father’s razor. You shave every day, scraping off dead skin and thin lather. You’ll never grow a beard, you vow.
Stephen and Roger look forward to the new school. They are obsessed with the idea of girls. Gully Eastment has already decided to have sex with as many as possible. He claims that though Girls’ Grammar girls are tight, Hemphill slags will do anything.
You keep quiet. Girls can wait. You have running to do. The pack are catching up. You have to avoid stitches, wrenched knees, pulled muscles. You notch up more victories.
You read ahead in all your textbooks, getting to lessons before the masters, completing exercises as yet unset. Your parents are called into school and aren’t sure whether to be pleased with or worried about you. Mr Quinlan tells your father that if Marling’s were not being amalgamated into Ash Grove, he’d have you on an accelerated programme, with a view to preparing you in advance to take Oxford entrance exams in four years’ time. But, he shrugs, he is leaving when the school amalgamates, and they’ll have to watch you carefully so that you aren’t dragged down by the changes. Chimp Quinlan thinks comprehensive education is the work of the Devil.
Your parents wonder about taking you out of Marling’s and sending you to a public school. They decide that, quite apart from the money, it’s too late. You’d never settle in another school. You ignore all this argument. Whatever the school, you must still run.
Read 18, go to 19.
13
S ometimes, you step off the path, through the cobweb curtain, into the shade. This is where you meet me. This is where I live. Most people step off the path at one time or another. If you press them, they’ll tell you their stories. But not willingly. It’s private. Between me and them. You’d be surprised how many people you know who’ve stepped off the path and met me. That, though you don’t quite realise it yet, is what’s just happened to you. Can you feel the scuttling caress of tiny spider-legs on your hackles? Have you noticed time has changed, slowed to a tortoise-crawl or speeded up to a cheetah-run? The air in your nostrils and the water in your mouth taste different. There’s an electric tang, a supple thickness, a kind of a rush. If you come through the shade whole, you’ll want to scurry back to the light, back to the path. Most people have an amazing ability to pretend things didn’t happen, to wish so fervently that things were otherwise they can make them so, unpicking elements from their past and forgetting them so thoroughly – at least, while they’re awake – that they literally have not happened. All of you can affect the warp of the universe, just by wishing. But to wish, you need motivation. What has just happened might be motivation enough. At first, you won’t be able to stop thinking about it, asking what has
actually
happened, looking for a comforting ‘explanation’. Maybe it was mirrors, maybe you were given drugs, maybe aliens abducted you. Who knows? Maybe you’re right. I don’t know everything. From time to time, you run into me – sometimes because you get itchy and stray, sometimes by accident. From time to time, I like to catch up with you. I like to catch up with all my friends, Keith. For now, you’re shaken. Perhaps you can’t believe you’re alive and sane. Perhaps you aren’t. Whatever the case, you must put the shade behind you. For the moment. We’ll meet again. Before you know it, you’ll pass through the cobweb curtain and be back. Years may pass between your detours, but when you step off the path again those years will be as seconds. Maybe life is only truly lived in the shade. Well, enough deep thought for the moment. Get on with things. Try to pretend there is no shade. I’ll see you soon.
Go on.
14
I n 1982, the week after your father’s funeral, you are in town, early in a spring evening, going for a drink in the Lime Kiln with your brother.
Laraine has stayed home with
Stephen and Roger look forward to the new school. They are obsessed with the idea of girls. Gully Eastment has already decided to have sex with as many as possible. He claims that though Girls’ Grammar girls are tight, Hemphill slags will do anything.
You keep quiet. Girls can wait. You have running to do. The pack are catching up. You have to avoid stitches, wrenched knees, pulled muscles. You notch up more victories.
You read ahead in all your textbooks, getting to lessons before the masters, completing exercises as yet unset. Your parents are called into school and aren’t sure whether to be pleased with or worried about you. Mr Quinlan tells your father that if Marling’s were not being amalgamated into Ash Grove, he’d have you on an accelerated programme, with a view to preparing you in advance to take Oxford entrance exams in four years’ time. But, he shrugs, he is leaving when the school amalgamates, and they’ll have to watch you carefully so that you aren’t dragged down by the changes. Chimp Quinlan thinks comprehensive education is the work of the Devil.
Your parents wonder about taking you out of Marling’s and sending you to a public school. They decide that, quite apart from the money, it’s too late. You’d never settle in another school. You ignore all this argument. Whatever the school, you must still run.
Read 18, go to 19.
13
S ometimes, you step off the path, through the cobweb curtain, into the shade. This is where you meet me. This is where I live. Most people step off the path at one time or another. If you press them, they’ll tell you their stories. But not willingly. It’s private. Between me and them. You’d be surprised how many people you know who’ve stepped off the path and met me. That, though you don’t quite realise it yet, is what’s just happened to you. Can you feel the scuttling caress of tiny spider-legs on your hackles? Have you noticed time has changed, slowed to a tortoise-crawl or speeded up to a cheetah-run? The air in your nostrils and the water in your mouth taste different. There’s an electric tang, a supple thickness, a kind of a rush. If you come through the shade whole, you’ll want to scurry back to the light, back to the path. Most people have an amazing ability to pretend things didn’t happen, to wish so fervently that things were otherwise they can make them so, unpicking elements from their past and forgetting them so thoroughly – at least, while they’re awake – that they literally have not happened. All of you can affect the warp of the universe, just by wishing. But to wish, you need motivation. What has just happened might be motivation enough. At first, you won’t be able to stop thinking about it, asking what has
actually
happened, looking for a comforting ‘explanation’. Maybe it was mirrors, maybe you were given drugs, maybe aliens abducted you. Who knows? Maybe you’re right. I don’t know everything. From time to time, you run into me – sometimes because you get itchy and stray, sometimes by accident. From time to time, I like to catch up with you. I like to catch up with all my friends, Keith. For now, you’re shaken. Perhaps you can’t believe you’re alive and sane. Perhaps you aren’t. Whatever the case, you must put the shade behind you. For the moment. We’ll meet again. Before you know it, you’ll pass through the cobweb curtain and be back. Years may pass between your detours, but when you step off the path again those years will be as seconds. Maybe life is only truly lived in the shade. Well, enough deep thought for the moment. Get on with things. Try to pretend there is no shade. I’ll see you soon.
Go on.
14
I n 1982, the week after your father’s funeral, you are in town, early in a spring evening, going for a drink in the Lime Kiln with your brother.
Laraine has stayed home with
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