Once upon a time there was a boy who lived beside the winding Awhea river, in the shadow of the Wakapuni hill … and many other hills. This was a land of hills, green in winter and brown in summer. So many hills that the 22,000-acre farm this boy was born on was called Lagoon Hills. In that vast acreage only one paddock, two acres, was flat. The rest of the land went up or down, depending on what direction you rode your horse. This boy had a hero from a flat and distant land, from a flat and distant time. This hero had been given many guises and meanings and the one this boy had was of a man in sandals and a long white robe, walking the dusty miles, giving hope, peace and healing at all who asked. Like any hero, worshippers had built shrines and religions to him and, though his message was of peace and forgiveness, these religions fought with each other and judged each other as sinful. For this reason, mainly, the boy stayed away from these religions and shrines and he stayed with the man - the good man with nothing bad to say against anyone, the man who called all to help all, the man whose greatest strength was his defencelessness … the greatest strength there is.
That boy is now a man - older but not necessarily wiser - beside the winding Wey river, in the shadow of no hills, for the Wey meanders through a land flat and green and laden with trees. This man is a gardener; a gardener of words which grow in his fertile mind. Great words, silly words, helpful words, negative words, serious words, funny words … they all grow there in profusion both beautiful and untidy.
The time has come, thinks the man, to start weeding, to set the plants in line, in patterns, so they can be more easily enjoyed by himself and others. So many words, so many stories, but the man is determined to set his garden in order … his many gardens in order. Some gardens are small ones, short stories, to be enjoyed on a quick walk. Some gardens are larger, novels, to linger over with smiles, sadness, laughter and insight. Each garden is different and so this gardener must decide which to tend to first, which to prune and hoe and water first.
This man is a good gardener – some say a great gardener of words. However, he’s a brilliant starter and not prone to finishing projects. A book, a garden or any other project takes time and, at times, seems never-ending. It’s easy for a starter-of-projects to not finish them and it’s difficult to live with a dozen unfinished projects. My soul yearns for a finished project.
Hence this blog …
If I commit to publish 2,000 words a day, with all of you looking over my shoulder, I will have to finish at least one garden for you all to enjoy. My soul will then sigh with the contentment and peace my hero engenders.
So, I have started with the garden of Arthur Bayly, a good man in satisfactory but boring job and a satisfactory but boring marriage; a man to whom the exciting events he dreams of - James Bond-type events - are about to happen. Here is the garden, the story, of Arthur Bayly as I (the man), the gardener, weed, prune, dig, replant and bring out the best of Arthur Bayly's garden for you to enjoy as you wish … the first 2,000 words today …
Off To Work
Monday, 5th March 2012, 6.30 a.m.
The map of Arthur Bayly’s life was a narrow one. He awoke from his fitful sleep at 6:30am with his usual sense of foreboding, and wondered again, how it was ever possible to feel elated about the day, about life. Apparently, some people did. Quite unaware that his world was to become a little wider, a little wilder, he lay there for a few minutes, pretending that he didn’t really have to get up, endure another day and look happy and successful while feeling lost and lonely. He shrugged a little, as if to brace himself, once again, for more of all he’d ever known. His wife stirred slightly and snuggled deeper into the duvet, accentuating his lack of choices.
As he munched his nutrition-free Wharton’s bread and chemically-enhanced marmalade, he wondered what agent 007 would be having for breakfast; probably something with long names like Eggs Benedict with Spanish tomatoes and French toast, sparingly dusted with cinnamon and Sargasso sea salt and a touch of Tabasco sauce, followed by a 1966 Darjeeling tea. Like Arthur, Mr Bond would probably be breakfasting alone. The difference, Arthur told himself, was that Mr Bond had probably left, upstairs, an exotic, tanned and lissom young lady asleep, still in dreamy post-orgasmic bliss.
He read a few chapters of his latest book, rinsed his dishes, cleaned his teeth, packed the lunch he’d made the night before, checked that he had his keys, oyster card, cell phone, glasses and wallet, checked himself once more in the mirror, kissed his wife as she shuffled into the dining room in her favourite pink dressing gown and left the house. It never ceased to amaze him that, though he never looked at his watch during the routine, it was always exactly 7.15 a.m. as he closed the little, black iron gate. He allowed himself a small smile about that, as usual. Then it was a four and a half minute walk up the street, past the all-too-familiar grubby brick terrace houses, wait a minute for the tram which got him to the East Croydon station at 7.26 a.m.
As he hopped as jauntily as he could into the tram, he saw, yet again, that Russian spy with the suitably battered brown trilby hat, seated and facing Arthur, pretending not to notice him. This man with the heavy jowls and the pig-eyes had been keeping tabs on Arthur and so he did what any MI5 agent would do, which was to adopt a devil-doesn’t-care-a-toss attitude by looking at the flaccid neck of the woman wobbling near him as the tram bumped along. He was determined the Russian would never detect his fear and uncover his secret.
With his mind on some distant planet, wondering what 007 would be doing today, his body’s automatic system took him off the tram, into the station to wait two minutes for the 7.34 to Victoria station.
While he was aware, in some part of his mind, that he was doing this routine with hundreds of others on the tram, thousands of others on the train and the two million others who poured into London every day, it never occurred to him that they might also be feeling as he was – that sense of quiet panic – and that he could share it with anyone. In all of his thirty years of working life, he had never tried to converse with or smile at anyone. He was jostled a little. He had to walk around people. He had to stop and wait for people. There was no denying that others were there, in their multitudes, but a different coping part of his mind just didn’t register that they were like him – humans with two legs, two arms a head and mixed feelings about life and work. He was aware, in some peripheral part of his mind, that there were people he commuted with regularly but he never allowed himself to acknowledge them.
On the train he did, however, notice the Russian spy had taken up a strategic position, yet again, facing him on his seat, pretending not to notice Arthur by reading today’s Metro newspaper. Again, Arthur adopted the MI5 attitude by looking at the ear of the man wobbling dangerously in front of him. Arthur grimaced inwardly – just not done to show one’s feelings outwardly – as he was forced to inhale the fetid combination of many years build-up of nicotine, cheap deodorant and fecund body odour from an armpit below an arm holding a hanging strap.
As his train approached Victoria station, he braced himself for the larger struggle ahead. With nineteen platforms disgorging their human payload, the herd became an avalanche of people, all going in the same way, approximately. One just had to keep the feet going, the body vaguely erect, and make it through the next half hour of tedious jostling. Then, waiting for the District Line underground train, with his back to the wall, he was roughly in the sixth row back from the edge. As each tube train arrived and left, he could feel himself inching forward a little at a time. Eventually, as if by osmosis or some natural phenomenon, he found himself at the edge of the platform ready to be squeezed into the next tube.
The Russian spy had disappeared but Arthur knew he was still under surveillance, somehow.
Though it was impossible not to brush against a multitude of strangers, one could at least limit contact by two other means – by not looking at anyone and by not talking. So, though the train’s machinery screeched, rattled and whooshed, and thousands of feet on concrete clattered away, there was no other human sound. The odd cough, perhaps, but no talking. Just silent people in their own silent bubble. For many years Arthur had felt this silence as an eerie and malignant curse – as if the workers of the world had had their tongues removed and were inflicted with their soundless dance of anonymity, forever dodging others and their own crying souls. However, over the years, he’d become immune to the silent crying he felt inside. Nothing was left of those feelings now.
Clinging desperately to something in the tube train – a rail, a hanging strap but never another person, heaven forbid – one stood amid the other black suits and sombre faces, looking through people as if they weren’t there. After fourteen minutes and three stops, he found himself near the door and then out on the crowded South Kensington platform.
As he walked from the turnstiles, he noticed the Russian spy with the suitably battered trilby hat walk off in the opposite direction, a standard KGB trick. Arthur knew the Russian would soon turn, when Arthur’s guard was down, and tail him, taking prodigious notes in Russian for his report to the Kremlin that evening. Arthur sauntered off with his devil-doesn’t-care-a-toss attitude, tripped on a dropped purse, bumped heads with the owner as they both bent to pick it up, said an embarrassed sorry several times and sauntered out to the fresh air above ground, to find that he had come out the wrong exit. This was, he quickly decided, his clever trick to lose the Russian and he knew he would now arrive at work three minutes later than usual.
As he walked the three blocks to the office, he realised that he hadn’t used his umbrella for so long. He’d heard people tell of those rain-soaked islands, Britain, and he’d wondered what they were talking about – rain-soaked was all he’d ever known. Of course he’d read about places like Australia and Africa where it didn’t rain for years but it didn’t seem real somehow – just mere pictures in a book. Perhaps an artist’s fantasy, perhaps not. Perhaps his own fantasy. Perhaps not.
The moving tide of humanity surged around him and he wondered why he suddenly thought of rain, or lack of it. At this point in his daily journey, as a building labelled Allied Insurance Limited glared down at him, he’d feel the dread of the day, the G-clamp of routine, pressing on his brain. It was best to think of nothing, go numb, a technique he’d perfected, helping him through the day-long performance of turning up, being there and going home again. Today, suddenly, his mind decided to think of something else and it felt quite nice, though a little strange. As he reached his destination, the words Allied Insurance Limited didn’t seem so threatening. The glass doors opened for him and then he fitted himself into the lift, discretely positioning himself for minimal contact with others.
Instead of his usual thoughts of the papers and programs he needed to start work with, his mind kept jumping back to dry dirt, brown grass, a huge rock, an orange sun and an apricot moon at night. As he emerged from the lift, he felt as if he was smiling ever so slightly, something one didn’t usually indulge in. He tried to repress the smile but it just wouldn’t go.
“Good morning, Sir. How was your weekend?” the receptionist asked as he passed.
He stopped, momentarily stunned that a stranger should inquire into his weekend. “Ah, yes, er, nice thank you,” he said, fiddling with his coat button, not knowing quite what to do next.
“That’s great, Sir, you have a lovely day.”
“Ah, yes, ah, thank you young lady,” he stammered, making a quick and graceless exit.
It wasn’t until he reached his desk that he realised that she had a strangely Antipodean accent – Australian, he presumed. Forgetting his usual routine of hanging up his overcoat, turning on his computer, getting files onto his desk, he simply sat there feeling a little limp, while a wan smile crept across his face. Dashed perplexing, he thought as he realised that his hands were shaking a little. He got up and hung his overcoat up, just to have something to do. This simple thing he could manage but little else.
‘Gosh,’ he thought, ‘it’s not as if I’ve been made redundant or there’s been a takeover or an earthquake. Just an unexpectedly incessant thought of change in the air, perpetual sunshine and then a new receptionist bids me a cherry good morning in an Australian accent. Scant significance in the events of mice and men, so why is it affecting me so much? Dashed nuisance, really.’ He needed to move but his palpitating body, floundering through the main office, could embarrass him. He eventually rose, braced himself and then made a concerted effort to walk brusquely past the receptionist. Thankfully, she was talking animatedly on the phone. He pushed open the double doors into the main office which contained thirty or so people at their desks behind their half-walled enclosures; looking studiously busy and/or gossiping with each other. He imagined a curtain of silence falling as he entered.
In the staff room, habit had him reaching for the tea bags but he knew he needed something stronger, something different. Fumbling around in the cupboard for coffee, a gangly young man – suit too big, collar large enough for two of his necks and tie askew – came in.
“Ah, excuse me, Sir,” he said deferentially, “but if you want coffee, you can get it directly from the machine. This button here, Sir.”
Arthur blushed, thanked the young man, poured his coffee, forgot the milk and fled back to the glass cell they called his office.
‘How did he know I wanted coffee?’ he asked himself. He smelled the coffee and surmised it would be better with milk. Turning sideways in his swivel chair he looked out at the ancient buildings that he loved, at the modern buildings he didn’t and at the swarming human ants seven floors below him. Staring through the familiar images before him, his mind went oddly blank while a sort of relaxation settled in. Time sat still, like him.
“Interesting view?”
Arthur spun and sprang from his chair, shocked out of his reverie. “Oh, ah, yes …”
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