Emotional Geology Read online

  ‘Can I give you a call?’

  ‘Yes. Let me give you a card with my number.’ I turn away to fetch one from my desk. I turn back and see him framed in the doorway, wet and cold. I hand the card to him, touching his chilled fingers briefly.

  ‘Thanks.’ He still doesn’t move, but looks at me, studies me almost, as if I have just shifted into focus. ‘Shona said you’re thinking of cutting your hair.’

  I remember that I complained to Shona about the wind’s ravages and asked for the number of the mobile hairdresser. ‘I thought I might. It’s really not very practical.’

  Calum lifts a hand towards my damp, unruly head, thinks better of it and gestures vaguely. ‘Don’t. It’s beautiful. Wild... Like seaweed.’ He takes a step towards me. ‘Can I change my mind about that coffee?’

  I inhale a mixture of rain-soaked hair, peat smoke, whisky and arrant male-ness that translates itself in my head into the kaleidoscope of greys, browns, taupes and creams I was working with this morning. They need blue. It doesn’t work because I need blue, an electric blue, the exact shade of Calum's eyes now as they reflect the light from the interior of my house. The rush of excitement, the exhilaration is all to do with my work. Of course it is.

  ‘Come back when I'm sober, Calum - I’d hate to miss anything.’

  He cocks his head on one side, confused. ‘Did Shona warn you about me?’

  ‘No. Did she warn you about me?’

  ‘Aye, she did, but I took no notice.’ A silence in which I both dread and pray he will touch me. ‘Another time then?’

  ‘Yes, another time. Thanks for seeing me home.’

  ‘No bother. Goodnight.’

  I shut the door firmly before I can change my mind.

  .

  ...Calum saw me home, which was just as well as I'd forgotten to take my torch. He’s asked me to go into the high school to work with the kids in a sort of cross-curricular way, which sounds very exciting. I take back what I said at the beginning of my letter -maybe I am going to fit in here.

  Guess what? Calum saw the 'Sisters in Stitches' exhibition in Glasgow and still remembers my work!! (‘Dunes, Luskentyre’. You hated it and thought it was smutty, but then you were only 16.) Calum thought it was ‘pure dead brilliant’! I think I’ll have that engraved on my tombstone.

  Must sleep...

  Love,

  Mum

  ~

  Pure

  Dead

  Brilliant

  .

  My eyes were brilliant, you said so, Gavin, brilliant, dancing, faceted like diamonds. The mania turned you on, didn't it, like the mountains, you loved the danger, you didn’t know what I might do, and I might do anything, kill myself, kill you.

  And I was pure, pure like the snow jewelled with my blood, pure like a corpse, bloodless and white, the wounds whitening under the hospital shift, under the white hospital sheets, starched and crisp, like a fresh fall of snow, covering me, burying me...

  Dead? Not yet, Gavin.

  Not yet.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I’m woken by shards of glass being driven repeatedly into my brain.

  The telephone.

  I pull the duvet over my head but the noise is still unbearable. Hauling myself out of bed, I stumble towards the door and stagger down the stairs clutching the handrail, wondering where the hell I left the phone.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Good morning. I was about to hang up. I thought maybe you’d died of alcohol poisoning. Sorry if I got you out of bed.’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Calum Morrison.’

  ‘Oh, Calum! Sorry.’ I rearrange my scowling face. As if the damned man could see.

  ‘I was ringing to ask how bad, on a scale of one to ten, your hangover was, and to ask if you could come into school next Wednesday?’

  ‘School?’

  ‘Aye. We talked about it last night - d’you no’ remember? Showing your work to my pupils. To help them with their creative writing.’ He pauses. ‘Maybe it wasn’t such a grand idea - the whisky talking. I’m sorry I disturbed you.’

  ‘No, Calum, don’t hang up! I remember! I'm just being rather slow. I do remember, and yes, of course I’ll come! Wednesday, did you say?’

  ‘Aye. I’ll meet you in Reception - about ten, if that’s okay? I’ll give you a hand unloading your stuff.’

  ‘Thanks. And in answer to your first enquiry: my hangover is pretty bad - six going on seven - although I have to admit I haven’t actually puked yet.’

  ‘Well, that’s a good sign!’ he says cheerfully. ‘What you need is a bowl of porridge to settle your stomach.’

  My innards turn over in protest. ‘Like hell I do!’

  ‘No, honest to God, nothing better. Come on over and I'll make you some.’

  ‘Is this some weird local custom - ringing people up and inviting them for breakfast? The ceilidh-after-the-night-before?’

  ‘Well, it’s almost midday, so I suppose sophisticated urban folk like yourself would call it brunch.’

  ‘But the menu is still porridge?’

  ‘Aye, ’fraid so. But cooked by my own fair hands.’

  ‘How can I resist? Look, I need ten minutes to shower and drink several pints of coffee. Where is your caravan exactly?’

  ‘Are you on a cordless phone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Stand outside your front door and face left.’

  ‘Calum, I’m in my nightie!’

  ‘It’s okay - I won't be able to see you.’

  ‘I mean, I’ll freeze. It’s January!’

  ‘Oh aye, sorry. Well, if you stood on your doorstep and turned left you’d see in the distance a caravan standing beside a dilapidated croft house. That’s me.’

  ‘Dilapidated?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll see you in ten minutes. But Calum, I don't think I even like porridge.’

  ‘You’ll like mine.’

  Yes, I probably will.

  ~

  At the sound of shuffling feet the man in the kitchen looks up from his frying pan. A thin, pale girl of maybe eleven or twelve stands in the doorway, inside a pair of plush polar bears. She isn’t smiling. Gavin, veteran of many a bar-room brawl, smells trouble.

  ‘Hi! I’m Gavin. I thought I’d make breakfast. Would you like a bacon sandwich?’

  The child winces. ‘I’m a vegetarian.’

  ‘Fried egg sandwich?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  There is an awkward silence. Gavin switches on the radio and tunes in to Radio 1. The girl walks over to the worktop, pours herself a bowl of cereal, then re-tunes the radio to Classic FM. ‘Mummy prefers soothing music in the mornings,’ she announces.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Right... Does she drink tea or coffee?’

  ‘Tea. Earl Grey.’

  ‘Would you like some? Or there’s coffee in the pot.’

  ‘I drink orange juice.’

  ‘Naturally,’ says Gavin under his breath, filling the kettle and putting a tea bag into a mug. He sits down at the table with his bacon sandwich, keeping a tactful distance. The girl eyes his plate with disgust. ‘Pigs are very intelligent animals, you know. Much more intelligent than dogs.’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Gavin, his mouth full. ‘They taste better too.’

  The girl gets up from the table, would perhaps have flounced had the polar bears allowed it. She pours herself a glass of orange juice and sits down again. Gavin breaks a long and painful silence with, ‘So you must be Megan!’ and then wishes he hadn’t. She looks up slowly from her cereal, narrows her eyes, then looks down again. Increasingly desperate, he adds ‘Your mum’s told me a lot about you!’

  ‘She hasn't told me anything about you.’

  ‘Well, what would you like to know?’

  ‘Nothing in particular. I just thought she might have mentioned you. For all I know you could be a burglar. Or a child molester who’s broken into the house.’

  ‘I can assure you I’m
not!’

  ‘Well, you’d hardly tell me if you were, would you?’

  Gavin can see the logic of this and feels he is losing ground. ‘I’m... a friend of your mum’s. I stayed over last night. I... missed my train.’

  ‘What time’s the next one?’

  ‘Umm... I’m not sure.’

  ‘Don’t you have a timetable?’

  ‘I lost it.’

  ‘You don’t seem very well organised. The number of the station is on the board by the ‘phone. It’s under S’, she adds. ‘For station.’

  The kettle comes to the boil and Gavin springs to his feet, glad of an excuse to avoid his inquisitor’s stony gaze.

  ‘She drinks it black. No sugar.’

  ‘Right. Thanks. You've been very helpful. It must be great for your mum to have such a helpful little girl.’ As the adjectives fall from his lips, Gavin realises biting off his tongue would have been a better idea. ‘I mean - I bet you do a great job of looking after her!’ He turns his flashiest smile on her, a smile that has been the ruination of many a virtuous woman. Megan isn't looking. She is scraping her cereal bowl, noisily.

  ‘The man who was my father ran off and left us when I was a baby. Mummy and I look after each other.’ She pushes her bowl away and stands up. Drawing herself up to her full height she says, ‘We don't need anyone else.’ She turns abruptly and the polar bears carry her back upstairs.

  Gavin scowls and lights a cigarette. ‘Bloody hell. Give me the north face of the Eiger any day.’

  ~

  It’s like walking into a mobile library. Calum’s caravan is full of books and on the few surfaces not colonised by books sits the sordid, accumulated clutter of a single man living alone in a very confined space. I step gingerly over several piles of exercise books and laugh.

  ‘It looks as if you’ve just been burgled.’

  ‘Och, you should see it when it’s in a mess! Clear yourself a space and make yourself at home. Tea or coffee?’

  ‘Coffee, please.’

  ‘With or without aspirin?’

  ‘I’ve already taken some thanks. Are you hungover too?’

  ‘I was feeling a wee bit fragile earlier on, but I went for a run on the beach and that blew the cobwebs away.’

  ‘I don’t usually drink whisky. Actually, I don’t usually drink.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it. It’s part of island life, especially in winter.’

  I sit down next to an overflowing box of books while Calum busies himself in the kitchen area of the caravan. There are ominous bubbling sounds coming from a saucepan, which I take to be the porridge. I wonder briefly why I am here and then decide not to pursue that line of enquiry. ‘I see you’ve got a lot of poetry in your book collection.’

  ‘Aye. Do you like poetry?’

  ‘Very much. I used to read a lot when I was convalescing... after my illness. I told you about that last night, didn’t I? My memory’s a bit hazy.’

  ‘Aye, you did.’

  Suddenly nervous, I scan the books, asking randomly ‘Do you like Ian Stephen?’

  ‘Aye, you’ll find his books there somewhere. Do you know Providence II? It’s illustrated with some of his own photos - colour and texture studies. Your sort of thing, maybe?’ Calum puts a mug of coffee on the floor beside me. ‘Porridge is on its way.’ He looks down at the jumble of books and shakes his head. ‘There’s no’ much system to it, I’m afraid.’

  ‘We could do with Aly.’ Calum looks at me, puzzled. ‘You know - Lost Property Office. He’d be able to find it for us.’ A slow smile. I remember now why I am here.

  ‘Did Aly tell you about the game?’

  ‘No, Shona did.’ I rifle through a few more volumes. ‘Your sister thinks the world of you, you know.’

  ‘Aye, well, the feeling’s mutual, but don’t tell her I said so.’ Calum returns to porridge-stirring and my eye is caught by a familiar-looking paperback. ‘I see you're a fan of Malcolm John Morrison.’

  ‘Fan?’

  ‘Well, you’ve got one of his books.’

  ‘I’ve got them all. You know the poems?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Is he any relation?’

  Calum laughs as he spoons porridge into bowls. ‘Aye, in a manner of speaking. I'm Malcolm John Morrison.’

  ‘Oh...’ My mind changes gear as I reject my image of an elderly Hebridean bard with a passion for geology and substitute Calum in jeans and red and white striped rugby shirt. ‘Why do you use a pen-name?’

  ‘It isn’t really, no more than any English name is for a Gael. My name is Calum Iain Moireasdan. That translates into English as Malcolm John Morrison. As I was writing in English I preferred to publish under an English name. Here’s your porridge. Don't look so worried - I haven't salted it. I even added some sugar in view of your enfeebled state.’

  ‘Thanks. Do you write in Gaelic as well?’

  ‘Aye, but there’s no’ much of a market for Gaelic poetry, as you can imagine. Well, any kind of poetry in fact. I’m always fascinated to find out what kind of person pays out good money for books of poetry.’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Well, on behalf of all poets, struggling or otherwise, I’d like to thank you for throwing your money away in such a reckless fashion.’

  ‘On the contrary, it's me who should be thanking you. Emotional Geology was a book I read and re-read during a very dark time. It really spoke to me.’

  ‘Aye, I suppose it would. Our experiences have been similar... in some ways.’

  ‘You know, this porridge is actually rather good once you get over the unappealing colour and texture.’

  ‘You overwhelm me.’

  ‘Sorry! Can I ask a silly question?’

  He shakes his head. ‘The recipe’s a closely guarded secret.’

  ‘I’d like to know why you write poetry.’

  ‘Why I bother, you mean?’

  ‘No, of course not! You know what I mean. Or is that a closely guarded secret too?’

  He pushes a spoonful of porridge round his bowl, silent for a moment, then he announces, ‘No one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modelled, built or invented except literally to get out of hell.’

  ‘Who said that?’

  ‘Antonin Artaud.’

  I consider the probable truth of this statement. ‘What was your hell?’

  He rests the bowl in his lap and is silent. He rubs the stubble on his chin with his fingers. I hear the rasp in the long silence. He is rubbing a thin white scar, three or four inches long, which runs under his chin, following his jawbone. I remember words from last night. A fight. A pupil. A knife. When Calum finally speaks his voice is thin, barely audible. ‘Mindless violence... The death of idealism... The deaths of friends.’

  ‘Climbers?’

  ‘Aye. Five in two years.’

  ‘Jesus. I'm sorry.’

  ‘No need. They knew the score.’ He shuts down again, putting up the screen of his usual composure. ‘More coffee?’

  ~

  Gavin puts down the phone. He does not look at her.

  ‘Please don't go, Gavin.’

  ‘Rose, you might as well ask me not to breathe!’

  ‘Not this one, Gavin, please, this one’s a death trap, you’ve said so yourself! You don’t need to do this one - you’ve been before, for God’s sake!’

  ‘But this time it’s a different route! A first ascent, Rose! I can’t turn this one down! And I can’t disappoint my mates.’

  ‘But you can disappoint me.’

  ‘That’s not fair! You knew what I was when we got together. I told you how it would be. Didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes, you did.’

  ‘But you thought you could change me, make me settle down.’

  ‘No, I wasn’t that naïve! I just hadn’t realised the extent of your... obsession.’

  ‘It is an obsession, I admit it. And it means more to me than you, than Megan, than anything.’

  ‘I know. We can’t bloody compete.’

 
‘Nobody could! If it’s any consolation, I do feel bad about going. Your miserable weeping face at the airport will definitely take the gilt off the gingerbread. But I can’t not go. You have to accept that, Rose. Accept me as I am.’

  ‘If you really loved me you wouldn’t go.’

  ‘Well, if that's your definition of love, then no, I don’t love you.’ She flinches, as if he has struck her. ‘If you really loved me, Rose, you’d let me go. It would mean a lot to me to have your blessing.’ He puts his arms around her. ‘I’ve always hoped that the times we’re together compensate for the times when we’re apart.’

  ‘What could possibly compensate me for your death?’

  He is silent for several moments. ‘Knowing I died happy. Doing what I wanted to do.’

  She struggles out of his arms. ‘You just don’t get it, do you? I don’t want you to die happy - I want you to live! Live and be miserable - like the rest of us! Stay alive, Gavin!’

  He shakes his head slowly. ‘This isn’t alive for me, Rose. It’s just... a different kind of death.’

  ~

  ‘Why poems? Why not novels? Or plays?’

  ‘Good question.’ Calum pours himself another mug of coffee. ‘I suppose because I’m a sprinter, not a distance runner. A novel would not be my natural form. It’s a question of scale, too, I suppose. I’ve never been an Everest sort of climber. I’m happiest climbing the Cuillins on Skye. They’re technically challenging, world-class mountains - if a bit on the wee side. And they’re never boring. Folk die every year because they think the Cuillins are some kind of climbers’ playground,’ he says scornfully, ‘A warm-up for the real thing. But any experienced climber will tell you that Everest is just a long, boring slog. And now there’s rich tourists and company executives queuing to pull themselves up on fixed ropes, breathing bottled oxygen. If you can afford the guide and you can jumar, you can climb Everest. But what's the point?’

  ‘Well, forgive me, but I always thought climbing was the ultimate pointless activity. I mean, it's heroically pointless, isn’t it. Mallory summed it up for all time.’