When he turned, Alasdair was lacing up his tennis shoes. He seemed in a hurry to leave.
“Where are you going?”
“To market.”
Alasdair hefted the white sack onto his shoulder. There was then a pause in which each expected the other to speak. Sam was waiting to be thanked. Alasdair was waiting for Sam to offer to help him. When neither did, Alasdair left; both felt aggrieved.
In the shop it took two hours for the glazier to put in a new window, during which the wind blew through the hole and knocked over books. The customers said accusingly, “It’s very cold in here.” All his volunteers cancelled, citing ill health or the weather, except for Spooky (aka Derrick), who was so inept he was worse than no volunteer. Spooky was thirty-five, had a terrible stammer, and loved volunteering in the shop. He spent the rest of his time looking after Lonnie, his vicious father who bullied him to the point where he imitated his stammer in front of other people.
Sam spent the morning apologising for the cold or correcting Spooky’s numerous mistakes on the till. Naturally, he blamed Alasdair, and with justification, but it was not entirely his fault. Yes, he had smashed the window, but perhaps Mr. Campbell was also to blame, as was whoever or whatever had caused the calamity that disturbed Alasdair’s mind. But even after the glass was replaced and the shop warmed up, Sam remained angry. Just because the man was a homeless amnesiac, that did not give him right to smash the window of a shop whose profits helped save children from cruelty.
And so Sam called the police. For this, we should not judge him too harshly. Blame can be very efficient. So many ills can shelter under one umbrella.
Sam was ready to tell the officer what Alasdair had done, and where they could find him. Fortunately, this was when Spooky spilt his tea on a baby. “You burnt him,” the mother shouted, but the tea was only lukewarm. She nonetheless threatened legal action and physical harm, then told Spooky he was a fucking idiot who should never have kids. It was unlikely that Spooky would ever have children, but that this was something he nonetheless wanted was clear from his reaction. He hunched, put his hands on his face, nodded his agreement.
“I want you to leave,” said Sam. Spooky stood up, but Sam wasn’t talking to him. He said it again to the mother.
“What?” she said.
“I want you to leave now.”
“Not after what he did.”
“What did he do? It was an accident. Your baby’s fine.”
“That’s not the point. He could have been burnt.”
“True. He also could have been kidnapped. He could have been taken by wolves. He could have, but he wasn’t. Derrick’s said he’s sorry. Maybe you should—”
He did not get a chance to finish. The woman swung her hand at his face, but only after bringing it so far back he had time to get out of the way.
“You’re banned,” he said. “Don’t come in here again.”
He had never said this to a customer before, and he wasn’t sure he was allowed to.
“I won’t,” she said, and stormed out, and then it was very quiet except for a vibration in the air. The customers were shaking with the pleasurable knowledge that they had a good story to tell.
Sam went into the toilet and threw up. Then he made another cup of tea for Spooky. When Spooky took it he looked at Sam with such reverence that the mug was not a mug but a chalice brimming with holy liquid.
That evening Sam was actually glad to go home. He wanted to sit in a hot bath and drink a cold beer and maybe think of Sinead. He would submerge his head so his ears were covered. The only noise he’d hear would be the swish of water. If the floorboards shifted, he would not mistake this for a footstep. If the boiler squeaked, he would not mistake it for an old key twisting in the front door. If voices came from upstairs, or outside, he would not think they were discussing him, passing judgement, saying they had made the right choice.
He went home and ran a bath. It started snowing again. He wondered where Alasdair was, whether he was under the bridge or in someone else’s house, naked and breaking their lamps.
He got in and the water was perfect. The bath was big enough for two, especially if the people were lying on their sides, at first not moving, then gently pressing their bodies together. Things would quickly become more intense, but although he and Sinead would want to have sex, they’d stop themselves, because it wouldn’t be safe, and she would be fine with that. Instead they’d grind against each other, kiss in wonderful agony. Their heels and elbows would knock against the side of the bath, and the water would slosh out onto the floor, and some neighbours in the imaginary flat below would hammer on the ceiling with brooms because of the water coming through. When that failed, they’d use sledgehammers that made a booming sound when they struck. The hammers would be heavy, hard to swing, and so would strike the ceiling—his floor—at long, solemn intervals like the peals of a bell being rung to warn villagers that smoke had been seen on the horizon. Lives that seemed permanent, fixed, would be shattered by these chimes, and Sam was almost asleep. His eyes were closed; his nose was just above water. He was no longer having his fantasy of Sinead, the sub-fantasy of the village, but still the banging persisted. If anything, it had gotten louder, to the point where it could not be caused by a sledgehammer, but had to be some kind of projectile repeatedly fired at close range.
Unsurprisingly, the ceiling could not take such a sustained assault. It gave way, or sounded as if it had, and this was one of those dreams that did not seem like a dream because every detail—the sound of splintering wood and then a loud bang, as of a heavy door hitting a wall at speed—was vivid.
He raised his head from the water.
Heard a voice shout his name.
They were back.
They were back.
* * *
IT HAD BEEN almost two years since Sam had lost his temper. The last time was during the spring of 2015, when he saw two teenage girls shooting an air rifle at a swan from a window overlooking the river. The great bird hissed and flapped its wings, confused, frightened, and full of rage at the pain from above. Sam could have shouted at the girls to stop, rung on their door to see if their parents were home, or even taken several deep breaths and accepted that the swan would soon be out of range. Instead he bent and picked up stones and threw them at the window. Most were small, just pebbles, and if a few hit the girls—who were sixteen, or seventeen, barely children—they caused no more pain than the pellets caused the poor bird. There were, however, larger stones, what you could call rocks, and it was one of these that broke the window.
The girls with the air rifle screamed. So what if they were little sadists: He was hurting them.
It was the same with his honest, genuine response to finding Alasdair in the hallway, clutching his shoulder, glaring at the broken doorframe. When he shoved Alasdair against the wall, it felt very satisfying, even better than phoning the police. This was an unambiguous way to show Alasdair that he could not do something just because he wanted to (a precept Sam was breaking only to prove a point, and besides, it was different for him, he was not at all crazy). What seemed like a violent attack was actually a lesson.
But Alasdair did not seem improved as he collapsed on the floor. He was shaking and moaning, having some kind of fit, and this made Sam tremble too. Partly because he was naked and the door was open on a winter night. But the fact that he had lost control was what upset him more. He had been on his own for ten years, surely long enough to accept there would not be a knock on the door, a key in the lock, his parent’s voices saying they were home. He should have stopped being afraid. He should have given up hope.
He shut the door as best he could and got a blanket for Alasdair. He soon stopped shaking, but stayed curled in a ball. Sam got dressed, then made some of the Chinese tea. It was still too hot when Alasdair drank it, but he was obviously too cold to care. When he finished, he lay down, closed his eyes, and seemed to fall asleep. Sam was tiptoeing away when Alasdair said, “Why did you
lock the door?”
“I didn’t think you were coming back,” said Sam without turning round.
“Where else can I go? It’s too cold for bears. And why did you do it?”
“Do what?” said Sam, but he knew.
“Why did you hurt me? Because of your door?”
“And the window. And the lamp.”
Alasdair made a hissing sound. “You can get new ones. They don’t matter.”
Sam turned around. “Not to you. But they matter to me.”
“But this is not your house. So it is not your door. Not your lamp.”
“Yes, but it belongs to someone.”
“Who?”
“My parents.”
“Are they alive?”
“I think so.”
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Africa.”
“When are they coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did they go?”
“When I was sixteen.”
“Why did you stay?”
“They didn’t want me to go. And they didn’t ask. They made it look like they were going on holiday. A week after they left, my grandmother got a letter saying they weren’t coming back.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. They said everything was wrong.”
Sam waited for Alasdair to say something about his parents not eating enough. Instead he pulled the blanket tight. He stared at the wall.
“There’s a bed if you want it,” said Sam. “You’d be more comfortable. It’s my parents’ room. I mean, it was.”
He wanted Alasdair to say something, no matter how insensitive. Even this would be a kind of acknowledgement. Once the secret was outside his head, it wasn’t such a weight.
It is the same with most Survivors. We do not expect consolation. We just need others to know.
Unfortunately, Sam found it hard to tell people. He had not told Caitlin or Mrs. Maclean; only Trudy knew. Even with her it was little discussed. She found it painful to talk about abandonment. While she doubted that her husband missed her (and certainly did not care if he did), many others had relied on her. Trudy’s mother needed her help on their farm, she looked after her nieces and nephews, her father only enjoyed food that she prepared.
Sam would not get over being abandoned by his parents while he lived in their house. It didn’t matter that he had emptied the place of almost all their possessions. So long as he remained, he could not forget.
12. Less
THE WINTER MONTHS IN COMELY Bank were always difficult. It was dark when people woke up, when they ate their breakfasts, when they left their homes. Daylight was something that happened while they sat in a shop or office or school. They might catch ten minutes of frail sun at lunchtime, but it was too cold to linger outside. By four o’clock the moon was large in the sky and frighteningly low, as if part of the earth were seeking to return.
That final winter was no exception. People stayed home as much as possible. They went out only for food. If they met on the street, in Mr. Asham’s, conversation was brief.
But it would be inaccurate to say nothing happened during that time. The slackening pace gave everyone the chance to reflect. They thought about what they’d done during the year that had passed, what they’d do in the future.
Caitlin decided to leave Comely Bank.
Mrs. Maclean vowed to help more people.
Toby decided to eat less.
Mr. Asham decided to start seeing Trudy three times a week.
Sinead decided to drug Sam.
Sam started trying to get Trudy a passport.
After a period of deep reflection, Alasdair began drinking his urine.
But there were obstacles. Sinead didn’t know which drug to use; Sam had no idea how to get a fake passport; Mr. Asham had to stop seeing Trudy after his wife found short black hairs on his shop coat. As for Caitlin, she read travel guides and looked at brochures but did not book a flight. Only Alasdair was able to start his plan immediately.
Toby’s plan had its origins in his visit to Sam’s shop. After Sinead saw how the cookbook calmed him, she bought him others. During that autumn she read the recipes to Toby, showed him the photos, talked about how the dishes might taste. But whatever had happened in the bookshop that day was not repeated. His hunger was unchanged. Perhaps this was why Sinead stopped reading to him.
The more likely explanation is that she was too obsessed with Sam. In addition to following him and waiting outside his shop, she took pictures of him on her phone at every opportunity. Most were partial, blurry images, but this did not matter: Each photo was a piece of him. Instead of reading to Toby, she looked at these pictures on her phone till she was squirming in her seat, crossing her legs, smoothing her hands down her thighs. Only when her desire reached wonderful, torturous levels did she return her attention to Toby. Even with Sam’s face before her, Toby put her off sex.
When Toby returned to the cookbooks in February 2017, it surprised Evelyn and Sinead. Toby could not read and rarely enjoyed looking at pictures. Yet now he spent hours gazing at the cookbooks. This had no effect on the way he ate—he still cleared his plate in a ravenous manner—but he stopped asking for food at other times. He no longer tested the locks on the cupboards or went through the rubbish. He did not cry or beg.
Toby’s self-discipline had dramatic results. By the end of February, he had lost twenty kilograms. By the middle of March, he had lost a further five kilograms, bringing him down to 139 kilograms. Though still obese, he was no longer elephantine.
Sinead couldn’t understand why the cookbooks were working. The crucial difference, I suspect, was that Toby now wanted to eat less, but this only begs the further question of why. Sinead wondered if he was jealous of her feelings for Sam; perhaps he was trying to lose weight so she’d find him attractive.
That she could even consider this notion speaks volumes about Sinead’s inflated idea of her attractiveness. Toby had no sexual inclinations, not even towards himself. When he got an erection he guffawed and pointed at his crotch.
It is interesting to compare the different urges of Toby and Sinead. Both were primal needs that seemed irresistible. Yet throughout history there have been people who abstained from sex or eating, even (in the latter case) to the point of death. In virtually all these cases some political or spiritual motive was able to override these desires. But although Sinead admitted that she had a problem, nothing she could think or do made any lasting difference. In some respects her situation was that of the world writ small. At the start of this century our societies were in constant crisis. The ice caps were melting; the stock markets kept crashing; the gap between rich and poor was widening every second. We were running out of trees, fossil fuels, fish, and clean water. There was perpetual war.
Everyone knew about these problems; they were topics of daily conversation. Yet few people were prepared to change the way they lived. It was essential that they were able to speak to their friends at any time. If they couldn’t eat bananas, or fly on jet planes, they would rather die. Their problem was the same as Sinead’s: They simply lacked the will.
If it seems ludicrous to equate the plight of a young nymphomaniac with that of the entire world, that is entirely fitting. An absurd comparison for an absurd situation.
If she could not change, if they could not change, how did poor mentally challenged Toby manage to overcome his craving?
These are the wrong questions. They assume that the decision to want and eat less was made by a conscious mind with plans and intentions, i.e., by Toby. Given his somewhat limited mental capacities, it makes more sense to give the credit to his body. Perhaps it suddenly realised it could not expect to function much longer at its present size. Never mind that his body did not actually “realise” this fact, or “decide” to make him eat less, at least not in the way these terms are used when speaking of sentient beings. We need not speak of intention or purpose. The body has ways of r
estoring balance, which though they may appear goal-directed, with a clear end in mind, are in fact just emergent properties of the system as a whole. For example, when a pregnancy is spontaneously aborted, it is often due to a conflict over resources between the mother and foetus. When the stability of the mother’s body is threatened—for instance, by the foetus utilising too much of the available blood sugar—the mother’s pancreas will automatically secrete more insulin, thus reducing the amount of glucose available to the foetus, which can lead to its death. This is done without ill will: It is regulation.
There are such patterns and mechanisms within all systems. Though we need not speak of “design” or “purpose” when discussing their properties, sometimes they perform a function that an impartial observer—who desired only the greatest good—might think desirable. This could range from reducing a chronically obese person’s interest in food, to increasing the height of the tree line, or even something like the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that destroyed the dinosaurs which had arrogantly ruled the land for really far too long.
In Toby’s case, he was saved by whatever property of his digestive or nervous system led to the metabolic and behavioural changes that reduced his appetite. Though we might wonder at the timing—why, after so many years, did this internal switch get flicked?—the mechanism that caused it was as blind as those superheated rocks that struck the earth. No matter that he began losing weight at a crucial time: In the weeks before Toby’s dramatic change, Sinead caught his mother wrapping a tea towel tightly round his neck on several occasions. Although she did not know her predecessor’s suspicions (Sinead and Mortimer never met; she thought Trudy worked in the Thai restaurant), the furtive look on the old woman’s face was enough to make Sinead suspect Evelyn was losing what little patience she had left. However, let me repeat, we should not be swayed by how fortuitously timed, and probably life saving, Toby’s diet was. Likewise, we should not take the apparent precision with which the meteors struck what was then North America, Europe, and Australia, and nowhere else (excepting the small fragment that struck poor Socotra, “The Island of Bliss,” whose people had never attacked or enslaved anyone, and which had such beautiful trees) as anything other than one of a set of equally probable patterns of impact. And to those who still insist this was a balancing of the karmic books, let me point out that there were plenty of spared nations with an equally inglorious history. I would like to think, if I may dare—postulating the eradication of several billion people is a thorny proposition—that if the meteors had struck elsewhere, the eventual outcome would have been the same. Decades of shock and rebuilding; a fairer, better world.
The Casualties Page 12