‘I’ll go and have a look,’ he told her. ‘You stay here in the house, okay?’
It would be nothing. Still, he had to go, to allay her fear, to allay his own. To see if anyone was in the trees, and what he was doing there. To see if there was a man and, if so, to challenge his innocence.
16 July
Found Art
‘Have you noticed how these people are always “interested in exploring”?’ Alex Mather said. ‘In another age would they have been up the Zambezi with Livingstone or crossing the frozen wastes of Antarctica with Scott? I think not.’
‘You’re being a bit hard,’ Jill Mather said. ‘They’re only kids.’
She was walking round a sculpture made of bits of old bicycle. It was called Recycle. Was it a man or a machine? She couldn’t decide.
‘Aye, but where are they getting their cues from? The modern art galleries. Their own teachers. They may be kids but this is their degree show, their passing-out parade. The future of culture is in their hands, God help us.’
‘What about this?’ Jill said. ‘This is clever, don’t you think?’
‘ “Clever” – that’s another weasel word. It’s what you say to a toddler when you can’t make out what the mess they’ve painted is supposed to be. “Aren’t you clever?” When I look at a piece of art, I want to say, “This is beautiful, this is brilliantly crafted, this is aesthetically unimpeachable.” Do you actually like it, isn’t that the point?’
‘Yes,’ she said, coming round to stand beside him. ‘Yes, I think I do.’
‘You think?’ he said. ‘But why? What’s good about it? It’s just a feeble pun. That Marcel Duchamp has a lot to answer for. He was having a laugh, and now the whole art world’s taking the piss.’
Jill said, as she often did, ‘I’m not arguing with you, Alex. You’re being deliberately obtuse. But you don’t fool me. I saw you at that young lad’s paintings over there. I could tell you liked them.’
‘He can draw,’ Alex said loudly. ‘He can paint. And he hasn’t come up with any excuses either. He hasn’t explained his work. It speaks for itself. Poor bugger. I predict destitution, starvation and total neglect.’
‘You could help by buying one of his paintings.’
‘I’d only be postponing the inevitable. Who is Alex Mather against the mass of the art establishment? He is nobody. See that air-conditioning unit up there? If I stuck a label on that someone would snap it up. Where can we get a drink?’
17 July
Bath
That was the year Stevie dug a mudbath for the elephant. The hot days started in early May and I remember there not being any rain until August, although that’s possibly a false memory. The elephant was in his enclosure and getting frustrated with the heat bouncing off the concrete all round him, and this wasn’t Africa, it wasn’t even the south of England, it was Scotland. We took turns at playing a hose on him but his skin dried out a few minutes after you stopped, and these cracks were appearing, sore-looking, like the cracks of a dried-out riverbed. So Stevie spent four days digging a pit in the monkey section, a two-hundred-yard run from where the elephant was kept. We had to get clearance from the big man because theoretically it was dangerous letting the elephant loose, there were cars coming through that he could have charged or just decided to sit on, but the big man said, ‘On you go,’ so we went.
The day came when we opened the gate and took him down the road to the monkey section, Stevie running ahead and me coming behind in the Land Rover with the lights on so the elephant wouldn’t think twice about stopping. Stevie led him to the mudbath and that elephant went in like a diving submarine, covering himself in the cooling, healing mud and trumpeting with pleasure. We fitted the hose to a nearby standpipe and kept the bath topped up and I’ll tell you, I’ve seen a lot of things, but I’ve never seen an animal so obviously, deliriously happy.
Later that day we ran him back to the enclosure, and he went without a fuss, and the next day we took him to the bath again, and every day for the rest of that summer till the weather broke. He used to sprint down there, like a child on a beach heading for the sea. It was a crime really, keeping such a beast in captivity, but Stevie made life better for him that summer at least. He was a good man, Stevie. You only had to see what he did for the elephant to know that.
18 July
Big Mac
He was a man of subtle thought and bold accomplishment. His erudition stretched across the Humanities. Literature, music, cinema, art – all lay within the compass of his mind; but he also had a profound understanding of philosophy, natural history and science. If there was a subject on which he did not have a view, it was only because it was not worthy of his consideration. The trivial and populist passed him by like so much fluff in the wind. Accused of elitism, he proudly acknowledged himself guilty as charged. ‘I set myself the highest, most exacting standards,’ he said, ‘and I expect others to do the same.’
Leading, though of course lesser, figures in the various fields of his knowledge bowed to his superiority, some with gratitude, others with resentment. Critics expounded on his genius. Professors studied his work and lectured on it. Their best students wrote dissertations and theses on it. Conferences were organised around its themes. Long before he grew old, his place in intellectual history was assured.
Yet his reputation existed only in a certain stratum of society. Outside the walls of academe, beyond the pages of learned journals and the most sophisticated cultural radio programmes, he was unrecognised. He understood this – that singers, film stars, footballers and comedians were celebrities in a way that he never could be. Physically, he was an unremarkable human being. There were streets – whole districts of his city – where he could wander in complete anonymity. He found this comforting.
Nothing, in his last years, gave him greater pleasure than to leave his book-lined home in one part of the city and take a bus to another part – a journey between two worlds, he felt – where he would buy a burger, vanilla milkshake and fries at McDonald’s. He would eat this meal crammed in at one of the restaurant’s little plastic tables, then sit for ten minutes, watching other customers arriving, ordering, consuming and departing, before taking a bus home. He did this once a week. The staff treated him as they treated everybody else, and served him exactly the same meal every time. To them he was nobody special. And this was what pleased him most.
19 July
His Mother, in the Sun
The rented cottage had no outdoor furniture, so he took two chairs from the kitchen and placed them on the grass.
‘They’re a bit hard,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you a cushion.’
‘Don’t worry, this is fine,’ she replied. She’d gone through life saying things like that: This is fine, don’t worry, never mind. Now, in her late eighties, this acceptance of things as they were, this dislike of ‘causing a fuss’, seemed to have served her well. But when he brought her the cushion and fitted it behind her back, she did not object.
‘Glass of wine?’
‘Yes, please.’
Earlier, he’d put a bottle of rosé in the fridge. A summer wine for a summer evening. He rinsed and dried three glasses. His wife was preparing supper: nothing fancy, just some pasta and salad.
‘Do you want me to set the table?’ he asked, pouring her a glass of wine.
‘No, I’ll do it. You talk to your mum.’
He’d be driving his mother home later, so only gave himself half a glass. He poured a full one for her, though. When he held the wine to the light it glowed.
‘Look,’ he said, nodding towards the window. The sun was low now, but still had plenty of warmth in it. His mother had turned the chair in order to be face on to the sun. Her hands were folded, her head tilted back, her eyes closed. Perhaps she was thinking about his father at the hospital. Perhaps she wasn’t thinking of anything, simply enjoying the luxury of not thinking.
She’d always loved the sun. She and his father used to go abroad for it, but for
eign holidays were out of the question now. At least this year summer had put in a home appearance.
‘Go out to her,’ his wife said.
And he would. They would talk about inconsequential things of the present, or good memories from his childhood or from hers, until the midges began to bite, or they were called in to eat. But before he took out the wine, he watched her a moment longer: his mother, in the sun. He knew he would never forget that view of her.
20 July
Fear
Birds fascinated her. She didn’t know anything much about them, but she could have watched them all day. Birds were better – far better – than television.
If she scattered breadcrumbs on the grass, at whatever time of day, birds would arrive from all directions in less than a minute. How did they know?
She had a couple of feeders hanging outside her kitchen window. She kept one filled with nuts, the other with fat balls. Small birds came to those nuts and fat balls all morning, inches away from where she sat on the other side of the glass. If she moved suddenly they flew off, but they were only away for a few moments. Greenfinches, sparrows, chaffinches, robins, tits of various denominations. If they squabbled, it did not seem to be about anything very serious: some mild breach of protocol, perhaps. They even seemed to queue, waiting their turn to hang from the feeders and chip away at the food. There were a couple of sparrows who stationed themselves underneath the feeders, catching debris, and she was surprised that only they seemed clever enough to have worked out this way of benefiting from the efforts of others. But perhaps it was demeaning. Perhaps those ground-feeding sparrows were considered vulgar, ill-mannered. Still, they too were tolerated.
We have something to learn from birds, she thought. They were around long before us and will be here long after we are gone. What have they to learn from us? Nothing. Even my putting out food for them is a mere convenience. If those feeders were empty they would go somewhere else to eat. I sit here watching them and they ignore me until I move. And their reaction is an instinct which we call fear, but that is only our name for it. It is not fear. It is survival.
When she finally got up – conscious that she could not sit there for ever, that there were many responsibilities pressing upon her – that thought remained. The birds had no fear. Why was that? Was it because they had no sense of the end of life? All they knew was to be alive. It was she who had fear.
21 July
Hemingway
‘This one is my grandfather, my mother’s father. He could have been a household name, if things had gone differently for him. He never had any luck, that was the trouble. Luck is what separates most people from success and wealth. That, and who you know. It’s not about talent. My grandfather had talent. It’s about who you know.
‘My grandfather was in Paris in the 1920s, trying to get a break the same as everyone. They were all there: Joyce, Pound, Fitzgerald, Henry Miller, Gertrude Stein. And Ernest Hemingway. My grandfather and Hemingway used to drink together, but my grandfather was a better drinker than Hemingway. They would get very drunk and eventually Hemingway would keel over but my grandfather would still be going. That made Hemingway furious. “I’m going to beat you this time, you son of a bitch,” he’d say the next day. My grandfather would shrug and off they’d go again, with the same result.
‘Once my grandfather asked if he could borrow Hemingway’s typewriter, and for ten straight hours he typed out this story he’d had in his head for months. It just poured out of him. When he’d finished he gave it to Hemingway to read, and Hemingway saw that it was damned good. He also saw that my grandfather had picked up on his own style, which is what led to the next thing. You know what that pig did? He stole the story. It was typed on his typewriter and it was in his style so he sent it off to Scribner’s under his own name. And they published it! I don’t remember the name of the story, but it was my grandfather’s. There was nothing he could do about it; he didn’t have a handwritten draft or notes and the only other person who’d seen it was Hemingway. And Hemingway said, “I said I’d beat you, didn’t I?”
‘My grandfather could never see a book by Hemingway without feeling sick to his stomach. It’s quite a claim to fame, to say you were ripped off by Ernest Hemingway, but it didn’t do my grandfather any good. He never had any luck, though, that was the trouble.’
22 July
Jack and the Bluebottle
The bluebottle had been racing round the room for twenty minutes, driving Jack daft with its frantic buzzing. Now at last it had settled on a shelf. It was about a foot away from where he stood, hand raised ready to strike. This was the moment he’d been waiting for. He was about to smack the beast into oblivion when he had a sudden attack of guilt.
‘This bluebottle is only gaun aboot its ain business,’ he said to himself. ‘It canna help being a bluebottle, and the reason it’s drivin me daft is because it’s a bluebottle. I shouldna kill it just for being itsel. How would I feel if I was a bluebottle?’
He lowered his hand. The bluebottle sensed the movement and recommenced its mad flying about. Jack already had the window wide open but the bluebottle seemed not to like the open air and refused to depart. To get some peace, Jack himself had to step outside.
It was late in the afternoon and the garden was full of midges. They began to bite and he slapped and swiped at them to make them stop. But then he had that same guilty feeling.
‘They’re only midges and they canna help themsels,’ he said. ‘What right hae I tae kill midges just because they’re daein whit midges dae?’ So he went back into the house, to the kitchen this time, where his mother was busy making jam.
‘Och, Jack,’ his mother says, handing him a rolled-up newspaper, ‘there’s a wasp in here trying tae get at ma new jam. Will ye watch till it lands on the table and then kill it for me?’
‘Och, Mither,’ says Jack, ‘think whit ye are askin. The wasp is only a wasp and it canna help itsel for that. What right hae I tae kill it for wantin tae eat yer jam?’
Jack’s mother comes across and gives him an almighty skelp on the head. ‘That’s what ye get for being Jack, Jack,’ she says. ‘I ken ye canna help yersel, and I canna help being yer mither, but life’s unfair like that. If ye want ony jam on yer breid, kill the bloody wasp.’
23 July
Doorways
Doorways are a problem. Going into the house from outside, or sometimes going from one room to another, my father gets stuck. As if some force field will not let him pass. He stops. What looks like thinking is on his face, but it is not thinking. It is thought frozen. He cannot penetrate the field and does not know why. He leans into the problem, one hand on the doorframe, one foot trailing the other. Nothing moves.
This has been going on for a while, since before the only way to get him to travel any distance was in a wheelchair. The last time he walked with me to the shops and back, he froze at the door of the house. This was months ago: it feels like yesterday. Time suspended. I spoke to him, trying to help him to get unstuck, but he seemed not to hear. I moved around him. If he could lift his back foot. If he could let go of the doorframe. I lifted the foot. I eased the fingers from the wood. The force field did not apply to me. We were both in the same place, but he was not with me nor I with him. We were not together.
It reminded me of something.
Eventually, the seized moment unseized. I got him through the door, the portal from somewhere to somewhere else.
He sat in his chair, drained. He fell asleep. I don’t think he had any memory of being stuck.
Later, I recalled what this had reminded me of: the table-tennis scene in A Matter of Life and Death. Squadron Leader Peter Carter should have died when he jumped from his burning plane without a parachute, but in the fog over the English Channel the guide sent to conduct him to the other world missed him. Carter is caught between worlds, between life and life after death. The bell he rings makes no sound. He walks round the frozen table-tennis players, puzzled by their state. They are
there, but not with him.
In the film, Carter was played by David Niven. But who was playing that part in our little scene? Myself ? Or my father?
24 July
The Cat, the Laird and the Teller of Tales
It is never wise to question the comings and goings of a cat. A cat has a life secret from humans, as a dog never does. Let the cat come and go as it will.
There was an old laird of Pitfodels, when the Menzies had possession of that estate in lower Deeside, a mile or two from Aberdeen. The troubles of this family are too numerous to describe, and this particular laird was no luckier than the others, but he had a favourite cat whose company, when it deigned to grace him with its presence, distracted him from his worries.
One day he saw this cat scampering through the Clash, a piece of boggy ground by the Two Mile Cross, not far from the Brig o’ Dee. When the cat came in and, as was her custom, jumped up onto the table, the laird gave her a quizzical look and asked what business she had been about when he had seen her earlier.
‘Whaur ye saw me aince, ye sall see me nae mair,’ the cat answered, and leaping upon his throat she throttled the life from him.
There is no historical basis for any part of this story, even after ruling out the likelihood of the cat having such a good command of the Scots tongue. Perhaps it was a story told by another man of that locality, whose unmarked grave in a lonely spot used to be pointed out to the curious. This fellow had a reputation for telling the most unlikely tales. He would stress the veracity of his word by wishing that he might be buried out of sight of kirk or kirkyard if he was lying. To say such a thing in those times was a serious matter and few would have wanted to challenge him.
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