A few months ago I closed this blog down to public viewing in the hope that Douglas Bruton and William Shears* would in return remove at least some of the blog posts they've written about this whole affair: they direct lots of anger and insults towards people who were involved in the original plagiarism scandals and its fall out, but who aren't involved in my blog. But those unpleasant posts are still up on both blogs.
So I've relucantly decided to open this blog up again in an attempt to provide a little balance to Douglas's views. If you're curious about the posts I object to, here are some links for you to read. Every single blog post I've linked to includes a dig against someone who supported and encouraged Douglas Bruton before his plagiarism was uncovered. I'm sure there are other blog posts I could have linked to but think this is more than enough to be going on with.
From Douglas Bruton's blog:
The Collector 6 December 2010
Setting Some Things Straight, Or Straighter 7 December 2010
Not Too Clever 9 December 2010
Something Borrowed 29 December 2009
Theft Or Not Theft 9 January 2010
A Writer's Disgrace 12 January
Writers Should Understand The Creative Process 17 January 2010
Fun With Nik And Jane 28 January 2010
How Persecution Really Works 9 February 2010
What Does The Copyright Licensing Agency Mean? 10 February 2010
How Publishing Really Works 10 February 2010
How Persecution Really Works 14 February 2010
Big Trolls And Another Port Brokeferry Piece 18 February 2010
How Many People Does It Take To Make It True? 21 February 2010
More On Jane Smith And Doug Cheadle 25 February 2010
Celebration! 27 February 2010
A Hymn To Plagiarism 19 March 2010
Influence 21 March 2010
Collaboration 3 April 2010
What This Blog Is Really For 26 April 2010
From William Shears's blog (titled "Jane Smith & Doug Cheadle Lie. Why?")
In Support Of Douglas Against The Lies 8 February 2010
For The Hard Of Hearing 11 February 2010
The Antique Seller 11 February 2010
The Undereducated vs The Educated 13 February 2010
Why Do I Care? 17 February 2010
Logic And Reasoning 20 February 2010
What They'd Have You Believe 22 February 2010
Jane Smith's Lie Unravels! 24 February 2010
Don't Shoot The Messenger 26 February 2010
More Information Required 2 March 2010
Could It Have Been A Genuine Mistake? 3 March 2010
*When I checked my Sitemeter statistics they showed that Douglas Bruton and William Shears shared a couple of IP addresses, and Jane Smith's statistics showed the same. They have both vehemently denied having done so, but it's interesting to note that in the comments to this blog post Jonathan Pinnock states that Douglas seems to share an IP address with another commenter he's encountered.
Monday 21 June 2010
Wednesday 20 January 2010
Douglas Bruton: Plagiarist Or Writer?
Douglas Bruton is a guidance-teacher in an Edinburgh High School. He's also a very gifted writer; and he has been accused of multiple counts of plagiarism. Is he guilty? Read on, and make up your own mind.
Early in 2009, Bruton won a prize from the now-closed literary magazine, Cadenza. It was edited at the time by Vanessa Gebbie, who is herself a prize-winning writer. Bruton's prize-winning story was called Waiting in the Scriptorium and when it appeared in print, several Cadenza readers complained that it bore striking similarities to Paul Auster's novel, Travels in the Scriptorium. Vanessa Gebbie had not read Auster's novel so was not in a position to judge: but she knew Bruton, and she asked him what had happened. He denied having ever read the Auster novel, insisted it was nothing but coincidence, and the matter was dropped. It's not surprising that her attention was elsewhere: Cadenza's subscriptions were down, and Gebbie was fighting to keep it going. Cadenza closed for business soon after.
Unless you've read the Auster novel it's difficult to tell if Bruton plagiarised it; but I'm told that if you read the book's précis on Amazon you'll see marked similarities between the two. When Paul Auster's agent read Douglas Bruton's story she was sufficiently alarmed by it to request that she be notified if it was ever published again. With Cadenza closed, there was little else she could do.
Had this been the only allegation of plagiarism made against Douglas Bruton it's likely that all would have been forgotten. But a few months later a new story surfaced, and this one kicked off a real fuss.
For some time, Douglas Bruton was a member of Vanessa Gebbie's Fiction Workhouse (yes, that same Gebbie who edited Cadenza, and who had taken Bruton to task over the allegations about his Scriptorium story). The Fiction Workhouse was an online community based on developing talent and encouraging writing.
It was common at The Fiction Workhouse for members to share news of their successes and when member Tania Hershman won a prize in 2006 with her story My Name Is Henry, she duly reported her win. Her story was much discussed by all members, including Douglas Bruton. However, when Douglas Bruton won a prize for a story called Mondays Smell Of Burnt Toast late in 2008, he didn't mention it at all at the Workhouse. One of the Workhouse's other members found it by chance, realised it seemed familiar, did a bit of searching, and discovered Tania's story: Bruton's story was so very similar to Hershman's that the person who read the two side-by-side decided it had to be plagiarism. Despite this, Douglas Bruton denied all accusations.
Despite his repeated denials, much pressure was put on Douglas Bruton to do the right thing. Eventually he contacted the writers' site which had given him his prize, asked them to take his story down, and refunded his prize money. But Douglas Bruton still denies that he copied any aspect of Tania's story at all and that all he's done is to "build" on it. But there's a difference between "building" and plagiarising from two sources instead of one.
The only part of Bruton's story which doesn't also appear in Hershman's story is the issue of synesthesia. Douglas Bruton comments reguarly on Nicola Morgan's blog: Morgan is a UK author who has written a book called Mondays Are Red, which features someone with a very specific and unusual form of synesthesia. Which is exactly the same form of synesthesia which features in Bruton's story (which has, you'll notice, a very similar title to Morgan's book). Did he plagiarise her too? I don't know. I've not read her book. But it appears that Douglas Bruton has read it, as he's praised it on Morgan's blog.
Since then it's come to light that before any of this happened, Douglas Bruton was asked to leave a writers' group (in the real world, not online) because of his habit of taking the work of his fellow group-members and rewriting it in his own words, and then presenting it in subsequent meetings as entirely his own.
Douglas Bruton has repeatedly insisted that he has not plagiarised anyone. He's published long passages on his own blog in which he discusses the issues of creativity, ownership and plagiarism. But with his stories not readily available for people to read, it's impossible for anyone not directly involved to make up their own mind.
It's about time that changed.
Here is a link to Paul Auster's Travels In The Scriptorium on Amazon, where you can read the reviews; and here is Douglas Bruton's Waiting In The Scriptorium for you to read in all its glory.
Here is a link to Tania Hershman's prizewinning story, here is a link to Nicola Morgan's Mondays Are Red, and here is Douglas Bruton's Mondays Smell Of Burnt Toast for you to read and compare.
It's true that ideas cannot be copyrighted, only the expression of those ideas: it's therefore sometimes assumed that if you re-write someone else's story you're not guilty of plagiarism. This is not so. Precise plot-points, characterisation, structure and so on are all part of the expression of ideas and if someone copies those parts of your work, then they're guilty of plagiarism. No matter what they might insist.
Edited to add: Vanessa Gebbie has pointed out that this post contains several errors. I apologise for those, and will add her comments below this so that the record is put straight. But the central issue about Douglas Bruton and plagiarism remains unchanged.
Corrections from Vanessa Gebbie:
Zoe King was editor of Cadenza. I was her deputy.
Bruton’s story Waiting in the Scriptorium did not win a prize. It was commended.
The Fiction Workhouse was not founded until February 2007. Ms Hershman’s story had already won a prize and been published in 2006. It was linked openly from her website.
Bruton did not join FW until early 2008.
Early in 2009, Bruton won a prize from the now-closed literary magazine, Cadenza. It was edited at the time by Vanessa Gebbie, who is herself a prize-winning writer. Bruton's prize-winning story was called Waiting in the Scriptorium and when it appeared in print, several Cadenza readers complained that it bore striking similarities to Paul Auster's novel, Travels in the Scriptorium. Vanessa Gebbie had not read Auster's novel so was not in a position to judge: but she knew Bruton, and she asked him what had happened. He denied having ever read the Auster novel, insisted it was nothing but coincidence, and the matter was dropped. It's not surprising that her attention was elsewhere: Cadenza's subscriptions were down, and Gebbie was fighting to keep it going. Cadenza closed for business soon after.
Unless you've read the Auster novel it's difficult to tell if Bruton plagiarised it; but I'm told that if you read the book's précis on Amazon you'll see marked similarities between the two. When Paul Auster's agent read Douglas Bruton's story she was sufficiently alarmed by it to request that she be notified if it was ever published again. With Cadenza closed, there was little else she could do.
Had this been the only allegation of plagiarism made against Douglas Bruton it's likely that all would have been forgotten. But a few months later a new story surfaced, and this one kicked off a real fuss.
For some time, Douglas Bruton was a member of Vanessa Gebbie's Fiction Workhouse (yes, that same Gebbie who edited Cadenza, and who had taken Bruton to task over the allegations about his Scriptorium story). The Fiction Workhouse was an online community based on developing talent and encouraging writing.
It was common at The Fiction Workhouse for members to share news of their successes and when member Tania Hershman won a prize in 2006 with her story My Name Is Henry, she duly reported her win. Her story was much discussed by all members, including Douglas Bruton. However, when Douglas Bruton won a prize for a story called Mondays Smell Of Burnt Toast late in 2008, he didn't mention it at all at the Workhouse. One of the Workhouse's other members found it by chance, realised it seemed familiar, did a bit of searching, and discovered Tania's story: Bruton's story was so very similar to Hershman's that the person who read the two side-by-side decided it had to be plagiarism. Despite this, Douglas Bruton denied all accusations.
Despite his repeated denials, much pressure was put on Douglas Bruton to do the right thing. Eventually he contacted the writers' site which had given him his prize, asked them to take his story down, and refunded his prize money. But Douglas Bruton still denies that he copied any aspect of Tania's story at all and that all he's done is to "build" on it. But there's a difference between "building" and plagiarising from two sources instead of one.
The only part of Bruton's story which doesn't also appear in Hershman's story is the issue of synesthesia. Douglas Bruton comments reguarly on Nicola Morgan's blog: Morgan is a UK author who has written a book called Mondays Are Red, which features someone with a very specific and unusual form of synesthesia. Which is exactly the same form of synesthesia which features in Bruton's story (which has, you'll notice, a very similar title to Morgan's book). Did he plagiarise her too? I don't know. I've not read her book. But it appears that Douglas Bruton has read it, as he's praised it on Morgan's blog.
Since then it's come to light that before any of this happened, Douglas Bruton was asked to leave a writers' group (in the real world, not online) because of his habit of taking the work of his fellow group-members and rewriting it in his own words, and then presenting it in subsequent meetings as entirely his own.
Douglas Bruton has repeatedly insisted that he has not plagiarised anyone. He's published long passages on his own blog in which he discusses the issues of creativity, ownership and plagiarism. But with his stories not readily available for people to read, it's impossible for anyone not directly involved to make up their own mind.
It's about time that changed.
Here is a link to Paul Auster's Travels In The Scriptorium on Amazon, where you can read the reviews; and here is Douglas Bruton's Waiting In The Scriptorium for you to read in all its glory.
Here is a link to Tania Hershman's prizewinning story, here is a link to Nicola Morgan's Mondays Are Red, and here is Douglas Bruton's Mondays Smell Of Burnt Toast for you to read and compare.
It's true that ideas cannot be copyrighted, only the expression of those ideas: it's therefore sometimes assumed that if you re-write someone else's story you're not guilty of plagiarism. This is not so. Precise plot-points, characterisation, structure and so on are all part of the expression of ideas and if someone copies those parts of your work, then they're guilty of plagiarism. No matter what they might insist.
Edited to add: Vanessa Gebbie has pointed out that this post contains several errors. I apologise for those, and will add her comments below this so that the record is put straight. But the central issue about Douglas Bruton and plagiarism remains unchanged.
Corrections from Vanessa Gebbie:
Zoe King was editor of Cadenza. I was her deputy.
Bruton’s story Waiting in the Scriptorium did not win a prize. It was commended.
The Fiction Workhouse was not founded until February 2007. Ms Hershman’s story had already won a prize and been published in 2006. It was linked openly from her website.
Bruton did not join FW until early 2008.
Waiting In The Scriptorium
He was awake now, not certain whether it was night or day. He turned in his bed, the movement recorded by invisible sensors and relayed to an invisible monitor. A light in the ceiling blinked on and he squinted at the sudden brightness.
The four walls of the room were white – like blank pages in a book, he thought. There was a door set in the wall furthest from the bed. He watched the door, waiting for her to come in, as if without his expectation that she would enter she might stay on the other side – like an actor in a play who having missed her cue waits forever in the wings.
The seconds, recorded and logged in some unseen file, seemed to stretch taught. He grew anxious when she did not immediately arrive. He felt a hollow nausea overcome him, like vertigo. He recalled as a child standing on a glass floor on the thirty third floor of a tall building and looking down on the streets below, and the busy cars and buses moving like insects on the grey roads; he felt again the panic he felt then, the sense of falling or wanting to fall, or wanting to jump. He watched the handle of the door, fearful that this day no one would come and he would be left alone in this bed.
Then she was there. The racing of his heart was recorded somewhere.
‘Good morning, Mr Escritor,’ she said.
He was glad that she used his name, for he had forgotten it for a moment.
She was dressed in white, like a nurse, with her hair tied back from her face. He thought he recognised her, but was not sure from where.
‘How are we this morning?’ she said.
He nodded, but did not yet speak.
She pulled back the sheet he slept under and helped him sit up. She brushed his coarse grey hair back from his face and began unbuttoning his pyjama shirt. She was close enough that he could smell the perfume that she wore, could see the fine gold hairs on her cheek, the flecks of amber caught in her clear blue eyes. He noticed a badge pinned to her uniform. On it was printed a name: Helen. He assumed it was her name.
‘Good morning, Helen,’ he said.
She smiled at him. ‘Very good,’ she said.
‘The face that launched a thousand ships,’ he whispered.
‘You always say that,’ she said.
‘Do I?’ It had felt new to him.
She helped him to his feet and undid the buttons on his pyjama trousers. They slipped to the floor and she lifted first one foot and then the other, freeing him from the tangle of white cloth.
‘Are we ready?’ she said.
‘Ready?’
‘For your shower.’
When he came out from the shower his bed was made and clothes were laid out for him to wear. Helen dried him with a white towel, and dressed him – as though he was a child. She brushed his hair and straightened his collar. He sat on the bed and watched her ease his feet into a pair of white sports shoes. She adjusted the laces and tied them into loose neat bows.
‘There we are,’ she said getting up from the floor.
‘I think I loved you once,’ he said.
‘You love me still,’ she said, and she kissed him, her lips briefly pressed to his.
It felt like the first kiss, though somehow he knew that it wasn’t.
‘But I cannot remember where we met, or when, or…’
‘I’m not sure that any of that matters now,’ she said.
She lifted a glass of water that sat on the bedside table and handed it to him. Then she dropped two small blue-white pills into his hand and smiled at him and nodded.
He put one pill on his tongue and sipped at the water.
‘What does matter now, then?’ he said.
She waited for him to swallow the second pill, took the glass from his hand and placed it back on his bedside table.
‘What matters now is that you are here,’ she said.
‘And you’re here,’ he ventured.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And that’s important, too.’
A table sat in the centre of the room with two chairs facing each other. On the table there was a breakfast tray. It must have been brought in when he was in the shower, he thought.
Helen arranged the dishes on the table and removed the tray. She helped him from the bed to the table and sat him in one of the chairs. He assumed that the second chair was for her, but she left him to breakfast alone, promising to return once he had finished.
He sighed, a drawn out exhalation of air that broke the silence in the room. The sound was recorded, just as his conversation with Helen had been. He replayed it in his own head, what he could remember of it.
‘What matters now is that you are here,’ she had said to him. Now, when he thought about it, he realised he had no idea where ‘here’ was. He wondered if he was free to leave, free to pass through the door that Helen had passed through. He wondered what was on the other side, tried to recall how he had come to be in this room. He thought of the blue-white pills he had taken without questioning what they were for. Perhaps he was ill. He looked down at the backs of his hands. The skin seemed loose and lined and grey; the blue tracks of his blood showed faint just beneath the pale surface. He reached up and felt his own face, traced the furrows lining his forehead, the sharp jut of his cheekbones and the roughness of his unshaven chin. ‘A face like a wedding cake that has been left out in the rain,’ he thought. The words felt like his though they were not. He felt old.
‘I think I loved you once,’ he’d said to Helen. And she had kissed him. He tried to guess her age and thought her no more than thirty – maybe younger. He thought he remembered her, pictured her beside him on a bleached white beach under a clouded sky. In the picture she was the same, but he was different; he was younger. It made no sense to him. He would have to ask Helen when she returned.
He drank black unsweetened coffee from a plastic cup and ate one half of a buttered croissant that left flaked crumbs in his lap. There was fruit too, peach coloured slices of melon and strawberries hulled and cut in two like tiny red hearts that dripped juice like blood onto the plate. He did not touch the fruit.
His attention was drawn to a small blue leather bound notebook on the table beside his breakfast. It was held closed by a thick elastic band. He tugged the band free and opened the book at its first page. There were three words written in pen across the top of the yellowing paper: Waiting in the Scriptorium. The rest of the page was blank.
He sipped at his coffee. There was a list of girls’ names on the second and third pages arranged in alphabetical order from Anna to Ursula. They were all crossed out except one: Helen. And next to Helen was written ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’. The handwriting was his own.
‘The face that launched a thousand ships,’ he said out loud.
‘You always say that,’ she’d said.
On the next page there was a description of her undressing him and helping him into the shower. It wasn’t quite the way it had happened, the details altered slightly, but it was familiar and some of their conversation was written down with crossings out and annotations as if he was perfecting their performance.
He looked at the door, looked at the walls and the bed. He wondered how long he had been there, how many mornings they had gone through the same routine of undressing, showering and dressing again. He wondered, too, how many times she had kissed him and set his breakfast out for him.
Suddenly the door handle turned. Mr Escritor shut the notebook and prepared to greet Helen with some of the questions that played over and over in his head. But it was not Helen who entered. Instead a young man dressed all in white and carrying a clipboard and pen stepped into the room.
‘Good morning, Mr Escritor,’ he said.
‘I was expecting Helen,’ said Mr Escritor.
‘I know,’ said the young man.
‘She said she’d return when I had finished.’
The young man nodded and made a note on his clipboard.
‘She promised,’ insisted Mr Escritor.
‘You must be patient.’
The young man produced a tray – it might have been the same tray that Helen had taken away with her – and he began clearing away the breakfast things. Mr Escritor sat in silence, scowling at the man and breathing through his nose. The young man asked him if he wanted another coffee. He did not answer.
He watched the man carry the tray away and then return.
‘Why am I here?’ said Mr Escritor at last.
‘I don’t think I can answer that,’ said the man.
‘Am I ill?’
‘Do you feel ill?’
‘She gave me pills.’
The man nodded.
‘Blue-white pills.’
‘Perhaps you would like to get up and walk for a bit,’ said the man. He laid his clipboard on the table and slipped his pen into his breast pocket. Mr Escritor noticed that he did not wear a badge as Helen did.
‘I don’t even know who you are?’ said Mr Escritor.
The young man came round to his side of the table and supported Mr Escritor as he pushed himself into a standing position.
‘Don’t you remember?’ said the man.
‘Is that what’s wrong with me? Have I lost my memory? Is that why I am here?’
‘You’re here because you choose to be here.’
‘Then I can choose to go?’ said Mr Escritor.
‘I’m Paul,’ said the young man. He pushed the chair back from the table and gestured towards the empty space that stretched between the table and the door. ‘We’ll just walk to the door and back. And then see how you are.’
Mr Escritor moved forward, one slow step followed by another. He leaned heavily on Paul’s arm. The young man did not complain.
‘Have I been in an accident? Is that what has happened?’
At the door Paul turned Mr Escritor so that he was facing back towards the table.
‘Take your time. There’s no hurry,’ coaxed Paul.
‘Do I know you from before?’ said Mr Escritor.
‘From before?’
‘From before this room. From before being in here.’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Paul. ‘I think I was known to you a very long time ago. But I don’t think you knew what to call me until very recently.’
When they reached the table, Paul lowered him into the chair and then wrote something on his clipboard.
‘Good,’ said Paul. ‘Better than yesterday. We’re making some improvement.’
He placed the blue leather bound notebook in front of Mr Escritor and laid his pen beside it. He nodded and then left. Mr Escritor watched him go, tried seeing beyond him through the open door. He listened to the door close, listened for the turn of a key or the sliding of a bolt. There was no sound.
In the notebook he found mention of Paul, a detailed portrait in words again written in his own hand. He also found notes on some of the questions he had asked. He added an amendment or two from today’s conversation. Then he read over what he had written. He had referred to himself in the third person, so that what was written between the covers of the notebook seemed to him to have happened to some fictional ‘him’.
He skipped forward several pages without reading what was written there until his attention was caught by Helen’s name. She had re-entered the room and it was later in the day. She was still dressed like a nurse, only now her hair was loose and hung down below her shoulders. She had brought him some more pills.
‘What would happen if I did not take these?’ he asked her.
‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. But these are for your own good. We are here to help you.’
‘By ‘we’ you mean you and Paul?’
‘All of us,’ said Helen.
This time she sat in the chair opposite him at the table. ‘It’s all written down,’ she said. She tapped the blue leather bound notebook that lay on the table between them.
He watched her watching him. She smiled at him.
‘The face that launched a thousand ships,’ he said.
‘You always say that,’ she said.
‘I do, don’t I.’
She took his hand in hers.
‘What if I wanted to leave here,’ he said.
‘The door is not locked,’ said Helen.
‘Then I could?’
‘I would not advise it,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t like it out there.’
‘Why not?
‘Out there I don’t exist.’ Helen pointed to the door. ‘None of us do. Out there you are unhappy and alone. You chose to come here. It’s perhaps better if you stay.’
She leaned across the table and reached one hand towards him, her fingers brushing lightly against his face.
‘And here?’ he said.
‘You’re safer here,’ she said. ‘Here anything is possible.’
The pages that followed were blank with possibilities. He took up his pen and began writing.
Later, as she slept in his bed, he crept free of Helen’s embrace and moved towards the door. The effort caused him to snatch at the air and the sound of his breathing was recorded somewhere. He rested at the table. The blue leather bound notebook lay open in front of him. The last words he had written said that ‘he rested at the table’.
He regained control of his breathing, felt his heartbeat steady. Behind him Helen slept and dreamed. Using one of the chairs to lean on, he continued his journey towards the shut door. Every half step that he took was an agony that he suffered in silence. The chair supported him as Paul had done, but his progress was much slower, as if the door itself withdrew from him a little with every step.
Then he was there and the door handle cold in his grasp. He tried the door. It was not locked, just as she had said. He was not a prisoner. He opened the door and looked outside. Behind him he heard Helen moan in her sleep, or maybe it was himself that had moaned. He blinked back tears and tried to focus on what was beyond the door. There was nothing to see. ‘Out there I don’t exist. None of us do,’ she had told him. A grey emptiness pressed towards him, like a dense mist or fog. Unformed shadows crossed in front of him and he thought he heard someone calling out, a sharp warning or a threat. He stepped back from the door, losing balance a little and suddenly frightened of what was out there.
‘You’re safer here,’ Helen had said.
Maybe she was right. He closed the door and slowly retreated through the darkness to the bed. He lay down in the warmth beside Helen and waited for sleep to come.
*
Time passed. Time always passes, though sometimes it passes so slowly that we do not really notice it. Mr Escritor was awake again, not certain whether it was night or day but certain that he was alone again. He turned in his bed, the movement recorded by invisible sensors and relayed to an invisible monitor. A light in the ceiling blinked on and he squinted at the sudden brightness. He did not immediately know where he was, or who he was.
The four walls of the room were white – like blank pages in a book, he thought, and it seemed to him like a new thought.
(scriptorium – a room, esp. in a monastery, set apart for the writing or copying of manuscripts.)
The four walls of the room were white – like blank pages in a book, he thought. There was a door set in the wall furthest from the bed. He watched the door, waiting for her to come in, as if without his expectation that she would enter she might stay on the other side – like an actor in a play who having missed her cue waits forever in the wings.
The seconds, recorded and logged in some unseen file, seemed to stretch taught. He grew anxious when she did not immediately arrive. He felt a hollow nausea overcome him, like vertigo. He recalled as a child standing on a glass floor on the thirty third floor of a tall building and looking down on the streets below, and the busy cars and buses moving like insects on the grey roads; he felt again the panic he felt then, the sense of falling or wanting to fall, or wanting to jump. He watched the handle of the door, fearful that this day no one would come and he would be left alone in this bed.
Then she was there. The racing of his heart was recorded somewhere.
‘Good morning, Mr Escritor,’ she said.
He was glad that she used his name, for he had forgotten it for a moment.
She was dressed in white, like a nurse, with her hair tied back from her face. He thought he recognised her, but was not sure from where.
‘How are we this morning?’ she said.
He nodded, but did not yet speak.
She pulled back the sheet he slept under and helped him sit up. She brushed his coarse grey hair back from his face and began unbuttoning his pyjama shirt. She was close enough that he could smell the perfume that she wore, could see the fine gold hairs on her cheek, the flecks of amber caught in her clear blue eyes. He noticed a badge pinned to her uniform. On it was printed a name: Helen. He assumed it was her name.
‘Good morning, Helen,’ he said.
She smiled at him. ‘Very good,’ she said.
‘The face that launched a thousand ships,’ he whispered.
‘You always say that,’ she said.
‘Do I?’ It had felt new to him.
She helped him to his feet and undid the buttons on his pyjama trousers. They slipped to the floor and she lifted first one foot and then the other, freeing him from the tangle of white cloth.
‘Are we ready?’ she said.
‘Ready?’
‘For your shower.’
When he came out from the shower his bed was made and clothes were laid out for him to wear. Helen dried him with a white towel, and dressed him – as though he was a child. She brushed his hair and straightened his collar. He sat on the bed and watched her ease his feet into a pair of white sports shoes. She adjusted the laces and tied them into loose neat bows.
‘There we are,’ she said getting up from the floor.
‘I think I loved you once,’ he said.
‘You love me still,’ she said, and she kissed him, her lips briefly pressed to his.
It felt like the first kiss, though somehow he knew that it wasn’t.
‘But I cannot remember where we met, or when, or…’
‘I’m not sure that any of that matters now,’ she said.
She lifted a glass of water that sat on the bedside table and handed it to him. Then she dropped two small blue-white pills into his hand and smiled at him and nodded.
He put one pill on his tongue and sipped at the water.
‘What does matter now, then?’ he said.
She waited for him to swallow the second pill, took the glass from his hand and placed it back on his bedside table.
‘What matters now is that you are here,’ she said.
‘And you’re here,’ he ventured.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And that’s important, too.’
A table sat in the centre of the room with two chairs facing each other. On the table there was a breakfast tray. It must have been brought in when he was in the shower, he thought.
Helen arranged the dishes on the table and removed the tray. She helped him from the bed to the table and sat him in one of the chairs. He assumed that the second chair was for her, but she left him to breakfast alone, promising to return once he had finished.
He sighed, a drawn out exhalation of air that broke the silence in the room. The sound was recorded, just as his conversation with Helen had been. He replayed it in his own head, what he could remember of it.
‘What matters now is that you are here,’ she had said to him. Now, when he thought about it, he realised he had no idea where ‘here’ was. He wondered if he was free to leave, free to pass through the door that Helen had passed through. He wondered what was on the other side, tried to recall how he had come to be in this room. He thought of the blue-white pills he had taken without questioning what they were for. Perhaps he was ill. He looked down at the backs of his hands. The skin seemed loose and lined and grey; the blue tracks of his blood showed faint just beneath the pale surface. He reached up and felt his own face, traced the furrows lining his forehead, the sharp jut of his cheekbones and the roughness of his unshaven chin. ‘A face like a wedding cake that has been left out in the rain,’ he thought. The words felt like his though they were not. He felt old.
‘I think I loved you once,’ he’d said to Helen. And she had kissed him. He tried to guess her age and thought her no more than thirty – maybe younger. He thought he remembered her, pictured her beside him on a bleached white beach under a clouded sky. In the picture she was the same, but he was different; he was younger. It made no sense to him. He would have to ask Helen when she returned.
He drank black unsweetened coffee from a plastic cup and ate one half of a buttered croissant that left flaked crumbs in his lap. There was fruit too, peach coloured slices of melon and strawberries hulled and cut in two like tiny red hearts that dripped juice like blood onto the plate. He did not touch the fruit.
His attention was drawn to a small blue leather bound notebook on the table beside his breakfast. It was held closed by a thick elastic band. He tugged the band free and opened the book at its first page. There were three words written in pen across the top of the yellowing paper: Waiting in the Scriptorium. The rest of the page was blank.
He sipped at his coffee. There was a list of girls’ names on the second and third pages arranged in alphabetical order from Anna to Ursula. They were all crossed out except one: Helen. And next to Helen was written ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’. The handwriting was his own.
‘The face that launched a thousand ships,’ he said out loud.
‘You always say that,’ she’d said.
On the next page there was a description of her undressing him and helping him into the shower. It wasn’t quite the way it had happened, the details altered slightly, but it was familiar and some of their conversation was written down with crossings out and annotations as if he was perfecting their performance.
He looked at the door, looked at the walls and the bed. He wondered how long he had been there, how many mornings they had gone through the same routine of undressing, showering and dressing again. He wondered, too, how many times she had kissed him and set his breakfast out for him.
Suddenly the door handle turned. Mr Escritor shut the notebook and prepared to greet Helen with some of the questions that played over and over in his head. But it was not Helen who entered. Instead a young man dressed all in white and carrying a clipboard and pen stepped into the room.
‘Good morning, Mr Escritor,’ he said.
‘I was expecting Helen,’ said Mr Escritor.
‘I know,’ said the young man.
‘She said she’d return when I had finished.’
The young man nodded and made a note on his clipboard.
‘She promised,’ insisted Mr Escritor.
‘You must be patient.’
The young man produced a tray – it might have been the same tray that Helen had taken away with her – and he began clearing away the breakfast things. Mr Escritor sat in silence, scowling at the man and breathing through his nose. The young man asked him if he wanted another coffee. He did not answer.
He watched the man carry the tray away and then return.
‘Why am I here?’ said Mr Escritor at last.
‘I don’t think I can answer that,’ said the man.
‘Am I ill?’
‘Do you feel ill?’
‘She gave me pills.’
The man nodded.
‘Blue-white pills.’
‘Perhaps you would like to get up and walk for a bit,’ said the man. He laid his clipboard on the table and slipped his pen into his breast pocket. Mr Escritor noticed that he did not wear a badge as Helen did.
‘I don’t even know who you are?’ said Mr Escritor.
The young man came round to his side of the table and supported Mr Escritor as he pushed himself into a standing position.
‘Don’t you remember?’ said the man.
‘Is that what’s wrong with me? Have I lost my memory? Is that why I am here?’
‘You’re here because you choose to be here.’
‘Then I can choose to go?’ said Mr Escritor.
‘I’m Paul,’ said the young man. He pushed the chair back from the table and gestured towards the empty space that stretched between the table and the door. ‘We’ll just walk to the door and back. And then see how you are.’
Mr Escritor moved forward, one slow step followed by another. He leaned heavily on Paul’s arm. The young man did not complain.
‘Have I been in an accident? Is that what has happened?’
At the door Paul turned Mr Escritor so that he was facing back towards the table.
‘Take your time. There’s no hurry,’ coaxed Paul.
‘Do I know you from before?’ said Mr Escritor.
‘From before?’
‘From before this room. From before being in here.’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Paul. ‘I think I was known to you a very long time ago. But I don’t think you knew what to call me until very recently.’
When they reached the table, Paul lowered him into the chair and then wrote something on his clipboard.
‘Good,’ said Paul. ‘Better than yesterday. We’re making some improvement.’
He placed the blue leather bound notebook in front of Mr Escritor and laid his pen beside it. He nodded and then left. Mr Escritor watched him go, tried seeing beyond him through the open door. He listened to the door close, listened for the turn of a key or the sliding of a bolt. There was no sound.
In the notebook he found mention of Paul, a detailed portrait in words again written in his own hand. He also found notes on some of the questions he had asked. He added an amendment or two from today’s conversation. Then he read over what he had written. He had referred to himself in the third person, so that what was written between the covers of the notebook seemed to him to have happened to some fictional ‘him’.
He skipped forward several pages without reading what was written there until his attention was caught by Helen’s name. She had re-entered the room and it was later in the day. She was still dressed like a nurse, only now her hair was loose and hung down below her shoulders. She had brought him some more pills.
‘What would happen if I did not take these?’ he asked her.
‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. But these are for your own good. We are here to help you.’
‘By ‘we’ you mean you and Paul?’
‘All of us,’ said Helen.
This time she sat in the chair opposite him at the table. ‘It’s all written down,’ she said. She tapped the blue leather bound notebook that lay on the table between them.
He watched her watching him. She smiled at him.
‘The face that launched a thousand ships,’ he said.
‘You always say that,’ she said.
‘I do, don’t I.’
She took his hand in hers.
‘What if I wanted to leave here,’ he said.
‘The door is not locked,’ said Helen.
‘Then I could?’
‘I would not advise it,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t like it out there.’
‘Why not?
‘Out there I don’t exist.’ Helen pointed to the door. ‘None of us do. Out there you are unhappy and alone. You chose to come here. It’s perhaps better if you stay.’
She leaned across the table and reached one hand towards him, her fingers brushing lightly against his face.
‘And here?’ he said.
‘You’re safer here,’ she said. ‘Here anything is possible.’
The pages that followed were blank with possibilities. He took up his pen and began writing.
Later, as she slept in his bed, he crept free of Helen’s embrace and moved towards the door. The effort caused him to snatch at the air and the sound of his breathing was recorded somewhere. He rested at the table. The blue leather bound notebook lay open in front of him. The last words he had written said that ‘he rested at the table’.
He regained control of his breathing, felt his heartbeat steady. Behind him Helen slept and dreamed. Using one of the chairs to lean on, he continued his journey towards the shut door. Every half step that he took was an agony that he suffered in silence. The chair supported him as Paul had done, but his progress was much slower, as if the door itself withdrew from him a little with every step.
Then he was there and the door handle cold in his grasp. He tried the door. It was not locked, just as she had said. He was not a prisoner. He opened the door and looked outside. Behind him he heard Helen moan in her sleep, or maybe it was himself that had moaned. He blinked back tears and tried to focus on what was beyond the door. There was nothing to see. ‘Out there I don’t exist. None of us do,’ she had told him. A grey emptiness pressed towards him, like a dense mist or fog. Unformed shadows crossed in front of him and he thought he heard someone calling out, a sharp warning or a threat. He stepped back from the door, losing balance a little and suddenly frightened of what was out there.
‘You’re safer here,’ Helen had said.
Maybe she was right. He closed the door and slowly retreated through the darkness to the bed. He lay down in the warmth beside Helen and waited for sleep to come.
*
Time passed. Time always passes, though sometimes it passes so slowly that we do not really notice it. Mr Escritor was awake again, not certain whether it was night or day but certain that he was alone again. He turned in his bed, the movement recorded by invisible sensors and relayed to an invisible monitor. A light in the ceiling blinked on and he squinted at the sudden brightness. He did not immediately know where he was, or who he was.
The four walls of the room were white – like blank pages in a book, he thought, and it seemed to him like a new thought.
(scriptorium – a room, esp. in a monastery, set apart for the writing or copying of manuscripts.)
Mondays Smell of Burnt Toast
Monday June 10th, 10.14 am
His movements were slow, every small calculation visible in the adjustments and readjustments he made lowering himself into the chair. Three hidden cameras recorded what Harry did.
The room was small and regular, like a box. The walls were blank and a table sat in the centre with two chairs facing each other. In one chair sat a man wearing a white coat looking as though he was reading a manilla file of loose papers. The white of his coat smelled of apples and Harry heard the single note of a struck bell when he looked at the man.
The earth spins through space and around the sun. The speed of its movement is something astounding and yet we have no sense of moving. Harry remembers as a child sitting in the back seat of his father’s car and waiting for the lights to change, and the car edging forward, so slow and so little that it might have been missed, except that he could feel the movement, the whole world sliding past his window.
Harry sat in silence, waiting for the other man to speak.
‘Can you tell me your name?’
It was a silly question. The name on the file was what the man wanted Harry to say. He’d been asked the ques tion before. It made no sense to keep asking it.
‘My name is Harry,’ he said.
The man ticked a box on a sheet of paper.
‘And do you know what day it is?’
Harry knew. It was Monday. He could tell from the smell. Mondays smell of burnt toast. He didn’t know why that was.
‘It’s Monday,’ said Harry.
Even his words came out slow, like they were new and he was saying them for the first time, not certain that the sound they might make would be the right sound.
‘I know it’s Monday. I can smell burnt toast.’
The man in white tried to hide his surprise. Harry noticed the arching of one eyebrow and knew he could not smel l anything.
‘Why burnt toast?’
Harry had no answer to the question so stayed silent.
The man in white gave Harry a minute to reply, then wrote something on the piece of paper.
Harry waited.
‘Do you know where you are, Harry?’
He could hear something red, and jangling like dropped change, and that made him think he might be in a school or an insurance office.
If you put a cold hand into a basin of tap water it will feel warm. Put a warm hand into the same water and it feels cold. Harry thought he had read that somewhere, or had heard someone explain it to him. What he wasn’t told was that the smell stayed the same, that water smelled of green.
‘Do you know where you are, Harry?’ said the man again.
Harry shook his head.
‘Do you know why you are here?’
He didn’t know. Nobody had said and Harry hadn’t asked.
‘Can you remember what happened before you came here?’
Harry could remember breakfast, sitting on a metal-framed chair in a room where everyone wore blue, except the women and one man. There was a woman there who smelled of storms and everything around her was loud music and the music tasted of sour fruit. He liked her. She was kind to him. He never could remember her name, so had written it on the inside of his wrist in case he ever needed it. He looked at it now. Her name was Caroline.
‘My name is Harry,’ he said. ‘Her name is Caroline.’
‘Who is Caroline?’ said the man.
Harry could see her when he closed his eyes, could smell the storm and hear the music and taste the sharpness of lemons or grapefruits. That was Caroline. But he didn’t know how to say this to the man in white.
‘Mondays smell of burnt toast.’
‘Do you know where you are, Harry?’
Harry nodded. It was what he thought the man wanted.
On one of the screens in the next room Harry’s face was visible in close-up. He looked frightened and lost, his eyes glassy and staring.
Saturday June 8th, 10.02 am
Harry sat up in bed. It was not his bed. He knew that right away. There were wasps caught in the folds of the sheets. He could hear their angry buzzing, even when unpicking the folds he could not see them.
‘Good morning, Harry.’
He recognised the music she brought into the room, and underneath the music a growling like thunder – he recognised that too, and the sour citrus taste left on his tongue. He checked his wrist.
‘Good morning, Caroline,’ he said.
She pulled back the curtains and let in the sun. It hurt his eyes at first and the hurt was something he remembered, from somewhere.
‘And what day is it today?’ said Caroline.
She moved to behind him, gently pushed him forward and punched air into his pillows.
‘It is Saturday. Saturdays are always orange and smell of piss.’
‘Don’t you like Saturdays then?’ she said, peeling back the sheets of his bed.
‘Liking Saturdays has nothing to do with their colour or their smell.’
There were plasters on the ends of all his fingers. He didn’t know when that had happened.
‘Do you know where you are, Harry?’
He didn’t know that either.
Wednesday June 5th, 10.09 am
Harry lay quite still. He didn’t know he was Harry, not till later. His thoughts swam in and out of each other and the smell of apples hung in the air. He had picked apples one summer, with his mother. They were paid for each wicker basket they filled. He collected the apples that weighed down the lower branches and his mother climbed the ladder, so high he couldn’t see her sometimes. They got to take apples home with them, too, at the end of each day. So many apples. They kept them wrapped in paper and straw, stored them in cardboard boxes in the dark under the stairs. Sometimes he would shut himself in there just to be with the smell.
Wednesday, he thought.
There was a woman by his bed. Sitting as still as a picture, a magazine open on her lap. Her hair was the colour of wood with the bark peeled back, and he felt cold watching her.
She looked up and was surprised to see him awake.
‘Harry?’ she said.
It was a question. He wasn’t sure of the answer. The ends of his fingers burned.
‘Harry,’ she said again.
He didn’t know who she was, but something told him he should. The smell was familiar and she was grey, like memories can be grey sometimes.
He thought of the moon landing he had watched with his father, the slow moving spacemen, and slow talking too. One giant step. Only they were small and grey on the screen, the steps and the men. And these days everyone saying they were not real, pointing to the shadows and saying they could not be. And everything a staged set.
‘Harry, it’s me. It’s Julie.’
Julie smelled of dust. That was what he recognised. Julie smelled of dust. Like the grey that is laid on things when they are left untouched for a long time. Julie smelled of dust, he would have to remember that.
She took his hand in hers, not making contact with the plastered ends of his fingers, just holding the palm, loose, and stroking the back.
‘It’s Julie.’
A woman who said her name was Caroline took his temperature and recorded it on a chart at the end of his bed. She offered to bring Julie tea and asked him if he wanted some, too.
‘Would you like some tea, Harry?’
He was Harry. He knew that now.
He nodded his head. At least he tried to.
Monday June 3rd, 10.06 am
The air tasted of silver, and fizzed on his tongue like lemonade. His eyes were closed and he could hear movement around him and the regular sound of machines counting out the seconds. There was music underneath everything, the sound of one song playing over and over, not the words, just the tune. He could smell burnt toast. It was a familiar smell. He thought it must be Monday, and didn’t know why he thought that.
Saturday June 1st, 10.01 am
He was a shape in the bed. Without definition. A colour and a smell more than a shape. The smell of toilets that aren’t clean and the colour of marigolds. And a feeling. He was a feeling, too. Just the one sensation. And it was pain. A pulsing pain. That was everything he was, and everything he had been for as long as he could remember. And he didn’t know how long that was.
Thursday May 30th 10.10 am
They did not know who he was at first. A man found in a field. Unconscious. His clothes burned to his skin and his hair singed and the ends of his fingers dripping blood from open cuts. He was strapped to a gurney, tubes and wires keeping him alive, and the scream of sirens still ringing in everyone’s ears.
There was a picture in his wallet, the plastic melted a little and the picture too. His ID said his name was Harry and so that is what they began th eir sentences with. ‘Harry can you hear me?’ ‘Harry, you have been hurt.’ ‘Harry, do you know what happened? Can you squeeze my hand? Can you blink?’
His black blank stare was all there was.
Thursday May 30th, 4.00 am
Harry woke up alone. Julie was gone to her mother’s. They’d fought again and he didn’t know why, didn’t care either. He lay in th e dark, listening to the house shifting, the tiny creaks and groans as it stretched and flexed. The air felt thick, and warm. He kicked back th e covers and breathed deeply.
He got up from the bed and made his way through to the bathroom. The snap of the light was sharp and his eyes squinted against the sudden brightness. He looked at himself in the mirror. His skin was grey and his eyes, too. He stuck out his tongue. He didn’t know if it looked as it should.
Outside it was darker than dark, and the sky growled. Harry pulled on a shirt and walked into his pants. Then he lit a cigarette and went out onto the porch to smoke.
There was a storm coming. He could tell. The hairs on his arms stood up and he tasted metal or blood on his tongue.
He stepped down from the porch and onto the grass. It felt soft under his bare feet, and cool, and wet. But Harry didn0t really notice, was thinking of something else, lost in thought.
‘Maybe it is time,’ he said. He was not in the habit of speaking to himself. ‘Maybe it is time for a change, and Julie going is right and as it should be.’
He tried to remember what Julie had said. ‘It is over, what we had. Was over long before now.’ She’d been saying that a lot recently and a part of him knew she was right. ‘A new start. We need to let this go and move on.’ That’s what she had said. What she didn’t know was that he had already moved on.
He climbed the fence and wandered into the middle of the field. It was beginning to rain and his shirt stuck to his skin. He wiped his wet hair back from his eyes and looked up at the storm above him.
A decision was made then. He lifted his arms in celebration and called out her name.
Then there was only white, a seething hot white that reached down through him and made everything new, like a clean page.
Monday May 27th, 10.00 am
Her name was Marilyn. He said it over and over, tasting it, testing it.
‘Come for breakfast,’ she’d said. So he had, at ten o’clock prompt, knocking on her back door.
A bell chimed once when she opened the door, and once again when she closed it. The radio was playing, a song that he recognised. Marilyn was still in her dressing gown. It was white, like a nurse’s uniform or a doctor’s coat. He kissed her, and she smelled of apples. It was the shampoo that she used.
They had gone straight to her bed.
‘This is for real?’ she said.
Harry would have promised her the moon, the stars and everything in between.
‘This is more real than real,’ he said. It was a cute thing to say, even though it made no sen se, not really.
‘It’s just that things are moving pretty fast here,’ she said.
‘Not as fast as you think,’ said Harry. And he told Marilyn about the earth whizzing through space and no one ever noticing. She laughed.
‘You know what I mean,’ she said.
Her hand in his was cold. And then it was warm.
‘This is the start of something,’ he said. ‘It really is.’
Afterwards she had made toast and burned it.
‘From now on, Mondays will always smell of burnt toast,’ he declared.
His movements were slow, every small calculation visible in the adjustments and readjustments he made lowering himself into the chair. Three hidden cameras recorded what Harry did.
The room was small and regular, like a box. The walls were blank and a table sat in the centre with two chairs facing each other. In one chair sat a man wearing a white coat looking as though he was reading a manilla file of loose papers. The white of his coat smelled of apples and Harry heard the single note of a struck bell when he looked at the man.
The earth spins through space and around the sun. The speed of its movement is something astounding and yet we have no sense of moving. Harry remembers as a child sitting in the back seat of his father’s car and waiting for the lights to change, and the car edging forward, so slow and so little that it might have been missed, except that he could feel the movement, the whole world sliding past his window.
Harry sat in silence, waiting for the other man to speak.
‘Can you tell me your name?’
It was a silly question. The name on the file was what the man wanted Harry to say. He’d been asked the ques tion before. It made no sense to keep asking it.
‘My name is Harry,’ he said.
The man ticked a box on a sheet of paper.
‘And do you know what day it is?’
Harry knew. It was Monday. He could tell from the smell. Mondays smell of burnt toast. He didn’t know why that was.
‘It’s Monday,’ said Harry.
Even his words came out slow, like they were new and he was saying them for the first time, not certain that the sound they might make would be the right sound.
‘I know it’s Monday. I can smell burnt toast.’
The man in white tried to hide his surprise. Harry noticed the arching of one eyebrow and knew he could not smel l anything.
‘Why burnt toast?’
Harry had no answer to the question so stayed silent.
The man in white gave Harry a minute to reply, then wrote something on the piece of paper.
Harry waited.
‘Do you know where you are, Harry?’
He could hear something red, and jangling like dropped change, and that made him think he might be in a school or an insurance office.
If you put a cold hand into a basin of tap water it will feel warm. Put a warm hand into the same water and it feels cold. Harry thought he had read that somewhere, or had heard someone explain it to him. What he wasn’t told was that the smell stayed the same, that water smelled of green.
‘Do you know where you are, Harry?’ said the man again.
Harry shook his head.
‘Do you know why you are here?’
He didn’t know. Nobody had said and Harry hadn’t asked.
‘Can you remember what happened before you came here?’
Harry could remember breakfast, sitting on a metal-framed chair in a room where everyone wore blue, except the women and one man. There was a woman there who smelled of storms and everything around her was loud music and the music tasted of sour fruit. He liked her. She was kind to him. He never could remember her name, so had written it on the inside of his wrist in case he ever needed it. He looked at it now. Her name was Caroline.
‘My name is Harry,’ he said. ‘Her name is Caroline.’
‘Who is Caroline?’ said the man.
Harry could see her when he closed his eyes, could smell the storm and hear the music and taste the sharpness of lemons or grapefruits. That was Caroline. But he didn’t know how to say this to the man in white.
‘Mondays smell of burnt toast.’
‘Do you know where you are, Harry?’
Harry nodded. It was what he thought the man wanted.
On one of the screens in the next room Harry’s face was visible in close-up. He looked frightened and lost, his eyes glassy and staring.
Saturday June 8th, 10.02 am
Harry sat up in bed. It was not his bed. He knew that right away. There were wasps caught in the folds of the sheets. He could hear their angry buzzing, even when unpicking the folds he could not see them.
‘Good morning, Harry.’
He recognised the music she brought into the room, and underneath the music a growling like thunder – he recognised that too, and the sour citrus taste left on his tongue. He checked his wrist.
‘Good morning, Caroline,’ he said.
She pulled back the curtains and let in the sun. It hurt his eyes at first and the hurt was something he remembered, from somewhere.
‘And what day is it today?’ said Caroline.
She moved to behind him, gently pushed him forward and punched air into his pillows.
‘It is Saturday. Saturdays are always orange and smell of piss.’
‘Don’t you like Saturdays then?’ she said, peeling back the sheets of his bed.
‘Liking Saturdays has nothing to do with their colour or their smell.’
There were plasters on the ends of all his fingers. He didn’t know when that had happened.
‘Do you know where you are, Harry?’
He didn’t know that either.
Wednesday June 5th, 10.09 am
Harry lay quite still. He didn’t know he was Harry, not till later. His thoughts swam in and out of each other and the smell of apples hung in the air. He had picked apples one summer, with his mother. They were paid for each wicker basket they filled. He collected the apples that weighed down the lower branches and his mother climbed the ladder, so high he couldn’t see her sometimes. They got to take apples home with them, too, at the end of each day. So many apples. They kept them wrapped in paper and straw, stored them in cardboard boxes in the dark under the stairs. Sometimes he would shut himself in there just to be with the smell.
Wednesday, he thought.
There was a woman by his bed. Sitting as still as a picture, a magazine open on her lap. Her hair was the colour of wood with the bark peeled back, and he felt cold watching her.
She looked up and was surprised to see him awake.
‘Harry?’ she said.
It was a question. He wasn’t sure of the answer. The ends of his fingers burned.
‘Harry,’ she said again.
He didn’t know who she was, but something told him he should. The smell was familiar and she was grey, like memories can be grey sometimes.
He thought of the moon landing he had watched with his father, the slow moving spacemen, and slow talking too. One giant step. Only they were small and grey on the screen, the steps and the men. And these days everyone saying they were not real, pointing to the shadows and saying they could not be. And everything a staged set.
‘Harry, it’s me. It’s Julie.’
Julie smelled of dust. That was what he recognised. Julie smelled of dust. Like the grey that is laid on things when they are left untouched for a long time. Julie smelled of dust, he would have to remember that.
She took his hand in hers, not making contact with the plastered ends of his fingers, just holding the palm, loose, and stroking the back.
‘It’s Julie.’
A woman who said her name was Caroline took his temperature and recorded it on a chart at the end of his bed. She offered to bring Julie tea and asked him if he wanted some, too.
‘Would you like some tea, Harry?’
He was Harry. He knew that now.
He nodded his head. At least he tried to.
Monday June 3rd, 10.06 am
The air tasted of silver, and fizzed on his tongue like lemonade. His eyes were closed and he could hear movement around him and the regular sound of machines counting out the seconds. There was music underneath everything, the sound of one song playing over and over, not the words, just the tune. He could smell burnt toast. It was a familiar smell. He thought it must be Monday, and didn’t know why he thought that.
Saturday June 1st, 10.01 am
He was a shape in the bed. Without definition. A colour and a smell more than a shape. The smell of toilets that aren’t clean and the colour of marigolds. And a feeling. He was a feeling, too. Just the one sensation. And it was pain. A pulsing pain. That was everything he was, and everything he had been for as long as he could remember. And he didn’t know how long that was.
Thursday May 30th 10.10 am
They did not know who he was at first. A man found in a field. Unconscious. His clothes burned to his skin and his hair singed and the ends of his fingers dripping blood from open cuts. He was strapped to a gurney, tubes and wires keeping him alive, and the scream of sirens still ringing in everyone’s ears.
There was a picture in his wallet, the plastic melted a little and the picture too. His ID said his name was Harry and so that is what they began th eir sentences with. ‘Harry can you hear me?’ ‘Harry, you have been hurt.’ ‘Harry, do you know what happened? Can you squeeze my hand? Can you blink?’
His black blank stare was all there was.
Thursday May 30th, 4.00 am
Harry woke up alone. Julie was gone to her mother’s. They’d fought again and he didn’t know why, didn’t care either. He lay in th e dark, listening to the house shifting, the tiny creaks and groans as it stretched and flexed. The air felt thick, and warm. He kicked back th e covers and breathed deeply.
He got up from the bed and made his way through to the bathroom. The snap of the light was sharp and his eyes squinted against the sudden brightness. He looked at himself in the mirror. His skin was grey and his eyes, too. He stuck out his tongue. He didn’t know if it looked as it should.
Outside it was darker than dark, and the sky growled. Harry pulled on a shirt and walked into his pants. Then he lit a cigarette and went out onto the porch to smoke.
There was a storm coming. He could tell. The hairs on his arms stood up and he tasted metal or blood on his tongue.
He stepped down from the porch and onto the grass. It felt soft under his bare feet, and cool, and wet. But Harry didn0t really notice, was thinking of something else, lost in thought.
‘Maybe it is time,’ he said. He was not in the habit of speaking to himself. ‘Maybe it is time for a change, and Julie going is right and as it should be.’
He tried to remember what Julie had said. ‘It is over, what we had. Was over long before now.’ She’d been saying that a lot recently and a part of him knew she was right. ‘A new start. We need to let this go and move on.’ That’s what she had said. What she didn’t know was that he had already moved on.
He climbed the fence and wandered into the middle of the field. It was beginning to rain and his shirt stuck to his skin. He wiped his wet hair back from his eyes and looked up at the storm above him.
A decision was made then. He lifted his arms in celebration and called out her name.
Then there was only white, a seething hot white that reached down through him and made everything new, like a clean page.
Monday May 27th, 10.00 am
Her name was Marilyn. He said it over and over, tasting it, testing it.
‘Come for breakfast,’ she’d said. So he had, at ten o’clock prompt, knocking on her back door.
A bell chimed once when she opened the door, and once again when she closed it. The radio was playing, a song that he recognised. Marilyn was still in her dressing gown. It was white, like a nurse’s uniform or a doctor’s coat. He kissed her, and she smelled of apples. It was the shampoo that she used.
They had gone straight to her bed.
‘This is for real?’ she said.
Harry would have promised her the moon, the stars and everything in between.
‘This is more real than real,’ he said. It was a cute thing to say, even though it made no sen se, not really.
‘It’s just that things are moving pretty fast here,’ she said.
‘Not as fast as you think,’ said Harry. And he told Marilyn about the earth whizzing through space and no one ever noticing. She laughed.
‘You know what I mean,’ she said.
Her hand in his was cold. And then it was warm.
‘This is the start of something,’ he said. ‘It really is.’
Afterwards she had made toast and burned it.
‘From now on, Mondays will always smell of burnt toast,’ he declared.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)