Unconstructive |
adjective: unhelpful, serving to dismantle or worsen. Negative. |
Superegos |
noun: plural of superego; that part of the unconscious mind that acts as a conscience for the ego. |
As it goes I happened to know a lot of people called Dave Gorman. Perhaps I should explain.
A few years ago I was having a late-night drink with my then flatmate Danny and the conversation had turned to my namesakes. Danny, for reasons best known to himself, didn’t believe me when I told him that the Assistant Manager of East Fife Football Club was also called Dave Gorman and so, a few hours later we were on a train to Scotland. It was that kind of late night drink. We tracked down the Assistant Manager of East Fife football club. He was indeed called Dave Gorman.
It turned out that Dave Gorman had a son called Dave Gorman and so we met him the next day. And then things started to get a little odd. Meeting Dave Gormans (or Dave Gormen, which I think is the correct plural) became something of an all-consuming quest and we ended up travelling all over Britain as well as visiting France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Ireland, Israel, New York and Jersey, only stopping when I had met 54 of my namesakes (one for every card of the deck, including the jokers) and Danny had a photograph of each encounter as proof.
There isn’t space here to explain exactly how this all happened, indeed that would take a whole other book, but let’s just say that a lot of tequila was involved along with salt, lemon and idiocy.
I look back on that time of my life with great fondness, but also with a big dose of embarrassment. It is clearly no way for a grown-up to behave. When the journey came to an end Danny and I were so scared of our ability to egg each other on that we decided our flatshare must come to an end too. We went our separate ways and gave each other a bottle of tequila to mark the occasion. I placed mine on my new flat’s kitchen shelf where it would act as both a reminder of our stupid past while also serving as a warning for the future.
This was the past I wanted to put behind me. That was what I was like in my twenties; a reckless fool concerned only with frippery and nonsense. When drunk I would accept any challenge and I would always have to prove myself right at any cost. But I was 31 now; I wanted to be taken seriously. I wanted to grow up. I think it’s fair to say that my embarrassment at this most ridiculous chapter in my life went a long way towards explaining my desire to change. In many ways it was the reason I now had a contract to write a novel. It was the reason there was a pot of publishing money in my bank account. It was the reason I now had a ginger beard bristling on the end of my chin.
Despite this, I had yet to write a word of the novel and I was now finding myself, quite by accident, looking at the website of a Dave Gorman. It seemed the harder I struggled to put my past behind me, the more likely I was to be confronted by it at the next turn.
The Dave Gorman in question was a man I’d come to regard as something of a friend. Canadian but living in St Alexandre, a tiny village in the South of France, when I’d first learned of his existence that was all I knew of him: his name, his nationality and his location. Danny and I had flown to France, hired a car and driven to St Alexandre in the belief that a North American would stand out in the South of France. This supposition had proved correct and with the help of friendly but confused villagers we had found his house. Unfortunately we had also discovered that Dave wasn’t in. Worse still, on further investigation it turned out Dave was away visiting friends… in London. The next day I met him in Greenwich, approximately five miles from my own front door!
But we’d got on really well and had stayed in touch ever since. David and I (he prefers his name unabbreviated and it does make things easier) have had drinks together two or three times in London and even found our paths coinciding in New York for one particularly drunken evening. It hadn’t been unusual for the two of us to exchange the odd email or phone call.
What was unusual was to find myself staring at his website because a relative stranger by the name of Marcus, a man who collected secondhand photographs of women and dogs, had tried randomly searching the web for the words unconstructive and superegos.
Especially when you consider that I only knew Marcus because I had once randomly searched for the words dork and turnspit and I had only done that because a mystery Australian called Stevo had randomly searched the internet for the words francophile and namesakes!
It seemed to me that it was a pretty remarkable series of coincidences that led me back to my namesake. I didn’t know what the odds of something like this happening were but I did know it made me want to buy a lottery ticket. It also made me want to ring David.
‘You’re not going to believe what’s just happened!’ I said, once we’d dispensed with formalities.
‘What?’ he asked.
I told him the story. The whole thing, from start to finish.
‘I don’t believe it!’
‘I told you you wouldn’t.’
‘You did, didn’t you? That is amazing, eh!’
David and I chatted for a while. Marcus was still sitting at my desk and even though he seemed to have been struck dumb by his part in this most extreme series of coincidences, I didn’t want to be impolite so I wrapped up the phone call and promised to call David another time.
When Marcus left later that day he had four new photos in his rucksack and a spring in his step. I had one hell of a story and a problem. I’d taken a glimpse at my past and it frightened me. But it tempted me too. I had to resist that temptation, I had to put that life of youthful folly behind me and be the 31-year-old I wanted to be. I had to start writing the novel. I sat at the computer, opened up a new Word document and stared into its clean white abyss. The day’s events had only served to make the task seem even more distant. How was I supposed to sit down and write a novel when reality had proved itself to be stranger than anything my imagination could conjure? I was already more than struggling with the task in hand but when truth was so resolutely stranger than fiction what was the point in writing fiction? I needed to clear my head.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard. Write. Write anything. Just start.
Hugh Brown woke up one morning. He’d been dreaming again. Dreaming of the colour, that colour, that…
Dreadful. Delete, delete, delete.
Imagine a colour that only you can see. It isn’t purple or red or any of the colours in the rainbow…
No, no, no. Far too camp. Start again.
Hugh strode into the DIY superstore like a man possessed. He barged his way through to the paints, running down the aisles pulling cans down, tearing up colour charts. Tins of Apricot Crush, First Dawn and Smooth Pistachio all came tumbling down, spilling their gooey contents over the floor. A crowd gathered (it was a Bank Holiday Monday after all) and somewhere a child cried.
‘Why!’ Hugh screamed at the top of his voice, ‘Why isn’t it here?’
How did those words get on my screen. Did I really type that? Nonsense. Dreadful, dreadful nonsense. Come on Gorman; write. And then my head collapsed. I gave in:
I’ll crack on with Chapter 1 just as soon as I’ve checked my email.
*
To: Dave Gorman
From: David Gorman
Subject: Absolutely Googlewhacking Amazing!
Hi Dave,
Good to talk earlier. So you’ve been googlewhacked and I’ve been googlewhacked too, eh? Strange serendipity indeed!
Congratulations on the publishing contract! Writing can be hard work so if you ever need a break you know you’re welcome to come and stay with us for a few days any time you like. You can finally see the inside of the house and there’s a spare bedroom with your name on it. (Well, our name, but you know what I mean.)
It’s very peaceful at this time of year so if you need to clear your head, it’d be great to see you again,
Warmly,
David
I’d told David about the publishing deal but I guess I hadn’t been entirely honest about my lack of progress. Writing was proving to be even harder work than he knew … but my eyes were inexorably drawn to the phrase: ‘if you need to clear your head …’
I did. I needed to clear my head more than anything else. But could I afford a jolly to France? There was money in the bank but it didn’t really feel like my money. Until I’d actually done some writing surely I was just keeping some of Jake’s money warm for a while. Then again, how much money was I talking about? At the end of the day it all depended on how much a trip to France was going to cost so at the start of the next day I decided to look it up. I knew that Ryanair flew to Nîmes, David’s nearest airport, so I found my way to their website to see how much the journey would cost with this no-frills, low-budget carrier. I punched in all the details and waited for the page to load. I couldn’t believe my eyes and when I’d convinced myself my eyes were right, I couldn’t believe my luck.
The website told me I could fly from Stansted to Nîmes for one penny. And, what’s more, the return flight would cost one penny too. Two pence! To fly to France! And back! On a plane of all things! I didn’t know how it was possible but I didn’t care. I was just frightened that if I looked away the offer would disappear so I said yes immediately. Then I remembered that the internet couldn’t hear me so I hit the Yes button instead. Then I rang David and told him I’d be coming along in a couple of weeks’ time. I nearly told him I’d be coming every week at that price.
‘Two pence!?’ he said disbelievingly. ‘Are you sure the plane has wings?’
*
Maybe I’m old-fashioned, maybe I’m naïve, but I like to think that if I read something in a newspaper it must be true. So it’s with deep regret that I’m forced to reveal to you, dear reader, that this is not always the case. I know for a fact that the Observer – that august journal of repute – told at least one cold and calculated lie in December 2002. The lie was as follows: The first three correct solutions opened will receive the New Penguin English Dictionary (worth £15.99).
As a winner I did not receive a copy of the dictionary. In its stead I received book tokens but, and this is the part that makes the lie so heinous, the book tokens were only worth £15.00. That’s right! What is the world coming to when a newspaper short-changes its crossword winners to the tune of 99 pence? That’s nearly a pound! Oh, I know it might not sound like a lot of money but to put it in context, bear in mind you can fly to France and back 49 and a half times for that kind of money!
As angry as I was about this outrageous situation, after serious consideration I decided to be big about it. I didn’t even post my letter of complaint.
*
I didn’t know very much about Nîmes but I could learn. The first thing I found out was this: if you have a strong Belfast accent, the word Nîmes is indistinguishable from the word name. I discovered this at Departure Gate 42 of Stansted Airport where a young man with a strong Belfast accent had been given the job of checking both our destination and our names.
‘Nîmes?’
‘Gorman.’
‘Nîmes?’
‘Dave … Gorman.’
‘Are you going to Nîmes, sir?’
‘Sorry? Am I going to name sir what?’
‘What’s your destination, sir?’
‘Nîmes.’
‘That’s what I was trying to establish, sir.’
‘Right, sorry, I thought you said “Name”.’
‘I see, sir. So you are going to Nîmes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right. Now, name?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Name?’
‘Yes, that’s right. I’m going to Nîmes.’
I was surprised to see that the flight was nowhere near full. There couldn’t have been more than 60 passengers on the flight. It was nice to get three seats to myself but I crossed my fingers and hoped everyone else had paid more than me because I was rather hoping there’d be more than £12 worth of fuel in the tank.
There must have been because two hours later we were in Nîmes where a fellow passenger taught me my second fact about the city. Nîmes is, apparently, known as the Rome of France. I’m not sure why but presumably all roads lead there which would explain why my taxi driver wanted to show me quite so many of them.
Maybe it was the language barrier. I speak almost no French and he spoke almost no English, so maybe when I asked him to take me to the bus station he quite innocently thought I had said: ‘Please take me on a guided tour of the city, kind sir. Please show me every sight you can. I will be delighted if you can take the time to explain it all to me in a language I clearly don’t understand.’ At least that would explain why what should have been a quick five-mile hop turned into something far more extensive. And expensive.
The bus journey took a further hour and a half but at least this journey had no incomprehensible commentary and I was happy just to drink in the view. Tiny little hamlets appeared and disappeared, and there were olive groves and vineyards and cypress trees tapering into impossible points, showing the rustic church spires how it should be done.
Each village we passed through seemed to outdo the last for its picture postcard quality. There were old ramshackle buildings; all weather-beaten stone, cracked plaster and battered wooden shutters that looked like they were only held together by the ivy that sprawled across them. But they didn’t look neglected the way they might in an English setting, they just seemed right. The whole scene seemed to have been painted with the most muted of colours, it was like watching TV with the contrast turned down which gave the area something of a restful quality. I felt my head clearing already. I was doing the right thing.
Suddenly, as we cleared the brow of a beautiful little hill, a glorious little sunlit village loomed on the horizon. Memories came flooding back; this was St Alexandre. I got off the bus.
It was two and a half years since I’d been here but somehow I knew exactly where I was going. When we arrived it seemed as though nothing in the village had moved. I passed the same blue and grey, 1950s Renault parked in exactly the same spot. There were no people around, but weren’t those two cats sitting in that same suntrap the last time I’d been here? Wasn’t that skateboard lying upended in the middle of the road last time too?
As I arrived at the top of David’s driveway I paused to breathe in the air. Fresh, crisp, clean air. You don’t get that in East London. I remembered the last time I’d been here. I remembered the hollow feeling at discovering the empty house, the disappointment that flooded through me at the painful realisation that it had been a wasted journey. This time it was different. This time David was expecting me. This time I strode confidently.
There was a note pinned to the door. It was folded over so that its contents were secret but on the outside I could see the name Dave Gorman. I paused. Which Dave Gorman was it meant for? What if his doctor had called by with the results of some embarrassing test for David and pinned them to the door? No. A doctor wouldn’t ignore a perfectly good letterbox. And I was Dave to his David. So it must be for me. I unpinned it and had a look:
Dave,
We’re really sorry but some urgent business has come up and we’ve had to leave at short notice. We are on our way to London. We are truly very sorry.
David and Eillen
I felt myself go weak. My bag dropped to the floor. How could this be? Not again! I felt tired suddenly, my legs started to give at the knees. I lowered myself down, sat on the bag and held my head in my hands. What would I do? Where would I go?
‘Surprise!’
I turned and saw David and Eillen smiling broadly. They looked more than a little pleased with themselves.
‘Gotcha!’ said David with a wag of the finger.
‘You git!’ I yelled but any anger I felt was outweighed by the relief. I embraced them both.
‘I am ’ugging two David Gormans!’ said Eillen to laughter all round.
‘It’s a David Gorman sandwich!’ I said and the laughter continued. Until we all realised that could be taken the wrong way. Someone coughed and the hug parted.
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ David said.
*
It was a crisp December evening but it was warm enough to sit outside so we sat by the pool while we ate dinner. David barbecued some fish, the wine (from a vineyard not three miles away) flowed freely and so did the conversation. I knew that David and Eillen were teachers in what is known (and indeed trademarked) as LearningMethods, a system that David had created and that aimed, I think, to teach people how to analyse and solve their own problems, be they problems with tension, pain, phobias, relationships, whatever.
They had both travelled the world teaching and so always had a fund of stories with which to entertain and of course my life is a non-stop rollercoaster of excitement so I was more than able to hold my own.
David told me how he had just finished teaching his LearningMethods work on an International Business Negotiation course at the University of Avignon and I returned fire by telling him about my recent failure to write a novel. David told me how he was aggressively developing the work and that a LearningMethods teacher was now employed at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm and I told him all about my failure to write a novel. And then David told me that he’d just finished writing a 30,000 word article on his work and so I told him all about my failure to write one word … of a novel. I think it’s fair to say my rollercoaster had stalled.
Eillen had to travel to Avignon the next morning so she retired early to bed while David and I continued talking late into the night.
‘So, Dave, tell me more about these … googlewhacks?’
I told him everything. Everything I’ve told you.
‘So I’m number two in a chain?’ said David.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you didn’t find my googlewhack, did you? You found Dork Turnspit and he found Unconstructive Superegos so I’m number two in a chain,’ said David, drawing a little diagram on the back of an envelope.
‘I see what you mean.’
‘Every link in the chain takes you one step further from your own imagination,’ said David. ‘Your imagination conjures up two words. Those two words lead you to someone and their imagination conjures up two new words … it would be interesting to see how long a chain you could get, eh?’
‘Yeah, I guess so,’ I said, guessing so.
‘How many do you think it would be possible to get?’ asked David, pouring me another glass of wine.
‘I have no idea.’
‘I bet you couldn’t get ten in a row.’
‘Well, let’s think about this,’ I said, warming to the conversation. For my sins I used to study maths and, while I dropped out of university, there is a small part of me that will always be that maths student. You put a couple of glasses of wine inside me and then give me a hypothetical mathematical problem like this and that part of my brain fires up automatically. If I’m ever in a coma, don’t play me my favourite music, don’t bring in my favourite celebrity, just start every sentence with ‘If an apple costs 7p and an orange costs 9p how many …’
‘Apart from you, I’ve emailed four different ’whacks,’ I said. ‘I mailed the three I found using the Observer crossword and I emailed Marcus. He was the only one I got a reply from.’
‘So?’
‘So, let’s say that’s the hit rate: one in four.’ I took the pen and the envelope from David. It was my turn to draw a diagram. ‘So it’s simple. If you want to create a chain, every time you meet a googlewhack, you just persuade them to find four ’whacks. One of them should reply so then you meet them and persuade them to find four and so on. It’d be easy. There you go: a statistically likely ten in a row. Problem solved.’
‘OK …’ said David, stroking his chin, ‘but what about … if they each only found you … two? That wouldn’t be possible, right?’
‘Well, it would be harder but it’s far from impossible. It’s an infinite task. It’s basically the same as the infinite-number-of-monkeys-and-typewriters thing. If you just keep trying forever, however unlikely it seems, you will eventually get ten googlewhacks in a row.’
‘Yeah, but you don’t have forever do you?’ David snorted derisively. ‘You need to put some kind of deadline on it.’
I suddenly realised that, while I was talking hypothetically, David seemed to be talking about this as a reality. I was using the word ‘you’ in the general sense. The same way it’s used in sentences like ‘You’ve got to have a hobby’ or ‘You’ll always find me in the kitchen at parties.’ David was using the word ‘you’ in the specific sense. The same way it’s used in sentences like, ‘Oi, you, get off my land’ or ‘You make me feel like dancing’ or ‘I, David Gorman, challenge you, Dave Gorman, to meet ten googlewhacks in a row’, say. One knows the sort of thing, doesn’t one?
‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘You actually think I might do this?’
‘Yeah … why not?’
‘Let me be really clear about this, David: I. Am. Not. Doing. This. What kind of man do you think I am?’
‘I thought you liked this kind of thing!’ he protested.
‘What? Why?’
‘Because the first time I met you, you travelled all the way from England to France and back again in order to meet me! Why did you do that, Dave? Do tell.’
‘Because …’ I was sheepish now, ‘because … you’re also … called … Dave Gorman.’
‘Exactly! You love doing this sort of thing.’
I suppose I did have something of a reputation. And I could see why. But I obviously hadn’t explained to David that I was trying to change.
‘Look, all that stupidity is behind me now,’ I said. ‘You know I’m trying to write a novel. You can see I’ve got a beard. I’m a grown-up now, David. I’m 31.’
David simply scoffed. A mischievous grin played across his face.
‘What’s that for? Why are you grinning?’
‘I’m older than you, Dave,’ he said.
‘So?’
‘So … you think 31 is the age to grow up! I don’t know where you got that idea from but take it from an older man, Dave, 31 is too young to be growing up,’ he sipped from his wine. ‘32. That’s when you should grow up.’
‘What?’
‘32,’ he smirked, ‘I think you should grow up when you’re 32.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean,’ he paused. He spun the moment out, as if he was Hercule Poirot about to reveal the murderer, ‘I mean: if you personally find no more googlewhacks, but every googlewhack you meet finds you two more, I bet you can’t get ten googlewhacks in a row before your 32nd birthday.’
I was drunk. A friend, a fellow Dave Gorman no less, was issuing me with a challenge. Could I meet ten googlewhacks in a row? Was I tempted? A couple of years ago I’d have leaned across the table and shaken David’s hand without a thought. But I’d moved on since then. Or had I? Here was my chance to prove myself. Here was my chance to be the man I wanted to be and not the man I’d become. If I could resist the challenge I could prove to David, to the world and to myself that I was no longer the idiot clown. I could be a grown-up.
‘No, David,’ I said firmly. I would have raised my voice but Eillen was asleep so instead I spoke with a resolute whisper. ‘No. I’m not doing it. This is my plan: I’m going to have a nice couple of days here in France. Then I’m going to go back to England. I’m going to have a nice, quiet, family Christmas at my mum’s and then, in the New Year, I’m going to crack on with my novel.’
There. I was proud of myself. I felt like an alcoholic refusing a drink for the first time, I’d spent the last few years of my life addicted to childish idiocy, but no more. I had given up. It was all behind me.
Hello, my name is Dave Gorman and I used to be an idiot.
As I went to bed I found I was at peace with the world and with myself and as a consequence I had the best night’s sleep I’d had in months. I woke late the next day and followed the smell of freshly brewed coffee through to the kitchen.
‘Good morning, David Gorman.’
‘Good afternoon, Dave Gorman.’
We smiled.
‘Hey, while you’re away from home, if you want to use the phone and things, just go right ahead. You don’t need to ask. Treat the place like your own home . . . you might as well; your name’s on the mortgage.’
‘Thanks. It’s only a couple of days, I think I can manage.’
‘Well, if you want to check your emails, there’s a computer through there … feel free.’
‘Now that I might do. Are you sure you don’t mind?’
‘Go for it.’
I wandered through to the study and within a couple of minutes was online, checking my mail, deleting the spam and replying where appropriate. I’d only been there a short while when David popped in with a fresh cup of coffee. A few minutes later he popped in with a nicely warmed pain au chocolat. A few minutes more and he appeared again. I wondered what fresh treat he had in store this time.
‘While you’re online, here’s a couple of people I thought you might want to get in touch with,’ he said, handing me a piece of paper.
He said it casually as if it was almost not worth mentioning but there was a glint in his eye. Something was up, but I couldn’t work out what. I looked at the paper and saw two email addresses. The names were completely unfamiliar to me.
‘Why would I want to get in touch with these people? Who are they?’
David beamed; it was the smile of a magician about to reveal his finest trick: ‘They’re the two googlewhacks I found! Remember? Every googlewhack you find can find you two more and you have to try and get a chain of ten in a row before you’re 32?’
He looked at me in the same way that a cat looks at its owner when it’s brought a dead bird into the house, seeking reward and approval. I gave David the look an owner gives to his cat in such circumstances; a withering look of reproach.
‘No. David. Remember: I’m not doing that,’ I was astounded. He seemed to have completely forgotten the conversation from last night. I tried to jog his memory.
‘Beard?’ I said, pointing at my face.
‘grown-up?’ I said, pointing at my face again.
‘Novel?’ I said, pointing at my face yet again. I know it didn’t make sense but I was on a roll.
‘But I thought you—’
‘Oh, David. I’m not doing it,’ I sighed, refusing to be worn down.
‘Oh. I got up early this morning especially.’
Was he sulking? Was it a pretend sulk? He still had an air of mischief about him.
‘I found my two. I thought you’d be interested,’ he continued. ‘I thought you’d want to … you know?’
‘I know, David,’ I fought for control of my temper. I won. I was calm and precise, ‘Believe me; I didn’t take the bait last night and I’m sober now so there’s no chance. My mind is made up.’
‘OK.’
He smiled and I smiled back. We looked each other in the eye to make sure we both knew we were still friends. David turned to leave. As he got to the door he turned, paused and then almost whispered, ‘They were good googlewhacks too.’
He’d got me. He’d fished for my interest and finally I’d taken the bait.
‘Really?’ I asked. ‘What were they…?’
‘…What do you mean?’ I asked asthmatically.
‘I mean…’ said David, pausing for one, two, three breaths, ‘Dauphin Gormandise is a googlewhack! Dauphin Gormandise! That’s got to be as close as you can get to Dave Gorman with only one hit.’
I laughed again. David laughed again.
‘How long did that one take you?’ I asked, amazed at the efforts he’d gone to.
‘Oh … not that long,’ he said.
‘Well, it’s very impressive,’ I said, my curiosity now outweighing everything else. His other googlewhack, Unicyclist Periscopes was also a fine specimen. ‘So go on then, where do your googlewhacks take us?’
‘Well, Unicyclist Periscopes takes you to the American Physical Society. ’
‘What’s that?’
‘They represent the interests of physicists in America. They’re based in Washington DC.’
He knew I was more interested in the other.
‘And?’
‘And Dauphin Gormandise leads you to a History professor at a Jesuit University in New York.’
We giggled a little more.
‘Washington and New York?’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ said David, the glint returning to his eyes. ‘So … are you tempted? To go for it? Ten in a row?’
I was falling into his trap once more, seduced by the sheer bloody-minded whimsy of it all. My tongue pushed against my lower teeth, my mouth widened, my lips tightened and I inhaled slightly, ready to pronounce the very beginnings of a ‘yes’ when I suddenly caught myself. I relaxed briefly and took a deep breath. The tip of my tongue moved to the roof of my mouth instead.
‘No,’ I said, firmly. ‘I am not about to get on a plane to New York or Washington! I’ve told you; I’m writing a novel. I don’t have the time for those kind of shenanigans.’
‘Yeah. You’re right,’ said David. He stood and walked to the doorway again. ‘But maybe you should tell them that they’re googlewhacks, eh?’
I looked David in the eye, wary that this might be some kind of trap.
‘I liked hearing that I’m one,’ he explained, ‘you liked hearing that you’re one...’
It seemed to make sense. It did seem to be the kind of fact people enjoyed learning about themselves. I was online. I was sending and receiving emails so it’s not like I’d have to make any great effort. What harm could it do?
‘You should at least tell them they’re googlewhacks…’ said David again.
*
I sent two emails to let the new googlewhacks know of their ’whack status. Then I carried on working my way through my inbox. About forty minutes later I’d done everything I needed to do but made one final check to see if any new emails had arrived in the meantime. There were two.
One told me that my email to the History professor at the Jesuit University in New York had not been delivered. It had been bounced back to me on the grounds that the address no longer existed. (I assumed this meant he’d left that job but that the website hadn’t been updated, leaving a defunct email address hanging about in the ether but pointing nowhere in particular.)
The other came from someone called David Harris who worked for the American Physical Society in Washington DC. His email said that he’d heard of googlewhacks before and that it was lovely to turn up for work in the morning and get something so refreshingly odd sent to him. Then he shared his thoughts as a physicist on googlewhacks but, not being a physicist myself, I didn’t really understand them. I think words like nodes and networks and interconnectedness were mentioned. While I didn’t understand everything that was written, he came across as a charming and polite fellow so I sent a reply that hopefully adopted a similar tone of voice and left things at that.
*
I had a nice time in France. David drove us out to Les Auberges des Cascades where we communed with nature, sitting awestruck watching powerful waterfalls in action. We visited a nearby rural market where I bought some produce Provençal which I knew would make good Christmas presents for random elderly relatives. We ate well, we drank well and we laughed a lot. On my last night we sat up late, drank absinthe and put the world to rights.
‘You know you said you’d changed?’ said David
‘Uh huh.’
‘I think you’re right. I really look forward to seeing your novel.’
It was a happy time.
When I returned home my head felt like it had been successfully cleared and I was ready to take control of life once more.
Christmas was quiet but lovely, spent with family back in my home town of Stafford. After a few days of home-cooked goodness I travelled back down to London taking a pleasantly circuitous route in order to visit those relatives not yet seen during the festive season. Back at home I made an early New Year’s resolution: I resolved to have more resolve. As soon as the New Year was upon us I would begin work on my novel and there would be no stopping me. It was time for a new year, a new broom; a new me.
This determination gave me licence to enjoy New Year’s Eve and I threw myself into the celebration with gusto. I met up with a large group of friends in Soho. So large in fact that this time there were two Geoffs and three Chrises. We moved from venue to venue, drinking, talking, drinking, dancing and of course, drinking. In the early hours of the morning there were maybe ten of us left and we didn’t want the party to stop. We piled into a couple of black cabs and headed back to my flat.
Things were mellow now. Looking around my front room I could see nothing but friendly faces. The music was low and we sat around in a large circle telling stories and reflecting on the passing year. There were three girls and seven boys – odds that combined with alcohol and testosterone to inject a competitive edge into the proceedings. Everyone was polite and all were allowed to hold court for a while but each of us wanted to top the story that had just been told. Everyone wanted to tell the most entertaining tale of the night.
One of my friends, Duncan, did well with a story from his Spanish holiday. While walking up some Andalucian mountain or other he’d bumped into his next door neighbour from Peckham. The story won gasps of disbelief from the group.
‘Isn’t that the most amazing coincidence!?’ asked Dunc, milking it for all it was worth.
‘No,’ I said, a competitive fire in my eyes. ‘No, it isn’t!’
‘It is!’ protested Duncan
‘It is not!’ I said, perhaps a little too forcefully.
The room fell silent. I suppose I was being a bit heavy-handed. Instead of backing down, I steamrollered on. If the game was Coincidence Poker, life had recently dealt me a very strong hand.
‘This is the most amazing coincidence,’ I said, and began to tell the room my story.
I told them how a one in three billion chance named Marcus had sat in that very room. And how that one in three billion chance had taken another one in three billion chance and landed at someone I knew. Someone I knew and who was also called David Gorman! There were some gasps along the way but when I came to the end of my story there was nothing but a shocked, awe-full silence. It was eventually broken by a lone voice:
‘That,’ said Zena, ‘is the most amazing coincidence in the world!’
I smiled. Duncan scowled. In this particular bunch of gorillas, I was the silverback and he was still the young pretender.
‘What happened next?’ came a question.
‘Nothing much. Well, I went to France to see David.’
‘And then what?’ asked another voice.
And so I told the room all about my trip to France. I told them about David’s challenge and it was with a certain pride that I told them of my grown-up refusal.
‘So,’ said Duncan, after a pause, ‘when are you going to go to Washington?’
‘Yeah!’ chorused three or four voices at once.
‘I’m NOT!’ I yelled, surprising myself with the level of my drunken anger. ‘Didn’t you listen to that bit of the story? Didn’t you hear the bit where I said I wasn’t doing that kind of thing any more?’
‘But we bet you can’t get ten in a row as well! Don’t we?’ said Duncan, rallying the troops.
‘Yeah!’ came the baying response.
‘NO!’ I exploded. ‘Look at me! Just because I’ve done some stupid things in the past it doesn’t mean I’m some kind of performing monkey! It’s all right for you, Steve, with your proper job! We can’t goad you into ruining your own life because you’ve got responsibilities! Well, just because I have no responsibilities it doesn’t mean I have to be irresponsible! I’m 31! I’ve grown a beard! I’ve got a publishing deal! If you were any kind of friends you’d be encouraging me to write a best-selling novel not trying to make me perform stupid tasks for your own amusement! I am a bloody grown-up! So why the hell am I having a temper tantrum in my own house on New Year’s bloody Eve?’
It wasn’t the most comfortable of silences that followed. The party was in danger of ending on a sour note. Somebody coughed. Most people looked at their shoes.
‘I’m sorry, Dave,’ said Duncan.
‘No, mate.’ I shook my head, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I just got a bit carried away. I think we’ve all come to expect this kind of thing from you and … well …’
‘I know,’ I said, ‘it’s my own fault. I’m sorry I lost my temper. I don’t want the evening to end like this. Come on, who wants another drink?’
The room approved of this idea. In the kitchen I found myself looking at an array of empty bottles. There didn’t seem to be anything else to drink! But then my eyes came to rest on my bottle of tequila. Dan’s present. A reminder of past stupidity, a warning for the future. It had a note attached: Only to be opened in case of emergency!
I knew there were some lemons in the fridge and of course there’s always salt. This would put the party spirit back in to the room. This was a bona fide emergency. I loaded up the tray and walked back into the room with a smile.
‘Ladies and gentlemen: tequila!’
There were cheers. There were hugs. There was ceremony. There was everybody ready? One, two, three, go: salt, lemon, tequila, gaaah! More, more, more! One, two, three, go: salt, lemon, tequila, gaaah! More, more, more! One, two, three …
*
The main thing I remember was the warmth. I do remember other things, but they’re just details: smiles, laughs, the smell of sweat on leather but my memory can’t put them in order, I can’t find the connections between them, there are too many pieces of the jigsaw missing, but the one thing I know that was with me consistently that night was the warmth.
And somewhere in the missing pieces of that jigsaw, dear reader, somewhere in the random, fractured smiles, laughs and the smell of sweat on leather, somewhere in the warmth, the fuzzy warmth, the slurry, blurry, furry warmth lies the story of how I came to be waking up in Heathrow Airport on New Year’s Day with a ticket to Washington DC in my pocket.