let the window down a crack, the boy’s fingers, his hand, his whole upper body would have been inside in seconds. The grin would have vanished. He wouldn’t have been a boy any more. He hated her, wanted everything she had, whatever it was.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She clutched her bag. All she wanted was to be somewhere else.
22 March
Are You Posting Safely?
‘You’ll need to sign a declaration,’ the woman behind the post-office counter said.
‘Declaring what?’ asked the man who’d handed over the parcel.
‘That you’re not sending anything dangerous.’
‘What constitutes “dangerous”? There’s a letter in there containing some pretty inflammatory language.’
‘Anything that’s in this,’ she said, pushing a leaflet under the glass.
He looked at the various images depicting firearms, aerosols, dustbins, rodents and human remains. He pointed at one. ‘Is that a horseshoe?’
‘I think it’s a magnet.’
‘So I could send a horseshoe? A horseshoe could be dangerous, in the wrong hands.’ He opened the leaflet. ‘There’s even more inside.’
‘It’s supposed to be comprehensive.’
‘It’s certainly that.’ He continued reading. A queue began to form.
‘What’s in the parcel?’ the woman asked.
He looked up. ‘That’s between me and the recipient.’
‘If you could tell me what’s in it, I could tell you if it’s a prohibited item.’
‘I’m checking that now. That’s why you gave me this, isn’t it?’ He read some more. ‘Has anyone ever actually admitted to you that there was a rocket or a consignment of heroin in their parcel?’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘That’s exactly the point. Normal, law-abiding people are being asked to declare that they are not idiots or criminals. If I’m posting a submachine gun to an accomplice in Virginia I’m hardly likely to admit it, am I?’
The woman looked again at the parcel. ‘This is going to Virginia,’ she said.
‘That’s right. Virginia is where the CIA has its headquarters. Does that make you suspicious?’
‘Look, I’m just doing my job.’
‘We’ve heard that one before.’
‘Come on,’ someone in the queue called. ‘This is ridiculous.’
‘I concur with the voice from the stalls,’ the man said. ‘However, so as not to delay the transactions of my fellow citizens, I will step aside in order to read this document more closely. I would be grateful for the return of my parcel.’
‘You don’t want to send it?’
‘Oh yes, I do. I will be back.’
The woman passed the parcel through the hatch. ‘I think you’re making rather a meal of this,’ she said.
‘You started it,’ the man said.
23 March
Mr Smith
‘It’s me again,’ the man with the parcel said.
‘So it is,’ the woman behind the post-office counter said.
‘Interestingly, according to the leaflet you gave me, I may not send ammunition in my parcel, except air-gun pellets. Yet I am prohibited from sending an air gun. Where is the logic in that?’
‘I don’t make the rules,’ she said.
‘Clearly not, for you are not an imbecile. Have you seen this bit? This symbol, of acid being poured onto someone’s hand, represents corrosive products, which the leaflet says are classified as dangerous. But a product marked by this symbol along with the words “Danger – causes serious eye damage”, is apparently not classified as dangerous. So. Burns your hand: prohibited. Blinds you: safe to send. According to this leaflet.’
‘Do you want to send the parcel or not?’
‘I do.’
‘Well, would you please sign the declaration at the bottom of this label.’
‘Another document!’ he exclaimed gleefully.
‘This one goes on the parcel.’
‘And proves what? Since you haven’t inspected the contents, you have no idea whether my parcel is safe. You are taking it on trust. Do you trust me?’
‘It doesn’t matter whether I trust you or not. You just have to sign the declaration or I can’t accept the parcel.’
‘My point being, if I am intent on sending something dangerous, I’m going to sign anyway, am I not? Would you like to see some ID?’
‘No, that’s not necessary.’
‘Then I shall sign as John Smith. Is that all right?’
‘Is that your name?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘It sounds like you just made it up.’
‘But i
t’s one of the commonest names in the world. You see, you don’t trust me.’
‘Just sign the bloody thing,’ a voice said loudly, from behind the rack of greeting cards.
The man bent over the label presented to him. ‘Robust advice from the gallery,’ he said conspiratorially.
‘Thank you,’ the woman said. ‘Mr Smith. That will be £3.86.’
He smiled at her. ‘Is that all?’
‘It’s not bad, is it?’ She sounded relieved.
‘So little to send utter devastation across the Atlantic? It’s terrific. Thank you for your excellent service. Good morning.’
24 March
Just Go
The tiny bus shelter had a pungent, animal smell, tolerable only if you took shallow breaths. Usually Todd waited outside, but the snow-laden wind was bitter, and the bus was not due for ten minutes. Numbed already by the walk from the farm, he went in.
There was a small, glassless window, through which you could watch for the bus. On the outer side of this stood a man, hunched, the collar of his thin jacket turned up.
‘Aye,’ Todd said.
The man barely nodded. Todd did not recognise him from any of the nearby cottages.
‘Mair bloody snaw,’ the man said. The ferocity loaded onto those three words was impressive. Todd wondered what he’d sound like if he had a grudge against anything more than the weather.
‘Well, ye ken whit they say, in like a lamb, oot like a lion.’
He was only trying to show solidarity but the reaction was as if he’d told a downright lie.
‘Who’s they when they’re at hame?’
‘Just folk,’ Todd said.
After a minute the man spoke again.
‘He’s haein a laugh at us, eh?’
Todd gave a non-committal grunt. If it was theology they were getting into, he wanted none of it.
Suddenly the man let out a shout. ‘Think winter’s over, dae ye? I’ll show ye, ya wee shites!’
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