by Charlie Hill
At least that was how he had at first appeared. Lately there had been a shift in his attitude. Lauren had noticed it last night: he was really making an effort. His sobriety hadn’t been entirely convincing and he’d tried to underpin his observations with a pseudo-empirical analysis that had been bewildering and at times frankly bizarre. But he was trying hard and she appreciated it. Despite previous evidence to the contrary – his disastrous attempt to impress her with his fiction, for example – he had obviously been paying attention to what she said and to the way she thought. To her…
The world Lauren lived in had long been one of fixed points of reference and lines of light. Photography and buildings and the natural world, these had been her passions. If you could call them that. She had taken the occasional leap of faith, at least in her work – she was a scientist, she had to – but even with the uncertainty that this brought, hers had been a world that could – and needed to – be ordered.
Since she had first read about SNAPS, however, Lauren had been immersed in an entirely new environment. The world of books was a heady miasma of emotional high-wire acts and intellectual challenges and moral conundrums. She’d been exposed to contradictions, fertile and enticing. Seen the possibilities of the unexpected, the potential in the – now what was that word again? – the transgressive.
She had begun to think differently, behave differently, even use language differently. To revisit a long-buried lyrical sensibility. To have fun. She had given the finger to the world, sworn, revelled in the role of conversational provocateur. Slowly, incrementally, new connections were being made in her neural circuitry. Her experiment was beginning to produce results. A transformation was under way. And at the centre of this transformation, for all of his inchoate messy whims and drunken telephone messages, was Richard.
Lauren opened her eyes. She took another sip from her glass and picked up her camera. Lauren hadn’t taken many photographs recently. It had been the longest hiatus that she could remember. Ordinarily she’d have given herself a hard time about her lack of creative activity but this time she had been creative in other areas. Now, though, it was time to return to her art.
It was dusk. She walked to the park. The pavement was wet and there was moisture in the air. Lauren smelled damp leaves and rotting wood. The clouds were low but the sun glowed brilliantly through a gap in the grey and the autumnal evening gloom was iridescent, blushed with cherry and violet and streaked with orange. The light was eerie, otherworldly.
There were many trees in the park. There were birch and lime and fir and spruce. Lauren often took photographs here on Sunday mornings in winter when lovers were out walking among the skeletal forms. This evening, the leaves were still thick and the light played around the edges of the trees and dark bushes and swept luminously across the grass, out of the shadows of the clouds. She saw a horse chestnut, verdant and brilliantly yellow veined. Lauren looked for subject matter among the greenery but it was the light that she wanted to record. There were no people, but she didn’t need to capture people, not today.
She walked along mulch-covered paths. She shot half a roll of film and then a misty rain began to fall. She turned her face to the sky until it was wet and she was refreshed and then she switched off her camera and headed home.
In which Richard sends Lauren a poem
Another day, another email.
Hello Lauren
Just a quick one. I’m sorry about the other night; I realise I got a bit aerated there. I’m sorry about drawing a blank with the press too. We really do have to move quickly now, somehow and soon.
In the meantime, here’s a poem I thought you might like. It’s not your usual (not that I’m sure what your usual is) but it is one of my favourites, from back in the day. And in case you think I’m going soft in my old age, I’m not. The man was a surrealist. Beyond that, I’m not going to say anything else. Please take it any way you like. Except the wrong one, of course…
Richard Anger Esq,
The Attic,
Harborne etc.
I have Dreamed of you so Much – Robert Desnos
I have dreamed of you so much that you are no longer real.
Is there still time for me to reach your breathing body, to kiss your mouth and make
your dear voice come alive again?
I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, grown used to being crossed on my
chest as I hugged your shadow, would perhaps not bend to the shape of your body.
For faced with the real form of what has haunted me and governed me for so many
days and years, I would surely become a shadow.
O scales of feeling.
I have dreamed of you so much that surely there is no more time for me to wake up.
I sleep on my feet prey to all the forms of life and love, and you, the only one who
counts for me today, I can no more touch your face and lips than touch the lips and
face of some passerby.
I have dreamed of you so much, have walked so much, talked so much, slept so much
with your phantom, that perhaps the only thing left for me is to become a phantom
among phantoms, a shadow a hundred times more shadow than the shadow that moves and goes on moving, brightly, over the sundial of your life.
Lauren read the poem three times.
The first time, it didn’t make much sense. The second time, a meaning appeared, of sorts, then shimmied enticingly out of reach. The third time she understood and her stomach lurched, almost as it might when you are driving along and you crest the brow of a dip in the road. Except this time there was no end to the sensation; instead the feeling welled until it engulfed her. It came from no sense or reason, it felt like something close to helplessness and it brought her, overwhelmed and teetering, to the edge of her experiment’s most terrifying intimation yet…
Gary tells Mike and Susan how it is
That evening Zeke and Pippa arrive at Gary Sayles’ house. It is a Georgian end-of-terrace with steps leading up to a wide front door. There are black railings.
Zeke is Mike, Pippa is losing sight of Susan. They are winging it in pantomime Method style. Pippa is wearing a gingham frock and trainers. Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz meets Lily Allen. Zeke is wearing what he wore when they last met Gary Sayles. Zeke thinks that Pippa is taking the piss but he can’t decide whether he thinks this because of the gingham or the trainers.
Pippa climbs the steps, pushes an enormous brass doorbell. They wait. Gary Sayles opens the door. He is wearing a thick red Pierre Cardin dressing gown with gold tassels and a green plastic visor. He is part asexual Hugh Heffner, part clean-shaven Howard Hughes. He is clearly a man in the middle of a carefully planned mission.
‘Hello… I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your names?’
‘Mike.’
‘Susan.’
‘Mike, Susan,’ Gary says, as he ushers them inside, ‘come this way.’
‘Thank you,’ says Mike.
‘Most kindly,’ murmurs Pippa.
Zeke shoots a glance at Pippa but it is OK that she is not quite with it; Gary Sayles is not listening. The three of them pass through a wide hallway. The walls are colourless. There are cornices and coving. There are tall plants in pots. A child’s tricycle protrudes from a doorway but there is no personality to the space. It is decorated like the lobby of a small hotel.
Gary’s voice seems to have dropped an octave since the last time they met. He is speaking more slowly than before.
‘We’ll talk in my study,’ he says.
The three of them move up a staircase. They pass a proudly framed Monet.
‘Ah, Monet,’ says Gary, ‘such a wonderful use of…’
‘Light?’ says Mike.
‘Paint?’ suggests Pippa.
‘Subject matter,’ says Gary Sayles. ‘He painted pictures of flowers and ponds, nothing more complicated than that. And people still buy them. Do you know why? Because flowers and ponds are part of a
universal language. From the highest mountain to the driest desert, everyone likes flowers and ponds.’
Gary pauses to let this sink in. Pippa understands its significance in an instant. The boy is a piece of work beyond her most wishful dreams. Pure class. She checks the weight of her shoulder bag. The camera is still there. Still rolling.
On the landing, they wait outside a door.
‘Brace yourselves,’ says Gary. ‘For this is the factory of dreams.’
Gary’s study is small. There is a large window overlooking the street. A Mac sits on a desk. The desk is of functional design. It is covered with photos in plain clip-in frames. They are neatly arranged. They look newly wiped. The whole room looks newly wiped. There is the smell of chemical-fresh air. There is a photograph of Gary posing with a football on a football pitch in a football stadium. He looks awkward. There is a photo of a small child who looks a bit like Gary. He looks as though he is looking for something that isn’t there. There is a photo of Gary with his arm around the DJ Danny Kelly.
Mike’s attention is taken by a soft toy sitting on the corner of the desk.
‘Ah,’ says Gary to Mike. ‘Barney the Bear. Do you remember?’
‘The dream sequence?’ says Mike. ‘From Cutting the Cake?’
‘I have chosen well,’ says Gary.
Against one of the walls there is a stand-alone bookcase. It is filled with copies of Gary’s novels, books by Paulo Coehlo and Susan Jeffers. Hanging above the desk is a sequential arrangement of his covers. Our Legendary Twenties has been called ‘wry, bittersweet and unashamedly sentimental’ while Cutting the Cake has been likened to ‘a holiday read for the comfort of your own home’. By the time of Man, Woman, Baby, The Bookshop Magazine has christened him the ‘Populist Laureate’. Mike looks on approvingly. Pippa feels her blood rising. Her heart beats faster.
‘Before we start, there’s something you should know,’ says Gary. He crosses to the window with his hands behind his back. As though he has practised the move.
‘The time has come for me to move out of the city. There are too many distractions here. This won’t affect you, of course, for I will continue to write about the concerns of the people. But if I am to preserve my creative dignity – if I am to keep sight of the broader view – there has to be some distance between us. Accessibility is all very well but when you are as successful as I am, there comes a time when you have to accept that your life is not the life of an ordinary person. To pretend otherwise would be dishonest. It’s Catch-22. The more I appeal to ordinary people, the farther away from them I get.’
‘How do you cope with that?’ asks Mike.
‘We all have our crosses to bear,’ says Gary. ‘Anyway. On to business. Please take a seat. The launch of the People’s Literature Tour will go ahead as planned, a week on Saturday. The other day I found an ideal venue. A church near St Pancras. I’m working on the later dates as we speak. I’m thinking of concentrating on London for the time being. There’ll be one in the west, one in the east and one in the north. That way we don’t leave anyone out. We can see to the regions when they demand a piece of the action; you’ll have to keep an eye on the website for that.
‘As we’ve discussed, Mike, you’ll do the first reading, Susan the next and so on. As far as my presence goes, I’ll be there on the first night but after that it’s all down to you. You’ll be my representatives. With that in mind, I’d like you to wear these.’
Gary reaches into a desk drawer and fetches out two T-shirts.
‘They’re going to be on sale on the night. They are the first in a series of promotional lines I’ve got in the pipeline. Nothing too over the top. At all times you must remember this isn’t about celebrity, it’s not about Gary Sayles the man, the personality. It’s about more than that. It’s about Gary Sayles the writer.’
Mike nods his head at this. Pippa thinks it is now time to strike up the bong.
‘Mr Sayles, er, Gary?’ says Susan. ‘We were wondering if you’d mind us filming each other on the tour. We’d like some sort of a record. To remind us of working with you.’
‘Yes, yes, some grainy handheld footage. I like it. In fact you may want to get some of me in there as well. Put it into context. Put me down for a copy of the finished product, will you? There may be merchandising opportunities.’
‘You can count on it,’ says Pippa, under her voice, and then Susan pipes up, ‘Oh yes sir, you can count on that all right.’
‘Pippa…’ says Zeke.
‘Pippa?’ says Susan.
‘Susan,’ says Mike, ‘look, if it’s OK with Gary I think we should be going. I am rather tired, after all.’
‘Ah, but aren’t you forgetting something?’ says Gary. ‘I have something you might need.’
From the desk he takes a book and gives it to Mike. It is a finished copy of The Grass is Greener.
‘Treat it well,’ says Gary, and he smiles the smile of an unfunny man. ‘I know I’m asking a lot of you to finish it in a week and be ready to give a reading. But something tells me you’re the man for the job.’
Mike says, ‘I’ll try my best…’ and Pippa drops her bag.
‘And now?’ says Gary. ‘Now you may go.’
Mike is shown to the door. Pippa crosses to the other side of the room and feigns interest in the montage of book covers on the wall. With Gary waiting by the door, she drops her letter on his desk. Bows her head, shuffles past him. As the three of them come down the stairs and into the hallway, a woman carrying a large child emerges from the room with the trike in it.
‘Gary?’ says the woman.
Mike thinks that she looks like a woman who has not been getting the right sort of attention from her husband. Pippa thinks she looks like trouble. Gary doesn’t catch her eye.
Pippa and Zeke are confused
On the way home Pippa has a funny turn. She is massively stoned. The street lights and traffic lights and the lights from cars blaze in the city’s murk. They spark into each other, catching fire like panics screaming for attention at the edge of her consciousness and then burning out. It had been so simple. Show up the fool and his art for what it is. But Gary Sayles worries Pippa. He is too much. He must know who they are and what they do. He must be using them. Playing them for putzes. Or yutzes. Or klutzes. Maybe he’ll turn up to the first reading of the People’s Literature Tour with his own camera crew. Film them filming him. Are she and Zeke to be the victims of a post-pre-ironic irony that is so delicious, fragrant and melodic that they will never be able to put pen to paper, no, thought to a variety of media again? Is it a bluff? A double bluff, a counter-bluff? Is Gary Sayles’ art perfection?
The moment is truly fearful. It possesses the horror of a never-ending sequence, of infinity squared.
Then there is her new plan. Susan as besotted fan, Pippa as artist, fucking the novelist and his very idea of Art. On paper this is Kool and the Gang. But in reality? What was she thinking? Why did she not talk it over with Zeke?
Pippa’s brain is jelly. It is being poked. It is being flat-smacked by wooden bats. Acid-laced red-haired children are having their way with her brain. Her brain hurts. Pippa takes Zeke’s hand. She needs him here just now…
The moment passes. The cars and the streets come back into focus. Gary Sayles is a man-boy, a sap once more. Pippa will be nominated for awards.
Zeke has been oblivious to Pippa’s scare. He is thinking about reading some of The Grass is Greener when he gets home. He is not planning on staying up too long. He is going to surprise Pippa the next morning. It has been a long time since they have had sex in the missionary position, him on top, no props, no moves, no toys. Just plugging away. He thinks it will make a nice change.
Fictional lives
Amy Sayles woke at seven the following day to find Gary already dressing. Within ten minutes he had left the house. She didn’t ask him where he was going. He’d have only said something ‘enigmatic’ and she’d had her fill of that. She had more important things on
her mind. Because this time she knew her husband wasn’t coming back.
Recently there had been rows, the first bad feeling of their marriage. ‘We never know where you are from one day to the next,’ she’d told him a week ago, ‘Garfield hasn’t seen you since last Thursday. It’s not good enough.’ Gary had responded by crossing to the window of their bedroom and intoning sonorously, ‘But Amy. The children of artists have to bear their crosses too.’
Another time she’d said, ‘We don’t stay up late talking any more,’ not because she had particularly enjoyed staying up late talking, but because it had been an indication that in his interpretation of their life, all was well between them. ‘That’s because I’m moving on, to bigger horizons. We have nothing to talk about,’ he’d said, and she’d said, ‘I know that. That’s not the point.’
Amy had decided to retake control of the situation. Later that day, while Gary was grabbing a shower ‘between meetings’, she asked him whether there was someone else. She had sounded matter-of-fact about it and in a way she was. At least then she would know what she was dealing with. Gary came out of the shower slowly, almost regally. And told Amy that she was beginning to sound like Lucy.
Lucy is a character in The Grass is Greener. She is the wife of Ben, the narrator. She is described as plain. She likes to play board games. When Ben has an affair, Lucy is at first distraught. Then she decides she can’t live without him and wants him back.
Amy was furious. Gary avoiding her question was one thing. But if his idea of their marriage was now so far removed from reality that he was regarding Amy as a Lucy – a cipher with no interior life who was defined by her relationship to men – well, that was unforgivable.