So Jack trails down to the sea with the sack and the dog, but he still can’t do the job, so it’s back up to the house they go.
‘It’s hard, Jack,’ his mother says, ‘but the morn’s morn ye’ll hae tae dae it because I’ve tellt ye.’
The next morning, when Jack gets up, the sack is lying by the door. ‘The dug was fast asleep, Jack,’ she whispers, ‘so I just pit her in the sack and tied it. If ye cairry it tae the sea and haud it under, that’ll be the dug drooned.’
Well, Jack lifts the sack on his shoulder and away to the shore again. But he still can’t bear to drown the dog, even though she’s so quiet he thinks she might have suffocated. So he opens the sack to check, because if she’s dead then he’ll not need to drown her, and what is in there but a big round stone wrapped up in a blanket!
Back he runs to the house. ‘Mither, Mither, somebody’s stole the dug!’
‘Naw, Jack,’ she says. ‘Naebody’s stole it.’
In front of the fire is the old dog, snoring away like a train.
‘I was testin ye, Jack,’ she says. ‘I wanted to see if ye’d dae whit I tellt ye.’
‘I doot I’ve failed ye then, Mither,’ says Jack, ‘for I didna droon the dug.’
‘Naw, son, ye didna fail,’ she says. ‘Ye passed. Sit in at the table and I’ll gie ye yer breakfast.’
13 October
Waiting
What he said, I am absolutely clear about this, what he said was that in his father’s house were many TV channels. And he did that thing with his eyes, narrowed them a bit. He said, ‘If it were not so I would have told you.’ I remember that very well because it was quite heavy, like we had to pay attention.
He was going to get the place ready and then come back for us. That is definitely what he said. The funny thing was he insisted we knew the house, and how to get there too. Well, we didn’t. If we did, why would he have to come back for us? We could just turn up, maybe pick up some pretzels and beer en route. And Tom said, ‘No, we don’t know the way,’ and he suddenly went all weird, going on about how he was the way and the truth and if we knew him we must know his dad, and from now on we did know his dad because we’d seen him. Well, we hadn’t. So Phil said, ‘Have you got a picture of him on your phone?’ And it got a bit unpleasant. He said, ‘After all this time, Philip, and you say you don’t know me.’ Which wasn’t what Phil had said in fact, but he wouldn’t let it go. ‘If you know me you know my father,’ he said, ‘so what’s this about showing you his picture?’ He doesn’t like being challenged, that’s the problem. There’s two ways of doing things, his way and the wrong way. But once he calmed down he was dead nice again. His place was our place, anything you want just ask, all that stuff. Which probably means we don’t have to bring anything. And then he was off.
I’d wanted to ask how many TV channels there actually were. And which ones, because a lot of them are crap and we’re going to be there a long time. But because of the way he’d had a go at Phil I didn’t think I could.
Anyway, he’s been away ages. He never gave a time of course, but it’s getting cold out here.
14 October
Old Tom and Liver-Eating Johnson
An old fellow called Tom was, like myself, a regular user of the library. I never knew his surname but the librarians addressed him as Tom and I often saw him reading the papers when I changed my books. He read the local paper, the national dailies and the weeklies – the Listener and the Spectator. Once I overheard one librarian telling another that Tom stayed with his sister who put him out every morning and didn’t let him back till teatime. The library was a place to keep warm and dry yet Tom had a perpetually damp sniff. The librarians’ other name for him, perhaps in ironic reference to his reading material, was the Sniffer.
Tom wore an overcoat that smelled like soup when dry and like a collie dog when wet. Strong though it was, that smell was fascinating to a boy. I used to fill my lungs with it and wonder what it would be like having Tom living in your house. He had a tangled beard and thick, stiff hair sticking out as if in a permanent gale. He was the living likeness of another character in the library, Liver-Eating Johnson.
Liver-Eating wasn’t his original name of course. Neither was Johnson. He was born John Garrison but changed his name after deserting from the US Army during the Mexican War. He headed west and became a fur trapper, and married a woman of the Flathead tribe. One winter when he was away from their cabin a Crow hunting party turned up and murdered her. Johnson went on the vengeance trail, killing Crows wherever he found them and eating their livers, which was a great insult because the Crows believed that organ to be essential for full enjoyment of the afterlife.
Johnson was a legendary figure of the Wild West. He once survived most of a winter on the severed leg of a Crow he’d killed, but his final days were in an old folks’ home in California where he lasted just one month.
I found Liver-Eating Johnson in a book whereas Tom was flesh and blood, but both inhabited the library and I can never think of one without remembering the other.
15 October
Rackwick
The old man was clear: no service, no ceremony, no eulogy. As for his ashes – ‘Let the crematorium dispose of them. That’s what it’s for.’
We remonstrated but he would not relent. ‘If you want to talk about what a pain in the neck I was over a few drinks, there’s money in that jar on the mantelpiece. That’s as much fuss as I want.’
‘You’re not a pain in the neck,’ we said.
‘Don’t be so sure,’ he said. ‘I haven’t told you what to do with the stone yet.’
‘What stone?’
‘The one sitting on the ledge beside the bath,’ he said, ‘next to the soap. Fetch it through.’
Two of us helped him sit up a bit and the third went for the stone. It was beautiful, cream-coloured, smooth but not glossy, perfectly oval, dense and weighty. When you held it, its solidity felt reassuring.
‘It comes from a place called Rackwick, on the island of Hoy, in Orkney,’ the old man said. ‘A long way away. I don’t want to be scattered anywhere, but I’d like that stone returned to its place. The bay is a sweeping curve covered with thousands of stones like that one. It should never have been removed.’
‘If there are thousands still there –’ one of us began, but he held up an admonishing finger.
‘That’s irrelevant. I went there once, fifty years ago, and I took that stone. I should not have done so. I took it out of selfishness because I wanted a physical memento of the place. I always meant to take it back and now it’s too late. But somebody else can go.’
We passed the stone among us. As we did so, aeons stretched before and after the moment of our being together in that room. Its perfect texture and shape were the result of uncountable rollings and rubbings and polishings with other stones, of the washing cycles of innumerable tides.
The old man could no longer hold it, but he let his fingers trail across its surface.
‘Take it,’ he said. ‘I forbid you to take me!’ he added, suddenly anxious. ‘I am immaterial. But the stone must go back!’
16 October
Seeds
She lived at the top of the house, in an attic room with a window that looked out over the garden. Every day she sat in a chair in that window, thinking. She thought aloud, muttering or shouting as ideas formed in her head. All morning words tumbled from her, randomly it seemed, but by afternoon they were beginning to take shape and order. She repeated certain phrases, stopped, and changed what she was saying, so that by evening what had been – to anyone who might have been listening – incoherent nonsense, had become something else, a story that could be followed. But there was no one but herself to follow it.
When she had chewed it over a few times, she raised herself from the chair, reached for the window and opened it. Leaning as far out as she could, she spat something from her mouth.
It is hard to describe what that thing was. Perhaps it was a kind o
f seed. She spat it out as you might the seed of an apple. Sometimes the seed fell into the gutter below, and the rain took it away, through sewers and rivers to the sea, where it turned into a small corked bottle with a message in it. Sometimes it was caught by the wind and was blown into a park or a farmer’s field or a flowerbed outside a factory, where it grew into a poem or a joke. Sometimes it fell into the abandoned garden, where it lay among the huge dandelions and broken, cold frames until it became a legend, a rumour, a fairy tale. Sometimes a bird ate it and it became a song, and later if the bird migrated to a foreign land it would be sung in another language. Every day she spat out a seed.
Nobody visited her. The local children did not dare enter the house. The idea of going up all those stairs to ask for a story was too terrifying. Yet they knew she was there. She would always be there. Long after they had grown up and gone, there she would be, muttering and shouting, and spitting her seeds out of that high window.
17 October
Him
My wife answered the phone one morning. I heard her say, ‘Who?’ and then, ‘Who is this?’ and finally, ‘And I’m the Queen of Sheba,’ before she hung up. When it rang again I said, ‘I’ll get it.’ She said, ‘It’s some joker,’ but it wasn’t, it was him.
‘I love your novel,’ he said. ‘I want to turn it into a movie. Let’s meet.’
‘Sure,’ I said, trying to sound cool while gesticulating excitedly at my wife. ‘When would you like to meet?’
‘Today, midday.’
I looked at my watch. ‘So soon?’
‘I’m in town. I’m leaving tonight.’
‘I shall have to rearrange some other appointments,’ I said.
‘Do that,’ he said.
I mentally scored out boiling the kettle and completing the crossword. He said, ‘Do you know the Botanic Gardens?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The café there? Or perhaps the restaurant?’ I assumed he’d be paying.
‘Neither. We’ll be constantly interrupted. Make your way to the rock garden. There’s a bench. Be on it at midday.’
My wife said I was an idiot for going, but I turned up at the agreed hour and so did he. It really was him. He said again how much he liked the book and that he intended to direct the movie himself and which studio he was going to approach. He was serious. Why else would he have gone to all that trouble with someone he’d never met before?
‘Maybe that’s how he gets his kicks,’ my wife suggested later.
While we were talking a woman loitered in the rock garden, pretending to inspect the plants but drawing ever closer until she was right in front of our bench.
‘Are you who I think you are?’ she asked in an awed whisper.
He gave her that famous scowl. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Okay, sorry,’ she said, and scuttled off.
He shook my hand when we parted. I was hopeful. My wife said I was deluding myself. And, indeed, he didn’t contact me again and the movie was never made. Probably just as well. He wanted the lead part and he wouldn’t have been right for it. Too old, too typecast. He’d have made a mockery of my work.
18 October
The Isle of Dogs
This 1968 classic of science-fiction cinema starred Charlton Heston as a shipwrecked mariner called Soutar and Roddy McDowall as Julius, a cocker spaniel and lecturer in sociology. Although praised for its satirical script and groundbreaking innovations in make-up techniques, it was not a box-office success, and a sequel, Destination Dog Star, was cancelled early in production.
In The Isle of Dogs, dogs have become the dominant species on the planet in a post-apocalyptic future. Humans, who have lost the power of articulate speech and communicate largely through growling, barking, whining and howling, are kept as pets, or reared for particular kinds of employment. As well as pampered lap humans there are sheep humans, hunting humans, racing humans, guide humans, and humans trained for bomb disposal and gruelling manual labour.
Soutar is washed up on a beach after a ferocious storm, the sole survivor of his ship’s crew. He finds himself in a sophisticated canine society ruled by aristocratic poodles and their ferocious Dobermann henchdogs. The Isle’s constitution claims to operate a code of kindness towards lesser species, humans included. As Soutar soon discovers, though, the code is routinely ignored. Cruelty and neglect are everywhere, and ownerless or abandoned humans are captured and held in ‘rescue centres’ – appallingly overcrowded places from which they are transferred to ‘sleep camps’, never to return.
Soutar tries to rouse his fellow humans to rebellion, but they have been conditioned to desire only food, recreational exercise and sex. Frustrated, he strikes up a forbidden relationship with a police dog called Lydia, who introduces him to her uncle, Julius. The trio decide to find out what really happens in the camps where humans are ‘put to sleep’. The camps are actually enormous factories processing humans into dog food. Disgusted at the idea of consuming human meat, Lydia and Julius lead a revolt against the poodles and civil war ensues. Lydia is killed and although Julius’s forces are ultimately triumphant, Soutar realises that he cannot remain on the Isle. He builds a new boat and, with a hand-picked group of house-trained men and women, sets sail for a life elsewhere. The final shot shows two kittens playing in the stern of the vessel.
19 October
Effort
Everything is an effort. Pushing the buttons on the remote control is an effort. Working out if there is anything worth watching on the TV now or in the near future is an effort. Reaching behind the chair for the light switch is an effort. Picking up the paper is an effort. Reading the paper is an effort. Getting from the chair to the dining table is an effort. Going to the toilet is a monumental effort. How did all this happen? Even a few years past – a mere blink of time for one whose father was born at the height of the reign of Victoria – these things were done with hardly a thought as to how they were done. Now, the successful method, the route to achievement, is an achievement in itself. The end is sometimes forgotten in meeting the challenge of the means.
Between showers we take him out in the wheelchair, through the town and across the golf course to the beach. The clocks went back two nights ago, which means that the already shortened days have become shorter. The heat leaves more quickly than the light. The autumn sky is soft, calm, immense, but the air is cold. He feels it closing in on him, and wants to walk.
With the two of us supporting him, one on each side, and my mother now in charge of the empty wheelchair (too heavy for her to push when he is in it), we start back up the road from the beach. This is the greatest effort of all. He manages a hundred metres or so, his breaths shortening and quickening with each step on the gentle slope. We negotiate him back into the wheelchair as the rain comes on, and head for home. By the time we arrive, it’s dry again. Like museum curators manoeuvring a bulky exhibit on loan from some other museum, we get him indoors and into his chair – the one without wheels. Within a few minutes he is dozing.
How tired he must be of all that vast expenditure for such meagre return. And what little extra effort, going up that slope, might have brought a different outcome.
20 October
The Painting and the Book
The room is in darkness.
The painting and the book are in the room. Are the painting and the book in the room?
You enter the room. You turn on the light. The painting and the book are in the room. You see them both.
The painting is on the wall. You are in the room and the painting is in the room. You don’t look at the painting. You look at the painting. Whether you do or don’t, the painting exists.
The book is on the table. You are in the room and the book is on the table. You don’t look at the book. You do look at the book. The book exists, but it is asleep.
You pick the book up, hold it: the book stirs. You put it down: the book sleeps.
You look at the painting. You do not touch it. The painting does not move.
&nb
sp; You sit down, holding the book. You open the book. You read the book.
The book is awake.
When you look at the painting, the painting still has not moved. You like the painting, you admire the painting. The painting has its effects. You are affected by the painting.
When you read the book, the book moves. The black lines and marks form into something else. You have your effects. The book is affected by your reading it.
The book is a process: to, from; from, to. The writer needs the reader needs the writer. The reader needs the writer needs the reader. Without the writer, the book is unwritten. Without the reader, the book is unread. Without the process, the book is asleep, possibly dead.
You put down the book. You look at the painting. You leave the room.
Another enters the room. Another looks at the painting. It is the same painting. Is it the same painting? Another picks up the same book. Is it the same book?
Another leaves the room, taking the book, turning off the light.
The book is read by another elsewhere. Another affects the book. The book has its effects.
The painting is in the room. The book has left the room.
The room is in darkness.
21 October
Porridge
There are only three ingredients in a dish of porridge: oats, water and salt. You can vary the quantity of each ingredient and thus vary the consistency and taste of the porridge, and naturally the quality of both oats and water will affect the final outcome. Most regular makers of porridge, however, have a regular way of going about things. They will use the same kind and quantity of oats, take water from the same source, and add the same amount of salt to the mix. Some will steep the oats overnight, others for an hour before commencing the cooking process. Some will not steep the oats at all. But each individual maker of porridge will follow the same procedure that he or she always follows, day after day.
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