Macho Antidotes to the Royal Wedding – Part 3: Bargain DVDs – Trainspotting and The Wrestler

The big day is upon us. The masculine apocalypse is now. The horsemen will round the corner towards Westminster Abbey any moment, dragging their cargo of the merry middle class and nostalgic Eton boy politicians, right into our living rooms. Oh my god it’s not long until we get to see Kate’s dress!

Shoot me now. I am apprehensive, a little scared even, because I may have been advocating alternatives to the big day but I know I’m fighting an entity so vast that it will inevitably stray into my line of sight at some point. I won’t be able to flee the hordes living and breathing the ceremony like it was their own. It wouldn’t even do any good to flee abroad, if anything they’re more marriage mad than the most devout British Royalist. So I definitely cannot outrun this and in addition I have another problem. I can’t hide from it either, because I’ve already consumed the alternatives in order to point them out to all of you. Blokes, guys and lads everywhere, I hope you appreciate my sacrifice.

We’ve reached the final alternative step and its one I like to think of as the emergency measure. Thor at the cinema requires venturing out and United on iPlayer requires dangerous proximity to internet coverage, but these two films on DVD, available on the bargain shelves of any local high street, merely need a TV. I know, believe me I know, the wedding is on all the channels.  But if you have an even more serious aversion to confetti and vows than me, just pull the aerial out and stick these two very manly films in to play, one after another.

Firstly then a film I’ve been meaning to see for a long while, the Scottish breakthrough piece for Danny Boyle, Trainspotting. Despite all the hype, from critics and friends alike, I really didn’t know what to expect from this exactly. I knew there was drug taking, in all likelihood sex, and an awful lot of accented foul language. I knew it starred an emaciated Ewan McGregor. I knew it would have both fun and filth. I knew Boyle’s playful style would scrawl a signature in every scene. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so hilarious and true to life as it was.

Much of the humour comes from the characters of McGregor’s Mark Renton’s “so called mates”. Johnny Lee Miller, now starring fifteen years on in Boyle’s critically acclaimed Frankenstein opposite Benedict Cumberbatch in the theatre, plays a Sean Connery obsessed, seemingly streetwise fellow crack addict. His assessments of Connery’s performances as James Bond and his astonishing grasp of box office data, were particularly surreal for a fellow Bond fan like me, as he helped friends to inject heroin. He turns out to be far less clued up than he pretends to be though. Then there’s Spud, a guy who is very plainly clueless from the start, who lands up throwing his shit all over his girlfriend’s family at breakfast. Don’t ask how. Slapstick perhaps, but I laughed for several minutes.

There’s also Tommy, a guy McGregor’s surprisingly appealing narration informs us has the fault of being honest and not addicted to any banned substance. I assume the visceral poetry of Renton’s narration is so attractive because it is transplanted largely untouched from Irvine Walsh’s novel, which is infamous for its use of Scottish dialect. A scene where Tommy and Spud discuss the pitfalls of their respective women at a club, and the girlfriends do likewise about the boys in the toilets, presumably also has its roots in the book. But it’s wonderfully adapted by Boyle, with subtitles not quite necessary because of the noise and very capable comic acting depicting the darkly funny give and take realities of relationships.

Finally there’s a young Kelly Macdonald, who has since appeared in No Country For Old Men, in her first film. Renton catches sight of her in a club as she’s leaving, with his sex drive rapidly returning as he attempts to give up his habit. He follows her outside, as his narration tells us he’s fallen in love, and tries it on with her. She confidently shoots him down, only to snog his face off in the taxi and subsequently shag him rampantly in her room. In the morning Renton discovers she’s a schoolgirl, and the people he presumes to be flatmates are her parents. It’s the sort of cheeky scene present throughout the film but it centres on deeper, more disturbing truths about youths trapped in a certain limited form of existence.

Renton is undoubtedly trapped by his addiction and his school girl lover is trapped by her age, a desire to break free and be independent. We all know what it’s like to feel trapped; it’s a very human feeling, despite our supposed freedom. Whether you’re a nurse at a crowded hospital running a gauntlet of noses going off like shotguns of snot, a doctor watching patients with crash dummy heads and vacant eyes or one of thousands of the unemployed youths in this country retreading the same old paths, the same old trenches of memory through the earth, with no concept of a future. We can all get that feeling, and recognise it in others.

Ay na donne get all political pal? Keep it light! Ay?

Ah yes I forgot a character. Robert Carlyle plays Begbie, a moustachioed Scott whose job description reads thus: “playing pool and drinking at the bar, until a minor action by another customer causes him to lose his rag and beat everyone shitless”. Begbie’s probably trapped too, but to be honest his character never seemed much more than smashing entertainment. Literally.

The thing about Renton is that he thinks he’s beaten the rest of us buggers trapped in the game of life, chasing after fat televisions and fancy cars. He thinks that by choosing drugs he’s chosen nothingness and some sort of purer, pleasure filled existence. But like every revolutionary he comes to realise he is as trapped by the system as those embracing it. He needs money for his hits, friends for his sanity. Or maybe not friends, as you’ll see if you watch the film.

Trainspotting is a damn good ride through the monotony of modern existence, with eccentric but hilarious and extremely likeable tour guides. It’s more than your average tourist experience because at times it really gets you to think. And as an exploration of drug culture, Boyle’s direction is suitably dirty, bizarre and haunting, but also responsible and not over the top. You’ll flinch at some of the filth, the needles and most of all McGregor screaming his lungs out at a hallucination of a baby. Trainspotting is not simply a mash-up of visual clichés about getting high though, perhaps because it has such a strong grounding in character.

And so we come to The Wrestler, directed by Darren Aronofsky. Now Darren, as I like to call him, is someone I have a love/hate relationship with. First came the love, as I fell head over heels for the sensuality of Black Swan (https://mrtsblog.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/black-swan/) and then came the hate, when I followed this up with his earlier much praised work, Requiem for a Dream (https://mrtsblog.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/an-open-letter-to-darren-aronofsky/).

One of the reasons I found Trainspotting so refreshing was that whilst it dealt with drugs and it had its strange and psychedelic scenes of intoxication; it did not become the pretentious exercise in filmmaking that was Requiem for a Dream. I will probably be slated for saying it, and it may merely have been the context in which I first saw it (see link), but I really didn’t like that film. I did not see the point to it. Trainspotting seemed to say something far truer about addiction, despite its tongue often being firmly in cheek.

I only bring this up because it all meant that I didn’t know what I was going to get from The Wrestler; dazzling Darren or dopey Darren. The critical buzz around Mickey Rourke’s resurrected corpse meant not a jot, because some of them hated Black Swan and some of them loved Requiem.

I would not go as far as the five star quotes plastered over the cover. I would not call it the “ultimate man film” as FHM did. But it’s undoubtedly a film about a man and ageing, whereas Trainspotting, with hindsight, was a film for boys. Rourke’s Randy “The Ram” Robinson is someone trapped by his past, the legacy of his prime, and the mistakes he made during that ripe period of life.

Perhaps Rourke put in such a praiseworthy performance because he could really inhabit his character. He has been there, more or less. Rather than playing a caricature or a gun toting gangster, Rourke is simply a person here; a human being in decline, or as he says in one moving speech “a broken down piece of meat”. At first I didn’t see what all the fuss about his performance was, but then after a few emotional scenes with a potential lover and ageing stripper (Marisa Tomei) and particularly some heartbreaking confrontations with his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), Rourke brings Randy to life.

There’s always the danger of melodramatic sentimentality, but the film manages to avoid it, primarily because of the masculine restraint of Rourke’s portrayal. Aside from some brutal wrestling scenes and one careless fuck, this is rather pedestrian territory for Darren after the frenzied, frenetic highs of Requiem and the disorientating dash for beautiful perfection in Black Swan. The Wrestler certainly didn’t grab me and it didn’t inspire the extremes of emotion that Darren’s two other efforts did. It has sporting parallels with Black Swan but lacks the wow factor of that film.

I don’t think there’s necessarily anything that wrong with The Wrestler. In some ways it is refreshing to see a film that shows so many sides of a man’s ordinary life, making his escape from that routine via his passion all the more meaningful. There’s no doubt that performing as a wrestler requires a certain level of very manly commitment to the drama. This film will offset any feminine activities like dusting icing sugar on cupcakes or fashioning paper chains with ease. But it’s so realistic, so dreary and so grim, that this antidote might lead to a dangerous and depressing overdose.

If you watch these back to back, watch Trainspotting last. It’s fun as well as not for the faint hearted. Either film is preferable to pointless precessions though, I’m sure you’ll agree. Never mind God Save the Queen, God save male souls everywhere and best of luck!

Thoughts on … Never Let Me Go/The Canal/The Dice Man

I have recently enjoyed three excellent and thoroughly engaging novels. Each had me gripped in very different ways, but each shares the key ingredient of successful storytelling; a strong narrative voice. The extremely distinctive first person narrators of each of these novels draws you in and captivates you. A narrative voice that feels real and engaging is the element I most struggle with when trying to write my own creative works. I certainly therefore don’t feel qualified to dissect the successful and unsuccessful subtleties of the writing in these books in review form, but feel compelled to record what made them so readable for me as “thoughts”, for that is all they are, and to recommend them to others nonetheless. I may inadvertently let slip the odd slight spoiler, for which I apologise but place a warning here.

First up then is Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, which I admit I was only inspired to read due to the hype surrounding a forthcoming film adaptation and the allure and beauty of the trailer for it. What’s noticeable and striking even in that brief snippet of film is the overwhelming Britishness of the story and it’s a very British novel too. That sense of place comes not just from the boarding school setting, the childhood themes, the nostalgic reminisces and stunning countryside, but from the voice of the novel, Kathy H. Whilst it appears she is candidly telling her life story, with little reason or desire to embellish and hold back, you soon notice her strong focus on others, on those immediately close to her. If she criticises a friend she will qualify what she means and spend pages delving into another random memory of them to share their alternative, better side. In many ways this is a novel of memories, about the ones that slip away and the ones you never let go of. Given that she focuses on those most important to her, it’s enlightening, revealing and intriguing that she never actually says in the novel, as far as I can see or recall, that she loves the man events make clear to be her soul mate. Indeed Kathy does not spell things out about herself often and retells everything, overpowering emotions and all, with a simplicity and undertone of British restraint. It’s this restraint and modesty that is the most chokingly moving at times too.  It’s clearly to Ishiguro’s immense credit that he simultaneously creates a strong, rounded character in Kathy, whilst also letting events, and things Kathy omits, paint a picture of their own. Kathy has confidence that, from what she has retold to us, she need not say explicitly “I loved him”.

 I’m glad I read the original story as a novel before the release of the film in January. Despite the promise that attracted me in the trailer, Carey Mulligan will do well to play Kathy H as quite as compellingly as Ishiguro writes her. The film is also set to cut large chunks of Kathy’s childhood memories of Hailsham, in favour of the adolescent portion of the story. I hope this omission does not detract from events later on and make them less meaningful. The one fault I found with the book, and one the film will also struggle to overcome, is the sense that there is never a satisfying big conspiracy revealed, as is hinted at. The one that does emerge seemed fairly clear early on and whilst Ishiguro seems to hint that there is more to it (I had visions of some sort of apocalyptic Britain or a more interesting and dramatic disintegration of ethics) there really isn’t. Mostly though Never Let Me go is a terribly moving story because of the way it feels so real. Kathy’s language is simple but beautiful at times, like many of her memories. Her friendships and loves are not obsessively described with clichés and extravagant imagery, and are consequently all the more like our own. The way things turn out is so tragic because you can place yourself in her shoes.

I have also recently read Lee Rourke’s debut novel, The Canal, joint winner of the Guardian’s alternative award Not The Booker Prize. As the review on the Guardian website points out, this is a debut crammed with ideas. This might have been a problem if the ideas weren’t original or didn’t resonate with me, but I found most of them to be insightful and well expressed musings on a realistic truth. The novel begins as an engaging meditation on the nature of boredom and how it is a fundamental part of existence to be embraced, rather than feared and avoided. It eventually evolves into a touching love story, which becomes an obsession and climaxes with an eventful ending. Most of the novel aims accurately for realism; its ideas, its dialogue, its images. Only at the end do feelings and events become sensational.

The title of the book makes it clear that it will have a strong sense of setting and the surroundings of The Canal are ever present throughout the narrative, the backdrop to almost all the action. Its features are described with some wonderful imagery and symbolism. Even the book itself, the physical design of the novel, is pleasing to look at and hold. If I were Rourke I’d be delighted with the tasteful design of my first fictional foray. He ought to be proud too of the dialogue in his work, which really stands out as exceptionally believable and realistic, becoming almost a script at times before reverting back to the narrator’s thoughts. The dialogue is rightly praised on the back of the book.

Like Never Let Me Go, much of The Canal’s success comes down to the convincing narrative voice. However if Kathy H was restrained, the nameless narrator of The Canal is mysterious. The woman he meets on The Canal is also mysterious, until he slowly uncovers her secrets. She is for the most part a rounded character and their relationship believable, but at times it succumbs to cliché. There are other clichés too such as the stereotypical gang of youths and the unstoppable march of building work that eventually swallows his patch of The Canal. These unimaginative elements let down the originality and realism of the rest of the book, but The Canal was an engaging, un-put-down-able read.

If The Canal mused about boredom then The Dice Man is a full on exploration of its depths and connections to the meaning of existence. The main reason I was reluctant to be bold enough to call these thoughts of mine a review was that The Dice Man is simply too mammoth, sprawling and impressive a work for me to digest, let alone analyse adequately. It’s jam packed with ideas and full of such variety that it touches on more areas in one chapter than most novels. It has spawned a cult and resembles a bible in weight and heft. It’s immensely controversial, challenging long established truths in religion and philosophy, outraging those with a strong moral compass. It contains scenes that are graphically violent and sexual. It is regularly and consistently funny. However as with The Canal, it is the quality of composition and writing that truly impresses me with The Dice Man.

From the very first page The Dice Man makes it clear it will not follow the conventions of an ordinary novel, but mimic several at once. It flits from the brilliantly cynical and scathing first person voice of Dr Lucius Rhinehart, to describing events in his life in the third person. It also chucks in various articles about events in the Dr’s life, along with other methods of storytelling such as transcripts of interviews and television shows. With all the talk of ideas, philosophy and sex surrounding The Dice Man, it can be forgotten that it is an exemplary exercise in creative writing, full of tremendous variety. The dialogue is always funny and realistic and the characters well realised, albeit obviously through the lens of Dr Rhinehart’s own entertaining, intelligent opinions. There are narrative twists and turns, violent thrills and sexual ones. The careful craft and exciting breadth of this novel ensures that a novel of over 500 pages remains gripping throughout. It consumed me for a whole week.

Then of course there are the ideas themselves, the philosophy behind The Dice Man. The reason this book has become so notorious and actually converted readers to the “religion” detailed within its pages, is that many of the ideas make sense, that and the alluring mystery to it all. The mystery blurs the boundaries between fiction and reality. Luke Rhinehart is of course a pseudonym, but a quick Wikipedia search on The Dice Man and you discover the real author, George Cockroft, also genuinely experimented with the “dicelife”. So there is some truth to the claims that this a factual account and that may account for its vivid detail. However it is also undoubtedly a sensational work of fiction, at times taking swipes at the profession of psychology and the state of society in general. I have already said that as a novel it should be praised and not revered simply for its bold ideas, but it is true that the seductiveness of the ideas help sweep you along in the story.

The basic principle of The Dice Man is to abandon free will, at least to a great extent. Every decision in your life you are unsure about should be decided by the throw of a dice, and in fact later on, even those you do feel sure of. You may create options for the various numbers of the dice or die, but whichever they choose you must blindly follow. The options must try to embrace all aspects of your multiple existence, so for example if you have idly fantasised about masturbating over your pot plant, even for a second, this ought to be considered and given to the die to decide. The aforementioned variety and randomness of the novel thus mimics the theory at its heart, with one section actually printed twice immediately after you have read it, presumably at the will of the die.

The philosophical implications of handing over control of a human life to chance are vast and fascinating and I shall not even scratch the surface of their interest here. But Rhinehart comes to believe in the novel that by following the dice and developing his theory he can become a kind of superman, the ultimate human that abandons the misery imposed on us by clinging to a sense of “self”. We often feel completely contradictory desires each day, none more true than the other.  What is truly haunting and bewildering about The Dice Man is that by listening to Rhinehart’s distinctive, cynical, hilarious voice, we come to see the sense to his arguments and then when he commits an unspeakable sin at the will of the dice, we feel implicated too. Does a truly liberated human existence require immorality?  Rhinehart becomes obsessed by the potential of his simple idea to elevate him intellectually, to truly free him from boredom and obligation. He says that he resembles Clark Kent and by pursuing “dice theory” Rhinehart aims for a permanent transformation into Superman, The Dice Man, on another level to the ordinary human drone.

I’m not saying The Dice Man is the perfect novel, do not misunderstand my awe and praise. At times it left me baffled in completely the wrong way, and despite its championing of the random and new experiences, it can become repetitive, particularly the frequent bouts of sex. And whilst it is sometimes credibly intellectual and inspiring, such as the scene when Rhinehart defends his new theory to a panel of his influential peers, at others it does appear to be simply sick and shocking for shocking’s sake. The thing is that The Dice Man knows it is not the perfect novel, in fact its cynicism screams and mocks the idea of a perfect novel being possible. Even the repetitive sex scenes are always evocatively described or hilariously painted and the idea that a man striving for complete liberty is constantly tied down by sexual desire is ironic and mocking in itself. The Dice Man really is often laugh out loud funny. It is also scandalous, entertaining and everything else it has been described as. Most of all it is an original creation, a unique fusion of cultural influences, which perfectly encapsulates the America of its time and remains powerfully relevant today.

These three novels perhaps demonstrate the importance of two ingredients in particular amongst the many needed for a success: interesting ideas and an individual narrative voice.

Guardian Summer Short Story Special

Inspired by the Guardian’s Summer Short Story Special, showcasing established writers as well as competition winners, I have dabbled in a summer based work myself. It is influenced by general events in my life, a failed outing this weekend, as well as the short stories on the Guardian website and reading a bit of Hemingway (certainly isn’t as concisely expressed as his work). Being a fan of David Mitchell I particuarly enjoyed his offerings based on characters from Black Swan Green, with The Massive Rat from last year’s entries especially pleasing me. Booker winner Hilary Mantel also has a story entitled Comma and the competion winner’s tale, called Jellyfish, is a very well written piece simply expressed set on a beach, as mine is. Hope it isn’t too bad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/series/summer-short-story-special

Summer’s Last Hurrah

“I’m sorry about your parents” said Frank, gazing at a darkening sky and enjoying the feeling of her warmth at the base of his neck.

“You’ve nothing to be sorry for” replied Emma, looking back towards the brightening bulbs of the promenade and twirling her fingers in the soft curls of his fringe. “Things just happen. And I think it’ll be ok”.

He smiled reassuringly and twisted to look up at her, wondering what to say next. He had raised the subject to try and steer the conversation towards them, their relationship, his head in her lap on the sand in the half-light of this August evening. The simple perfection of this moment. To voice his contentment outright would spoil things, possibly scare her off. Nevertheless he had to let her know how happy he was, living a moment sketched in his mind a thousand times.

“I just can’t imagine letting things get to that stage with anyone, like what’s the point in arguing and how could you with someone you felt like that for, someone you loved? I’d like to think I’d stop things before they were that bad. Life’s for moments as amazing this”, he squeezed her fingers between his and ran his hand gently over the flank of her leg in that way he knew she liked, “no point in being miserable when things can be this great, when I can get this lucky.”

That might have overdone it. He knew one of the things she liked about him was his laidback, carefree attitude. She could be sure he wouldn’t get too emotional or demanding like boyfriends of her friends had done in the past. Recently he’d been struggling to hold back this sort of outburst, to tone down his obvious ecstasy in her company. But he needn’t have worried.

Emma bent down to kiss him. First lightly and affectionately on the forehead, a stamp of her gratitude and care, and then a longer, lingering stay on the lips, charged with a lust that grew each day as her confidence increased. She too had been pondering how to express her happiness at the way things were turning out, the way they were right now. Like Frank she tiptoed round the reflection of this moment, careful not to shatter it with hollow, stumbled over words and packaged phrases. Beyond the untameable ripple of her smile whenever she saw him, she was wary of articulating her feelings for him when she did not know what they were. Besides this shared chapter of their lives was closing and to him she might just be a pretty girl, long coveted but quickly ticked off as a summer fling.

Now though as kiss followed kiss and their scents mingled with the sea air lapping in off the waves, Emma felt satisfied that Frank shared the significance of the present, the distance of the past and non-existence of the future. Frank too knew that she understood his contentment and shared it on some level. Happy to be a source of her happiness he lay back and a let a guilty smile detonate an ooze of smugness across his face. Amused by the particular lines and craters left by the aftermath of the explosion in his features, a snorted giggle escaped from her mouth.

“What?” he said, sitting up and grinning cheekily at her embarrassment.

“You” she teased, pushing him back down only for him to snatch a kiss from the tips of her lips.

“I’m happy. Think I’ve lost the knack of sadness.”

“S’pose that’s got something to do with me, has it?”

Emma blushed as Frank parted unruly strands of her hair with his fingers, so his eyes had a clear, brisk march to hers. Frank felt unusually bold, spurred on by the stirring of desire below the belt and cleared his throat to reply bluntly.

“Yeah. Everything. Nothing could make me sad with you.”

Emma felt the tell-tale redness spill across her cheeks, accompanied by a warm glow somewhere inside. At first she tried to check for clues in the lush browns and bright whites of his eyes, signs of mocking or deception. All she found there was light, a light that added to her awkwardness as well as her certainty. She would let Frank be her first by the end of the summer. But all that could come later. For now this sudden glimpse of emotion and her automated response of cynicism made her regret the shy, downbeat reply, inspired by thoughts of her parents.

“Time. Time makes you sad and bitter.”

To his credit he knowingly laughed away her evasion, pulling her to him.

“Good job we don’t have much left then.”

The two of them collapsed in a bundle of kisses and squeezes. Sand painted a dull grey by the frowning sky squirmed beneath their writhing feet and toes. A plodding jogger glanced their way from the squelch of the wet sand at the water’s edge and a family group executed a wide arc to pass the shameless lovers respectfully. Thoughts and memories of lost loves drifted in the minds of the parents like dying waves.

*

Lawrence wasn’t so sure it was time. Sure you needed some, a brief window in which a seed could be planted, germinate and grow and then rapidly rot and fester. But in the grand scheme of things, in the spins and rotations of planets, the rise and fall of governments, the birth and death of ideas, on any meaningful scale, the time it had taken him to succumb to bitterness was a mere blink. In fact emerging from the line of lights of the shorefront, from the flashing and pulsing of colour by the fair to the gentle gloom of the beach, it had taken him just seconds of recognition to be overwhelmed by dark resentment and every negative feeling he had been hiding from.

There was no doubt it was them, immersed in an intimate moment of romance, the sky itself bending into a dome of soft privacy. Away to the right the last embers of the setting sun shone orange behind wispy clouds but here, suspended above them on the beach, the clouds were a deep veil of purple enclosing the space for them and them alone. Or so it seemed to him. The sound of his own rushed, shallow breaths reminded of the present and prompted him to locate little Katie, just now dashing onto the sand, floating with joy, excitement and mischief in her white dress.

Lawrence darted after her, dusting himself down to weave between the crowds, suddenly conscious of a collision he must avoid. A group of pensioners gawped at him as he bobbed by on tip toes, surely marvelling at the relentless boom of his heart that he could feel galloping away in his chest, frightened into overdrive by the horrific hypothetical scenarios conjured in his mind’s eye. Soon there would be enough room to burst into a sprint but Lawrence was mindful of how far the sounds of his beckoning pleas might carry, how self-involved were they during such blissful embraces? Would Emma, or even Frank, recognise his voice as he breathlessly moaned at Katie’s innocent impulses? She was tottering towards the water but then to Lawrence’s alarm veered suddenly away, propelled by a tiny splash of chilly froth, up the beach at an angle towards the canoodling couple. In a panic Lawrence launched himself at full throttle down the last stretch of sloping descent to the beach and did not slow his pace on the sand despite the vast plumes left in his wake and the difficulties of staying balanced on two feet. In seconds that seemed stretched into hours Lawrence was at Katie’s side and firmly guiding her by the hand away from an unbearable impact towards the safety of the sand strewn steps.

“Lawrence! Lawrence! The water’s cold and you can see it’s muddy in the dark. Muddy like Mummy said even when it’s dark.”

Lawrence grimaced as Katie began her chirping flow, flinching in particular every time she brightly announced his name to the entire coastline. In this state he could not tell if she was being especially loud or not, let alone whether Frank and Emma might’ve heard. He could feel his pulse gradually calming as the two of them climbed the steps and set off back in the direction of the hotel, but he was also still clearly transmitting a panic to Katie.

“What’s wrong Lawrence? You said you’d take me, sorry I ran. You like to chase me, don’t be upset.”

Was he upset? Lawrence knew that little shake in Katie’s voice well by now, knew she was on the verge of tears without proper intervention. He steered her to a quiet bench and sat down in readiness to console, only to notice the streaks on his own face, brimming uncontrollably.

“Don’t cry Lawrence” mumbled Katie, the sight of his tears bringing her own closer and closer. She didn’t understand, she’d never seen him like this for the whole summer. He’d only ever been a calm, smiley presence, good at reading to her and helping her learn and she was always angry when she caught Mummy telling Daddy he could be “useless” at looking after her. Lawrence was Katie’s friend.

Lawrence turned his face away from Katie. This wasn’t good, he’d have to minimise the damage now if he were to keep his job with the family. He’d grown attached to Katie and even Ben when he wasn’t trying to drop him in it, and he could think of no better paid way of keeping busy and away from everything. And yet everything had followed him here, everything was curled on the beach beneath the stars oblivious of the depressing ripples caused by their happiness. Lawrence was going to wait till Emma and Frank had parted for university before sending his confession letter, penned over an agonising three nights. He planned to be travelling Europe filling his head with the future whilst she digested the news. He didn’t want to hear her shock or disgust or whatever she would feel, just jettison the feeling and leave it with his old life. Now he had seen her again and his long absence (nearly two months now?) had done nothing to dilute the pain of seeing them together, nothing to convince him of a future without her. Of all he had left behind and had to learn the hardest thing was not hearing from her, sharing their perfectly balanced conversation, even if she was always, forever ignorant of his feeling for her. He had left because he could no longer take the unknowing blows struck each and every day by her as she grew closer and closer to Frank. He had allowed their friendship to become so precious to him that it was toxic.

“I’m fine Katie, I’ll be fine, and it’s nothing honest. Beautiful night isn’t it? All those lights stretching on and on.”

This didn’t help. Painting a picture of a beautiful evening merely reminded him of the romance in progress on the beach, a romance he had never experienced and more painfully never would with Emma. Lawrence stifled a giant sob and spasm of tears, spinning Katie round to look along the front as a distraction.

“Yeah it is nice.” The poor girl rightly wasn’t convinced. Lawrence took a deep breath and kept Katie transfixed by the twinkling lights and a reminder of what fun they’d had that day, whilst he composed himself. Then he scooped her up back to the hotel, sought out the envelope addressed to Emma and left it out ready to post. Before bed Katie had checked Lawrence was definitely alright and she had seemed reassured by his answer.

“I’ll be fine Katie like I said. In time I’ll be okay, time will heal me.”

“Well we’ve got lots of that.”