‘Right,’ agreed the woman, blowing her nose. ‘But it’s hard not to think about it all the time, you know?’
Down in the staff canteen, she took her tray of lasagne over to a table of her friends.
‘Very anti this morning,’ she said as she sat down. ‘Five for, sixteen against, three undecided.’
‘You could be on to a nice little earner there,’ said Agnes. ‘You should get on to Gallup Poll or whoever it is that comes up with these statistics.’
‘Pre-emptive strike,’ said Femi as she reached across and grabbed the last bread roll.
‘Widespread confusion and dismay,’ she added. ‘Nobody’s very happy about it. It’s as though the national auto-immune system was starting to pack up. I still haven’t met anyone who knows what it’s for.’
‘Can we not talk about the war for a change?’ asked Femi plaintively. ‘Look, I’ve got pictures of my new niece to show you.’
‘She’s gorgeous,’ said Agnes, studying the proffered photographs. ‘She’s scrumptious. She’s got a face like a flower.’ Agnes was gentle and indecisive generally, a dove if ever there was, but had flown out hawkishly over the war. Her brother-in-law had been in his prisons, and, though she would not say what had happened to him there, Agnes thought even war was better than letting such things exist.
But if we remove one tyrant, then why not another, she’d said to Agnes; most of the staff at this hospital could give ample reason for us to go to war with their country of origin – every single one of them, if you were to ask the cleaners.
True, said Agnes; and maybe that’s the way ahead.
‘She’s her third,’ said Femi. ‘My sister says that’s it, three girls are as much as she can cope with. But I tell her not to be so sure, her husband’s always on about wanting a boy to play football with.’
Three girls, she thought. Three girls in pinafores and four boys with side-partings her great-grandmother had raised – the hundred-year-old photograph was in a shoebox at home somewhere. One son had been killed in each year of the First World War. Apparently their mother had not done much after 1918; there was nothing physically wrong with her but after the last boy was killed she hadn’t really got out of bed, though she’d lived another thirty years, tended by her daughters.
‘Room for a little one?’ said fifteen-stone Patricia, fellow phlebotomist, breezing up with a plate of fish and chips. ‘I’ve been taking blood all morning in a draughty old church hall and I’m starving.’
‘Aren’t they letting us have the school gym any more?’ she asked.
‘No, they decided the little bleeders were missing too much PE so that was that,’ said Patricia, shaking on the vinegar. ‘Joke, ladies, joke. We’re allowed to say bloody and bleeder, perks of the job.’
‘Is it because stocks are low?’ asked Agnes. ‘Is it because of the war?’
‘They’re always a bit low,’ said Patricia, tucking in. ‘People are squeamish, Tony Hancock’s got a lot to answer for. As well as the other one. So yes, supplies can always do with being beefed up, and of course blood doesn’t store terribly well, it’s only got a shelf life of a week or two.’
‘I would like to give blood,’ said Femi.
‘Good for you,’ said Patricia. ‘Though honestly, they’ve turned it into such a palaver that if you’re not careful it’ll take you half a day rather than half an hour, you have to fill in questionnaires about drugs and travel and whether you’ve had a new sexual partner in the last three months, and you can’t be on any sort of medication.’
‘Hmm,’ said Femi. ‘I wouldn’t have to take the time as holiday, would I?’
‘I’ll do you upstairs after lunch, love, if they can spare you over in Casualty,’ said Patricia. ‘You’ll have to wait till I’ve had my pudding, though.’
‘So what do you think of the war, then, Patricia?’ she asked, despite herself.
‘She can’t leave it alone, that one,’ tutted Femi.
‘It feels wrong because we started it and it wasn’t in self-defence,’ said Patricia, ‘and it feels perverse because we’re not going to get anything out of it, least of all safety or honour. Not bleeding likely. That’s what I think.’
‘Nobody will join the army after this,’ she said, staring at images of dust and tanks and gunfire.
‘Oh but they will,’ he said. ‘Of course they will. They’ll sign up in their thousands. This is what you want if you’re attracted to the army. What’s the point if you don’t get to fight? Especially if you’re on the side with the best guns and you know you’ve got a hundred times the firepower of the enemy.’
‘But how can they want this?’ she asked.
‘What,’ he said, half listening.
‘How can they want this.’
‘Men like fighting,’ he said simply, staring at the screen. ‘They always have. Action. Competition, aggression, call it what you like.’
‘What?’ she said.
‘The challenge. Adrenalin. Fitness, strength. Pitting yourself against the enemy. Targets. Explosions.’
He picked up the remote control and pointed it at the television.
Mothers repeating their grief, she thought. If she had a son, where would she hide him? She imagined a future call-up, the open-faced conscripts; a quick horrid fantasy of fear and protections; taking milk to the cellar.
‘You’d want a boy,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t you. You would.’
‘What?’ he said, absently, staring at the little brightly coloured manikins that had appeared on the screen. ‘Oh! Nice one!’
He had been flipping between channels for a while now, the flares and flashes and explosions changing place with roaring and balls and goals. Men are for Mars, she thought; is that it?
‘Can’t you stay with one channel?’ she asked.
‘I just wanted to see how Arsenal were doing.’
‘Come on the Gunners!’ she sneered.
‘What?’ he said, startled.
‘I don’t know what you think about the war,’ she said. ‘You never talk to me.’
‘Yes I do!’ he said, rising to the attack.
‘We only ever watch television and go to bed.’
‘No we don’t!’
‘Yes we do,’ she said. Oh yes we do. Were they clowns arguing in a pantomime?
‘Look, I’m tired. I’ve had a long day. But if you want to “talk” – FINE,’ he said. He pressed the mute button on the remote control; not the off button, she noticed; the football was in its eighty-third minute. ‘What about?’
‘The war,’ she said.
He made a noise somewhere between fury and disgust.
‘I just can’t believe you get so angry when I try to talk to you about the war,’ she said.
‘I’m not angry,’ he said. ‘You just go on and on.’
‘Don’t hate me,’ she said. ‘I put up with sitting in front of hours of football because I love sitting with your arm round me and my head on your shoulder.’
‘I don’t hate you,’ he said. ‘I love you.’
‘I know. But I need to know what you think about the war because we’re part of each other.’
‘Right. Yes. This is what I think. If it’s over fast, with few civilian casualties, there will be a feeling of, it’s all been worth it. It was justified. Whereas if it goes on for months and eats up the national budget and there are more casualties on both sides than expected, then it will not be seen as good.’
‘But what do you feel?’
‘I’ve just told you!’
‘What, so how it turns out will justify it or not?’
‘Yes.’
‘But surely there are first principles? The end doesn’t justify the means?’
‘I’ve said what I think,’ he shrugged, his eyes back on the screen. He pressed a button and the crowd started roaring again.
Even she could see that she wasn’t going to get any more out of him in the eighty-sixth minute of the game; and it wouldn’t be just four minutes to wa
it, it always went into extra time. She decided to get ready for bed. In the shower she soaped and scrubbed and loudly sang until the tiles echoed – ‘And another one gone and another one gone, another one bites the dust . . .’
In bed, he turned to her and held her. Don’t mention the war must be her motto now, on the home front at least. He buried his face in her neck. She stiffened and willed herself not to shrug him off. If she stayed with him, she’d have to button her lip. He put his hands in her hair and his mouth on hers, and moved to lie on top of her. At this point usually her arms would clasp him and her legs twine round his as she returned his kisses; but now she found herself heaving his weight off with unexpected violence.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, baffled.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, sitting up.
‘Nothing’s the matter,’ he murmured. ‘Come here,’ and pulled her back down to him.
‘Don’t,’ she said loudly, surprising them both.
‘What?’ he said.
‘My body can’t pretend,’ she found herself saying. ‘You always said you liked that about me. My body can’t tell lies.’
‘What?’ he said again, trying to draw her to him.
‘Unless you’re happy with forcing legs open and spit in your face,’ she hissed. ‘Yes you would like that, I bet.’
‘No,’ he said, aghast.
‘Then you can just fuck off,’ she said.
‘What?’ he said.
But she had already left the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. She stormed off to the sofa and to late-night television. There, she lay down and watched the war and wept.
The Green Room
A fat woman with a frozen shoulder sat sighing by the steady flames of a fake-coal fire. At her feet crowded a congregation of coffee-dregged mugs, dead wine bottles, and ashtrays crammed with crushed stubs. Across the room a television chattered gravely, on screen a long face in contre-jour against a scene of bloody devastation; over in the corner crouched a computer caught short mid-document.
‘I must get on,’ said this woman, Pamela, not moving. Piles of paper fanned out across the floor, lists and reports and unwritten Christmas cards, bills and charity fliers and unopened correspondence including a parcel about the size of a shoebox wrapped in brown paper. This last item now catching her eye, she leant over and picked it up.
‘Munich,’ she said, reading the postmark. ‘That’ll be cousin Gerda again with another bit of tat from the Christmas market. Why on earth does she bother?’
Sure enough, it was a decoration for her tree, the tree which was still on her To Do list, unbought as yet, and this time it was some sort of angel or fairy with a schmaltzy smile on its face. As she turned it over in her hands she noticed something printed on the hem of its stiff gold robe. The letters blurred beneath her bleary eyes and she had to hunt for her glasses before she was able to read what was printed there: www.festivelifecoach.com.
‘Some sort of gimmick,’ she scoffed, but in the end could not resist going over to her computer to log on, this gimmick having stirred her listlessness into action where lists alone had failed. As soon as she had entered the address there flashed up the following words:
Change your life!
Suspend your disbelief !
Press ctrl + esc at the same time while holding down the shift key. Close your eyes and when you hear the sound of bells tap in ‘3D’ and wait. Keep your eyes closed until you hear the instruction to open them or your computer will crash irretrievably and forever.
Pamela frowned, gave a scornful laugh, and paused a long moment; then she breathed in, pressed the specified keys, and closed her eyes.
As she waited, she thought of the time she was wasting and ground her teeth. This was the story of her life, a mountain of stuff waiting to be done and her somehow not doing it and not even enjoying not doing it, in fact finding it even more exhausting and depressing not doing it than doing it. She had to send that report off by this evening; what did she think she was playing at now, standing in the middle of the room with her eyes shut like a fool?
At this point her unhappy reverie was broken by a peal of bells, and the stale air of her sitting room thinned to frosty silver in her nostrils. She breathed slowly, followed the instructions as they were given, and at last opened her eyes.
In front of her stood a small spry figure in scarlet tracksuit and emerald trainers. Radiating aerobic bonhomie, it held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand.
‘I must have dozed off in front of the fire after all,’ she said, pinching herself dispassionately.
‘No you didn’t,’ smiled the creature. ‘You called me up on the internet, and now I am here to help you slip your mind-forged manacles. My name is – can you guess?’ and here it waved the green branch playfully. ‘Holly!’
‘What?’ she said.
‘Let’s not waste time,’ beamed Holly, glancing at her watch. ‘I am your dedicated life coach but I’m here for a limited period only. And the first thing I need to do is to establish your general mindset with the help of this checklist. So, if you’ll just answer a few simple questions, we’ll get started.’
‘Sorry?’ she said.
‘Say whatever comes into your mind, blurt it out without thinking,’ Holly instructed, ignoring her bafflement. ‘First question: what do you do when you hear carol singers?’
‘Hide,’ said Pamela, falling in with the apparition’s obvious command of the situation.
‘And how do you feel when you see festive greenery?’
‘Well, ivy is death and graveyards,’ she continued in the same vein, ‘and holly is only worth it when it’s got berries and that means a hard winter so I’m unlikely to celebrate that.’
‘Is this glass half full or half empty?’ asked the life coach, holding up a flute of red wine.
‘Half empty, of course,’ said Pamela. ‘Can I have it please?’
‘Lastly,’ said the life coach, handing her the glass, ‘what does the month of December mean to you?’
‘Bleak weather. Leafless trees. The death of the year,’ said Pamela between sips. ‘Nervousness. Waiting to see where the shadow of the leather-winged reaper will fall. Then the chore of Christmas and downhill all the way to filthy February. So corny, so regular.’
‘Thank you,’ said the life coach, snapping her notebook shut. ‘Now, would you agree with me that you have low self-esteem?’
‘If you mean, do I think I’m rubbish,’ she barked mirthlessly, ‘that’s a yes.’
‘People with low self-esteem exert a detrimental effect on the world around them,’ said Holly. ‘Particularly at Christmas. Put simply, you’re a downer, a drainer, a drag. Not that many party invitations, I imagine?’
‘One or two,’ she lied, tears of hurt springing to her eyes. ‘Now you’re going to list the virtues of positive thinking, I bet. Well let me tell you, positive thinking is just papering over the cracks.’
‘Hmm,’ twinkled the life coach. ‘I want you now to remember your promise to suspend your disbelief and follow me. Underneath, we both know the real you is not a mumbling vessel of self-pity with unwashed hair and biscuit crumbs down her front.’
‘Well thank you very much,’ said Pamela, brushing at her clothes.
‘Time to marshal your resources!’ she cried. ‘First, we’ll choose you a slogan – “’Tis the season to be jolly.” Jolly, right? I think you would agree that this is not what you are now. Jolly is what we are going to work towards.’
‘I hate that word,’ said Pamela. ‘Jolly! Hockey sticks and snobbish enthusiasm and Dickens.’
‘Interesting, your aversion,’ said Holly. ‘It comes from the Old Norse, Jòl or Yule, meaning the twelve-day heathen midwinter festival. Maybe you’ll like it better as a word if you remember some of its other meanings over the centuries – brave-hearted, showy, splendid, amorous, self-confident and slightly intoxicated. Let jolly inspire you! Use it to help you remember key points in your strategy. J – Just do i
t. O – Organise yourself. L – Lighten up. L – Laugh at trouble. Y–’
‘Oh for goodness’ sake,’ she snapped. ‘Spare me the acronyms!’
‘Yoga, I was going to say,’ continued Holly imperturbably. ‘That shoulder of yours looks very stiff.’
‘It’s frozen, actually,’ said Pamela haughtily. ‘Extremely painful at night and not getting any better. I haven’t got round to going to the doctor’s yet but I looked it up myself and it’ll probably need a corticosteroid injection directly into the shoulder joint sometime soon. Agony. Even then it probably won’t get better for a good two years.’
‘Hmm,’ said Holly. ‘That little speech encapsulates your current way of thinking perfectly. Stinking thinking, I call it. It’s time for the three “P”s. Just breathe on this mirror here, would you, and see what you can make out through the mist.’
Pamela did as she was told and found herself staring at a strange tableau. A large glum creature with downturned mouth and tear-glazed eyes sat slumped, sighing and venting the occasional groan. At first it plucked disconsolately at the bloated leeches which clustered over its limbs; then, giving that up as a bad job, turned to the toaster on the table beside it. Every time a couple of slices popped up, this creature buttered them and threw them into the air. Scores of slices of toast lay over the carpet encircling its feet. They had all landed butter side down.
‘Tell me, Holly, who is this nasty creature and what has it to do with me?’ asked Pamela, struck by a worrying feeling that she had met it somewhere before.
‘This is Pessimism,’ said Holly, ‘and here, look, here comes its cousin Procrastination.’
A shambolic figure shuffled into view, hawking and spitting, heaving a swag bag marked Hours, Days, Weeks, etc. Its nails were bitten to the quick, its watch was running slow, and a cigarette hung from its slack damp lower lip. When Pamela strained her ears she could hear it muttering, ‘I’ll give up in the New Year. When I get round to buying some nicotine patches. That’s when I’ll do it.’ Somewhere about its person a mobile phone erupted, and, after patting various pockets bulging with unopened brown envelopes, it answered the call. ‘Later,’ it said. ‘Later. Yes, yes, I know I said today. But now it’s tomorrow. No. It must have got lost in the post.’ And it limped off in a fug of lame excuses.
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