by Charlie Hill
‘Yes,’ said Lauren, ‘I think I get the picture. But to return to the matter in hand, I need something from you. To be precise, I need you to read the books. You said these “male confessionals” might be a contributing factor to SNAPS. Well, leaving aside for the moment your antipathy towards them, I don’t have any evidence to support this assertion. So I need to establish if there is something in the texts. Some peculiar combination of words or themes maybe. Something unique to this genre.’
‘I’ve already told you. There is. They’re the biggest sack of sh—’
‘—Yes, thank you. I heard. But this has to be an objective analysis.’
‘I’m not sure they’d stand up to much analysis. They’re just formulaic pus. The lowest common denominator—’
‘Wait! You said formulaic. You mean there’s some kind of formula?’
‘Yes. But then most novels have a formula. It’s just that some are more two plus two than E=MC squared. In this case, I’m not convinced that we need to nail the specifics. Isn’t it enough that they’re so generically bad? That was what I meant when I said it was the books. I mean the quality of the writing in these things is enough to send anyone off to the big sleep.’
‘The big sleep? It’s death we’re talking about here. Two people have lost their lives.’
Richard, who was still puppy-dog grateful for the opportunity to air his ‘putrid aesthetic’ chat, nearly allowed the implications of Lauren’s news to pass him by.
‘Yes, yes, I get it. Death. Very bad, yes. And I’m going to have to look at the books for you… Hang on a minute. Did you say two people have died? I thought it was just one?’
Lauren smiled and the thought occurred to Richard that she had been testing him, making sure he was paying attention. She told him that a British consular official who had helped with the investigation into the first death had himself later fallen victim to the syndrome. Not only that, but having spoken to the investigating authorities, she had established that he had ‘borrowed’ the manuscript from the first victim and had been reading it when he’d died.
‘Well, if these books really are the cause of this SNAPS, isn’t that a flaw in your plan?’ said Richard. ‘If I read them, who’s to say that I won’t cark it? Come to think of it, why can’t you read them yourself?’
‘Two reasonable points. Please let me explain. Firstly, although SNAPS has been called a spontaneous condition, it almost certainly isn’t. Think of it as a stroke. The axonal degradation that leads to the syndrome is caused by either long-term or concentrated exposure to whatever it is that compromises their continued function. Or look at it this way: as you say, this author’s first three books were bestsellers and yet this is the first anyone has heard of SNAPS. So despite the fact that their contents may help me to identify a causal link, it is extremely unlikely that reading the first three books in isolation – that is, with a large enough gap between each one – will have a deleterious effect on your brain function. Secondly, it’s been a long time since I read any fiction. You, I presume, read it all the time. And will therefore see patterns in the text that I may miss.’
‘OK, OK, you’re the boss,’ said Richard. ‘Could you tell me where your toilet is, please?’
Michael Kruger. And Lauren’s books
Richard left the room and smeared off the walls of the quarry-tiled hall. Although the whole SNAPS thing was proving to be a bit of a mind-fuck, his chat had been nothing if not triple-distilled and the night was going well. It was just a shame she wasn’t drinking.
Unsure of the directions Lauren had just given him, Richard opened the first door he saw. It led to a room under the stairs and a set of steps that led down to darkness. He contemplated having a look. There was definitely some comedy value in mentioning to Lauren that he had taken a wrong turn, missed the light switch and pissed in the mop bucket… no, maybe not. Not yet at any rate. He tried the second door. It opened easily and he walked in and switched on the light. This wasn’t right either. He was standing in a small back room. It was the sort of room you’d find in many Victorian houses: dried grasses and a sunflower head sat in a vase on top of a black iron fireplace that faced the door; above the mantelpiece was a framed print of a pre-Raphaelite piece in which some wafty woman was getting wet. On his right, a pair of French windows looked out over a whitewashed and landscaped patio. A wall covered in books was on his left. Richard took a step back.
On the shelves closest to him sat academic stuff, a collection of box files and ring-backed scientific journals. There were reference books on birds and flowers and landscape photography, another on architecture. It was those titles farther along the wall that caught his attention and caused him to whistle
For some people, sexual attraction is distilled in the way someone walks. For others it is the way they talk. With Richard – at least since Julie had sauntered provocatively off, mouthing unanswerables, a copy of The Da Vinci Code in her hand – it was what they read. And while he’d speculated long and hard about her tastes, this was the first time he’d had the opportunity to make any sort of connection between Lauren and the books she read.
There was nothing there that was heinous – all of the books were worthy of his cautious approval – but there was something odd about the collection. It was filled with titles that didn’t seem to fit with what little he knew of Lauren’s approach to art and life. Were these really the books of the woman who spoke in conversation as though she was addressing a roomful of hard-of-thinking students?
His dealings with her to date had certainly given no indication of a romantic streak or an interest in classic verse or history. And yet here was poetry from Edmund Spenser, Coleridge and Keats. He saw The Arabian Nights and The Bride of Lammermoor and the letters of Madame de Sévigné. There was some Dante, Chaucer and Homer, a biography of John Donne, Roberto di Ridolfi’s Life of Savonarola, then more verse from Henry Vaughan, Richard Crawshaw and Thomas Traherne. A copy of Charlotte Guest’s Mabinogion sat next to some sonnets from Pierre de Ronsard and pride of place, in the middle of the wall, went to all nine volumes of Herodotus’s Histories.
None of them were new editions. Judging by the fraying spines and exposed stringiness, not one of them was under twenty years old. And yet despite their disrepair, they didn’t appear to have been recently disturbed. They weren’t well used. Quite the opposite, in fact. Rooms filled with books should be alive, if only with a mocking of death. This one wasn’t. It was as still and sad as an empty pub.
There was another thing. The titles in the collection didn’t seem to belong together. Some seemed almost wilfully obscure. It was almost as if they’d been chosen for effect, as an ostentatious yet witless display of erudition. For the first time that night, Richard felt uncomfortable, as though he was missing something.
He found the bathroom at the third time of asking. As he flopped his cock he mulled over what he had just seen. It was all very confusing. He decided that he would raise the matter when he’d had more time to work on a riff. He went back to the living room, anxious to return to less boggy ground.
‘Where were we?’ he said. ‘Oh, I remember. The appliance of science. I could come up with a Banality Rating if you like. How about: 1–3 – Read it Before; 4–6 – Not Remotely Enthralling; 6–8 – Danger of Dozing; 8–10 – Yawnsnoozecoma…’
‘Right. So that’s… how many bottles of wine now? Two? Three?’
‘Why, thank you.’
‘If you don’t mind me asking such a personal question – and I’m guessing you don’t – why do you drink so much? Every time I see you, you are the worse for wear.’
‘Aha! I’m glad you asked. It’s interesting that. There’s this poet, a German fella called Michael Kruger, who once wrote: “Someone who reads too much without wetting his whistle regularly will become stupid; someone who drinks too much without diluting his drink with literature will end up in the gutter. Only the two together preserve culture; only the two together are culture.” And that – right th
ere – is the way I look at things. What do you think of that?’
‘It’s a nice sentiment,’ said Lauren, ‘and you’ve certainly done well to remember it word for word. But even though it’s all very well throwing yourself into these things, you need to keep a sense of who you are, a sense of perspective. Otherwise you get lost. And, since you ask, I’m not too sure that one’s appreciation of culture is necessarily enhanced by being permanently drunk.’
‘Do you know something, Lauren, I’m not going to lie to you. As you might have gathered, I’m a man of extremes. I’m drawn to the edges of things. For me, that’s where the interesting stuff is. And drinking’s a part of that.’
‘I see.’
‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m not dissing you. I’m just trying to – how you say – establish a paradigm, make sure we understand each other. Don’t set out on the wrong foot. Speaking of which,’ said Richard, flashing her a seductive leer that he’d been practising all week and now got half right, ‘I was wondering if, you know, you might like to discuss this over a meal some time?’
‘I think that’s probably enough for tonight, don’t you?’ said Lauren, and with that she stood up and gestured towards the door. ‘Thanks for your help. I’ll be in touch when I’ve had a chance to think about what we’ve discussed.’
Cavorted and gambolled…
Richard left. The gravel on Lauren’s drive was fun to walk on. He walked out and into and down the middle of the road and whistled. Looked up at the moon. The wine had gone. All of it. He hadn’t succeeded. With Plan A or Plan B or whatever plan it was. He’d been distracted again. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t about the sex. Who was he trying to kid? He saw a stone in the road. Aimed a kick at it. Missed. Went back and tried again. He’d drunk all the wine. All that planning and he’d drunk all the wine. It didn’t matter. Not really. I mean. Whose chain was he yanking? The stone cavorted down the road. Cavorted and gambolled and skipped. He started to sing a song. By the Pogues. Wasn’t too sure which one. He looked at the hedges on either side of the road. They were tall. Harborne was nice. Nice. It didn’t matter. Nothing wrong with nice. Once in a while. Not that he’d let that slip. No, he’d held it together. Stayed bad. After two bottles of wine, after three bottles of wine, he’d held it together. Men like him were a dying breed. Raging against the mightiness of the dim. Hey. That was quite good that. If only she knew. Lauren. Lau-ren. Ah, Lauren. Lauren. What a woman! She was so… so… So what, actually? Sexy? Not ex-actly. It didn’t matter. Really it didn’t matter. He was kidding nobody. As long as she knew how good he was. With words. The truth. About him. And his words. And the wine. And the way he felt. If only she knew the truth about the wine.
Richard was drunk.
And Richard was in love.
Towards emotional literacy
Lauren watched Richard stumble into the rowan. He was an infuriating man, full of desperation and frantic need. For what, she couldn’t tell, and she wondered whether he knew himself. Whatever it was, it didn’t bode well for their working relationship.
In her mind’s eye she framed him against the bush, zoomed in, held him there. But then a strange thing happened. She didn’t take the picture. Somehow it was not enough. She thought again of Will, and her memories came to her like rays of sunlight, fragile yet insistent and dazzling and beautiful still…
It was sixteen years ago now. They had met at university a month into the first term of the first year, at the inaugural meeting of the ill-starred Society for the Appreciation of Local Architectural Beauty. Will was studying literature. He was a poet and contributing editor of the first-year poetry newsletter. His father was a classics professor and his mother an archaeologist and he had been educated at a private school just along from the university. Lauren was studying biochemistry. She had gone to a local grammar school at which her mother had taught geometry. It was from her that Lauren had inherited her love of architecture. Aside from this, she and Will had few interests in common but he was curly haired and brown eyed and when he spoke he sounded unlike anyone that Lauren had ever met, his voice rich with expectation and promise. And she knew she would never feel this way about anyone again.
That first autumn, as they sat on the grass in the shadow of the campus clock tower, he had read to her from the metaphysical poets. Carried away by the moment, he’d brushed her medium-length hair into and out of her eyes and told her she was ‘pale and interesting’ and that she was the muse he had yearned for throughout his adolescence. They’d giggled at this and then his hand had touched her thigh and they had both started.
Later, they’d made love with studied abandon and Will had talked of the circles of life and death and of the journeys that they would take and then he had read to her some more. He read to her often, yellowing snippets of poetry and prose, his words providing the rhythm of their days and nights.
As she listened to his voice, the whole world was a whirr and a fizz, pregnant with possibilities and clues, bursting with the unknown. Lauren found herself alive in the words of one poem in particular, ‘First Love’, by John Clare. Will had found it in a second-hand Penguin and knew pieces of it by rote:
I ne’er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet,
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete.
Are flowers the winter’s choice?
Is love’s bed always snow?
She seemed to hear my silent voice,
Not love’s appeals to know.
I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before,
My heart has left its dwelling place
And can return no more.
They were young then and on the occasions when Lauren had been unable to stop herself from looking back, she’d realised they had wasted all the things that the young are obliged to waste, like seriousness, levity and time. Especially time. For the most part, time passed in a miasmic blur of reading, listening, lovemaking, watching old films, dreaming. Right up until the day it stopped.
Two summers into their relationship they went out for a Sunday afternoon drive in the countryside around Hay-on-Wye. They drove through blooming cider orchards, a wicker basket in the boot. In the town, they stopped for a perusal of flaky books and then, gently spurred by hunger, wound along shady lanes to find a place for a picnic. They parked on a road by a brook which ran through a blushing meadow and Lauren remembered they had to walk some minutes to find a patch of grass that was dry enough to sit on.
They were in no rush. When they found the ideal spot, next to a clump of vivacious red campion, they spread a blanket and lay on the ground. Will picked cowslips and buttercups and rubbed their heads gently down Lauren’s bare arms and along the thin veins in her wrists and he touched them to her lips. She ruffled his hair and they kissed. The sun was high. It was pleasingly hot. The light was lazy and long, stretching the afternoon around the curve of the earth they shared.
They ate village-baked pastries. Will made short work of a small crusty pork pie, thinly sliced with an old penknife and slathered with French mustard. Lauren nibbled at a leek and potato bake and then they each had a piece of a Normandy apple tart with a funny little lattice on top.
Will opened a half bottle of Taittinger Reserve and they drank slowly as they sat. They had a conversation about the size of the bubbles. Neither of them drank very much and the alcohol went straight to their heads. They dozed blissfully until the early evening air grew thinner and then Will said something to Lauren, probably ‘let’s pull chocks’ or ‘let’s paint our wagon’, she was never quite sure of what exactly he’d said at that moment, and then they were sitting in the car again and cutting through the dusk and heading back to the city.
Lauren was driving with Will sitting next to her. As she drove through the oranges and greens and yellows and reds of the last country light she felt happy but also – she thought she remembered this clearly – also strangely melancholy,
as though she realised that something had ended and this was as happy as she was ever going to feel.
It was Lauren’s first car and on the way to Hay Will had jokingly suggested that he write her a poem, ‘An Ode to the Maestro of an Austin’. Lauren had agreed because he had with him a pen that she had bought for his twentieth birthday not a week before and he had not yet used it to compose anything for her. Now he sat and wrote, the two of them in perfect silence. Cresting the brow of a dip, Lauren took her eyes off the road for an instant as she turned to look at him. He was stroking the side of his nose with the pen, his profile sharp and distinguished, curls of hair against his neck. She smiled, her eyes misty with love. By the time she turned back to the road there were only trees and green leaves. Lauren hit the brakes and then the trunk of an Orange Pippin. Will pitched forward. His head hit the dashboard. The pen disappeared.
Lauren remembered the blood, dripping down her nose and metallic in her mouth. And as she drifted in and out of consciousness, she remembered the blood that seeped from the mouth of her lover.
She spent five days in hospital suffering from concussion and shock. When she came out she was consumed by a ravening anguish. It wasn’t the ‘how’ that taxed her, that kept her awake at nights and folded up during the day. It was the ‘why’. She knew that Will had died because he had lodged a Parker Inflection Rollerball up his nose with sufficient force to enter his brain: it was just that try as she might she couldn’t see where his death fitted into any equation or number of equations she’d known. Instead it seemed to be a glimpse into an alien world, a world of little or no order. A world of emotional complexity in which what she felt led into a darkness that could not be illuminated by science. A world she had had no intention of visiting again.