‘Wage?’ says Jack. ‘Ye mean the Queen wid pay my fares, buy me a uniform and pit a roof ower ma heid and three meals a day, and forbye aw that she’d pay me a wage?’
‘Certainly,’ says the sergeant.
‘Whit for wid she pay me a wage?’ says Jack.
‘Why, for fighting for your country,’ says the sergeant.
‘Fechtin?’ says Jack. ‘I’m no a fechter.’
‘We’ll make you one,’ says the sergeant. ‘A big, strapping lad like yourself.’
‘Ah,’ Jack says, ‘but if ye didna mak ony fechters there wid be nae fechtin, and if there wis nae fechtin the world wid be a better place. So will ye thank the Queen for me, but I’ll no tak a shilling frae her, and she’ll save aw the ither money she wid hae spent on me, and we’ll aw be happy.’
The sergeant marched off in a very foul mood.
‘Except yersel, that is,’ says Jack under his breath.
30 October
The Haunted Face
We were happy, content, relaxed. You might even say we were feeling good about ourselves, although we were always careful to guard against complacency or smugness. Perhaps the fact that we guarded against such feelings indicates that we were sometimes too pleased with our lot. I hope not. We knew we were lucky. We counted our blessings. We knew it might not always be like this.
We’d been at a charity event. The money was going to a school for orphaned Dalit children in India. Once these children would have been classed as ‘untouchable’ but legally there is no such thing as untouchability in India today. However, old attitudes remain, and discrimination continues. The children in the school received care and love. Their future contained possibilities.
A fair amount of money had been raised for the school. We had contributed our share. After the event was over we went to our favourite restaurant for something to eat. We had two courses and a bottle of wine. The cost was about half of what we had donated to the charity.
Our walk home took us along the city’s most upmarket shopping street. The mannequins in the windows were wearing extremely fashionable clothes, so expensive that the prices were not displayed. If you are concerned about the price, the message was, don’t even think about coming in.
It was not a cold night, but it was raining lightly. A young man without a coat approached us. I say ‘young’ but close up his face was lined and worn, and yet he did not look more than thirty. He asked me for money. I did not have any money. ‘Sorry,’ I said. I had given the money in my wallet to the charity, and we had paid for our meal with a credit card. We passed him by, and he shrugged as if he was well used to being refused. No doubt he would ask again, and again.
A haunted face. Whatever had happened to bring him to where he was, was with him still. It might be with him till he died. He looked like a man unloved, uncared for, without possibilities. We did not help him.
31 October
The Affair
Rachel and I were having an affair. It was a secret. It was so secret that even we didn’t know we were having it. We worked together, played together, slept together. Every time we had sex we erased it from our memories. Then we went home to our respective spouses.
We worked in journalism. The most important part of our work was to discover the secrets of famous people and write about them. For example, if they were married or in long-term relationships and we discovered that they were having affairs then it was our job to expose them as hypocrites and liars. Their secrets were not safe with us.
Our secret was safe with us because (a) we were professionals and always protected our sources and (b) we did not know about it. We were professionally cool, that is to say we kept our emotions in the fridge and took them out only when we had sex. Afterwards the emotions went back in the fridge and, as they cooled, the fact that we were having an affair ceased to be a fact. We erased it from our memories. Then we went home to our respective spouses.
Things went wrong when I decided to end the affair. I took this decision because I could see that there was a danger of it becoming less secret than it was. If this happened, we would be the first people to know about it. This would be dangerous because we would not be able to continue our important work exposing famous people as hypocrites and liars without ourselves being accused of hypocrisy and lying. This would be difficult, though not impossible, from a professional point of view.
Rachel said she did not want our affair to end but she did want it to remain secret. She said she loved me. This was an impossible situation, from a professional point of view. We met to talk it over. One thing led to another and we had sex. This time we could not erase it from our memories, and indeed we remembered all the other times we had had sex as well.
When I got home the fridge needed defrosting.
NOVEMBER
1 November
The Acknowledged Expert
The Professor stood clapping like some circus animal, peering over his glasses to make sure that everybody else was doing the same. When the applause died down, he spoke.
‘Thank you, Dr Saunders, for such an engrossing and, ah, stimulating lecture on one of the undoubted geniuses of our literature. It is customary on these occasions for the guest speaker to take, ah, questions, and you have already intimated that you are willing to, ah, do so. Perhaps I might take advantage of my position as departmental head, as well as convenor of this seminar, to pose the first one?’
‘Just get on with it,’ Dr Saunders said encouragingly.
‘Ah, quite. I was surprised by your suggestion, made almost in passing, it seemed, that Austen coined many new phrases. This is not something one associates with her. Shakespeare, Milton, Spenser, yes – but Jane Austen? Could you perhaps elaborate?’
Dr Saunders rose again.
‘There are countless examples,’ she said. ‘Austen gave us so many expressions – either new words or words used for the first time with a particular meaning. Thanks to Austen we have “macaroon”, “life cycle”, “bedroom eyes”, “crampon” …’
‘ “Crampon”?’ the Professor queried.
‘Yes, in Persuasion. After Louisa Musgrove falls at the Cobb Mr Elliot remarks rather unpleasantly that she should have been wearing crampons.’
‘Oh, I’d, ah, forgotten that. Any others?’
‘Yes, “double jeopardy”, “jumpsuit”, “chainsaw” …’
‘ “Chainsaw”?’
‘Actually, no, that was Ann Radcliffe in The Romance of the Forest. I meant to say “internal combustion engine”. That occurs in Mansfield Park, when Henry Crawford says to Maria Bertram that he can sense that her heart is purring like one.’
‘Like an “internal combustion engine”? Are you quite sure? I can’t help thinking –’
‘Chapter 34,’ said Dr Saunders. There was a furious turning of pages.
‘Well, you are, ah, the acknowledged expert on Austen,’ the Professor said. ‘You have, after all, written fifteen books on different aspects of her work.’
‘Sixteen,’ Dr Saunders said. ‘My latest is out next month.’ She stared at the serried ranks as if daring anyone to challenge her. ‘ “Serried”,’ she said. ‘That’s another Austen coinage. As in “serried ranks”. It’s in The Watsons. Any other questions?’
Not one was forthcoming.
2 November
Outside the Bookshop
Returning to work after my dinner break, I heard an exchange between two women who were going by the shop entrance.
‘Have you ever been in there?’ one said. Her companion paused, turned and looked at the display of books in the window. Her expression was one of timidity, even of fear. It was as if she often passed that way but usually averted her eyes; as if the shop were a forbidden zone, possibly injurious to one’s health.
‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s an awful dear library. The books in there are awful dear.’
‘Aye,’ her friend said. ‘I’ve heard that too.’
They stood, taking quick glances at the cov
ers so that (it seemed to me) they could not be accused of letting their gaze linger on sensitive or incriminating material. I thought of Russians going past the Lubyanka in the days of Stalin, nervous that someone might decide to take them inside, an irrevocable crossing of a terrible threshold.
The women moved on down the street.
I was late, or I’d have gone after them. ‘Excuse me?’ I’d have called in a friendly, unintimidating way, as if one of them had dropped a glove. When I had their attention I’d have asked the second woman why she’d called it a library. Did she think, if she went to a library, that she would have to pay to read the books? ‘This is a bookshop,’ I’d have said, ‘and yes, the books are for sale, but they’re the same price here as they are anywhere. Some are cheap, some are dear. This is where I work. Please don’t be afraid. Come in, let me show you round.’
But they were away. A missed opportunity. What appalled and ashamed me was that they were afraid. Books had the opposite effect on me: they liberated, delighted, attracted, informed me. But the bookshop made those women feel frightened, suspicious, excluded, inadequate. And what did they know about libraries? Did they have anyone who could take them to their local library and show them the worlds it contained? Did they know that a library was not dangerous, but a place of safety? That there they could make a start?
3 November
Inside the Bookshop
A man came to the sales counter. He wore a dark blue raincoat and his thickly oiled hair was dark and bluish too. He eyed me doubtfully, as if it were unlikely that I would be able to help him.
‘Do you have any non-fiction books?’ he asked. At least, that’s what I thought he said.
‘Plenty,’ I said. ‘Most of our books are non-fiction, in fact, apart from the fiction of course. Are you looking for anything in particular?’
‘Non-fiction,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for non-fiction.’
In retrospect, I can see how we got off on the wrong foot.
‘History, biography, science?’ I prompted.
He did a good impression of a saucepan about to boil over, then calmed down and said with measured emphasis, ‘Gay non-fiction.’
‘Of course,’ I said. All now seemed clear. I asked him to follow me and went to the appropriate section of the shop.
‘Just ask if I can help any further,’ I said, and left him to it.
He was back at the sales counter a few minutes later. He waited until no other customers were nearby.
‘That’s no use,’ he whispered. ‘That’s all about homosexuals. I’m not wanting that at all.’
‘You definitely said gay non-fiction, didn’t you?’ I asked.
Again I thought the lid was about to come off the saucepan, but the moment passed.
‘Nun fiction,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Fiction about nuns. Gay nuns.’
We had a shelf of erotica after the Zs in fiction. In fact, after the short-story anthologies and other odds and ends that couldn’t be easily alphabetised. I took him there and suggested he have a browse.
He returned almost immediately, looking shocked.
‘That’s pornography,’ he said. ‘Do you have a film section?’
We did, but he didn’t want, it transpired, books about cinema. He wanted actual films – DVDs – about gay nuns. Joyous, cheerful, happy nuns. He wanted books about them too. He’d read Black Narcissus and seen the film, he’d read The Nun’s Story and seen that film, and he wanted some light relief. Happy nuns. Not necessarily fun-loving nuns, he said, but happy ones. Nuns happy in their vocation.
He had been right all along. I couldn’t help him.
4 November
Dental Practice
Janice imagined her mouth must resemble the cutlery basket of a dishwasher. From her limited perspective what appeared to be fairly major scaffolding projected from the left side, while what could well have been a radio mast rose from the right. Her mouth had been open so wide and for so long that she thought her jaw must have seized up. The pump sucking out excess fluid was still gurgling away, but she could also hear the dentists – five of them, she reckoned, although there had been numerous comings and goings – conferring in low, competitive tones.
She was in for bridge work, but each time a different head loomed over her and some new bit of ironmongery was inserted, she thought that the job might have expanded to include a motorway, shopping mall and adventure playground. The dentists seemed nervous, tentative, yet determined in their concentration. They also seemed to have forgotten she was there.
‘Lower-right six,’ said Mr Granger, who had started the work but then called in his colleagues for backup. ‘I’ll go for a clamp there.’
‘Not a chance,’ said a woman Janice had never seen before. ‘You’ll never get a grip on that.’
‘Just watch me,’ said Mr Granger, and Janice felt something new being applied to a part of her mouth she would have sworn was already full.
‘Impressive,’ said a bald man with a light on his forehead. ‘Upper-right three,’ he continued. ‘Excavator.’
‘No way!’ came a chorus of disbelief. Again a face loomed, and again she felt something metallic probe a place which she had assumed was taken up by a pylon.
Now it was the woman’s turn. ‘Cavity at lower-left four,’ she said. ‘I’ll try a skin hook there.’
‘Ooh, high risk,’ said Mr Granger.
‘Go for it,’ the bald man said.
Janice wanted to protest, but her mouth was too full and her throat too dry to permit speech, and she had a horrible feeling that if she moved she would swallow something sharp. She gave a feeble, pleading kind of grunt.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Mr Granger. ‘Okay, another round, folks?’
‘Why not?’ the woman said. ‘One probe per player?’
‘You’re on,’ said the bald man.
5 November
Fireworks
I’m not keen on fireworks – never have been since the November night a rocket, launched horizontally in an Edinburgh street, nearly took my face off. I was a postgraduate student, walking home from the university library after a long day’s research, when there was a flash and something passed about six inches in front of my nose, going at such a rate that the whooshing noise it was making followed a moment later. I was tired but reacted instinctively. Ahead in the gloom two figures raced away up the pavement: I took after them. I must simultaneously have let out a yell, partly of fright, partly of rage. I was in my mid-twenties, and fit, and I began to overhaul them. I was conscious of someone running at my side, another man who had seen what had happened. We said nothing – there was nothing to say – but bore down on the fleeing figures until they were within grabbing distance. We grabbed.
They were kids, eleven or twelve years old. The shock of my narrow escape kicked in and what came out of my mouth was mostly shouting and swearing. One of them clutched a plastic bag, full of fireworks – whether bought or stolen I didn’t care. ‘Aw, no, mister, dinnae take them, I’m sorry, we’ll no dae it again.’ ‘You’re right there,’ I said. The other man searched the second lad and found his pockets crammed with squibs and bangers. We took the lot, told them they were lucky we weren’t calling the police. They were close to tears. We let them go.
‘You all right?’
‘Aye, thanks. Here, I don’t want these. You want them?’
He didn’t, but he took them anyway. Perhaps he saw from my face that the thought of setting them off made me feel sick.
That’s one reason why I don’t much like fireworks. The other is, they bore me. They’re so transient: a brief moment of glory, then gone. Friends say that’s the whole point: fireworks are like butterflies, beautiful in part because of their impermanence.
I can admire a butterfly, recall its loveliness, but the only firework I can clearly recall is the one that nearly blinded me.
6 November
Incredible
‘Let me say first of all, before I answer the question, that I am incredib
ly proud of our armed forces. No, it is relevant. They do an amazing job, often in incredibly difficult circumstances, and I think we should all be incredibly grateful for the way they defend our freedoms and for the sacrifices they make on our behalf.
‘Yes, I am coming to that, but I also want to say how incredibly sorry I feel for the workers who have been made redundant. I don’t think any of us here today should feel anything other than incredible sympathy for the situation they find themselves in, through no fault of their own. I have met some workers, just as I have met some members of our armed forces, and I feel incredibly proud to have met them and proud that I can feel incredibly grateful to the armed forces and at the same time incredibly sorry for the workers. I also feel incredibly grateful to the workers for the way they have worked until now on our behalf, and incredibly sorry for the armed forces who sometimes don’t receive the gratitude they deserve from every one of us.
‘Yes, I am just about to answer it. May I say before I do, though, on a personal note, that I have personally received incredibly brilliant care from the doctors and nurses of our National Health Service? I am incredibly grateful to the doctors and nurses and I am incredibly proud of our amazing health service, our brave armed forces, our hardworking workers whether they have been made redundant or not, and incredibly proud too of being able to represent and serve my constituents and my country. I think that gives an indication of what motivates me to do the job I do. I am incredibly patriotic and incredibly proud of my patriotism, not least because of the amazing job our armed forces, nurses, doctors and other workers do, often in incredibly difficult circumstances. And this is why I have made my position absolutely clear, and I think it is unreasonable to imply that I was trying to avoid doing so when I have just done so.’
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