Hiccups (6) - Symptom 9 - entering a pact with the devil

As it turned out I was only round Bill’s for a few hours. This time my Incas let me down, and before very long Bill’s Mongolians were all over the board. Even a Tibetan independence movement card didn’t help me. I surrendered. By this time both of us were resigned to my hiccups continuing and he didn’t waste any of the ice cubes, choosing to save them for our drinks. Just squash, Vimto in fact, Bill doesn’t drink you see. No particular reason, just not fond of it.

So it was just after midnight that I left Bill’s and I realised that I had another eight and a half hours before I had to be at work. I had all that time to kill, as I was resigned to not sleeping.

So I went for another walk on the beach. It was earlier than the previous night, so I didn’t expect to see the man again. There was a chance I’d come across the occasional late night clubber staggering back home, but they were mostly harmless.

It was another lovely night. It was warm and almost clear. The wind was silent but strong, almost invisible wisps of cloud rushed by, briefly shielding the naked starlight from my gaze, but soon gone, rushing past insignificantly, like a commuter dashing to work.

The beach was empty. Empty and silent! I went the other way this time, towards the Mumbles. Saw no-one. I stopped on the way to sit on the swings opposite the Woodman, swings on which I had swung on many a careless night with Kath, when we both lived at Clyne, just up the hill, when we were going out together, having fun, making love, playing on swings, crazy first year things. I reflected as I swung, memories, feelings, emotions and hiccups. We’d started going out almost as soon as we’d met, our first week at university. Such was the speed of the romance we never noticed that we were entirely unsuited. Well, not entirely unsuited, we did swing well together.

When I reached the Mumbles I realised that there was nothing to do there and turned back again. On the way back I encountered him again, the man from the other night. As before I was walking barefoot through the outskirts of the water. And the dot approached me, the dot that became the man. As before he said hello and I hiccupped back.

“I wanna tell you a story,” he said. We sat down on the beach again, staring out to sea. It the distance a boat could be seen slowly, silently unfolding the sea as it made its way towards Ireland. Thick black smoke eeked up from Port Talbot, and everywhere else in the heavens was lovely.

This time he lit a cigarette and asked me if I minded. “Go ahead” I hicced.

“I moved here two years ago. Two years I’ve lived in Swansea. The house I live in is up there" (he pointed to the Mumbles). "Nice area. Nice house. I was impressed, for though the house was nice and the area was nice the price was low. It was a very reasonable price for what it was. ‘Specially for a coveted area like the Mumbles. So I leapt at the chance. Signed the contract the same day I did. ‘Course when I signed the contract I knew nothing about the tap-dancing squirrels.”

I hic-nodded an ascent at this. What else could I do, I didn’t want to offend. He was a nice enough man, besides which I was slightly fearful of the way his eyes looked at me sometimes. Dark brown they were and they bulged from his sockets and he’d look at me straight in the face and say something like “I knew nothing about the tap-dancing squirrels.” Then he’d take a huge drag from his cigarette then lie down, saying nothing, just sighing to himself. Then he’d sit up, take another drag and continue his story. I never knew what to say, I felt somewhat uncomfortable. Maybe I should have stayed at home, listened to a bit of Morrissey, read a bit of Terry Pratchett, taken it easy, not gone to the beach where the strange man walked.

“The tap-dancing squirrels” he continued, “were in residence in the loft. In the loft of the house. The house into which I’d moved. The one up there in the Mumbles, a nice house. With a garden, and a view of the sea. They were there in the loft. Came in through cracks and holes and pipes, from neighbouring trees. And they came every night, where it was dry and warm. But they hadn’t come to sleep. They’d come to tap-dance. About twenty of them. Every night. They’d be at it all hours. And the loft was just above my bedroom. I couldn’t sleep a wink. Not with the squirrels tap-dancing above me.”

For once I felt he wanted me to speak. “So what, hic, did you do?”

“I’m glad you asked me that,” he said. “I’m glad you asked me that. Would you like a fag?” I shook my head and hicced. I didn’t. “I thought to myself, what do I do? Squirrels above me, keeping me awake with their tap-dancing. Not” he blew smoke as he spoke, “not that they were really tap-dancing. I just call it that. It’s my sense of humour. Ha! Tap-dancing squirrels.” He laughed, a deep hollow laugh, followed by a deep hollow chuckle. “But they were running about up there all night, so they might just as well ‘ve been tap-dancing.

"Now had it been rats I’d have just killed them. Don’t like rats. I’d ’ve just killed them. But squirrels are different. I always used to feed the squirrels in the park with my mum.” The man’s voice went quiet at this, and he paused, as if to reflect on those afternoons in the park with his mother, feeding squirrels. Innocent childhood. But he soon came back to the story. He twisted the butt of a cigarette to death in the sand and, after a short sharp cough, continued. “So I didn’t want to kill the squirrels. Not poison – that’s slow and nasty. Horrible way for squirrels to die.

"I knew a man in a hardware shop. He sold me this ultra-violet laser. You leave this ultra-violet laser in the middle of your loft. And it scares off the squirrels. They don’t like the light. Just to make sure I added a sonic whistle, which was inaudible to the human ear, but was pitched at squirrel level. It made a really annoying sound apparently, and the squirrels would leave the room if the whistle was playing. The two of them together – well, the squirrels were never gonna go for that were they?”

I hic-nodded hic-shook agreement/dissent uncertainly. He leant forward, towards me, the glow from the tip of his cigarette painting circles of warm light in the still-darkening sky as he gesticulated. “But they did,” he announced. His assured stare mixed awkwardly with the wistfulness I could detect deep in the soul of his dark brown eyes. He exuded a strange mixture of confidence and self-doubt, like a scientist who’d proved that his theories were right all along but retained a niggling doubt for the sanity of a world crazed enough to follow the laws and logic of his theories.

“They did stay," he continued. And they didn’t just stay. They started having raves. Squirrels having raves in my loft! Dancing to my inaudible sonic whistle and to my ultra violet lighting. The cheek of it! Bloody squirrels raving to my sonic whistle! Above my bed! All hours of the bloody night! Made me really angry it did.

"So I set traps. I set traps for the squirrels. Not to kill them. As I said, I like squirrels. But I set traps to catch them. Bought them from the hardware shop. Half a dozen of them. Traps that just cage the squirrel up. So I catch them, drive them into the country, and release them there. Miles away from the Mumbles. Miles away from my house. I filled them with peanut butter. That’s what the man had recommended. Filled the traps with peanut butter. Some of the traps with ordinary peanut butter, some with crunchy. It’s an interesting fact, and I’ve proved it now, squirrels prefer crunchy peanut butter to ordinary. And I’d go up into the loft the next morning. After the night’s rave. And I’d check the traps. And the crunchy would always be gone. Sometimes they’d eat the ordinary too. Sometimes not. Depended what mood they were in. But the crunchy would always be eaten.

"Of course I never caught any of them. Not one. They’re too clever you see. Not like rats. They don’t go in the trap to eat the peanut butter. No, too clever for that. They turn the traps over. Set them off. Then eat the peanut butter by reaching their paws through the breathing holes. Clever things squirrels. It’s the nuts! High protein diet. Nuts make brains. That’s why I eat lots of nuts.” He tapped his own nut. “That’s why I’m so smart. Never catch me out. I know things I do.

"So I gave up. Gave up being nice. No more Mr Nice Guy I said to myself. It’s not working. Still being kept awake by dancing squirrels. Drive me mad no sleep would, it’s no life. No sleep ‘cause of dancing squirrels. So I gave in to my darker side," (a shadow passed over the moon as he spoke these words and his cigarette suddenly glowed fiery bright) and his voice echoed in the chilled air. “I gave into my darker side. Decided I had to poison the squirrels. Even though I love squirrels. A man can only take so much.

"Now if you’re going to poison squirrels where do you go? What do you do?” I hic-shook my ignorance. “There’s a big house up there (he pointed vaguely past the Mumbles to some part of the Gower). Big house up there. And where there’s a big house there’s a gardener. A Head Gardener. And Head Gardeners have to deal with squirrels. Have to kill lots of squirrels if you garden in a big house like that. So one day, it was a Tuesday in June I recall, I went up to the front gate. During the day this was, during a hot day in June. And I talk my way in and get to see the Head Gardener. I tell him my problem. Tell him I need to know what poison he uses. How does he contain the squirrels in his great garden? I tell him about the tap-dancing squirrels in the loft. Tell him about the inaudible whistle. Tell him about the lasers. Tell him about the raves. Tell him about the peanut butter. Tell him about the traps. Asked him what I should do. And d’ya know what he said? What he said to me?"

“No” I hicced, as I didn’t know. Couldn’t guess. I’d never met a Head Gardener.

“What he said. What he said was ‘I don’t know’ he said. That’s what he said. ‘I don’t know. 'I’ve had exactly the same problem myself. I’ve tried whistles, lights, traps, poisons and scarecrows. Nothing works,’ he said”

“So what did you?” I hicced. I had been expecting a joke ending, the gardener would say ‘I’ve had exactly the same problem myself and that would be it, ‘boom boom’. But it wasn’t a joke, it was obviously real. So what happened next?

“What’d I do? I gave up. I gave up even trying to stop the squirrels. That’s why I’m on the beach now, I can’t sleep ‘cause of the bloody squirrels. I sleep in the day now, when the squirrels are quiet. They’re up there now (he pointed vaguely to some precise point somewhere in the Mumbles) up there in the loft, raving or tap-dancing. Having fun. But what do I care? Let the squirrels be I say. I’m happy enough just walking the beach."

We said goodbye this time. Parted on good terms. I enjoyed this story more, it had a ring of authenticity and made me think. It was a bit like one of the stories I sometimes dream up, or half-dream up. And that was as close as I’d get to sleep whilst afflicted with the hiccups, a chance encounter with some dreams.

I walked home along the beach. Hicced my way up the garden path and into the house. Sometimes the hiccups were so violent they were actually painful, real physical pain. And not just in one place, but vibrating through my entire body. This was one of those times. I sat on the wall outside the house desperately choking in breaths of fresh air. I was like this for some minutes before I recovered enough to enter the house.

When I entered the house my first act was to climb into bed. I was exhausted. Three nights without sleep was making my limbs hurt, the effort of walking, of holding my eyes open even, was becoming too much for me. But again I lay there hiccupping too intensely to have any chance of sleeping.

Eventually I gave up, turned on the light, went to the kitchen and made myself a cup of tea. While the kettle was boiling I looked at the clock. 3.00. Still, another three hours before I could go swimming. As I sat at the kitchen table drinking my tea, I thought about the storyteller on the beach. The tea was hot, so I drank it slowly, and as I paused between sips and hics I picked up one of the pens and some sheets of blank paper that were both left over from Nina’s recent revision session. Obviously she’d transferred to the kitchen after I’d left the house. And she’d washed up for once.

Without really thinking why or what I started to write. The story was partly based on the first story that the man on the beach had told me. It was set in a wooden church, but instead of the church being in Port Meirion it was located in the small seaside town in New Zealand where Nina’s cousin lived, after all the man had seemed fascinated by New Zealand. Nina had visited her cousin once for nearly a month and she had described the town to me in great detail, and shown me lots of photos, so I was able to capture the scene convincingly.

Obviously I’d written before, I enjoy writing, and as I’ve mentioned I dream up stories to send me off to sleep, so I’m never short of an idea. But all the same, the inspiration the man had given me caused me to write my best work. I changed the plot of course, I couldn’t set The Prisoner in New Zealand, it just wouldn’t be accurate, so instead my sub-conscious created a world of weddings, small town politics - a stream of consciousness comedy thriller, set in an out-of-the-way wooden church in a picturesque but unappreciated town on the New Zealand coastline. I changed the name of the town though, just in case people wondered.

As I say it was the best thing I’d ever written. And it took me only three hours, just writing off the top of my head onto paper on the kitchen table. Seven pages I wrote in that three hours, and it was good stuff. For the first time in my life I felt that I could go somewhere with my writing. I really put my soul into that work, the plots, the characters, the romances, the heartbreak, it was all based on my own experiences. It was all real, it was all part of me. Even though it was set in New Zealand, in a little wooden church, with a cute red-haired young fire officer, the like of whom I’d never met. Somehow she seemed to belong there.

At 6.15 I finished. I rested the pen on the table, shoved the story into a file in one of the drawers in my room, picked up my kit, left a short note for Nina and left for the swimming pool. I was a little late and Lara was already inside, but as I was changing she heard my hics through the walls and shouted to me “Hello Mr Hiccup”. That’s what she’d started calling me at work, Mr Hiccup. A sort of pet name.

We swam, splashed, talked, hicced, swam, separated, showered, dried, dressed, met up, ate breakfast, hicced and drank coffee. And talked some more. I was finding things out about Lara now, things that I hadn’t known or suspected. Like me she’d lost a mother, only her’s had walked out on her, well, walked out on her father, when she was eleven. That’s tough. And I’d felt lonely and lost losing a mother at 21. I was a hardened adult by then, but eleven, is there a worse age to be abandoned by a mother?

She blamed herself of course, even though it was obviously her father’s drinking that was at fault. I guess her personality grew out of all that. Now that I know her better I can see that there was always a gap there, always a gulf, no matter how close you were with Lara, how much you shared, there was always something separating you, an invisible barrier, a force like gravity, unseen, rarely noticed, but powerful enough to occasionally hit you and hurt you like an apple falling on a scientist’s head. And of course she was unable to commit, to love, befriend, bestow her trust on anyone totally. When a mother walks out on an eleven year old daughter she take’s the girl’s trust with her, some piece of that daughter is broken, or becomes missing, and she is no longer able to join properly with another human being, like a broken hinge, hanging onto the door, visually attached but unable to withstand the slightest force. Attached but unattached, attached but detachable, joined but no longer joining. Something like that.

But I wouldn’t realise that for a long time. All I realised that day in the café was that we had so much in common, both being without mothers and all. And our friendship grew out of that. From those conversations, from those things we shared in common. From swimming, from early mornings, from shared pains, shared feelings of loneliness, from sharing an office, sharing a pool, sharing part of Swansea. Every morning at 6.30 I would swim with Lara. Before that, just after midnight, I would go for a walk on the beach, where I would meet the storyteller. I would come home, write a story myself, sometimes on paper, sometimes on Carol Vauderman, as I had christened my computer. Carol was my first computer, a very basic and unhelpful Amstrad, but at least she enabled me to write, for all her faults. And the stories were good, the best stuff I’ve written. Sometimes they’d be the product of one night’s work, six or seven rapidly conceived pages; others would take up to a week, substantial bodies of work of twenty to thirty pages, written carefully, cleverly, written closely.

This went on for several weeks. Nina’s finals began. She cried after the first exam, locked herself in her room for hours, but the others went better and the spring returned to her step. I was doing all the cooking and housework at this time, to take the pressure off her. And I was working, and writing, and swimming, and illicitly seeing Lara. And of course seeing the storyteller, and sometimes playing the History of the World with Bill, sometimes going to Amnesty, sometimes seeing other friends. Though I no longer slept or ate I no longer felt the need. I got all the strength I needed from my mints and my milk and my coffee. And I no longer felt tired. I didn’t feel normal, I felt differently awake. As if I no longer got my energy from food and sleep but had become hiccup-powered. And I’d become stronger, I no longer felt tired after a swim. On top of this I’d started writing, inspired stuff, the like of which I’d never written before. It was as if I’d inadvertently entered a pact with the Devil. Sold my soul for the ability to go without sleep and food, to become a super-hiccupper. But I had no recollection of any pact with the Devil and hindsight shows this not to have been the case.