The Seed Collectors (33 page)

‘They’re called clegs. They’re like a horsefly.’

‘Clegs?’

‘Yep. Horrible things.’

‘They don’t seem to respond to insect repellent.’

‘Have you got Avon Skin So Soft?’

‘Yes.’

A young woman now joins in. ‘Did you get the blue or the pink bottle?’

‘Blue.’

‘That should work,’ says the man. ‘Mind you, it works on me but not on my wife.’

‘You see,’ says the girl, ‘you’ve got normal clegs and then you’ve got deer clegs . . .’

‘They chased us off the beach,’ Bryony says.

‘Well, yes, they’ll do that.’

‘Right.’

‘What you need is Smidge.’

‘Smidge.’

‘It’s the only thing that works on local clegs.’

‘Brilliant. Thanks. Well, I’ll take one . . .’ What? Tube, bottle? Bryony looks around.

‘We’re out of stock, unfortunately. We’ll have more in on Thursday.’

It is Tuesday. Bryony can literally not stand outside for more than two seconds without feeling that horrible pinch of something biting her and then looking down to find yet another black insect sucking out her blood. Yesterday they went on a bus tour of the island and Bryony wore jeans, socks, shoes, a hat and a long-sleeved top. They got out to look at an old graveyard and one of the fuckers bit her THROUGH HER TOP.

‘Where could I get some now?’

‘You’d be needing to go to Islay if you wanted some now.’

Islay. What seemed like a tiny, insignificant island when they arrived has since been revealed to be a buzzing metropolis compared with Jura, with its one shop and one road. The only thing you can reliably get all the time here is whisky. It seems that by the beginning of each
week the tiny shop has run out of all its fruit and most of its veg. It does have an amazing range of everything else you could possibly imagine, however, and James certainly didn’t need to bring a lunch box full of garlic and herbs and cinnamon sticks, because they have all those things here. And the shop does sell wine, but not after 5 p.m., and nothing even remotely drinkable that isn’t a five- to ten-pound Shiraz. Bryony has already been to the island’s only hotel and bought their last remaining bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and both bottles of their second wine, a rather nice Côtes du Rhône. But where has it all gone? She had been resigned to buying village-shop wine – yes, yes, she is a snob, but no one is here to see her or to care, so whatever – but actually now she has an excuse to go to Islay . . . There probably isn’t an off-licence on Islay either, but there is a Co-op, Bryony remembers, which probably means cut-price Château Sénéjac or Château something else . . . And a nice hotel too, that will presumably do a good lunch for one. Or maybe Charlie will want to come too . . . ? And she did promise Holly she’d try and find a tennis court. There are none on Jura.

But in the end it is just Bryony who goes to Islay. And yes, the nice hotel can fit her in for lunch. The others have decided to go off to find the house where George Orwell wrote
1984
. And here’s the thing. Even though they are her children, her husband, father of one child, and her cousin, father of the other, Bryony secretly wishes that one of them will, well, not
die
, exactly, but get injured so badly that they have to be airlifted from this wild and dangerous place where insects suck your blood and crabs nibble your toes and wild deer loom everywhere. Just to prove . . . Well . . .
Why
is it only Bryony that is allergic to this stuff? She orders another glass of wine and tries not to scratch her biggest and most uncomfortable cleg-bite, which of course is right on her arse. She sips her wine. Outside, boats bob in the cold blue harbour, and birds shiver from one side of the bay to the other, and Bryony realises she is the only person in the dining
room, perhaps the only person on this island, perhaps the only person left in this whole entire ridiculous world.

‘Right. Forgiveness. So everybody needs to choose someone they hate.’

‘Like Hitler, or something?’

‘No! Hitler will be far too hard. Just choose someone in your life who has annoyed you a lot, someone you really feel pissed off with in some way.’

‘Maybe my mother?’

‘Parents are usually too difficult as well.’

‘I don’t hate anyone,’ says Mary.

‘Yes, you do.’

‘No, actually, after reading about the
Course
on Wikipedia I realise that I already do all the things it says. I’m not even really sure I need . . .’

‘So if someone came in here and murdered your husband . . .’

‘Oh, thanks,’ says Tony.

‘Well, how would you feel about that?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, would you be able to forgive them?’

‘Of course not. What a silly question.’

‘Out of interest, what do you think should happen to murderers?’

Mary frowns. ‘Well, I must say I do believe in bringing back hanging.’

Gasps. ‘You don’t!’

‘All right, all right . . . Back to forgiveness. The main thing about this sort of forgiveness is that it does not assume that I am better than you, and you need forgiveness and I am superior and therefore I can give it. That is definitely NOT what we are trying to do here. Forgiveness is more of a gift of love. If your beloved dog drops her
tennis ball in the river, you might feel momentarily annoyed, but actually you then find you think it is quite sweet, and rather funny, and very
her
, and when you get home you’ll tell your wife and you’ll both ruffle the dog’s fur and say something like “Oh, you silly thing”, but in a loving way. You
forgive
her for losing the ball. It’s real forgiveness. It’s not grudging, or done for show or for some reward. Or what about when someone you love falls over on the way to the kitchen to fetch your birthday cake, or make you a cup of tea, or feed the cat? You don’t laugh, do you? You want to help, to love them. You
forgive
them for looking stupid, and almost making you have to drive them to Casualty. When you see someone you know and love in an unexpected place, say in a secondhand book-shop, the delight you feel when you greet them and say how well they look . . . You
forgive
them for holding you up, being in your way, changing your plans for the day. Forgiveness means being able to apply these loving feelings to all human beings at all times, not just your loved ones at times when you are feeling affectionate towards them. What if you saw everyone the way you see that old friend, relative or lover in the bookshop? What if you treated the most annoying person in the supermarket with the love you show to your dog?’

‘You’d end up acting like a loony!’

‘You’d get arrested.’

‘You certainly can’t just go up to strangers and ruffle them . . .’

‘No, well, exactly, but . . .’

Afternoon tea at the Caledonian Hotel, Edinburgh, costs fifty pounds, which is more than what Zoe is paying for her whole room in the Travelodge. Clem orders two, assuring Zoe that the festival will cover it. Apparently they are covering all her expenses, including her laundry.

‘I actually put a clean pair of socks in by mistake,’ she says. ‘But who cares, right? I think I might get a massage too.’

‘If I tried to get a massage at the Travelodge they’d probably send round a prostitute.’

‘Stay here with me if you like. I’ve got a massive bed.’

‘Really?’ That strange feeling again.

‘Of course. Well, I mean, I’d have to let you in, obviously, and I’m out until so late at these events, but presumably you’ll be at more or less the same things, so actually . . .’

‘No, don’t worry. I really am fine where I am.’

‘Well . . . I suppose there’s Ollie’s possible arrival to think about as well.’

‘And all the Swedes are at the Travelodge anyway. They’ve got loads of hash.’

Zoe sees a look flick across Clem’s face. She’s too old. She can’t keep up. Could it even be
cooler
to be staying in the Travelodge? Clem can impress Zoe with her CV, and her huge house, and the fact that she employs not only a cleaner but a gardener too, and actually pays her council tax and TV licence, and would never consider doing something as vulgar as playing a videogame or having a duvet day. Zoe is almost certain that Clem would not know what a duvet day even was. But Zoe’s life is hard and real and authentic. So whose life is more impressive really? Is Clem’s life better? Just because Zoe is impressed and wants to impress Clem back does not mean any of these things are objectively impressive. But it’s hard to tell whether Clem actually cares or not.

‘All the other judges are smoking in their rooms,’ Clem says. ‘It’s become a thing.’

‘What, hash?’

‘No, just fags. Even though all the rooms are non-smoking. One of them takes her own handmade mother-of-pearl ashtray everywhere with her and just relies on the fact that she’s so famous no one will
bother her about it. Another one smokes out of the window. Another one smokes in the bathroom with the shower running full blast and hot, and then flushes the evidence. You’re not still smoking?’

‘Only hash. Only sometimes.’

‘I wish Ollie would give up.’

‘Mmm.’ Does Clem realise that she has started comparing Zoe with Ollie like this, out loud, making it totally obvious that . . .

‘I mean, breath mints never work, right? People just smell of mint and fags.’

‘Oh, that sort of reminds me. My chillies are actually growing!’

‘Oh, how cool.’

‘It was amazing. The little flowers dropped off but behind them was this green swelling kind of baby chilli thing . . .’

‘That’s the ovary.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘When you pollinated the flowers, you sort of made them pregnant. The next thing is that the ovary swells and . . . Why are you making that face?’

‘It’s just that, well, you have to admit “swollen ovary” sounds pretty gross.’

Clem laughs. ‘I never thought of it like that. All fruit is basically swollen ovaries.’

‘What, like apples and pears and cherries and . . .’

Clem laughs again. ‘You’re just like my students.’

‘OK. This is basically how the ego works. It convinces us that, rather than being fragments of one perfect being that needs to come back together, we are separate beings, in competition for everything from food, shelter and land to love, power and dignity. In order for one person to feel good – having, say, got a hundred per cent on an exam,
or been asked to join the hockey club, or bought some amazing shares – someone else must fail the exam, be excluded from the hockey club, sell the shares. Now, I’m not saying that everyone should always succeed and everything should be wonderful all the time. In this world that’s impossible anyway. Not everyone needs to join the hockey club. Failing a test can be a sign that you should be doing something else with your life. But this is actually about the feeling you get when you do something better than someone else. That little pumped-up feeling, that swelling, that inflation . . . Perhaps you don’t realise it, but this is actually a feeling of violence. Because on some level, you don’t just want to beat your rival, you want to smash them into the ground. And let’s go further. You want failure to be punished. You want people to CRY because you beat them, or even because someone else did. You think you don’t, but if you search your heart you’ll find that you do. And when you find yourself behind a hearse at some traffic lights, and you see that the one man inside has his head bowed, you hope that he is crying – not completely consciously, but you do – and you hope that he feels more alone than anyone ever thinks possible because that means you are OK, somehow, you are better than him, and you are
winning
. . .