Nige l Pickardâs debut novel, âOneâ, is reviewed at Exultations and Difficulties. We are delighted to be able to publish two chapters of the novel here.
4. Autumn 1978
Aged
eleven, Solâs sent away to boarding school. This is a decision later
justified by his mum on the grounds of what was happening at home.
Nathanâs his best friend during this time and it embarrasses Sol that
Nathan hears some of the arguments, Solâs mum saying, âNathanâs here.â,
Solâs father, âI donât bloody careâ, Sol saying âHe doesnât mean it
like that. Yâknow -â, Nathan forcing a smile.
But going to
boarding school might have always been part of the plan anyway. Both
Solâs parents come from working-class backgrounds, both transformed by
fiftiesâ grammar school education, and this choice is another part of
their unstoppable ascent. Kate always finds Solâs residence there
funny. She delights in telling people he went to public school. She
reckons it took him a good five years to get it out of his system, and
he was in fact only at the place for four. At that time, however, he
realises that maybe he is relieved to get away from home, especially as
his notion of boarding school is based mainly on the Billy Bunter comic
strips he reads in Victor every week, all midnight feasts and japish
hilarity.
When he arrives, some concepts are familiar from
that inky world. Words like tuck-box, pillow-fights, prep, matron and
apple-pie bubble up, in frame, in place. Some words are new to him.
Because Abbas is darker, heâs a Chinaman or a wog. Sol is four-eyes.
Heâs immune to that, though, having heard it so many times before,
mostly from Jez and Mark, even after the evening when he did what he
was supposed to.
He does his best to fit in, though at first
heâs not keen on what it takes, the bravado, the one-upmanship, the
ability truly to believe what he claims, even when the inflation of
events is strikingly self-evident. Everyone has a better story than
everyone else. If Ethertonâs dad once met Geoff Boycott, then Dolbyâs
played in the same team as him. If Hartleyâs dad has been on Concorde,
then Tusaâs has flown it half a dozen times at least. After lights out,
this imaginary world can spin around itself for what seems like hours,
a Chinese Whispers of increasing logistical nonsense. Sol can never
sleep for listening to it all, like itâs some surreal audio-book,
although to avoid any direct involvement he often pretends heâs no
longer awake. This is especially useful later on when most of the dorm
have gone off, leaving awake only two or three of the more dominant
personalities like Mulvenny or Anderson, who flit around farting in
peopleâs faces or wiping snot over them. Occasionally, they move the
other boysâ beds around. Once, they pick up Doughty, the smallest boy
in the room, and dangle him headfirst outside one of the windows.
Somehow, and Sol still isnât quite clear how, maybe Doughty was
pretending too, he remains asleep.
Barlowâs another of these
more adventurous boys, so the second time he sleepwalks, Sol canât
believe that heâs the one whoâs ended up having to follow him. Everyone
else is asleep, though, and it only takes him a few seconds to
comprehend that heâs no choice. For all Barlowâs bullying (and Solâs
already been on the receiving end of that once or twice), he feels he
canât avoid what his teachers are fond of referring to as
responsibility. So he gets quietly out of bed, puts his slippers and
dressing-gown on and hesitantly follows Barlow to the door. Itâs a
cold, pinching, winterâs night, completely silent apart from Dolby
snoring, a staccato sawing of knotted wood. Barlow edges forward.
Unlike the first occasion the previous week, though, this time he
doesnât stop still at the door. Instead he opens it as deftly as if
heâs awake, and leaves the dormitory. Sol bites at the air, an
invisible apple, so that his teeth are clenched together with the chill
taste of it, then continues after the older boy. His mind is a montage
of lurid images, thinking of all the ghoulishness thatâs bound to await
him outside the safety of where heâs supposed to be asleep.
He
turns out into the corridor and sees that Barlow has moved in the worst
direction possible - not the cul-de-dac of wall to the left, but right
instead towards the stairs, at the further end. The corridor is mossy
with darkness, in between slabs of moonlight which lie at odds with the
parquet floor. Sol looks down at this and then directly at Barlowâs
departing back, ignoring the windows and the gaze of whatever might be
outside. The corridor is about twenty yards long and Solâs thoughts
lock themselves into that distance, in a doubtful attempt at
rationality, at objectivity, as though he was a gunslinger in the final
showdown.
In truth though, he hopes that heâs having a
nightmare. One of those where being startled awake will save him from
the threat of final terror, or where he can even snap himself out of it
if he concentrates hard enough, where everything will simply speed up
like water going down a plug-hole. But the more he hopes heâs dreaming,
the more definitely he knows heâs not. Everything is as it is. And, as
it is, try as he might, he canât wake up, because he is already awake,
and that, unfortunately, is that.
As usual, heâs uncertain
what to do, beyond staying close to the other boy to see what happens,
where he gets to. He hopes Barlow will soon turn back. Sol will then be
able to tell the dorm about it the next morning. It might even be that
itâll do him some good. That the adventure will raise his standing.
That he will be feted, and that in bed the next night heâll risk the
slipper from the Pigman, the most disliked house-tutor, telling
everyone his story again.
A few feet away, the corridor
drops suddenly into the hellishness of empty stairs, the same ones
supposedly haunted by the small boy whoâd fallen down them a century
before, when the House was merely that, and not in the possession of
the school. The week before, Sol had wet his bed rather than go down
these stairs in the middle of the night. In the morning heâd made the
bed up with the sopping sheets at the foot of it, so as to escape
detection. The following night heâd tried to kick the dampness away
with scrunched up toes, then smelt the piss on his feet in the morning,
a reminder of his weakness.
He wants to shout out, but the
dread of his cowardice being discovered, of his isolation in the
elbowing playground next day, is stronger, and he keeps his noise fused
clumsily inside himself. A hundred boys aged between eight and thirteen
sleep in the rooms to the right, and he mustnât wake any of them. He
thinks of his mum and dad, asleep fifty miles away, and wishes he was
at home there too, whateverâs going on between them. In his own room:
in a room all to himself. Keeping himself to himself, his own space,
away from everyone else. Him. Just him.
Barlow begins to
descend the stairs. As yet thereâs no ghost, at least none that Sol can
see, though heâs sure he can sense the dead boy. Perhaps by his
shoulder or maybe behind his back. He scouts around himself then
focuses back on Barlow who continues, not putting a foot wrong. But
then, heâs asleep and seems in control precisely because of his
unconscious lack of it. Sol prays that Barlow will now return to the
dorm. Itâs two shades darker here, a dusty skylight in the oblique roof
the solitary window, one that appears to drag light out of the building
rather than let it in. When Sol looks up, the darkness scurries and
swirls. Barlow turns into the bathroom at the right-hand end of the
landing, so Sol follows him, his obedient servant. On opposite walls
are six different baths facing each other like half a ribcage. The
spine is a row of enamel basins, vertebrae tracking the centre of the
room.
As they both walk in, the water pipes gurgle, a
whispered conversation that, even so, manages to coax an echo. Then,
without warning, staggeringly, for a split second, a blink of time, Sol
sees someone staring at him, all wild hair and wide eyes. His heart
misses a beat, and another, till he realises, as quickly as he didnât,
who it is: himself. Himself, of course, in the dark space he stands in.
But even with this awareness his body continues to shake and he sees it
doing likewise in the mirror.
He tries to clear his
thoughts, attempting to focus on the expected, the everyday. The basin
he holds onto, the walls that surround him, the floor. He wonders what
the time is. He tries to think: one oâclock, two oâclock, three
oâclock. He tries to level out the situation in his own head. He tries
to build up a structure on that levelness. One oâclock, two oâclock,
three oâclock. Itâll be morning eventually, he thinks. Eventually itâs
always morning. If only the Housemaster was patrolling; but no - even
heâll be asleep in bed. Solâs heart hammers his chest as though itâs
trying to escape. He realises how rapidly heâs breathing, and he
attempts to slow it down, but with little effect. The more conscious he
is of that process, the less it seems heâs able to do anything about it.
Barlow
turns away from the mirror and his unseeing twin. Please, go upstairs!
Sol says to himself. Please! Barlow doesnât, though, continuing instead
further downstairs to the main school corridor, whose vacancy seems to
buzz the closer they get to it. The corridor is marshalled on one side
by classrooms, in which rows of desks are bent double, ready to pounce.
Moonlight haunts the first room with the shadows of boys and teachers
that have long been and gone, a century or more of them. The room
laughs, then all of its occupants are gone. Sol shakes himself, a
mixture of the voluntary - an attempt to combat his fear - and the
involuntary â the fact that the corridor is freezing cold. He grits his
teeth so hard he thinks they might break, before checking behind
himself another time. The stairs are still empty, though heâs sure
thatâs only because he canât see anything, not because nothingâs there.
He feels blood and heat rushing to his head. He pushes his hair back
from his eyes, his sweat like Brylcreem across his fringe.
Barlow pauses for a second, then abruptly turns to the left and says, âThis way!â
Sol
is nearly sick, just managing to swallow the puke that rises into his
mouth. Itâs as though heâs never heard a human voice before. Thereâs a
noticeable moment before he even understands the sounds as words at
all. That what Barlow has said is intelligible, makes sense. Sol holds
onto the banisters at the bottom of the stairs to steady himself then
meekly replies, âYes -â, wondering if that will help, will be received.
Even to himself his own voice sounds alien, so he hardly expects it to
improve his circumstances. Itâs like when heâs in trouble with dad at
home, when heâs trying to explain and he doesnât make sense: just
because his dad had done such and such at his age, well â
He
canât take his eyes off Barlow, even though he wants to. Barlow brushes
past him, he feels the cotton of Barlowâs pyjamas on the back of his
hand. Solâs legs go from under him, as if heâs survived some fairground
ride, only to collapse on the return to earth. The contact hasnât woken
Barlow though. He continues walking along the corridor in his chosen
direction, towards the school clock, that gazes down on both of them
like a cyclopean eye, its ticking slicing the silence, the boxed-in
space. The clock ticks as loudly as if itâs at the centre of Solâs
head; his blood ticks faster. His pyjamas stick to him, a febrile skin,
though he feels rawly cold at the same time. The ticking taps out the
dark like a blind man approaching. Sol feels as if heâs moving along
without any choice in the matter, his legs twitching of their own
accord as if his nerves are jerking with electricity.
The
corridor turns to the right, directly under the clock. Also on the bend
is a small, uncurtained window, where night flows in. Though he doesnât
want to, Sol finds himself looking outside. The light appears bluer
through the glass, everything submerged. Even the flowerbeds look
macabre, stamens grasping at air, the arms of the dead. His imagination
is working in fervid overdrive. He pulls back, rotating on the balls of
his feet: Barlow is round the corner. To the left is the Common Room.
A
glow from inside there arches outwards from the open door, a net of
light. Barlow stands entangled in it, and it seems to Sol that, if
anything, heâs nearly smiling, his lips flexed by the threat of
emotion, of something that Sol canât get close to going on in his head.
Sol follows him into the room, into the light. The balls on the pool
table are arranged like wax fruit. Barlow is standing in the centre of
the room, facing the hissing fluorescence of the tv left on after
closedown. The room shivers with the absence of a channel, a programme,
people on the screen. Itâs as though Barlow and Sol are the only two
people awake in the world, not simply within the confines of the
school. Thereâs a weird enormity Sol feels about the lack of pictures
to look at on the tv. Itâs as if everything that he ordinarily banks on
has been drained away. And now heâs there in the gap, the vacuum itâs
left. He looks at Barlow who doesnât move, his face frozen over, old
ice.
From close to the door comes a muted tapping sound. Sol
hurriedly moves over behind Barlow, aware, at the same time, that itâs
a pointless thing to do. If only Barlow would wake up. But then, as
Solâs father often suggests, life is brimming with those two little
words. If only, though. Then Sol notices the curtains move, heâs
certain of it, a spasm of fabric. Theyâre huge, full-length drapes
which reach from floor to ceiling like you might see on a stage. âCome
on, Barlow!â Sol whimpers. âCome on! Back to bed. Barlow, please! Come
on!â
âCome on!â Barlow replies, whining. âPlease!â And his eyes flick open like a porcelain dollâs.
Solâs
not instantly confident if heâs heard and seen what he thinks he has.
The room spins. He puts his hand on the pool table to support himself,
knocking one ball chattering into a number of others. He knows he has
to get out of there, back to bed, between his sheets. Sod Barlow, and
the rest, none of them would have a clue, heâs done all he can, but it
isnât enough. Itâs never enough. Sod them.
At that moment,
two of the curtains shudder apart. Suddenly there are two figures
screaming abuse at Sol, and then a third exploding through the door. As
he faints, he thinks he sees Barlow laughing.
Matron is kneeling
over Sol. She smells warm, powdery. Heâs in the Common Room. Jonson,
the Housemaster, is there. The lights are on, the tv off. Sol feels as
though heâs going to be sick. The room slowly begins to right itself.
âAlright Roberts, slowly does it,â Matron is saying. âYouâve been
sleepwalking, youâre okay now. Youâre awake now.â
Next to the pool table stands Barlow, hatefully awake, and next to him his friend Mulvenny.
âCan you sit up?â Matron says to Sol, gently.
*
Eventually
Sol gets the drift, itâs some kind of initiation, the sleepwalking
thing. It takes a while, about six weeks or so for him finally to work
it out. What he learns to do in response to this is not to care, either
way. To cut himself off from the consequences of what he is involved
in. He deliberately makes that decision. More than that, not actually
to cohere with those actions in the first place. What he does or says
is not him. He is not himself. Someone else is doing these things.
Therefore whatever happens can hardly matter. He becomes convinced that
he can do what he wants because it doesnât really count. Nothing he
does is real beyond itself. So Sol tells himself, over and over.
Thereâs a smashed mirror at one end of the dorm which hangs as a
memorial to the day in the Second World War when a stray German bomber
dropped its load close by and a piece of shrapnel travelled the full
length of the room without harming any of the boys while they slept in
their beds. The mirror has remained in its place ever since, with a
small plaque attached explaining its importance. When Sol looks at the
mirror it makes a Picasso of his face: his face near enough falls to
pieces. He looks in this mirror most days, the point of impact just
left of centre and the spokes of the glass frozen outwards, and whoever
it is, itâs not him. Itâs never him.
All this cockiness
seems to take the place of play. No-one plays here, not like at home.
The boys play sport, they dare each other to do things, but they donât
play. It seems suspect somehow, girlish. Sol starts off cautiously to
begin with, makes more noise after lights out, gets out of bed once or
twice. The first time he gets caught and is slippered three times by
the Pigman heâs surprised, having built it up in his head, how little
the punishment actually hurts. More curiously, how he gets a hard-on
that pokes his pyjamas like a tent-pole.
Some weeks later,
Barlow challenges Sol to hold his breath longer than him, a game that
is played late at night, gone eleven at least, with torches like
searchlights in the participantsâ faces. Both of them sit on the end of
their beds holding the metal foot-rail. Tusa and Mulvenny shine the
lights, crouched in judgement. They whisper encouragement to Barlow.
The rest of the dorm is asleep. Sol sits there and watches Barlow
perched on the bed opposite, his face lit up from below like in a
horror film. Sol thinks how his own face must look like that too. Heâs
confident he should be good at this. He used to be able to swim
underwater further than anyone else at home, his dad having taken him
to the local pool every Saturday morning when he was very young before
he had anything to fear. His dad had these things for him to
accomplish: swimming, learning to read, riding a bike. They were
accomplished.
Barlow tries his best to put Sol off with a
series of funny faces, from Screw-loose to Quasimodo, but he eventually
has to give up, firstly on the gurning and then finally on the game
itself. Sol carries on, the victory confirming a desire to show Barlow
and the rest how far he can go. He thinks he could carry on forever,
which doesnât seem that far in front of him. The other three admire
this tenacity, and both the torches yoke onto Sol. Sol looks beyond
these into the sketchy gloom around them all. Itâs like heâs closing
his eyes, fading away, disappearing inside himself. He wonders what it
would be like to stop breathing altogether. Give it up. The lights, the
dark, the encouraging voices of the other boys rise up around him like
water, swamp him, drag him under.
When Sol comes to after
fainting, thereâs blood and mucus everywhere. He pulls his face up from
the middle of it all then struggles onto his hands and knees before
Tusa lifts him further away. Solâs hovering in a vortex: the room, the
night. When heâs put on his feet, he rides the floor like a skateboard.
He staggers around, one hand to his face, the other reaching out from
bed to bed to avoid falling over. Barlow tells Sol heâs an effing star.
Sol thanks him with a dazed politeness. He feels like what he guesses
drunk must be. He wants to stay awake all night. Heâs beginning to take
to its mutinousness. He strips his bed and cleans up the floor with the
sheets while Mulvenny holds the two torches so he can get the job done
properly. Suddenly Solâs laughing the whole time, though his head is an
appendage to the pain of his nose. âThat was so cool,â Barlow keeps
saying. âDid you see that? That was really ace!â A few of the other
boys have been woken by the noise and excitement, and already the story
warps into something more marvellous than its actual unfolding. The
years and years Roberts held his breath, the slow descent of his fall
from on high, theacreage of blood. Sol does a drunken lap of honour,
and his nose might well be as big as the F.A.Cup.
As a
result of this incident, Sol finds his stock rising higher and higher.
It means the boys of his own age and also quite a few of the older ones
are less likely to try anything. He can see the change in their
attitude, theyâre more wary. He can take it, so thereâs no point
bothering.
As this happens, so this whole enclosed world
also starts to appear less and less real, certainly the one which can
be described as being under the influence of adults. Adults who, Sol
begins to realise, comprehend very little about what really goes on in
the boysâ lives, however much they fake it. They canât get close, if
you choose to shut them out; and thatâs what Sol chooses. Itâs like a
dream-world during the day as well as later at night. Even Solâs body
is in essence a figment of his own imagination, part of what makes him
up. He cuts himself with a compass point then dares the others to do it
to themselves too so that they can mingle their bloods together. They
all do this, and then itâs done, and that is that. This becomes a truth
which saves him.
The next night, he sticks the compass
through his foreskin. He wills himself not to feel it, and in fact he
feels very little. Itâs like he watches this other person doing these
things, giggling at what he gets up to. Mulvenny thinks Solâs tapped,
but Sol just calls him chicken and begins to exert more control over
the rest. When Barlow gets hold of some cigarettes, Sol smokes one in
the dorm. He doesnât care because he canât believe it will make any
odds, either way. Heâs either caught or heâs not, and, as far as he can
see, that begins to amount to the same thing, one moment, then the
next; and then the next, after that. And all of it at armâs length,
systematic.
Later in the term, Sol is the one who leads the
others out onto the roof of the dorm. They snake through the windows
and drag themselves up as high as they can. They huddle round a chimney
breast at the top, claiming it as their own, four boys in pyjamas and
dressing gowns. They smoke their one cigarette between them. The moon
and stars hang around their heads, the sky icy with itself, and when
Barlow tells Sol that stars arenât stars but suns, and the light
theyâre seeing is millions of years old, so that whatâs up there no
longer exists, it merely goes to prove the point.
9. Late nineties
âToss you not to take Tom to the supermarket,â Sol announces. Sometimes
one of them volunteers to do this, so that the other can get a little
peace at home for a couple of hours. âOr you can toss me if you like.
Without a coin.â
âWhat? Are you going to sell him?â Kate says, ignoring the second suggestion.
âI might get 10p.â
âThereâs lots of meat on him.â
âCould feed a family of four for a week,â Sol decides.
âYou might get more than 10p if youâre lucky.â
âTwenty?â
âIf you push the boat out,â Kate tells him. âThink up a decent sales-pitch.â
Sol strokes Kateâs arm, raising his eyebrows and fluttering his eyelashes at the same time,
âYou can take him if you like.â
âToss the coin,â Kate laughs. âHeads!â she says.
Sol tosses the coin. âItâs tails,â he says.
âBest of three,â Kate smiles. âFairly obviously the best of three, thatâs the rules, set in stone.â
âCrap.â
âFor generations,â Kate says, âupon generations. Best-of-three.â
âYou drive a hard bargain.â
âI know.â
âItâs a good job I love you.â
âIt is,â Kate says.
Soon itâs the best-of-five, then the best-of-seven, then Sol says heâll take Tom.
âIâll take him next week,â Kate tells her husband.
âWhatever, love,â Sol says, getting ready for the trip. Kate comes over, hugs him. âAll right, sweetheart?â he says.
âYes.â
âGood.â
âThank God,â Kate says, âthat this happened with you.â
Sol
and Tom visit the supermarket. To begin with, Tom stays close to the
trolley, hanging on with one hand while conducting an invisible
orchestra with the other. Sol steers them through the fruit and veg,
the meat. The problems begin when Tom sees a Wallace and Gromit
birthday cake. Itâs six months until Tomâs birthday, but he wants the
cake.
âNo cake,â Sol says. âNo cake, Tom.â
Tom
throws himself to the floor and begins kicking and screaming. Sol
crouches down onto his haunches and whispers, âThis is silly, Tom.
Silly.â Tom kicks at the display of candles and decorations close to
the cakes. The display comes tumbling down. âTom!â Sol says, âFor
Christâs sake.â Tom doesnât realise what heâs done, too busy kicking at
the floor to notice. A shop assistant comes over and helps Sol pick the
decorations and candles up. âSorry,â Sol says.
âNever mind, duck,â the assistant replies, smiling. âKids, eh?â
Tom
lies on the floor for five minutes, occasionally calming down, then
starting up and blaring at full force again. Sol tries to watch this
performance as though he has nothing to do with it.
Within
minutes of getting over his tantrum, and just after Sol has chosen to
risk continuing with the shopping, Tom decides to take his clothes off.
The speed with which he does this is quite impressive, itâs certainly
quicker than any time heâs managed it at the appropriate stage of the
day at home. Thereâs puddles of clothes behind him before Sol cottons
on to what is happening. He runs back and scoops them up as Tom begins
to pull at his nappy. Sol stops this and attempts to pull his sonâs
trousers back up. As Sol hoists them around Tomâs waist, Tom scratches
Solâs face, so that Sol can feel the blood rising to the surface of his
skin like itâs blotting paper. This serves to make Sol more focussed on
doing what he has to do around Tomâs attempts to prevent the clothes
going back on. It could be a brilliantly choreographed piece of
clowning around. But then again. The knot of customers, intrigued by
Tomâs innovatory work and Solâs apparently calm and/or uninterested
response, unties itself, and the dad eventually appeases the son with
sweets, so that the latter follows, muttering to himself, in their
trolleyâs wake.
All Solâs doing is shopping and it shouldnât
really be that difficult. This is one of these routine events that
ought to be undemanding, that have abruptly stopped being so: like
going for a walk, having a meal, even, occasionally, watching TV. These
trivial occurrences are invariably made difficult. There are seldom
those moments of simple ease. And Sol knows heâs blaming his son again,
which he must stop doing. Poor Tom.
Sol navigates to the
checkout and starts transferring the contents of the trolley onto the
conveyer. Tom begins his loudest screeching but the noise is a happy
variant with an almost sing-song quality to it. Sol feels like heâs
near enough made it, mission accomplished, a welcome warmth which
eventually washes over him most times he goes out with Tom. Heâs
survived another expedition. Heâs made it to the Pole and back. He
doesnât notice the screeching much nowadays, certainly not in a busy,
noisy supermarket with the tills and announcements and the rest of the
holy hubbub of shopping.
Sol doesnât notice, but others do.
The middle-aged man behind is tutting as Tom explores his range, while
holding his arms out in front of himself, as if heâs awaiting
handcuffs, and running on the spot. It seems sort of obvious to Sol
that this boy might not be â how does he put it to himself? â like
other children, but clearly for some people his deviance is far more
threatening. The man looks like the type who thinks he won the war for
the likes of Sol to bring up his child badly, though he probably wasnât
even in his teens in 1945. Sol prepares himself, closes off any
tendency towards emotion, pulls himself back from the softness that
exists within him, tightens up his fists in his trouser pockets,
clenches his jaw. He makes this concerted effort in order to convince
himself that he has established an insular indifference, an attitude
which has worked effectively in the past, both recently and way back.
Rather that than losing it, making more of a scene, which always ends
up badly, guilt for the whole scenario somehow redoubled.
âDo you think you could keep control of your child?â the man says. âHe
is yours, isnât he? I mean to say, he is with you. That assumption
would be correct, I take it?â
âHeâs under control,â Solâs
voice wavers faintly at first then quickly tautens again. âNot that
itâs any business of yours.â
âHeâs very noisy,â the man says.
âOh yeah?â Sol acts bored. Actually, he is bored. Heâs bored of people
staring. Heâs bored of people whispering. Heâs bored of being part of a
freak-show.
âI think heâs disturbing people.â
âI think youâre disturbing. Very disturbing.â
âExcuse me?â
âYou heard.â
âNo, I didnât.â
âNothing.â
The man tuts again, his head jerking back partially on the sound of it. âHeâs disturbing me.â
âOh.â
âMmm.â
âJolly good.â
âObvious where he gets it from,â the man says under his breath, looking
around himself as though it was a general announcement or a call to
arms. No-one else seems to paying any attention. No-one seems to be.
Though, of course, they presumably are. This is England, after all.
âWhat?â Tom is putting his hand on the conveyer belt, watching it move.
âI think you heard,â the man replies sarcastically.
âHeâs disabled,â Sol says, watching Tom watch his hand, then looking
back at the man, who doesnât seem to have registered what heâs just
said. Solâs beginning to size up what might happen here, thinking
through the consequences, wondering whether theyâd be worth it or not.
Thinking that a confrontation like this might even act as a release.
That he could almost literally get everything off his chest, which
seems to tighten day by day, which occasionally makes breath difficult.
âHe has autism. Heâs autistic,â he says. The man looks at Sol blankly.
âHeâs mentally disabled. All right? Is that good enough for you? Are
you happy now? Now that weâve got that sorted.â Sol spits the last two
words out. He spits them out all over the man. He wants to follow them
up with a left and then a right. He wants to follow them up by kicking
the manâs head in.
The checkout assistant starts putting
Solâs food through, pretending not to pay attention to the unforeseen
terror in aisle twelve. Tom likes the beep of the food being scanned,
so he stands as close as he can, watching that happen, listening to it.
He leans right over to the machine. The assistant manages to force a
smile at him. Tom ignores her, waiting intently for the next item to be
processed. Sol sidles past him to begin filling some carrier bags. His
hands are shaking slightly as he rubs the plastic open. The light in
the store swings to and fro. He concentrates on the goods, on his
hands, on the bag. Tom laughs at the scanner and jumps up and down.
âCareful, Tom,â Sol says.
âIâm sorry,â the man blusters,
but with a pomposity which suggests to Sol that he still believes
himself to be in the right, âI didnât realise.â
âThe noises
heâs making are the only sounds he makes. You hear what Iâm saying? Iâm
buggered if Iâm telling him to shut up. Alright?â
âIâm
sorry,â the man carries on, âyou canât tell, can you? I mean now youâve
told me I can see. Yes, itâs clear now.â Damascus in a supermarket: how
very end of the century.âIt must be difficult,â the man says.
âSome people make it difficult,â Sol says, placing a few tins into a
carrier-bag. âYou know what I mean? Some bloody people,â he says - and
then he wishes that he hadnât sworn. The woman on the till keeps her
eyes on the barcodes. The man looks the other way, looks as though heâs
humming to himself. He wants Tom and Sol out of here. Sol wants Tom and
himself out of here. All of them have had enough of this. Sol finishes
filling the bag up. Tom begins squawking. Sol ruffles his sonâs hair
and puts his arm round him. Tom pushes his dad away. Sol feels his
breath knotting up. Heâs holding onto the trolley, and itâs like the
lights in the supermarket are turned up too brightly, swinging this way
and then that, and the floor is like thereâs an epicentre of some
earthquake happening, not far off, not far off from here at all.
**
Extracts from âOneâ
by Nigel Pickard are © Nigel Pickard, 2005, and reprinted here by kind
permission of the author, and Jane Streeter of Bookcase Editions Ltd.
âOneâ is available from Amazon. Click here.
All material
published at "Exultations and Difficulties" and "Exultations and
Difficulties: The Annexe" is © Martin Stannard unless otherwise stated.