A couple of weeks went by after that without anything more from either Karl or Fiorella.
Mrs. Williamson called every two or three days to keep me up to date—Karl was pretty much the same.
During the third week the good news was that Karl had gone back to work. Only part-time but a good sign. He found the first week hard going but stuck at it. Though he was still morose now and then, his mother felt he was at last on the mend.
Then, the following week, I had a phone call. The organiser of a weekend conference for teachers on the subject of teaching novels. They’d planned a talk by a famous author for Saturday after lunch, but she had cancelled because of a family crisis, and they wondered if I could “save their bacon.” A very good fee was offered, all expenses paid, hotel accommodation if required. I was assured of the delightful nature of the location—a comfortable conference hotel in the Devon countryside—and of a hearty welcome from the hundred and fifty appreciative teachers. I suppose on the embarrassment-saving principle of “never explain, never apologise,” nothing was said about why I hadn’t been their first choice, or indeed how many other possible substitutes they’d approached before coming to me. But then, I didn’t need to be told. I have no illusions that I am anything other than an author of minor importance, who enjoys, if that is the word, a devoted but small readership.
My first impulse was to refuse. I hate public speaking, probably because I’m not very good at it; I detest anything to do with selling myself or my books; I dislike socialising as the celebrity guest; and, to be frank, felt a bit miffed at being shoehorned in as the last-minute replacement for the best-selling author everybody was expecting to meet.
But this impulse was stifled by—what? The seduction of vanity. Even as the understudy, at least I’d been invited, and however much you dislike yourself for it, flattery does work. More persuasive than that, the prospect of publicity. It’s easier to write a book than sell it, as every publisher will readily tell you if you complain about your poor sales. And all of us in the word business know that authors meeting readers is the best way of selling their books. I’ve never understood why readers are so influenced by meeting writers. As a reader myself, it’s the last thing I want to do. In my experience most writers of books you’ve admired are disappointing as people. How can it be otherwise? If they’re any use as writers, the best of them will be in their books.
So, out of vanity and crude commercial judgement, I accepted. As there was no convenient rail service, I said I’d drive there on Saturday morning in time for lunch, and return home after my talk.
I regretted this as soon as I put the phone down. Had to restrain myself from phoning back and cancelling. But no. It would have been unprofessional.
To get me out of the house—an action that would quieten my troubled mind—I drove to the local petrol station and filled up and put the car through the washer—but knew by the time I got home, even from that short trip, I’d be crippled by sciatica after a two-and-a-half-hour drive, never mind the drive back. I could stay overnight to give myself a rest before driving home, but the thought of spending the evening with a crowd of teachers letting their hair down decided me against that solution. And though I could do it all in one day by train, I didn’t fancy a long train journey with two changes. Besides, the weather was cold and grey, and all my instincts were urging me to hibernate.
Again I thought of cancelling. But dithered.
Then I thought of Karl. Perhaps he’d drive me. Perhaps he’d like a day out. And one more persuasion. Apparently there was a sculpture park in the extensive grounds of the hotel, which was bounded by a river offering “excellent trout fishing available to hotel guests.” Ideal for Karl while I was at the conference—three or four hours at most, but enough perhaps to tempt him.
Which it did. We agreed to set off at eight on Saturday morning. When we got there, Karl would fish while I cavorted with the teachers, then set off home about four. Back by seven, traffic and weather permitting.
During the journey neither of us was talkative. I never am before a public appearance. My mind is all on what I’m going to say. My nerves are agitated by fear of failure. I’m withdrawn and irritable.
Karl was, I guess, regretful, wishing he’d refused. I knew from my own time in the pit of depression that you grow almost to enjoy your illness, even when it’s at its worst, preferring to be shut away on your own, no one else to attend to but yourself, wallowing in the slough of your maundering condition, like a hippopotamus lolling about in a sticky slough of mud.
Needless to say, we had to stop after an hour for me to consult a hedge.
When I got back into the car, instead of driving on, Karl, staring ahead as if at something blocking the way, said,
“Why am I me?”
It took a moment to adjust my enclosed mind. “You mean, why are you you rather than someone else?”
“Why am I me? D’you ever wonder why you are you?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“Do they? Does anyone know why?”
“I very much doubt it.”
“You know how many people there are in the world?”
“Billions?”
“Very nearly seven billion. That’s seven with nine noughts after it.”
“Unimaginable.” (And can we please get on?)
“Why am I not one of them and not me? Don’t you think it’s weird to be you and not someone else?”
“If anything’s weird, the weird thing is being human.”
A pause. No sign of getting on.
I said, “I thought you believed that what is is and that’s all there is to it.”
“I do normally.”
“What do you mean, normally?”
“Before. I’m not normal now, am I? I haven’t been normal for ages.”
“You mean, since the crisis.”
“Yes. When I was really bad, I mean the worst time. I couldn’t stand being only me. And not knowing why. I wanted to stop being me. I just wanted to stop. I wanted not to be. I wanted to be nothing.”
“And now you’re over the worst?”
“Since at the river. Not wanting to get rid of myself. I do believe what is is. Only I keep wanting to know why. And I wish …”
“What?”
“I wish …”
“Wish what?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how to say it. I don’t know what I wish or how to say about being me and about why.”
My mind was at sixes and sevens now, wanting to say something useful, but mainly wanting to think about this wretched talk, and get there, and get it done, and get back home, and so I said nothing, having nothing worth saying.
Karl waited a moment, before coming to, starting up and driving on.
The rest of the journey passed with only the occasional patch of talk, about the route, or the weather (fine, cold, cloudy, a couple of showers), or the countryside (winter setting in, the trees waiting for a final stormy blow to shed their remaining leaves).
Except that out of the blue Karl mentioned receiving an email from Fiorella, saying she’d heard from his boss he was off work ill, and asking how he was.
I asked whether he’d replied. He said he hadn’t. I didn’t ask why.
I won’t describe my reception and performance at the conference. It has nothing to do with Karl. Except to say that afterwards, as usual, I felt a total failure, and suffered minor agonies of embarrassment about what I did say and how I said it, and what I didn’t say and how I should have said it. Had I been on my own I’d have driven away at once and spent the journey in recovery by verbally flagellating myself for my ineptitude. But I had to find Karl and shift the gears of my mood from self-abusing sulks to at least a semblance of civility.
I walked down to the river but couldn’t find him. No one else was around to ask if they’d seen him. The grounds of the hotel—once a stately home, it was even better than its publicity, a rare quality—were extensive, partly wooded, partly parkland. I didn’t fancy trekking everywhere, on the hunt for him. In my disordered state of mind, I began to worry that he might after all have done something silly. I knew how easy it was to slip back into the pit while clawing your way out of it.
What to do?
Calm down, I told myself. Think sensibly.
Of course! Phone him! I took out my mobile and rang his number. Karl answered. Relief!
I said I was ready to go home, where was he? He said he was looking at something he’d like me to see and told me how to find him. He sounded excited, quite the opposite from his earlier moroseness, and the first time I’d heard that note in his voice since the crisis began.
As I’ve mentioned, the hotel included a “sculpture trail”—a path that wound through the grounds, with sculptures by many artists displayed here and there.
Karl was in a glade in the wooded area, sitting on a bench, leaning forward, arms on thighs, hands clasped together—a posture I’d learned he adopted when thinking hard. He was gazing at what looked to me like a pile of loosely tangled metal rods perched on top of a block of grey stone.
He didn’t budge when I sat down beside him, and only after a few moments of silence said,
“What d’you think?”
“What about?”
He nodded at the pile of rods.
“I don’t know. Meant to be a sculpture, obviously.”
“See how it’s made?”
“Metal rods.”
“Steel. And all one piece, no joins. One length of steel rod. Probably bent by the same kind of tool we use to make bends in pipes.”
“Yes, I see. It flows quite attractively. Turning in on itself and out again. It looks a bit like a doodle drawn with a black pen.”
“But in three-D.”
“Yes, a three-D doodle.”
Karl got up and walked round the sculpture, running his hand along the rod, feeling its shape, then standing back to view it, here and there bending down to look at it from below. There was energy in his movements, vigour and concentration.
“It’s different from every angle,” he said. “You wouldn’t think that something so simple could make such different shapes from different angles. And it’s so good to look at, you can’t help touching it.”
He toured twice more before I said, “Maybe the artist—”
“William Tucker,” Karl said, pointing to a label on the base. “And it’s called Beulah One.”
“I wonder what that means.”
“No idea.”
“Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it’s only meant to be something pleasant to look at.”
“You mean, it’s just a … just a thing … End of story?”
“Why not? If you want to put it that way.”
“A thing that pleased him.”
“Like a poem, only made of a steel rod, not words.”
Karl looked at me and smiled.
“I like that!” he said. “Poetry in steel. That’s good!”
He sat down again.
“I’ve been looking at it for ages,” he said. “And the more I look at it, the more I want to look at it.”
We were silent for a while. But, as ever, I was aware of the time and wanted to be home because by now I was feeling cold and damp. If I stay much longer, I thought, I’ll come down with a cold or my joints will seize up.
“Look,” I said, “I hate to be a spoilsport, but I’d rather like to make for home, if you wouldn’t mind.”
He got up. But his eyes were still on the sculpture. He walked over to it and ran his hand along a curving section of it.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“No,” he said, coming back to me, “it’s OK.”
We walked to the car and drove away.
“There was another,” Karl said, when we’d settled into the journey. “By a different artist. It was made of rods as well. They were shaped into the outline of two people, a man and a woman, very tall, taller than real people. It’s like they were drawn in the air. I saw that one first. Looked at it for ages.”
He was like a man woken from a long sleep, and refreshed by breakfast.
“Did you do any fishing?” I asked.
“No. I thought I’d have a walk round, to stretch my legs after the drive, and have some coffee first. I saw some of the sculptures, which I quite liked. Hadn’t seen anything like them before. Then came across the one of the man and woman outlined in steel rods. The others had been all right, but this one really impressed me. And the way it was made of bent rods welded together made me think of my job. So I sat on a bench near it and had some coffee and, I don’t know, went on just sitting there for ages, looking at the sculpture, and thinking.”
“Nothing much.”
“But thinking?”
“Not about anything really.”
“Thoughtless thinking?”
“Thoughtless thinking?”
He gave me a quick glance, and we both laughed.
“Or maybe,” I said, “letting your body do the thinking.”
He stared at me, as if in surprise.
“Body thinking?” he said.
And broke into a fit of laughter, as if he had heard the best joke in the world. He was laughing so much he couldn’t speak and had to stop the car till the fit wore off, when he said: “Yes. Body thinking. That’s what I do.”
I waited till he’d calmed down before saying, “And then?”
“Nothing. Sat there for I don’t know how long. Meant to go back to the car for my gear, but must have turned the wrong way, because I got a bit lost. And then I came across the sculpture that really grabbed me. The other one was meant to be a man and a woman. But this one wasn’t anything except, like you said, just a shape, just a thing. As soon as I saw it, I felt … well, I felt it was mine … That sounds stupid when I say it.”
“Not stupid at all. I’ve felt that about a book. A novel.”
“That it was yours? That it had been made only for you?”
“A long time ago. When I was young.”
“Well, anyway, I couldn’t help it. I just had to sit and look at it.”
“And do some body thinking?”
“You could say. The others were made of various stuff. Wood and stone and concrete. But the man and woman and this Beulah One were made of nothing except some bent rods. They were as simple as you can get. But the more I looked at them, the more I got out of them. That’s what I liked.”
“So you’re glad you came?”
“I’m glad I came, thanks. But, hey, I haven’t asked how you got on. Was it OK?”
“Least said, soonest forgotten.”
“As bad as that?”
“No. Not bad, not good. But that kind of carry-on isn’t me.”
“So what is you?”
“Words on paper. Reading them and writing them.”
He grinned. “So all you are is words on paper?”
“Not quite. But when I’m on my own, reading and writing, I’m most myself and most at home with myself. And, by the way, I see we need some petrol. We’d better pull in at the next service station.”
“Where, if my guess is right, you’ll need to consult the hedge?”
“You’re getting to know me too well, young man!”