The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life (19 page)

The drinking began as they set out, and soon the zigzag convoy was loud with ironic cheers and laughter.

‘Oh fuck, fuck, fuck!’ cried Richard Clements as he drove his punt into the bank.

‘Richard you arsehole! You made me spill my wine!’

Lesley Draycott laughed so much she got hiccups, and every time she hiccupped she jumped, and every time she jumped her short skirt rode higher up her legs. Hal Ashburnham kept hold of his pole too long and fell into the river. Franco Souza sang ‘Old Man River’ in a high piping voice. The day grew warm.

They laid out their picnic on a random spread of tartan rugs and discarded jackets, and more bottles of wine were opened. Felix’s contribution was a loaf of sliced white sandwich bread, for which he was universally mocked.

‘
Mein Gott
!’ cried Hal. ‘What would Manet say?’

‘Where was I supposed to find a baguette?’ complained Felix.

‘Not a baguette.’ Nick with his eyes closed mentally reconstructed the Manet painting. ‘A round loaf, I think.’

‘And the woman’s naked!’ Richard turned to Laura. ‘Laura! We need a naked woman!’

‘In your dreams, Richard.’

‘I didn’t know you knew.’

‘Anyway,’ said Katie, ‘it’s all sexist bullshit. Why don’t the men strip off too?’

‘I’m stripping off!’

Hal Ashburnham, soaking from his tumble in the river, peeled off his shirt and jeans to reveal a lissom white body. Not quite naked, he struck a pose, one arm akimbo, head looking down.

‘Culture quiz. Who am I?’

‘A prat in pants!’

‘The Mona Lisa!’

‘Michelangelo’s David.’

‘Thank you, Nick.’

Laura watched Nick and saw that he was happy and so she was happy. When at last the wine ran out four of her friends knelt before her and serenaded her with a song that was topping the charts when she was two years old.

‘Tell Laura I love her

Tell Laura I need her

Tell Laura not to cry

My love for her will never die…’

Laura clapped and clapped and saw Nick smiling and thought how strange it was to be twenty years old.

‘Nick’s a great singer,’ said Franco.

This was a surprise to Laura.

‘Are you, Nick? I didn’t know.’

‘Haven’t you ever heard Nick sing Elvis?’

Nick was grinning and shaking his head, but now all the party set up a clamour.

‘Elvis! Elvis! Elvis!’

Laura thought he didn’t like it and was about to stop the chant when she caught an apologetic smile flashed at her and realized he was going to do it.

‘I’ll get you later for this, Franco, you traitor.’

He rose to his feet and adopted a mock opera-singer pose, holding out his hands towards Laura. Then he started to sing. To Laura’s utter amazement his voice was deep and true, not quite Elvis, but not at all comical. She realized she was not going to be able to stop herself crying.

‘Love me tender, love me sweet,

Never let me go.

You have made my life complete

And I love you so.

Love me tender, love me true,

All my dreams fulfil.

For my darling I love you

And I always will.’

She took him in her arms and kissed him, pressing her wet cheeks to his, and all their friends cheered. He had said to her in song words he had never said before, words she had longed for him to say.

He gave her his birthday present. It was a walnut tied up with a slender red ribbon. Inside the hollowed-out nut was a pair of silver and agate earrings.

‘Oh, Nick. They’re so beautiful.’

And he had chosen them. He had searched the shelves of jewellers’ shops with her in his mind, looking for the adornment that would become her.

She put the earrings on then and there, attaching to herself as she did so his publicly-declared love. She was still crying tears of happiness.

Later that day Nick and Laura went to the photobooth on the station concourse and took pictures of each other. In Nick’s strip of four pictures he looked smiling, then solemn, then he turned his head in profile and looked sideways at the camera, then he had his eyes shut. In Laura’s four pictures she wore her new earrings and looked this way and that, and smiled, and wanted to be as lovely as possible. His pictures were for her, and her pictures were for him. But then, everything was for him. Her radiant beauty, her happiness, her body, her soul.

That night he told her he might go to New York. There was a possible job in a small art gallery there from September. Laura wondered to herself how they would manage things but trusted they would find a way. September seemed very far off.

23

In the small hours of Thursday morning the last of the moonlight finds Alan Strachan at his desk, lit by the lesser moon of his computer screen, in the very moment of completion; which is also the very moment at which euphoria turns to despair. All night long, buoyed up by a raging flaming conviction that he has found the answer, that he has only to keep pace with the demon of invention and chase the words from keyboard to screen, he has breathed fierce new life into his failed play. Now, the task done, the night almost over, the adrenalin that has flooded his nervous system is draining away, and his sleep-deprived body is turning on him to take its revenge.

Don’t listen don’t believe only because I’m tired. Sleep now.

He runs from the room, not stopping to close down the computer, and throws himself fully dressed onto his bed, pleading for oblivion to save him. Tormented by tiredness but wide awake, he lies on the bed, thrashing from side to side, helpless to resist the sucking away of his precious store of conviction.

Why did I think how could I believe why can’t I see but I see too much and too clearly. My poor man’s wisdom made infantile by my sad man’s comedy. Cruel to let me hope so much for so long. And what now? What other life to live? What other dream to dream? No, no more dreams. Only dull plodding reality. Build on the ugly concrete foundation of truth. The play is a failure, always will be. The years of struggle the product of vanity and self-delusion. But cruel to let it last so long. Cruel to leave me with so little, and so tired. Cruel to deny me sleep.

So he sleeps.

When he wakes, it’s full daylight, and checking his watch he finds he’s missed most of morning assembly. Fortunately he’s already dressed, though neither having slept properly nor breakfasted at all he feels like shit and looks the same way. There’ll be coffee in the staff room.

As he shambles blinking through the school’s front hall to the sanctuary he seeks, a parent looms up before him.

‘I’m told you’re Mr Strachan,’ he says.

‘The rumour is correct.’

But the parent does not smile.

‘Is there somewhere we can talk for a moment?’

They go into the school office, currently empty, and there stupid as a doll he stands nodding and grinning when all he wants is a mug of coffee and an armchair.

‘It’s about my son Jack. He wrote a composition for you, about a dream.’

Alan Strachan struggles to remember. Nothing whatsoever comes to mind.

‘Oh. Right.’

‘You criticized his punctuation. I’m not saying you were wrong to do that. But punctuation! I mean, it’s not such a big deal, surely?’

The man seems to be angry.

‘I’m sorry. I don’t quite follow you.’

‘A child brings you his dream. There’s more there than punctuation. He’s offering you, well, his soul, really. Doesn’t that deserve more from you than “Could do better”? Look, I’m trying not to sound like a pushy parent. Forget he’s my son. He could be anyone’s child. He could be Shakespeare. He could be Milton. You have the power to make him feel that. And what do you tell him? “Could do better.” He’s eleven years old! He’s not some tired old hack slogging along for a pay cheque like the rest of us. He’s a child. Let him have his dreams.’

The words
pay cheque
hold Alan Strachan’s attention.

‘If I’ve let your son down,’ he says, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sure you expect and deserve better service for your money.’

‘I don’t want service. Jesus, money! It rots everything it touches. Listen, all I’m saying is believe in him. Don’t let his dreams perish.’

Alan Strachan becomes aware that the children are streaming into the hall. Assembly is over, and the noise is indescribable as always. For once the babel of unbroken voices is welcome. Too much reality too early in the day.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes, of course you’re right.’

‘Well, that’s all I wanted to say. Who was it who wrote, “Tread softly, you tread on my dreams”?’

He holds out his hand.

‘Yeats.’

Alan Strachan allows his hand to be shaken. Passing children stare and giggle. The parent strides out through the swinging doors, scattering blue-blazered infants as he goes. Alan Strachan is about to continue on his interrupted way to the staff room when the Headmaster’s voice snags him.

‘Oh, Alan. Did I see you in assembly?’

‘Sorry, Alastair. Running a little late this morning.’

‘There’s a parent looking for you.’

‘Yes. I know.’

The staff room already a jostle of colleagues. He moves in a trance towards the trolley. Jimmy Hall is pouring from the coffee jug, holding it at a dismayingly acute angle.

‘Morning Alan.’

The last of the coffee trickles from the spout. Jimmy Hall beams over his brimming mug.

‘Have you seen the local rag?’

‘No.’

‘I’ve started doing the odd bit for them. Local items, uncredited, nothing to set the Thames on fire. Thought it might interest my Year Threes.’

‘Right.’

‘How daily life turns into news. What’s newsworthy and what’s not. I’m learning a lot myself, to tell you the truth.’

Alan Strachan leaves the staff room, feeling giddy and a little nauseous. Barely ten minutes to go before his first class. He heads across the lawn towards the tennis courts, wanting only to be alone.

I could have been Shakespeare. I could have been Milton. Don’t let my dreams perish.

It seems to him now that the parent was a product of his imagination, an accusing voice conjured up by himself from his own nightmares. No sleep, no toast, no coffee, and he’s hallucinating in the school hall. The angry father is himself, and the child whose dreams he seeks to protect, that child too is himself.

I bring myself my dream. I offer my soul. I could do better.

As if I didn’t know.

‘Alan!’

Fucking Alastair. Is there nowhere I can be alone?

‘Alan! That parent who wants a word with you is still waiting.’

‘I’ve seen him.’

‘Her. She’s in the library.’

‘Oh.’

I am bound upon a wheel of fire. What are the chances that this new female rebuker has a Thermos of hot black coffee? Not great, pal. Not great.

He pushes his unruly hair into token order, and tries but fails to lift his shoulders out of their defeated slouch. He feels as he makes his way to the library as if his skeleton no longer has enough rigidity to support him. His eyes sting.

She’s standing in the bay window, looking out at the Downs. He remembers her, she’s the single parent. He retrieves the name. Dickinson.

‘Mr Strachan.’

‘Yes.’

‘I know it’s not a good time. But I really would like a word about Alice.’

‘Right. Right.’

‘How do you find her this term? Do you think she’s coping all right?’

‘Well, I don’t see – yes, as far as that goes – I mean, you know, everyone has their ups and downs.’

He sits down on one of the child-sized chairs, a little more suddenly than he intended. Alice’s mother seems surprised. She does not sit, even though there are plenty of other child-sized chairs. She looks down at him, frowning.

‘How do you think she’s getting on with the other girls in her class?’

‘The other girls? Oh, not too badly, I think. They’re not a bad crowd.’

‘So she has friends?’