365

by James Robertson

  ‘I’m not upset, I’m just wondering if “without prejudice” covers everything. In the context.’

  ‘In the context of what?’

  ‘Of the letter, of course.’

  ‘Alex, who has written this letter and what is it about?’

  ‘It’s about that parking ticket I got last week.’

  ‘So it’s your letter?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘And you’ve written “without prejudice” at the top and then fired off a stream of invective at officialdom?’

  ‘More or less. Stream of consciousness, I’d say.’

  ‘Are you going to pay or are you appealing against a gross injustice?’

  ‘The cheque’s written. I just wondered …’

  ‘Give me the letter, Alex. Thank you. Now watch as I tear it to shreds. Without prejudice, which means with common sense.’

  ‘That’s what I thought it meant.’

  8 September

  Dignity

  They were revisiting that old topic again. They couldn’t leave it alone. ‘We’re like Jack Spratt and his wife,’ she said. ‘Gnawing away at it, fat and lean. Where’s it getting us?’

  ‘Nowhere,’ he said. ‘You’re right. What more can we do or say? We’ve written down our wishes. The kids know how we feel. Not that I trust the kids, but it won’t be their responsibility. It’ll be ours.’

  ‘Yes, so long as we can control the timing. We each know what the other one wants.’

  ‘What the other one doesn’t want,’ he said.

  ‘Exactly. Don’t put us in one of those places. Stock up with the special pills before it gets to that stage. Hold hands and exit while we still have the key to the door.’

  ‘Exit with dignity,’ he said. ‘Get out before some interfering busybody takes the key off you and you can’t leave even if you want to. Can’t even get out into the garden for some fresh air.’

  ‘Prison with cushions and catheters,’ she said. ‘God forbid.’

  ‘Let’s change the subject,’ he said, and he fetched the decanter and refilled the glasses. ‘Here’s to us, and to many years before we get there.’

  The glasses clinked. ‘Here’s to us,’ she said.

  A minute later she said, ‘There’s going to be a lot more of it. People taking matters into their own hands.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But let’s not talk about it any more.’

  He picked up his book and started reading. She stared into the fire. She saw the old couple again, the couple outside the chip shop. They had been passing by as she was coming out with the fish suppers. Heading for home, she’d supposed. And he was leaning on a stick and she, a few paces behind, was leaning on a stick too. And it was clearly such hard work for them both. When he crossed the road he looked back to make sure she was still with him. He didn’t say anything.

  There was something heroic about how they kept going. She wondered if they’d had these same conversations. Planning for the non-future. Maybe they weren’t the planning kind. Maybe they just kept going.

  9 September

  Death in the Café

  Death was enjoying a cup of tea and a bacon roll in a self-service café one morning, minding his own business. In order not to draw attention to himself he had left his scythe in a secure place nearby, and had pulled his hood back from his head. Nevertheless he was aware that he was getting some odd looks and that, although the café was busy, people were avoiding his table.

  He stared out of the window at the passing traffic and pedestrians. Cyclists dodged in and out of lorries and buses. Kids failed to look both ways as they crossed the street. Old dears, no doubt with brittle bones and chest infections, crept along the slippery pavement. Sometimes his presence hardly seemed necessary. But that was the old conundrum: if Death wasn’t around, would death be around?

  He realised that someone had sat down opposite him: a man with a cup of tea and a bacon roll. Death looked at him. The man looked back. He didn’t seem wary as the other customers were.

  ‘All right?’ the man said.

  ‘Fine, thanks,’ Death replied.

  ‘Best bacon rolls in town,’ the man said, and took a bite. He chewed and swallowed, took a mouthful of tea. ‘I know your face,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘You don’t work up at the hospital, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m not long out. Big operation. Wasn’t expected to pull through. Surprised them all.’ He took another bite of his roll, another swig of tea. ‘That’s it. That’s who you look like.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My surgeon. Brilliant man, if a bit gloomy. Saw me before the op, saw me afterwards. Admitted he’d thought my chances were slim. But he went ahead and did it and here I am. Just shows you, eh? And you’re his double. Your eyes. I remember just before I went under, him and the anaesthetist leaning over me. Your eyes and his eyes: identical. You haven’t got a twin brother who’s a surgeon, have you?’

  Death got up to go. ‘As a matter of fact, I have,’ he said. He smiled at this man taking such pleasure in his breakfast. ‘But we are not on speaking terms.’

  10 September

  In the Mirror

  Yesterday, as I was preparing to go out for the evening, I stood in front of the mirror and did not recognise myself. I don’t mean that I thought I was seeing someone else in the reflection. I mean simply what I say: I did not recognise my own appearance. The more I peered, the less I looked like myself. The nose was longer and thinner; the mouth had a different shape, especially when I attempted a smile; and the eyes were cold and demanding, like the eyes of a man – a teacher, perhaps, or a policeman – who has been waiting too long for some explanation. Yet I knew I was not looking at another man. The reflection was only a reflection, and when I stepped away from the mirror it vanished. When I returned, so did it. What puzzled and disturbed me, though, was that one could inspect oneself so intently and not know what was going on behind one’s own exterior.

  I remember another occasion, decades ago, when I looked in the mirror and saw, for the first time it seemed, my father staring back at me. That, in retrospect, was not surprising, although it was discomforting: we all harbour within us vestiges of our ancestors, and, sooner or later, we become them. But to look at myself without recognition, without realisation or revelation, this was new and unexpected. Who was this silent interrogator, and what was he expecting me to tell him? There was, surely, nothing I could tell him, for he already knew it all.

  But what did he know? Something that I did not? His cool regard suggested that I had forgotten or failed to produce some vital information. And he was waiting. I had a sudden understanding that he had always been waiting. I did not recognise myself, but he recognised me, and he despised me.

  All my adult years were wiped out. I was a child again, faced by this combination of teacher and policeman: all the things I should have learned, all the things I should not have done.

  It was time to go. I had an arrangement to meet a woman who thought she loved me.

  11 September

  A Dream of Insecurities

  They were sitting in big armchairs in a circle in the middle of a dusty school gym: Arthur, Sarah and Martin, and a man with a neatly trimmed beard whose face was familiar. I didn’t realise I was part of the meeting until Arthur, looking directly at me, asked if we were all up to speed on everything. Martin and Sarah said they were. The notebook on my knee was blank but I said I was too. I added that I’d have to leave soon because I had a stack of work to get through. Arthur said, ‘That’s fine, just go when you need to.’ He was very focused. We knew his wife was dying but nobody mentioned it.

  The problem was: how to save the National Circus. That was why I recognised the man with the beard: he was the ringmaster. I looked around for his top hat but couldn’t see it. Arthur suggested there might be scope for linking up with other circuses. Sarah said, ‘Maybe we have to examine what a circus is for.’ Martin seemed
unhappy and the ringmaster was angry. Nobody was taking minutes of the meeting. I closed my notebook and put it quietly away in case that was supposed to be my job. The ringmaster said, ‘An industry is not one hundred people all doing the same thing. An industry can be one person with one idea.’

  I said I’d be back soon. They were still talking when I slipped out. I found the car and drove the sixty miles home. The roads were greasy. When I arrived people were sitting on the stairs discussing matters of great importance. I picked my way past them carrying a full kettle. The courtyard was wet and I was in my socks. I had to go back up the stairs to get my shoes from the car. By the time I returned someone had moved the kettle. I took it to my room. The door was open. I knew I had locked it. My mail was in a neat pile. Someone had been in there. I had so much to do, so many things to organise. I felt guilty and inadequate.

  12 September

  Voyager

  If we had been there, we would have battened down for the storm. We would have read our instruments, recognised that something was changing. We’d have tightened locks, checked seals, strapped ourselves in. Such basic, human, futile precautions. And then, even at the incredible speed at which we were travelling, we might have felt something: the solar wind easing, the particles slowing in their flight from the now distant sun. Yet our motion would not have eased, would not have become smoother. New forces buffet and rock us. We enter an area of greater turbulence, as the sun particles collide with other matter about which we know almost nothing: the constituent matter of deep space. But we must have faith, alone in this cosmic vastness in which the very notion of faith is impossible. We must believe what our science tells us, that beyond the tempest lies a balance, an equalisation of pressures, and beyond that a shift in the wind, a new impetus, a thrust into forty thousand years of sailing in the dark. This is the moment of departure, from one room of life into another room. What it contains we do not know, can hardly dare to guess. We are going behind the curtains of eternity.

  If we had been there, we would have waved farewell to Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Mercury long ago. A lifetime before, we’d have gazed with an aching in our hearts at the pale blue dot of our birthplace. The blueness of oceans, the white streaks of cloud, the moss-green patches of continents – the bowling-ball of swirls and flourishes – all these would have faded to vague memories, concentrated into that single uncertain dot. And then it too would have left us.

  If we had been there? But we were. We are. The signals keep coming, seventeen hours, a day’s journey away, but they keep coming. We send them and they keep coming back. And they tell us about ourselves. They say, Look, we are going. We don’t know where to, but we are going. Look, we can watch ourselves go. We can watch ourselves being left behind. Look, the signals say. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. Goodbye.

  13 September

  On the Blue Wing

  Standing out on the blue wing you waited for the ball. The hailstones kept coming and if the ball came it would be from the same direction, so you kept watch for it. The hail struck you in the face, blast upon blast. Your shirt was soaked. Some boys did up the top buttons of their shirts but that was an admission of weakness. Your shorts were soaked. You weren’t allowed to wear anything under them. You clenched your hands into raw, pink fists. If the ball came you would have to catch it with the fingers you couldn’t at that moment feel.

  The pitch was marked out with creosote lines burned into the grass. At each end were goalposts like white gallows. The pitch was in a field that sloped diagonally towards you. If the ball came you would have to run with it, uphill into the hail. In summer the field was for cows but in winter it was for boys playing rugby.

  The French master was on the opposite touchline roaring at the forwards, eight small boys against eight other small boys. He always shouted the same thing. It was either ‘Feet, feet, feet!’ which made sense if he wanted the forwards to kick the ball, or ‘Vite, vite, vite!’ which made sense if he wanted them to do it quickly. In his big duffel coat he seemed oblivious to the weather.

  No matter from which side of the mess of bodies that was the two opposing scrums the ball emerged, it seldom travelled beyond one fly-half or the other. One fly-half or the other either kicked it or ran with it till he was tackled and the scrummage reconvened.

  You were always on the wing, there was always hail, sleet or rain, the ball never reached you. Then once it did. It came in slow, looping passes from fly-half to inside centre to outside centre and as you staggered uphill it met you. Your numb fingers stretched for the sodden lump of leather, failed to hold it. The referee blew his whistle. ‘Knock on, scrum down, red ball!’ he shouted.

  You never did discover what it was the French master shouted.

  14 September

  The Gaelic Poet

  for Aonghas MacNeacail

  ‘The bloke in the leather jacket,’ Alex Mather said. ‘No, over there, by the newspapers. With the satchel thing. Isn’t that the Gaelic poet?’

  ‘What Gaelic poet?’ Jill Mather said, taking the last of the groceries from the trolley.

  ‘You know, the famous one. Not the really famous one, he’s dead. The one with the beard. Cooshie Doo they called him, when he was young. Then his beard turned white so now they call him Cooshie Ban. “Doo agus ban” – that’s “black and white” in Gaelic. Isn’t that him, with the beard and glasses?’

  Alex was now openly pointing at somebody.

  ‘I do see a man in a leather jacket,’ Jill said. ‘And with a beard and glasses.’

  ‘Aye, is that him, the Gaelic poet?’

  ‘He’s also wearing a turban.’

  ‘Aye, that one.’

  ‘Alex, he’s wearing a turban. He’s a Sikh.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Would you like some help with your packing?’ the lad on the checkout asked Jill.

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ Alex said, already in position. He began piling tins, bottles and fruit into their bags for life.

  ‘Can you not be a bit more careful?’ Jill said.

  ‘So, what are you saying?’ Alex replied, easing off a little on the packing frenzy. ‘He’s a Sikh because he’s wearing a turban? That’s quite an assumption you’re making there. I mean, you could legitimately argue he’s wearing a turban because he’s a Sikh, but not the other way round. Doesn’t follow. That’s like if you saw me wearing a kilt then I’d have to be a Scotsman. I am, of course, but not because I’m wearing a kilt, which I’m not. Are you with me?’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes,’ Jill said. She put her card in the machine and entered the PIN number.

  ‘I’ll just nip over and check.’ He was off before she could stop him.

  She shook her head at the checkout lad. ‘Don’t ever grow into one of those,’ she said.

  Alex caught up with her at the exit, where the charity bucket people lie in wait.

  ‘No, I was right,’ he said. ‘ “Camera ahoo?” I said, but I didn’t get any response. Clearly doesn’t speak a word of Gaelic. It’s not him at all.’

  15 September

  A Hard Man

  He sits at the end of the bar drinking, but you never see him take a drink. You never see him lift the glass. There are only so many times you can look at him, and never for very long. His hand does not touch or play with the glass: the small plain tumbler that you know contains whisky because every so often the barman puts another, identical tumbler to the optic under the two-litre bottle of Bell’s, sets it down in front of him and removes the now empty glass. But when did he empty it? You never see him take a drink.

  Whisky. No water. This is not for show. This is how he drinks and what he drinks. He does not drink to get drunk. He does not drink for pleasure. He drinks because he is in the bar and the bar exists for him to drink in. He does not move. He does not go to the toilet. He does not hand any cash over to the barman.

  He observes. He has clocked, assessed, filed every other person in the bar. There are not many on this dull, quiet
afternoon. You. Him. Two women talking in a corner. Two men playing pool. All quiet and careful. Nobody wishing to disturb him.

  The left hand hangs limp from the wrist. You watch it to avoid being caught watching his face. The hand, its limpness, fascinate you. A wrong signal. Someone who misread that signal could end up very badly hurt. It is a trap, a lure.

  This is a very hard man. You and everybody else in the bar understand this. The women speak so quietly they could be mumbling prayers. The pool players click the balls home apologetically, without triumph, without raised voices. As for you, you sit with your paper, not reading a word of it. You must not meet his eye. The barman replaces his drink. You still have not seen him touch the glass. You look away. You want to drink up and leave but you can’t. He has not, with a nod or a glance or a movement of that limp hand, given you permission to go.

  16 September

  Jack and the Moon

  Jack is leaning out of his window one night, admiring the full moon, which is even brighter and bigger than usual. He feels he could reach out and touch it, so he does. He reaches out and touches it and the moon falls from the sky right into his open arms.

  To his surprise it isn’t round like a ball. It’s a huge yellow disc made out of some kind of heavy parchment, with pencil marks on it for the mountains. Jack lays it on his bed. The room is filled with a wonderful, cool, soothing light.

  ‘What are ye up tae, Jack?’ his mother shouts from her room.

  ‘Just closin the windae, Mither,’ he said. He folds the moon and puts it in the drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe. Then he gets into bed and tries to sleep, but he’s feeling guilty about touching the moon, so he stays awake all night.

  The next morning there’s consternation because the moon fell out of the sky and no one knows where it went. The tides have stopped working and the sea is dead calm and everybody’s asking what happened – everybody except Jack. Whenever he creeps up to his room and opens the drawer there’s the folded moon giving off its beautiful glow, but each time it’s a wee bit dimmer, and Jack understands that the moon is dying because like everything else it needs the sun to live.