because Mum told me to. They never worked. At Christmas, to hide the fact that there was no present from Australia, I had an extra present from Mum and Dad. It was an Airfix 1/20 model of a Canberra bomber with a detachable observation turret.
Uncle Gregory died in hospital before I finished making it.
DAY
8
She knocked on the door for the third time and I told her to go away.
âAre you alright? Come downstairs.â
âLater.â
I hadnât unpacked either of my cases. Iâd thrown the bean-bag into the corner, but only to clear a space and not to position it. I stayed absolutely still, lying on my bed and hardly breathing until she went away. Of course I wasnât alright.
Then I jammed all the questions sheâd asked me into a single senseless lump, like plasticine: What about your exams? Are you hungry? Donât you want to talk about it? Is it a girl? Would you like some tea? Have you heard about your father? Were you being bullied? Youâre not taking drugs are you? Is history too hard a subject? Coffee instead then?
And when they were all mashed together I tossed them onto the bean-bag and out of sight.
This room was much bigger than the one in William Cabot, with a window over-looking the front garden and the road. It was big enough for a double-bed which didnât touch the wall on either side, and I lay there listening for the neighbours, Seventh Day Adventists who were usually out, standing on other peopleâs doorsteps. I felt so lethargic I could hardly move my head, and the silence wasnât helping. My eyes locked onto a faded Nick OâTeen sticker on the side of the book-case which held my science-fiction novels.
Every day, before Superman found and destroyed him, Nick OâTeen would tempt little children with cigarettes. He used to say: âIf you want to grow up fast, take one of these.â
I canât remember what Superman said.
Theo lived with his mother in two rooms at the station end of Buchanan Street. They often had disagreements, either about botany, which Theoâs mother dismissed as a vain attempt to label God, or about cigarettes. She would ask him if he didnât trust God to take good care of her, while all Theo really wanted was some clean air for the aspidistras he was cross-pollinating on the window-sill.
Often, at the weekends, his mother would take bus-trips. Acting on information received from a widespread network of friends and acquaintances, most of them Calvinists, she travelled all over Scotland to check on the latest sighting of her husband. The information was consistently incorrect, but she did think sheâd once recognized the slope of his back in the wheel-house of a lobster boat receding from Craobh Haven.
At the age of nineteen Theo was awarded a first-class degree. His mother accused him of getting ahead of himself, but for the graduation ceremony she bought them both a new pair of shoes and stood proudly at the very front of the Assembly Rooms as her son was officially made a Bachelor of Science. Theo then submitted a proposal for a PhD, provisionally entitled Patterns of Deception in Plant Virus Infections, and became the youngest research student ever to be accepted by the University, a record he held until the mid-seventies when the Maths department began admitting students from China.
Maybe Walter really is dead.
He isnât here again and maybe in fact in reality he really has been run over by a bus.
This feeling now is completely different from the feeling I had yesterday. That was just a bad and ugly thought, and dark, and sharp-shaped. But today, on the second day running, Iâm thinking that perhaps he really is dead, and what should I do now? Smoke? Pathetic. There is this huge difference between how I think things will be and how they actually are. I have to phone up Emmy. I have to know whatâs happened to Walter.
Okay, right. So thatâs settled.
I just phoned up Emmy and after
Uncle Gregory died in hospital before I finished making it.
DAY
8
She knocked on the door for the third time and I told her to go away.
âAre you alright? Come downstairs.â
âLater.â
I hadnât unpacked either of my cases. Iâd thrown the bean-bag into the corner, but only to clear a space and not to position it. I stayed absolutely still, lying on my bed and hardly breathing until she went away. Of course I wasnât alright.
Then I jammed all the questions sheâd asked me into a single senseless lump, like plasticine: What about your exams? Are you hungry? Donât you want to talk about it? Is it a girl? Would you like some tea? Have you heard about your father? Were you being bullied? Youâre not taking drugs are you? Is history too hard a subject? Coffee instead then?
And when they were all mashed together I tossed them onto the bean-bag and out of sight.
This room was much bigger than the one in William Cabot, with a window over-looking the front garden and the road. It was big enough for a double-bed which didnât touch the wall on either side, and I lay there listening for the neighbours, Seventh Day Adventists who were usually out, standing on other peopleâs doorsteps. I felt so lethargic I could hardly move my head, and the silence wasnât helping. My eyes locked onto a faded Nick OâTeen sticker on the side of the book-case which held my science-fiction novels.
Every day, before Superman found and destroyed him, Nick OâTeen would tempt little children with cigarettes. He used to say: âIf you want to grow up fast, take one of these.â
I canât remember what Superman said.
Theo lived with his mother in two rooms at the station end of Buchanan Street. They often had disagreements, either about botany, which Theoâs mother dismissed as a vain attempt to label God, or about cigarettes. She would ask him if he didnât trust God to take good care of her, while all Theo really wanted was some clean air for the aspidistras he was cross-pollinating on the window-sill.
Often, at the weekends, his mother would take bus-trips. Acting on information received from a widespread network of friends and acquaintances, most of them Calvinists, she travelled all over Scotland to check on the latest sighting of her husband. The information was consistently incorrect, but she did think sheâd once recognized the slope of his back in the wheel-house of a lobster boat receding from Craobh Haven.
At the age of nineteen Theo was awarded a first-class degree. His mother accused him of getting ahead of himself, but for the graduation ceremony she bought them both a new pair of shoes and stood proudly at the very front of the Assembly Rooms as her son was officially made a Bachelor of Science. Theo then submitted a proposal for a PhD, provisionally entitled Patterns of Deception in Plant Virus Infections, and became the youngest research student ever to be accepted by the University, a record he held until the mid-seventies when the Maths department began admitting students from China.
Maybe Walter really is dead.
He isnât here again and maybe in fact in reality he really has been run over by a bus.
This feeling now is completely different from the feeling I had yesterday. That was just a bad and ugly thought, and dark, and sharp-shaped. But today, on the second day running, Iâm thinking that perhaps he really is dead, and what should I do now? Smoke? Pathetic. There is this huge difference between how I think things will be and how they actually are. I have to phone up Emmy. I have to know whatâs happened to Walter.
Okay, right. So thatâs settled.
I just phoned up Emmy and after
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