Gregor drove with a rather blank expression on his bearded
face. He imagined, as he drove, what it would be like to be a pilot. A flight
plan filed, radio contact at any time with a controller, an accepted and
expected pattern of behaviour. Navigation, speed, heading, and altitude planned
and prescribed.
The van was old and beaten; a VW camper. It was always slow
in the van, not one of those commercial white trade vans, driven by aggressive
men with mean modern views, and lean and hungry haircuts. The radio fizzled in
and out of tune as if listening through passing clouds. The van smelled of the
past and damp and petrol.
This place was strange. The undulating, and rather bleak streets.
Finding a parking space at last. Putting on the handbrake.
Turning off the engine. Sitting in silence. Maybe he would buy some Cigarettes.
He only smoked when he was in a bubble, away from everyone
he knew; by himself. Cigarettes were a sign of some sort, but he wasn’t certain
of the meaning.
Being early might mean that he was anxious, like a boy called to a teacher’s office, or a man called to a meeting by his boss, or a hopeful pup awaiting a job interview.
He’d not wanted to be late, but then being early was also a
problem:
he had 20 minutes. Why had he arrived so early? Shop.
It filled the empty time, and he wondered what this place
was like to live in. What would it be like for this place to be familiar? For
the passing people and sad shops to be his life and place? Only a few miles
from his home; yet unvisited and unknown.
Not that he was hungry; just searching for a little warmth and comfort among the chilled shelves of sandwiches and porkie-pies. Back in the van he bit into the cold pasty with a kind of blind wanting rather than hunger.
He liked the way things worked. He liked clocks and
motorbikes and electrical gadgets. But that wasn’t all. He also liked working
things out for himself. Like the time he’d picked a lock, or found the spine of
a tune on a piano, or learned bits of foreign language in the privacy of his
study. He was, he understood, mostly driven by his gut. Maybe he was a bit
nerdy, but that didn’t feel right. There was more complexity than that. He felt
it was more a genuine curiosity about how things worked; and the relationship
between things and people, and ideas, and love and money and truth, and feeling
. . .
The first time he’d come along he’d come by train; and then navigated without a map to the consulting room in the hospital grounds. He’d used the sun to navigate, checking its position in relation to his watch. Almost a challenge to see if he found it; almost a wish that he never would. Looking for a sign. Maybe that’s what it was. Looking for some kind of contact, maybe rejecting interference and authority.
There were few clues on the bookshelves in the consulting room beyond the obvious. Fewer still in the man’s clothes and manner. Was it bland? Or was it a cunning camouflage. He’d seen a book on walking in the lake district amongst the reference books behind the man’s head.
Should he say something outrageous today? He had to think how to start. One of the rules: The therapist never spoke first. How to start? He would say the word “pig” somewhere in his first sentence. Maybe he would say nothing. Stare the old bastard out. No he wouldn’t do that. Manners would prevail.
How do stories go? You should start with a “once upon a
time” and finish with a moral or a sudden realisation - a clarity or a sudden
sense of understanding. The journey in between the two points should probably a
bit dark and dangerous. He would start with a story. A story about a city
underwater, a city where everyone was a diver. He would use the word diversity
and see if he noticed. No that was crass.
Probably built in the 30’s or something. Hospitals had now become as much about parking as health care. A button to push to open the door. What was the difference between that and a handle? A lot of notices. A faint smell of mops and plastic. Lino corridors and institutional stairs.
The consulting room was in a hospital. There was a notice that attempted to re-assure by pointing out that the doctor had seen it all before. Thing was the patient hadn’t experienced it before. Missing the point he felt. Sit. Wait.
In the room, seated on the plastic covered chair, he felt
asinine under the carefully arranged gaze of the therapist. It was always his
turn to start speaking. A glass jug of water refracted the light across the
naff little doily it stood on. The onus was on him. He wasn’t sure about his
story now; what was the point of this journey? The carpet awaited, the tissues awaited tears and snot. The therapist waited in
practiced silence.
“So . . .Not a dream so much. . . a day dream I suppose. Almost like a dream. I had a thought. I was thinking. You know like you might find in a big hall or a palace.”
Like laughter down a drainpipe. The sound was loud in the quiet room.
Water. The glass against his lip.
“Oil. . . you know like . . . an oil painting. In a big guilt frame, you know. I thought about having a portrait done of me. With a big house in the background and a pig at my feet . . . With my tongue sticking out.”
He demonstrated
Stuck his tongue out at the therapist.
