Tomorrow

by Chris Beckett

  But other people choose anyway, I know. Other people make up their minds to believe in one god or another, and dismiss all the others. I’ve just never learnt how that’s done.

  ‘Just fuck off, the lot of you!’ I tell them, and they vanish at once like bursting bubbles.

  There’s only me here, only me by myself on the veranda looking out over the empty river, as the sun begins to sink behind my cabin. There was someone else here earlier who was solid and real. She came a long way, and at some expense, especially to see me, but I spoiled the visit by being cold and unwelcoming, and now I’m here on my own, trying to take solace in the company of beings that only exist inside my head.

  I owe Amanda an apology. I’ll write to her later, not now when I’m stoned – I’m pretty sure she doesn’t really approve of stoned me, and I can’t say I blame her – but I’ll write tomorrow, or the day after at the latest, and, though it’s only two days since my last visit to the town, I’ll take my letter downriver as soon as I’ve written it and post it in the mailbox in the lobby of her apartment building, with its cobwebs and its peeling whitewash, so she finds it when she gets back from work. At the end of the letter I’ll tell her I’ll wait in our usual café and then I’ll go there and spend the time writing until she shows up. I’ll have to lay off the weed, which will be good for my concentration, and I’ll make a real effort to start a proper novel, with characters, and events, and a beginning, a middle and an end.

  A boat appears from upriver. A relatively large one, by local standards, powered by a small outboard motor, with four people inside it, returning perhaps from a hunting trip – I can see a couple of guns – or maybe bringing back some of the latex that local folk persist in illegally tapping from the supposedly protected trees of the national reserve.

  A swallow swoops in front of its bows. A momentary whiff of exhaust fumes cuts through the usual smell of green plants and river water, and the stench of stale sweat.

  We have moved from the bar to a table by a window, looking out into the street of this bleak southern town, with its austere palette of greys and whites and blues so pale that they are really not much more than greys themselves. Some seagulls are fighting over a discarded slice of pizza. In spite of the latitude the window is only single-glazed, and has a crack running through one of its four panes that lets in little sharp needles of icy air.

  I finish my beer, and Ham suggests another, signalling to the barmaid and insisting on paying. I find him strangely fascinating. He is obviously a bright man and in his own way a thoughtful one, and though politically and culturally he seems extraordinarily naive, I can see this is because his intelligence has been focused on entirely different problems from the ones that absorb me and my friends. He tells me that wind turbines are now more than three times the size they were twenty years ago, and that their enormous blades may turn a hundred million times over the lifetime of the machine, meaning the correct choice of materials is absolutely critical to achieve the best possible balance of strength, flexibility and lightness to maximize output during that period with the minimum of disruption. He discusses the challenges of bringing the power to the shore and integrating it into the grid, while minimizing losses during transmission, or during the process of inversion, which, so he explains, turns direct current from the generator into the alternating current used in the grid.

  He repeatedly asks me if he’s boring me. ‘I mean, I’m an engineer, I can happily talk about this stuff all day long, but it doesn’t usually interest anyone but other engineers.’

  ‘I’m loving it,’ I assure him. ‘I won’t pretend I understand every single thing you say, but I get the general idea, and there’s a real poetry to how you talk about it.’

  ‘Poetry?’ he laughs. What lovely brown eyes he has! ‘I can honestly say no one’s ever said that before.’

  ‘And obviously it’s great that, you know, you’re rolling out this new way of generating power that won’t pollute the planet or fill up the air with carbon.’

  ‘I guess.’ Oddly, this aspect of his work doesn’t seem to capture his imagination at all. It’s how things work that lights him up. ‘To be honest, I never intended to work in this industry – it’s pretty simple stuff in engineering terms – but a job came up ten years ago when I needed the money, and somehow I’ve stuck with it.’ He smiles. ‘Are you going to put all this in your next book?’

  ‘Ah. I don’t know if there’s going to be a next book. I’m bored of the direction I’ve taken. There’s only one novel I really want to write. I’ve been meaning to write it all my adult life and I’ve never even found a way of starting it.’

  ‘What’s it going to be about?’

  ‘Everything!’

  ‘It must be about something.’

  ‘Well, that’s my problem, I suppose. I want it to be about everything. I want to write a novel that doesn’t have a story, or a beginning, or an end. At least not in the usual sense. Obviously I realize it must have an ending in a literal way. But I want it just to . . . I don’t know . . . I want people to be able to open it wherever and it’ll . . . I don’t even know . . . I have dreams about it sometimes. In my dreams it’s amazing. Things happen in it, and they fit together, and they’re satisfying, but . . . not in a . . . not in the . . . Ha! You see my problem.’

  He laughs again. ‘Not really. To be honest, I have no idea what you’re talking about. But I’m enjoying listening to you. It has a certain . . . poetry to it.’

  ‘Now you’re just taking the piss.’ I’ve finished my second beer. ‘Do you want another?’

  ‘You are knocking them back, aren’t you?’

  ‘You’re right. I should slow down. It’s nice talking to you. I split up with my partner recently – she came down here with me actually, but now she’s gone – and so of course I’m feeling a bit lonely. In some ways this is a good place to be lonely in, I think, but it turns out it’s a bit too good.’

  ‘It’s a bit lonely for me, too. I’m from the other side of the mountains. I come down here for four weeks, then I get a week back home, and then I’m back here another four weeks. I mean, I’ve got colleagues here, of course, and there’s no one in particular back home. But still . . .’

  ‘What do you talk about with your workmates here?’

  ‘Good question. We talk about turbines, of course, and inverters, and undersea cables, and electrical distribution systems, and how shit the kit is that we have to work with, and how come we’re the ones who have to make this stuff do what it’s supposed to do but no one ever listens to us when we tell them that we could cut the maintenance bill by fifty per cent if only they gave us better kit. We talk about oil rigs, too, because a lot of us have been in that industry and, to be honest, it’s got a bit more street cred than wind power. And when we’re not talking about the machines we work with, we often talk about cars, and whatever other machines we own. Our phones, for instance, we like to talk about our phones. But, apart from that . . . let’s see . . . we talk about sport and TV shows. And . . . oh . . . we tease one another about things. We accuse each other of being gay – that’s always good for a laugh – or of being shit with money and letting the company walk all over us. We talk about how rubbish the company is, and how it doesn’t appreciate us. Sometimes the other blokes talk about their wives back home, or their kids, but not for long because they don’t want to seem soft. Actually, they usually complain about their wives and kids, and how crap they are. They don’t really mean it, I suppose. Oh and – how could I forget? – we talk a lot about money. Who’s making the most money. How much money we’ve got saved up. How to screw the system for a little bit more. It’s kind of like . . . you know . . . the score, I suppose. Hmmm. I’ve never thought about it like that before, actually, but that’s it: our work is a football match, and money’s the score. And most of us are so absorbed in the game, we can hardly be bothered to leave the stadium. It can get a bit dull.’

  He smiled at me. ‘But I’m enjoying talking to you. W
hat do you talk about with your friends, then?’

  ‘Hmmm. Let’s see. We talk about politics a lot.’

  ‘Oh, I forgot that. We talk about that, too. As in: you slave your guts out and then the bloody government takes half your money off you to spend on Christ knows what.’

  ‘Well . . . not like that exactly. Though come to think of it, most of my friends do complain quite a bit about how badly they’re paid. But we don’t complain about taxes. When we talk about the government it’s usually more about how they’re only looking after their own people and don’t care about—’

  ‘Oh, we talk about that, too. They just look after their own.’

  ‘And we talk about how terrible the capitalist system is, and about sexism, and racism, and how the army’s out of control in the territories—’

  ‘The army’s out of control? I’d have thought you of all people would think the terrorists were out of control.’

  I shrug. My friends and I don’t even use the word ‘terrorist’, but I can’t be bothered to go into that. ‘We talk about inequality, and the way the press and the TV stations are always siding with the rich, and—’

  ‘So you’re a bunch of lefties, then?’

  ‘Sort of. We’re certainly very much on the side of the poor, and the indigenous people, and the minorities, and so on. Except that we seldom meet any of them. Ha! I used to have a flatmate years ago – Rémy – lovely chap, social science lecturer and a bit of an old-school leftie, he was always going on about forging an alliance with the working class, and how we needed to be guided by the working class. But if there was one thing he couldn’t abide it was what he called “tabloid-reading morons”.’

  ‘I work with a fair few of them, so I sympathize. And then, of course, there are the ones that don’t read at all.’

  ‘Yes, but what I meant was—’

  ‘I know. I get it. He likes the working class but not . . . Yeah, that’s funny. So what else do you talk about apart from politics?’

  ‘We talk about culture, and the media, and books and films and TV series. We moan about how the wrong people get the prizes and the acclaim, and the really good people get overlooked because they’re too threatening to the system. That old distinction between high and low culture is way too hegemonic for us, but we’re very interested in what’s in and what’s out. You really don’t want to be caught enthusing about something that’s out. And most of my friends are in publishing, or are academics, so they talk about the organizations they work for, and how shit they are, and how they don’t appreciate us though our work is obviously so vitally important, and about ridiculous workloads and stupid bureaucratic rules, and—’

  ‘So pretty much the same as us, then,’ he says.

  What a good-looking man he is, with his gentle brown eyes, dark brows and thick dark hair. There’s a pleasing modesty about his manner, yet he clearly takes great care of himself. He has a lovely physique that surely must take a lot of time in the gym. And, though there’s nothing flashy about his clothes – open-necked white shirt, black chino trousers, navy-blue jacket – they’re good quality stuff and fit him beautifully.

  ‘The same as your lot? I’d never have thought so, but now you say it, I can see what you mean. I guess everyone thinks their particular group is underappreciated. Only difference is that in place of your machines, we talk about words and knowledge and ideas. Which actually are machines in a way, come to think of it, in that they’re structures made by human beings to perform various—’

  ‘Pure poetry!’ He laughs. He smells nice, I notice, with just the right amount of aftershave – which can so easily be overpowering – and his cheeks are so smooth that he must have shaved earlier this evening when he changed out of his work clothes. ‘I’m enjoying listening, but I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Do you fancy getting something to eat?’

  He takes me to a place a few streets away that’s a bit more lively than the bar we’ve been in. There are maybe a dozen small groups of people eating steak or chicken with chips at the red plastic tables under harsh white strip lights, with bread in plastic baskets, and music playing that my friends would see as shallow, commercial and manipulative. They’re not the sort of people I know at all. Fierce people, I would call them. The men full of latent anger, dressed much like Ham, the better-looking ones sitting tall and straight like soldiers with big broad shoulders. The women are full of another kind of anger, wearing smart sexy dresses and lots of make-up, a kind of hard, wounded beauty in some of them; in others, just hardness. In one of the women, sitting opposite a man who is positively fizzing with anger, there is nothing but defeat. Another signed picture of the president hangs on the wall above them.

  ‘Christ, they really love him round here, don’t they?’

  Ham glances at the photograph. ‘He’s a local boy.’

  ‘But what is it about him? I mean, he’s harsh, and punitive, and incurious, and—’

  Ham laughs. ‘Well, look at these people here! How would you describe them?’

  ‘Ha! Harsh, punitive, incurious. Why are people like that in places like this?’

  Ham shrugs. ‘You kind of have to be like that to live here, I suppose.’ He looks around the room. ‘I recognize some of these blokes, actually. They’re all right, once you get on their wavelength. That guy with the spiky red hair, for instance. There are loads of local guys working out on the windfarm site. Quite a high proportion of them are ex-fishermen. The new quotas have put an end to ninety per cent of that industry, so they’re glad of the work. It’s pretty good pay, but it’s a hard way to make a living, maybe hanging from a structure with a harness, forty metres up, with the icy wind blowing up from the south, and often rain, or hail, or spray. Of course, they’re used to that sort of thing from fishing, but I think that kind of job makes you tough and hard.’

  ‘Are you interested in politics?’

  ‘To be honest, no.’

  ‘Hmmm. Well, I have had moments when I think it was easier back in the days when politics were for kings and courtiers, and the rest of the population just got on with life. All my friends are obsessed with politics. We get so angry that no one ever listens to us or does the things they ought to do. Angry with politicians. Angry with the people who voted for them. Angry with the media. On and on, every day. Because they don’t do what we want. I’m honestly not sure why we’re so convinced that what we want to happen would actually work. In fact, I’m not even sure if we know what we want to happen. But we do know they ought to listen to people like us.’

  ‘Ha! Just like engineers, then! Why don’t these idiots listen to us?’

  ‘Who did you vote for last time?’

  He pulls a mock-contrite face, and speaks in a very small, humble voice. ‘I voted for the president. I thought, politics is a dirty business, it’s not the same as ordinary life, and we need someone tough who can do tough things.’

  I throw a bread roll at him. He catches it and threatens to throw it back.

  To my surprise, we are having fun.

  The decorator has left his ladder in the hallway, which gives me an idea. I persuade Jez to come with me at midnight, when the street is relatively quiet, so she can take the ladder back once I’ve climbed over the spiked fence of the Botanic Gardens.

  I roar and make tiger claws through the bars as she waits to cross the road, and she turns and manages a smile, though she dislikes breaking rules and is anxious to return the ladder to the hallway. I head into the darkness that I’ve so often coveted from our balcony, pushing through the cool leaves. I’ve brought a sleeping bag in case it gets cold later, but the night is warm and I want to feel like a wild animal, so I take off all my clothes, and leave them with the sleeping bag beneath a tree. My idea had been to experience a kind of Eden right in the middle of our megacity, but the sad fact is that, now I’m in it, it is, of course, just the same old Botanic Gardens that I’ve walked through many times during the day, with its familiar asphalt paths, its benches, i
ts wastepaper bins. I graze my shin on a sign giving the name of a fern.

  Too late to get out now, though. This is going to be an uncomfortable and boring night. I smoke one of the small pre-rolled joints I’ve brought with me and prowl sulkily through the trees, failing to be impressed in spite of chemical assistance. Only near the edge of the garden, along the fence that I can’t climb over, do I find anything even vaguely approximating to what I was looking for. The street lights outside cast complicated shadows across the ground at my feet, and the street itself has acquired a mystery of its own now that I can’t reach it. Even my own apartment building, framed by dark trees, has acquired a certain strangeness, with most of its windows blank, but some still lit and open to the night, and others, more tantalisingly, leaking just a little light from round drawn curtains. From the very top row of windows, two storeys above our flat, I can hear the babble of a party, and someone singing a song in English while strumming a poorly tuned guitar. No one is out on our balcony, and the light in the living room has been turned off.

  In a pond just inside next to the fence, its surface barred with light from the street, some kind of miniature duck is drifting quietly on the water while its mate dozes on the bank. An ambulance passes outside at speed, whooping self-importantly and splashing blood-red light over the ducks and their little pool. They take no notice. They are so indifferent to the world outside that it’s as if it isn’t really there for them at all.

  Carlo has gone off somewhere with Jaco. Rubia, I guess, is on sentry duty at the cave mouth: stocky, thuggish Rubia, with her broad face and the wide gap between her two front teeth. Guinevere is reading by the light of their gas lamp, my only source of light, ten metres or so away from me. Lying on my side on my mattress, propped up on one elbow, I watch her. Perhaps wrongly, I sense that what’s going on is a performance. It’s some worthy text she’s reading, some revolutionary bible, but one that she actually finds very dull. Holy texts work better if you don’t read them, in my experience. Contained between their closed covers, they have real authority, but study them too closely and you can’t help noticing that they’re just written by human beings, as flawed and fallible as yourself.