Republics of the Mind

by James Robertson

  * * *

  She felt weak at the thought of trouble between lovers, yet she was not weak. She was deliberately reshaping her life, and she was pushing herself into a phase of it that might very well involve pain and more frustration. For she did not really know if Devlin would respond to her or if she would dare to make a move. Her change was not necessarily his at all. It would be like self-inflicted torture to have him in her thoughts all the time like this, if in fact he was not changing with her, to her. But surely he was – there were too many looks and smiles for her to have misread? And all the time he was in her thoughts. She imagined herself doing the most outrageous, beautiful things to him, her body to his, her mouth on him, his hands on her. She shocked herself with what she would do. There was in fact nothing she would not do!

  Was it wrong to think of someone like that? It wasn’t guilt that made her ask that question, but real concern. It was like an invasion, using someone against their will, or at least without their knowledge. There were social rules as to how you should treat another person, how you had to have their consent – but in your imagination these rules did not apply. You could do anything to them, anything. You could make love to them, or you could hurt them. If you hated them enough, you could even kill them. But mostly, she thought, it must be love. A person had one life, but in the minds of other people they could have more. Dozens, perhaps. Thousands, in the case of someone famous. How many lovers did Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman have, that they knew nothing about?

  Someone you knew. You knew them at your work, or as a friend of a friend. And you made love to them without their knowledge. Did you take something from them when this happened? Could you capture a part of them as they had captured you?

  In Crete she slept with a waiter from the hotel, a beautiful boy who was always in a loose white shirt, on duty or off, cool in his white shirt and moving with the grace of a cat and with soft thick black hair like a cat’s. Probably he had a different girl every two weeks, as often as the package flights arrived and departed, but she didn’t care. (She was careful, but she didn’t care.) It was as if he were part of the holiday, an extra hidden in the small print of the brochure. Louise scoffed at her – going with a waiter was so naff – but he took them both to the best clubs and introduced them to the barmen so that they got their drinks cheap or even free, so she didn’t complain too much. All Louise wanted to do was dance, dance, dance – with Shona, with guys, it didn’t matter – it was as if she was dancing to push everything else in her life to the edges of her consciousness. The dancing was all. Shona’s waiter said he could fix Louise up with one of his friends but Shona said, no, she’s happy, she only wants to dance. Her life wasn’t changing, at least it didn’t look like it. She lived constantly in the present, never thinking either side of whatever three-minute song was playing. All day on the beach she slept. She didn’t even go in the sea.

  Ingrid:

  ‘I’m practically on the wagon, that’s quite a change.’

  Cary:

  ‘It’s a phase.’

  Ingrid:

  ‘You don’t think a woman can change?’

  Cary:

  ‘Sure. A change is fun. For a while.’

  Ingrid:

  ‘For a while.’

  The trouble was, Devlin was attached. He lived with someone. She knew this of course but she couldn’t help herself. Maybe that was where he and her change of mood came together, because she would hardly have begun to think of him in that way, the way that brought on the ache, if he had not one day, in one of their good conversations together, taken her into his confidence and talked about the relationship, explained that it was all but over. So he too was experiencing change. And they did have good conversations at work – but mostly about work, or about the news, or flippant, jokey banter about anything at all – good conversations that suggested even better ones, deep serious ones in other places and long into the night in which they could come to know each other completely. Conversations which would perhaps eventually die away because there would no longer be any need to speak, only to touch, only this deep need to touch.

  ‘It’s good to see you,’ he said, halfway through the morning. ‘And you’re looking fantastic. That’s some tan!’

  ‘Did you miss me, then?’ she said. She asked it lightly, but there was just so much weight in it.

  ‘Of course I missed you,’ he replied, and it seemed to her that he balanced the weight exactly.

  ‘How are things?’ Again, she asked it as casually as she could, but he looked at her in just such a way, and it was obvious he knew what she meant. Things at home. He said, ‘Pretty bad still, I suppose.’ And she said, ‘But you’re sorting something out, aren’t you? You’re doing something about it?’ And he said, ‘Yes, but it’s not easy.’

  ‘It won’t happen itself,’ she said. She was certain about this now, and certain that he would understand. She had this new knowledge inside her, from her own experience. She wanted to set him free too. ‘I know,’ he said.

  Later she said, ‘Let’s go for a drink after work. Come out and talk to me?’ The way she looked at him. She could hardly believe she was being so forward. And neither, apparently, could he. She saw that she had pushed too hard, that he shied away from her, wincing as if she had touched a wound.

  ‘Better not,’ he said. ‘Not tonight. Maybe some other time. Sorry. I just wouldn’t be good company.’

  It was an awkward moment. She said, to cover it over, ‘It’s stuffy in here, isn’t it?’ Her Bergman voice.

  ‘Might be,’ he said, mustering Cary. She slurred the next line:

  ‘What about … we have a picnic.’

  ‘Outside?’

  ‘It’s too stuffy in here for a picnic.’

  He smiled at her, that wounded smile that seemed to be conceding victory to her in some game, and left her at her desk, the cursor on her screen flashing impatiently, midway through a sentence. She sat and stared at the thing flashing faster than the seconds going by, hating its insistent demand on her time.

  And yes, time was passing. It seemed now that it was going by very fast indeed. Suddenly she was afraid. She was fading away – more, much more than just her stupid tan. She looked at the screen, half-expecting to see the text vanish in front of her eyes. She put her fingers to her throat and found a fold of skin under her jaw, slack like the skin of an old woman. She plucked at it, filled with a terrible dread of being old, of not having done all these things. It was not death that she feared, but waiting for death. All she wanted, all she had ever wanted, was to be alive.

  The Jonah

  Billy was on the road, at the edge of it. Shoulders hunched, he waited for something to come out of the mist at him. The rain crept cold fingers down his back. Every so often he sneaked a look over his upturned collar, hoping for a car, lorry, tractor, pushchair – anything that might move them on a few miles. He had been doing this for a long time. It was hard to stay philosophical about it.

  A few feet away Sean hawked and gobbed on the tarmac. Billy heard the splat even through the rain. He heard Sean swear at the weather. If he was expecting sympathy he could forget it. It was Sean’s fault they were stuck where they were and cursing the rain wasn’t going to get them out. Only some total stranger with space in his motor for two men and their rucksacks was going to do that.

  They’d been waiting long enough – nearly two hours since the last cup of tea – and Sean’s patience was exhausted, but Billy’s trust still clung to the cliff-face of fate. Fate would have someone organised. Even now they’d be tootling along, oblivious to their role in Billy’s life, maybe just a few miles to the south. In all the years Billy had hitch-hiked around, home or abroad, he had never not got a lift eventually. He might have been stuck for whole days in some places but he’d always escaped in the end, and this was going to be no exception. Not unless Sean turned out to be some kind of hitch-hiker’s Jonah. Billy had never hitched with him before so he couldn’t tell. But his attitude was all
wrong, and attitude was important if you were going to hitch successfully. You had to do it with optimism, and faith in human nature. You had to have a belief in the logic of coincidences. Positive fatalism. That wasn’t Sean at all. He didn’t think on the big scale like Billy. He didn’t see connections. He just stumbled around life, banging his head and treading on toes. Sean all over.

  And yet he had something, Billy had to concede that. He had the power of persuasion. For example, he’d managed to persuade Billy off course into this vehicle-forsaken hole in darkest Perthshire – or was it still Stirlingshire? – and Billy, the one supposedly with the plan, had fallen for it. He might never have hitched with Sean before but he’d been around him off and on for years and he still hadn’t learned his lesson: it was very hard to say no to him. Correction: saying no to him didn’t make any difference.

  They were headed for pastures new. Forests new. That was the idea. Their old forestry pal Kenny McPhail had beckoned them. He’d phoned Billy at his ma’s house one night from somewhere in the northwest. Billy imagined him there, digging for coins in his jeans pocket, he could see the solitary phone box at the junction of two single-track roads.

  ‘Get your arses up here fast,’ Kenny said. ‘I’ve spoken to the gaffer about yous and if you can get here for Tuesday there’s a good chance of a whole summer’s work.’ A whole summer taking out a semi-mature plantation. Billy smelt the foustiness of old rucksacks, the dampness of mouse-ridden caravans. He said, ‘The both of us?’ and Kenny said, ‘Aye, but tell that bawheid Sean he’s got to behave himself this time. Nae skiving on the job and that.’

  ‘I’ll tell him,’ said Billy.

  ‘Listen,’ said Kenny, ‘better hurry before every other bastard and his dog turns up. That’s my money gone now. I’ve put the word in for yous so you’ll be all right, but try and get here by Tuesday. Wednesday at the –’

  That was Saturday and this was Monday. Two whole days just to go three hundred miles and they’d only managed about sixty so far. Sean was to blame, chasing non-existent women all over the country and dragging Billy along with him. He had no idea about responsibility, and as for urgency, the only time he ever felt a sense of it was if he was taking his breeks off to get his end away.

  They’d got in a carry-out on the Saturday night – it was cheaper than going to the pub – and decided what to do. Billy’s mind was already made up – he was going after Kenny. He’d been taking it easy for too long, signing on, picking up a few bob on the side working for a guy who did house removals. ‘I need to make some real money,’ he said.

  ‘I’m no sure,’ said Sean. ‘I mean, if you’re going up there anyway, I could stick around. Andro’d be wanting somebody else to help him on the van, just a few hours a week like, but it’s all in the hand.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Billy, ‘whereas in the bush …’ They laughed. Sean had this old proverb he liked to trot out: ‘A push in the bush is worth two hand-jobs.’

  ‘Ya fuckin robot,’ he said now.

  ‘No, but,’ said Billy, ‘working for Andro’s all right, but it’s no the same as a wage, is it, even after paying the tax.’

  It wasn’t about money for Sean, it was about a lassie. Billy knew this. She was nineteen years old – six years younger than Sean – and he’d been seeing her for three weeks, a record for him. Billy could see that this was the problem, even though Sean wasn’t admitting it.

  ‘It’s that Susan Donovan, isn’t it?’

  ‘Eh? Fuck off!’

  ‘Aye it is. Her with the three big brothers.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Nothing. Just, you fancy a shotgun wedding, do ye?’

  ‘How? She’s no up the pole.’

  ‘She might be, with your methods. Or lack of them.’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  ‘Fine. It’s your funeral – I mean, wedding.’

  Sean and Billy had these arguments, about contraception and that. Sean wouldn’t use anything. Said if the woman wanted to, that was up to her, but he wasn’t sticking one of thae bloody things on. What about AIDS, Billy would say. Sean said, ‘I don’t go with junkies and I’m no a poof.’ But now Billy could see he’d set him thinking, about the number of times he’d done it with Susan Donovan, who probably didn’t use anything either, and after about a minute he said, ‘Right, let’s go the morn.’

  Between them they had enough money for a bit more bevvy and food to get them up the road, maybe enough for a B&B if they couldn’t make it in one day. It never occurred to them to do anything other than hitch. That was part of the whole thing, taking off up north. Bugger the bus – full of tourists and drunk teuchters. And then Sean said about wanting to go up the west side, he knew these two women that were spending the summer waitressing in some fishing hotel and he wanted to drop in on them, take them by surprise like, meet them after they got off duty, charm them onto their backs and shag them senseless.

  ‘A fitting start to this new chapter in our lives, Billy,’ he said.

  ‘Your brain’s in your Y-fronts,’ said Billy, but he was stupid enough to go along with it, he was that pleased with himself for getting Sean away from Susan without so much as a goodbye. Which was why they’d spent the previous night getting plastered in a hotel bar miles off the main road – ‘This is definitely the place,’ Sean kept saying. ‘I know this is the place, I’m sure this is the place’ – until finally they were so drunk they had to book into the place – twenty pound each for a twin room and breakfast … It would have been daylight robbery if it hadn’t been nearly midnight.

  Billy needed the work. They both did, but Billy was determined this was going to be more than just another chapter. If there really was three or four months’ work to get out of the job he was going to be disciplined about it. He was going to save money. If that meant staying in the camp or B&B or wherever they were going to be instead of getting bevvied every night, even if it made him unpopular with the rest of the crew, so be it. If they were being put up in a hotel he wouldn’t go near the bar. He would read books, listen to his Walkman, write letters, wank (play the free one-armed bandit, as Sean put it), anything to save money. If he could put a few hundred away, a thousand maybe, enough to get the airfare anyway, then he was going to Australia. He knew a guy who’d done it two years ago. Once he was past immigration he’d just disappeared, invented a few names and national insurance numbers and hopped around from job to job for eighteen months. The money he earned was unbelievable. Thousands and thousands of dollars he made. Right enough when he finally left the country he got a black mark against his name, would probably never get back in, and right enough too he’d spent all the money when he got home again and wasn’t working now, but Billy wasn’t going to make the same mistake. He was going to work himself into the ground out there, pocket the money, then come back and buy himself a nice wee flat somewhere. Nowhere he was known. Glasgow or some place big enough to get lost in. Well, it would have to be Glasgow then, if he was going to get lost in Scotland. Or Dundee, he’d never been there in his life, nobody knew him in Dundee. Buy a place, cash down, no mortgage shite or nothing, and then never work again. Or just enough to pay the bills. Work at will. No more wage-slavery. If you had a paid-for roof over your head and nobody depending on you, you wouldn’t need much in the way of an income. And he had enough skills to pick up work and drop it again as it suited him. Things were bad but they weren’t so bad that Billy couldn’t find himself something if he needed it enough.

  But all that was hanging on him getting this job, and right at the moment the possibility of failure had to be admitted, the possibility of not getting there in time. No, wrong attitude. That was the mind-set of the Seans of the world. Wouldn’t do at all.

  ‘It’s going to need a fucking miracle for somebody to stop for us here,’ said Sean.

  ‘It’s going to need a miracle for anybody to be on this road. So if there is, they’ll stop for us.’

  ‘Christ,’ said Sean, ‘that’s some lo
gic. See if you were driving along here and you saw the pair of us tramps standing about with our thumbs out, would you stop for us?’

  ‘Aye, I would,’ said Billy. He meant it.

  ‘Well, you’d be fucking daft,’ said Sean.

  ‘Well, who would you stop for, if you were driving along?’

  ‘Michelle Pfeiffer,’ said Sean without hesitation. ‘I’d stop for her.’

  ‘Aye, well your logic’s as shite as mine. What’s Michelle Pfeiffer doing hitching lifts in Scotland in the pouring rain?’

  ‘How do I fucking ken? It might be in a picture or something. She does real things in the fucking pictures.’

  After a pause, Sean started up again.

  ‘All right, no Michelle Pfeiffer. Any bird. I’d stop for any bird.’

  ‘Supposing she had a bloke with her?’

  ‘Well, of course I fucking wouldna. I’m only picking her up to fucking shag her, amn’t I?’

  Sean tried to roll a fag. As fast as he worked the paper got soaked and torn. On the third attempt he dropped the tobacco pack on the road and then the rest of the papers. He saved the tobacco but the papers were ruined. ‘Bastartin fuckin rain!’ he shouted, kicking the papers across the road.

  Billy thought, how do I know about Jonahs? We must have done it at Sunday School or something. Christ, that was a long time ago! Funny to think his folks had been quite religious in those days, wanted him to know his Bible and that. A Jonah was someone who slept soundly on the lower deck while the storm raged and worried sailors jettisoned cargo. He looked at Sean and then he looked at himself. Maybe I’ve got this wrong, he thought.