Pat Barker - Border Crossing

‘Would it be all right if you were?’

She looked sharply at him. ‘Good question. Dennis Potter said all writers have blood on their teeth.’

‘Who’s the man sitting next to Nancy?’

‘That’s our recovering alcoholic. Wants to learn to write so he can warn others against the demon drink. Don’t let him get you on your own. He’ll tell you all about the times he was incontinent. Next to him’ — Rowena lowered her voice still further, he could feel her breath on his cheek — ‘we have the groupies: Esme, Leah and — can’t remember. Carrie. They’re out of sorts — they were looking forward to this evening. A male literary lion. They’re all right — a bit histrionic’ Rowena clearly didn’t think this was a word that could ever be applied to her. ‘Next one along’s a lay preacher. God knows what he makes of it. And coming round this way you see four extremely good-looking young men, and they’re all gay, which is nice for Angus, but rather tough on the groupies. Oh, and that very beautiful girl’s called Anya. She’s wasted on that lot.’

Tom nodded to his left. ‘And these three?’

Distaste and incredulity mingled. 1 think they just want to write.’

By the end of the meal a good deal of wine had been drunk, and a row had broken out in the kitchen between two of the extremely good-looking young men. Lucy, clearly dreading the reading, had turned an alarming shade of grey.

‘I hope somebody’s thought of the likely side effects of all that wine and beans,’ Rowena murmured, as she flowed through into the sitting room, glass in hand.

She sat in a rocking chair, a little way apart from the others, with an ashtray at her feet. Tom sat at one end of a sofa, next to another rocking chair that was clearly intended for Lucy. Esme, Leah and Carrie sat on the red sofa, facing the fireplace. The lay preacher, arms clamped tight against his sides, shared the beige sofa with three of the gay young men. The fourth, whom Tom had met in the kitchen, separated himself from his friends, and sat with dilated pupils, blowing smoke from his nostrils. The two elderly sisters, one conspicuously raw-eyed, the other glittering with defiance, also sat as far away from each other as possible. Angus took a chair by the fireplace, and set a bottle of wine down at his feet. The recovering alcoholic sat opposite him, pointing his nose at the bottle with the single-minded concentration of a gun dog. Lucy sat in the rocking chair, and swallowed twice. Angus poured her a glass of wine, though water would have been more to the point.

Angus looked around with a glint of amusement, and began to introduce the reader. Lucy blushed at the eulogistic praise delivered in a voice so ostentatiously well modulated that anything it said would have sounded insincere. Expecting a literary lion (male), obliged to make do with one small tabby cat (female), the groupies sank deeper into the sofa, a single, disgruntled heap.

Then Lucy began to read. She might have been a wonderful writer: short of snatching the book away from her and reading it yourself, it was impossible to tell. She read in a quick, anxious monotone, no eye contact, not even at the end of the first chapter. Within fifteen minutes the groupies were asleep, heads thrown back against the sofa cushions, mouths open, limbs sprawled in every direction, blowzy goddesses awaiting the judgement of a pathologically indecisive Paris.

Tom sat well forward on the sofa, looked interested, stifled a burp, tried not to laugh, dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands, became aware of the heaving sides of the lady next to him, glanced up and saw the same battle between good manners, boredom, flatulence and mass hysteria played out all around him, and hastily looked down again. By now the noise of tummy rumbles, burps and outright farts had left the realms of chamber music and reached symphonic heights, and the quick, monotonous voice ran on and on. Lucy hadn’t glanced up once, though she must have been aware of suppressed giggles spreading round the room. Why didn’t she bring it to a graceful close? Why had she selected such a long reading? He glanced sideways at the page, saw another chapter looming, and realized she was reading on because she was afraid to stop. A whickering snore from one of the sleeping beauties woke the others, who stared round them with expressions of lively interest. Tom followed the reading till the end of the chapter, and started to applaud. Everybody, relieved at the possibility of making some socially acceptable noise at last, clapped till their hands were sore. Lucy looked up, timidly, relieved to see it had all gone so much better than she had feared.

‘Thank you,’ said Angus. ‘That was memorable.’

Questions followed. Surprisingly intense this session. Did Lucy have an agent? Did she use a computer? Write every day? Plan the book before she started?No questions about her book, but then, to be fair, they hadn’t heard much of it. And then, thank God, it was over, and everybody was free to drink, especially Lucy, who’d sipped water during dinner, but now got spectacularly drunk in record time.

‘You think we’re all mad, don’t you?’ Angus said, coming up to Tom with glass and bottle in his hands.

‘Do you think we could talk now?’

Angus glanced round, and noticed the recovering alcoholic bearing down upon him. ‘Definitely.’

He pushed open the patio doors, and they stepped out on to the lawn. They walked down towards the fence, their feet leaving scuff marks in the dew.

‘He will keep telling people about crapping himself,’ Angus said. ‘There’s something repulsively self-righteous about it all. St Sebastian and the arrows. St Catherine and the wheel. St Terence and the shitty pants.’

‘I suppose he thinks the more he humiliates himself the less likely he is to drink again.’

‘I’d drink to forget I’d done it.’

Despite what he said, Angus was less drunk than Tom had supposed. Either he’d been pacing himself rather more carefully than the ubiquitous bottle suggested, or his capacity was formidable.

Angus rested his arms on the fence. ‘Do you think confession’s the only route to redemption?’

‘I’m tempted to say no, though I don’t know what other route there could be.’

Angus shrugged. If you believe in redemption.’

‘But you believe in the power to change, presumably?’

‘Presumably.’

‘And anyway,’ Tom said, ‘I thought you were rather in favour of raking up the past?’

‘Oh, I am. For its own sake. I don’t flatter myself it’s got any therapeutic value. In fact the whole idea of writing as therapy makes me puke. It amuses me sometimes to think about the talking cure, and how it’s become a whole bloody industry, and how little evidence there is that it does a scrap of good.’

‘If you mean counselling, there’s quite a bit of evidence that it’s harmful, or can be. People who get counselling immediately after a traumatic event seem to do rather less well on average than those who don’t’

Angus looked surprised. Tom wasn’t saying any of the expected things. ‘Why?’ he asked.

Tom shrugged. ‘My guess would be that people are meant to go numb, and anything that interferes with that is…. potentially dangerous. Equally, of course, the numbness eventually wears off.’

‘And then talking helps?’

‘It’s one way of getting at the truth.’

‘And that makes you feel better?’

‘Not necessarily, no,’ Tom said. ‘It’s valuable for its own sake.’

‘Well, yes, I think we can agree on that.’

As far as the theory goes, Tom thought, remembering one sister’s raw eyelids, the other’s hectic cheeks.

‘Of course we’re not talking about “the truth”, are we?’ Angus said. ‘We’re talking about different, and quite often incompatible, versions of it.’