1 1
MAYBE THE TROUBLE is thinking of days as clock time, regular mechanical measure, when, maybe, time isn’t like that at all. We just like to pretend it is because then we feel in control of it. When probably there is nothing to control. What we’re doing is confusing different kinds of words. You can measure length. You can’t really measure time. How do you measure the past or the future? And the present doesn’t have any length, being simply Now. If we try to measure ‘now’ we find it’s always gone, has become part of the past. We shouldn’t use measuring words about it, then we wouldn’t get so confused about what Time is.
Besides, it seems to me that everything we know of in the universe, everything from clocks to supernovas, everything is both a physical object and a shape of energy. Nothing exists, nothing happens without energy. Energy is things; things are energy. Life is energy. People are energy made flesh. Maybe Time is a form of energy as well?
Is that true? If it is, then it is also true that energy can be compressed into concentrated, powerful units (50 watt bulbs, 100 watt, 2000 watt: energy packaged as light). We know this. We experience it every day around us. So why not the same for human beings and for Time? Surely our lives – our lives as we live them during one day, and our lives as we live them during another day – are also packets of energy? And on some days we somehow concentrate more energy into the day and get more done in the same period of clock time than we did another day when our energy was on low wattage.
So time is not really like clockwork at all, but is a variable resulting from the interaction between energy and thought expressed as event. Energy + Thought = TimeEvent.
Which explains why sometimes we talk of filling time (meaning: being easy on ourselves by living our lives at low wattage). And of making time (meaning: not that we make more of it in quantity, but that we make more of it in quality – living life with as high wattage as we can). And of there being not enough time to do all we want to do (meaning: our ambitions for our lives can’t be satisfied and all our flooding energy can’t be used up). And of killing time (meaning: we wilfully squander the present moment). And of passing time, and wasting time, and saving time.
When I was a baby my mother hung a plaque above my bed, a sliver of varnished wood with these words literally burned into it:
Think big and your deed will grow,
Think small and you’ll fall behind,
Think that you can and you will,
It’s all in your state of mind.
When I was fourteen I took the plaque down and secretly burned it because I thought it embarrassingly corny. I mean, who wants to bring friends to his room and have them see that kind of kiddy kitsch hanging over the bed? Anyway, it was asking for ribald jokes. But the trouble with clichés is that they stick. I haven’t forgotten it because in its trite and twitchy way it is also true. Even time, and how much we can do in a set time, depends as much on our state of mind as it does on anything else. Because of my time at the toll bridge, and because of my time with Adam I know I want to be a user of time, not a filler of it, a maker of time not a killer of it, a compressor of energy not a so-whatter. Adam did not teach me this, but I learned it from being with him at the bridge.
But this part of the story is about a twenty-four-hour stretch into which we all crammed enough watts, gave each other enough surprises, and suffered enough shocks to last a lifetime.
Do we ever know our friends? Do we ever know ourselves?
2
Earlier that afternoon, Adam said, ‘Don’t half fancy a movie.’
‘Go!’ Tess said. ‘Both of you. I’ll guard the bridge. Go on! Don’t dither! Shop on the way back. Go!’
A stratagem, of course. Betrayal. Returning that evening the house is sardined, pulsing.
‘Surprise, surprise!’
‘What the hell’s going on?’
Shopping bag grabbed from my hand.
‘Who are all these people?’
Replaced by slopping glass.
More wild cheers.
Tess, beside me, blows one of those referee’s searing whistles.
‘Listen, everybody,’ she yells.
Hushings. Exaggerated party laughter.
‘This is a surprise party for Jan, my friend.’
‘Who certainly looks surprised.’ (Isn’t he one of the university cohort we saw that day with Adam at the Pike?)
Laughter.
‘With a bigger surprise still to come,’ Tess goes on.
‘Ooo – naughty, naughty!’
Cheers. Obscene fingers and fists.
‘Also, this is the first meeting of PATHS.’
‘Hear, hear!’
‘Which, for Jan’s benefit, as he doesn’t know yet, means Protest Against the Toll House Sale.’
‘Bravo!’
‘Encore!’
‘He doesn’t know yet because we’ve just decided it while he was out.’
‘Right on!’
‘Let’s hear it for the toll house. Hip, hip . . .’
‘Hooray.’
‘Henry.’
Laughter.
‘What we’re going to do for a start is collect names on a petition to stop the sale.’
‘Right on!’
‘Where do I put my cross?’
‘We’ll decide other things later. Now, everybody enjoy yourselves.’
Someone – Adam – sets taped rock rolling. The sardines writhe.
The noise is blinding. Anger withers my mouth. I gulp from the drink. Tastes multicultural.
‘What is this?’
‘House warming. Come on, let your hair down.’
Tess makes me dance with her. Or what passes for dancing in a sardine tin. Mass squirming.
‘Who are they all?’ I have to shout, mouth to car.
‘Friends from school,’ she replies, her lips tickling my lobes. ‘A few from the village. One or two of the girls from Tesco’s. Don’t know the others. You know how it is. Word gets round.’
‘Could’ve warned me.’
‘Wouldn’t have been a surprise then, would it, idiot!’ The house throbs. If I go outside, will I see the river rippling in harmony, the bridge undulating in rhythm? My mind gives up. There’s no competing with a noise that pulsates your teeth.
3
Before long Adam has cast himself as a one-man repertory theatre: MC, sergeant major, DJ, mein host, pack leader, party clown, games master. That is, he becomes one of those people who get a kick out of powertooling everybody else. Embryo dictator.
He insists we play some games.
Game One. The Balloon Burst, otherwise known as the Pelvic Bang.
The boy holds a blown-up balloon in front of his crotch. Or stuffs it up his shirt or sweater, as preferred. The girl has to burst the balloon by thrusting her pelvis at it, front on. Close encounters of the pudic kind. Which end in giggles and, on the occasions when the balloon goes off, in exaggerated shrieks. Some cheat by using finger nails or other penetrants.
I opt out, not needing to pretend needing a leak.
On my way back I’m groped at the bottom of the steps by a cruising figure dressed entirely in black.
‘Sorry, not my line,’ I mutter.
‘Could give you a nice surprise. It is a surprise party after all, and you’re the party boy.’
‘Thanks for the offer.’
‘Don’t know what you’re missing.’
‘No, well, another time maybe.’
‘Name the day. I do house calls.’
‘Don’t call me, I’ll call you.’
‘You’ve no heart.’
‘Nothing against you or anything.’
‘Forget it, chuck. Not my lucky night is all.’
He pecks me on the cheek, the rough male kiss of blankets, allows his hands to linger before saying, ‘No hard feelings!’ and fades away.
It’s all happening. You can’t say I lack for excitement or that I don’t see life stuck out here in the middle of nowhere. Would I have had better luck on the grand tour?
Back inside, Adam is starting yet another game, the remaining participants behaving like nine-year-olds going on seven. Those who have dropped out are mostly draped around the edges of the floor engaged in whatever other party games have taken their fancy. Playing at experimental physiology being the popular choice.
Tess grabs my hand. ‘Come on, you can partner me for this one.’
Game two. The Ping-pong Ball.
The boy stands. The girl kneels down in front of him, puts a table-tennis ball inside one of the boy’s trouser legs and works it up with her fingers from the outside until she reaches the crotch over which she manoeuvres the ball and then lets it fall down the other trouser leg. The winner does it the fastest. Naturally, everybody goes as slow as she can.
Like mere pastime stories, this game creates a lot of excited anticipation at the beginning, has an extended middle with plenty of sexy high drama that climaxes in sometimes unexpected thrills, after which it ends with a quick denouement.
This evening there are predictable actions, reactions and dubious dialogue, especially during the crotch scenes.
Tess and I went third. She is busy crossing my crotch and making a meal of it to considerable encouragement and applause, coming at me from front and back at the same time, when Gill appears in the front row of the stalls, sober and ominous and travel-weary.
I don’t see her straightaway because I have my eyes screwed shut. I am thinking of a butcher’s slaughterhouse, as a matter of fact, in an effort to control my privates by taking my mind off what is happening to them. So Tess at last finishes with my crotch and the ping-pong ball is dribbling down my other leg when I open my eyes with relief only to find Gill glaring at me. Even then I don’t react immediately. My first thought is that she is an hallucination brought on by the multicult punch while having my bat and balls played with by someone other than myself for the first time since Gill and I were last together months ago. Only when it dawns on me that she is not gazing at me with the sloe-eyed Mona Lisa smile her face usually assumed during such activities, do I accept that she really is there, touchable flesh, spillable blood, and distinctly unhappy.
4
Outside in the road, where I hustled Gill, Tess following as it dawns on her who this is, I said:
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘I was invited.’
‘Invited?’
‘Me,’ Tess butted in, ‘I invited her.’
‘You? What for?’
‘Seemed like a good idea at the time.’
‘When?’
‘What?’
‘Didn’t think,’ Gill said, stunned, ‘it would be such a big party.’
‘Wasn’t meant to be,’ Tess said, ‘just a bit of fun.’
‘So I saw.’ Gill looked at me then Tess then me again.
‘Nothing like that,’ Tess said.
‘Could have fooled me.’
‘Come on, you know what parties are like.’
‘Look,’ I said. ‘What are you doing here? What are you two up to?’
‘Us two up to!’ Gill said. ‘Don’t you mean you two?’
‘I told you,’ Tess said, ‘it isn’t like that. Just a game.’
‘You planned this just to humiliate me.’
‘What the hell are you going on about?’ I said.
‘Shut up, you,’ Tess said. ‘This is between me and her.’
‘I’ve never seen you like this.’
‘I’ve never seen you like that.’
‘Look, Gill –’ Tess said.
Heavy metal started pumping out of the house.
‘– I thought it would help him to see you –’
‘Help me?’
‘– I thought you wanted to see him.’
‘How would you know what I want?’
‘Your letters were –’
‘You’ve read my letters?’
‘Oh, merde!’
‘You showed her my letters!’
‘Look, piss off, will you, I didn’t ask you to come here.’
‘Thank you! Thank you very much! It’s only me you’re talking to – your girlfriend.’ Looking at Tess. ‘At least I thought I was!’
‘Typical male,’ Tess said.
‘Eh –?’
‘Yes,’ Gill echoed, ‘typical male. In the wrong so turn violent. At least you could say sorry.’
‘Hang on a minute, I wasn’t the one who started this.’
‘All everybody else’s fault, I suppose,’ Gill said.
My head is exploding.
‘If you’d answered Gill’s letters –’
‘Instead of ignoring them –’
‘I tried.’
‘Excuses.’
‘Excuses.’
‘Oh for Christ’s sake! Get lost, will you! Both of you. Just leave me alone.’
‘You said that before. And what do I find?’ Gill shouted – the music is very loud by now. ‘But all right, if that’s the way you want it. Two can play that game.’
She turned and stalked into the house.
‘Now you’ve done it!’ Tess said. ‘Couldn’t you just have been nice to her, nothing strenuous, nothing too extreme, just ordinary everyday glad to see you stuff, I mean she is your bloody girlfriend after all . . . oh, Christ! . . . Merde!’ and after uttering a few home truths in my direction she sloped off into the house.
I felt deeply furious and miserable and wanted to hit them both, hard. The old Adam. Or Cain, more accurately: mark of. Loud echoes of the old Glum enemy rumbled in my guts.
I couldn’t believe all this was happening. Stared at the house. The FOR SALE sign crucified to the wall was defaced with luminous spray paint into PATHS FOR ALE. Heavy metal pulsed from the house. Sex-teased squeals and hyena laughter punctured the beat.
They’d completely taken it over, polluted it, the place where I was recovering, stripping myself down, remaking myself, had been invaded, desecrated, defiled, raped.
Suddenly I hated them.
Yes, Gill, Adam, Tess as well.
All of them.
Paradigm of humanity.
I hated their noise,
their occupation of my space,
hated their sprawl and splurge and clutter and mess.
The splat of their lives.
Hated most of all the pretended individuality of their slavish conformity.
They were not me, nothing I wanted or wanted to be, everything I did not want. Defined by negatives. There was no way I was going back inside while any of them were still there. Trespassers. But there was no way I could get shot of them either, not in the state they were in by now. Worse still, the state I was in myself.
I stood there trembling with impotent rage.
What to do?
Where to go?
Nothing.
Nowhere.
Not with people.
To hell with people.
Nowhere where they’d find me.
I crossed the road and leaned on the bridge and glared downstream, my mind a match for the pummelling noise behind me and the surging swirl beneath my feet.
Just then a thin moon splintered from a bank of clouds, its mist-smeared light revealing the shrouded shape of a wintering cabin cruiser snugly tethered to the bank a couple of fields away downstream.