by M Y Alam
‘It’s alright.’ Anna picked up the card and pen and dropped them into her bag. ‘There, now you’re not interrupting.’
Anna moved the coffee, put it in front of her and clasped the cup.
‘Oh alright then. But I won’t stop long. You can get on with your writing. Now you, I remember, you were into Ban the Bomb and all that stuff weren’t you? Bringing petitions round about one thing or another. I sort of admired you, you know, for principles and all that, and not minding about the other girls laughing about it.’
‘I didn’t know anyone laughed.’
‘Sorry. Not in a nasty way. I think most of us probably thought it was a good thing. But we were more interested in other stuff. Boys and clothes and music. And you were a bit earnest, weren’t you?’
Anna didn’t reply. She was thinking of her husband. More precisely she was thinking of her husband’s mistress. She wondered if the mistress wanted to save the world, or was she interested in dresses from rather nice dress shops, and other women’s husbands?
‘There was the day we all fasted. Do you remember, just the one day to raise money for something or other, I forget what. Was it you that got us to do that?’
‘Yes. It was to get books for a school in Tanzania.’
‘Ah. So you do remember some things then. We hid chocolate bars in the cloakroom, and then sloped off at different times to eat. And you wouldn’t. Do you remember? We said it didn’t matter, because we’d still get the sponsor money anyway and you said…well I can’t remember. What was it?’
‘I’m not sure now. Probably that that wasn’t the point. That we should be honest. And to be hungry for a few hours was like an act of solidarity.’
‘Yes. I think that was it. I didn’t get it then. And I still don’t really. Doesn’t help anyone else, me suffering.’ She smiled at Anna. ‘Unless I send them the chocolate bar I suppose.’
Anna looked at her watch. ‘I must go now. Thanks for the coffee.’
She didn’t wait for Pauline to reply, or turn to wave. As she went through the door she heard Pauline. ‘Hey, your paper. You’ve left the newspaper.’ She didn’t pause.
She spent the next mornings in the garden with a mug of coffee and silence. She walked along crazy paving paths, bending down to touch the fat buds of daffodils waiting to open. The slugs had slimed their way up the stems and along the leaves. They’d bitten through the buds so the yellow petals showed through the green. When the flowers opened, the petals would be full of holes. She filled the wire mesh squirrel-proof bird feeder with peanuts for the blue tits and watched the squirrels eat them.
Anna stopped reading the newspaper and watching the television. She fixed her back against the bloody and tragic news. In the evenings she sat, squashed in the corner of the settee, a cushion pulled against her stomach.
She wandered through the house, running her fingers over the tables, the backs of chairs, the work surfaces in the kitchen. She was not looking for dust; she was feeling the substance of this home they had built. She picked up a dolphin, made of glass, that he’d bought in a shop near the Rialto Bridge in Venice. She picked up a figure, a woman in soap stone that she had bought from the craft shop. She held one in each hand, feeling their weight. Both heavy, both cold.
She went upstairs, and upstairs again, to the attic. She pulled the boxes away from the walls, sliding them along the floor and picking her way over and round them until she reached the corner furthest from the door. Tucked under the eaves. There were the three posters, still in their clip-frames. She found two boxes of newsletters, leaflets, typed on a manual typewriter with uneven letters and printed on a Gestetner duplicator.
Anna made a space for herself and settled her back against the golf bag he’d abandoned a few years ago. She picked out the magazines, turned the pages, read the names. Names that were so familiar. Names of people, comrades, she’d expected to be friends with for all of her life. She thought of the old age they’d expected, dreamed of, living together in the Utopia they were creating. All gone, the friends and the dreams. All that remained was a dishonest marriage and a world that was falling apart. And a beautiful house full of beautiful things.
In the evening, the silence hung around her. Nothing except the blood pulsing through her head, she could hear that. The phone rang and the answerphone clicked on. His voice, her husband. ‘Sorry darling, got to stay late, again. I’ll make it up to you, promise.’ And, ‘Me again, darling. It’s a drag. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
She switched on the television. Clicked from soap to soap to soap. Watched the actors, pupils dilating with lust, retreating to pinpricks when it was done, tears and snot, laughter and spit. She pulled the cushion deeper into her flesh, her belly, breathed into that stone dead place she’d nurtured, until she recognised the pain. It wasn’t for the poor and dispossessed. Not any more. It was her own.
In the morning, after her husband left for work, (‘shouldn’t be too late darling’ whispered in her ear) she took a suitcase from the spare room, packed it with his clothes, a few books, some music. When he returned that evening, she’d tell him he was leaving.
Always Swing Upright
Sophie Hannah
I am on my way to the Isle of Wight to give a talk on the subject of happiness. I am expected to speak for fifteen to twenty minutes, and for this I will be paid four hundred pounds. I will also get my train fare reimbursed and an all-expenses-paid weekend at The Haven, which, according to the brochure, has recently added a sauna and an outdoor hot-tub to its inventory of luxury facilities. All this – the deal Dr Helmandi has offered me – makes me very happy, though I have decided not to start my talk by saying so, not because it would shock the audience (though it undoubtedly would) but because such a remark could all too easily be misconstrued as a joke.
Also, I don’t know that the other nine speakers are being paid the same amount, so it might be best to avoid mentioning the specifics of my deal with Dr Helmandi. Perhaps some were offered a thousand pounds, and some nothing at all; if one or two of them aren’t as famous as the rest of us, they might only be getting their travel and accommodation paid for.
In front of me on the table there is a blank sheet of A4 paper and a copy of The Haven’s brochure. Every now and then, I look again at the picture of the hot-tub, its green bubbles illuminated by discreet underwater lighting. In my hand is the pen I was holding when I boarded the train and have been holding ever since, though I still haven’t written anything. I’ve been staring out of the window for most of the journey, at the dozens, the hundreds, of squat pebble-dashed houses with tiny junkyard gardens, too close to each other and to the railway line – houses I would hate to live in, which is why I find it so fascinating to look at them when I get the chance. I always wonder what kind of people choose to set up home in these cages. What makes them so different from me, that they are willing to live in such unsatisfactory conditions? You can’t just say poverty and have done with it. When I was poor, I lived in a one-room flat in a shared house, with only one bathroom between six of us. But mine was a huge room – one corner of it was a round turret – and it was in a beautiful old house with a lovely well kept garden, full of all sorts of different trees. No, poverty is certainly not the answer.
The train goes into a tunnel and the houses disappear. In the suddenly-black window, I see my blank white sheet of paper. It gleams at me, and my reflection grins. I am pleased by the sight of the pristine page, as still and unmarked as the surface of an empty swimming pool.
I turn away from the window in time to see the man sitting across the aisle from me take another can of Carlsberg lager out of the torn plastic bag at his feet. It is his fourth so far, and I can see another four in the bag. Eight cans, for a two-and-a-half-hour journey; he got on the train when I did. I noticed him because of the clinking beer cans and the scratchy rustle of his carrier bag, and because he was panting and soaked in sweat. His T-shirt and hair were wet, as if he’d sprinted all the way from Jupiter to get
to the station in time for the 11.05 to London.
I would have asked him if he was all right (I cannot resist trying to find out information about strangers) but he immediately pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket and rang somebody called Darren. He’d only got a few words into the conversation - ‘Hiya, mate, it’s Greg’ - when the train set off and his phone lost its signal. He slammed it against the side of the carriage so violently that I was surprised it didn’t break, and yelled ‘Fucking shite! Fuck!’ loud enough for everyone sitting nearby to hear. I think he was drunk even at the beginning of the journey, even before the cans of Carlsberg I saw him consume.
Two women who were sitting immediately in front of him moved, probably because of either the smell of his sweat, or his swearing, or both. I almost moved, knowing that it was what any sensible person in my position would do, but in the end I didn’t because I wanted to see if he would phone Darren again. I wondered if he had something important to say; surely he must have, if he was so angry when the signal cut out. I looked at his muddy, faded trainers and his dull skin and eyes, and couldn’t help speculating about what might be so urgent. Did he need drugs? That was all I could think of. After that first attempt, he didn’t try to ring Darren again. He drank his beer, tapping each can rhythmically and somewhat manically with his thumb, and stared down at his lap, not once looking out of the window or at anyone else in the carriage.
I have wondered, on and off since we began our journey, why he sounded friendly and relaxed during his brief conversation with Darren – Hiya, mate, it’s Greg – when he is clearly in a bad state of some kind. I have also been wondering if he has wondered about the empty sheet of paper in front of me, and the pen in my hand. Why, he might well be thinking, has she not written anything yet?
Once he has opened this latest can of beer and taken a swig, he produces his phone again. We are nearly at Retford; I can’t imagine why he has waited so long. He punches the buttons and soon I hear him say ‘Darren? Greg again. Yeah, I got cut off. I got…I was just saying, I got cut off before. So what’s happening? Nothing much. Yeah, he told me. So is Steve going to be there, then? Oh, right. No, it’s just that Andy said Steve was coming.’
He has an unusual face, and I try not to stare. All of his features are small, as if none wishes to be identified as the main one. Around these nondescript landmarks there seems to be an awful lot of spare face, though Greg is not overweight. On the contrary, he is tall and lanky; his large cheeks are concave, two sallow valleys.
I won’t be able to watch him indefinitely without him noticing, and his conversation with Darren is becoming more tedious by the second. I turn back to my piece of paper, brushing away a hair that has fallen on to it. I don’t need to start writing yet. I will postpone the preparation of my talk until the last minute, savouring the knowledge that I can easily afford to do this. I’ll start when we get to Peterborough. That will give me an hour, which should be more than enough time. Then, on the train from London to Portsmouth, I will look over my notes to check that everything’s in order, that I haven’t missed out anything vital. I know what I think about happiness, and what I want to say about it. This will be the easiest four hundred pounds I have earned; Dr Helmandi might as well pay me to speak for fifteen minutes about my favourite holiday destinations, or what I normally have for breakfast.
‘And I can say whatever I want?’ I asked him, when he first rang to invite me.
‘As long as it is on the subject of happiness, yes,’ he said, in an accent that sounded Russian to me, though as far as I know Helmandi is not a Russian name. ‘We hosted a similar symposium last year, and it was a huge success. Our participants found it extremely thought-provoking and rewarding. That is why we wish to repeat the exercise. And this time we have decided to broaden our range of speakers. Last year we asked only those who were regular tutors at The Haven. Now we want to extend our invitation more widely, to people like yourself, well-known people from all walks of life who might be too busy to facilitate a week-long course, but who can maybe spare an evening to share with our participants the fruits of their wisdom and experience.’
I assumed ‘experience’ was a euphemism for foolishness, since it can hardly be enlightening to hear only about the correct decisions a person has made, the bits of their life they’ve got right. In my opinion – and I think I could prove this if I had to – every truly wise person is also foolish. I don’t mean that they started out foolish and then, having learned valuable lessons, they grew wise. Anyone who is unlucky enough to discard, permanently, his foolishness will quickly become estranged from his wisdom – the one is needed to power up the other.
I said none of this to Dr Helmandi on the telephone. Instead, I said ‘Of course’ and ‘That sounds great’, because he had mentioned, at the very beginning of our conversation, the sauna, the hot-tub and the money. I had no objection to sharing the fruits of my wisdom and experience, especially not with The Haven’s clientele, who paid thousands of pounds to attend symposia on happiness. I was fairly certain that, after the weekend in question, I would return home with all my wisdom intact; the symposium’s paying participants would relieve me of none of it.
I think it’s safe to say that most people would not choose to share anything that they value greatly with possibly undeserving strangers, and I would not have agreed – hot-tub or no hot-tub – to give my talk if I’d imagined that the forty-odd members of the audience I’d be addressing would all end up as wise as me without having done what I’d done to achieve it, without having thought and puzzled as I have – the legwork, as it were. One of the things I have always found fascinating about giving others the benefit of my wisdom is how willfully and comprehensively they refuse to take heed. I’ve often felt as I imagine a prison official would feel if he unlocked the big metal gate and all the prisoners inexplicably refused to cross the threshold to freedom, opting instead to return to their reeking cells.
My thoughts are interrupted by more of Greg’s swearing. ‘Fucking cocksucking fuck!’ he bellows, smashing his phone against the back of the seat in front of him. He’s lost his connection with Darren again. A small metal object falls to the ground. ‘Motherfucking fuck,’ he mutters in a tone that is more moderate, picking it up. From what I can see, he seems to be trying to stick it back into the side of the phone. He presses more buttons. ‘Darren? Greg. Fuck!’ A failed attempt. His face is red with frustration. I can smell new sweat. It doesn’t smell bad, like body odour. It is the clean sort of sweat smell that I associate with exercise, though in Greg’s case I imagine it is the sweat of righteous fury. He feels entitled to speak to his friend Darren, and objects to the randomness of life, its lack of a proper, coherent shape. I can empathise with that, as somebody from The Haven might say.
Greg tries again, jabbing with his forefinger. I don’t know how he is managing to have this effect on me, but he’s actually making me feel quite tense. I am, once again, rigid in my seat, waiting to see if he’ll succeed or fail. I ought not to care. Last time Greg spoke to Darren, nothing interesting was said. What does it matter to me whether someone called Steve that I don’t know will or won’t be attending an unspecified event?
I marvel at the contagiousness of strong feelings. Because Greg so evidently cares, I also care; watching him makes me feel a fraction of what he is feeling. I wonder if I could work this into my talk on happiness: hang around with happy people, watch them being happy, and it might rub off on you. Unless you’re the sort of person who signs up for courses at The Haven, in which case observing happy people will only make you feel excluded, resentful and inferior.
‘Daz? Yeah, it’s me, Greg. Yeah. Fucking signal keeps going.’ He chuckles, as if he hasn’t, only moments ago, been crimson-faced with fury. ‘Yeah. Hey? I’m on a train. I’m on a train,’ he repeats. ‘Yeah. That’s why I keep losing the fucking signal. So Steve’s not going to be there, you reckon? Right, right. It’s just…I wonder why Andy told me he was coming. Yeah. Andy. I think that’s wha
t he said, anyway. Why, did he not say that to you, then? Did he not say to you Steve was coming?’
I frown. Next time Greg loses his signal, I will try to catch his eye in the hope that we might start chatting. I would really love to know why he is so rabidly determined to pursue, against the odds, a conversation that is manifestly pointless, one that should have been over within twenty seconds. Is he working up to making some crucial point? Will there be a startling change of subject that will leave poor Darren – and me – reeling?
I turn back to my blank page and write ‘Happiness’ in the top left hand corner and ‘Sonia Coney’ in the top right hand corner. I make my handwriting slightly larger than it is normally, so that Greg can read my name if he wishes to. Of course, he wishes to do no such thing, which is partly why I am someone who is paid to give talks about happiness and he is someone who flies into a spitting rage over the unavoidable interruptions to his inane ramblings.
We have not yet arrived at Peterborough, but I start writing anyway, earlier than I’d planned to; I must do something to fend off tidings of Steve and Andy, and what one might or might not have said about the other. Perhaps if Greg sees me frowning, hunched over my paper, trying to concentrate, he will move, or shut up.
‘Great pleasure blah blah,’ I write. ‘Beautiful place, welcoming atmosphere/people etc. When Dr H rang to invite me, he said that…’ I stop, put down my pen. Does it matter if I prepare my talk using a mixture of notes and properly-structured sentences? Will that be confusing? I decide that it won’t. Better to do what comes naturally, and not worry about being consistent. No one will see what I’ve written down apart from me.
I pick up my pen. ‘Never given talk about happiness before, though feel as if ought to have done – surprised Dr H first person to ask me. I’m ideally qualified, because I am a happy person. Only been miserable three or four times in entire life. Each time it was someone else’s fault – cause external, not internal – and each time (imagine emotional state as Weeble wobbling but not falling down, reverting to right way up, way it’s used to etc) bounced back to happiness as soon as could. (Miserable people other way round – things might fleetingly make them happy but – again like Weebles – quickly revert to natural morose, negative state.)’