Finding Again the World Read online

  He’d been getting more and more restless as I’d been talking. He’d even done a few of his isometric exercises. And suddenly he said, “Really, David! You’re indulging yourself again—enjoying your self-pity. I thought we’d got past all that. I’d really thought you were beginning to move into a more constructive phase.”

  I sneaked a flash at my watch—only twenty more minutes to fill in—and said, “Well, you see, Doctor, I’m trying to fill in the way I felt—you know—why I went to Wales. I thought it might be helpful.”

  And I hurried on and told him about waking up in the morning with the tiredness where the cartilage used to be. And the impossible search for excuses. Colds. Influenza. Diarrhoea. Migraine. The repeated deaths of close relatives. Sprained ankles. Buses breaking down; the mechanical failure of my alarm clock. Ringing up with balls of paper in my mouth pretending to be my landlord. A sullen gathering of boredom which ripened every few weeks screaming for the lancet.

  He broke in again and said, “David! David, I want you to stop and think about what you’ve just told me. You see that you’re repeating a depressive pattern, don’t you? I think it’s obvious even to you. But I still feel that you’re not quite prepared to break that pattern yet—to accept that your world is necessarily as it is. Umm? Do you think that’s fair?”

  “I do see what you mean, Doctor,” I said.

  He smiled his wise smile and said, “You have to want to adjust, David. You have to commit yourself. What you’ve just been telling me is obviously impossible as a way of life, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I realize that now,” I said.

  “And,” he said, “you have the future to think about.”

  I didn’t tell him to what extent the future did possess me; how it shadowed each passing day; because that was precisely what he didn’t want to hear. I didn’t tell him how I feared the future which is only my present repeated CLICK click CLICK repeated. I didn’t tell him that if I rolled round the strips of rubber on the date-stamp I would age with them. In November, January, April, or May, this year, next year, each and every year the library floor would still gleam with polish; Miss Nevins’ slip would still be peeping from beneath her withered dress; the electric clock would still be humming through the endless afternoon and my life would be slowly stamped away CLICK click CLICK of the date-stamp CLICK click CLICK stamping my life away two weeks from now two weeks from then two weeks from then. And fines for being late.

  “Yes,” I said. “Of course, you’re right.”

  He smiled encouragingly and, pulling back inches of snowy cuff, looked at his watch. “We’ve about fifteen minutes left to us today. Shall we have another try at the events in Wales?” But he almost sighed as he said that.

  He reached over for the folder which contained the notes on my case and as he picked it up some of the papers slipped out. I ducked to pick them up for him because I’d been wanting to get a glance at them for weeks. But he took them too quickly.

  “Now then,” he said. “On the day in question you’d over­slept and were late for work. You were often late and as a result your relationship with Mr.”—he checked the type­script—“with Mr. Prippet was not a happy one. And so, deciding that you might as well be hanged, as it were, for a sheep as a lamb, you took the whole day off. You went first to a café where you ate breakfast and then you sat in a park. Is that right? Am I leaving anything out?”

  (There’d been an old man in the park muffled up against the cold. A huddled figure on a municipal bench staring over the neat gravel path and the trim lawn at the central bed of municipal flowers. And near his feet a grey sea of pigeons heaving and fluttering over a paper bag. The pigeons had horrid red feet—not pretty pink like coral—raw, red like sores. Like the hands of the girl in the bus queue.)

  “No,” I said. “That’s what happened.”

  “And then you left the park and wandered around the streets for an hour or so. Quite by chance, you found yourself in front of the railway station and you went in, on impulse, and boarded the North Wales train without a ticket.”

  I nodded.

  “Why North Wales? Had you been there before?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t really know why. There was an attractive poster outside. Mountains. A stream. I don’t really know why.”

  “But didn’t you think at all of the consequences of not being able to pay for the ticket?”

  “No,” l said. “I don’t think it really crossed my mind.”

  “And it didn’t cross your mind about what you were going to do when you got there? About paying for a hotel room and food?”

  “No,” I said. “I just wanted to go away.”

  “Was it, perhaps, because you knew before you went that there wasn’t likely to be a reckoning? That your mind was filled with some rather silly notions. . . ?”

  He leaned forward eagerly but I just shrugged and looked down at the patterns in the rug.

  I’d enjoyed the journey on the train. Travelling always induces a wonderfully soothing state in me rather like a trance—a trance that seems to mingle past and present, merging pictures from the passing landscape and images from memory. Thoughts without thinking.

  The carriage had been empty most of the way and the click of the wheels and the clack-clacking of the knob of the window cord against the glass, irregular, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, shuffling with a blur and rattle over points, had echoed in my mind the sound of my father’s painful typing as he hammered out the Sunday sermon in his study. And I’d remembered—a flood of pictures—but strangely and insistently the summer-house at the bottom of the garden where I’d lock myself on summer evenings and light my stubs of candles. Sacks tacked over the windows. And the smell of jute and wood and oiled tools.

  And moving aside my father’s implements, forks, spades, dibbers, balls of twine, bundles of canes and pea-sticks, seed packets, trays of little plant pots, rags, paint cans, and stiffened brushes, I’d take out my hidden bottles and range them on the broken cardtable. Bottles I’d found in the spinney near my house—Gin and Whiskey, Port, Sherry, Rum and Brandy. And I’d filled them all with lemonade made from Robinson’s Lemonade Crystals. And in the warm light, sitting in an uncomfortable deckchair, I read Conan Doyle and Edgar Rice Burroughs and drank from each bottle pretending to be drunk.

  Picture after picture—the past transfiguring the dingy carriage as the landscape changed and climbed towards Wales.

  “The stop was an unscheduled stop,” he said.

  “Pardon?” I said.

  “The stop—where you got off the train—it wasn’t a regular station.”

  “No. That’s right.”

  “You still remember these details?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said.

  “Why did you choose to get out where you did?”

  “Well, the train stopped near a red signal—I think there was a tunnel ahead—and it seemed to wait there a long time and I could see the lights of a village below so—well, I just got out.’’

  “How did you feel? Resigned? Depressed?”

  “I don’t think I felt anything particularly,” I said.

  (It had been extremely cold after the warmth of the carriage and while I was standing by the side of the train as it started to move on into the tunnel a jet of white steam had burst from beneath one of the carriages to hang for a few moments in the blackness. By the time it had crumbled and whisped away into the night the train was only a distant rumble and the darkness had completely closed me in.

  And I’d stood looking down at the spark and shine of the village lights and the soft movements of the moon on the sea. And I’d wanted to laugh out loud but didn’t because of the silence.)

  He checked his notes again and then said, “When you reached the village you went to the pub and asked the landlord—a Mr. Davies—for a room and dinner. We’ve no need to bother about that aspec
t of things. That’s a legal matter—nothing to do with me—and was dealt with by the court.” He smiled at me and said, “I merely render unto Caesar, as it were.” I smiled back at him.

  “But,” he said, “what does concern us is this: you said a minute ago that when you got off the train you weren’t feeling ‘anything in particular.’ You weren’t unhappy. You weren’t depressed. You’ve told me before that you went to bed immediately after you’d eaten and were soon sound asleep. You woke up fairly early and went for a walk along the beach. Yet the next thing we know is that you’re being rescued from the sea. You’re weeping and shouting hysterically. It doesn’t make sense, does it, David?”

  I made a selection of agreeing and being bewildered faces and inwardly cursed myself that I hadn’t handled the matter in a more intelligent fashion. Right from the start I should have admitted to severe depression, attempted suicide, religious ecstasy, and a vision of Jesus in a white gown appearing over the bay to carry me off in His arms. Then, gradually, he could have cured me of that and everyone would have been quite happy. But now I’d landed myself with amnesia or some sort of mental block and I couldn’t see any end to this series of Happy Hours.

  “We have to find out,” he said, “or admit, what happened to make you feel desperate enough to—to become so disturbed. And when we do that, David, then . . .”

  “I can remember . . .” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I can remember waking up and how quiet it was. And I can remember getting dressed and going out across the road to the beach and walking along the beach. . . .”

  “Did you meet anyone?” he asked.

  “No. Definitely. The street was deserted and I could see along the shore for miles.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, all I can remember is standing on some rocks.”

  “Yes.’’

  “That’s all.”

  “Nothing else at all?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “You were depressed,” he said.

  “I don’t know. I just can’t remember. There’s nothing there.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “Well, I remember being soaked and standing on the beach and a lot of people talking and shouting—but that must have been afterwards.”

  “You don’t know why you were crying?” he said. “Or what you were shouting? ‘Don’t go! Don’t GO. You can’t just leave me.’ This doesn’t mean anything to you?”

  I stared at him with my honest and troubled gaze and said, “I’m sorry, Doctor, I know how important it is but . . . well—there’s just nothing there.”

  Another long silence.

  I sighed.

  But behind my frank and honest eyes, quite safe from Dr. Maximillian Cottle, I treasured the gleaming sweep of the estuary; and louder than his questions the sound of gulls.

  And as near as the sound of gulls would allow I’d told him the truth. I had gone to bed early that night and it was certainly true that I was soon asleep. But I hadn’t told him of the thick linen sheets and the engraving of General Picton at Waterloo which hung over the fireplace. Nor, just as I was falling asleep, of the sound of boots echoing along the road, each footstep caught and ringing for a second against the rock face of the mountain which towered sheer behind the houses.

  And I’d kept from him, too, the beauty of the early morning. The estuary, gleaming like a sheet of old pewter, cradled by the humpy Welsh mountains, purple and grey, which disappeared into more distant ranges indistinguishable from cloud.

  And the morning had been alive with sound. The soft slap of water against the sea-wall. The low tinkle and murmur of the ebb tide running, leaving the air sharp with the smell of mud and seaweed. And raucous crows and jackdaws circling the bare tree tops, squabbling and squawking as they wheeled and fluttered. And every few minutes a crow flaking away on black wings from the cliff face and drifting down over the street, wavering on the air like a walker on an invisible tight-rope, to suddenly swoop, and strut along the ebbing tide line.

  As I’d stood gazing out over the estuary the sun had begun to glint on the water and tinge the grey rain clouds yellow like a fading bruise. A sandbank was slowly growing out of the water as the tide scoured out through the central channel and the moored yachts and dinghies turned and yawed at their ropes, creaking as the water rippled past them. And I watched the incredibly white gulls riding the tide and sitting on the boats as though they owned them.

  Nearer to me, gulls were sitting stolidly on the posts of a ruined jetty which ran out towards the deeper water. I clapped my hands to see if they’d fly away but they wouldn’t even turn their heads. Then I threw a pebble into the water near them to see if they’d swoop down but they were far too wise for such poor tourist tricks. And so I started to hunt along the beach for something that they’d eat.

  I found a cabbage stalk and a piece of bread and it was when I straightened up and looked out towards the jetty again that I first saw them. Two black patches moving slowly through the water. At first, they looked like the dorsal fins of a big fish. I ran down to the edge of the water but whatever it was had moved under the piles of the jetty. Then I saw one of the black patches again just below one of the slimy posts. As I watched, the patch of blackness in the water grew larger and larger and I saw a creature’s back like the swirl of a rolling black barrel. Then nothing. Nothing but grey water.

  I continued staring at the spot where it had disappeared but suddenly, further up the beach, one of the things arched out of the water to vanish again with a loud splash. I hurried after it, scanning the surface of the estuary as I ran. And then, only yards from where I was standing, the water broke again and a porpoise curved into the air in a shower of spray.

  Its bulk, black and shining, its glistening curve of a back, blotted out the sea and mountains. And in that second cold drops of water from its spray flicked my face. Then just before the water closed over it, I heard the warm huff and snort of its breath.

  The pulse of my heart was knocking in my throat and I stood staring at the smooth water unable to move. I could feel the spray drops trickling down my cheek, following the curve of my lip, and I opened my mouth to taste the salt gift.

  Then suddenly, further out, they both burst from the water, one of them jumping in a series of sleek curves, until the sea threshed around them. Leaping over each other, sliding, rolling, driving in towards the beach then gliding, after a sharp turn, towards the deeper water.

  I followed their play as they forged up the estuary. I had to run to keep up with them. Sometimes they didn’t surface for minutes on end and it was just as I was becoming anxious that I’d see the roll and swirl of their backs far away beyond the central channel on the other side of the estuary. Then, as my eyes were straining the distance, they’d suddenly reappear on my side—sudden black explosions—shooting out of the water as though they were playing a game—enjoying the fierce struggle of crossing and recrossing the scour of the tide-race. But even when they were far away from me, the sound of their snorting, the great blow of their breath, carried clearly across the water.

  When they were close to me the sound seemed to change—though I probably imagined it—and it seemed more like a whistle; a signal, as though they were calling to each other across the still air.

  As I ran after them, seeking over the surface of the water, I remember falling heavily on some rocks. I ripped my shirt across the ribs but it was only later that the cut started to hurt me and it was only later that I realized the palm of my hand was grazed raw and bleeding. And it was while I was standing on these rocks that the porpoises turned and started travelling down the estuary again towards the open sea.

  They came in close to the shore only once more. I’d followed them back down the beach until I reached the old jetty again. The tide was much further out and most of the boats were lying keeled over rocking gently
in about two feet of water.

  They swerved in towards the more distant of the moored boats and seemed to be diving underneath them. And suddenly I knew something. It sounds silly but I knew that although I couldn’t see them they were diving close under the boats for the pleasure of scratching their backs. I could hear the slap of little waves and the quiet huff of their breath. And I knew what they were doing.

  Then, appearing from underneath the nearest boat, they glided into the shallow water. It seemed that they’d deliberately come close to me.

  They lay, rolling slightly, as if resting. Only fifteen feet or so separated us. I stepped into the water. The stones and pebbles underfoot were slippery with slime and seawrack. I placed my feet at each step, not wanting to stumble and frighten them. I was breathing through my open mouth. There was a tin-can, I remember, shining, and its label washed almost free trailing with the motion of the tide.

  I was within six feet of them when they turned and planed down into deeper water. Slowly; not at all frightened. I stood still, the water round my waist. The larger one surfaced about twenty yards ahead of me and I saw the swirling gleam of his back and heard his whistle.

  I moved deeper searching over the empty water, waiting, but the grey surface was quite undisturbed. The only movement was the turbulence of the central tide-water, brief riffling whirlpools, topped with foam, spinning and spinning until they flattened into the water’s flow.

  The sandbank, as I watched and waited, was dotted with scurrying terns and oyster-catchers but nothing rose to break the water round its edge.

  I waited, straining to hear the familiar call, but the only sounds were the slap of tiny waves against the hulls of the yachts and the wheeling gulls screaming in the air.

  There came no whistle, no warm huff of breath. Nothing rose to shine above the water. Only the grey surface curving in towards the sandbar at the estuary mouth—a sandbar marked by a distant line of white, troubled water and, beyond, the vastness of the open sea.