Fingertips.
I tried to forget you. If I was relying on just my own memory then I might have succeeded, but the real world remembers your world too. Talk of magic has come back to me, like pickled anecdotes for celebrations. Even if you can’t be found, it seems that you’ve found me.
It was my birthday last week. I got the letter through from dad’s solicitor, to say that his estate would now officially pass to me. There are forms to sign. The adult world is a procession of forms, as if permission is the meaning of life. I can’t think of a thing I do that hasn’t required ten signatures to make it possible – including breathing. A quick revision of my images for heaven and hell is required: I have always taken the standard line of hell being a chaotic descent into masochistic depravity blah blah blah, while heaven is peaceful, calm, and therefore ordered. Maybe that vision of hell is derived from anxiety about unchecked desire, but then wouldn’t that make heaven a place where desires are fulfilled without the mortal consequences? Hell meanwhile: Hell is the infinite postponement of endless forms.
I was glad to get the call from Pele. He even apologised for the recent neglect, which I’d put down to my own distractions. He said they wouldn’t have forgotten my birthday. Something Norman had told me, when retelling the tale of Samuel’s war years, had put me in a funk for a couple of days, so I changed straight after talking to Pele and went out without a word to the others. I even had money – the first instalment of rent from Angela. Pele kept making out like the night was his big plan, saying where we would go and when we would get there, but when Cobber arrived Pele asked where we were headed first. It turned out to be an assault on West Street, thankfully avoiding the backstreet pubs. We kept strictly to the chav-student hangouts, a window poster with the twofors was a prerequisite. If you look at footage of students from the 70s and 80s, students used to be a scruffy and book-worn breed apart, sleeping with pamphlets under their pillows. Maybe those types still exist in other cities, but in Sheffield the students are just chavs with inflated egos. They’re slightly less likely to fight, and slightly more likely to puke. I don’t know how far down West Street we got, but I woke up at home and intact, with only a fuzzy, bad joke of a hangover – an outcome so refreshingly positive that I repeated the process the next night, and the next. Drunkeness doesn't wear thin.
Through this simple pursuit of alcohol and dirty stories, I was able to forget about you, and all that you have come to mean. Even in spite of Angela and Norman’s presence, I was able to simulate a normal life for a week or so. After all, what were Angela and Norman? A tenant and butler – sounds appropriately evocative of fags and booze.
The lads, of course, still have school to finish. They have exams this year. The task of amusing me seemed to be taken on in shifts, always trying to talk me into staying at home instead of the pubs. But I had to be out. The money ran short, which meant Weatherspoons until all was drunk and gone. I thought then about getting a job (more forms) and stuck my face in a few places. I could probably get bar work if I wanted to: I needed something routine, repetitive, requiring only enough thought that other thoughts can’t intrude. That would be better than drunkenness, in the midst of which appalling realisations still break through. Angela began to coach me on interview technique, and stressed the importance of clean fingernails in strong handshake.
I had a call today though, from Sebastian Frazer Wilson. He’s in Whitby, on the east coast (I’m sure you know that). He wants me to join him there. He’s still on the trail of David Challoner, but he’s been diverted into the problems of other people – younger people – and he wants my help.
So here you are again. The world of magic insists on hanging on to my reality by its fingertips – and with it hangs the question of who you are.
It was my birthday last week. I got the letter through from dad’s solicitor, to say that his estate would now officially pass to me. There are forms to sign. The adult world is a procession of forms, as if permission is the meaning of life. I can’t think of a thing I do that hasn’t required ten signatures to make it possible – including breathing. A quick revision of my images for heaven and hell is required: I have always taken the standard line of hell being a chaotic descent into masochistic depravity blah blah blah, while heaven is peaceful, calm, and therefore ordered. Maybe that vision of hell is derived from anxiety about unchecked desire, but then wouldn’t that make heaven a place where desires are fulfilled without the mortal consequences? Hell meanwhile: Hell is the infinite postponement of endless forms.
I was glad to get the call from Pele. He even apologised for the recent neglect, which I’d put down to my own distractions. He said they wouldn’t have forgotten my birthday. Something Norman had told me, when retelling the tale of Samuel’s war years, had put me in a funk for a couple of days, so I changed straight after talking to Pele and went out without a word to the others. I even had money – the first instalment of rent from Angela. Pele kept making out like the night was his big plan, saying where we would go and when we would get there, but when Cobber arrived Pele asked where we were headed first. It turned out to be an assault on West Street, thankfully avoiding the backstreet pubs. We kept strictly to the chav-student hangouts, a window poster with the twofors was a prerequisite. If you look at footage of students from the 70s and 80s, students used to be a scruffy and book-worn breed apart, sleeping with pamphlets under their pillows. Maybe those types still exist in other cities, but in Sheffield the students are just chavs with inflated egos. They’re slightly less likely to fight, and slightly more likely to puke. I don’t know how far down West Street we got, but I woke up at home and intact, with only a fuzzy, bad joke of a hangover – an outcome so refreshingly positive that I repeated the process the next night, and the next. Drunkeness doesn't wear thin.
Through this simple pursuit of alcohol and dirty stories, I was able to forget about you, and all that you have come to mean. Even in spite of Angela and Norman’s presence, I was able to simulate a normal life for a week or so. After all, what were Angela and Norman? A tenant and butler – sounds appropriately evocative of fags and booze.
The lads, of course, still have school to finish. They have exams this year. The task of amusing me seemed to be taken on in shifts, always trying to talk me into staying at home instead of the pubs. But I had to be out. The money ran short, which meant Weatherspoons until all was drunk and gone. I thought then about getting a job (more forms) and stuck my face in a few places. I could probably get bar work if I wanted to: I needed something routine, repetitive, requiring only enough thought that other thoughts can’t intrude. That would be better than drunkenness, in the midst of which appalling realisations still break through. Angela began to coach me on interview technique, and stressed the importance of clean fingernails in strong handshake.
I had a call today though, from Sebastian Frazer Wilson. He’s in Whitby, on the east coast (I’m sure you know that). He wants me to join him there. He’s still on the trail of David Challoner, but he’s been diverted into the problems of other people – younger people – and he wants my help.
So here you are again. The world of magic insists on hanging on to my reality by its fingertips – and with it hangs the question of who you are.
posted by The son of Edward Fold at 11:33 pm
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