A Reason To Be Pleased.

I mentioned recently that I’d bought the timber to make a new bird table. Previous examples of my art and ingenuity were made with pieces of old timber I found lying about the place when I moved here (I did say I was poor, didn’t I?) I wanted this one to be strong enough to stand the test of time and the weight of two or three cock pheasants, and that’s why I decided to spend the money and do the job properly.

But the timber wasn’t the only thing I spent money on. I also bought a good quality, fine cut wood saw to replace the old one I found hanging in the shed (also when I moved here, and also because I was too poor to buy a new one. Did I mention that I was poor? Oh.)

Today I did the first half of the job – measuring, cutting and marking the materials for size and positioning. Unfortunately, the cold, strong wind kept making my eyes water so I couldn’t see properly. And the pencil and note pad kept trying to escape in the direction of the boundary hedge, which is why I only did half the job. Removing the old one and fitting the new can wait for a warmer, calmer day.

The real – and very pleasing – revelation, however, was the new saw. Cutting across a piece of timber which used to take five minutes with the old one only took about thirty seconds today. When I’d finished, my heart and lungs said ‘thank you’ and my right arm said ‘let me know when you’re about to start.’

And so a good time was had by all, and then I celebrated with a mug of tea and a custard cream biscuit. Celebrations are rare these days, and even simple ones are welcome.

Describing the I.

I’m going to do something about which I feel reluctant, but I’m going to do it anyway. I’m going to quote somebody else’s writing just because I admire it, and because the chosen passage might explain why I admire it.

The four ‘house guests’ of Hill House – being the dreamy Eleanor, the urbane Theo, the opportunist Luke, and the psychologist Dr Montague – are relaxing after dinner in the house’s only comfortable room. Dr Montague has just related what he knows of the history of the building, and there’s a fire burning in the grate. During a lull in the conversation, the narrative continues:

Eleanor found herself unexpectedly admiring her own feet. Theodora dreamed over the fire just beyond the tips of her toes, and Eleanor thought with deep satisfaction that her feet were handsome in their red sandals; what a complete and separate thing I am, she thought, going from my red toes to the top of my head, individually an I, possessed of attributes belonging only to me. I have red shoes, she thought – that goes with being Eleanor; I dislike lobster and sleep on my left side and crack my knuckles when I am nervous and save buttons. I am holding a brandy glass which is mine because I am here and I am using it and I have a place in this room. I have red shoes and tomorrow I will wake up and I will still be here.

‘I have red shoes,’ she said very softly, and Theodora turned and smiled up at her.

What a splendid way to describe a shy, insecure and splendidly oddball character. Am I so taken with it because I see a part of myself reflected here? I think I do in a way, but it’s only a small part. Reality is far more complex than that. Suffice it to repeat that I admire the style.

A Rare Experience.

I’m getting into my new book now – the paranormal/psychological drama, The Haunting of Hill House. And here’s an interesting fact:

I’m hardly ever spooked by stories which fall within the genre labelled ‘horror.’ A few Japanese films have come close, but that’s about it. I don’t recall any film, book or short story having made me reluctant to go upstairs at dead of night. (The three films I remember scaring me witless were Jaws, Alien and Life of Pi, none of which had anything paranormal about them. The Ghost and the Darkness – which has lions but no ghosts in it – was another one until I forced myself to watch it to the end, at which point I realised that it was effectively a remake of Jaws. The previous sense of spookiness was immediately dispelled and replaced by self-congratulation at what I regarded as a mildly adroit observation.)

But after reading most of chapter 2 last night, I did feel slightly reluctant to go upstairs. It made a refreshing change, and has to stand as some level of commendation.

Simon and Sarah: the Name Issue.

Simon, Sarah and their little boy, Stanley, were sitting at their dining table eating their evening meal. Stanley, who was unusually conscientious for a boy of his age, was concentrating hard on holding his knife with the handle underneath the palm of his hand, rather than over the top where it would mimic the appearance of a pencil.

His mother had taught him to hold it that way. She’d said that it didn’t really matter how a knife was held, but that there were people in polite society who took such matters seriously, and that if he were ever to mix with them he would feel more at ease if the ‘correct’ holding of table utensils was a matter of practised ease. Sarah was currently following received form as she cut the components of her meal into small pieces, before placing them demurely into a mouth opened only so far as was necessary to allow comfortable access.

Simon, on the other hand, was holding the leg of a large, roasted bird in the manner of a club, and biting unduly large chunks off the thigh while concentrating on the stutterings and shriekings emanating from some lurid game show on the television.

‘Dad,’ said little Stanley.

‘What?’ said little Stanley’s dad.

‘Why is my name Stanley?’

Simon paused in his chewing to guffaw at the ravings of a curiously-shaped, middle aged woman in a floral dress who had just guessed that Mozart had been responsible for painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. A few morsels of roasted bird thigh landed on the carpet in consequence.

‘What’s wrong with Stanley?’ replied his father eventually, while eagerly watching for the latest score to be flashed up on the big screen with the flashing lights.

‘I’m the only boy in my school called Stanley. Craig Johnson says it’s a silly name.’

‘Craig Johnson’s a prat,’ said Simon with commendable certainty. ‘You’re called Stanley because your granddad was called Stanley. It’s traditional to call boys after their granddads.

Sarah, being entirely devoid of any desire to watch glitzy game shows, began to search her mind for another example among the boys she’d known of one who had been named after his grandfather. Having failed with the first five which came to mind, she gave up and cut a rather large piece of potato into two halves. She said nothing. Stanley, on the other hand, wasn’t finished yet.

‘So was your granddad called Simon?’ he asked.

‘Will you shut up,’ his father replied, the merest hint of aggression being apparent in his tone. ‘I’m trying to watch a programme on the TV. You should watch it, too. You might learn something.’

‘Your dad’s right,’ said Sarah unexpectedly. ‘It is true that it’s a convention in his family to name boys after their grandfather. His grandfather was called Theophilus, but he could never get the spelling right, so when he was old enough he changed it to Simon. Easy to spell, see?’

‘What the hell would you know?’ said her husband, finally taking his eyes from the glitzy game show in order to fire a little venom in the direction of his wife. ‘Where the hell did you get that from?’

‘Your mother told me,’ said Sarah

Little Stanley giggled.

Exercising Reason, Llama-Style.

My old friend, the llama, dropped in on me today. When I say ‘dropped in’, maybe I should be more specific. I was sitting at my computer savouring my new, grade 6, high roast coffee, when my peripheral vision was suddenly flooded by something which hadn’t been there a few seconds earlier. Being naturally intrigued, I turned to ascertain its identity.

‘Hello,’ said the llama.

‘Hello,’ I replied, striving to maintain an air of nonchalance as one does when confronted by llamas. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages. Where’ve you been?’

‘I haven’t been anywhere,’ replied the llama.

‘You must have been somewhere,’ I countered.

‘Why?’

‘Everybody has to be somewhere,’ I reasoned hopefully. (The application of reason is always accompanied by an unaccountable hint of uncertainty in such situations.) ‘You’re here now, aren’t you? Here is somewhere.’

‘Am I? Is it? On what basis do you hold to such a presumption?’

‘On the basis that I can see you and hear you and I’m talking back to you.’

‘And you trust the apparent evidence of your eyes, ears and brain, do you, in spite of your being aware that the organs to which you ascribe such unquestioned validity are far from infallible?’

‘Ah, I see; we’re back to that one. You’re suggesting, not for the first time, that you’re a figment of my imagination, a hallucination even.’

‘Well, shiver my Peruvian timbers all the way down to the tip of Tierra del Fuego,’ he said, feigning great surprise. ‘Am I really? That’s a lot of mountains you just covered.’

‘You know what?’ I offered, suddenly feeling emboldened. ‘Sometimes you don’t make sense.’

‘You may say that,’ he replied ruefully. ‘I wouldn’t care to comment.’

And then he cocked his head to one side and looked, apparently with some degree of purpose, into my eyes. I began to feel that I was once again sliding down that long, dark tunnel, the one down which I slithered after encountering the woman with amazingly dark eyes in Tesco. I shook myself and came back to the here and now, only to see him still staring at me but with an unmistakable look of smugness and mischief in his eyes.

‘On that note, I think I should leave,’ he said. ‘But before I go, there’s something I’m curious about.’

‘What’s that?’

‘That story you wrote, about the ghost called Mr Jonathon.’

‘You’ve read it?’

‘Of course. Would you rather I hadn’t?’

‘No. I just didn’t realise you paid me that much attention.’

‘You don’t realise very much most of the time, do you? I’ve noticed that about humans. Actually, I was going to ask you the question at the time, but that dark stuff hanging around you didn’t smell at all pleasant, so I changed my mind.’

‘I was depressed.’

‘I know. I sympathised.’

‘Did you?’

‘No, I decided to be facetious for a change. But anyway, the question I have is this: At the end of the story, the little girl – I don’t remember her name – says to her mother that Mr Jonathon instructs them to get a dog. Why?’

‘I don’t know really. It just came to me. I suppose I felt that it introduced a note of uncertainty – you know, left a question mark in the mind of the reader.’

‘I see, so one small part of your brain does work after all. That’s encouraging. I'll probably visit you again one fine day, or un-fine day, or whatever... Who can tell? Goodbye.’

And then he disappeared. What is one to make of it all?

A Matter of Pride.

‘I know I did wrong and I’m very sorry. Please forgive me.’

Please forgive me? Isn’t that a terrible thing to say? The wronged person will forgive you anyway if you’re worth it, and won’t if you’re not. All you have to do is accept the consequences of whatever you did wrong if the fates so decree. Asking for forgiveness is craven, cowering and pointless.

It seems to me that the only time you should beg forgiveness is in the most extreme of circumstances, such as when the king has just sentenced you to be hanged, drawn and quartered and you don’t much fancy the idea. (And I doubt there would be much chance of it working even then.)

A Coincidence of Shirleys.

I have to make mention of the American novelist, Shirley Jackson. I’ve just finished the first chapter of her novel The Haunting of Hill House, and so far I’m impressed. Her writing skills have all the qualities which the writing of the American novelist Dan Brown lack. They’re deeply insightful, imaginatively descriptive, and loaded with unflinching accuracy of observation. I’m lapping it up eagerly like a cat with a saucer of warm milk.

In the first chapter we sit with the character of the repressed and insecure Eleanor as she drives the 120 miles from her uncomfortable home to the eponymous house where she hopes to enter a more meaningful and sympathetic world. We listen to her inner conversations with herself as much as we listen to her verbal and curiously oddball conversations with the two strangers she meets along the way. And through her brief actions and extended imagination we learn all that’s worth knowing about poor Eleanor. The surface plot is so perfunctory as to be almost non-existent; the power is in the personality and what it says about one variation on the human condition. A lot of well known writers could learn a lot from one chapter of Shirley Jackson.

The coincidence is contained within the name. Regular readers will know of the high regard in which I hold the English novelist, Charlotte Brontë, and her novel Shirley. I wonder whether Jackson knew that Shirley was almost exclusively a male name until Charlotte’s novel was published in 1847. I imagine she probably did.

On Being Sidetracked.

Today I was thinking back to the 2½ weeks I spent in Toronto doing a travel shoot for a publisher. I remembered having the same problem as I had whenever I was confronted with the need to photograph any strange town or city: I found it hard to concentrate on the reason for being there.

I would walk the streets, or the precincts of a museum or art gallery or shopping mall – whatever was on the publisher’s list of required locations – and my mind would be constantly consumed with the need to bypass the physical surface of the place and instead search for the sense of it. Photographs don’t reveal the sense of a place – its essence or energy or call it what you will – any more than a snapshot of a person reveals that person’s inner self. Getting to grips with the sense of a place requires a perceptual faculty far subtler than mere physical observation.

Eventually I would realise that I had entered a kind of reverie and pull myself out of it, and then I could use my eyes and the viewfinder to find the shapes and colours and interrelated forms which the average tourist would find attractive. And the concept of gainful employment would reassert itself.

Simon and Sarah.

It was Sunday afternoon on a cold and dismal day in January. Simon, Sarah and their little boy, Stanley, were settled in front of the TV watching the 1942 film version of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book, each fortified with a mug of steaming cocoa expertly made in the old fashioned way by a mother who knew about such things.

‘What’s the little boy’s name?’ asked the even littler Stanley.

‘Mowgli,’ replied his father, who was competitive by nature and had to be the first to answer any generally directed question.

‘That’s a funny name,’ said Stanley.

‘His real name was Taboo,’ continued the irrepressible Simon. ‘That’s even funnier.’

‘It would be if it were right,’ interjected Sarah.

Simon stole a glance at his wife and aimed an irritated frown in her direction.

‘Taboo means forbidden, by convention or edict,’ she continued. ‘He was actually called Sabu. S.A.B.U. Sabu.’

Simon said nothing, while little Stanley directed a questioning look at his mother. Sarah returned it with a motherly smile utterly devoid of triumph.

*  *  *

Simon and Sarah might become a series. Then again, they might not.

Not Noticing Being Noticed.

I was going through some old documents and general paperwork with a view to consigning it to the recycling bins, when I came across a leaving card I was given when I left the theatre to take up a new job. It’s a big card covered in messages, and somebody had even bothered to enclose a separate insert to take the overflow.

I found the discovery quite moving because I was the most minor of cogs in the theatre machinery, and I don’t recollect being particularly noticed by anyone other than the few people with whom I came into close contact. And the best of it is that most of the names on the card are now a mystery to me. No, the best is the nature of the messages contained therein. They include:

Jeff  

Best wishes for the future. Good luck in all you do

Mandy xx

(Who was Mandy?)

 

Jeff  

Good luck! Thanks for all the chats.

Love and best wishes

Nic x

(Chats? And who was Nic?)

 

All the best Jeff. 

We will miss you.  

Janet xx 

(Why would they miss me? And I don’t remember a Janet.)

 

I don’t think we will find another one like you! Good luck? 

Rebecca. 

(I think I know who that was, but was she kidding?)

 

Best wishes. 

Our loss, Derbyshire’s gain.

Pauline B

(I remember one Pauline B, but there are two on the card.)

 

All the very best for the future.

We’ll miss your calm manner about the place.

Candida x

(How could I possibly forget somebody called Candida?)

 

To Jeff

Will miss working with you.

Thanks for everything.

Enjoy the countryside.

Love Sarah x

(I assume this was from my young manager who has received honourable mention on this blog. She’s the one in the pale blue dress below.)

 

 

Dear Jeff 

It will be strange not to see you around the place.

Good luck in whatever you do.

Sharon.

(Will it? At least I remember Sharon.)

And so it goes on. I haven’t counted them, but there are a lot more than I would have expected. Does it mean I was popular there without ever knowing it, or are they just being polite? And does it matter?

I’ve saved the best to last. This one’s from Russell, who was easily the most eccentric person there. I remember him well because I got on with him. He wrote:

Good luck to you Jeff. Even the frogs have commented on your leaving (the theatre grounds were a minor nature reserve, and there was a pond in the top corner.) Shape-shifting has been rife on the car park. See you around.

It seems that even insignificant cogs get noticed while they’re looking the other way, and maybe that’s how it should be. And the theatre was the closest I ever came to being part of a community in my adult life. It’s just a memory now, of course, and that’s also how it should be.