The Masonic Lodge was above it (and who knew what strange wizardry went on in there?), but the magic of the post office was its own, and far exceeded anything that men might achieve through the power of rolled-up trouser legs. Parcels were passed into its insides and there, hidden behind the imperious, red-brick Victorian walls, amazingly—impossibly—they were given the means to travel to anywhere in the world. The power to be in Laggan or London, New York or New Delhi. Standing before the post office, in the drizzle, with my wrinkled woolly tights, my scuff-toed shoes (despite my mother’s repeated urgings, I was addicted to dragging my feet), and the big raincoat my sister had been rather too keen to hand down to me, I couldn’t imagine anything more magical than being able to go to all those different places. Now, of course, I know that the truly magical thing isn’t the places you go to, it’s the little bit of your home you always take along.
Dreadful. Trite, saccharine, the joke about the trouser legs was impossibly weak and, in any case, coming after the “who knew what wizardry” bit awkwardly smudged the child-George/adult-George voice. The hand-me-down coat was a nice image (I quickly double-checked my notes to confirm that George
had
got an older sister—she had. Phew), but a bit obvious, really. And my information about Mauchline was from a 1950s tourist guide to Scotland I’d dug out of the attic. George certainly hadn’t mentioned the post office at all, so before I went building her psyche around it I really ought to have a look at something more recent. It’d be a bit embarrassing if the book came out and someone said, “Er, the post office was demolished in 1961. Georgina Nye must have been looking up wistfully at the front of Safeway.” So: pretty much uniformly risible, then.
I’d show it to George and her agent and, if they liked it, carry on in the same vein.
My phone rang; the caller display read “Anonymous.” (Note to self: not only begin a book with a phone call but with one where the caller display reads “Anonymous.”) I snatched it off the table and “yellowed” into it.
“Hi, Tom. It’s George here.” She was phoning from her hotel.
“Hello, George. How’s it going?”
“Fine, fine. I just wondered if you needed another interview now? I’m off to Glasgow for filming tomorrow, and I’ll be heading back to London when that’s done. This afternoon might be the last face-to-face opportunity we have for a while. . . .”
“Oh, right.”
“I’m free this afternoon. You could come over to the hotel, any time after three.”
“Yes, that’d be useful. There
are
a few things I’d like to go over.”
“Okay, I’ll see you here then.”
“Righto.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
That was quite exciting. Well, not
exciting,
obviously. Useful. It would be quite
useful
to get to see George again, to get the chance to check up on some facts at this point. I was clearly “excited” simply to have such a “useful” opportunity.
I needed a haircut.
I’d better get a haircut before I met George. It’d be very unprofessional to turn up at her hotel room poorly haired.
I called around but, even on an unremarkable Wednesday, it was tricky to get an appointment. The best I could do was a place that said they could “fit me in” if I turned up at two o’clock. That was tight if I had to be at George’s hotel by three, but it’d have to do.
“That’s cutting it fine,” I said. “But then, I suppose fine cutting is your business.”
“. . . So, do you want the two o’clock or not?”
“Yes . . . yes, please.”
A man walking into a women’s hairdresser’s is treated with wariness and suspicion. In the eyes of the women in the shop I was almost certainly some kind of pervert and needed to be dealt with strictly, so I didn’t try to get away with anything. “Yes, I’m a hairdresser,” the body language of the woman tying a plastic apron brusquely
Dreadful. Trite, saccharine, the joke about the trouser legs was impossibly weak and, in any case, coming after the “who knew what wizardry” bit awkwardly smudged the child-George/adult-George voice. The hand-me-down coat was a nice image (I quickly double-checked my notes to confirm that George
had
got an older sister—she had. Phew), but a bit obvious, really. And my information about Mauchline was from a 1950s tourist guide to Scotland I’d dug out of the attic. George certainly hadn’t mentioned the post office at all, so before I went building her psyche around it I really ought to have a look at something more recent. It’d be a bit embarrassing if the book came out and someone said, “Er, the post office was demolished in 1961. Georgina Nye must have been looking up wistfully at the front of Safeway.” So: pretty much uniformly risible, then.
I’d show it to George and her agent and, if they liked it, carry on in the same vein.
My phone rang; the caller display read “Anonymous.” (Note to self: not only begin a book with a phone call but with one where the caller display reads “Anonymous.”) I snatched it off the table and “yellowed” into it.
“Hi, Tom. It’s George here.” She was phoning from her hotel.
“Hello, George. How’s it going?”
“Fine, fine. I just wondered if you needed another interview now? I’m off to Glasgow for filming tomorrow, and I’ll be heading back to London when that’s done. This afternoon might be the last face-to-face opportunity we have for a while. . . .”
“Oh, right.”
“I’m free this afternoon. You could come over to the hotel, any time after three.”
“Yes, that’d be useful. There
are
a few things I’d like to go over.”
“Okay, I’ll see you here then.”
“Righto.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
That was quite exciting. Well, not
exciting,
obviously. Useful. It would be quite
useful
to get to see George again, to get the chance to check up on some facts at this point. I was clearly “excited” simply to have such a “useful” opportunity.
I needed a haircut.
I’d better get a haircut before I met George. It’d be very unprofessional to turn up at her hotel room poorly haired.
I called around but, even on an unremarkable Wednesday, it was tricky to get an appointment. The best I could do was a place that said they could “fit me in” if I turned up at two o’clock. That was tight if I had to be at George’s hotel by three, but it’d have to do.
“That’s cutting it fine,” I said. “But then, I suppose fine cutting is your business.”
“. . . So, do you want the two o’clock or not?”
“Yes . . . yes, please.”
A man walking into a women’s hairdresser’s is treated with wariness and suspicion. In the eyes of the women in the shop I was almost certainly some kind of pervert and needed to be dealt with strictly, so I didn’t try to get away with anything. “Yes, I’m a hairdresser,” the body language of the woman tying a plastic apron brusquely
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