Pulse

by Julian Barnes

  ‘And that’ll be a loss, will it?’

  ‘I can’t tell if you’re being ironic or not.’

  ‘Neither can I. ’

  ‘Who was that British general in some Indian war who captured the province of Sind and sent a one-word telegram back to HQ? It simply said: “Peccavi ” … Ah, a few blank faces. Latin for “I have sinned.”’

  ‘Personally, I’m extremely glad those days are over.’

  ‘You’d probably prefer “mission accomplished” or whatever they say.’

  ‘No, I just hate imperialist jokes about killing people.’

  ‘Pardon my Latin.’

  ‘Right. So moving swiftly back to Galileo. The earth going round the sun is something that’s been proved as much as anything can be. But what about, say, climate change?’

  ‘Well, we all believe in that, don’t we?’

  ‘Do you remember when Reagan said trees gave off carbon emissions, and people hung signs round the trunks of redwoods saying “Sorry” and “It’s all my fault”?’

  ‘Or “Peccavi ”.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘But Reagan believed anything, didn’t he? Like, he’d liberated some concentration camp in the war when all he’d done was stay in Hollywood and make patriotic films.’

  ‘Mind you, Bush made Reagan look good – almost classy.’

  ‘Someone said of Reagan that he was simple but not simple-minded.’

  ‘That’s not bad.’

  ‘Yes it is. It’s sophistry, it’s a spin doctor’s formula. Hear it from me: simple is simple-minded.’

  ‘So we all believe in climate change?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘But do we, for instance, believe that there’s plenty of time for scientists to find a solution, or that we’ve reached a tipping point and in two, five or ten years it’ll be too late, or that we’ve already passed that tipping point and we’re going to hell in a handcart?’

  ‘The middle one, don’t we? That’s why we all try to reduce our carbon footprint, and insulate our houses better, and recycle.’

  ‘Is recycling to do with global warming?’

  ‘Need you ask?’

  ‘Well, I only ask because we’ve been recycling for twenty years or so, and no one was talking about global warming back then.’

  ‘I sometimes think, when we’re driving through central London in the evening and see all these office blocks with lights blazing away, that it’s a bit bloody pointless worrying about leaving the telly and the computer on standby.’

  ‘Every little makes a difference.’

  ‘But every big makes a bigger difference.’

  ‘Did you see that terrifying statistic the other month – that something like seventy per cent of passengers on flights in India were first-time fliers using budget airlines?’

  ‘As they have every right to. We did. We still do, most of us, don’t we?’

  ‘Are you saying that out of some sense of fair play we have to let everyone else become as filthy and polluting and carbon-emitting as we’ve been, and only then do we have the moral right to suggest they stop it?’

  ‘I’m not saying that. I’m saying they can hardly be expected to take lessons from us of all people.’

  ‘Do you know what I think is the most disgusting thing, morally, in the last twenty years or whatever. Emissions trading. Isn’t that a disgusting idea?’

  ‘All together now …’

  ‘“It’s the hypocrisy I can’t stand.”’

  ‘Beasts, all of you. But especially you, Dick.’

  ‘One thing really annoys me. You sort out all your recycling and put it in separate boxes, and then they come round with the van and throw it in higgledy-piggledy, mixing it all up again.’

  ‘But if we think we are at the tipping point, what chance do we believe we have of the world agreeing?’

  ‘Perhaps as much as one chance in five?’

  ‘Self-interest. That’s what makes things tick. People will recognise it’s in their own interest. And that of subsequent generations.’

  ‘Subsequent generations don’t vote for today’s politicians.’

  ‘What has posterity ever done for me, as someone asked.’

  ‘But politicians know that most voters care about subsequent generations. And most politicians are parents.’

  ‘I think one problem is that even if we accept self-interest as a useful guiding principle, there’s a gap between what your actual self-interest is and what you perceive it to be.’

  ‘Also between short- and long-term self-interest.’

  ‘Wasn’t it Keynes?’

  ‘Wasn’t what?’

  ‘Said that thing about posterity.’

  ‘It’s usually him or Oliver Wendell Holmes or Judge Learned Hand or Nubar Gulbenkian.’

  ‘I don’t know who or what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Did you see that French champagne houses are thinking of relocating to England because soon it’ll be too warm for their grapes?’

  ‘Well, in Roman times –’

  ‘There were vineyards along Hadrian’s Wall. You’re always telling us that, Mr Wine Bore.’

  ‘Am I? Well, it bloody bears repeating, because maybe it proves that it’s just the great cycle of nature coming round again.’

  ‘The great recycle of nature.’

  ‘Except we know it isn’t. Did you see that map of global warming in the paper the other day? It said a four-degree rise would be utterly disastrous – no water in most of Africa, cyclones, epidemics, rising sea levels, the Netherlands and south-east England under water.’

  ‘Can’t we rely on the Dutch to sort something out? They did before.’

  ‘What timespan are we actually talking about?’

  ‘If we don’t agree now, we could have a four-degree rise by 2060.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘You know – I expect you’ll all beat me up for this – but there are times when it feels almost glamorous to be part of the last generation.’

  ‘What last generation?’

  ‘The last to use Latin tags. Sunt lacrimae rerum.’

  ‘Well, looking at the human animal and its historical track record, it’s perfectly possible we shan’t get out of this one. So – the last generation to have been truly careless, truly without care.’

  ‘I don’t know how you can say that. What about 9/11 and terrorism and Aids and …’

  ‘Swine flu.’

  ‘Yes, but they’re all local, and in the long run minor.’

  ‘In the long run we are all dead – now that was Keynes.’

  ‘What about dirty bombs and nuclear war in the Middle East?’

  ‘Local, local. What I was talking about was a sense that it’s all out of control, all too late, nothing we can do about it …’

  ‘Way past the tipping point …’

  ‘… and just as, in the past, people looked ahead and posited the rise of civilisation, the discovery of new continents, the understanding of the universe’s secrets, now we are looking at a vista of grand reversal and inevitable, spectacular decline, when homo will become a lupus to homini again. As in the beginning, so it was in the end.’

  ‘Blimey, you are in apocalyptic mode.’

  ‘But you said glamorous. What’s glamorous about the world burning up?’

  ‘Because you, we, had the world before it did so, or before we realised that it would do so. We’re like that generation which knew the world before 1914, only to the power of a thousand. From now on it’s all about – what’s that phrase? – managed decline.’

  ‘So you don’t recycle?’

  ‘Of course we do. I’m a good boy, like everyone else. But I quite see Nero’s point. May as well fiddle while Rome burns.’

  ‘Do we believe he did? Isn’t it like those famous sayings that nobody ever said?’

  ‘Is it? Weren’t there eyewitness accounts of Nero fiddling? Suetonius, as it were?’

  ‘Res ipsa loq
uitur.’

  ‘Tony, that’s enough.’

  ‘I didn’t know they had violins in Ancient Rome.’

  ‘Joanna, at last a pertinent observation.’

  ‘Isn’t Stradivarius an old Roman name? Sounds like one.’

  ‘Isn’t it amazing how much we don’t know?’

  ‘Or how much we know but how little we believe.’

  ‘Who was it said they had strong opinions weakly held?’

  ‘Give up.’

  ‘I don’t know either, I just remembered it.’

  ‘You know, our council has actually started to employ recycling snoopers. Can you imagine that?’

  ‘Not until you tell us what they do.’

  ‘They come round looking at your recycling bins and check if you’re recycling enough of something –’

  ‘They actually come on to your property? I’d sue the buggers for trespass.’

  ‘… and then if, say, they find you haven’t put out enough tins, they’ll shove a leaflet through the door explaining how to pull your socks up.’

  ‘Bloody cheek. Why not spend the money on extra nurses or something?’

  ‘That’s what it’ll come to in Apocalyptic Britain. Snoopers breaking down your front door to see if you’ve left your telly on standby.’

  ‘They wouldn’t find many tins in our recycling, because we hardly buy any. Most of it’s far too high in salt and preservatives and so on.’

  ‘Ah, but when the snoopers get to work on you, you’ll be buying tins and chucking away the contents so you can keep up your recycling quota.’

  ‘Couldn’t they replace snoopers with extra surveillance cameras?’

  ‘Aren’t we getting off the point?’

  ‘What’s new about that?’

  ‘Stradivari.’

  ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘Stradivarius is the instrument, Stradivari the maker.’

  ‘Fine by me. Absolutely fine.’

  ‘When I was young, I used to hate the way the world was governed by old men, because they were obviously out of touch and mired in history. Now the politicians are all so bloody young they’re out of touch in a different way, and I don’t so much hate it as fear it, because they can’t possibly understand enough about the world.’

  ‘When I was young, I liked short books. Now I’m older, and there’s less time left, I find I prefer long books. Can anyone explain that?’

  ‘Animal self-delusion. One part of you pretending that there’s more time than there really is.’

  ‘When I was young and started listening to classical music, I used to prefer the fast movements and was bored by the slow movements. I just wanted them to be over. Now it’s the opposite. I prefer slow movements.’

  ‘That’s probably connected to the blood slowing down.’

  ‘Does the blood slow down? Just out of interest.’

  ‘If it doesn’t, it ought to.’

  ‘Another thing we don’t know.’

  ‘If it doesn’t, it’s still a metaphor and, as such, true.’

  ‘If only global warming were a metaphor.’

  ‘Slow movements are more moving. That’s what it’s about. The others have noise, excitement, initiation, conclusion. Slow movements are pure emotion. Elegiac, a sense of time passing, inevitable loss – that’s slow movements for you.’

  ‘Does Phil know what he’s talking about?’

  ‘I always know what I’m talking about at this time of night.’

  ‘But why should we be more moved now? Are our emotions deeper?’

  ‘Back then you were exhilarated and excited by the fast movements.’

  ‘Are you saying that the pool of emotions remains the same size, but pours out in different directions at different times?’

  ‘I might be saying that.’

  ‘But surely we had our strongest emotions when we were young – falling in love, getting married, having children.’

  ‘But now perhaps we have longer emotions.’

  ‘Or our strongest emotions are of a different kind now – loss, regret, a sense of things ending.’

  ‘Don’t be so gloomy. Wait till you have grandchildren. They’ll surprise you.’

  ‘ “All of the pleasure and none of the responsibility.”’

  ‘Not that one again.’

  ‘I did put it in quotes.’

  ‘And a sense of life’s continuance that I didn’t get so much with my own children.’

  ‘That’s because your grandchildren haven’t disappointed you yet.’

  ‘Oh, don’t say that.’

  ‘OK, I didn’t say that.’

  ‘So do we think there’s any hope for the planet? Given global warming, a failure to identify true self-interest, and the politicians being as young as policemen?’

  ‘The human race has got itself out of scrapes before.’

  ‘And the young are more idealistic than we were. Or at least are.’

  ‘And Galileo is still winning against the Pope. That’s a kind of metaphor.’

  ‘And I still haven’t got bum cancer. That’s a kind of fact.’

  ‘Dick, something to finally tip the balance. The world is now a positive place to live in.’

  ‘We’re all going to be just a bit warmer.’

  ‘And who’ll miss the Netherlands? As long as they move the Rembrandts to higher ground.’

  ‘And a lot poorer because the bankers have stolen our money.’

  ‘And we’ll all have to become vegetarians because meat production adds to global warming.’

  ‘And we shan’t be able to travel as much, except on foot or on horse.’

  ‘“Shanks’s pony” – people will start saying that again.’

  ‘You know, I’ve always envied those times when even people who could afford to travel abroad did so only once in their lifetime. Not to mention the poor pilgrim with his stick and his scallop-shell badge making the one pilgrimage of his entire life.’

  ‘You’re forgetting we’re on the side of Galileo around this table.’

  ‘Then you can go on a pilgrimage to see his telescope in Florence or wherever they keep it. Unless the Pope burnt it.’

  ‘And we’ll go back to growing more of our own food, which will be healthier.’

  ‘And repairing things like we used to.’

  ‘And making our own entertainment, and holding real conversations over family meals, and showing proper respect to Grandma in the corner knitting socks for the new arrival and telling us tales of olden times.’

  ‘We don’t want to go that far.’

  ‘Good, as long as we can still watch telly, and nuclear families are optional.’

  ‘What about using barter instead of money?’

  ‘At least that would screw the bankers.’

  ‘Don’t count on it. They’d soon find a way to make themselves indispensable. There’ll be a futures market in rainfall or sunshine or whatever.’

  ‘There already is, my friend.’

  ‘Remember how they used to say, “The poor are always with us”?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, it ought to have been “The rich are always with us”, “The bankers are always with us”.’

  ‘I’ve just realised why it’s called the nuclear family.’

  ‘Because it’s fissile and always likely to explode and irradiate people.’

  ‘But I was going to say that.’

  ‘Too late.’

  ‘Hmm, the smell of that apple wood …’

  ‘Question: which of our five senses could we most easily do without?’

  ‘Too late for guessing games.’

  ‘We’ll answer that next time.’

  ‘Talking of which …’

  ‘Lovely food.’

  ‘That was the best.’

  ‘And no one mentioned the C-word.’

  ‘Or gave us sexual homework.’

  ‘Let me give you a toast instead.’

  ‘We don’t do toasts around this table. Hous
e rules.’

  ‘It’s all right, it isn’t to anyone present. I just give you: the world in 2060. May they have as much pleasure as we do.’

  ‘The world in 2060.’

  ‘The world.’

  ‘Pleasure.’

  ‘Do you think people will still lie about sex in 2060?’

  ‘Perhaps as many as one in five will.’

  ‘It was A. J. P. Taylor, by the way.’

  ‘Who was?’

  ‘Who said he had strong opinions weakly held.’

  ‘Well, I raise a silent glass to him as well.’

  There was the usual shuffling, and putting on of coats, and hugging and kissing, and then we trooped out, heading down towards the minicab office and the Underground.

  ‘Loved the smell of that fire,’ said Sue.

  ‘And we didn’t have to eat anything from a dead cow’s mouth,’ said Tony.

  ‘Odd to think we’ll all be dead by 2060,’ said Dick.

  ‘Oh, I wish you wouldn’t say things like that,’ said Carol.

  ‘Someone has to say the things other people don’t,’ said David.

  ‘I’ll see you guys,’ said Larry. ‘I’m heading this way.’

  ‘See you,’ we mostly replied.

  Marriage Lines

  THE TWIN OTTER was only half full as they took off from Glasgow: a few islanders returning from the mainland, plus some early-season weekenders with hiking boots and rucksacks. For almost an hour they flew just above the shifting brainscape of the clouds. Then they descended, and the jigsaw edges of the island appeared below them.

  He had always loved this moment. The neck of headland, the long Atlantic beach of Traigh Eais, the large white bungalow they ritually buzzed, then a slow turn over the little humpy island of Orosay, and a final approach to the flat, sheeny expanse of Traigh Mhòr. In summer months, you could usually count on some boisterous mainland voice, keen perhaps to impress a girlfriend, shouting over the propellor noise, ‘Only commercial beach landing in the world!’ But with the years he had grown indulgent even about that. It was part of the folklore of coming here.

  They landed hard on the cockle beach and spray flew up between the wing struts as they raced through shallow puddles. Then the plane slewed side on to the little terminal building, and a minute later they were climbing down the rickety metal steps to the beach. A tractor with a flatbed trailer was standing by to trundle their luggage the dozen yards to a damp concrete slab which served as the carousel. They, their: he knew he must start getting used to the singular pronoun instead. This was going to be the grammar of his life from now on.