In a Land of Plenty

by Tim Pears

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Roger said, and James smiled and left him. His other colleagues were sticking together.

  ‘Well done, son,’ said Frank. ‘You’ve not gone in for this arty crap like we were worried you might have.’

  James was disappointed. ‘Haven’t I?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s all people,’ Frank told him.

  ‘Aye, people all right,’ Derek interrupted. ‘There’s good stuff here, Jim, I’m not saying there isn’t, it’s just a shame that when you were let off the leash you didn’t do a bit more … well, you weren’t a bit more critical.’

  ‘I suppose you’ve already heard, son,’ said Frank. ‘We just heard this afternoon.’

  ‘Heard what?’ asked James.

  ‘Well, the rumours turned out to be true,’ said Keith.

  ‘What rumours?’ James demanded.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Frank to Keith. ‘He’s hard work sometimes. Your old man,’ he said to James.

  ‘What about him?’ James demanded in exasperation.

  The two men looked at each other, then back at James. ‘He’s taken over the paper,’ Frank told him.

  ‘What?’ James asked, bemused. ‘What paper? You mean …?’

  At that moment, though, Alice and Harry and their two babies plus Uncle Simon and Auntie Nat came in together. Simon clasped James in a bear-hug and said: ‘Marvellous, James! Our little brother’s a star! And such a well-dressed one! Who would’ve ever believed it?’

  When Simon released James from his sponge-like grasp James took a few seconds to get his breath and balance back; but he couldn’t feel bad towards his older brother since Simon had taken responsibility for making sure Charles didn’t turn up uninvited – an intrusion quite within his capabilities.

  Alice kissed James on one cheek and made to kiss him on the other, but on the way she spotted Zoe and left James’ proffered lips in mid-air, to go and say hello to her cousin.

  Natalie, who seemed to be official nanny for the evening, had Amy by the hand and Sam on her hip, and went over to introduce herself to Sonia. Harry studied the photographs, while Simon started introducing himself to strangers, and then strangers to each other, becoming, within two minutes of entering the room, self-appointed host for the evening. James, finding himself alone, watching his brother, felt a sudden rush of love for him, for those qualities James would never have.

  Nerves making me tired and emotional, he thought to himself. He felt a touch on his arm: it was Laura, with a glass of wine.

  ‘You look like you could do with this,’ she told him, and then returned to behind the trestle table. He took a grateful swig as more people arrived.

  Pat, political activist turned video-maker (the only one of his fellow bedsit tenants he’d become friendly enough with to invite), handed him a small sheaf of envelopes.

  ‘Thought I’d bring your post,’ she said. ‘You might as well sublet your room the amount of time you’re there. By the way, I won’t be there much longer myself.’

  ‘What, are you buying a house or something?’ he asked.

  ‘You’re fucking joking,’ she snorted. ‘I’m so skint I’m shooting on tapes from a video rental shop’s dustbin. No, I’m going to film school; I’ve been offered a place.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ James declared.

  ‘Yeh, great, eh? And the same to you for all this. I’m only sorry I can’t afford to buy one.’ Pat’s eyes, scanning the room, alighted upon Laura’s trestle table, and lit up. ‘Food!’ she exclaimed. ‘Yummy,’ she said, and disappeared.

  The room filled up with James’ acquaintances, some of them the subjects of photographs, so that people kept doing double-takes between human beings and their photographic representations. The wine flowed and the room filled and chatter became an undifferentiated din. James trawled through it. He overheard Karel telling Natalie: ‘You’ve got a wonderful head. I’d like to photograph you some times,’ and James whispered in his ear that he was on the wrong track, he shouldn’t waste his time. Karel whispered back: ‘Push off.’

  James saw that the photographers – artists and hacks – had joined forces at last by the far wall, finding agreement with each other at how pitiful it was that James had stooped so low as to take these wedding pictures. And so many of them! James, inebriated, grinned at their mutual stupefaction.

  Harry came over and shook his hand. ‘Well done, James,’ he said. ‘Very interesting. Bit of an eye-opener. I think I underestimated you.’

  ‘Well, thanks, Harry,’ James replied.

  ‘Yes. Very interesting. Fifty pictures, ten prints of each, at fifty pounds: that’s a possible twenty-five grand. Minus expenses, of course. Assuming you sold them all, you wouldn’t need too many shows like this a year to make a decent living.’

  ‘I won’t sell them all, Harry,’ James demurred. ‘Nothing like.’

  ‘I’ve bought one myself; that one of the plasterer and his mate standing by a freshly skimmed wall. It makes me nostalgic. I like it.’

  ‘Thanks, Harry.’

  There was also a red sticker beside a photograph from the time of the Freeman Ten picket line. It showed Charles Freeman, the man-in-charge, in the back seat of his chauffeur-driven Rover cruising past the protestors, Charles resembling nothing so much as a smiling Buddha; while through the window on the far side of the car was framed the furious face of the Wire, hurling abuse at his erstwhile employer.

  Just then Simon appeared beside him. James flinched from what he thought was about to be another bear-hug, but Simon made do with an arm around James’ shoulders.

  ‘Of course, I had to do a deal with father,’ he boomed in James’ ear.

  ‘A deal?’

  ‘That’s right, a deal. How did you know?’

  ‘You’re as pissed as I am!’ James told him.

  ‘I’ve only had a sip or two of wine, dear. Anyway, he commissioned me, in his absence, to buy one of your photographs.’

  ‘Shit, Simon, I want to be free of the old bastard.’

  ‘Don’t be such an uptight little turd, James. He’s just another customer. Guess which one I’ve bought him.’

  ‘Not this one in the car?’ James grinned.

  ‘That’s the one!’ Simon confirmed.

  ‘He looks like an evil goblin,’ James snickered.

  ‘The Wire’s blowing a fuse,’ Simon hooted.

  ‘He’ll hate it.’ James chortled.

  ‘He’ll love it!’ Simon shouted.

  ‘Stop it, Simon, I’m going to piss myself,’ James blurted out.

  ‘I already have!’ Simon gasped, as they crumpled in the middle of the crowded room.

  They were saved by Lewis: just then, at ten o’clock precisely, he turned the lights down low and the music up loud, and the private view became a private disco.

  The older and the younger and the more staid of the guests departed, but most remained. A friend of Sonia’s took her sons home.

  ‘You’re a success,’ she yelled in James’ ear.

  ‘WHAT?’ he yelled back. Sonia leaned close, stilled his dancing motion, and to an inappropriate beat they slow-danced in a perpetual circle.

  Zoe danced with Dog, who was a lumbering bear of a man. Harry had taken his children home and left Alice dancing with Natalie. Karel had shifted his attentions to one of the newspaper typists. Simon was drinking with the press photographers.

  James went off to find a lavatory. Instead of coming straight back he went over to a large bay window in the corridor, opened it and leaned out. The music’s after-noise buzzed in his ears. He felt stupefied by alcohol and nerves, and lit a cigarette. After a while he heard footsteps and turned to see Laura coming along the corridor. She joined him at the window.

  ‘Not dancing?’ she asked.

  ‘Just having a rest,’ he told her. ‘You?’

  ‘I’m all packed up. People can help themselves to the rest of the booze. There’s not much left. It’s gone well. You must be pleased.’

  ‘I am,’ James re
plied. ‘I’ve realized something important. Well, important for me.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  James took a final drag of his cigarette and dropped it out of the window. ‘That I’m not an artist,’ he said. ‘I’m just a snapper. I always wanted to be an artist, I thought I’d be one.’

  Laura didn’t disagree, she let him talk on.

  ‘I’m just a chronicler of small events, recording them for a while; not even for posterity. They’re too mediocre to last long.’

  ‘You don’t sound disappointed,’ Laura told him.

  ‘I’m not. That’s funny, isn’t it? But I’m really not, I suppose because it’s the truth, and that’s the important thing. To know who you are, what you’re capable of. God!’ He laughed. ‘Two minutes ago I was sloshed, and lost in drunken musing. And now, talking to you, I’m lucid and seeing things clearly.’

  ‘I have that effect on people,’ Laura smiled. ‘I sober them up. Ah!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘What is it?’ James asked.

  ‘The baby kicked. It doesn’t hurt,’ she assured him, seeing his worried look.

  ‘Can I feel it?’ James asked her.

  ‘Sure,’ Laura replied. ‘You can try.’ She took his hand and pressed it against her belly, through the material of her cotton dress. ‘Here,’ Laura said, loosening a couple of buttons. She slid his hand in onto her bare skin.

  ‘It’s a bit hit-and-miss. When or where he’ll kick.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘Only boys kick and move around as much as this one does. Or so my Aunt Pauline tells me. There! Did you feel that?’

  ‘Yes.’ James pictured a tiny foot pushing through amniotic fluid into his palm. It happened again a few moments later, and then James withdrew his hand, and Laura buttoned her dress.

  ‘Thanks for doing all the food, Laura, it was superb,’ James said.

  ‘It is my living, James,’ she laughed.

  ‘Of course,’ he said hurriedly. ‘You give me the bill as soon as you want. Now, if you like. I can give you a cheque right now.’

  ‘Oh, no, it’s all taken care of,’ she told him.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘I didn’t give you anything up front, did I?’

  ‘Your father’s already paid me,’ Laura stated matter-offactly.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ James demanded. ‘What’s it got to do with him?’

  ‘He told me last week to provide a five-star buffet, the best of everything. I assumed you’d agreed or something.’

  ‘Laura!’ James groaned. ‘How could I have? You know I haven’t spoken to him. You know I can’t stand him.’

  ‘Didn’t you notice all the food tonight?’ Laura demanded. ‘You’re not blind, are you? A blind photographer? We discussed prices and I was going to provide a few dips and some plonk. Didn’t it cross your mind that the banquet was just a little more lavish than you expected?’

  ‘Yes. I mean, no,’ James replied. ‘I can see maybe it should have, but—’

  ‘I thought it would be better,’ she interrupted. ‘Your guests don’t care who paid. I’d have thought you might appreciate it, James.’

  ‘Jesus, Laura,’ James responded. He was flummoxed. ‘You thought it was better to let my father pay. You thought I’d appreciate it. Who do you think you are? Who do you think I am? My God, you patronizing …’ James’ voice trailed away. He shook his head. He felt disorientated, and drunk again. He ran his hands through his hair.

  ‘I’m confused,’ he said.

  ‘You’re ungrateful,’ Laura told him coldly, and turned to go.

  ‘Hang on, Laura, I’m sorry,’ he called after her, but she kept going, and disappeared.

  ‘Fuck!’ James cursed himself. He felt anger fill his head and swirl around inside it, an inchoate, confusing rage. Confusing because he wasn’t angry, above all, with Laura; or with his father; or with the fact of his own mediocre talent; or with his dumb colleagues or his superior friends. His anger was with none of them – it was with one who wasn’t there, his brother Robert; and maybe it was too with Laura, after all. And with himself, somehow, in some way he didn’t understand.

  ‘Fuck!’ he exclaimed. His hand was a fist. He drew it back, and punched straight through a glass pane of the window in front of him.

  Chapter 8

  FREEDOM AND LONELINESS

  WHEN SHE GOT home Laura was still berating herself. Why do I do that? she wondered. I expect everyone else to be cool and rational. But they’re not. What’s wrong with them? Why can’t people just be more reasonable, for God’s sake? But it’s not them. What’s wrong with me? Why do I do that? Oh, James, I’m so stupid. I’m not so clever. Stop it. Don’t agonize over what you can’t change, woman. Forget it. I smell of smoke, horrible. All those smokers.

  After showering Laura passed her reflection in the long mirror in her bedroom, and returned to it. Her seven-month bulge protruded hugely forward, both a part of her and a grotesque, magical malformation of her body. She sat on her bed rubbing oil into the skin of her belly. She thought back over her life and the people closest to her – of her mother and father, Robert, James, Alice – and was confronted by the stark, sudden truth that she had never loved anyone, not really. Maybe she couldn’t; maybe it was just a natural gift some people had and others, like her, lacked. She had never felt so lonely, and she wept naked tears of self-pity that ran down her face and onto her belly, tears that it dawned on Laura were less for herself than for the child growing inside her.

  The glass gashed James’ hand. There was a lot of blood, and Simon rushed him up to the hospital. On duty in Casualty that night was Lewis’s sister, Gloria.

  ‘What happened to you, James?’ she asked, unwrapping the blood-soaked towel.

  ‘I tried to hit someone and missed,’ he grimaced.

  ‘Oh, this is nothing,’ she said. ‘You’re lucky you didn’t sever an artery; for a Saturday night this is a mere scratch. I’ll just give you a few stitches.’

  James asked Simon to ring Sonia – who’d gone back to relieve her baby-sitting friend – and tell her there was no problem. And then to take James to his bedsit.

  ‘You want to be alone?’ Simon asked when he dropped him off.

  ‘I want to think a bit,’ James said.

  ‘That’s a dangerous habit,’ Simon told him. ‘Don’t overdo it.’

  Gloria had given him a local anaesthetic, whose effects soon began to wear off. James had emptied his food shelf but he had left a half-full bottle of brandy. He carried it and a glass in the uninjured hand over to his one armchair, and stayed there until he was insensible.

  James woke up with bruised lungs and what felt like someone else’s raw throat. He was in bed, naked, with no memory of undressing, nor of crawling in there. His bladder was full: he got up to move, and simultaneously his dehydrated head was squeezed and his hand flared up with pain.

  James moaned and fell back on the pillow. He cursed his inability to drag himself to bed while there were still cigarettes in the packet and booze in the bottle. The alarm clock said seven fifteen. He pissed in the sink and drank a lot of water and managed to gain readmittance to sleep’s merciful domain.

  When James woke again it was almost noon. His hangover was gone and his hand merely sore. He walked to the cinema.

  ‘You need some breakfast,’ Zoe told him. ‘You’re lucky, I’m not going to Sunday lunch today.’

  She fried eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, bread and beans, and made a large jug of coffee. James ate and was full, and he lit his first cigarette of the day.

  ‘I came to beg you to lead me out of the wilderness,’ James smiled. ‘But now I feel human already without saying a word. I can see there’s no point in suicide.’

  ‘What are you talking about? What’s the problem?’ she asked. ‘Apart from that wounded paw, what have you got to complain about? You’re floating through, James Freeman.’

  ‘I look in the mirror. I’m thirty years old. What do I see? An immature kid, the
same one who was there fifteen years ago except this one’s got lines in his face. Not to mention receding hair and a slack belly.’

  ‘Sounds unique.’

  ‘I wasn’t even sure I was there. I’m not just invisible behind a camera. I’m insubstantial; I’m hollow. No, listen, Zoe, this isn’t self-pity. See, other people, they live their lives, they’re solid. Just look at the people in my family, in that house I left: my father, his ego rampant, bursting with money and power, and thriving. I’ve been determined, you know, not to run away, to stay in this town and make it mine, but I can’t escape him. He’s bought the newspaper, did you know that? Really. Obviously I’m going to leave it.’

  ‘Maybe you should leave town now,’ Zoe suggested. ‘Go to London. Or somewhere.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s my town, too. Anyway, that’s not even the point. The others: Simon, he’s a great fluffy bear, Zoe, and he’s brilliant. I mean, he’s making himself into something fake but he’s got all this generosity inside, this generous spirit, and he makes people feel good, he really does.

  ‘Alice, there she is with her babies, I don’t know, maybe that was always her destiny and maybe she’s fulfilled; she’s with a man who’s going to get what he wants. And then Laura and Robert, Jesus, all this time they’ve been screwing, I thought she hated him, but no, there’s something between them I’ll never understand. A realm of life I’ve never been a part of, like other people. Like they’re living their lives, and I’m just letting mine be blown into whatever shapes fate moulds. And that’s why I’m saying about Simon, he’s pretending but it’s still him steering the ship. Oh, Zoe, it’s so hard to explain.’

  James poured himself another, tepid, coffee, and lit another cigarette. He met Zoe’s gaze and shrugged: she had a look that said she knew him, she knew exactly what he meant; or else that she couldn’t understand what he was going through and felt powerless to help him.

  ‘You’re just about the most stubborn, determined, independent person I or anyone else knows, sweetheart. Sometimes you don’t see what’s right in front of your nose, that’s all. But as for living your life …’