Iain Banks - Walking on Glass

Grout was usually quite euphoric, always smiling and nodding and giving the thumbs-up sign; he cooperated fully with physical examinations and seemed anxious to help and cooperate in the memory tests and other examinations of his mental faculties he was asked to undergo. But while he felt quite sure he was capable of living by himself, and of undertaking any job or career, his poor short-term memory and total lack of drive and initiative made him totally unfit for anything but the sheltered environment he now lived in. To that extent, he was permanently disabled, with little, if any, chance of any further improvement in his condition.

Dr Shawcross nodded to himself. That was it, all right. He'd examined Steven that morning, and the man, while quite happy and content, had no prospect of leaving the Unit in the foreseeable future. He was still euphoric, though when pressed did admit that his memory wasn't all it had been. Dr Shawcross had asked him if he recalled ever having been on any day trips with the other patients in the Unit. Steven had looked exaggeratedly thoughtful and said that he thought he had been to Bournemouth, hadn't he? Dr Shawcross knew from the file that Steven had been on one day trip, but that was only as far as Canterbury.

He told Steven a little story which he asked him to try and remember: a man in a green coat, with bright red hair, went for a walk with his dog, a terrier, in Nottingham. Then he talked to Steven about how he had settled into the Unit since his arrival in January.

After about five minutes he had asked Steven if he could remember the little story he'd told him. Steven had frowned, looked very thoughtful for a while. Was there something about a bald man? he had asked. Dr Shawcross had asked him if he could recall any colours involved in the story. Steven had creased his brows again. Was the man wearing a brown jacket? he had said. Dr Shawcross had said that sounded like a guess, and Steven had smiled sheepishly and admitted it was.

Dr Shawcross's mouth made small papping noises as he drew on the pipe. He sat back a little in his seat, looking out of the window again. The sky was full of low grey clouds.

He wondered if it would snow, or rain.

Steven was in his favourite place.

It was a sort of little tunnel under the raised bank of the railway line which passed along one side of the hospital grounds. Strictly speaking it was out of bounds, but only just. The tunnel was only about fifty or sixty feet long, but it was nice and dark and secluded because both ends were overgrown with bushes and small trees. In the direction that Grout sat facing, over the naked earth fields and the distant lines of trees, over low rolling hills, towards the unseen sea, the end of the tunnel was barred by a lop-sided wooden gate, twined round with brambles and long grass.

Steven sat on an iron seat; a saddle-shaped iron seat which itself sat on a rusty old grass-roller with a broken towing bar. The broken grass-roller was one of many interesting things in the dark, damp, soft-earthed tunnel. There was an old, pale pink plastic bucket with a split bottom, four woodwormed fenceposts with three staple nails in each, an old car battery with the top bit missing, a torn plastic Woolworth carrier bag, two crushed, empty Skol lager cans, an uncrushed Pepsi can, various sweet wrappers, an old damp matchbox with three dead matches inside, a yellowing sheet of paper from the Daily Express dated Tuesday, March 18th, 1980, and several dozen cigarette ends in various stages of decomposition.

The grass roller was the best thing, though, because you could sit on it, nice and dry and quite comfortable, and you could look out over the mass of undergrowth at the end of the tunnel, and see the sky and the trees and the fields. Crows flew around the trees, over the naked-earth fields. The crows called out, calling his name.

Steven was happy. It was cold (he wore two T-shirts and two pullovers and a parka), and he could feel the cold of the iron seat under his bum seeping through to his skin; his breath glowed in the dark tunnel and he had to keep his hands in his pockets because he'd lost his gloves again, but he was happy. It was nice to get away now and again, even though he quite liked the hospital. Mr Williams made him laugh, the tricks he played and the funny things he said.

They went on day trips, sometimes, though Steven couldn't quite remember where. He read a lot. Important books, though their names escaped him just for the moment.

He used to be happy, then unhappy (he seemed to recall) and looking for things, but now he was happy again. He had mentioned all this to Mr Williams, about how he'd been unhappy and looking for things, and Mr Williams have given him an old big rusty key and a plastic sign which said "Way Out'. Steven kept them in his locker and took them out and looked at them sometimes.

He had other things in his locker; things from before, when he had been unhappy. They had given him these things... he couldn't remember when, not at the moment... but it would come to him... anyway, they had given him a radio and an atlas, some books and a metal sort of sculpture thing of a lion or a tiger or something. He kept them because you weren't supposed to throw away things people had given you, but he didn't really want them.

Then there were some bits and pieces from games which Mr Williams had given to him. There was a chess piece which looked like a little castle, and another which looked like a little horse, also some bits of plastic with letters on them and little numbers, and other bits of plastic which had spots on one side.

In the old country house around which the hospital had grown and spread since its foundation after the First World War there was the Sheltered Unit's library. An old man and an old woman sat in there, playing games over an old coffee table. Mr Williams took pieces from their games when they weren't looking, just for a laugh. He would give them the bits back later on, of course, so it wasn't really stealing, but oh, it was funny, watching them get all upset!

Steven thought Mr Williams was naughty, but he did make him laugh, and Steven liked to feel trusted, and liked being in on Mr Williams's jokes and secrets. It was good.

The crows called his name again, wheeling above the turned-over fields, scraps of black against the greyly shining clouds. Steven smiled and looked round the littered surface of the tunnel floor. He leaned down and picked up the matchbox with the three dead matches inside it and turned it over in his hands. He heard a train hooter in the distance.

Soon a train would go noisily overhead, on the rails on the top of the banking the tunnel ran through. Steven liked the busy, steely noise the trains made over his head. It wasn't frightening at all. He squinted at the words on the faded cover of the little match-box:

McGuffin's

iZEN BRAND!

matches

average contents: v2

Steven didn't understand. He turned the matchbox over and read a riddle printed on the back. He didn't understand that, either. He read the words out slowly to himself. "Q: What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? A: The unstoppable force stops, the immovable object moves."

Steven shook his head and put the matchbox back down on the ground. He shivered. It would be time for tea soon.

Dr Shawcross scratched behind his left ear with one finger, brow furrowed like the ploughed Kentish fields. He couldn't think of any other way to put it, so he wrote, finishing the sentence and also the report, apart from the summing-up:... euphoric, but still totally lacking insight into his disability .

Steven stared at the bright inverted U of light, as the train clattered and whined overhead and the little iron seat on top of the grass-roller vibrated slightly. The crows called his name, their hoarse voices not quite drowned by the passing train: "Ger-out! Ger-out! Ger-out!"