Cancer took the son of a bitch out anyway, so it’s academic. He got lucky, if you really want to know.
20 June
Dr Jekyll’s Casebook
Real family viewing, that was, even taking the horror dimension into account. It was the only programme allowed to interfere with meals in our house. Father thought the younger generation was ruled by television, but on Dr Jekyll nights he’d be the one bolting his food and leaping from the table to clear everything away in time. I’d be sent through in advance to warm up the set and move the aerial around to find the best reception. Father said I’d a knack for it, but it was trial and error really. Sometimes I’d end up holding the aerial above my head for the duration. I didn’t mind. It gave me power.
The storyline never varied. By day Dr Jekyll went about tending his patients’ ailments and tolerating their prejudices. He would be frustrated by the old-fashioned views of his partner, Dr Lanyon, or irritated by his housekeeper, Mrs Poole, although he was actually very fond of them both; or he would have to restrain himself from falling out with Mr Utterson, W. S., or Sir Danvers Carew, the local laird, or some other pillar of the establishment. But at night, having swallowed a single dram from a mysterious bottle which he kept locked in a drawer, Jekyll tore off his tie, grew stubble, sprouted hair from his ears, and ventured forth as the antisocial Mr Hyde. He let down Dr Lanyon’s car tyres, put salt in Mrs Poole’s sugar bowl, glued shut Mr Utterson’s letter box or stole eggs from Sir Danvers’s henhouse. In the morning he’d be his old self again, with absolutely no memory of what Hyde had been up to.
The reason for the serial’s success over so many years was simple: it made everybody feel less guilty about feeling guilty. After an episode of Dr Jekyll, millions of people relaxed about the fact that they secretly detested their lives and wanted to break out. They never had to, because Mr Hyde did it for them.
The critics despised Dr Jekyll’s Casebook. They said the plots were unbelievable and the sentimentality unbearable. But we loved it. It made total sense to us, and it warmed our hearts like a peat fire.
21 June
Saint Serf and the Devil (after Andrew of Wyntoun’s Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland)
Saint Serf had just finished a long devotional session in a cave on the Fife coast when the Devil arrived, intent on an argument.
‘You’re a smart arse, aren’t you, Saint Serf ?’
‘What’s that to you, foul fiend?’
‘Well, something’s been bothering me. Where was God before Heaven and Earth were made? Must have been somewhere. But where?’
‘God existed in himself. He doesn’t need to be any where. He just is.’
‘All right. So why did He make the animals and everything? What was that about?’
‘Because He’s the maker of all things. If He hadn’t made anything, there wouldn’t be any creatures and He wouldn’t be the creator. But He did, and there are, so He is.’
‘But how come He didn’t make anything totally perfect? Because He could have, couldn’t He?’
‘He didn’t set out to make things imperfect, but He Himself is perfection. So nothing could match him. Only God can be perfect.’
‘Okay. Where did God make the first man, Adam?’
‘In Hebron.’
‘Hebron, eh? And where did God put Adam when He kicked him out of Paradise?’
‘Where he was made.’
‘Hebron again? Interesting. And how long was it, after Adam sinned, before he was barred?’
‘Seven hours.’
‘Very precise. You really know your stuff, don’t you? What about Eve, where was she made?’
‘In Paradise.’
‘So Adam was made in Hebron and Eve was made in Paradise, and after they left Paradise they were still in Hebron? So are they the same place? That’s like saying Fife is Dundee.’
‘The location is immaterial.’
‘Not if it’s Dundee.’
‘The point is, they sinned. That’s what changed everything.’
‘But this isn’t fair. We devils were made in Paradise, and we were kicked out too, so how come humans get salvation through Christ’s sacrifice, but we don’t?’
‘You brought it on yourselves. You were deliberately wicked. Humans didn’t mean to fall. You tricked us into it. It wasn’t our fault.’
‘It wisnae us, you mean?’
‘Well, it wisnae. It was you.’
‘You’ve got an answer for everything,’ the Devil said, ‘but I’m not sure you’re that smart. Suit yourself though. Stay in your miserable cave. Say your prayers. I’m going out.’
22 June
Midsummer
It is the time of year when you can walk all night and not need a torch, never stumble. A quarter to midnight but it could be an hour after dawn. This is as dark as it gets, the north’s reward for the long black tunnel of winter. He looks from the bathroom window and everything is laid out in the sky, a vast painting of land and water. Clouds are headlands, hills descending to shores; the sky is sea lochs, bays. He calls to her. ‘Come and look at this.’ They’re getting ready for bed and this will be the last thing they see tonight. It’s important to him that they see it together.
But also he is thinking of another time, and further north. With his first wife’s brother, years before, he walked across country at this season. Altnaharra to the coast, forty miles or not far short, a two-day hike. And it rained, and the sun came out, and sometimes there was a breeze and when it dropped the midges rose and feasted on them. He remembers eating breakfast on the move, frenzied mouthfuls of muesli and midges beside a peaty burn where they’d pitched the tent for a few hours. He remembers the smell of tent, conversations, long silences, blistered feet, the rub of rucksack straps. They kept walking into the evening, a long haul up from a loch deep in the hills, over the high ground, a river below and nobody contained in that whole landscape but themselves. They walked till midnight, beyond it, because it seemed wasteful of the light to stop, and eventually only their aching weariness stopped them, and they camped.
More than anything of that time he remembers the light: kind, constant, hardly diminished by sunset. It made the black loch glow, the brown moor shine. When they came to the coast next day, the light passed over the shore and the sea like a gentle hand over the back of an animal. And here it is again, the land and water, and the light. ‘Come and look at this,’ he says, and she comes. Hand in hand they stand at the window, taking it in.
23 June
The Examined Life
She woke up. She thought about herself waking up. Was I really asleep just before I woke up? How was I lying? It was only seconds ago but she couldn’t remember because she’d moved. She’d reached out and turned on the light. She couldn’t remember the last dream she’d had, the one she’d woken up from, or if she had actually been dreaming. What does that mean, ‘actually been dreaming’? She had no conscious appreciation of six or seven or eight hours in every twenty-four. This bothered her. Maybe I should set the clock to wake me every hour through the night. What good would that do? It would just make the rest of the day intolerable.
She listened to herself breathing. She listened to the air going in and out of her nostrils. She surveyed her body without touching it, without looking at it, seeking out aches, itches, numbness. If there is no negative sensation can it be inferred that that part of me is healthy? What does ‘negative’ mean? What does ‘healthy’ mean?
Get a grip, she told herself. Get up and out or you’ll be late for lectures. But she lay there thinking about who she was, what she was doing, what she wasn’t doing and why she wasn’t doing it.
She blamed the university. They’d told her she couldn’t do History and Astrophysics. Why not? Because they were different subjects with different timetables in different faculties on different campuses. ‘No,’ she’d said, ‘they are intimately linked. We are stardust,’ she’d said, almost breaking into song. ‘Aristotle looked at the stars. Is Aristotle not his
tory? Are Plato and Galileo and Newton not history?’
They wouldn’t give way, but they heard what she was saying. They heard ‘Plato’ and ‘Aristotle’. ‘How about History and Philosophy?’ they’d suggested. That would be possible. That would be acceptable. Possible or acceptable? ‘Both,’ they’d said.
She blamed Plato. She blamed Socrates. Her life had slowed to an inching crawl. Maybe she was ill. How would she know? She had no perceptible aches, no numbness.
She would get up in a minute. She would have to. Everything was pointless if she didn’t. And maybe even if she did.
24 June
The Unexamined Life
Andy Murray was through to the third round. Ray ate a bowl of muesli. The forecast was cloudy, mainly dry. He topped up his mug with tea. Julie was in the shower. He ate toast with marmalade. There were plans to extract shale gas in Lancashire and Yorkshire. He switched off the radio, looked at his watch. His bus would arrive in fourteen minutes. It took three minutes to get to the bus stop. He put his breakfast things in the dishwasher. Julie always took the car to work. She was out of the shower, getting dressed. He went to the bathroom and had a crap. They were going to Crete for two weeks in September. He washed his hands, checked himself in the mirror. He didn’t wear a tie to work any more. Nobody commented, not even Maxwell. Julie called, ‘I have to work late tonight. You just go ahead and eat.’ ‘Okay,’ he said, coming into the bedroom. He’d make some pasta. He might go to the pub later, catch up with Rob and Alan. Julie was doing her face. ‘That’s me away then,’ he said. ‘See you later.’ ‘Bye,’ she said. She stopped applying mascara for a second, blew him a kiss. He checked his jacket pocket for his keys and bus pass. The front door still needed painting where he’d had to change the lock. At the top of the street he saw the bin lorry coming out of Orchard Crescent. He walked round to Constitution Road. The bus came. He got on, picking up a free newspaper, sat at the back. He texted Julie: Can u put out bin b4 u go Rx. He texted Rob: Fancy pint 2nite? 8pm? He’d wait until he heard back from Rob before he texted Alan. The sky was cloudy. He wondered if he should have taken his raincoat. He was feeling pretty good. He wasn’t expecting any bad stuff at work. Maxwell was on holiday. He saw cars and people going by. He turned the pages of the paper. Some of the other big names were already out of Wimbledon. Murray could go all the way this time. It was a strong possibility.
25 June
The Ones
At first you think everybody is at it: on the bus, or at the bus stop, that familiar head-down stance, the gadget held between hands, the thumbs and fingers tapping, flicking, scrolling; or the evolved walk, one hand to ear, speaking to someone who is not present; or – one level up from that, and a growing subspecies, or maybe a breakaway alpha group – the brisk, earphoned, miked-up walkers, no device visible, talking like mad solitaries but looking controlled, like they’re passing sophisticated comment, cutting sharp deals, making cool arrangements. Or, on the train, the ones with the notebooks, pads, slimmed laptops, 4G phones, riding whatever the next wave of connectivity is. What a word: be connected, stay linked, don’t for one second be out of touch in case you miss something or it misses you. In the last six months more photographs have been taken than in the entire previous history of photography. You don’t have to believe that statistic to know it is happening. You don’t have to compute to know that the world is a place of sign language, image, messaging, and you have to be in it, of it, at it, giving and receiving signs and messages, you have to be there or you will die.
But then, glancing around, you see the other ones. The phoneless, wireless, waveless, unhooked ones. Greybeard tramps, kids in prams, kids who like watching dogs, people of a certain age who have said, ‘It’s too late,’ poor, frazzled women, scarred men, unrecovering addicts of one kind or another, the detritus of our civilisations. If those with the technology are Romans, these are the barbarians. The ones outside the citadel. Beyond the wall. The ones who lack the necessary education but despise it anyway. The ones who use the middle finger to make signals and cup the ear to receive them. The people for whom the Dark Ages are called dark. The ones who will welcome the darkness, bring out their hatchets and skewers, make pyres of smashed screens and keyboards. The ones who will turn out to be the strong ones, the survivors. The ones who will revel, not panic, when the lights flicker and die.
26 June
At the Edge of the Desert
We sat looking out over the desert. The sun was going down, and we believed that if we watched closely we would see amazing things. We would see the bands of rock change colour, the landscape shift and move like a striped animal across our vision. Someone who gave us a ride that day must have told us to go there, and there we were, at the edge of the desert, waiting to see these things.
I have a photograph somewhere. I’m not in the picture because I took it, but Frank is. You wouldn’t recognise Frank, though, because all you see is the back of a man in a dirty T-shirt and a sunhat, and out beyond him the desert. You can see its stripes, the bands of rock, and you know the man is looking at them. That was Frank. He was with me and I was with him. The photograph proves it. Proves something, anyway.
We’d probably smoked some weed. I’d be prepared to bet on it, because we smoked a lot that year, and the people who gave us rides were often smokers too. I don’t know if that was some magnetic or telepathic thing or just the era, the fact that we were hitching rides and they were the kind of people who stopped for us, but some days we rolled across that country from dawn till dusk as high as eagles. So when we sat at the edge of the desert it’s not surprising we expected to see amazing things.
I don’t know where that photograph is. Somewhere in the attic, probably, along with all the other pictures from back then. I haven’t seen it in thirty years, but I can still see it, if you know what I mean. It shows a beautiful landscape, and the back of a man looking out on it. I haven’t seen Frank in thirty years either. He might not even remember that evening we sat watching for a long time and then slept, but I do.
I don’t smoke dope any more. This is what happens. You change. You grow. But sometimes you have a memory, and sometimes it’s a good one.
27 June
Jack and the Captain
An old sea captain washed up, looking for a berth. Jack’s mother took him in. He was a fierce old fellow who liked rum and bananas and lying in his bed. He kept his worldly possessions in a chest under it. ‘You keep an eye out for strangers,’ he told Jack. ‘Seafaring men like me. Off you go, lad.’ And Jack went.
Jack’s mother kept the captain company for an hour each afternoon with the door firmly shut. ‘Och, he likes tae talk,’ she explained to Jack. ‘I feel sorry for him. We share a banana or two.’ And that was odd, because Jack’s mother never felt sorry for anybody and she didn’t like bananas either.
One day when she’d gone to the shop for more bananas, another old man, in dark glasses and tap-tapping with a stick, turned up. ‘Will you help a poor chap that’s reduced to a demeaning occupation to earn a crust?’ he says in a shaky voice. ‘I will,’ says Jack, and gives him his arm. The old boy hisses, ‘Now take me in to the captain or I’ll break your wrist.’ So Jack takes him in. ‘Is that you, captain?’ says the blind man. ‘Is that you, Pugh?’ says the captain, white as the sheet he’s lying on. With Jack’s assistance the blind man puts a bit of paper in the captain’s hand. ‘And now that’s done,’ he says, ditching the stick and shades and skipping off back to town.
‘Jack, lad, I’m finished,’ the captain cries. ‘That was a messenger-at-arms, and this here’s a summons that’ll bankrupt me.’ And he starts up from his pillow, and then falls back down on it, stone dead.
Jack’s mother was very upset when she returned. ‘Whit the hell dae I dae wi aw these bananas?’ she wept. They went through the captain’s chest and found enough money to pay for his funeral and a high tea for two afterwards, and that was that. The captain’s clothes went to Oxfam and the chest they chopped for
firewood, and they burned the summons. Oh, and a dirty old map that they couldn’t make head nor tail of, that went in the fire too.
28 June
My Real Wife
‘Why do you keep writing about me?’ my wife asked. ‘My wife this, my wife that. I never asked to be in your stories.’
‘You’re not in them,’ I said.
‘Yes I am,’ she said, and pointed out a couple where the narrator talks about ‘my wife’.
‘That’s not you,’ I said.
‘You wrote the stories,’ she replied. ‘If it’s not me, who is it?’
‘The narrator isn’t necessarily me,’ I explained. ‘Just because the narrator writes in the first person doesn’t make him – or her – me.’
‘What do you mean “her”?’ my wife said. ‘How can a narrator who writes about “my wife” be female?’
‘It’s not impossible,’ I said, ‘although in my stories that situation hasn’t actually arisen as yet. You just have to use your imagination. You mustn’t be so literal. You have to forget the idea that the narrator and the author are the same person, and then the stories can be about anyone and anything at all.’
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