They Do the Same Things Different There

by They Do the Same Things Different There (v5. 0) (epub)

  “I’ll unplug this one, put the new one in. My God, it’s ancient. You said yourself, it was broken.”

  “I said it was bleeding,” said Ernest. “Not broken. Look at the bowl underneath.” But, of course, he’d just changed bowls, this one was fresh and clean. “I said, don’t!” he said, more sharply, and pushed his son back. Billy looked at him in surprise. “I bought that with your mother,” he said. “I bought it with her.”

  Billy stared at his father for a few seconds. “I miss her too,” he said at last.

  “You have no idea,” Ernest almost spat. “You have no idea. You had your wife, what was her name . . . ?”

  “Jane.”

  “Jane. That’s it. And then you threw her away. Her and the grandchildren, you threw her away. And now you’re here with another woman, and children who aren’t even your own. It’s all fucked up.”

  “Dad, Graham’s still here, he can hear you. . . .”

  “It broke your mother’s heart. It did. She said to me, why’d he sling her out, Ernie, why’d people just sling things out? She never forgave you, you know. Not ever. Not even when she died. The last thing she said to me, and I was there when she died, I stood over her, she said, I’ll never forgive Billy, never.”

  Billy breathed long and hard through his nose. Ernest wasn’t sure if the boy was going to cry or punch him. One or the other, he thought, do get on with it. This kid of his, this kid who had kids of his own, and kids that weren’t even his own, what sense did that make? This kid of his, who looked like Lizzie reassembled by an idiot.

  But the Lizzie look-alike didn’t cry or punch; he finished that funny breathing thing, then bent down, back toward the television. “We’ll just swap these over,” he muttered. “Then we’ll get out of your way.”

  “Don’t touch it,” said Ernest. “You’ll hurt it. It’s sick. If you must give me a television, for God’s sake, put it in the kitchen.”

  Billy straightened up. “You don’t want a TV in the kitchen, Dad. This would be much more comfortable. With your nice chair, look. . . .”

  “There’s a perfectly nice chair in the kitchen. I want it in the kitchen. Leave my old set alone. Put the new one in the kitchen.”

  “William, just put it in the kitchen, if that’s what your father wants.” So said the non-wife, stepping back through the door.

  “Right,” said Billy. “Of course. Fine.” And he picked the new TV up, carried it downstairs without another word.

  There was silence in the sitting room as Billy worked away. “Thank you, Jane,” said Ernest at last. The woman ignored him.

  “Mummy, I’m bored,” said a child, who may or may not have been the one called Graham.

  “I know. We’ll be going soon.”

  And indeed they were. “That’s the answering machine plugged in,” said Billy. “And the TV. Shall I show you how to. . . .”

  “No,” said Ernest. And he closed the door behind them.

  Ernest all but ran upstairs to the sitting room, as fast as his hip would allow. “I’m sorry,” he said to the television. “We’re alone now, I’m sorry.” There was still no blood in the Tupperware bowl, and for a moment Ernest thought his poor patient had come to no further harm.

  But when he turned it on, he saw that the snowy fuzz that was BBC1 was no longer just grey. It was red too. And getting redder. All the dots of static fizzing in a frenzy, punching themselves against the screen, punch punch. And Ernest watched with horror as the screen began to bulge out under the pressure of them all, and a hairline fracture traced its way from one diagonal to the other, and then. . . .

  . . . Out gushed the blood. Red and black, thick and coppery. It exploded out, over the room, over Ernest. “Oh dear!” he cried, and then, because he’d let it out anyway, so why not?—“This is fucked up, this is so fucked up.” It felt good to say that, to admit that truth at last after so many months of pretending everything wasn’t fucked up, he felt so much better as he stood in the centre of his sitting room, his pyjamas dripping with the blood of an elderly television set. He even allowed himself a smile.

  Ernest waded over to the TV. “Do you feel better now too?” he asked, putting his arms around it soothingly. “There, there,” he assured it, “better out than in. It’ll be all right now.”

  He felt he should dry himself off, but knew too that it would be heartless to abandon his poor television when it was suffering so badly. How would it look, he being so perfectly well and happy, to be worried about his personal cleanliness of all things? And it wasn’t unpleasant, this sensation of blood, on his hands, in his hair, even in his mouth: it warmed him, calmed him. So he stayed in the room. The blood could wait, all this mess, the gunk over him, over the new answering machine (was it?), over Lizzie’s favourite armchair . . . He wouldn’t abandon the invalid now.

  He remembered how, near the end, Lizzie had begun to cough blood. “Never mind,” she would say, as she would dab at her mouth as pertly as if she’d been eating chicken, “never mind.” But, of course, he did mind, how could he not mind? Sometimes in the night he’d wake next to her, find her pillow drenched in the stuff. She’d asked him to move to the spare room so she wouldn’t disturb him, but he’d refused—he’d wanted to take care of her. And he’d only relented when she’d said it was for her sake, God, please, Ernie, it was for her, it was for her.

  She’d come to his room one night. Stood at the doorway, silhouetted against the landing light. “What is it?” he’d said. “Are you ill?” Which was, even looking back, a pretty stupid thing to say.

  “I don’t want to go back to the hospital tomorrow,” she’d told him. “I’m sick of it. If I go in,” she’d said, “I’ll never come out again. This isn’t how I want to go.”

  “No, Lizzie,” Ernest had said, and then cried. “I can’t do it. I can’t do to you . . . what we did to Blackie. I can’t.”

  She’d climbed into bed next to him. “No,” she’d said. “We could just go, though, couldn’t we? Just get in the car, and go.”

  “Go where?” he’d asked, sniffing away his tears.

  “Somewhere else. Anywhere else. And never come back. No more hospitals. We’ve got lots of money saved, we could have a splurge, couldn’t we? We could splurge it all out.”

  “It’d kill you,” he’d said.

  “Yes,” she’d said. And she’d said no more, but spent that night with him after all. And the next morning he’d taken her to the hospital, just as they’d always planned. And Lizzie had been right—she had never come out again. He wasn’t there when she’d died a few days later. He’d wanted to say goodbye, be beside her bed when it happened. But you can’t be there all the time, can you?

  Ernest woke up, found he’d been dozing again. His television was on, but the static behind the split glass looked reassuringly grey and normal. His stomach growled. “I’m going to get some lunch,” he told the television. “But I shan’t be long. I promise.”

  In the kitchen he found some bread and some butter. Ideal for a sandwich. He also found the new television set. He’d forgotten it was there. “Ugly little thing,” he told it.

  He picked up the remote control, turned it over in his hand. And then—and he didn’t think he’d pressed any of the buttons, but he supposed he must have—the television sprang to life. It was clear and it was sharp and it was colourful, my God, there was more colour on that screen than you got in real life, but principally it was loud. “Shut up,” he told it in alarm. He stabbed at all the buttons he could find. He didn’t hit the one to turn it off, but he did succeed in turning down the volume. “Keep quiet,” he hissed at it angrily. “There’s a sick television up there, and it’s better than you. And I don’t want it getting any funny ideas that you’re its replacement. That wouldn’t be nice, would it?”

  And then he fell silent. Stared at the screen, his sandwich forgotten.

  It was BBC2, and it was the snooker. The table
was green—oh, it was such a green, you could imagine this was a snooker table only played upon by angels! Someone was lining up a shot, and with the perfect clarity of the image Ernest could see it wasn’t Ray Reardon, this man was young and short and scruffy even in his dinner jacket.

  But it was the balls. The white and the black and the pink and the . . . so many reds, so many, all like the apple the Wicked Queen gave Snow White in that film, but nine of them, so plump and shiny and red you could bite them. He looked at the red on his arms and clothes, the blood from upstairs, and it wasn’t nearly so impressive.

  The snooker player sank a red. And then a brown. Everyone applauded. Ernest had to sit down.

  All these years, with his black and white television, he’d never been able to tell the red and the brown apart. It had caused some confusion. But Ernest knew that you could work out which was which, so long as you were patient, so long as you used your brain. The brown was put back up on the table, but the red, once potted, stayed down. Not knowing whether the player had miscued as he cannoned into the ball in question lent an extra soupcon of suspense to the game that Ernest knew he wouldn’t have experienced seeing the game live—his snooker, in all its monochrome ambiguity, was better. And here was this new television. This colour television. Making it all so easy. Explaining everything. As if its viewers were children. Idiots. To be patronized. Ernest looked around the kitchen, considered the rows of Tupperware bowls he’d been using. No, he’d need something heavier. The saucepan, that would do. He drove it hard into the television screen. Into all its colour and clarity and condescension. It fizzed and popped and banged.

  When he went back upstairs, he saw that the snooker was playing on his black and white set as well. Though he hadn’t changed channels, as far as he could remember. But it was a different game—look, this time it was Ray Reardon. That was good. Ernest preferred Ray Reardon.

  “Hello, Ernie,” said Ray Reardon.

  “Hello, Ray,” Ernest replied.

  “I’m in such pain, Ernie,” said Ray. “So why don’t you take that saucepan of yours, and smash my snooker-playing face in? Put me out of my misery.”

  “All right,” said Ernest. And he lined up the saucepan, as if swinging a golf club. Come on, Ray gestured, come on, it’ll be all right. And then frowned as Ernest lowered his arms.

  “I can’t,” said Ernest.

  “Why not? You murdered that TV downstairs.”

  “I know,” said Ernest. “But I can’t. I can’t let you down the way I did Blackie. Or the way I did Lizzie, either. I suppose,” he added, a little embarrassed, “I love you, Ray. I suppose that’s what it is.”

  Ray stuck out his bottom lip, then rubbed his eyes, making boo-hoo gestures. Then he winked to show he was only kidding. And his face faded back into the snowstorm.

  “Bye, Ray,” said Ernest.

  He dropped the saucepan. He knew he wouldn’t be needing it. And he went close to the television, knelt before it. He put his arms around it the best he could, gave a squeeze to its unyielding bulk. “I love you,” he said once more. And he slept happily, a man who feared he’d never love again.

  He was woken once more by the sound of the telephone. He stretched his arms painfully, surprised he’d slept in so uncomfortable a position that soundly. He decided to ignore the ringing, cuddle back next to the television, and snuggle. But the answering machine kicked in.

  “Hello, Dad? It’s me. Look, I . . . I’m sorry about yesterday. I wasn’t in the best of moods, I think, the kids were driving me mad, and I . . . I’m sorry I snapped at you. It was silly. Look, I don’t know but . . . I thought I’d come over again. Just me this time. Would that be okay? Just the two of us. We haven’t talked, not really, I thought we could talk. About Mum, I miss her, you know, I know you do too . . . well, obviously. And I can show you how your new TV works. Hope it’s okay, it’s not new or anything, just an old cast-off, didn’t want to sling it out. And I’ll take away that old one for you . . . I love you, Dad. Don’t say that enough. Must say it more, I think. Love you.”

  And the voice clicked off.

  “Shit,” said Ernest. He looked at the room, all the blood, all the mess. “Shit,” he said again. And then, “Come on, we haven’t much time.”

  The television set wasn’t as heavy as he’d expected. But as for all the leads and plugs—it was like spaghetti back there! Ernest didn’t have time to work out which wire connected to what, just pulled out as many as would set the television free, and hoped for the best. With a grunt, both arms stretched as far around the box as they could go, he took it from the table on which it had sat so many years. And puffing, ignoring the pain in his hands, in his back, the screaming pain in his hip, he edged toward the stairs. One foot shuffled forward, then the other. It looked as if he were dancing.

  When he reached the top of the steps he was able to balance the television on the banister rail, catch his breath. It reminded him of having to carry Blackie to the kitchen all those years ago. “But I’m not taking you to the vet’s,” he promised the set. “You’ll see.”

  Halfway down, the doorbell rang. Ernest froze. Peering through the banisters he saw the face of his son fractured and misshapen through the frosted glass.

  “I’m not letting them take you now,” whispered Ernest.

  Billy had parked out front. But it was all right. It was fine. Because Ernest’s car was in the garage. And he could get into the garage by the side door, and if he were quick, Billy would never notice. His muscles protested—they couldn’t go any quicker. But Ernest insisted. No one else was going to be slung out. There was going to be an end to all slinging.

  “Dad?” he heard, as Billy knocked against the door. “Dad, are you in there?”

  But Ernest had reached the car. He had to set the television down for a moment as he fumbled for his keys—he marvelled at his thin fingers, how bruised and squashed they now looked. But he didn’t feel anything, not a thing. With a final heave, he lifted the television into the passenger seat. Smiled at it. And then, with a sudden wave of concern, he pulled the seatbelt across it. “Got to keep you safe,” he said, as he climbed in next to it.

  “Where are we going?” the television didn’t ask.

  “Somewhere else,” said Ernest. “Anywhere else.” He turned the ignition, the car pulled out of the garage. He thought he caught sight of Billy’s surprised face at the front door, but he couldn’t be sure—he was travelling so fast, after all, so very fast, never faster. “And we’ll never come back,” he said, as he put his foot flat on the accelerator, and sped away onward to freedom.

  THE CONSTANTINOPLE ARCHIVES

  i

  We can speculate, and we can speculate, but the probability is that few of the silent movies made during the siege of Constantinople in 1453 were very much good. And there are clear reasons for this, both political and cultural.

  On the one hand, we have to bear in mind the extremely trying circumstances under which the movies were being filmed. In attacking Constantinople, the Ottoman Turks were also attacking the last bastion of the Roman Empire (if only in symbolic form), a direct line of power that stretched back some two thousand years. It was also the seat of the Orthodox Christian Church, a force equal and opposite to the Catholic Church in Rome. Expansionist wars were two a penny in the fifteenth century, but this was no run of the mill example, it was already rife with meaning, and no doubt the Byzantines under threat would have been only too aware of that. Besides which, on a purely practical level, the constant cannoning of the city walls must surely have been a distraction. Even making silent movies, surely, some peace and quiet is required for concentration’s sake.

  On the other hand, and perhaps more pertinently, Byzantine art had always defined itself by a certain flat austerity. Their mosaics and paintings that we can study today are colourful, but there’s a grim functionality to all that colour: the lines are severely drawn and make the characters d
epicted seem two-dimensional and un-dramatic. It would be foolish to expect that in the creation of an entire new art form several centuries of engrained Byzantine culture would be abandoned overnight. It is unfair to imagine that the clowns who pratfalled and danced and poked each other in the eyes in Constantinople cinema were other Chaplins, or Keatons, even other Fatty Arbuckles. The conditions were wrong. Their genius could not have flowered.

  And yet, of course, we remain fascinated by those movies from the Byzantine age. And again, partly this will be because they were the pioneers, the history of cinema begins here with these shadowy figures by the Bosphorus doomed to be killed or enslaved by the Muslim potentate. But I hope our fascination is not purely academic. That we honour not merely the historical significance of what was invented, but that, with care and study, and an open mind, we try to appreciate the art on its own terms.

  ii

  No entire print of a Byzantine movie survives, and that is to be expected. When the sultan Mahomet II appealed to the Byzantines to surrender, with the promise that their lives would be spared, his terms were rejected. The Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, said that the city could not be yielded, for it was no single man’s possession to yield. And with these brave words he sealed the fate of the fifty thousand inhabitants of Constantinople, and, more importantly, the fate of those few precious cans of film kept within. The Turks had besieged Constantinople for fifty-five days. They were tired and angry. When they broke the defences, as was the custom, the soldiers had permission to ransack and pillage the city for three whole days, taking plunder, razing buildings to the ground, and raping and slaughtering the populace. These were not conditions in which a fledgling film industry was ever likely to prosper.

  And yet, we are lucky. In spite of all, some sequences of film are extant. They are fragments only, most no more than a few seconds long, but they still afford us a tantalizing impression of early cinematography, and what those Byzantine audiences must have enjoyed. One man tries to sit down upon a stool, and a second pulls it away, so he falls to the ground with his legs splayed in the air. A farmer waters his crops with a bucket of water, but a prankster holds it upright; when the farmer pours the bucket over his head to see what’s wrong, he gets soaked. It is not sophisticated comedy, granted, but there is a spirit of mocking fun to it; yes, it plays upon the weak and the vulnerable, but no one gets hurt, no one gets savaged, and certainly no one experiences the sort of carnage that is awaiting them at the end of the siege. Some historians have tried to read a political subtext into the extracts, but I think that can be exaggerated. One of the more (justly) admired sequences is of a beggar, or tramp, who at dinner sticks a knife into two vegetables and proceeds to do a puppet dance with them. In siege times food was scarce, and this flagrant disregard for its value can be seen as something deliberately provocative, a renunciation of the very crisis that would have caused the food shortage in the first place, and thus a renunciation of war. But what attracts us to the film is not its message, but its simple beauty: there is such elegance to the dance, and to the comic conceit of it, and for the duration the tramp smiles out at the viewer in childlike innocence.