Alison's Problem

hey - been meaning to put up newly edited versions of some short stories for a while now (working on a website for combined music/writing purposes, but slowly) so here is a - significantly altered - version of one which originally appeared on the malcontent site in, I believe, 2015 or 16. hope you enjoy. 

Alison's Problem 

Craig has been staring at the old, leather-bound book for five minutes now, his interest in it increasing with each passing second. ’This diary …’ 

‘It's not a diary,’ I say. 

‘What is it then?’ he says, playfully, or at least pretending at it, ‘because it sure looks like one. Black, A5, distinctly diary-ish of appearance. Look - it even says ‘diary’ on it in gold letters. Did you ever hear that saying darling - if it looks like a duck, and if it quacks like a duck ...’ 

‘That book is no duck,’ I say. 

’You’re funny.’ 

‘You may be right.’ I smile. ‘And yes, the book was purchased in the diary, year-planner and calendar section of the stationery shop by my dad and when I first starting writing in it I suppose it did function in the same way as a regular diary, recording the mundane events of my life, at least as seen through the eyes of a fourteen year-old girl.' Fourteen, yeah. As I was at the time.

‘The usual stuff then.’ 

‘Yeah, y’know, bits about death - about loneliness, I was a teenage Goth, I told you that - and later, when I shrugged most of that bullshit off, more about boys - though not always boys, as you know. Oh yeah, and the occasional attempt at a poem. Nothing I’d want to share though. Cliched stuff. Embarrassing.’ 

‘So far, so teenage. So what happened?’ 

‘I got bored, I think, it was simple as that. I don’t know if you remember but becoming easily bored or otherwise apathetic - not disillusioned, you understand, because that would have implied that I had once cared for something - was quite the lifestyle choice in those days.’ 

‘Those days?’ 

‘The early nineties. We were all ironic back then, or at least thought we were. I’m not sure I even knew what the word meant, to be honest, think I’d confused it with sarcasm.’ 

‘I was five in 1990,’ says Craig, with a cute, bashful grin, although it is me who should be feeling bashful, being nine years older as I am. ‘You’ve had the book since then?’ 

‘Yeah. Twenty-five years. Shit. A quarter of a century. I hadn’t thought of it like that.’ Now it is me who is looking at the book, unable to take my eyes off its bleak, unpromising cover. ‘We’ve grown old together, you and I’, I say, or think, it does not matter which. 

‘You’re old.’ 

‘Don’t remind me,’ I say, ‘little boy,’ and I squeeze his hand. 

He pulls himself up on his elbows. ‘I am not little.’ 

‘You are not little,’ I agree. 

‘Now, this diary ...’ 

‘It is not a diary,’ I say, this time more forcefully. ‘It is - and this is as simply and as plainly as I can put it without sounding like a complete wanker - a book where I write down what is about to happen.’ 

‘A kind of - a kind of wish journal?’ 

I consider this for a moment. ‘Mmmm. Everything I write actually happens so no, not a wish journal, not really. I suppose - I suppose diary is closer, now I think about it, only in reverse, because what I write actively precedes the things that happen rather than the other way around.’ I pick up the book from the bed-sheets, where it has lain, broadcasting its mystery for the last half hour, and place it back in the top drawer of my bureau, a teak and ivory collision of classical styles which looks old but is actually brand new. I close the drawer and return to the bed. 

‘You’re not going to write anything right now?’ 

‘I don’t need to. I only write in the book when there is something that I want to change, and at this moment in time I’m perfectly happy.’ I smile, and mean it. ‘Does that sound romantic to you?’ 

‘It sounds several things.’ He smiles back at me, although I cannot tell how sincerely. ‘And romantic may be one of them.’ 

‘Thank you,’ I say, although I am not sure if it is a compliment. 

– 

‘Show me an example,’ he says. ‘Please.’ 

‘An example of what?’ 

‘Something you have written which has come to pass. Something which you made happen with your magic pen.’ 

‘I can’t do that. And besides, I don't think it's the pen that is magic. I use whatever is to hand, a fountain pen, a highlighter - sometimes just a normal biro.’ 

‘Well just tell me then,’ he says. He has always been persistent this one - it’s how we ended up here, half-naked and mumbling. ‘Have you ever asked the book for anything big? A lover? A job?’ he looks about the small bedroom, ‘A lottery win? Did you ever ask the book for that and, if so, what fucking happened?’ 

‘I have never asked the book for a lottery win,’ I say, a little taken aback at the question. Who does he think I am? ‘I need money for clothes, electricity and food. Nothing more.’ 

‘But everybody likes nice things,’ he says, looking confused. ‘Everybody.’ 

‘The book is for matters of life and death,' I say, 'not nice things. Nice? Please. Nice is for new mums. I will piss nice back into the Bristol Channel.’ 

He sighs ‘Matters of life and death, you say. Metaphorically speaking, I assume?’ 

‘Yes and no.’ 

‘You are a complicated woman.’ 

‘I am a simple woman,’ I say, ‘and you will know exactly how simple when I fall asleep on you tonight.’ 

I have been pretending to snore for ten minutes when he stands up and moves carefully over to the bureau, opening the top drawer and pulling out the book with what he probably believes is a ninja’s stealth. No dice - my room is small and I have the ears of a bat, or so my father used to say, and he was never wrong about anything except for Asians. I stop snoring, or at least begin to regulate my breathing in a less dramatic manner, and open my eyes. He is using his mobile phone as a torch and in the otherwise pitch black room this lights his face up like a moon, which is not a good look for him. 

He turns over the cover. 

The first page, as I know, holds my name and the age I had reached when the perfectly unremarkable looking book had come into my possession. 

Alison Harkness - 14, he sees, and he smiles.

Then further down the page an address, filled in with a different coloured pen. Above the Clouds. 

There is also a hand-drawn picture of cat which looks exactly - improbably - like one. Craig has never seen me draw anything and in that moment I can tell that he is deeply impressed, so much so that I do not have to heart to tell him that it wasn’t me who sketched it out one slow Sunday afternoon but a teenage boyfriend, whose name, shamefully, I have long forgotten, but may well have been Keith. 

Keith? Perhaps that is why I forgot. It is a throughly believable explanation. 

‘You won’t understand it,’ I say. I am sat up in the bed with the duvet wrapped around me, staring at him in a cold, focused way that he won’t have seen before, not unless he has previous experience of dating an actual witch. ‘I promise you, you just won’t.’ 

‘Do you think I’m stupid or something?’ 

‘No. I very much fucking don’t. I wouldn’t be sharing my bed with you if I thought you were stupid.’ 

‘Then let me read the diary - the book, the whatever,’ he says. 

‘You can read it if you like,’ I say, giving in as easily as I always do, ‘but don’t blame me when - for perfectly good reasons - you don’t understand and end up getting frustrated instead.’ 

‘I won’t. I promise.’ 

‘Promises are like apples.’ 

‘I - I don’t think that works as an analogy.’ 

‘Ah, okay.’ I say. I’ve never been very good with analogies - they’re not really my thing. ‘Go ahead. Knock yourself out. Not literally.’ 

‘Thank you,’ he says, turning the page. His expression darkens. ‘It’s in French,’ he says. 

‘Yes. Yes it is.’

‘I don’t speak French.’

‘I know,’ I say, because I did. 

– 

Craig is lying on the bed on his stomach. ‘Teach me French,’ he says, looking up at me with as much hope and desire as I’ve ever seen in a human being, cocaine-addled wannabe musicians notwithstanding. ‘I want to know you better. I want to know what you ask for - what you’ve asked for.’ 

‘You want to ask yourself, more like.’

‘It’s your book.’ He shrugs.

‘Too right.’ I return the shrug and raise him a curved, lolling eyebrow. ‘It’s my book, whatever title we decide to give it. Just leave it, Craig, forget that I ever showed you it. No good will ever come of it, trust me.’ 

‘Teach me. Please.’ 

‘No.’ 

‘Please.’ 

‘It’ll take ages Craig- French is a complicated language, especially for somebody starting at your age. Do you have any grounding in modern languages at all?’ 

He shakes his head. ‘No, in fact I was terrible at languages at school. French particularly, even though the girls on the French exchange were pretty fucking awesome. Think I didn’t get much further than ‘will you come into the bushes with me?’’ 

‘Which is as good a reason as any to learn a language,’ I say, and think, remembering teenage hormones, remembering what they did to me too. 

‘Please,’ he says again, flashing those eyes - those deep blue, puppy dog eyes - at me, pinning me back against the pillow. Really, he is too much. 

‘Okay,’ I say, giving in just like that. I have never been much good at arguing if my heart is not in it. 

- 

We sit at the Bureau, squashed together on the small wooden chair. 

‘But why are some of the words male, and some female?’ he says. He had wanted to start straight away, of course. He always wants to start things straight away. 

‘That’s a good question. Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer for you.’ 

‘Why?’ 

‘Even if I knew, Craig, which I don’t, we simply don’t have time to consider such things. We’re trying to learn the language, not reverse engineer it.’ 

‘You don’t know?’ 

‘I assume it’s just an arbitrary feature of grammar. But really, I don’t need to know. You don't need to know.’

’So how do I know which is which, on a word by word basis?’ he says. He is getting frustrated now, I can tell.

‘Practice. You say all the words a thousand times and then - bam - you’ve learnt. That’s how any discipline works darling - practice, practice and practice again.’ 

I have never seen anybody actually turn purple before. ‘I don’t have time for all that,’ he says, almost spitting. ‘I want to know now. I want to read your book now.’ It is a mad thing, this moment, a real revelation. He does not sound at all attractive. 

I take a deep breath. ’I’m afraid there’s no shortcut for stuff like this - conversational French is one thing, but reading and writing - which, after all is what books are made of - is always going to be more complicated. Sorry.’ 

‘How come you can understand it so well, then?’ 

‘My grandmother was French. I told you that.’ 

‘Ah.’

‘Ah?’ 

‘It’s like inherited money, isn’t it? You had all the advantages.’ 

‘She was also bald,’ I say, ‘and a terrible driver, but don’t let that spoil your daydream.’ 

– 

‘That’s very good.’ 

‘It’s not. It sounds stupid.’ He is tapping a pencil on the bureau in opposition to all conventional notions of rhythm. 

‘It doesn’t.’

‘The accent. I feel ridiculous.’ 

‘Well you don’t sound it.’ 

He blushes, noticeably - it is the first time I have seen him blush, which reminds me that I have not known him very long. ‘Nobody makes the French speak English in a Yorkshire or a Cockney accent, do they?’ he says, sounding like a ten-year-old boy. ‘It’s discriminatory. I feel like a fool.’ 

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, meaning it to the tiniest degree, ‘but you’ll just have to keep practising it until you feel comfortable.’ 

‘By two thousand and fifty I’ll feel fucking comfortable with it,’ he says, his voice rising in what is probably impotent anger, ‘and, family history pending, I’ll also be dead.’ 

‘Don’t be so dramatic.’ 

‘Why can’t you just write in your book ‘Overnight, Craig learned French’?’ 

‘Because that’s not what the book is for, darling.’ 

‘What’s it fucking for, then?' He stops, catches himself, shakes his head. 'Oh wait, you already said didn’t you, matters of life and death.’ He is mimcing my voice now, and I do not like it. ‘And this ... this isn’t one of those?’ 

‘No. It’s silly. ‘Craig learned French’, indeed. It’ll be ‘Alison and Craig had a nice cake’ next.’

’Silly?’

‘Worse than that.’

He snaps the pencil. 

– 

It is now four am, or close enough not to care about what time it is any more. ‘No,’ he says, ‘No. I can't. I’m sorry.’ 

‘So am I,’ I say, catching my reflection in a dirty wine-glass. ‘I have be in work in five hours.’ 

‘No, I mean I’m sorry - I can’t do this.’ 

‘You can’t do what?’ 

‘French. It’s too hard. Maybe I’m too British, I don’t know. Empire, and all that. Egg and chips. Wilfully ignorant. But no, I can’t do it.’ 

‘What about the secrets of the book?’ 

‘It’s your book, like you said.' He takes a sharp, shallow breath. 'You’re hard, as well.’ 

‘What do you mean by that?’ 

‘You could have just told me, Alison.’ 

‘I can’t,’ I say, ‘but I like you and I wanted to help you understand.’ 

‘Understanding takes time,’ he says, blissfully unaware of the irony of his words, ‘which is time that I haven’t got. You know, I haven’t been to the gym for five days. I’m feeling a little flabby.’ 

‘You don’t look it.’ 

‘You’re very nice,’ he says, cutting across me, fixing me once again with those big blue eyes. 

‘You’re very nice?’ I say, ‘That doesn’t sound good, Craig. That doesn’t sound very good at all.’ 

‘It is - it isn’t.’ He looks down at his hands, which are curled up on his lap. ‘Oh, I don’t know. We haven’t been together long, have we? It’s not like we’ve met eachothers close friends and family and would need to come up with some dramatic break-up story, is it?’ 

‘You’re breaking up with me?’ I say, hardly able to believe that the words are coming from my mouth. 

‘I ... I suppose that I am, yes.’ 

‘Because - because you won’t learn French?’ 

‘It’s hard,’ he says, and he sniffs. His mind is made up. ‘It’s really bloody hard. Seriously Alison, fuck.’ He looks at me as if it is my fault. Perhaps it is. 

– 

We are stood by the front door. 

‘See you around,’ he says, not meeting my eye. 

‘Sure. See you around.’ 

‘And don’t write anything in that book about me.’ 

‘I won’t. Well, not tonight at least.’ 

’Why?’ He smiles. He has recognised my joke, the final act in the three-month history of our intimacy. ’Not life-and-death enough for you?’ 

‘Precisely.’

‘Okay. Well, take care. I mean that.’

‘I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t,’ I say. 

I close the door behind him. Well, that’s Craig too, I think, as I walk back to my bedroom and sit down once again at the Bureau. I pick up the book, flick to the back page, and cross his name from the list. Stephen, Craig, Anwar, James, Sophie, Ellen, Alex(twice), Max, Helene, Rose, Al ... none of them, not a single mortal soul, will learn French for me, I know that now, no matter how much I tempt them, no matter how hard I try. Not even, it would seem, for all the power in the universe.