Collected Columns

by Michael Frayn

  The position of the man who tells a story has been very fully explored in literature, of course – but the role and problems of the person who has a story told to him have scarcely been touched upon. It’s not as easy as it looks to be on the receiving end. One has to find ways of expressing one’s continued interest and comprehension – whether sincerely or not – without interrupting the flow, and yet without seeming to have passed into a state of trance, or of mindless repetitive grunting.

  Where do you look, for a start? The narrator’s eyes seem the logical place. But which eye – the left or the right? And can one stand gazing at either of them for more than a few seconds at a time?

  A psychologist called Michael Argyle has been doing some experiments on this sort of problem at Oxford. The farther away his subjects sat from their interlocutor, he found, the more they kept their eyes on the interlocutor’s eyes during the conversation. The closer the subjects sat, the more they tended to avoid the interlocutor’s eyes (I suspect because of this difficulty of deciding which eye to choose at close range). The optimum distance turned out to be between four and six feet.

  But even at this distance the subjects were noticeably disconcerted when the interlocutor’s eyes were concealed behind dark glasses; and more disconcerted still when the eyes were visible but the rest of the interlocutor was hidden.

  The Ancient Mariner, of course, was partially concealed behind a long grey beard, from the midst of which he held the Wedding-Guest with his glittering eye. He also held him with his skinny hand, which suggests an eyeball-to-eyeball distance of two feet or less. The whole situation for the Wedding-Guest, on Argyle’s showing, can scarcely have been more disturbing. No wonder that he left afterwards like one that hath been stunn’d, and that a sadder and a wiser man he rose the morrow morn.

  And while one shifts one’s gaze uneasily about between right eye, left eye, and Adam’s apple, one hears the sort of depressing subarticulate noise issuing from one’s lips which occupies the Wedding-Guest in my poem from stanza 57 to stanza 79 inclusive. Thus:

  Um, um … um, um … yep, yep … um, um …

  Aha … uh-huh … ah … oh …?

  Sure … quite … uh-huh … yep, yep … yop, yop …

  Yup, yup … aha … oho …

  And one nods. Or I nod. I can’t stop myself – there seems to be some direct link between my eardrums and my nodding muscles.

  I find myself nodding even when I’m only one among an audience of many. Lecturers catch sight of me, nodding away in apparently eager agreement with every point they make, and they gradually get round to delivering the lecture exclusively to me, unmindful of my surreptitious attempts to seize hold of my head and keep it still.

  But it’s worse to be an audience of one among one, as on guided tours of remote caves and castles on rainy days in late September. When I was an undergraduate I attended a course of lectures with an audience which dwindled swiftly as the weeks went by from six to one. The one was me, and I couldn’t dwindle any further because the lecturer was my supervisor, which encouraged him to take the liberty of calling to collect me on his way to the lecture-room.

  They were nine o’clock lectures, and on several occasions I was in bed when he arrived. He would wait politely while I got up and got dressed. Then we would walk to the lecture-room together, and I would sit down somewhere around row three, while he leant over the lectern and delivered at me the lecture he had always given at nine o’clock on that particular Wednesday of the Michaelmas term ever since he had first written it as a young graduate in 1915 or so.

  If I so much as blew my nose or glanced out of the window, of course, he’d lost his entire audience. It was a fearful responsibility. I thought several times that I’d have nodded my head right off on to the floor by ten o’clock.

  One feels an overwhelming need in this sort of situation to vary the nodding and grunting with a few intelligent questions. One of the reasons the Wedding-Guest has such a glazed look in my poem from stanzas 13 to 21 is that he’s working out some keen questions for stanza 22, which goes:

  What was the tonnage of this ship?

  For what port was she bound?

  And was she gimbel-rigged, or gyved?

  And were her gaskets sound?

  Then he’s looking glazed again from stanzas 72 to 79 because he’s thinking, My God, it’s 50 stanzas now since I last made an articulate remark of any sort! I must tell the old boy some anecdote about myself, to show how much I sympathise. So in stanza 80 he suddenly compresses his lips and looks into the distance and says:

  It’s odd, you know, your saying this,

  Because when I was staying

  At Brightlingsea I hired a boat …

  – I’m sorry, you were saying …?

  Because the old bloke is just sweeping on regardless – and getting all the credit from the critics.

  Take my advice: Don’t wait to be told – get telling first.

  (1967)

  On the subject of objects

  I expect you’re pretty used to people lying here in your consulting-room and telling you the most terrible things about themselves, aren’t you, Dr Wienerkreis? I mean, thinking they’ve got all sorts of frightful things wrong with them which turn out to be nothing but …?

  Yes, well, anyway, the point is, Dr Wienerkreis, I’m suffering from, I mean, I think I might possibly have got a … well, a serendipity deficiency.

  I mean, I never find things. Everyone I know but me seems to find things. What sort of things? Well, they find, sort of, objects. They come across fantastic sea-shells on the beach. They stumble on oddly shaped pieces of wood in fields. They glance into a junk shop and pick up an elegant brass letter balance for seven-and-six, say, or an amusing Victorian steel engraving for tenpence-halfpenny. Well, you know, objects.

  What? Well, they take them home and arrange them as it were casually in their living-rooms. What do they do then? Well, I suppose they look at them. I mean, they’re intriguing things. I suppose they look at them and feel intrigued. When they have guests the guests look at them and feel intrigued.

  For example, we have some friends called the Crumbles. When one goes into the Crumbles’ living-room one’s surrounded on all sides by patch-boxes, astrolabes, sticks of Victorian rock, model Dreadnoughts, lumps of quartz-porphyry, eighteenth-century milking stools, Chinese toothpicks. One’s intrigued. It gives one something to talk about.

  What does one say? Well, I don’t know, one says perhaps ‘What’s this intriguing little object, then?’ Something like that. And Christopher Crumble says, more or less. ‘That? Oh, that’s an early Georgian dentist’s forceps I found by sheerest chance at a little shop I know down in Devizes.’ Or something along those lines. Well, then you’re away on a sort of whimsical-cultural, or cultural-whimsical, conversation that will see you through until the soup’s on the table.

  I know, I know … Of course I don’t think everyone collects intriguing objects. Some people collect beer-mats and miniature liqueur bottles. Some people collect Louis XV candle-snuffers or Baroque doorknobs. But the people I know are too sophisticated for beer-mats and too poor for Baroque doorknobs. So they collect amusing objects. The point is, Dr Wienerkreis, I have a social context I have to try to fit into.

  The trouble is, the fields I walk through are just full of earth. Whenever I look into a junk shop the contents consist exclusively of junk. I never see any amusing Victorian ship’s chronometers. All I see is heaps of rusty ice-skates, broken clockwork trains, warped rattan cake-stands, and chipped mauve cocktail sets that someone got for 1,700 cigarette tokens in 1938. The only thing I’ve ever found anywhere is the word serendipity, which I came across by absolute chance in a little dictionary I know …

  Yes, of course it matters. When the Crumbles come to dinner with us they’re surrounded by great quantities of nothing. Yes, nothing at all. Well, to be absolutely precise, I suppose there are usually a few things lying around like plastic giveaways out of cereal packets, week
-old copies of the Daily Mirror, broken sunglasses, bits of paper with ‘No milk Sunday’ written on them, that sort of thing.

  I mean, our living-room is a cultural desert. You can’t expect people to say ‘Where did you get this intriguing little “Daily Mirror” from?’ You can’t show guests the plastic television personalities, and explain how you just picked them up by sheerest chance as they fell out of a little Fungles packet you know down behind the refrigerator.

  Of course, the plastic television personalities may come to be amusing objects in time. By the turn of the century the graciously ageing Crumbles may well have a small but distinguished collection of them in their living-room, together with an amusing old wireless valve, a highly intriguing Dun-in-a-Jiff patent potato peeler (c. 1960), and a number of nostalgically beautiful and rather valuable photographs from Reveille of le pin-up de cheesecake school. Not us, though – we’ll just have a couple of week-old number of the Times-Mirror and some broken bits of the central heating reactor lying on the floor.

  I need help, Dr Wienerkreis. Help myself? You mean, practise? Start off modestly and work up to normal serendipity by easy stages?

  I see what you mean. I could begin by arranging the old Daily Mirrors and the broken sunglasses in a tasteful way Is that the sort of thing you have in mind? Then I could try finding slightly unusual looking pebbles and bits of twig. I could buy some of the less rusty ice-skates and the less chipped mauve cocktail-shakers. Then I could gradually work back through 1930s toothbrush-holders, 1920s false teeth, and Edwardian rubber dog-bones, to Diamond Jubilee shoe-trees and Great Exhibition bradawls.

  But Dr Wienerkreis, I have a bad block here – I’d feel such a damned fool having an Edwardian rubber dog-bone about the house without having an Edwardian dog to chew it. Do you think I’d get over that? I’m afraid I might retreat into gross psychotic delusion – decide I was the only one who was sane, and start writing articles trying to make everyone else feel a damned fool for not feeling a damned fool.

  (1963)

  Our pleasure, Captain!

  Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name’s Thork, Peter Thork, I’m one of the passengers, I’m sitting in seat 33B …

  Could we just have a bit of hush in the cabin …? A bit of hush, please …! Thank you. I haven’t got a microphone, I’m afraid, unlike Captain Mellowdew! So I’ll just have to shout. Can you hear me at the front? Can the cabin attendants hear me …? And Captain Mellowdew and his crew …?

  Good. Right. Ladies and gentlemen – Captain Mellowdew and his crew – Director of Passenger Services Clake and his cabin staff – fellow-passengers … I won’t keep you for long. I only want to say a few words in reply to the various very charming speeches we’ve heard from Mr Clake and Captain Mellowdew.

  I have to fly quite a lot – I’m in international consultancy – and I sometimes can’t help feeling a bit ashamed of the way we all just sit here and take the really kind and heart-warming speeches we always hear from the crew so much for granted. I thought that just for once someone ought to get up on his hind legs and say a word or two in reply.

  So let me assure Mr Clake that we will indeed keep our seat-belts fastened when the sign is on, and that we won’t smoke in the toilets. Thank you, Mr Clake, for your concern.

  We were all, I think, particularly touched to be welcomed on board by Captain Mellowdew in person. We know how busy he must be up there on the flight deck, and I think we all very much appreciated his finding a moment to talk to us. Particularly since he stressed that he was speaking not only for himself, but on behalf of all his crew, including his First Officer, Mr Timmins, and the Flight Engineer, Mr Huckle. I’d just like to say that we’re very pleased to be here – and I know I’m speaking on behalf of at any rate Mr Ted Trice, in seat 33A beside me, and Mr G. T. Waddell in seat 33C.

  Mr Clake, you’ll remember, told us that he was being assisted by Cheryl and Shiree in the forward cabin, and by Lorraine, Fontana, Pearline, and Coralie in the aft cabin. I hope they’ll forgive me if I’ve missed anyone out. Captain Mellowdew was kind enough to say that Mr Clake and his team would be doing their best to make our trip enjoyable. Let me assure him that their efforts are being highly successful, and that we are all enjoying ourselves hugely.

  Captain Mellowdew – if I may address myself to you for a moment, if I may be personal – you said something else that particularly touched me. You thanked us for flying with you. I don’t know about the others, but for some reason your words really touched a chord in me. I know how easy it is to take it for granted that people will get on your plane. I know how easy it is just to fly off without a word, get people to their destination, and never stop to appreciate their kindness in coming along. It means a lot to us, to know that the contribution we make on these occasions has been noted.

  So let me tell you, Captain Mellowdew, very sincerely, what an honour it is for us to be able to play our part. We know things have been a little difficult for this airline in the past year, what with the record trading losses, and that slight mishap one of your planes had on touchdown at … well, on a happy occasion like this I don’t want to intrude upon what must be a very sensitive area. I’m confident. though, that when the report of the inquiry is published the blame will be put firmly on the local air-traffic control. And if we’ve been able to help just a little bit with the money side of things then it’s all been worth while. What are passengers for, after all?

  And, Captain Mellowdew, thank you so much for that very helpful information you gave us about the height we were flying at. I guessed it was 32,000 feet, Mr Trice thought 34,000. So when you told us it was in fact 33,000, we both felt our minds had been put at rest. Well worth being woken up for!

  It occurs to me that you up there on the flight deck might like to know a little more about what’s going on back here in the cabin. Well, some of us have been sleeping – or trying to! – and some of us have been reading or working. I couldn’t help noting that Mr Trice was doing his expenses during the early part of the route, and that Mr Waddell has been wearing his headphones, lost in a world of his own. Mr Trice, I should perhaps tell you, informs me that he has a little back trouble, but I gather it’s not too serious, and it’s not expected to hold him up today.

  So God bless you, Captain. Mellowdew! And you, Mr Timmins and Mr Huckle! And you, Mr Clake, and you, Cheryl and Shiree in the forward cabin, together with Lorraine, Fontana, Pearline, and Coralie in the aft cabin! We won’t forget you! We look forward to travelling with you again very soon. And I personally, now I’ve got started, look forward to the chance of letting you hear this very same speech, many, many more times in the future. Thank you.

  (1994)

  Outside story

  … So, provided the scheme to build low-cost weekend housing on the estate is accepted by the local planning authority, it looks as if the cherry orchard itself has been saved from the axe. More on that later. Now back to the main story of the evening. Are you there, Michael?

  Yes, Trevor, I am.

  How are things outside the National Theatre?

  Well, it’s a fine night out here, Trevor, with a bit of a breeze off the river. But inside it’s pretty tense. The good news is that they’re still in there, and they’re still talking. Some of the talking, by all accounts, has been pretty tough – Hamlet himself, I gather, has not pulled his punches. It’s been a long evening – this is the feeling here – and it’s going to go on for quite a bit longer yet.

  Any developments in the situation since we last talked to you?

  Trevor, it’s too early to tell. But I was talking to someone who was inside the theatre in the last half-hour or so, and he said there were plans at court for a bit of a family get-together, which must I think be a good sign.

  A get-together?

  I understand it involves some sort of home theatricals.

  No fears that the King might be tempted to take a tougher line?

  Oh, I don’t think so, Trevor.

  There were
some pretty wild allegations flying about earlier.

  Yes, but there is a great determination here not to let the peace process be derailed, and most of the people I’ve spoken to remain pretty hopeful about the outcome.

  There’s no sense of déjà-vu about all this?

  Yes, Trevor, some old hands have been saying ‘We’ve seen all this before, and if we don’t learn from past mistakes we could just end up with a real disaster on our hands.’

  So the next hour or two could be crucial?

  They could, Trevor, but the King has already brought two younger men on to his team who are known to be close to Hamlet, in a very clear gesture of conciliation. It may or may not be significant that the Prince is to make an official visit to England, which should help to take the steam out of the situation a little.

  Is the Prince showing any signs of strain?

  He has been showing some signs of the enormous pressure he is under, yes. He’s made a number of major speeches in the last hour or two, but quite what effect they’ve had on opinion here it’s too early to tell.

  Is that the Prince we can see now, just behind you?

  No, that’s one of the local dossers being thrown out of the theatre by security men. If you’d been here earlier you’d have seen quite a lot of coming and going just behind me there. Quite a lot of stiff drinks being drunk. Quite a lot of visits to the toilets. But things have quietened down in the last few minutes.

  So you feel the signs are good?

  I’m pretty hopeful, Trevor, provided they can just keep talking. They’ve been talking now for the best part of two hours, and the longer they go on the more likely it is we’re going to see them shake hands and issue a joint communiqué.

  But if the talks do break down …?