times so he shouldn't have to escape to the loo.
When we come down the breakfast is already set, the coffee's percolating. How did a guy like that ever control aeroplanes, military ones at that? Yeliena adores him. Once Alan has sat us all down to breakfast he disappears into the garden for a smoke. That, too, is in the schedule. If only he'd trust it all to happen, if only he'd just let it occur.
Yeliena is Russian, by the way. No, don't ask... The mind struggles: he was in charge of military aircraft and she's Russian . How can this be? Is he a spy? Is she a spy? Are they old spies or contemporary spies? Do they belong to this new breed—rather, are they this new brand of spy—which is not prosecuted? Will they be whisked off to TV-Land? I WAS A TEENAGE SPY BUT I'M FAR RIGHT NOW.
Anyway, so: Alan's on the lawn, with a cigarette, smoking and talking to himself. He's pacing the garden. There's something deeply displaced in the core of that man . And, as I'm thinking, up he looks and catches my eye. We stare for a moment, dance for a while—takes one to know one...?—before Yeliena goes:
'Vill you adore that man?' And Belinda goes:
'Isn't he delicious? Couldn't you wrap him in filo pastry, smother him with custard and eat him?'
Then Alan becomes self-conscious, plunges his cigarette into a flower border, comes back in and double-checks his timetable. I mean, deep in the core of that man is INFORMATION. But interpretation would require a specialist .
Okay, friends, all he's got to do from now on is delegate: we can all muck in with the preparation of vegetables; but he's driven to do it all himself. That's his problem: do you think he misses his job? He can't always have been so flaky, can he? And, because he doesn't share out the work, he escapes as usual to the outside loo; disappears with a strained smile and sits out there for half an hour; you can see cigarette smoke escaping from the door. Why does he do it? I suppose it's the only sure way he can be alone.
Okay, so he puts himself on the back burner for thirty minutes. Yeliena doesn't get ruffled, just lets him get on with it. Anyway, once he's back inside, Belinda turns to me, smiles and mouths, I Love You , before motioning upstairs with her eyes. I, also smiling, shake my head indicating her mother who is pottering and her father who is hovering; her next expression says, So what...?
Then Alan turns to me:
'Charlie, fancy a walk round the garden?'
So out we go. Belinda leaves me with a look which says, I'll get you later. So, Alan and I are walking round the garden which is covered with snow—a rare white Christmas—and he says:
'Charlie, I just can't get it together.'
I ask him how he coped as an air traffic controller.
He never had any problem. It wasn't till he gave up work that he developed this condition. Still, he asks, how am talking, talking in my ear. And I feel my whole personality being suppressed and oppressed, as if I've been controlled by someone else all along... All the colour's draining from me and everything about I coping without work? I've never felt better. And so we walk, walk round the garden; when we lift our feet traces of green show through the snow. It's not too cold. And the conversation turns into a monologue. And all Alan is doing is talking, me is becoming as white as the snow, or as Romney Marsh sheep which, as Cobbett said, were "as white as a piece of writing-paper ". Gradually I'm being sucked down: sucked, sucked, sucked. I begin to feel I'm not there at all and I'm fading, fading into the white...
The next thing I knew, buddies, on that particular Christmas Day was lying on the couch in the front room, hearing voices:
'I think he's coming round now.'
And...it appeared I'd fainted outside in the snow. I'd love to tell you that Alan bored me into unconsciousness. But he didn't; he's such a love. Belinda's eye makeup was smudged: she thought I was seriously unwell. I don't know...perhaps it was the cold.
A
When we come down the breakfast is already set, the coffee's percolating. How did a guy like that ever control aeroplanes, military ones at that? Yeliena adores him. Once Alan has sat us all down to breakfast he disappears into the garden for a smoke. That, too, is in the schedule. If only he'd trust it all to happen, if only he'd just let it occur.
Yeliena is Russian, by the way. No, don't ask... The mind struggles: he was in charge of military aircraft and she's Russian . How can this be? Is he a spy? Is she a spy? Are they old spies or contemporary spies? Do they belong to this new breed—rather, are they this new brand of spy—which is not prosecuted? Will they be whisked off to TV-Land? I WAS A TEENAGE SPY BUT I'M FAR RIGHT NOW.
Anyway, so: Alan's on the lawn, with a cigarette, smoking and talking to himself. He's pacing the garden. There's something deeply displaced in the core of that man . And, as I'm thinking, up he looks and catches my eye. We stare for a moment, dance for a while—takes one to know one...?—before Yeliena goes:
'Vill you adore that man?' And Belinda goes:
'Isn't he delicious? Couldn't you wrap him in filo pastry, smother him with custard and eat him?'
Then Alan becomes self-conscious, plunges his cigarette into a flower border, comes back in and double-checks his timetable. I mean, deep in the core of that man is INFORMATION. But interpretation would require a specialist .
Okay, friends, all he's got to do from now on is delegate: we can all muck in with the preparation of vegetables; but he's driven to do it all himself. That's his problem: do you think he misses his job? He can't always have been so flaky, can he? And, because he doesn't share out the work, he escapes as usual to the outside loo; disappears with a strained smile and sits out there for half an hour; you can see cigarette smoke escaping from the door. Why does he do it? I suppose it's the only sure way he can be alone.
Okay, so he puts himself on the back burner for thirty minutes. Yeliena doesn't get ruffled, just lets him get on with it. Anyway, once he's back inside, Belinda turns to me, smiles and mouths, I Love You , before motioning upstairs with her eyes. I, also smiling, shake my head indicating her mother who is pottering and her father who is hovering; her next expression says, So what...?
Then Alan turns to me:
'Charlie, fancy a walk round the garden?'
So out we go. Belinda leaves me with a look which says, I'll get you later. So, Alan and I are walking round the garden which is covered with snow—a rare white Christmas—and he says:
'Charlie, I just can't get it together.'
I ask him how he coped as an air traffic controller.
He never had any problem. It wasn't till he gave up work that he developed this condition. Still, he asks, how am talking, talking in my ear. And I feel my whole personality being suppressed and oppressed, as if I've been controlled by someone else all along... All the colour's draining from me and everything about I coping without work? I've never felt better. And so we walk, walk round the garden; when we lift our feet traces of green show through the snow. It's not too cold. And the conversation turns into a monologue. And all Alan is doing is talking, me is becoming as white as the snow, or as Romney Marsh sheep which, as Cobbett said, were "as white as a piece of writing-paper ". Gradually I'm being sucked down: sucked, sucked, sucked. I begin to feel I'm not there at all and I'm fading, fading into the white...
The next thing I knew, buddies, on that particular Christmas Day was lying on the couch in the front room, hearing voices:
'I think he's coming round now.'
And...it appeared I'd fainted outside in the snow. I'd love to tell you that Alan bored me into unconsciousness. But he didn't; he's such a love. Belinda's eye makeup was smudged: she thought I was seriously unwell. I don't know...perhaps it was the cold.
A
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