C= They Ate the Truth 3

The physical side of things are for my own memories, every so often
it is wonderful to know that you're going to hold every single detail
and be able to view it again whenever you like. When she gets out of
bed to fetch us a plate of broken up cheese (strong Canadian cheddar,
my favourite), she moves like a cat, I watch her stretch out her long
thin calf muscles - she walks naked, not brazen but not shy either,
just someone who is amazingly comfortable in her own skin.

"When did you decide to be a detective? " she asks me, while I trace a
finger along a soft crease that runs down the fold of her arm, near the
elbow.

I remember, of course I do. It was when I read somewhere that golf
balls had elastic inside, to make them bounce. Nobody I knew played
golf, but my father still had a few golf balls in his shed, found while
walking the dogs, or perhaps just walking. Those golf balls were
dimpled and hard, they felt to me like Space - like the moon. More
likely the moon is grey rock that sounds like polystyrene when you walk
on it, or else grey sand whose grains spiral up and out when your walk
disturbs it, but to me the moon was like a golf ball, nodular, hard -
if you could throw it down at the earth, it would bounce and skittle
away.

It isn't clear to me why I wanted the elastic. I remember of course,
the thought processes involved, but I was eleven, so these weren't too
clear. Just like when I thought that I could make waxwork models by
melting down my crayons in a saucepan. It seemed to make sense at the
time. The fact is, I wanted the elastic and I wanted to get it out of
that golf ball.

So I set to it, with hammers which bounced back and a fretsaw whose
skinny blade got heated and whined and finally snapped. I never got the
golf ball open, but amongst many many memories those efforts to open it
are one of the strongest - finding an enigma and wanting what was
inside.

Every few months I still buy a golf ball and put it on my desk, just to
look at it and get inspired again. It is finding out what's inside.
That's the whole point of my job, maybe the whole point of everything.
Get something that seems impervious to any attempt to open it and get
inside.

I tell Lorrie all of this. I don't tell her all of the other details
that I recall about the marmalade jar full of brushes and
limewater-coloured turps, the smells of the shed, the tobacco tins with
snapsnug lids and little washers and screws inside, like a clock
graveyard. I remember all of this and much much more, but I know that
people don't like all of the details - I've learned to skimp on
descriptions.

She says, "Why do you drink ? "

This is a woman who makes me face the big questions. I like it. Nobody
has ever asked me that, not my friends, not the people at the groups,
not my parents. Some of them have asked why I don't stop, why it is so
hard, but nobody asks me why.

I've been wanting to be asked for years - how did you become an
alcoholic, so that I can snap back that wonderful Hemingway line -
"very gradually, then very suddenly". There's a lot of truth in that.
The answer to why I started is just dumb, like most things that wreck
lives. I just felt very, very sorry for myself one day in medical
school, heard the Pet Shop Boys "What have I done to deserve this?" on
the radio and felt that I was a complete fraud, that I had much much
more than I was entitled to. Why didn't I just get over the first long
bender ?

"I drink so I can feel what it's like not to remember, " I say,
honestly for the first time, "I drink for the confusion it brings, for
the uncertainty. "

Her nails scratch lightly at the back of my neck at that point where
your head is not quite finished being a head. It feels really
good.

She says, "We're some pair, aren't we ? You remember anything and want
to be able to forget things from time to time, and I've given my
memories away. "

"I think we're going to work though, " I say bravely.

She puts a soft hand right under my chin, cupping it and looks me deep
in the eyes.

"I think you're right, Alex, " she says.

We talk for hours, she tells me that sometimes she looks at people and
they all seem to be wearing wigs, that everyone's hair looks false.
Lorrie tells me about getting a set of disco lights for her twelth
birthday - what's interesting about this is her excitement - this is
obviously a memory which is just coming back to her, one of the
innocent ones that has found space, the thrill of remembering is
something I will never quite understand, but I love to see. Some days I
sit watching quiz shows and tape the moments where someone knows that
they know the answer and are trying to retrieve it, just collect the
dance theat memory does on the face, the look of sheer momentary awe as
they find it.

We have a row about whether the Sopranos is better than the West Wing
and in the end I have to concede that I probably do care more about
Josh and CJ than about Christopher and Paulie Walnuts.

She puts on a DVD, a film called Amelie. I like it a hell of a lot,
full of wit and warmth and mad vivid colours, painting Paris the colour
of ripening apples. Afterwards, we try something out from the film
--quickly summing up things we like and things we don't.

Lorrie likes eating jam tarts outdoors, the click of replacing the cap
on a lipstick, sitting and eating a pomeganete, watching people sneeze.
She doesn't like bicycle chains, the noise of an orchestra tuning up,
the taste of hairspray.

Me, I like thinking about snowflakes and whether they can really be
unique, those moments when you're picking up a book in a shop and
turning it in your hand, reading the back, checking the first page or
two, walking away leaving the shop and finally realising you can't do
without it, going back and buying it there and then, with no
procrastination, the smell of warm wet clothes drying on a radiator. I
don't like standing on Lego bricks (not done it for years, but it is
still vivid), M*A*S*H, the smell of earth after it has rained and the
movement of earthworms.

I'm fascinated by her - how does it feel to forget so much ? And more
than that, know that it is really gone, there isn't anything which will
prompt those memories the way that a snatch of music on the radio
reminds people of the smell of Hai Karate and the taste of gassy cider.
She really doesn't seem phased by it. She says, whatever there was, she
obviously wanted rid of and doesn't feel at all bad not to know. Maybe
whatever it was was too painful to remember.

I hope I fascinate her too, she asks me how I live with remembering
everything. I tell her that ninety per cent of it is just very dull - I
remember waiting at cash machines, opening fridge doors to take milk
out, telephone conversations with strangers. I tell her, being honest,
that the bad memories are the ones that come up more often - everyone
repeats these in their head, replaying exactly how embarassing it was,
but I just can't help it. They just come up and try to haunt me.

While we find comfortable ways to hold each other, I explain that since
I went off to look at the Poles, to spend time in the snow and ice, I
got a sort of perspective that makes it work. I remember everything so
I know that on the whole, there's been more dull than anything and more
good than bad.

The oddest thing about remembering everything is the lack of
distinction between past and present - everyone else knows exactly what
the present is because it is clear and sharp and vivid - for me, it is
no different to a year ago, an hour ago - other than I can't see what's
coming up next. For me, the future is more significant and dreadful
than for others, because it is the only time I really have to
experience.

I stay over Saturday night too and Sunday morning, I'm asleep when
something heavy falls on the floor. I wake up and I wish I could say
that my hand goes under my pillow for the gun I always keep there, but
I don't own a gun. I did spend a long time training myself to do this,
just in case I did ever get a gun, but my brain got out of the habit.
Instead I jump up and make an odd sort of strangulated noise, along the
lines of "War-ooah? ".

Lorrie wakes up bit by bit, even under this sort of provocation. I'm
sitting up in bed wondering what the hell is happening but not with it
enough to actually get out of bed. She opens her left eye first,
smiles, then her right eye.

"What's wrong Alex ? "

"Something fell through your door - maybe a bomb or something, " I
gabble.

"It's the papers, " she says.

I have always, my whole life wanted to have newspapers delivered to my
house, to be able to pad downstairs, pick them up, with the individual
sections folded and posted through one at a time, to grab them and
shake them until all of the inserted adverts fell out, then go back to
bed, read them and get inky fingermarks on the sheets.

"Then why didn't you do it? "asks Lorrie, "It costs about, I don't
know, a tenner a month to have the Sunday papers delivered. I can't
believe you would miss out on a dream because of a little bit of money.
"

It's not the money, I explain, it's the possibility of shortfall
between imagining and the actual experience. My own vision of what it
might be like might far outstrip what it is actually like, I wouldn't
want to be disappointed.

She smiles at me, not really understanding, but liking it anyway. "Do
you want to fetch the papers Alex ? Bring me up some orange juice.
"

It does measure up, we sit together in the bed, reading through the
papers. I even read the foreign news bits and the little side columns
that I normally skip through. We read them together, finding little
details that amuse us. (I know that this sort of stuff is nauseating to
anybody not actually there, but it's been a long time for me.) She gets
bored of it before I do, of course, and walks over to the stereo to put
some jazz on.

Obviously I pull a face, because she asks me if I don't like
jazz.

"I just don't like not understanding it, " I say to her, "I don't like
things that make me feel stupid. "

It was a damn good weekend, I've brought no clothes with me and I don't
put a shirt on until Monday morning, when it is time to go to
work.

I get into the office and Rachael is there. She looks disappointed in
me and I can't help but smooth a hand over my shirt in a reflex
action.

"Tail job, " I say to her, "I had to sleep in my car. "

"And the love bites ? " she says, passing me the diary.

There's a mixed load of work today, nothing so exciting as Lorrie. I
used to keep a spare set of clothes in the office, when I used to
drink, because I'd often end up not going home, but I haven't done that
for a while. First chance I get, I go out and buy a new shirt, some
underwear, a deodorant and a razor. I can't be bothered with shaving
cream, so I just wet the razor and drag it over my face. It gives a
nice scraping texture and an hour later it doesn't look like you've
shaved at all.

Dumb. Dumb.

When I swept Lorrie's place, there was a man's shaving kit in the
bathroom. Where was the man? What happened to him?