That evening, I am returning from Tesco with a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk, thinking about the student who came to see me after Helen. His name is either Lawrence Duncan or Duncan Lawrence. Either or. I can never remember which. There will be a list somewhere with his name on it, but probably accessible only from the PC at work and not from my Mac. His email address doesn’t help, since it includes neither of his names. I have asked him once or twice to remind me, pleading forgetfulness, but it is not forgetfulness that is to blame. It is rather that I know that both variations are possible and so I find it impossible to distinguish between them. Like hot and cold. Sometimes I will look at the taps on a washbasin, even ones affixed with a blue or red spot, and I don’t know which one to turn.
Like on and off. Televisions have become so complicated, having so many external devices. Standby, remote on/off, hard switch-off. Sometimes I don’t know whether it’s on or off.
Life and death is another. There are numerous well-known public figures who could be alive or may be dead. Members of the royal family. Is the Queen Mother alive or dead? Sometimes I know she is dead, at other times I think she may still be alive. Film actors. Directors. Sam Peckinpah. Is he alive or dead? Joseph Losey? Jazz musicians. Gerry Mulligan? Is he dead? I think so, but I’m not sure. Herbie Hancock? I might have said dead, but I saw he made a new record and was touring recently, so presumably still alive. Even members of my own family. Cousins. Aunts, uncles. My wife.
It’s not that I think there is little difference between being alive and being dead. It is that I cannot distinguish between the two. Almost as if I cannot choose.
Lawrence Duncan — or Duncan Lawrence — is in his first year on the MA. He is a promising student. He and Helen and others like them are easy to teach. Mostly what you do is encourage them, give them the confidence they need. Every time I see Lawrence Duncan — or Duncan Lawrence — I remember what he was like in his interview. He was so nervous he was shaking and stammering. Every time he opened his mouth to speak, he blushed to the roots of his hair. He was about twenty-three and had spent two or three years since graduating, in English, doing various jobs and reading a lot, he said. The portfolio he had submitted with his application, however, had been outstandingly good and when he started work on his novel and submitted chapters to be workshopped, the reaction from his fellow students and from myself had given him that confidence. He was writing about a group of young people in a very contemporary idiom and was doing so with a certain flair.
He’d been due to come to see me earlier today, however, about the First Novels unit that I run alongside the workshop for the MA as well as the BA. While waiting for him, I had moved my chair away from the desk until it was facing one of the room-dividers. I was sitting forward in the chair, having lowered it slightly, until my spine was curved over and my elbows were resting on my knees. I pictured myself as a graphic on a piece of laminated card stored in a seat pocket. I placed my hands over my head, one on top of the other, unclasped. I felt the rough fabric of the room-divider where it grazed the front of my head. On a plane, that would be the back of the seat in front.
It was at this point that there was a knock on the door. I waited for a moment or two then pushed back the chair and crossed the room. I opened the door to allow Lawrence Duncan — or Duncan Lawrence — to enter.
‘Hey,’ he said.
‘Hi,’ I said, as I led him across the room to my corner.
‘Why,’ he asked, after a minute or two of small talk, ‘has Philip Pullman’s first novel never been reissued? I mean, he’s mega. A reprint of The Haunted Storm would clean up, wouldn’t it?’
‘Of course it would. That’s one of the things we’ll discuss in the group,’ I said, fiddling with the lever on my chair to raise it to the correct height. ‘Why do some writers go to such lengths to keep their first novels out of the hands of readers? In Pullman’s case, he refuses even to talk about it. If you manage to get hold of a copy and you ask him to sign it at a reading, he refuses. So I’m told. I haven’t tried. But copies of the first edition go for a grand. With his signature even more.’
‘Cool. That explains why I’ve not been able to get hold of a copy.’
‘The paperback is a little easier to find, but only a little. You can pay a hundred quid for a copy on eBay.’
‘Dude, you can, perhaps. I can’t,’ he said with a laugh.
The nerves Lawrence Duncan — or Duncan Lawrence — had shown in my first encounter with him had not reappeared since then. They had been interview nerves. Nothing more. Once on the course, he was as relaxed and informal as students tend to be these days.
‘I have an idea to get around this problem,’ I said.
‘What? The photocopier?’
‘That would be against copyright law.’
He shrugged and raised his hands palms upward as if to say, ‘What copyright law?’
‘I have two copies,’ I said. ‘It’s a small group.’
‘You loan it out.’
‘Exactly.’
‘And we take great care of it.’
‘Precisely.’
‘Coolio,’ he said, then: ‘Dude, I’d like to read your novel but I can’t find a copy anywhere. How about you do the library thing with that?’
My thoughts about the tutorial with Lawrence Duncan — or Duncan Lawrence — are interrupted by the sound of some-one calling from out of the darkness on the other side of the street.
‘Paul,’ the voice says again as its owner crosses the road. ‘I thought it was you. Ksssh-huh-huh.’
He stands in front of me, as if barring the way, smiling.
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘Come and have a drink.’ He indicates the pub on the corner.
I glance at a figure who walks past us. Untidy shock of white hair, green anorak unzipped, suit trousers at half mast — Polling Station Man. On polling days he sits behind a desk in the local primary school and crosses voters’ names off his list. At other times he is seen walking with long strides and carrying a single white plastic carrier bag. I remember standing in the polling booth not knowing where to place my cross, unable to choose. Either this one or that one.
‘I’ve got to get back,’ I say to Lewis, showing him the milk I’ve bought.
‘Come on. All the lads are there. AJ’s not there, but Jon and Chris and Gary. Kelvin—’
‘Kelvin?’
‘Yeah, you know, the pilot. Wasn’t my idea, but still. Ksssh-huh-huh.’
I look at the shopping bag in my hand.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Maybe a quick one.’
‘Ksssh-huh-huh.’
The pub is noisy and smells of damp bar towels. I accept a drink from Lewis and sit down in the only free seat next to a man I don’t know who is telling a story about a football match.
‘… and this guy’s constantly shouting out that he’s a cunt.’
‘The linesman?’ says Gary, whom I have met before, somewhere.
‘Yeah, this guy behind me is shouting out in a really miserable voice that the linesman’s a cunt, like, every time he misses an offside. “You’re a cunt, liner. You’re a cunt, liner.” On and on and on. And then the linesman does raise his flag. He does give an offside, and an ironic cheer goes up from the crowd and a round of applause. And this guy, he times it perfectly. He waits a moment, until the noise has died down, and then in this, like, moment of quiet you hear his voice, really kind of morose but still timed to perfection, aware of the effect he was about to create: “You’re still a cunt, liner.”’
The story prompts laughter in the group. I raise my glass to my lips. The lads say hello to me and we exchange small talk. As soon as there is an opportunity I move around and take a seat next to Kelvin. I remind him where we’ve met and he says he remembers.