365

by James Robertson

  ‘You may laugh at what I am telling you, but just as they say God is not mocked neither is the clootie well. I know of someone who visited one such well. She showed it respect but she came neither to be healed herself nor with a cloot from anybody who was ill, and maybe that was the problem. She took photographs of the tree festooned with cloots, because without question it is a curious thing to see by the side of a road, and before she could leave something picked her up and flung her on her back, and cracked her camera off the tarmac, as much as to say, Don’t think you can come here and take those pictures away without an offering. Well, that tumble gave her a fright and when she got home she checked to see if her camera was still working, and it was, but did she even look at the pictures of the clootie well? She did not. She deleted them. She had been warned, and she heeded the warning.

  ‘I believe that was a wise decision, whatever you think.’

  13 December

  Death, the Shapeshifter

  I don’t know beforehand how I will appear to anyone. This time, next time, sometime, never. He or she? Giver or taker? The English say, ‘He took his own life.’ The French say, ‘He gave himself death.’ It’s a grey area, the English Channel.

  That famous encounter in Baghdad, I was a she, according to common tradition. Or was I in drag? I don’t, honestly, remember.

  Sometimes I feel as if I am going about a big country house, its outbuildings and gardens, snuffing out candles. As fast as I snuff, some other character is off lighting new ones. I look up from a lawn covered in tea-lights and see the silhouette at a window on the upper floor, illuminating an entire corridor with new flames. It isn’t a race, it’s a balancing act, something I often think the lighter of candles fails to appreciate. In this game one should not get ahead of oneself. We have never met.

  I dance a little giddily across the dewy grass, applying my snuffer here and there. Tea-lights flicker. Some recover, others succumb to the draught of my gown. To anyone watching from the house my dance probably appears haphazard. It isn’t. To choreograph randomness takes aeons of practice.

  I am a peck on the cheek, a mild cough. Three ducks on the wall over the fireplace: one falls off, for no apparent reason, and shatters on the hearth. Bullets, blades, gas, bombs, yes, yes, I’ve used all those methods of collection. It’s the details that fade.

  I am a painting by Brueghel, a casual remark by Hume, an unfinished symphony, an unread novel.

  Here’s one I do remember. I am a postman. I have a parcel too big to go through this particular letter box. I ring the bell and half a minute later a woman of about seventy opens it. I hand her the parcel. There’s a clear view down the corridor to the kitchen. Her husband is sitting over his porridge.

  As soon as I see him I know it’s for him I have come.

  By the time she gets back he’s away.

  The parcel was for her. I’ve no idea what was in it.

  14 December

  Nothing was Said

  It wouldn’t have been acceptable for me, a man, to do what was done. It would have been misinterpreted, my motivation questioned. The woman herself would probably have seen me as suspect, even predatory, and so perhaps she should have. Thus I was only a witness, not a protagonist.

  I was on the bus. So often on the bus everybody is guarding his or her personal joys or tragedies. Not this time. The woman was sitting several seats in front of me on the top deck. She had a scarf over her head. I couldn’t tell if she was young or old, I didn’t know what, if anything, the scarf signified. All I could see was that her head was covered, she was alone and she was crying. It wasn’t to draw attention to herself. She couldn’t help it. There she was, on the top deck of a bus, crying her eyes out.

  Five of us were up there with her: myself, a young lad, two women sitting together with various bags of shopping, and another woman by herself. We must all have been aware of the weeping woman’s distress. How could we not have been? I wanted to go to her, ask her what was wrong, but I didn’t go. Her sobbing continued. I looked to the boy: if I couldn’t help her, how could he? I looked to the other woman by herself, willing her to act. She stared out of the window, perhaps nursing a hurt in her own heart. The two shoppers were talking, glancing. I knew they were talking about the one in distress even though they were whispering.

  Then, as if they had reached a joint decision, one of them stood and went to her. She sat down and put her arm round her. That was all. A total stranger. She put her arm round her. And it wasn’t going to stop the tears but it was certainly something.

  My stop was coming up. All our stops were coming up. For a minute, though, it was as if time and travel had stopped. As if there was something shared among us, a possibility, a hope. Yet nothing was said.

  15 December

  The Return of Simon Stoblichties

  Even in December a few tourists still came to see the shrine of Simon Stoblichties. For thirty-seven years the hermit had perched on his platform atop the blasted tree on the peat bog moor, and during those years, and ever since, the village had thrived. The hotels and restaurants did particularly well, especially in the summer months, but there was also a healthy trade in books, postcards and wee figurines of Simon standing in a loincloth, arms outstretched in the teeth of a gale.

  Mrs Kincardigan kept one of the souvenir shops. As she was opening up she saw a man staggering down the street who looked very much like the figurines she sold. He had no shoes, was leaning on a staff and was attired in matted sheepskins. His hair was like six crows’ nests jammed together and his beard was nearly tripping him.

  Now I’ve seen it all, Mrs Kincardigan thought. A tribute band’s one thing, but this is taking a liberty.

  The stranger tottered over and asked for directions to the shrine. ‘I’ve been gone a long time,’ he quavered. ‘That way, am I right?’

  ‘Straight along the road,’ Mrs Kincardigan said. ‘There’s no shuttle bus today. When you get to the car park, follow the path another quarter-mile.’

  ‘And is my old tree still standing?’

  Really, she thought. ‘It fell over,’ she said. ‘There are bits of it in the museum. The new one looks just the same though.’

  He gazed at her through rheumy eyes, as if his mind were elsewhere.

  ‘He wouldn’t be impressed, you know,’ she said. ‘He couldn’t abide flattery. If you want my opinion, you’re insulting the memory of a good man.’

  Now he stared at her with what was presumably meant to be incomprehension.

  ‘But –’

  ‘But me no buts,’ Mrs Kincardigan said. ‘He died long before I even had this shop. Shame on you.’

  She turned on her heel and went in, then moved quickly to a side window to watch him lurch off with his exaggerated limp. She’d a good mind to report him. He almost certainly wouldn’t spend any money.

  Honour without profit? A mug’s game. They’d never catch her at it.

  16 December

  Inside the Whale

  I had been walking a long time. I sat, dozed a while, then I heard the water and was awake again. Water was everywhere, the cavern roofs dripped with it and my feet splashed through salty shallows, but it was a deeper, threatening roar that got me on the move. First came soft, gelatinous tissue, then bony protuberances I had to clamber over. I suppose I kept heading towards the light, a yellowish glow that seemed always to be dimming but never quite went out. It was like walking through constantly parting, pale curtains.

  I entered a long dry section, rising gently. A sweet voice floated down the tunnel. The tune seemed familiar but not the words:

  Frankie and Johnny were lovers,

  So the story goes if it’s true,

  But Frankie got hurt and Johnny got worse

  For breaking that old taboo.

  He was his man,

  Never done him no wrong.

  A guitar was being strummed, simple, slow, bluesy. The tunnel turned and I came on a curly-haired boy bent over his guitar in the curve of th
e wall. He looked up and smiled but didn’t stop singing.

  Frankie went down to the corner Johnny went looking for Frankie,

  To buy his Johnny a hat. Found him under a tree.

  The people disapproved of his attitude, He held his head, ‘Frankie,’ he said,

  They beat him and hurt him bad. ‘This don’t look good to me.

  He was that kind of man, You are my man,

  So they done him wrong. And they have done you wrong.’

  There was something irredeemably sad in the boy’s voice. I had no money for him. I smiled back but he kept on singing, so I walked on up that tunnel, his voice fading behind me. I wondered if the light would ever get brighter, if I would ever get out. I wondered how that boy had got in. I heard the water roar, even as the last verse of his song pursued me.

  The people came back for Johnny,

  Hung him high in that tree.

  Frankie never died, but he cried and cried,

  ‘Johnny come back to me.

  You were my man,

  You never done me no wrong.’

  17 December

  Validity

  There was trouble at the automatic exits. A woman trailing a large suitcase had repeatedly been feeding her ticket into the slot and the barrier had repeatedly failed to open. She moved to the only gate operated by a human being. To this fellow sufferer in the transport system we call life she handed her ticket, and was surprised when he too did not let her pass.

  ‘Your ticket isn’t valid for this station, madam,’ he said.

  ‘Yes it is.’

  ‘No it isn’t. It’s valid for the next station, Arbroath.’

  ‘And this is Dundee,’ she said. ‘Arbroath is further on. A longer journey. I’m leaving the train seventeen miles early, not to mention reducing wear and tear on the seat fabric.’

  ‘Your ticket still isn’t valid here.’

  ‘I live here,’ she said. ‘As it happens I bought a return ticket from Arbroath to Edinburgh, but I actually live here. I’m saving the railway thirty-five miles.’

  ‘Madam,’ the man on the gate said, ‘you bought a discounted ticket valid from Arbroath. The discount doesn’t apply to journeys made to and from Dundee.’

  ‘From and to,’ she said.

  ‘It’s a different journey.’

  ‘It’s the same journey, only shorter. I got on the train later and off earlier. What’s the problem?’

  ‘Your ticket isn’t valid for this station,’ he said again. ‘The ticket you bought was a special offer for customers travelling from Arbroath, not for customers travelling from Dundee.’

  ‘I am not a customer,’ the woman said. ‘I am a passenger. I bought the best-priced ticket available but chose to get off before my final destination. It’s not as if I’m trying to get to Aberdeen on the cheap, is it? I’m not a fare-dodger.’

  He gave her a challenging look.

  She relaunched. ‘Now look. I can’t get back on the train – it’s gone. Are you going to physically prevent me from leaving this station?’

  The man hesitated, then returned to the fray. ‘You’ll have to pay the full return fare to Dundee before you can leave.’

  ‘I refuse. Let me pass.’

  He shook his head.

  She sat down on her suitcase.

  ‘I have a siege mentality when it comes to this kind of thing,’ she said.

  18 December

  The Fairy Knowe

  A boy went to the village shop but there was nothing he wanted there. He walked home through the woods, past a grassy mound known as the fairy knowe, and this reminded him of an old legend about the place. He was standing thinking about this when a girl came along the path towards him.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m looking for the door into fairyland,’ he said, laughing.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I know where that is. It’s hidden away. It’s not here.’

  ‘Show me,’ he said.

  So she took him round the other side of the grassy mound where nobody could see them and she showed him the door into fairyland.

  The next day he walked the same way, and there she was again. And again she took him away to fairyland through the hidden door.

  Days became weeks, and weeks became months, and nobody but themselves knew about their meetings in the woods.

  One day the boy did not appear. The girl waited. She returned the next day but he did not join her.

  On the third day she was coming out of the village shop and the boy was there on the street.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she asked.

  ‘What is it to you where I’ve been?’

  ‘I waited for you at the fairy knowe, but you didn’t come, not today, yesterday or the day before.’

  ‘Then why did you wait? Do I have to see you every day?’

  ‘Do you not want to see me?’

  ‘Perhaps. But you are not the only person I know.’

  ‘Do you not want to go with me to fairyland?’

  He laughed. ‘Oh, fairyland! What’s that?’

  ‘Do you not believe in fairyland any more?’

  ‘No. It’s just a story.’

  ‘But I showed you the door and let you in.’

  ‘That was a long time ago. I’ve grown up now.’

  ‘The first time we met, you laughed,’ she said. ‘You were happy. I made you happy.’

  ‘I’m happy now,’ he said.

  She hurried away, to hide her tears from him. She thought, I will never take another boy to fairyland.

  She did, in time. But she did not expect him to believe in it.

  19 December

  Please Moderate Your Violence

  The film was preceded by a warning that it contained some moderate violence. Twenty minutes in, Thomas was still trying to work out what this meant. Already there had been sounds of explosions and artillery fire, and a panoramic shot of a city under bombardment. The setting was the Second World War: surely violence didn’t get much more immoderate than that? Presumably what concerned the censors – only they weren’t called that, they were called a film classification board – was what the audience was exposed to in close-up, or whether the violence depicted was delivered at a personal level. A bomb exploding twenty miles away might, in this context, be deemed not very violent at all, compared with someone being punched in the face.

  Every time a new scene opened, Thomas was unsettled. Was this when the moderate violence would start? But if it did, when would it be over? The warning had not indicated how much moderate violence there would be. Suppose people went on punching one another for the remainder of the film? Was there a point at which such violence would be reckoned to have escalated beyond the limits of moderation? And if so, did the director know when to call a halt, so that his film could acquire the desired certificate? Or suppose one character was on the receiving end of all the punches? Was that different from the punches being shared out among the entire cast?

  Could you really moderate your violence? Beat someone to within two inches of their life? Could a band of soldiers fight to, say, the fourth last man, then call a halt? Could an air force carry out rug-bombing?

  Stupid questions. After the film, Thomas walked home, still confused. A team of heavy-looking men was approaching him, so he crossed the street, to be on the safe side. In fact the men were off-duty policemen, so of course he would have come to no harm, but he didn’t know that.

  Further down the other pavement, he was confronted by a man suffering a mental illness, who assaulted him, but not so seriously that Thomas was entitled to receive a payment from the criminal injuries compensation board.

  20 December

  Soup

  The rain was on again. Three o’clock and dark already.

  He had half a white loaf in the cupboard, six tins of tomato soup. He was sick of soup but it would have to do. He opened a tin, emptied it into a pan on a low flame, took out two slices of bread.

 
; While he waited, he thought about getting two heats from the soup. One: pour it into a mug and hold the mug in your hands. Two: when it’s cooled enough not to burn your mouth, drink the soup.

  Three heats, if you counted standing over the gas, stirring the pan.

  He’d never been one for conversation, but he spoke now, to keep himself company.

  ‘When we were kids,’ he said, ‘all we wanted was to escape from this. Boys played football to escape. They went to the gym and boxed. Joined the army. Girls went to be nurses. Folk emigrated. Half our street went to Canada, first one couple, then the cousins, then the neighbours. I don’t remember anyone coming back except to get more folk to leave.’

  The orange soup bubbled round the edges. He gave it a stir.

  ‘We had an electric fire. One bar or two bars, that was the choice. So long as you didn’t fall into it you were okay, you could sit over the one bar and get a heat even if the rest of the room was cold. You could give yourself a quick two-bar blast, then switch it back to save on the cost. Now it’s all central heating. What are you supposed to do? Turn all the radiators off except one and stand against it all day?’