Andrew O'Hagan - The Illuminations

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Because we knew what to look for, just like you.’

‘Why do you say that, Gran? I’m not a photographer and I never did any of the things you did.’

‘Yes, but you’ve got the spirit.’

‘That’s nice to hear.’

‘Some of them said there was … that’s right … justice in it.’

‘Justice? That’s a big word.’

‘That’s what it was,’ she said. ‘Making it real.’

She rocked a little in the chair. She rocked and the movement gave something to her words and to the evening light that came from the window and made a pattern on the bed.

‘Are you all right, Gran?’

‘I could just sit here.’

Luke pulled a bottle of Talisker from his rucksack and poured himself a decent measure. Sometimes whisky is just right for finding and knowing the heart. Across from the bed, two large photographs hung in simple frames. One of them had a label, saying ‘

Winter, Fifth Avenue

Alfred Stieglitz’ and the second showed the old Wills cigarette factory in Glasgow, a flyover and a motorway in the foreground. He knew it from walks his gran took him on when he was a child.

Two full bottles of bleach stood in the sink. Luke didn’t know for sure that other people often stayed here, but the feeling was confirmed when he found some loose Argos bags in the wardrobe and a Zippo in a cereal bowl. It was a guesthouse and the landlady had said rooms could be scarce in Blackpool in the summer months. What Luke found harder to understand was why Sheila and her family would’ve kept faith with ‘Mrs Blake’ through twenty-odd years of her hardly ever being here. Did she phone them regularly when her mind was right? Had she come on trips without saying to anyone back home?

He bent down to see the books. Roger Mayne:

London Photographs.

Mark MacDonald:

The American Still Life. Darkroom Handbook and Formulary

by Morris Germain. On the bottom shelf, he found another series and he put down the glass. They were his university books. Here they were, all the stuff he had studied for his degree, the novels, the textbooks, set out next to each other. Good God.

The Trumpet Major

Seeing them together gave solidity to some part of himself that he’d never considered defined. Here it was: personal history. He had met the world with these books, and seeing them together made him nostalgic for a person who was once keen to be transformed. Long before he

became a soldier, the mystery of life was all in the mind, and now his books were physical evidence of what Anne once called ‘your itinerary’.

He looked over to where she sat. She had preserved what she could of his young mind’s entanglements. Up to a certain point she had kept pace with what he was learning and she must have known he would travel into other worlds, as she had, into fresh landscapes with their own souvenirs. She had taken steps to know him in the real time of his experience, not because she knew better but because she loved him.

‘You’re something else,’ he said. And when she turned it was as if the holiday spirit rested with her.

‘It’s a nice night. Can we go down?’

You could hear voices on the street. You could hear the crowd gathering and the car horns. He picked out one of the books and it fell open at a place held by a Glasgow train ticket. It was something he’d loved when he was eighteen, ‘The Snow Man’, a poem by Wallace Stevens that he’d never forgotten. ‘One must have a mind of winter,’ it said, ‘To regard the frost and the boughs of the pine-trees crusted with snow.’

THE ILLUMINATIONS

They weren’t in a hurry to cross the road. They let people pass in front of them, moving faster, girls with buggies, men with beer. Anne was actually laughing: she pointed to a cockles-and-mussels van as if wonders would never cease. She said the Tower Ballroom was once on fire and if you wanted to know a nice shop in Blackpool it was the Camera Corner. She moved in and out of

lucidity, in and out of herself. They strolled along the dark street and she appeared completely unbothered by the darting children and the girls in cowboy hats.

‘Mods and rockers,’ she said. He didn’t know why she said it but it didn’t matter. The tower soared above them. The crowd poured into the road and the kids were excited. Luke found a bench on the promenade with a good view of the bandstand, the compère and his teeth and the microphone up to his chin. ‘Quiet, everybody!’ he shouted and you could hear the bleeps of the coin machines behind the sudden hush. ‘Welcome to the world famous Blackpool Illuminations. With one switch, ladies and gentleman, we will light the city from Squires Gate to Redbank Road, over one million individual bulbs and strips of neon!’

Luke had once seen a lit-up Ferris wheel on the cover of a book, the yellow lights revealing a face in the dark blue magic of the sky, and he thought of it again on the prom at Blackpool. He was sure that the lights were made to reveal them all. Waiting for the switch-on, the crowd grew nostalgic and swayed as one, seeming to sense an unknown social purpose in the loveliness of the spectacle. The everyday street lamps of Blackpool appeared in those final minutes to concede their own dullness in the face of what was coming, and they dimmed. ‘Have a wee drink, missus,’ said a drunk young man behind them. Anne smiled up at him and took the cup and stared at it.

‘Is this mine?’ she said.

‘Pear cider. Top gear. Get it down ye, missus.’ Anne put the cup to her mouth and the man seemed pleased and Luke just shook his head and laughed. A blonde pop singer jumped up and down on the stage and blew a kiss to the cheering crowd. Luke put his hand down to take Anne’s when the countdown got low,

squeezing it gently. The crowd was familiar with this annual spectacle, the Illuminations, yet the sense of anticipation seemed palpable, as if it was happening for the very first time. The pop singer hit the button and light travelled up the tower and spread from there like a beautiful, endless halo over the whole city. Anne stood up. The bulbs going towards the sea were perfect dots of red and they swung above the crowd. Luke’s stomach lurched to see them, the red dots going into the dark, but when he looked in other directions he only saw people laughing and hoisting their kids. Gold light was falling from all the buildings and it fell on Anne, too: he could see it reflected in the wet surface of her eyes. Her face showed not only the happy time she was having but all the happy times she had ever had. He leaned over and put his arms around her. ‘I’m so glad you came with me. So glad.’

‘It’s nice here, isn’t it?’

The sky was something else. As they walked on to see the illuminations beyond the North Pier, Luke thought of how the sky had looked above Kajaki the night they finished. He’d heard the last of the grenades and the fighting was over and when he looked up he felt there was nothing but cold stars.

They went through the crowd and Anne put both hands on his arm and they walked slowly. Children darted past them and around them and the movement seemed to please her, as if this was what children should do on a night like this. They came onto the North Pier and he felt the heat of the many bulbs. They walked among the old slot machines, peep shows, one-armed bandits. How to Choose a Sweetheart. What the Butler Saw. Ghost Story. She touched each of the booths as if she knew them. And the one called The Gypsy she especially liked: a lady with a headscarf of coins dispensing predictions from behind glass.

Look at the sunset, Harry. And she says, she says … You don’t need a camera for that.

Some things you just remember.