Still Life

‘“Is this story an epic?” people sometimes ask me. “Is this another Elijah James epic in the making?”

To those people, I reply, “Every story is an epic.” To be a creator of worlds, that’s what it means to write. Tonight I write lamps floating in glass, scotch clinking, dresses shifting, sequins shining, ceilings spinning, knives cutting, cakes served, drinks raised…’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I’ll skip ahead a little. You won’t get this bit. Ah, here we are. Back at the beginning- the very first Elijah James story. This is from Chapter One, In Memorium. This story has a nice bit about your daddy, further in:

‘Five hours later, he was two books richer. Or poorer. Or madder, depending on your particular view. His name was Elijah James, and he was an author, of sorts. He was an obedient son who always did what he was told, and the Will had instructed him to carry on his father’s life’s work. That meant, in Elijah’s eyes, that he was bound by some kind of inseverable contract. Although he didn’t understand the law or death, he was hideously afraid of both.

‘He sat a desk, a polished oak affair, with little leaves and acorns carved into the trim. –Oh, how about that! I remember that desk from the study– On it sat a bottle of spiced rum, untouched, being slowly devoured by the wide-eyed kraken on its label. Elijah had no stomach for drink, but he had thought it appropriate to at least take up drinking casually. There were other things on the desk, too. Books, mostly, of all shapes and sizes. Their spines glistened in the candlelight, flashing all shades of crimson, ink black, roughened coal and minimalist white.

‘Very few of the books had been written by Elijah. Only three, to be precise. Several more were his father’s works. The rest were penned by strangers, who remained alienated because of Elijah’s disinclination to read. It wasn’t that he had any distaste for the exercise. It was just that he didn’t really see the point of it. Elijah was the kind of boy who felt he could learn more from the real world, by doing. He found it difficult to get along with most people, and authors were among the worst of the bunch.’’

‘I don’t like to read, either. Reading is hard.’

‘I know, honey.’

‘But I like to be read to.’

‘I know you do, honey. Let me read some more. I like this story:

‘He leaned back in the well-worn chair he had inherited, with its well-worn leather smells, and slid his glasses up his nose. They weren’t his glasses, really. They had been inherited, too. He hadn’t had any need for spectacles before he took up his familial mantle, as the last surviving member of his line. He anyway thought the frames, which were large, obvious and owl-like, helped him to channel his father’s spirit. He only wanted to write the kinds of things Erasmus James would have approved of. –Oh, poor Erasmus! I miss that man.

‘This was why he resented the recent confusion in the local newspaper, spreading rumours that he was a romance novelist. While he was happy to be slandered with many things, this was the kind of label he would gladly shed his skin to be rid of. Mr James Senior had written intellectual books, and so that was what his teenage son endeavoured to do, as much as he could. He mostly wrote modern realism and magic realism, as these were the kinds of books his teachers had shown him in school. He also dabbled in the gothic, and had an unhealthy fascination with the sea. –Just like I remember!

‘In investigating whether these were satisfactory things to write about, he had examined his father’s four cumulative tomes, and concluded that it would have to do, at least for a beginning. Elijah didn’t know much about writing, because he didn’t read many books. At least, he had read very few things since reading his father’s Will, in which Erasmus James had expressed his deep longing for the last of his line to become a published author; not only this, but the greatest who had ever lived. He had come halfway to this level of fame himself. Following his tragic death, which was reported on all the television channels, all eyes had been trained on his unlikely heir.

‘Nineteen years old and very scruffy, Elijah James didn’t believe in the notion that you had to read beyond a point to be a good writer. He had previously had only a passing interest in words, and a great love of practical things, like carving wood, growing gardens and working with his hands. He felt he learned best by doing. Anyway, he grew quickly sick of books after being forced to write them all day. As some further justification for his habits, he consoled himself with the knowledge that not reading at least meant he was incapable of copying anybody else’s work. This was something he was constantly coming under fire for.

‘He was simply too young, the critics said, and too uneducated, to be a prodigy. They were always looking for ways to tear him apart. On Christmas, they had coined a special present for his antagonists, claiming that he was having a torpid affair with a less popular journalist, who was feeding him all his lines. Few people had bothered to scrutinise the journalistic profession for bias.

‘A few months later, in early March, another rumour had surfaced. Supposedly, Elijah was copying out of his father’s long-lost, secret notebooks, word for word. This theory had some critics enraptured, and others despondent that they hadn’t thought of it first.’

‘This is boring. Skip ahead. Skip, skip!’

‘Okay, honey. Here goes:

‘Sitting at the desk, Elijah sighed. He could never help feeling that everything here was too big for him, and too old. Even the glasses were of a plasticy, nineteen-eighties make. Even his name was inherited, one of his family’s traditional monikers. It carried a lot of history, and a lot of weight. Tradition meant that there were at least six recorded Elijah’s who were known enough to genealogists to be disappointed in their last descendent.

‘Although he had initially tried, half-heartedly, to clean the office, this felt wrong. It was as though he was trying to scrub away traces of his family, some of whom he would never have back. There anyway appeared to be a level of shabbiness ingrained in the room. It resisted order, preferring comfortable, middle-aged entropy. Elijah had hoped that he might ripen by association with it, but even after a year, he still found rubbing shoulders with the mustiness abrasive.

‘He hadn’t grown any wiser, or more worthy of esteem, although the public seemed conflicted about this latter point. The only thing that had genuinely changed about him was his mood.

‘He was a young man, forced to live an old man’s life. Nineteen was simply too young to be old. The universe knew he was too inexperienced to know anything about it, and didn’t turn a wholly blind eye. Though he got away, for the most part, with his bold remarks and astute observations, he accrued guilt proportionate to them. He simply shouldn’t have been capable of doing what he did.

‘It was as though, when he wrote, something possessed him. It was a spark that didn’t come from him, that could only have come from somewhere else, and it made writing effortless. Because it wasn’t something he had any control over, Elijah lived in constant fear of being abandoned by it. Surely, someday, the spark would leave. Then he wouldn’t be able to write brilliant things anymore, and he would be forced to admit that he was a fraud. That he had been mediocre, all along. That he was just a boy with a bottle of inherited alcohol.

‘It was useless. He spun around in the chair, sighing heavily, and feeling a bubble of his trapped youth escape him. He could sit at the desk all he wanted, but the spark wasn’t coming today. It could feel him resenting it.

‘He took one last look at the bottle of rum, and lifted himself out of the spongy chair. By all rights, his joints ought to have ached more than they did, but he didn’t have to hoist himself up. He sprang lithely from his seat, and walked into the next room, his shorts rustling and his sneakers squeaking on the floorboards.

‘Instead of a stiff drink, he got himself some orange juice. –Bless!– Most of the kitchen things, and all of the furniture, were exactly as they were before his father died, when this was a house for a father and son, rather than for one very inadequate hermit.

‘After that, he phoned his publisher with an eloquent pitch for a pre-written idea, and did his banking on his own. This would have been a challenge a year ago, when his mother had first left, but now it was all too easy. It was as though he didn’t quite understand it, as though he was missing something.

‘This couldn’t be all there was to life.’

‘What was that about?’

‘Well, I thought you were being patient listening to that whole story, but as it turns out you were bored! I should have known better than to try something so reflexive. Why would you want to hear about a boy and some books, after all? You’re barely up to learning your ABCs.’

‘No, Mama. I like Elijah. Tell me more.’

‘Very well:

‘Five hours earlier, Elijah had shared his house with an ordinary boy, who was normal in the sense that he was anything but. He had a playful adolescence about him that made Elijah equal parts distrusting, disappointed, and extremely jealous. His orange and purple sneakers were crossed over the edge of the couch, where they clashed horribly. His red hair was the kind of scruffy Elijah’s had been once. It was a scruffiness that was afforded.’

‘Now I’m bored, Mama. I don’t understand. What’s happening now?’

‘This is the bit about Chase. You like the bit about Chase.’

‘Nah-uh. I’m bored! Tell an interesting story.’

‘Oh, well, okay. Here, let’s try this one. It’s from about two years ago, rather than four, like that other story, and it’s science fiction. You like science fiction stories, don’t you?’

‘Yah-huh.’

‘Here goes, then:

‘The city was the galaxy in more ways than one. Firstly, it was the dual seat of government and industry, home to machines built of metal and machines built of human beings. It was also a black canvas strewn with stars. Even after ten years of living here, Vasily still found its size daunting. The many lights seemed to spin in a vortex, and the air was nauseating whether or not you were sober. Night fell suddenly under the blanket of a perpetual haze, through which the eye of the metropolis winked seductively. In its pupil, the yellow halogen of artificial suns smouldered. Its iris was the warm glow of neon smog. The whiteness around it was surely the mist that hung poisonously in the air, slightly bloodshot where the beacons of the red light district caught in it.

‘Where cars and lorries muscled, highlights gleamed in the low light, ringed by greasy halos. Fog made stained glass windows of mere stains, so that filthy smears lit up with lipstick red, noxious green and electric blue. In the rain, the roads were more smoke and mirrors. Vasily didn’t want to think about them, but he couldn’t look away. Reflections were everywhere. Puddles shone blackly, mists rolling off their repugnant surfaces. It was impossible to tell whether they had originally formed from water, oil or ink crushed out of poets. For all its vividness, Galatia was not forgiving of artists.

‘So Vasily knew. Galatia had not been kind to him, either, at first. He let his cigarette butt fall out the driver's side window as he reflected on how long it had been. He didn't like to think much about the past, generally. Though he was a critical man, with barbed letters sharper than any knives, he didn't like to let his age leave an impression on him. Vasily considered himself more human than most people, and as such, time was not his ally.

‘He had jetted into the solar system at twenty-one, carrying all of the baggage he could fit in business class and none of the kind that now etched his face in lines and scars. Time had not been his ally then, either, but only because it was irrelevant to him. Young and impossibly wealthy, Vasily had laughed at its threats. Skirting the curvature of the wholly man-made satellite, he had felt light and confident. The rings that were the planet’s orbiting docks were the exact same size as the ring of salt on the rim of the glass he fondled. Each shock that jolted the craft as its outer layers were jettisoned boosted his excitement.

‘He was flying high- high above the surface of the planet; higher than he was sure anyone on it had ever been. He was above the mechanical drones working on the docking rings, and much further above the people, whom he assumed to be similarly mechanical, though of course he had never seen them. In those days, he had lived in the clouds, literally and metaphorically.’

‘Uh… what’s meppaphorically?’

‘Still too dense?’

‘U-huh.’

‘Alright, then, moving on. You like this next one. I’ve read it too you before. Heaven knows why! It’s only from six months ago. It’s too close for comfort to me personally, and you shouldn’t by all reason understand a word of it, but, if it makes you happy…’

‘Tell the story, Mama.’

‘Very well:

‘I see the windscreen wipers reflected in my sunglasses; the dashboard and the pitch, oily black of the road. Puddles shine in the smeared downpour. Vapours rise. This is a world of smoke and mirrors, of breath on glass like flattened ghosts or life slivered in a Petri dish, or on a plastic microscope slide. I am that microscope. I like to watch.

‘I want to die, and watch the aftermath. The radio blares, promising that these others in stalled cars around me, or in the rooms we are about to visit, carpeted with Psychology degrees on the walls, only practice greatness. I take to it with ease. I wear my noose with pride. It is red silk today, because I still work, despite it all, in my conservative, coffin raiment.

‘You’re driving, white knuckles on the wheel, stubble gone wild on your face. You ask me why I don’t trust you. You ask me why I don’t trust any of them. Muttering, you hand me the phone. It’s one of them, a psychiatrist, somebody paid to think with prejudice. Of course it is.

‘They ask me why I don’t trust them, either.

‘I reply, “Because you sound like an idiot, blithering about diseases speaking for me, as though you hold the only objectivity in the world. You’re slow, but you talk to me like I’m the dumb one, as though I don’t have a 167 IQ, as though I’m not highly educated in this area, as though my resignation to death means that I couldn’t possibly understand. You want me to trust you? How about, instead of blaming me, you prove yourself trustworthy. Say something intelligent.”

‘I count ten seconds, and they can’t. I flip the phone shut.

‘The next one refuses to speak to me at all. She says she already works a forty hour week. I reply that I work sixty. I suggest that, perhaps, we pathologise her and her inability to work rather than my inability to wish to live. After all, isn’t it causing dysfunction right now?

‘Finally, you are speaking again. You beg me to confide in one of them, any of them. You still cling to the desperate belief that they can help, because they are ‘experts’. I still do what you say, because I don’t want to die alone, and because it hurts me a little to watch you suffer. I need someone to hold me while the life leaves my body, and you’ve agreed to do that, on the condition that everything else fails.

‘I’ve told you a thousand times that it’s already failed, that the happiness you want for me is impossible. I’ve told you that nobody knows my mind and what causes this pain better than me. I tell you there are no drugs to help it, and that talking to imbeciles will be of no assistance. I know how to talk through a problem, to reframe, reprogram, expose and avoid. There’s nothing any of these shrinks can tell me that I don’t already know.

‘Now I’m angry. The windscreen is misting up, and the car is careening through streets full of similar death traps. Wheels skid in the water, tyres screech. The beacons up ahead say red, yellow, green, yellow, red. The windows of the skyscrapers watch blindly and helplessly.

‘I see the car coming, a streak of silver, in the opposite direction. There is only half a second before the smash, and here it comes. We are jolted, and there is an explosion of hissing steam from underneath the hood. Totalled, but we’re alive.

'You mouth wordlessly. Nobody is on the phone to anyone anymore. It doesn’t matter, I decide. My job interview is only a block from here, for a job in the legal industry, that will earn me more than writing. I’ll walk it with the cheap umbrella you bought from the post office to preserve my suit. I look forward to the boardroom with its spread of tea and coffee, surveying the foggy vistas of the outside world while the interviewers come down from offices and other meetings.

‘I step out of the wreckage. I’ll always step out of the wreckage. As I do so, you turn and remind me firmly about another, less savoury appointment. I freeze, and shake my head. I lament that I trusted you. I thought you were smarter than most people, at least smart enough to learn, but you’ve bought their dogma, hook, line and sinker. You say it’s my disease that keeps me from wanting to be subjected to examination from a strictly flawed, psychiatric perspective. You say it’s my pathology that makes me live so recklessly. I say, that pathology thrives in the top offices. It’s never stopped me being a competent lawyer, or writer.

‘You look sorry, and you should be. You have the car to deal with now, on top of all the rest of it. Out of mercy, I send you my instructions as I walk the last block. Get license and registration details, convince the other driver that he was wholly to blame, and round up witnesses. Our insurance doesn’t cover the full value of the car, and we can’t afford the excess.

‘Maybe I’ll see you afterwards, but for now I’m getting the final say. I’m a dead man walking, and history loves dead men. I’m dead now, regardless of whether I leave a body behind me…

‘Oh! I just can’t finish it. This is too much. I remember, you used to say, before the accident– “Who’ll be my role model now that my father is dead? I’ll be my own role model!” Of course, you didn’t mean it like this, to be the hero in your own bedtime stories! And to think, you don’t even remember writing them! Oh, dear. Oh, dear, oh, dear. I can’t finish it.’

‘Why not, Mama?’

‘I wish you’d never got in that car, that night…’

‘What car, Mama? I’m hungry.’

‘Oh, Elijah! I’ll heat you up some tuna bake. Let me just wheel you over to the counter, and then I’ll change your dressings. I still can’t believe it, some days.’

‘Can’t believe what, Mama?’

‘I can’t believe it got this way, this bad. Of course, you never spoke to me, the whole time. After your father died, you took up the drink, and you used to be such a good kid. It was all downhill from there, and all the while, the critics praised you and paid you in peanuts, and you still wouldn’t speak to me. Right up until… well, the accident. You must remember something! I know you hit your head, but you must!’

‘Remember what, Mama?’

‘Oh, Elijah. The answer is really quite simple. I wish you would remember who you used to be.’