“Ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night”.

During my youth in Scotland, we would dress up as witches or ghosts (in cloaks and pointed hats or swathed in black wearing skeleton masks that dug into the skin) at Halloween and wander the streets ringing at neighbours’ doors (although not everyone answered we had a fairly good idea of who would be worth visiting). They would usher us into their living-rooms where we would recite a poem or sing a ditty in exchange for sweets or a “penny”. This tradition went by the name of “guising” (a term I have always assumed was derived from donning a “disguise”). It has all but died out, however. What a sad indictment on the current state of our society when we cannot let children play unsupervised in our own front gardens for fear that some paedophile might abduct them. When we set out on our annual walk round the local streets it was pitch black (the clocks already having been put back an hour). The worst threat to our physical integrity came not from predatory adults, but from teenage bullies who had their beady eyes on our proceeds (I preferred the sweets myself). At home, we “dooked for apples”, which involved filling a plastic basin with water (often the yellow bathtub my Mother could not bear to throw out when we outgrew it), bringing it through without spilling a drop and floating Granny Smith’s or some similar variety on the surface. Hands behind our backs, we bent over to retrieve them using only our teeth, the precautionary tea towels spread over the carpet soon soaking wet.

Whereas in Waffleland, fireworks are set off to celebrate New Year, in Scotland rockets, Roman candles and Catherine wheels are lit on Guy Fawkes’ Night (November 5th). The local children never pushed a straw effigy from door to door in a wheelbarrow to beg for a “penny for the guy”, leaving this up to the travellers’ wiry, undernourished offspring (we had no qualms in those days about reflecting their outcast status in the pejorative usage “tinks” or “minks”). Tighson dreaded that festival more than any other, cowering on his hair-strewn blanket in the safety of his corner by the settee. If his sensitive ears were tormented by a particularly loud bang he would let out a little yelp. I too was ambiguous about the unpredictable pyrotechnic displays. My Father always made us keep our distance as he put a match to the taper before retreating to a safe distance. Even the fact he was wearing his protective wellies hinted at danger. I would hold sparklers at arm’s length, as far away from my eyes as possible. Once a Jumping Jack chased me into the house, finally fizzling out on the kitchen linoleum. The trauma instilled in me a loathing of them as strong as the dog’s.

Sometimes we would have our own bonfire on the midden [compost heap], piling branches and old newspapers on top of the rose bush and lawn clippings. Naturally our next door neighbours proved our bitterest rivals, competing not only over the height and intensity of the flames (I wonder if either my Father or Mr. McD were tempted to douse the rotting pile with paraffin in pursuit of victory), but also over the number and showiness of the rockets (the worst humiliation being a damp squib).

By the bus stop the leaves have been trampled into a slippery mulch. The flags hang listless, mist receding slowly from the tree-lined boulevard. Abstinence from chocolate is clearly having deleterious effects on my state of mind (I am in the grip of one of my periodic panics over the quantity of artery-furring lipids I ingest, insisting that the Hungarian buy skimmed milk, which subsequently curdles in the fridge as I cannot bear to pour it in my morning coffee). Bars of the forbidden substance beckon to me at the newsagent’s by the cash register, tantalisingly within reach. I do not succumb. Like a good red wine, chocolate should be served at room temperature (or slightly above, as long as it has not begun to melt). For me, chilling it in the fridge (with the exception of Eiskonfekt, specifically devised to be eaten cold) is an aberration. A mouthful of hot coffee prepares the palate to appreciate the full sensation as the tongue is coated with bliss.

I have never understood the appeal of After Eight mints in Germany (After meaning anus). The advertisements cunningly create an English ambience with a dinner party, upper-class ladies in floor-length gowns, the ubiquitous butler with his silver tray, offering the gooey treat to the assembled guests once the appropriate hour has struck. When aware of the slightly less savoury connotations of the word, images of the women slipping the wafer out of its black envelope and wafting it under their delicate nostrils appear somewhat grotesque. Nevertheless, careful marketing has ensured that such a profane thought had never occurred even to the bilingual Eva. Sadly, I have contaminated her mind forever. Slogans do not always survive transposition into another context, the most famous example being that of the doomed Electrolux campaign. Following a particularly successful run in Britain, the company decided to export the mnemonically rhyming phrase to the States, but could not understand why product sales across the pond plummeted rather than increased. The following text accompanied pictures of the latest advances in vacuum cleaner technology: “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux”.

From the mid-80s, Cadbury’s plastered the question “How do you eat yours?” across hoardings all over the UK. This information had subsequently been stored in the recesses of my temporal lobe to surface during an idle moment. The referent is to a confectionery product, which has attained the status of an institution: the Creme Egg, particularly popular around Easter. As a child, I was fascinated by the verisimilitude of the fondant filling, a perfect imitation of the yolk and the white (the Terry’s chocolate orange that other facsimile of nature more cloying than the original has never captured the hearts of consumers to the same extent, in spite of being neatly divided into segments). I decided to poll my colleagues on the subject, what follows the results of my unscientific survey (in the words of the respondents themselves).

KC, he of the razor-sharp wit and prodigious memory, wrote: “Sometimes I stuff the whole thing into my mouth at once. Usually, I bite off the narrower end and then crunch the rest because you can’t suck out the filling”. He parried with the counter-question of how do I eat my Twix? His preferred method (which he compared to eating a chicken leg) is to chew the toffee, leaving the biscuit layer exposed before popping it into his mouth.

AT, my dour compatriot, prickly as the perma-stubble that inadequately camouflages his double chin, evinced customary bluntness: “What the fuck is this all about?” My other fellow countryman, DW, was equally evasive, asking me whether I was aware of the Montrose dialect term “gubbit”, denoting the embryonic chick found inside the shell on nest raids. Never having engaged in the casual cruelty so typical of little boys, I was forced to confess my ignorance.

TLG (to borrow KC’s singularly apt epithet for BG, which stands for The Lovely G) similarly nibbles off the thin end and carries on chewing in a ladylike manner with no tongue-action or sucking involved. By contrast, the husky-voiced, voluptuous L who unashamedly extracts the very marrow out of life’s pleasures (her response to the warnings of imminent demise that take up an increasing proportion of cigarette packets was to invest in a stylish holder from Italy, which elegantly conceals the reminder) availed herself of the opportunity afforded by my visit for a quick (forbidden) puff in the corridor. “I bite off the top, suck out the centre and then cram the thick end of chocolate in my mouth all in one go. It’s not very elegant, but it’s very satisfying. Have you noticed how they’ve shrunk over the years? If you put one in your mouth you used to look like a squirrel with cheekfuls of nuts. Now not at all,” she informed me. With her usual perspicacity she added, a wicked glint in her eye: “It’s not about Creme Eggs, though, it’s about sex”.

The inimitable NL, never having been cursed with a sweet tooth, has not picked up a Creme Egg habit, enquiring: “Is it slimy? I don’t like soft-boiled eggs; it’s like sticking my face into an old mop, or shoving my nose into a gashed mouse’s stomach. It is strange, though, as I like muff. I could drown in it happily; choke on the fluid, what a great way to die. If I had to eat a Creme Egg I’d cram it all in, bite and suck as hard as I could, so it’d gush down me throat, gag a few times and then swallow it down. Otherwise, I’d give it to the nearest kid”.

Although FC’s innuendo-laden contribution was not exactly earth-shattering (“I bite the top off, stick my tongue inside – I’ve got quite a long tongue – I gradually gnaw round the edges, lick out the filling and scoff the bottom end”), he was eloquent on the subject of a trick performed on request by his wife in her schoolgirl days. She would stuff three Creme Eggs into her mouth at once – one in either cheek and one at the front – and breathe through her nose until they melted.

My German friend AS, who subsists on Kaffee und Kuchen whilst preserving the most wondrously slender figure (perfect for the Escada haute couture she adores) did not prove to be a fan: “I hate them. I have only ever tried one once. It tasted like Styrofoam, slimy sweet with a slight kick of turpentine put me off altogether. It’s a chemistry lab wrapped up in bad chocolate”.

Gy was equally disparaging: “I’ve never eaten one, so I’ll make up a story instead. First of all, I’d subject the egg to interrogation to ensure it had been manufactured personally by Mr. Cadbury. Once this information had been secured, I would question it further to establish whether it was in a ‘delicate’ condition. Then I would enquire whether or not it would be appropriate to place it in a bowl, but regardless of the reply, I would put it in a bowl anyway before making various incisions: transversely, horizontally, vertically, laterally. Then I would inspect its internal state, looking closely at the quality of its innards – not quite as effective as a chicken’s entrails for predicting the future – if ever Cadbury’s were to produce a chocolate chicken it would make my day. Once all these processes have been completed I would throw the bloody thing out since it’s overloaded with sugar and sweeteners. The cocoa butter and chocolate contents are very low. Only English people are stupid enough to gorge on them. Any normal individual who actually enjoys chocolate will stick to the Belgian or Swiss varieties”.

The question transported the brilliant DC back to the days of her youth: “When I was at school some of the girls would eat five, six, seven or even eight a day. They were bigger then, the size of a real hen’s egg. It’s a shame they’ve shrunk. I would visit the sweetshop once a week and only ever bought one, which I would eat listening to Beethoven rather than going to the Rugby Club dance. I bite the pointed end first. They make your fingers sticky so you have to lick them”.

OB, the bags under his eyes betraying a late night drinking session, replied: “I eat them whenever I can, but it’s been a long, long time since I had one. When I sink my teeth into the top, it can be a bit of a problem sometimes because I end up chiselling into it rather than breaking it off. My teeth sort of skid off, leaving an impression, but nothing more. Once I’ve finally wrestled the top off, I tend to nibble round the edge and when there’s about half left, I stuff it in. Then, occasionally, if by myself, I peel the foil off and just shove it in whole, but it’s not a pretty sight, so I only do that if I’m on my own”.

The final reply (from MW) highlighted a common problem encountered by Creme Egg-munchers everywhere: “Those things are a nuisance as they tend to hang around on the shelves. They have no date on them and if you buy an old one you can tell by the patina of the chocolate. I eat them in one go because there’s nothing to hold on to – you can’t put them down because they don’t have a proper wrapper. Little bits of silver paper stick in the surface of the chocolate and it’s very difficult to remove them without getting chocolate under your fingernails”.

As for myself? My solution is unique. I bite off the thick to facilitate the insertion of my index finger, which I use to scoop out the fondant (this tactic is only really effective when the egg is fresh, as the normally smooth paste congeals into a solid, unappetising lump if past its best), scraping the inside of the shell to remove every last trace if it before savouring the untainted hydrogenated vegetable fat and lecithin mixture.

Having banished added salt from my diet, I am often assaulted by a craving for sizzling rashers of bacon, cooked until crisp and brittle and then placed between two slices of wholemeal with the merest scraping of fresh-churned butter. My lover, the Hungarian, would spend his summer holidays with his Grandfather on the farm. When he was four, he and his slightly older friend Dini (aged six) had the bright idea of tethering the good-tempered pig Bukfenc (Somersault), so named because he was remarkably agile, to the miniature cart used to transport wheat to the mill (and flour back). Having wound a length of string around Bukfenc’s head (taking great care to ensure it did not dig into his throat, threats of dire retribution if ever they were found guilty of such an offence ringing in their ears), they fastened the other end to the single shaft and clambered aboard, tapping the hapless animal’s rear with a switch whenever he paused to snuffle. Bukfenc adored the bran that was stirred into his swill, gobbling any flakes that fell out of the bucket in the process (hence the proverb warning against the perils of falling into bad company “aki korpa közé keveredik, megeszik a disznók”, literally “he who gets mixed in with the bran is devoured by the pigs”). Not that all his memories of the creatures are so fond: having been sent to the sty to feed a boar turnip leaves, he reached in to stroke its head and was rewarded for his gesture of affection by a bad-tempered grunt and painful bite.

Whereas our Forestry Commission puts up wooden tables by the roadside for picnics (sandwiches, boiled eggs for peeling, flasks of tea and slabs of fruit cake), the Hungarian equivalent consists of a semi-circle of seats and a bowl-shaped depression lined with concrete or stones in which fires may be safely lit (prohibited outside these designated areas or kijelölt helyek). Families gather round them for the szalonnasütés, or csurdítás as it is called in my lover’s local dialect. The loaves of white bread are cut into slices and placed direct on the ground or on napkins and onion or paprika added. Generous chunks of bacon fat (szalonna) are then skewered on sticks, notches cut deep to allow the lard to drip off more easily when turned slowly above the embers. Once the melting has begun, the stick is held over the bread, which blotches with the sooty grease. It may sound revolting, but as generations of Magyars can testify, the taste is worth the effort.

My lover also recalled the contents of a newspaper article from the late Seventies. A couple of young men from Pest (for which read ignorant townies) were invited down to the country to take part in a disznótor (the feast held to mark the occasion of a pig being slaughtered). Proceedings usually begin before first light (around four or five in the morning) with a glass of pálinka (an excellent aid for digestion later in the day). The pig in question was not going to give up without a fight, squealing as it ran round and round, working the city-dwellers into a sweat. Eventually they were able to tire it out and grabbed it, although even then it continued to struggle with all its might, lashing out with its trotters. When they noticed the distress in its eyes, they felt pity and could not bring themselves to slit its throat whilst it was still conscious. Taking inspiration from a popular method of shuffling off the mortal coil, they inserted a tube in the beast’s mouth and switched on the cylinder filled with a combination of propane and butane, which had the desired effect. What they failed to take account of, however, was the next stage, the pörzsölés, whereby the bristles are scorched off using a blowtorch. The result? Pig entrails all over the surrounding branches, collective disappointment, empty plates, no sausages, salted ear, tail, cracklings or hams for later.

A further anecdote came from one of his friends who had promised to catch a massive 300-kilo pig prior to the sticker’s (böllér) arrival. The stars were still shining when he and his companion sneaked into the yard to catch the slumbering monster by surprise. As soon as they opened the gate, it looked up in surprise, grunted and promptly dropped dead of a heart attack. Thankfully they were able to salvage the situation by hanging up the carcass to drain the blood.

When still a toddler, my son G paid a visit to GM’s farm in the hills overlooking Aberfeldy, accompanied by my brother. He chased the hens all round the barn, his podgy fingers desperate to grab their feathers. Entering the garage to find his uncle (who was inspecting GM’s latest two-wheeled acquisition), his brow wrinkled in puzzlement at the peculiar sight of a goat suspended from a rafter, head and skin removed, the only remaining trace of fur above the hooves. G stared up at it, transfixed. My brother, concerned that perhaps G should not be exposed to such ugly truths so early in life, ushered him outside, kicking around a football to distract him. Soon afterwards, however, G could contain his curiosity no longer: “Uncie Rory, why is there a dead dog hanging from the roof?”

“Things That Make One’s Heart Beat Faster
Sparrows feeding their young. To pass a place where babies are playing. To sleep in a room where some fine incense has been burnt. To notice that one’s elegant Chinese mirror has become a little cloudy. To see a gentleman stop his carriage before one’s gate and instruct his attendants to announce his arrival. To wash one’s hair, make one’s toilet, and put on scented robes; even if not a soul sees one, these preparations still produce an inner pleasure.
It is night and one is expecting a visitor. Suddenly one is startled by the sound of rain-drops, which the wind blows against the shutters”
Sei Shōnagon, The Pillow Book

Lady Sei Shōnagon’s journal recording her life at the imperial court in Japan of the Heian period has left an indelible imprint on my style. By turns moody, impressionistic, wistful, disdainful, opinionated yet always witty, her writing reveals that she never regarded herself as an inferior talent to men. It is from her that I learned how useful a device lists can be in revealing character (her own scattered notes contain no less than 164). For example, in “Martin’s Journey”, my (still) uncompleted novel, Jimmy the tramp (my outmoded terminology betraying quite how longstanding a project it has been, homeless person being the current equivalent) is introduced to the reader as he turns up at a hostel to bunk down for the night (Martin narrates):
“He turned out his pockets to reveal the sum of his worldly treasures: a pocket knife with a rusted blade, a lump of mouldy bread, a fake tortoiseshell comb (unused), a few well-thumbed pages of pornography salvaged from a glossy magazine, worn along the creases, a kidney donor card (though not in his name), a rubber glove and a golf ball. I travel light by comparison with my plastic bag, bound notebook, loose leaves of A4 and two biros, money, car and house keys, driver’s license, cash dispenser and credit cards, passport, appointments diary and Glenfiddich miniature all having sunk to the bottom of the canal with my wallet and my mobile”.

Respectable precedents do therefore exist for mentioning a few intimate trivialities such as those which follow.

I associate genuine euphoria with blood loss. Admittedly, my uncontrollable joy following both incidents could be due to other causes (hormones and relief respectively), but I attribute them to the after-effects of excessive bleeding. After giving birth to my son I could hardly move, neither because of the exhaustion of a day-long labour, which I did not permit to be eased by any form of anaesthetic, nor as a result of the large number of stitches required to repair the tear (as a feminist I had stipulated on my birth plan that I would not accept an episiotomy under any circumstances, although the Glaswegian Dr. Guy attempted to wither my resolve with sarcasm, unused to being confronted with a patient better-educated and more articulate than himself – he eventually backed down once I demonstrated that I had read up on the subject extensively), but because I had bled such quantities that my extremities tingled before turning numb. When sent to the shower cubicle, bending down to remove my slippers left me breathless and dizzy. The second occasion was in Gy’s flat. Having been forced into abstinence for months (a fidelity I knew was never reciprocated) he announced over a bowl of fresh strawberries that he was not in the mood for sex. The last-minute summons to London had proven expensive to organise and I was in a fragile frame of mind, exacerbated by wine and pálinka. I sank my teeth into his hairy forearm. As he wailed about this not being the first instance of erratic and aggressive behaviour on my part, threatening to break off the relationship, I dashed into the kitchen, pulled open a drawer and grabbed the longest and sharpest-looking knife I could find, plunging it into my abdomen before collapsing in a heap on the tiles. Had my aim been more accurate, he would have found it very difficult to explain to his girlfriend. Appalled, he took the implement turned weapon, slicing my fingers, which by then were wrapped around the blade. The scars are still visible today. Bundling me into a taxi, he went back up in the lift to wipe away the stains I had left “in the most unexpected places”, on the shower curtain, beneath the bathroom sink, all over the towel as I had washed the wounds. Hours later I awoke on the hotel bed, shaking uncontrollably, my limbs cold. I share my self-destructive streak with my brother, whose forearm bears a vicious scar trailing its entire length. In a fit of inebriated melancholy, he had smashed his beer bottle, scoring the skin with the jagged glass. Nietzsche’s observation (“Der Gedanke an den Selbstmord ist ein starkes Trostmittel: mit ihm kommt man gut über manche böse Nacht hinweg”) had proven true of my teenage years: I would fantasize of cramming my mouth with laburnum or poison mushroom, slashing my wrists (a medical student friend did inform me that the artery at top of thigh was a better, swifter prospect) or employing L’s recipe for oblivion: a paracetamol and insulin cocktail. My Uncle Sam had hanged himself in a hotel room. THAK’s mother chose a slower and more refined method: reaching for her hidden stash of booze whenever her husband was too busy with his architectural designs to notice.

Like my friend KC, I obsess over the spines of my paperbacks: they must not show signs of damage. This has proven a great source of mirth to my family – books that could never be properly opened and therefore never read. Both KC and I have resorted to the same solution: buy hardbacks wherever possible. Likewise, if a single spot of grease lands on a page I am likely to give the tainted volume away and invest in a replacement. I wash my hands thoroughly in hot, soapy water before touching any book. Ironically, however, no matter how pristine the outside may appear, I deface the inside leaves with notes in fade-proof ink. The more interesting the argument, the more I scribble and line with marker pen. I could never offload my academic non-fiction on a second-hand bookseller.

I suffer from an irrational fear of moths (and butterflies). Their plump, furry bodies and erratic motion disgust me. One late autumn afternoon during my childhood I went to the pantry for a slice of bread when I spotted a Red Admiral, wings closed, above the lintel of the coal cellar. I froze and called for my Father. None of his reassurances about hibernation and how it could not molest me were to any avail: I insisted that he shoo it outside. As it fluttered into the frost-painted garden, several sparrows pursued it, chirping loudly. I could not bear to look and the guilt at my foolishness haunts me still.

I drink tea with either lemon or milk. If the former, always neat, the citrus squeezed with my teaspoon and sugar added. If the latter, always semi-skimmed and unsweetened. I always add the milk at the end, once the bag (usually Tetley’s) has been stirred around in the mug to release its full flavour. When served the brew in a pot, I allow sufficient time for the leaves to infuse. Similarly, I prefer my coffee with single cream and when unbearably strong and treacly with two spoonfuls of Demerara.

The passage in English literature that has left the most lasting impression upon me with its sensuous beauty ever since I first stumbled upon it comes from Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” when the eponymous heroine ventures outdoors at dusk, attracted by the strains of Angel Clare’s second-hand harp. It is one of the most erotic pieces ever committed to paper, each syllable laden with tension, anticipation. Moisture and secretiveness, the undisciplined tangle of the undergrowth, rotting leaves, a tug of briars, the young woman irresistibly driven forward:
“Tess had heard those notes in the attic above her head. Dim, flattened, constrained by their confinement, they had never appealed to her as now, when they wandered in the still air with a stark quality like that of nudity. To speak absolutely, both instrument and execution were poor; but the relative is all, and as she listened Tess, like a fascinated bird, could not leave the spot. Far from leaving she drew up towards the performer, keeping behind the hedge that he might not guess her presence.
The outskirt of the garden in which Tess found herself had been left uncultivated for some years, and was now damp and rank with juicy grass which sent up mists of pollen at a touch; and with tall blooming weeds emitting offensive smells – weeds whose red and purple hues formed a polychrome as dazzling as that of cultivated flowers. She went stealthily as a cat through this profusion of growth, gathering cuckoo-spittle on her skirts, cracking snails that were underfoot, staining her hands with thistle-milk and slug slime, and rubbing off upon her naked arms sticky blights which, though snow-white on the apple-tree trunks, made madder stains on her skin; thus she drew quite near to Clare, still unobserved of him.
[…] The floating pollen seemed to be his notes made visible, and the dampness of the garden the weeping of the garden’s sensibility. Though near nightfall, the rank-smelling weed-flowers glowed as if they would not close for intentness, and the waves of colour mixed with the waves of sound”.

Almost any savoury food can be rendered palatable to me if soaked in HP sauce. I can drink distilled malt vinegar in small measures (such as the boot-shaped vodka glass L smuggled out of the notorious dive the Perestroika for me, where thirsty politicians rub shoulders with ladies of the night, the main virtue of which being that of staying open until daybreak or the owner becomes bored – at the prices he charges he can afford to be inconsistent).

In my bedroom, my clothes lie neatly folded on top of the bags I brought them home in on the cherry-wood parquet in front of the bookshelves. If any garment finds its way into the wardrobe, I am likely never to wear it again.

G’s mouth was still numb from the injection at the dentist’s where one of his molars had been filled a couple of hours earlier. When the waiter placed the spaghetti carbonara in front of him at the same time as our starters, he was quick to express his dismay, but by the time he wound the pasta strands around his fork his taste buds had begun to tingle back to life (to our consternation, G always consumes his food stone cold). I had ordered antipasta, expecting marinated garlic cloves, plump olives, boiled broccoli florets, aubergine, courgettes and red peppers with the characteristic charred stripes from contact with the grill. Instead, I was presented with a mound of charcuterie: strips of raw ham and two types of salami, piquant and plain with a garnish of pickled gherkin. My lover’s entrée consisted of Parmesan croquettes topped with unadulterated shavings of the hard cheese.

For my main course I ate sole with pasta, sliding the flat knife under the thin layer of flesh, lifting it to reveal the delicate spine and ribs with all the precision of a biologist during a dissection. I had to squeeze the lemon wedge by hand, the establishment not providing the stainless steel utensil devised for the purpose, wiping my fingers on the napkin (being Hungarian, my lover leaves his serviette folded on the table rather than spreading it over his lap, respecting the etiquette of his native land). I washed the juice-soaked meat down with a quarter of house red, not the traditional accompaniment for fish. With the notable exceptions of Hétszőlő Tokaj Furmint (its light, wistful flavour reminiscent of crisp autumn air) and almost any brand of Tokay Aszú (a viscous dessert wine of incomparable quality) I am immune to the temptations of white, preferring sediment-rich, full-bodied ruby varieties (my particular favourites Zoltán Günzer’s 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon Barrique and his 2002 Cuvée, both grown in the Villány region, dark, earthy with a lingering hint of summer sunshine). Conveniently our home, originally built as the village shop in the days when ploughed furrows stretched as far as the greenhouses where the local grapes are tended, has a large cellar with racks already in place when we moved in. Only the bottle of Unikum squats there in permanent neglect.

“As happy as a dog chewing wasps”, THAK’s colourful phrase drifted through my mind when the conversation turned to the aggressive insects. My old Border Collie, Tighson (a name not intended to convey ferocity, as in the thuggish, disgraced boxer, but youth – Auntie Ruth’s Gaelic stretched to “house”, but not to “young man of”) used to snap at them from his blanket refuge by my Father’s calliper and polished shoes in a corner of the living-room as they buzzed around his head until one afternoon when he finally succeeded in catching one. Rewarded with a painful sting, he did his best to spit it out, subsequently tolerating the irritation of their exploratory flights without moving (or retreating into the garden to escape them). Ruth harboured an ambition to become trainer of an obedience champion and Tighson had won her many ribboned rosettes. She sold him to us after he had disgraced himself in the qualifier for Crufts where he had lost concentration, distracted by a bitch on heat during the ten-minute lie down stay with the owner out of sight. His discipline wavering, he capitulated to his amorous urges. Having abandoned him, Ruth focused her attention on Rab, a tongue-lolling, energetic Alsatian.

Tighson never quite managed to accept the fact he was not human. On holiday near the shores of the loch an ancient cherry tree rose above the cottage roof. Its thickest branch had a tyre swing attached. Resting on a cushion within the hard rubber ring we would beg our parents to push us as high as they could. My brother and I competed to snatch the leaves and sour fruits from the twigs that came within our reach or, if we were feeling particularly daring, we would request to be propelled over the banking and the peaty waters of the burn (a considerable drop). One evening Tighson did not answer our calls, unusual since he usually stared up at us with his pleading brown eyes long before the tin of dog food was opened and its foul-smelling jellied chunks spooned into his bowl so we were sent on a mission to ascertain his whereabouts. It did not take long. So envious was he of our fun that he had grabbed a loose cord dangling from the rope between his teeth, hauling the heavy tractor tyre up the sandy slope towards the trunk’s impressive girth before launching himself off with his hind legs, growling with satisfaction as he swung back and forth.

I did not dwell on another of THAK’s coinages (“throwing a pavement pizza”) for fear it might ruin my appetite. It referred to the Saturday morning evidence splashed liberally over the cobblestones of Leith of the previous night’s drunken hunger pangs. The detritus fell into two categories: pre- and post-ingestion. The former consisted of intact, though shrivelled, raw onion rings and grated carrot, which had taken a suicidal plunge from the pitta, the latter of less immediately obvious ingredients bathed in copious amounts of sour alimentary fluids.

G’s mood had improved as the evening wore on (as is his wont he had protested vigorously at his lack of choice over accompanying us, insisting that he gulp down the last drops of Iron Bru before setting off: “You don’t want a dead fly floating round in my glass”) and he recounted the tale of how he had been stung twice on the arm. A few years ago, he had been staying over at his friend René’s. They were wandering around the back garden clad only in their underpants due to the unseasonable heat when René took a notion to intimidate the local wasp population by flinging a brick at the fragile nest. G’s scepticism was allayed by René’s confident assurance that they would be too terrified to retaliate. Needless to say the boys were soon engulfed in a vengeful cloud of winged fury. G ran back indoors, whilst poor René was rooted to the spot. Even the soles of his feet were covered with angry blotches.

Whenever G’s behaviour grates on my nerves, I gently tease him about his equally unpleasant encounter with the Vespa crabro or giant hornet. My Father was invigilating at a First Aid exam and G and I were strolling through the streets of the small town for the couple of hours during which he was occupied. On the outskirts we found a small play park complete with chute, climbing frame, roundabout and swings. I sat on the green wooden bench in the shade of the towering oak burying myself in the pages of a worthy tome. Having bored of solitary games (Scottish and Waffelian school holidays do not coincide), he came bounding up to me: “Mummy, Mummy, I heard a really loud buzzing! I wonder what it was, can you see anything?” As he turned I was mortified to behold a huge yellow-striped member of the Vespidae family crawling up his back, no doubt attracted by his bright red Greyfriars Bobby T-shirt. Ashamed though I am to admit it, I panicked, scrabbling frantically for a long twig with which to dislodge the creature. G took to his heels, screaming for all he was worth, summoning the residents of the surrounding slate-roofed semis to their doors to witness me chasing him round and round in circles, attempting (so it must have seemed) to beat an innocent child with a sharp stick. So preoccupied were we by the task in hand that neither of us noticed what actually happened, whether I did succeed in knocking it to the ground or whether it flew away of its own accord. Shaken, we headed for the nearest tea room to seek compensatory refreshment in the form of premises-baked scones with jam and cream, tea and lemonade.

[To Neal, 5th August 1997]

“ég és föld között,
van és nincs között,
van és lehet között”
(Balla D. Károly: “Három Másodpercem”).

Hovering (lebegő).

Flying over the sloping rooftops, the dark chimneys, the bridges, the empty bridges and the telephone cables, white head lamps, red tail-lights, ceaseless motion – the Angel of Death, swooping silently to climb through a window, candle guttering, gripping the shoulder of the frail and dismayed, the fullest-hearted, cold spreading downwards as you gaze into the blackness of the sockets and you cannot escape, paralyzed. Downwards, downwards, like a predatory owl after its fill. Quietly ascending again to the star-sprinkled void. An ambulance siren, a certificate and the relatives inconsolable.

Van és lehet között. Heat, a trickle of sweat, discarded blankets and duvets slumped over an armchair – open window, trams from the street – laughter – walking, neon, sitting in the room with the lights off. One trickle of sweat, down behind the ear, brushing back your hair and I can’t see you. The fridge hums and the bottle too perspires when you remove it. A million people here, millions there, millions breathing, eating, but only one matters. How can there be so many of them when only one matters? Wiping your palm on a cushion. Even with the window wide, no relief. Moths intrude, captivated, dusty wings spreading against the wall, seeking camouflage. Gazing, gazing upwards, a smile, a blank ceiling. Nothing and no-one matters, only this proximity.

Van és lehet között. Restlessness. Not having arrived, uncertainty and certainty. Waiting, waiting. Hours, days, weeks.

N. Miniature cable car along the edge of the cliff, travelling just above the treetops like in a dream when all you have to do is will it and there you are, out of reach but not too close to the sun who would melt you in your pride. The river winds away towards Dinant. Early darkness. Wave to the children as you pass above the playground, climb out quickly on arrival and walk for a while through the car park.

All of this existence you carry with you in your mind, the senses speak ceaselessly. This water is cool, drink it. This tea is bitter, be polite and swallow it down. The language that lets you identify, the language that becomes mute. Narrowing, a proximity that absorbs, envelops, a silence, a touch, blue veins, pores, dampness. This whole world that spins and we don’t even notice, too enclosed in our own flesh. A lingering scent on a pillow. Sleep, senselessness.

Evening silence.

Double cappuccino by the bus-stop. Sparrows drinking from the puddles, squabbling over the contents of an iron mesh bin. I broke a washing machine today, imagine! The university’s insurance should cover it. I had to finish my washing by hand and spin it, all of which took up the time I had intended for this letter. On Friday, the last day. Saturday morning, packing, back through the town to the railway station and Kolozsvár with Enikő. Strange, this in-betweenness, this neither-here-nor-thereness, this thirst and longing. The acorns are falling onto the concrete paths, the students preparing for tomorrow’s exam. On the way to Tokaj, in Nagy Gábor’s bus, as I told you, we were half-dozing. The weather had cleared after pouring down in the morning (surprise, surprise!). He didn’t get lost this time, but drove too fast, overtaking too aggressively. Then, without warning, an explosion beneath us, the bus listing to one side, then again, skidding, scraping along the surface. Stopping slowly, shuddering. Broken axle, we thought. Two blown out tyres and we had to exit carefully so that the bus would not tip over into the ditch with us in it. Laughing by the roadside, mobile ‘phone call to find a replacement, a free glass or two of Tokaj’s best as compensation for the inconvenience.

I have a vivid image of you standing opposite the bus in the car park in Eger, sunglasses on. And of you inside the cathedral, as we all half-attempted to be discreet walking along the aisles, tutting at the bride’s bottled-red locks. I did not light a candle in Eger in the church. Usually I do, purely to appease, perhaps to show gratitude. The smell of wax, the smell of churches. Solemn images of the Virgin, serene, unfidgeting child.

Once, in “Cafe Hawelka” in Vienna, my pale features accentuated by my black velvet cloak, I wrote a poem in German for a young man at a nearby table. As I went to the toilet (a pretext), I discretely passed it to him. When I returned to my seat, he smiled, but I was not alone. I would feed you with ice-cream in Vienna and we could go on the big wheel, the Riesenrad, in Prater. Vienna was my first experience of Central Europe. Now I wonder, what is Croatia like? I saw it on the news tonight. A crowd cheering and a church draped with flags. Asserting nationhood.

I ache to see you.

I detest heights, so going on the Riesenrad is an act of masochism. It stops when you are suspended at the highest point and you can survey the city with the help of the indicators. Vienna, melange and dainty glasses of water. Athena with her golden helmet in front of the Parliament. Schottenkirche. Grinzinger Friedhof. Gustav Mahler – roses and irises freshly cut to wither in mourning.

“First, women are increasingly adopting male behaviour; for example in their approach to alcohol. Second, they are doing better than men in education, but not in the workplace – while they make up half of the workforce, there is still a massive pay imbalance. Third, while women are getting older, they are acting younger. For example, a 45-year-old might wear the same clothes as her teenage daughter – without looking ridiculous or in any way unusual. Fourth, women are having children much later and are less likely to stay at home with them. And finally, women are increasingly important when it comes to making the purchasing decisions”
Jonathan Mildenhall, managing director of TBWA, quoted in The Independent, 29th September

According to Rebekka Bay, head of consumer trends at Enterprise AG, the male-dominated advertising industry tend to “place women in one of five demographic categories that many feel do not reflect their lives – the Perfect Mum, the Alpha Female, the Fashionista, the Beauty Bunny and the Great Granny”. They are so familiar that we barely notice them: aproned and meekly crumbling the stock cube into the pot for the gravy, whilst wiping an onion-provoked tear from the corner of her eye or singing the praises of an environmentally friendly washing up liquid formula that also manages to be kind to hands; in an open-topped Porsche driving flat out on country lanes, blonde highlights streaming in the wind, for the sake of showing off her latest ensemble from Chanel; the simpering addict of anti-wrinkle creams grimly determined to reverse the ravages of time; her younger sister who has internalised the message that first impressions are all that count to the extent that superficiality determines every aspect of her shallow existence from the air kisses to the clammy handshake and instant attention deficit and finally the busybody whose sole mission and purpose is to scour the supermarket shelves, poring over the price tags until she has tracked down the cheapest washing powder still capable of removing those persistent stains from the school football strip. To be fair, advertising is forced to rely heavily on cultural stereotypes as these possess the merit of immediate recognisability: they compress the maximum amount of information with the minimum of effort and when the available slot lasts thirty seconds it is not easy to stay innovative. When confronted with any of the above cliches, however, I take the opportunity to relieve myself or put the kettle on before the selected programme resumes.

Although the stigma attached to women imbibing alcohol (particularly outside the confines of the home) has considerably lessened (a trace of disapproval remains, as evinced by the tone of reports lamenting the binge drinking “epidemic” amongst “ladettes”), I am still assailed by a vague feeling of discomfort whenever I cross the threshold of a lounge bar. Perhaps this is due to my upbringing: not a single drop of the intoxicant has ever passed my Father’s lips (in spite of every sly attempt by his fellow conscripts during national service to spike the contents of his glass). Whilst my Mother would bring in the New Year with a demure nip of Grouse or sherry, he would join in the toast with diluting cordial. Such moderation has not been typical of my family, booze sending two uncles to a premature grave and tormenting my Grandfather with hallucinations of an Auld Nick eager to steal away his soul. As a first year undergraduate at Edinburgh I made a point of flouting convention by accompanying CC and GH to the last genuine working man’s pub in the city, the Athletic Arms (known locally as “Diggers” because of its proximity to a cemetery once frequented by the notorious body snatchers Burke and Hare), which had only recently begun admitting women. Dressed in my tweed skirt and fake fur coat (a statement designed to provoke by distancing myself from my humble origins and therefore also from the regular clientele) I ordered a half of cider, an acid test of CC’s affection as this request was guaranteed to meet with the utmost disdain (only a full pint of “heavy”, McEwans 80 shilling, considered irrefutable proof of manhood). The linoleum floor, bare walls and virtual absence of tables or chairs did not put off the punters as there was scarcely room to breathe.

In my experience your average watering hole, no matter how many concessions to comfort it might have made, continues to be a male-dominated environment, a hunting ground for sexual partners whether consenting or not. Another article illustrated the perils of sociability (equated by certain unscrupulous predators with availability): so-called “fry” or “wet” cigarettes (dipped in embalming fluid) have caught on amongst date rapists in Britain. The victim is left disoriented, drowsy and vulnerable to attack (the idea of enjoying complete power over an unconscious woman apparently a turn-on for men who would never dream of resorting to criminal behaviour if THAK’s confession is anything to go by. I had at last achieved my ambition to spend a night in the luxury of the Sheraton with a view of the Usher Hall and the Castle, but after two bottles of Pinotage accompanying our meal I was well out of it. As soon as my head hit the pillow I was lost to the world. The knowledge that at that moment he could have done anything he wanted to me was something he found almost unbearably erotic). Apart from the coded reminder that obtaining sexual pleasure is fraught with danger for women (the old puritanism once again rearing its ugly head) it is clear that neither the streets nor places of entertainment are entirely safe for us yet.

The litter-strewn pavements of the metropolis are choked with shoppers, doorways temporarily sheltering woollen-hooded figures on cardboard mattresses. Bogus or real? The throb of traffic, jutting elbows with windows rolled down, cigarette ends, mass-produced sandwiches tightly packed on refrigerator shelves. A woman, face down in the gutter, motionless as the passers-by pick their way around her, tutting in disapproval. A girl walking home from the fair gunned down at random. No more candy floss, toffee apples or cuddly tigers won from the stall. A schoolboy’s stubbleless cheek permanently gashed from an unprovoked knife attack. Gnarl-handed women propped up on hospital pillows and dispatched against their will with unauthorised overdoses of morphine. Routine callousness – only contributors to the economy deserve respect. Cameras tracking from the pigeon-infested ledges, speeding, shoving, vomiting, shoplifting. The false informality of transactions, empty greetings.

A police clampdown on urination in the streets exploits the “ridicule factor” as a deterrent. Patrolling officers present offenders with a bottle of disinfectant (a length of tube attached to direct the spray more effectively) and a brush, ordering them to clean up in front of their friends. If their protests become too foul-mouthed they are arrested. In the semi-privacy of an orange-bathed alleyway, a youth unrepentantly deposits his scent on the brick wall of a supermarket, mobile in one hand, plumbing in the other.

An insurance company report reveals that window-cleaning is the profession that poses the greatest threat to life and limb in Britain today, being a member of the armed forces coming second and upholding law and order sixth. A sad indictment perhaps of safety standards in the underbidding culture encouraged by tight spending margins, or a slight reassurance that perhaps our pervasive sense of gloom is exaggerated after all.

In the recesses of the subconscious, the flea-ridden strays snarl, baring their teeth in anticipation.

“You look like an angel,
Sleeping it off at a station,
Were you only passing through?”
Kate Bush, ‘L’Amour Looks Something Like You’

[To Gy, August 1997]

Today’s lecture was about Nádas, more specifically ‘Emlékíratok könyve’. According to the teacher, one of the main themes in Nádas is that the world has fallen apart (szétesett) and this is reflected in the plight of the individual. We are constantly expected to play a bewildering number of roles, donning a series of masks depending on the situation we happen to find ourselves in, but masks are objects: strip the individual of the masks and there is nothing left underneath. We have all lost our centre, or, perhaps more properly, certainty. Directionless, searching for meaning. The eternal role-playing represents a substitute for a non-existent reality, a distraction from the internal vacuum. Reality is assumed to lurk beneath the surface, which provides a transcendental solution to the problem. The roles played by the individual do not constitute an identity, he claimed. I disagree. The roles DO constitute an identity, a social identity, with the self as the focal point for the processing of experience. Order, in the teacher’s interpretation of Nádas, can be found in beauty alone, in physical beauty because beauty is harmony. I also reject this argument. What matters in my opinion is moral beauty, the purity of emotions and the consistency that arises from following your convictions. Though I do not condone evil (you will retort, how can I define evil without a notion of morality?), conventional morality counts for very little. It is the product of social consensus and varies through time. It is relative, in other words. Physical beauty does not go beyond the surface and is transitory in a way that moral beauty is not. If you take physical beauty as the foundation of your image of yourself, as the prime motivator of your actions, you will devour yourself because it will fade with age (although I admit this is again the product of social attribution). I know how flimsy a consolation physical beauty is through experience: I possessed it once and lost it through becoming fat and invisible. As a result, I had to find an alternative, but even when I was beautiful it was never my primary concern. Purity of intent took precedence over all else. Which brings us back to my favourite topic of conversation at the moment: Neal. We have become increasingly obsessed with authenticity as a substitute for the lost centre/certainty. The irony with Neal is that, to attain the authenticity that will liberate him, to free himself of the hypocrisy which his birth has imposed upon him he has to undergo a transformation, a metamorphosis from falsehood to truth, a rebirth allowing him to live at last.

Another theme from Nádas is that of violence. As he makes explicit in one of his short stories (‘A bárány’), even the act of redemption involves violence, through sacrifice and bloodshed. In ‘Egy családregény vége’ one of the main characters, the Jewish grandfather, states that the only route to happiness (itself the sole worthwhile aim of human existence) is to be completely passive. I would counter that passivity leads to frustration and destruction (the female plight). Most religions echo the grandfather’s views by exhorting the adherents to abandon desires, to renounce the self, as the self’s ceaseless promptings of desire blight our existence, or, to quote Schopenhauer: “Alles Wollen springt aus Bedürfnis, also aus Mangel, also aus Leiden. Diesem macht die Erfüllung ein Ende; jedoch gegen einen Wunsch, der erfüllt wird, bleiben wenigstens zehn versagt: ferner, das Begehren dauert lange, die Forderungen gehn ins Unendliche; die Erfüllung ist kurz und kärglich gemessen. Sogar aber ist die endliche Befriedigung selbst nur scheinbar: der erfüllte Wunsch macht gleich einem neuen Platz: jener ist ein erkannter, dieser ein noch unerkannter Irrtum. […] Darum nun, solange unser Bewußtsein von unserem Willen erfüllt ist, solange wir dem Drange der Wünsche, mit seinem steten Hoffen und Fürchten, hingegeben sind, wird uns nimmermehr dauerndes Glück noch Ruhe”. However, the self is all that exists, therefore to renounce it is to condemn the individual to extinction and obscurity before the inevitable snuffing out which is physical death. Why yearn for it in advance? I am active. To an extent, we create our own happiness – to the extent, that is, that we do not depend on others for our happiness. The problem is, as the teacher pointed out, that if you chase happiness, it usually eludes you. Happiness is an athlete with incredible stamina. No matter how stubborn the pursuit, no matter how much of an adrenalin rush spurs you on, happiness remains just out of reach. I push harder and harder, raising the stakes until collapse is imminent. Brinksmanship. Then, in sheer exhaustion, I crumple, slump and weep, lamenting my lost life, bitter that, in spite of my best efforts, my honesty, my sincerity, my generosity, still I am abandoned. There is, however, no alternative. Standstill is not possible, only retrogression, stagnation, decay.

[To Gy, 29th July 1997]

When we were on the bus one of the things that distressed Neal was that he had to lie about his name, at least, it was a lie until he uttered it and from that moment on it became the truth because he was reborn “officially” as a man. He detests lying and to him, I suspect, his entire existence up to now (he would refuse to call it a life) has been one of massive falsehood because he was born into the wrong body, a vicious twist of fate that has condemned him to wretchedness until now. His choice challenges all our accepted (socially transmitted) ideas of what makes up reality and authenticity. To the outside world/society, the reality was that he was a woman and the physical reality could not be denied. Internally, though, the outlook was entirely different. He could not accept the tormenting, mocking gulf between the appearance and the reality. To him, the only way that he could truly be himself was to make the physical and the psychological/emotional match. I admire him because he seeks authenticity, taking the need for consistency to its logical conclusion. I empathise with this drive because one of the qualities I prize most in others, even more than simple honesty, is authenticity. Others might find his persona deeply disturbing. I do not, I want to possess it. He proves that our identities and categories for recognising others (and subsequently categorising them with the implicit value judgements the exercise entails) are not nearly as stable, solid or unambiguous as we would like to think.

[2004]

In the middle of the night Lydia called from Jakarta, near hysterical because of the severe turbulence she had experienced during the flight. He did his utmost to calm her, voice soft and melodic in his native tongue. Neal coveted a beard more than anything else. Every morning he would inspect his chin for stubble, rubbing his slender fingers over his cheeks. The testosterone injections left him drained and irritable. As he lay spread over the mattress in his striped pyjamas, arms flung wide I soothed him with fictions based on characters we had met. When she returned from her business trip, I was finally introduced to Lydia. Her tactic to disarm me was spontaneous generosity, presenting me with an opal on a leather thong, which she placed round my neck at the café. I could not warm to her in her artificial splendour: wig, false nails, eye shadow and foundation, cherry red lipstick, heels, short skirt, in short the primped ultra-femininity I have always eschewed. The heat and the wine, his brown locks and plump lips, my brow uncaressed, my womb burning.

[Diary Entry, 1997]

Crossing the tarmac at Munich airport, my heart sank at the sight of the Croatian Airlines ATR 42, even tinier than your average Sabena regional jet as well as being propeller-driven. I had never experienced this before, but had heard endless laments from colleagues about noise levels (which subsequently proved unfounded, though the vibration distorted conversation from the rows behind to the extent that even the snatches of conversation in Danish were rendered incomprehensible – nor would I recommend teeth-gritting as a fear-management strategy on this particular mode of transport). As I stepped out of the bus, I did a quick head count. Of the forty or so passengers, I was one of only three women. We had to board at the rear hatch, as the entrance at the front opened on to an unfitted, unupholstered space draped over with netting. Seat 9A. I let most of the others overtake me. A man in an ill-fitting polyester suit frantically dialled his mobile a few metres from the plane – one last call before take-off. At the top of the stairs I received my initiation into the Croatian language: pepeljara (ashtray) and izlaz (exit). The stewardesses were bemused by my grin.

Fasten seatbelts while seated: zavežite svoje pojaseve dok sjedite. Life vest under the seat: pojas za spašavanje je ispod Vašeg sjedišta. Ljeto for summer. A map in the in-flight magazine accompanied by the usual effusive commentary extolling the virtues of the home country (implicitly complimenting the reader on his discernment and good taste in selecting the destination of travel) informed me that Croatia has 4.8 million inhabitants. Jadransko More is the Adriatic, Crno More the Black Sea and Budimpešta my spiritual capital. The hostess roused me from my daydream, more vocabulary: osvjezovajući rupčić for refreshing tissue. Wiping the sweat from my palms, I gazed at a flotilla of hot-air balloons floating sedately over a lake. Mountains in the distance, the Alps. Vrhnje za kavu, cream for coffee. “Would you like a drink, maybe?” Then: “Would you like coffee, maybe?” She poured into the plastic cup a brew so vile that I was tempted (only tempted, mind you!) to retract my pet jibe about Sweden (the Swedes being so puritanical that one of the few vices they indulge in, the imbibing of a caffeine-based stimulant, is so bitter that any possible pleasure that may be extracted from the experience is immediately ruined, banished in favour of dull utilitarianism). Below us bare peaks (karge Höhen) stretched endlessly, pockets of snow on the flats, valleys gouged so deep that it seemed as if the benevolent rays of the sun could never penetrate them. A láthatárig. Za vašu sigurnost, for your safety. A delicately wrapped sliver of chocolate on a tray. Kras the brand name.

Zračna Luka Zagreb, its style reminiscent of Ferihegy 1. Tension. Should I enquire about declaring currency? Two luggage collection points. I had been the first through passport control. The doors beyond customs would slide tantalisingly apart to reveal a glimpse of the concourse. No sign of him. In fact, the airport seemed to be in semi-slumber, so few in number were those waiting for new arrivals. I remembered noticing my forlorn bag about to be loaded, ignominiously squashed between suitcases. Had my packing been careful enough to allow for this contingency? Would the cheese be safe or had it oozed its way out of the cling-film restraints to smear over my ankle-length velvet dress in a foul-smelling not quite removable mush? Restlessness chivvied me across to the trolleys just as the conveyor belt shuddered into motion, announced by the customary impatient beep. I had scanned the tri-lingual notices concerning travellers’ allowances. A single bottle of Drambuie could not possibly cause offence, although all the other passengers were heading for the exit via the “goods to declare” channel. I made my way towards the “nothing to declare” and a uniformed male officer challenged me in Croatian. When I failed to respond, he repeated: “Passport?” I obediently removed it from my wallet, which necessitated a lot of fumbling. Then I decided to elicit information to establish the veracity of a Hungarian newspaper article (about tourists being harassed by border guards over the import of foreign currency even when the amounts were not excessive and obviously intended as spending money) that had preoccupied me for a couple of weeks. In spite of speaking slowly and clearly (without that patronising, overdecibelled tone that monoglots adopt towards the “ignorant” foreigner) I failed to make myself understood. The officer called over a member of the ground staff. I addressed her in German, ascertaining from her reaction to my English that it would simplify matters greatly. In the course of the next two minutes I succeeded (inadvertently) in insulting them both. Instant mortal enemies! “This is not Former Yugoslavia,” intoned the officer with obvious disgust, “This Croatia! No Serbia!” Rather than justify my ignorance and dig an even deeper hole beneath my feet I withdrew, shamefaced.

I do not know how many times I had enacted the scene of the long-awaited arrival in my mind without expectation of anything other than certainty. That not only would I be able to gauge the situation from the reception, but that also I would know within myself. Even the subtlest invention cannot take account of every permutation. A small group leaned patiently on the railing to my right. Neal was not amongst them. I did not succumb to either panic or dismay, but took a deep breath and began to peer further along the corridors. Sure enough, there he was, almost exactly as he was when he had left me to bounded up the staircase in Debrecen. He had fleshed out slightly. I feigned relief to dispel any initial awkwardness. Burdened down, I could do nothing but feebly extend my hand. He took it, then kissed me on each cheek, exactly as he had done when we parted. Leading me towards the bar, he explained that a friend of his, Dika, was there. She was due to leave for Split at nine, would I mind if we stayed for a while? Dika was warm and cheerful with a kind face. Sipping mineral water I recounted the details of my journey to them. What were my impressions of Croatia? Airport bars with their hectic anonymity are not the best setting for identifying the unique. The radio blared out pop ditties from Split and three or four men in their early to mid thirties sang along tunelessly. I was surprised by how new and pristine it was, unlike the rundown, primitive facilities in Ferihegy 1 with its newsagents and beer over the counter arrangements. Here the ceiling undulated sensuously with polished cherry wood and halogen lamps provided bright but discreet illumination. Neal and Dika chatted in Croatian. I grinned. “What does boca mean?” “It means bottle”. Dika excused herself and bustled off. “How do you feel?” “Fine,” blandly. In the last week I had suppressed knowledge of the trip to the extent that it came almost as a surprise to me when I had to pack on the morning of departure. Contentment, well-being and excitement. None of which I would admit to in spoken words. To distract: “It is very confusing for us to see that the word for arrival is virtually identical to the word for departure: dolazak and odlazak, exactly the same letters, just with the first two swapped round”.

I was beginning to wonder what had happened to Dika when she returned. It transpired that she had been checking in. “Two people in front of me and I have to wait twenty minutes, ridiculous!” It was approaching eight thirty. We kept her company on her walk to the gate. Their fondness for each other glowed as they bade farewell. Though I too would have given her a peck on the cheek (Waffelian habits finally catching up with me!), I shook hands instead.

There was little to see in the darkness. Neal deposited my bag in the boot and we climbed aboard the bus. With his usual attentiveness, he folded my coat, placing it in the rack above the seat, positioning the laptop carefully on the seat across from us, resting his hand on it protectively. Only a handful of others were there. I persuaded him to open the present from Denmark. “I will put it in a special place when we get home”. I quizzed him about the two important things he has to do. He has taken a month’s unpaid leave in order to study for an important exam, which will enable him to join the Croatian Architect’s Association. Every day during my stay he intends to swot for at least four hours. Art, from ancient Egypt to the twentieth century, hundreds of pictures to be memorised along with the names of the artists and details of period, style and contents. Instant recollection, indispensable. Success will mean that he can establish his own practice, freeing himself from the grinding subjugation of toiling for another. Recognition, custom, improved salary (800 dollars a month at present). Then he must tour the offices to complete the paperwork that goes with changing his name. The operation itself will take place either in October or November.

When we arrived at the terminus, which, in its concrete heaviness squatted unapologetically like similar edifices across Central Europe, he wanted to know whether we should walk or take a tram. I had some excess energy and the evening air was balmy. We passed the meridian line, Neal dutifully hauling my bag. To our left, a compact rough-hewn miniature castle jarred out of context at the roadside. Neal did not make any effort to conceal his scorn. “I hate this building. It is stupid”. Far from being a stranded relic or ancient gatehouse, it was perfectly modern, a family dwelling, twee rather than pretentious. On our right, row upon row of blocks of flats, not excessively tall, but grey and unimaginative, parking areas thankfully sheltered by trees, slogans about young people and peace as well as inescapable advertisements relieving the monotony of otherwise blank smoothness. We veered off to a path beaten through the grass. “Now it is not far,” he reassured me. Motorway flyovers and pedestrian underpasses. Ahead three tower blocks that reminded me of the decaying wastelands of London or the vanishing high rise ghettoes of Glasgow, the austerity of deprivation. We took the lift, the door to which can only be unlocked by residents, to the third floor.

The hallway, dining area and kitchen are floored with mocha linoleum. A sparse, yet not spartan habitation. Living room, which doubles up as a bedroom. For some reason I had expected a balcony or at least some means of opening out on to the road for ventilation. Acceleration, deceleration, screeching of brakes, whine of wind resistance, blare of horns, starting up of engines. Day and night without ceasing, a tarmac landscape lit by spotlights arranged theatrically on constructions that reminded me of the surveillance towers on the Eastern side of the Berlin Wall, or alternatively, huge masts of varying height with crows’ nests to accommodate the clusters of bulbs.

Bookshelves piled with magazines in Italian, a desk dominated by an Apple Macintosh and an anglepoise. A postcard of a bride pursuing a groom, both on bicycles, grimly determined that he should accept her offering of the bouquet, beside them a black and white image of a nun, a cross suspended above it from the lamp, a paperweight with glass flowers. Three posters: the Korean section of the 6th architectural biennale in Venice, a collection of drawings by Palladio and the Debrecen programme in all its glory. A wall unit comprising shelves, drawers and wardrobe space, practical rather than decorative, silver dolphins leaping exuberantly, books in Croatian, Italian and Hungarian, a sofa bed, parquet floor.

He began to spread a feast before me on the table, but I had no appetite. The meagre sandwich and slice of cake on the plane had more than satiated me. I, however, was anxious that he taste the cake I had made for him, to discover whether he liked the cheese. “You can marry,” he joked, “It is good”. Liebe geht durch den Magen. I forced myself to eat a banana and joined him in a glass of Drambuie. With childlike enthusiasm, he cut open the cheese and sliced it. Chaumes, Saint Albray. I sampled local ewe’s cheese, which did not appeal.

Afterwards, we withdrew into the living room to chat about Debrecen. He showed me his photographs of his Irish roommates and other friends. I churlishly corrected the grammatical errors in P’s letter. Then came O’s lament that she had not received enough attention, making her antipathy for Jenő very plain without specifying its cause. According to Neal, they probably had an affair last year. So Jenő’s motive for attending is to kick over the marital traces for a fortnight a year and indulge his craving for variety. A hedonist. Undeniably, in the few photographs where they appear together O’s expression is strained and forlorn, rigid with tension. Possessive was the adjective Neal applied to her. Selfishly, I felt no sympathy for having deprived her of his company that evening in Eger. In the same album there are pictures of him that reveal his humour and never dampened spirits. My favourite showed him reclining on a lawn beside a white statue of a gargantuan woman adopting an identical pose to heighten the contrast. We debated E. He had immediately noticed the attraction between her and J on the very first occasion they went out together. He is both observant and empathic. “I feel many things with many people,” as he himself puts it. Before I could draw similar conclusions about the internal dynamics of the group I had to overcome my own self-imposed inhibitions, to set aside my hostility, to dare to emerge from the chronic state of self-absorption and allow myself to be drawn into the society of friendship from the aloofness of rivalry.

I feel perfectly at ease in his company, liberated from the necessity to impress, from the anxiety of appeasement, of pleasing, of entertaining to distract from the blight of my perceived inadequacy. I stretched out over the bed as he retrieved a shoebox from the wall unit. His green eyes sparkled with amusement as he revealed the contents: hundreds of photographs that we could not go through without staying up all night. He decided to show me some pictures of how he used to be. A long-haired woman leaning against the parapet of a bridge in Venice, wearing sunglasses and hugging a handbag defensively. I did not recognise him. Indeed, for me, these captured moments of the past were like a faint echo borne on a sea breeze. They did not even resemble the individual I know. Then a much younger Nela, short, spiky hair, full lips and stiff pose, a radiant girl with long brown hair beside her. “She was my first love,” he sighed. A studio portrait, when he was aged eighteen. “You can see my whole inner life in my eyes. You can see how I was feeling and what I was thinking”. I had to agree. A slender and delicate figure, eyes brimful of pain, neither hostile nor resentful, but slightly wary, mistrustful, intelligent, aware, lost. Self-conscious, ill at ease, subdued. Back a couple of years, sitting on a beach in the sunshine, holding a small child, smooth, hairless legs, swimming costume. Then in a dimly lit living room, again with children. Quiet, contemplative, solemn, her beauty striking. The same short-cropped hair, a shirt unbuttoned at the collar, an almost fragile look about her, face pale, features fine. I could imagine her on a catwalk in Paris, modelling furs, her high cheekbones conveying an impression of cool arrogance, her eyes flashing with a contemptuous fire. Finally, a later image, together with two women, Nada, dressed in black, head to one side, looking directly into the lens and yet keeping her distance and Lydia, an attractive, vivacious, slim blonde, laughing. “These are the two most important people in my life,” he informed me. In flicking through one album, I learned more about Italy from his panorama shots than from a myriad of professional, glossy-paged volumes. By then I was exhausted and retreated into the bathroom with its peculiar mixture of razors, aftershaves, mud packs and skin creams.

In the morning he laid the table for breakfast, a daily ritual. As I lay beneath the duvet, the rich aroma of coffee roused me from half-slumber. He cut more of the cheese, urging me to eat some too. Afterwards he had to embark on the painstaking process of memorising dozens of illustrations from the many art books on his shelves. As he hunched over his desk, tying his hair back into a pony tail with a small navy blue band, I drifted back to sleep in the morning sunshine, much as had been my wont all those months ago in L.

We dined on soup and a pasta dish that he made before slowly gathering momentum to head for the centre. He insisted that I wear socks, but I refused, not realising that it would cool rapidly later on. We took the lift down and, stepping into the sunshine, I breathed deeply, ready to drink in my new surroundings. A newspaper stand was our initial port of call as Neal purchased tram tickets. Next door stands a kiosk with bunches of bananas hanging from hooks, apples displayed alongside nuts, soft drinks in bottles. We were flanked by the motorway on one side and high rises on the other with covered balconies and rows of socks, shirts and underwear dangling limply, young girls leaning idly on their silky elbows, staring silently at the passers-by. The pavement surface, such as it was, rose and fell abruptly, its unevenness a challenge to the roller-bladers who pirouetted around us. Old men sat on public benches in their black hats, bags of groceries nestling by their feet.

“I have no luck with the tram when I am with you,” Neal complained, “I never have to wait this long on my own”. In the end, we took a different one to normal, changing further down the line. A rotund beetle, camouflaged like a leaf, marched in diminishing circles across the surface of the pane. Horns blared as a fleet of cars festooned with streamers and balloons sped by. “I pity them,” Neal shook his head in dismay, “Because they are getting married”. We turned to pass a wall spray-painted in a variety of styles: an expressionistic train like a refugee from a 1920s exhibition in the Weimar Republic, a fading huddle of female figures in the idiom of Picasso, abstract geometric shapes leading up to the main station on King Tomislav Square. Opposite this, a park with ornamental flower beds, neat pathways and a museum. An anomalous Victorian bandstand, genteel fountain and busts atop columns. “Szálljunk le!” Neal instructed as we trundled into the main square, Trg Bana Jelacica, with its granits benches, elegant cafés and the dominating feature of the equestrian statue looking for all the world like a Hungarian hussar, though I did not dare to point this out.

It was not what I had anticipated. There was not the slightest trace of the war. Budapest, with her shrapnel-gouged granite and bullet-riddled sandstone bears the wounds of her past conflicts more visibly. I was struck by how new and pristine everything seemed to be. Smart shop fronts crammed full of Italian clothes, shoes, the customary neon incitements to buy insurance policies on the rooftops, no litter, no dust, no decay, simply a confident prosperity amidst a profusion of banks. Sleek modern trams in their blue and yellow livery rubbed shoulders with the older models. Popcorn stands and roast chestnuts in paper bags. We began a winding route towards the cathedral along a street lined with small businesses where cobbles were being laid. Leather goods, hats, training shoes. Neal would stop to scan the prices. His feet are growing and he needs a pair for walking. I enquired as to whether they were expensive in proportion to his salary. He does not mind about quality, merely practicality. We veered off so that he could show me a passageway. An alcoholic staggered, cursing incomprehensibly, out of the doorway of a night shop, laden down with bottles. “We do not have problems compared with these people,” Neal reminded me.

Dusk had drawn in almost imperceptibly. “I take you to old part now”. Gift shops and cafés had been built into the sagging plaster and brick constructions painted in cheerful primary colours. An ancient sundial protruded from a wall, the sign at the entrance to the bar beneath it reproducing it in miniature. Although the temperature was pleasant, few customers lounged in the wicker chairs with their gaudy cushions. Neal explained that it was too early for the crowds. The end of the season, autumn’s chill. We turned right and upwards. An armed policeman chattered into his radio. When I asked Neal about the poetry covering the walls, he shrugged dismissively: “It is about war, it is not interesting,” before ushering me through the wrought iron gates. Children played, darting in and out between the forlorn wooden stalls of the market. The pavements were wet, having been recently hosed down to dissipate the smell of rotting leaves and squashed fruit. A memory of Kolozsvár, stacks of eggs in cardboard, red and green paprikas, grapes and peasant headscarves strayed through my mind. Leaving the side street I listened to Neal’s rendition of a conversation we had overheard. A man seeking advice about shirts.

In front of us a pillar, gold leaf covered angels gazing heavenward about the base, a Madonna surveying the city, resplendent in her flowing, opulent robes, arms outstretched compassionately. The cathedral of Sv. Stjepan majestically floodlit before us, partly clad in scaffolding, the attire of restoration. Its hollow spires reminded me of its counterpart in S, though here the scale is smaller, the decoration more austere. Much of the sculpture has been dismounted, the masonry crumbled. Angels and saints with worn faces knelt in an attitude of supplication behind a protective fence. Atmospheric pollution had taken its toll over the centuries. Inside, worshippers bowed their heads in contemplation, scattered amongst the pews. The ceiling between the vaults was painted the same serene shade of blue as the cloudless evening sky, dotted with stars. Neal crossed himself respectfully with holy water, genuflecting to the altar. Memorials to the interred nobility cluttered the walls with their Latin inscriptions and, in the shadow of the central image of the Virgin and Child, a coffin with panels of beaten silver and gold and a portrait of the face if the bishop who rests within. A carved allegory of the church as a maiden with sword caught my eye with its unassuming portrayal of feminine strength and dignity. “If I could steal one object from the cathedral that would be it” I smiled at Neal. Nearing the end of our tour, I was intrigued by strange lettering behind a crucifixion scene. Old Croatian, which Neal was unable to decipher, a translation provided. Just as we reached the exit, the bells began to peal in sombre tone and a man drew down the heavy iron bars to bolt us in. My obvious discomfort at the imminent prospect of guesting in the House of the Almighty was a source of mischievous amusement to Neal who pretended that he had not understood how we were to leave the building.

Back down towards our point of departure, cutting across a street parallel to the main square. Again we arrived at the street where cobbles were being laid with its disarray of warning tape and fine gravel. Our initial effort to ascend a narrow passageway was thwarted by a stream of men in jackets and bow ties accompanied by a bright throng of women in suits and their best jewellery, chatting animatedly. Neal beckoned to me to follow. The restaurants of Zagreb would have no end of trade that evening, as it seemed that half of the fertile population had chosen that particular day to tie the knot. The flow of celebrants was endless. By now, the last traces of orange were fading from the horizon. For illumination, we depended on harsh white lamps in square boxes resting on barley sugar twist legs. “Come with me!” Neal motioned to an entrance a few metres ahead. “Pod grickim topom”, an establishment with an outdoor section on a wooden platform affording an excellent view of the capital. He recommended it to me.

After that minor detour, we continued up the final stretch of the path. A funicular railway, a dwarf in comparison with its counterpart in Budapest, fell away below us. To our rear, a compact white tower with a smaller round metal structure on its roof like the lantern room that sends out its friendly beam, guiding imperilled ships beyond the hungry rocks.

[To Gy, 28th July, 1997]

The trip to Eger proved fairly eventful, as I shall now record for posterity (posterior? Bog roll?). Amusingly, on the tour of the vár we were expected to file down a narrow passageway to look at …a well. A fairly deep one at that. Conveniently (and to avoid being sued no doubt) it had been covered with an iron mesh, similar to the one that could be seen if you looked upwards, although the latter was much finer so that the coins that had been thrown would be caught. I wonder if that made the wishes invalid too? Anyway, rain stopped play. We couldn’t go on the tour by train to the specialist wine cellars, so had to return to the town in the afternoon.

I have become a member of the “csapadék csoport” [“The reason we call ourselves the csapadék csoport is that here the weather might have been blazing sunshine the whole week, but, come Saturday, excursion day, the heavens open and do their worst. According to the forecast, tomorrow will be no exception. We clustered together for shelter around the few who had had foresight enough to bring umbrellas. Hence our slogan: ‘Csapadék is falling down’”], half beginners and half advanced/native speaker level along with a Croatian, Nela. You doubtless know enough about the grammatical niceties of Slavic languages to realise that this is a female name. I, with characteristic aplomb, did not bother to inspect this person’s badge and was convinced it was a man. At the beginning of the second week the others had to pick my jaw up off the ground when they informed me he wasn’t. I hadn’t paid overmuch attention to him until that point, but I was so convinced of being right that I started looking more closely. Ample covering of arm hair, lack of visible breasts, muscular shoulders, etc. He had always been flirtatious towards me. The outing to Eger was the last meeting of the csapadék csoport, since more than half the students stay only for the first fortnight. It was Nela’s last evening in Hungary too, the evening when Nela ceased to be and Neal was born.

On the previous excursion to Hortobágy I had shared a table with him (I deliberately refer to him in the masculine not simply out of deference, but because as far as I am concerned he is already male prior to surgical reassignment). As we devoured the cold cherry soup starter he expressed his amazement at my grasp of Hungarian, but I never really spoke to him beyond that brief exchange. I have been something of a recluse, seldom mingling, always in the library or reading in my room. In Eger, though, he sat opposite me at lunch and next to me at dinner. As the wine flowed and the violinists’ playing became more exuberant our conversation began in earnest. “When I saw the queue for the toilets there were so many women waiting that I decided to go to the men’s instead. You know, at the moment, I am in the middle, sometimes one, sometimes the other. When I go to the ladies’ toilet in Croatia they shout at me, this is the ladies’ and when I go to the men’s they throw me out, saying it is only for men. I am stuck in between, you know”. He is an architect in Zagreb and has enough of a sense of humour to take my feeble quip about it being a booming trade after the conflict in good part. Then we broached the subject of astrology: “So, you are a Lion. You like warmth, you like to dominate, you always want to be perfect, but you are very sensitive underneath. You are very intelligent and you feel no-one understands you. Few people do understand you because you are special, you are not like them. And now, I tell you what I feel, not what I think I should say. You have an inner enemy that you must beat. You must be stronger than that inner enemy and you must win. You do not have (here he had to lean over to consult Jasna, another Croatian member of the csapadék csoport) enough self-respect and that is bad. You see, I know you, I understand you very well”.

Throughout the meal, he shared bread with me, and when he cadged an unwanted piece from someone (I thought he just had a sweet tooth), he halved it with me, though my piece was bigger and had the sweet topping. I remembered that one day at the büfé during break he had slipped me a Milky Way bar, which on that particular moment had been just what I needed, perking me up for the rest of the morning. Then he told me that he is a transsexual, mid-way through his treatment, neither a woman nor yet properly a man, going through puberty again. His voice is dropping and can indeed sometimes be very deep. The riot of hormones means he has an almost unlimited appetite for sweets and has to drink plenty of milk and eat cheese. All that he has left to complete the process is to undergo the final operation, the dangerous part. It will cost between 20,000 and 30,000 dollars. “It might also end up being erect all the time,” he laughed, to which I replied that surely no-one would find that a problem (allzeit bereit). Suddenly he remarked “Look!” and the room was completely empty. Literally everyone else had gone away. There had been some 250 of us crowded around only minutes before and I had not even noticed they had left. We walked out to the bus. He seemed slightly nervous and wanted to take a seat next to me. “Have I shocked you, F? I am worried I have shocked you”. I did not reply, except to smile and put my arm beneath his, taking his hand and inclining towards him. This is how we sat for the remainder of the drive back. We talked about my insufferable room-mate [we only shared toilet, shower and wash-basin facilities, the bedrooms self-contained]. The woman drives me to distraction with her attention-seeking coughing, gargling and humming. By quoting Orson Welles playing Harry Lime on the achievements of her native land [“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed - but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock”] I caused the latent hostility between us to surface. “She chases you because she does not understand you, and the more she chases you, the more you push her away. You see, I do understand you,” he cooed.

Opposite us (we were at the front: “It’s better here, I will look after you, you will see”) sat a sweet couple, a Hungarian woman who had been married to a Serb and her second husband, an Austrian. They recognized me from the newspaper article. We struck up a camaraderie around the fact that her husband and myself were absolutely bursting for a piss and there was no way whatsoever we’d make it back to Debrecen without a burst bladder or a stopover. Eventually we managed to wring some clemency out of the driver and it was off to the roadside bushes. I peed in public on the puszta amidst cries of “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera” and “Why is my flash not working?” (although the trip was videoed my open air, “coorie doon” micturatory debut did not feature in the final cut). Back on the coach the Hungarian woman asked Neal whether he too was Scottish. He did not pick up on the implication of this question until I drew his attention to it later. Then they began chattering away, he in Croat, she in Serb. She treated him to “her life story”. Then, anguished, he turned to me: “She has just asked me my name, what shall I say?” Earlier he had whispered to me that she had used the male form of polite address in Serb to him and he had not corrected her. He asked me about what his new name should be, muttering something about a kabala and how he must use the same letters as his current appellation. “Neal,” I suggested, “Tell her it’s Neal that your mother liked English names”. “No, I can’t say that,” he hissed, but I heard him use it, so the transformation was accomplished. Frankly I didn’t really care how they would respond if he had used his birth name, though they might have been repelled. You see, Gy, I was happy, warm, alive, full of hope. I found the ambiguity extremely attractive, irresistible even.

He recounted how his roommates, two Irish girls, had stared at him when they caught sight of his body: “You see, I am covered in hair”, he laughed. “Whenever I go to the bathroom in the morning there is a Danish girl next door and she comes out wearing her, how do you say it? (he motioned towards his lower regions) Ah yes, panties, thank you and she always goes back into her room startled when she sees me!”

He has been, needless to say, completely rejected by his family and apparently Croatians are very intolerant of him in general. “Now I am strong, but then, oh it was difficult, but you being here makes me stronger. Now I shall change my name, it shall be exactly as you tell me. I must look after you, I must bring you cakes and wine, I shall visit you in [Waffle Central] and we shall laugh and we shall dance together”. Have you any idea how seductive that simple statement was for me? You ought to know very well how I would interpret it in my present frame of mind, im Klartext, compassion. And I desperately wanted not to part from him, but he had to get up at four thirty in the morning and had not packed yet. The whole csapadék csoport was there in the hall when we arrived, bidding their farewells. He looked at me, kissed me very firmly on each cheek, sighing, and bounded away up the stairs, never letting me out of sight. I gazed after him, utterly devastated. Devastated for bringing all the long buried pain to the surface. Can you imagine how much agony it must have cost him to have to make that choice, the choice to change the most fundamental of all identities. His first puberty was extremely distressing for him. It must have been traumatic to sprout breasts, the most visible indicators of femininity. He feels that it will only be after his operation that he can begin to live as it was intended to be. Around 40. I admire his strength and his courage. He is an outsider and only an outsider can understand me, only someone with this ambivalence inside them can empathise with my darkness, the discrimination and expulsion I have been through. It is always foolish to hope, always foolish to love, always foolish to believe someone else will understand. My feelings towards this person are not ambivalent: I wanted to stay with him, to continue to be close to him. The last thing in the world I wanted was to be torn away from him. My life is perhaps not yet over. I must go to Zagreb or expire with longing. A man who was once a woman. If there is no compassion or understanding there then compassion and understanding are chimeras.

One final aside. He thinks beyond the surface: “Fat, thin, all these things can change or be changed” as if nothing could be easier. When I listened to his calming voice for once I felt as if nothing superficial did matter ultimately. I would go at the drop of a hat. I would hold his hand during the operation.

The sole commuter on the bus carrying an umbrella (having lent too much credence to the London-area forcast and its implications for the precipitation levels in Waffle Central) I spotted another abuse of my mother tongue on a local authority-sponsored poster. A stick figure pooch in punkesque spiky collar obediently waiting for his owner to remove the offending object he had just deposited on the flagstone. “I’m training my master” and “Tidiness is everyone’s business” the captions. So far, so good. The receptacle intended to dispose of the offending article, however, was labelled “doggy bag”, not quite what we had in mind when we invented the phrase. Imagine coming home from a party or a wedding with an abundant spread: “I brought you a doggy bag, dear, thanks for babysitting”. Instead of a slab of aromatic fruitcake with marzipan and icing several inches thick or salmon paste sandwiches – let’s not dwell on the idea.

It also occurred to me during my inbound journey that playing a clip of the Smash Martians could be the most effective means of providing a palatable introduction to sociology. The televised advertisements for dehydrated potato flakes (simply add boiling water and stir) featuring these characters were extremely popular in the late 1970s. On board a flying saucer a Martian teacher switches on the display screen at the beginning of the daily lesson in front of a class of eager pupils (the Martians are not organic life-forms, but robots). The subject is whimsical and outmoded Earth customs, more specifically food preparation. A housewife is shown peeling and chopping a potato, a spectacle, which causes the alien observers to collapse with mirth, such primitive methods having long since become obsolete. The jingle (”For mash get Smash”) is played above their helpless laughter.

The lessons (by no means an exhaustive list):
1) When viewed from the outside, any practice can take on an air of eccentricity. This points to the essential arbitrariness of all interactions: the “natural” comprises a socially determined artifact of (broad though never absolute) consensus.
2) Technological advancement is routinely associated in our culture with superiority. The Martians are the functional equivalent of 19th century explorers, pitying the poor humans and distancing themselves from them simultaneously. Backwardness (equated with relative lack of technological sophistication) is an unenlightened and undesirable state of being and must be overcome.
3) The overt message needs to be interpreted against the backdrop of a dense tissue of meanings and connotations (specific contextuality). Appealing to the viewer’s sense of humour is clearly not a disinterested act: the purpose of attracting public attention is to shift goods. The choice of a science-fiction trope may be motivated by historical factors (the popularity of the Daleks and other non-human creatures at the time), or it may comprise an oblique (comic effect-enhancing) comment on our inflated self-perception (we consider ourselves the most highly-developed society on the planet, hence an extra terrestrial has to be roped in to take us down a peg or two).
4) Stereotypes and norms are depicted in an apparently uncontentious manner conducive to reinforcing them (the gendered division of labour evoked by the simple device of a woman’s hand scraping off the vegetable’s outer skin is taken for granted).
5) Human intervention is presumed to add to the value of a raw commodity. Processing ennobles: lost vitamins are put back in greater quantities than were originally present, making the finished merchandise more nutritious. Interestingly the image on the packet shows a serving of steaming mash indistinguishable from its conventional counterpart, with a knob of melting butter and sprig of parsley on top (which suggests that stressing artificiality is not necessarily the main selling point).
6) The consumerist ideal attaches importance to innovation and convenience. The advantage of Smash is the speed with which it can be prepared. It liberates the buyer from the drudgery of bending over the sink, collecting and throwing out the unwanted, inedible peel. No fuss, no reddened hands from running the soil-dirtied potatoes under the tap. Labour-saving solutions are at a premium.
7) Even the seemingly most trivial manifestation of our culture can unearth a great deal of information concerning our thought-processes and everyday conduct.

A similar analysis focusing on the equally popular flat-capped, “trouble at mill” Tetley Tea men or the PG Tips monkeys could be every bit as instructive.

In my youth, the targeting of children by advertisers (beyond a few brands of crisps and confectionery and the innundation of toy-related spots in the run up to Christmas) would have been regarded as blatant and distastefully predatory, in short a breach of propriety. Innocence has waned with the advent of niche broadcasting and channels dedicated to specific age groups in the digital age. Now Barbie with her vacuous, high-maintenance smile, jet set lifestyle and unattainable figure beams from the screen every ten minutes or so. Alongside literacy and numeracy our diminishing numbers of offspring require training to become fine, upstanding, discerning consumers, susceptible to persuasion and enticement, discouraged from extracting greater amusement from climbing into the box the present arrived in than the educational or entertainment-oriented piece of gaudy plastic itself.

[To Gy, 26th November, 1997]

At last some breathing space for communication! I am in the deluxe, brand new at a location near you (well, relatively!), enigmatically-named D-3. It is vast and, as of yet, confusing. Shops are being opened in the Atrium and the trees already beginning to shed their leaves in protest. There are no bins in the ladies’ toilets (leading to the accumulation of vast piles of soggy paper towels on the marble sink tops) and no coat hooks. The bar on the third floor is naught but an empty recess, half the premises still not accessible, but our old haunts on the Rue B have been completely abandoned.

Yesterday at the shrink, I allowed some of my bottled up resentments to spew forth. I resent almost everyone else alive at present, but especially men. I resent men because they deny me. They deny me recognition, they deny me attention, they deny me pleasure, they deny me happiness, they deny me love, they deny me sex, they deny me a future, they deny me a second child, they deny me my potential. I also perceive virtually everyone as my enemy, including myself. More specifically, my body is my enemy with its constant demands for maintenance. I resent my own physicality, the dictatorial necessity to maintain this useless mantle of flesh, a husk that is socially unacceptable. Since arriving back I have eaten no chocolate, cakes, nothing between meals, yet I have lost virtually no weight. If I feed my body, it becomes more disgusting. I can cover it with perfume, but that is merely an act of conformity, an expression of the wish to be integrated by respecting the norms of the peer-group. My body betrays me. The badminton has toned it slightly, but not much. My physicality drags me down, takes up too much energy. Strangely, though, I feel no desire. As I said to the shrink, the only defence, the only power left to me is rejection. If I encounter a new male, and believe it or not there actually IS one, unattached and even straight. Others swear he is handsome, but he leaves me stone cold. His arrogance is a turn-off and besides all the girls hover about him, waiting for the opportunity to pounce, like a swarm of bees around an exotic, nectar-laden blossom. The sole contact I have been able to establish with him was to put down a marker to the effect that I despise men, to make it clear that, although I am a single parent in my 30s this does not mean that I am a lonely, frustrated spinster who would do anything to entice him into bed with me. I have to demonstrate beyond all ambiguity that I am not after them before sitting back in despair that they do not want me anyway. I told him that men are weak and pathetic and that only women possess true courage and the capacity to take risky emotional decisions, to which he gave the standard retort that it is impossible to make such sweeping generalisations. I sneered in reply that I was merely speaking on the basis of extensive experience, an argument he could not counter since I was shifting the parameters from the realm of abstract debate to the realm of lived fact. People make demands on me, grabbing, yet not willing to give in return. I have plenty left to give, but do not feel like making concessionary gestures towards them because that is to risk being taken for a ride yet again. Besides, why should I continue to make available my own resources when I end up empty-handed? It is unfair that I should eternally evince generosity and yet be ignored and dismissed. Men refuse to admit that I have anything to offer, failing to acknowledge that I am intelligent, attractive, educated, creative, etc. and that in most cases I possess all these qualities in greater measure than their spouses or partners. Rather than suffer further defeat, rejection and humiliation by confessing that I want them, I prefer to push them away in advance, protecting myself. Without love and affection there is nothing but my pride and the icy blast of unbreachable dignity to fall back on. Since it is so and since there is no prospect of improvement (I announced to the shrink) the sole viable option is suicide. Her reply was interesting…

She asked me to draw up a list of ways in which I could spoil myself. Not how someone else could be good to me, but how I could be good to myself as a means of building up internal reserves so that I would feel I had more to give. That no-one can approach me at the present juncture, there are no means open to them to construct a relationship. That the bitterness and anger are noticeable. I informed her that it is a negative spiral, that the longer I am alone and celibate, the more intense the hatred becomes. The last moment of intimate closeness was with you in March. She at least did not adopt a moralistic approach to the problem, nor did she take a religious one. My list will be short. I cannot think of anything to put on it. A few months ago, I might have written “buy myself chocolates”, but chocolates no longer give me pleasure. What does these days? Reading. Reading is like a conversation without the risk. Since it contains a distilled and organised/structured form of speech, it concentrates meaning in a way that spoken exchanges cannot.

She also instructed me to stop insulting myself, doing myself down in the presence of others, not merely because for every potential redeemer there are a dozen who would take great delight in grinding me into the dust, but because, sooner or later, they begin to believe the negative message I transmit, behaving as if it were open season and attacking along similar lines to my denigrations of myself.

I reckon I may be able to crack Neal yet. Cynical little girl that I am, using such harsh and unrefined terms to discuss the emotional life of another human being, one for whom I actually care. The Croatian authorities have refused him permission to change his name to Neal on the new birth certificate because it is not a Croatian name. Instead he has been forced to choose something that can be used for either men or women in Croatian. He selected René, which I was adamant did not suit him one bit. He has promised to change it to Neal in three years’ time when the authorities no longer have any jurisdiction to prevent the re-christening. He actually misses me, though I am a whited sepulchre, harbouring no pangs for him or indeed anyone, a sealed fountain, or whatever other symbol of female sexual unavailability you can dredge up.

In L, the only place where a drink can be had after a certain hour is in one of the strip clubs. Gasping for another G and T, L took me to one with her French acquaintance (with whom she would like to become better acquainted). I am not sure the close-cropped bouncers would have willingly granted us entrance had he not accompanied us. A huddle of greying men in executive uniform stood round the bar, ignoring our arrival (L and I the only women clad in anything more substantial than a spangled bikini or flimsy see-through dressing gown). My alcohol consumption had been restricted to a single glass of nondescript red and I suggested that we park ourselves in the middle of the second row. None of the other clients were obvious about lapping up the spectacle. The French sophisticate sat between us. The stage was bare, except for a pole towards one side, around which the performers would sinuously wind themselves. The most popular prop a wooden chair. The women would stride on stage in impossibly high heels without the merest teeter and begin removing the costumes piece by piece. Every one of them was stunningly gorgeous, athletic, tall and graceful, utterly wasted in such a dive with its grubby mirrors and tacky throwback mirror-ball. What fascinated me was that all the pubic hairs under the armpits and almost all of it around the vaginas of the strippers had been removed, leaving a narrow strip around the (as in The English Patient I am searching for an anatomical word) slit (apologies for the unimaginative solution), presumably to accentuate its charms, the secret pathway and its warm clasp. Genital mascara. The recollection of my one flirtation with Immac enough to bring tears to my eyes (and that had only been on my shins). I did not dare speculate on how they had achieved such perfection. As they writhed and pouted they seemed to look right through us, yet occasionally a twinkle of amusement lit up their eyes. We were an incongruous threesome. L stared at the bottom of her rapidly draining glass as the Frenchman and I debated whether the biker leathers were more provocative than the elbow-length gloves, which they teased off with their teeth. We politely applauded the perfunctory bow they gave before heading up the staircase at the back. A few minutes later they would reappear, fresh from the shower after their exertions, sidling up to the punters and accepting champagne. Linking arms conspiratorially with the males whose drooping paunches and hair weaves contrasted unfavourably with their smooth-limbed youthfulness and gleaming teeth the artistes drifted off to the upstairs suites, trailing feather boas. The winter air slapped us in the face upon exiting and we hailed two taxis before retiring to her flat to evaluate L’s chances.

The closing down of public toilets in London has caused an outcry amongst bus drivers, the elderly and disabled. Shop keepers are none too accommodating when it comes to allowing caught short passers-by access to their facilities, a state of affairs exacerbated by the traditional British reluctance to admit to natural bodily functions. Campaigners from the British Toilet Association have condemned legislation that leaves the running and maintenance of conveniences to the discretion of local authorities (all too often their tight budget margins leave the vulnerable in the lurch). In Waffle Central the situation is worse. For all its faults, my home town with its meagre population of 40,000 has several attendant-supervised lavatories, yet in a capital city with over a million inhabitants outside of main line stations you will hobble with thighs squeezed tightly together in a vain quest for the Holy U-Bend (the best you can hope for being the Golden Arch of the M or the local variant, Quick). In many cinemas and pubs entrance to the unprepossessing stalls is guarded by fearsome matrons who could beat Cerberus off with a stick, tail between legs. Whilst most look up sullenly from their crossword puzzle magazines on the approach of a client, others take greater pride in their profession, armed with a damp cloth to wipe down the seat prior to skin contact. The fee varies between 20 and 30 cents (a remarkable instance of price stability compared to the days of the Waffleian franc, the outlawing of conversion rip-offs taken seriously by at least one branch of the economy), a supplement to the state pension to be placed in the saucer, the apron that most Dames Pi-Pi wear the garment of choice for purely practical reasons – the large pocket ideal for holding quantities of change (lest some uncompassionate individual wave a 20 euro note under their noses). Department stores back home and in Waffle Land tend to locate their loos in the most obscure recesses of the building (usually somewhere in the vicinity of the café) near the top floor, a sales-boosting ploy that leaves the hapless shopper dancing all the way up on the escalator step. Not that Waffelian males are shy about whipping out their plumbing on street corners or grassy verges by the motorways, sprinkling the dandelions and thistles. What else can be expected in a country where the primary tourist attraction and national emblem is a nonchalant, cherubic leak-taker?

[To Gy, 16th September, 1997]

A dear colleague and friend of mine, SD, a native of Cumbria residing in the capital confessed to me that he voted No on both counts [in the referendum on devolution and the setting up of a Scottish Parliament with tax-raising powers, the term “regional assembly” a weak substitute for an institution anxious to clothe itself in the dignity of its historical predecessor] because: “The same canon fodder who have let themselves be plunged into mourning by media hype about a totally insignificant member of the royal family have let themselves be taken in again by a Blairite ploy, which is nothing but a sop intended to cut the balls off the SNP and create jobs for the boys”.

[Postscript 2004]

For as long as I can remember, Scotland has been Labour’s most faithful constituency even in the party’s years of impotence when Thatcher reigned supreme. The resentment generated by the brutal repression of the miners’ strike and the introduction of the poll tax on an experimental basis north of the border (adding to the litany of woes about oil-revenue siphoning and nuclear dustbin status) a credibility-shattering legacy that continues to haunt the Tories.

Had I been in Edinburgh yesterday I would have joined the crowds marching down the Royal Mile to mark the Parliament’s opening in spite of a sneaking suspicion that SD’s judicious remark holds true and my dislike of what I perceive as an awkward compromise (Westminster still controls defence, as well as foreign and overall economic policy). Personally I would prefer full independence: Scotland in Schengen and signing up to the single currency, tolerant of diversity and free of the taints of authoritarianism and Europhobia.

[To Gy, 15th December, 1997]

On the train to S, apart from reading Elias’ “The Established and the Outsiders”, which contains a number of resonances paralleling my experience of growing up in a working class suburb of a predominantly middle-class town where the two communities lower in the hierarchy lived either in the new council estate (NM, the district most prone to flooding, the plight of its residents making the front pages of the national dailies a couple of years back with pictures of soldiers evacuating them in rowing boats) or the longer established, but poorer area of old-style tenements, HC, I caught sight of an article in The Times, which is thematically linked to the problems of social values and dominant standards/ideologies/depictions since it deals with another group of outcasts, namely the non-slender.

Apparently a 15-stone woman (if I recall this constituted the sole reference to her physical characteristics or personality bar a mention of her height, i.e. this woman is being represented exclusively in terms of her weight, as if that were the sole factor of any importance in classifying individuals, her intelligence, purchasing power, taste or whatever else counting for nothing in comparison though, to be fair, a photograph of her was included), an American, is suing Mohammed Al Fayed for having his security guards eject her , creating the impression amongst other customers that she had been caught shoplifting, although she had just spent £1,500 on goods in the store. The pretext was that she did not conform to the dress code imposed on clients of the establishment, even though she was wearing an outfit that she had previously purchased there, comprising a pair of leggings and a jumper priced at £250 (information provided to indicate that she was not unsuitably attired). Moreover, her mother (presumably slim, although this was not specified), wearing virtually identical garments, was not forced to leave. The security guards informed the hapless woman that Mr. Al Fayed did not approve of the way she was dressed. She claims that she is the victim of “sizeism” and it is on this basis, as well as the injury to her feelings, that she is taking him to court.

The presentation of this article is extremely informative as to the underlying values of society at large. The title was, if I recall correctly: “15-stone woman sues Harrods for ‘sizeism’”. Immediately the weight commands attention. This could be justified by the nature of the claim, but why the emphasis on the precise figure? It is quite deliberate. Her clothes size is also referred to in the piece. The figures carry with them a classificatory and evaluative significance replete with a set of cultural connotations. She was reported to be staying in a hotel where room prices start at £300 a night. She works in the fashion industry (not normally associated with fat women) and counts a top designer, Zandra Rhodes, amongst her personal friends. This establishes her credentials: she is aware of fashion, appearance-conscious and unlikely to be badly turned out (she herself emphasizes these points by stating that she deliberately wears expensive clothes to compensate for her weight and that she had just returned from an appointment with the beautician), that she is affluent and a successful businesswoman, in short, a far cry from the stereotype of a “loser”. To that extent, she confounds prejudices. Her status rating is high, her disposable income not negligible, she can afford to display the trappings of success (as determined collectively). The treatment meted out to her is not commensurate with her standing or her value as a customer (she had loyally shopped there for over a decade, but has now vowed never to set foot beyond the revolving doors again).

She was also continually referred to as “Ms.”, a designation supposed to lend an element of ambiguity, rejecting the notion that a woman can be defined by her relationships, but which here reveals what it is intended to disguise. Fat women are not deemed attractive, whatever other attributes they may possess, so we conclude that she is on the shelf.

Elias’ argument about the means of retaliation being deprived the underdog is valid here. All she can do (beyond setting a legal precedent banning discrimination on grounds of body shape, and sadly, I do not rate the chances of a verdict in her favour very highly) is to employ a negative strategy of protest, which entails denying herself the pleasure of shopping in Harrods.

It raises the issue of depiction and reality and how depictions affect social realities. Women whose body shapes do not conform to the prescribed (and coveted) supermodel skinniness make up the overwhelming majority of women, yet they are the ones plagued by feelings of inadequacy and denied access to public spaces, so intolerant has media-obsessed society become. The lesson from the Harrods incident is clear: appearance is everything, the prohibition against excess fat so strong that to accumulate spare tyres is to forfeit the entitlement to respect. Even visibly encoded membership of an elite is no protection from the revulsion elicited by breaking the obesity taboo. Snap judgements dominate where complete superficiality has become the norm. The ideal functions as a form of covert (and oppressive) control, enjoining us to squander time and energy that could more fruitfully be spent in other ways. How is it that the majority becomes convinced that it is, in fact, the minority and that it lacks value? Is it lack of visibility or public profile?

I suppose the ancient mechanism is at work again, mischievously. Belonging to the majority ceases to be the prized condition as scarcity increases a commodity’s worth. So the ultra-privileged, ultra-thin women make an ostentatious show of their superiority in rank and wealth by flaunting their lack of feminine curves in the latest ultra-extravagant fashion creations. Perhaps, in its extreme manifestation, it is a denial of mortality.

By the same token, it is widely held to be the case that being overweight in our society is a marker of chronic poverty or underprivilege. The badly educated, lazy lower orders are encased in lard because they wallow in their ignorance, too idle to boil fresh vegetables. Again, as Elias writes, the deadly (as opposed to the venial) sin is attributed to the most vulnerable and despised group.

Next to the article was another publishing the results of a recent survey according to which fat people are more likely to be less well off, less well paid, in less prestigious jobs and more miserable than their slim counterparts. Again the message is unequivocal: extraneous rolls of flesh condemn you to a second class existence. Now you know why I detest reading newspapers (!)

Back to pattern reproduction. What I pinpointed with the shrink was something I had attempted to convey to her, but which she had failed to grasp until, rubbing her hands with glee, she managed to latch on to an aspect of my childhood that could have laid the foundations for later behaviour. It is my paranoia, or what I would dub as “hostile world” syndrome. My experiences have affirmed for me that the outside world, comprising everything and everyone outside my immediate home environment is a threat, a potential aggressor or source of hurt and loss. Apart from my closest friends, I can trust no-one in society at large. I cannot admit them into my emotional life. I must defend myself against them (largely achieved through rejection) and defend my child against their depredations since all that they want of me is to strip me of what I love and care for most. Oddly, through the article it occurred to me that my continued transgression of the weight norm confirms me in my belief, my cognitive strategy for dealing with life, the basic premise of which is that everyone (potentially at least) loathes me and that my destiny is to be repudiated. Latterly, rather than fuelling my indignation and drive to achieve, it has been sapping me. Irritatingly, if I have nothing to keep me down I fear that a vacuum, a quintessential bankruptcy at my core will be exposed. Perhaps it is life itself that terrifies me. It is certainly not death. Ceaseless activity is for me an amulet to ward off even greater calamities. What worries me is that I might unwittingly pass on this pattern to G, thereby permanently injuring the innocent party in the equation who does not deserve such a fate.

Being celibate in itself does not worry me overmuch. That I often obsess about it is connected to my outrage about the accompanying labels: superfluous, unbeddable, sub-human. Just because I am a single mother – the reasoning goes – does not mean I am unattractive. I did not become pregnant in a desperate effort to trap a man. In one sense I can wear my celibacy proudly like a badge, proving that I am not “after” a partner. However, such assurance requires a greater sense of self-worth and confidence than I can muster. I want to dissociate myself from the stigmatised genus of which I am part (single parents). To achieve this I need a partner, even if just a sex partner without lasting commitment. If I were thin, I would know beyond doubt that my celibacy was a matter of personal choice rather than a captive and externally imposed state of inevitability from which I am preordained never to escape. I am in a weak bargaining position because of my weight and in spite of all the other advantages I am fortunate enough to be able to boast of. The weight, that most absurd indicator of worth with its overlay of moral proscriptions, is the only one to matter (carry weight!) in the eyes of others.

[To Zed who understands]

Church-going with my parents meant the ritual of dressing in my smartest suit and tights. The pews were hard, but wriggling discouraged, so the kind lady in the wide-brimmed hat next to me brought a supply of Pan Drops every week to alleviate my boredom and keep my mouth occupied with sucking the sweet during the sermon. Harvest Festival was my favourite as the austere sandstone interior was brightened by ears of corn and other produce. Throughout my school career I had been a member of the Scripture Union, assiduously reading passages from the Old and New Testaments every day. This habit combined with my despised swot status, my alienation from my peers and a diffuse sense of guilt and impurity left me vulnerable to the fundamentalist call. My renewed relationship with God had started innocuously enough at a Christ is the Answer Crusade with star evangelist L.P. in the city hall. A choir’s heart-wrenching song accompanied his peroration and I came forward to be born again. My appointed counsellor, the guitar-strumming AS with her pale round cheeks, blonde locks and huge blue eyes, invited me to informal living-room gatherings where lessons and prayers were followed by popcorn (all Christians of my acquaintance scoffed inordinate quantities of the stuff, presumably as it was deemed wholesome, served sugar-free). Having been assessed and groomed, I was assigned to the Church of the New Covenant (since renamed), a charismatic sect where speaking in tongues, prophecy and the laying on of hands in the hope of healing miracles were routine features of the Sunday services. Not that meetings were restricted to the Sabbath, however. “Quiet times” were mandatory personal contemplative sessions with the Redeemer every morning. We were discouraged from spending more time than necessary with unbelievers and prayer, youth and house groups took up our evenings. If concerns were expressed about our “walk with the Lord” (in other words, if we were in danger of backsliding) we could be summoned to one of the elders (whose authority was unquestioned) for one-to-one (discretely chaperoned, as shepherding positions were reserved exclusively for men, the wife constantly in the background offering juice and biscuits) repentance and encouragement drop-ins. The process of cognitive warping thereby initiated was as invisible and insidious as the fumes of ethyl acetate that still the trapped insect’s feeble fluttering. The social segregation and intellectual isolation took place so gradually as to remain unnoticed.

Never one for half measures, I embraced the fellowships messages with terrifying consistency and dedication, intolerant of any sign of weakness amongst my brothers and sisters in Christ. At the pastor’s instigation, I burned all my novels, short stories and LPs (pop music the work of Satan), eschewing all distractions and renouncing artificial stimulants such as tea and coffee (it would never have entered my head to be tempted by alcohol, although I did visit a pub on my 18th birthday just for the sake of going through the rite of passage of sipping my first drink, a Tequila Sunrise at the Plough Inn). I purged my speech of inappropriate coarseness and blasphemy (the main reason I continue to take a childish delight in being creatively foul-mouthed even now) whilst adopting the vocabulary of the faithful. Recourse to medicine took on the appearance of an act of contempt in God’s healing power as I abandoned myself to the extreme fatalism of eliminating the arbitrary from human interactions and misfortune, ascribing every event to the Saviour’s unfathomable will. Proselytising became the focus of my mental efforts, the mocking I reaped from my classmates proof of righteousness. On my way home from school they threw bricks at me, but I never flinched (thankfully their aim was dodgy). I was even abducted at knife-point to be interrogated by seniors whose vicious ridicule and physical intimidation could not force me to recant.

Belonging to the Church involved adherence to a series of either-or propositions (and prohibitions). For women, apart from absolute obedience to all men (who were by divine decree superior in the eyes of God, women’s presumed inferiority thereby rendered absolute) there were only two life choices: marriage and childbirth (contraception forbidden as a violation of the commandment to be fruitful and multiply) or total celibacy, nothing in-between existed. Excellence in individuals of the tainted sex was frowned upon. Homosexuality (or any other manifestation of deviance) automatically led to expulsion and consignment to the torments of hell for all eternity. No alternative existed for the sinful or the foolish. Even being good was not good enough. Only God’s grace and complete loyalty (for which read conformity to the Church’s expectations) would suffice for redemption.

[Diary entry, 17th May, 1979]
CD McH is his name. He gets called CD because the wee labels you are given couldn’t fit his full name in, so his Mum put on CD McH and Mrs. Rae (history teacher) said to the class when she picked up his jotter: “And who is this CD McH?” Everyone calls him “Seedy” and they ask him “When are you going to be planted?” CD always forgets his books and got 1,150 lines and eleven of the belt from Mr. Rae as a punishment. One day in Geography everyone was chattering, so Mr. Hutchinson shouted: “There’s only meant to be one voice in this room at once!” CD replied: “Shut up then!” for which he got three of the belt.

[Diary entry, 29th May, 1979]
At Debating Society CD’s speech was about clocks. On alarms he was funny: “How would you like to be knocked off a table at seven in the morning when you are just doing your job? If you were a postman you would find it strange to be hit on the head with a hammer whilst delivering letters. Although I suppose it would depend on where you were delivering them”. He also joked that after some clocks have seen humans they “have a nervous breakdown and have to go to the ‘cuckoo’ clock shop”.

[Diary entry, 5th June, 1979]
At Debating it was the teacher’s turn. The motion was that “Children should be seen and not heard”. Mr. MacFarlane (biology), the nastiest staff member in the entire school was against. Mrs. Rae who was for said: “And take CD, for example. One day, when he is getting old, he will want to go and sit in his comfy armchair by the fire, smoke his pipe and do his Scotsman crossword with his feet up and he won’t want all the little C’s bawling at him”. Someone interrupted: “Who’s the mother?” and everyone looked at me!!!

[Notes from an exegesis meeting, dated 13th July, 1983]

Women Only

Problems for women today in the Church:
1) Confusion over the theological issue of women. Finding roles in life.
2) Lack of self-confidence.
3) Lack of stimulating settings. More common for men to get together. Men have more stimulating contact with other men. Lack of stimulus breeds lack of self-confidence.
4) Reaction to the above = feminism. Pushing in an attitude of dominance, usurping.

On (1): Is there a repressive attitude to women in the New Testament? It was liberal at the time. They raised the status of womenfolk. The Church was emancipating then. Key theological question: authority. Limitation to women exercising government. No precedent for women elders. God is a MOTHER too. El Shaddai: the big-breasted one. Motherhood and womanhood have their origins in God. There is no prejudice in God. God made us with distinct identities to express the wholeness of humanity. The gospel is liberating, but liberty is the freedom to be what you were designed to be. When we are forced to be something we are not designed to be, a loss of dignity occurs. Feminism will destroy the dignity of womanhood. Woman have aspects that were not deposited in the same way in men. Woman was created from Adam’s side. Side = aspect. Woman a side of man separated and replaced. Only in man and woman together do we discover the different sides of humanity. A communication problem creeps in sometimes. Women sometimes have characteristics usually attributed to men. We must not caricature masculinity or femininity. Man is equipped to lead in the home and the Church. There is a difference between being SUBMITTED and SUBMERGED. Man is not always right. A case of recognizing where final authority lies. Role of women a patronizing statement. Roles are to do with each individual person. Gifts and ministries. The sky’s the limit once authority has been sorted out. God gave gifts to women. If a woman has a gift there’s a valid place to express it. Do not have to suppress gifts.
Proverbs 31, v10 to end. Scope of women: works with hands, into real estate, investment, profit, business, clothing, v23 something she’s done for him, she’s put into him, she’s made him. A liberated woman. Not condemned, but commended. A virtuous woman, valid expression. Few areas of ministry a woman can’t move into, provided she’s clear on authority. Women can teach, lead worship, very important, accept your sexuality. Thank you God for making me a woman you have to say. Not to be afraid of sexuality. Don’t be scared you find other men attractive. Face up to that fact. Face up to and accept it. Don’t push it aside. It is part of what God made us. The origin of sex is in God. God invented sex. Part of the wholesomeness of life. Don’t become obsessed.

Points for Prayer [as is apparent from these musings, my eventual rejection of and departure from the Church was inevitable, the extent of the brainwashing both frightening and amusing to behold]

Me and my gifts. As long as I’m under authority I have a right to prophecy. Take away fear/intimidation.
Me and my sexuality. Only discovered I could feel for anyone a few weeks ago. Help to distinguish between temptation and sin. Met CD. My attitudes to fulfillment, marriage, babies, etc. A baby is a chain, a lead weight, a horrible, smelly annoyance that ties you down and restricts your freedom. How to come to terms with my sexuality? Am I really attractive? Lack of confidence in my looks, although recognize the beauty of face/body purely transitory, things of the spirit are what really matter. Bitterness/resentment at men’s attitude and lack of courage to try to put it right. Being sure in the Lord of His guidance and His role and not going for it with all my heart, yet not trampling on anyone along the way. Comparing Jesus to us. His life was perfect in every way, while we are not yet perfect. Could spend whole life measuring self against Him. You’ll be lacking, but must not give up and become discouraged, instead pressing ever onward in the power of His spirit. You in this existence will always fall short of the mark, but just because of that should not stop aiming for it and desiring to be like Him.
Self-confidence. Diet comes into it. Pushiness: mustn’t tread on people.
Reasons for acting silly over CD
1) To hide how deeply I really feel for him. Cover up myself.
2) To stop myself going mad coz I don’t have him now.
God’s leading.
Attitude to motherhood
Expensive; waste of time; une sorte d’éffacement, d’anéantissement personel; nothing more boring, more frustrating, humiliating, moronic than being a housewife and mother
BUT
Life is a great gift, the greatest gift of all is just to live and be part of God and His beautiful creation, His universe, His spirit. Pass it on, so that another can experience it. Wanting to rebel against the cliché of womanhood and femininity, I guess. The idea of sex constantly alternates between two poles. I am either completely repulsed by the very idea and totally cold, or in love (well, how can I say it?), able to accept the idea without difficulty and even imagine I could participate in it.
Another thing that lurks in me as a real sickness verging on bitterness (certainly a wound) is a feeling that I find so ironic that it would drive me completely insane if I didn’t laugh about it and if I dwelt on it. What is it? The simple fact that in my situation the one I love (CD) does not reciprocate due to me (or so it appears, although I know this is not true, witness my feeling at the Granary [a restaurant where we went for dinner together] or Satan’s doing the greatest deception job of all time, or I’ve been suffering hallucinations, deliberate deceptions at that), but that the man who attacked me years ago fancied me (albeit in a sickening, twisted sexual way) and Henry Bane [a neighbour ferried to the local mental hospital by ambulance each morning for occupational therapy] worships me. I’m going to surrender this deep hurt to Jesus and let His spirit wash it away forever, filling in the space with reinforced concrete so that I can’t muckrake.

Revelation against Nihilism

When I comprehend the vastness of God I am often dismayed. Nothing means anything. The things we hold so dear and value so highly fade into total insignificance. I feel as if I could say: “Oh God, God forgive me, for even if I spent every second of my life concentrating on my relationship with you, I could still never be perfect. So why do I listen to music, stare at books, memorise facts, study, worry, why do I waste time on work and trivialities when I could be constantly submerged in You?”
Yet I feel that God replies, with a smile on His face that He called me to take time to enjoy His creation, to live a life spending time with people doing things I enjoy as long as these things are submitted to His rule, as long as He takes priority and should He demand it I can rise up and forsake all else to carry out His commands.
It is through the people and situations that you find yourself in that God shapes you. He has made provision for four years of study – negligible on the eternal scale. It is His will, His purpose; He called you to go to university. Trust Him, rest in the faith that He knows what He is doing. Throw yourself into whatever He has called you to do at one specific moment in time, with all your heart. Who can grasp the mind of God? Who can understand His purposes fully? He alone is the master-builder. He who fashioned the skies can surely shape the life of Man. You cannot achieve perfection yourself. God will not coerce you into anything, but you must be willing to allow Him to guide you. If it were not possible for God to make you into what He wanted on earth with its diversions He would never have created you to inhabit the confines of a finite world with limitations of body. Do not try to think God into little compartments that you, arrogant little wretch, can cope with, for He by His very nature defies human logic and expression, defies all constraints our minds could possibly impose upon Him.

[Loose notes from 1983]

Put off the world. It doesn’t belong to you, you don’t belong to it. Let God renew your mind from within. Don’t let the world squeeze you into its mould. Ignore the world’s equation. I don’t belong here, therefore I cannot fit in here, therefore I cannot be happy here, ergo life is a series of penalties. You need a RENEWED MIND. God renews our minds from the inside, He does not squeeze us into a mould. When something, e.g. an iron bar is squeezed into a mould, it happens externally.

Don’t ask Him to prune and then try to pick up the dead branches and stick them on again. I.e. internal renewal has to take place and you will have to learn to accept it.

Don’t do this, but let God make you what He wants to make you. He has given you a right of access, if you give right of access to Satan, he will mould you into his shape. Satan wants to destroy you, to separate you from God, to damn you – look to God, He has already given you the victory. Persevere. Don’t give up. Stay in the presence of God. This will transform you even without you knowing it. It will be demonstrated and become evident to those around you. Like the sun shining; being in God’s presence.

God wants to TRANSFORM you; not educate you. We must give Him access to our lives.

God doesn’t say things that are not possible, but we have to cooperate with Him.

He will produce character and standard-changes in us as we go on with Him. We will then demonstrate what His kingdom is like. Don’t let the pressures squeeze us, but be like SALT and LIGHT.

[Diary entry, dated 15th July, 1983]

I did something awful today. I flirted with CC. Let me tell you about it, faithful Reader. On the 14th, it was innocent (i.e., NOT a flirt), but today it was guilty. I did not want to go into the “holy huddle” today, especially after I’s “friendly warning” of the 14th. It must have looked awful to an outsider. I was totally embarrassed tonight and just wanted to crawl away. I didn’t mind talking to him, but I started staring into his eyes and wishing, wishing he was C.D. Then I wanted to hold him and have him kiss me and to feel his love for me. Why? I don’t love him at all. Emotionally, he leaves me stone cold. He has weird ideas about his faith. He doesn’t know where his place in Church is. He’s not VERY nice-looking (nothing, in fact, compared to C.D.). He’s not as spiritually mature as I am, and I can’t respect him (well, I do respect him, but not enough to justify accepting his lead in my life, even for 10 minutes). I think I wanted to prove my sexuality to myself, but I also think I was desperately looking for a prop. Jesus has successfully helped me to rid myself of props, i.e., things and people other than Him I can turn to when things get rough, in an obsessive, unhealthy way. All I thought was: “F, look at the way C.D. has gone astray (his argument with S on Thursday). Maybe Jesus is adding this guy on to you” (coz CC seems so open and he’s certainly willing to let his feelings show, even in a comparatively small way, through conversation). I dismissed the thought as crap, coz I knew all the time that C.D. is the one I love and was the one I was created to become one with. In the light/knowledge of this, all flirting is evil, unhelpful and downright sinful. I just wanted a little ego-boost. I confessed to CC about this thought, which was a mistake. I really am such a fool though, leading him on in the way I did, staring into his eyes like a besotted moron. All the time I was doing it, Jesus kept telling me again and again and again: “You’ll never find fulfilment in this person. Never ever. So do not proceed.” I told him I was sure C.D. was the one and I still am sure, but I gave him the wrong impression, just like the one that I got. Another reason why I flirted was coz the conversation in the caravan at night every night without exception was “yer lod” (= “your lad”, “your boyfriend”) and I was going mental at the thought of C.D. and the situation I have to put up with. So I flirted, but I’ll have to apologise to him. I’m away to ask the spirit about it, a thing I never thought would happen. I’m sickened by myself and wonder why I ever tried, coz I knew all along I didn’t want CC, I don’t want CC and I never ever WILL want CC, not even for a substitute.

(Page two). Unshared (i.e. to diary etc.).

On the morning of the second youth meeting, the Lord spoke to me and said: “Do not worry that you are an earthen vessel, for the treasure in you is greater than any the world can give,” and He reminded me that, because I am a clay pot, glory is given to Him whenever I achieve success in my endeavours.

Got rid of prop-itis. No props left and I am refusing to use either records or pictures or food or self-indulgence of any kind, but instead am going straight to the Father.

I felt afraid of standing against the powers of darkness without my props. Then Father gave me a vision through a guy in a meeting, of a lighthouse on a firm rock in a wild, heavy storm and the wind was blowing waves against it with all of its force, but the lighthouse stood firm and its light did not fade one jot, not one iota of brightness was lost to the darkness. The guy said that, provided we had our relationships with God and man right, we would stand firm, no matter what the enemy hurled at us.

After being slain in the spirit and fighting Father I felt next day as if a huge load had been taken from my shoulders.

My residence in Edinburgh is better than I could have hoped for. It is in a nice street that is reasonably quiet. The bedroom at the back is quiet, away from the noise of the traffic. The sitting room is lovely. It’s got a piano, if I wanted to learn how to play. I have a vision of CD sitting there waiting for me to finish making our meal. I can picture him and myself there together. I’ve never visualised something like that before and I wasn’t even thinking about him at the time. Miss Kerr likes me, I’m sure of that.

Reasons why I got the place:

1) CC is in Mylne’s Court and Jesus wants me to be away from him (and I want to be away from him too, for his own sake as much as for my own),

2) I get the single room that I coveted so much,

3) I have to learn my independence. I’ll learn to cook, clean, handle money, shop, budget, iron, sew, wash, keep responsibilities, manage my time and to be able to use my own resources. It means (like J-A said at the Bible Week, come to think of it!) I can get married sooner, praise the Lord!

4) I can keep my stereo,

5) I can practice my singing,

6) I haven’t any restrictions (not any constricting ones anyway!) on friends, e.g., J-A can come and stay the weekend and CD can come for a meal and CC for a chat/advice session, etc.,

7) I can keep my radio,

I get complete peace and quiet to swot without the haranguing of a large study community round about me.

Not even vitamin-C enriched paracetamol has eased the discomfort of my raw and swollen throat. Although the wheeze-racked bronchitic days of my childhood are long gone the taste of Benylin still lingers. Equally unpleasant memories of cod liver oil, syrup of figs by the teaspoonful and (worst of all) a vile concoction for eradicating thread worms assailed me. Returning to the present with a shudder I contemplated various misfortunes suffered by my colleagues. TB (the suave expert on German philosophers whose endless tales from his brief alternative career as a barrister have earned him a reputation as a world-class bore) tripped in his flat, banging his head against the steel leg of the coffee table as he fell. Whereas the resulting gash was not deep, the blood flow was alarmingly copious. Alone and immobile, he could not gather the strength to reach the telephone until hours had slipped by. Finally having hauled himself to the receiver, he called his regular taxi driver who picked up the spare key from the concierge and drove him to casualty. He smiled as he showed off his stitches before being wheeled to the canteen by a member of the in-house fire service (the ushers too busy distributing documents and changing the names at meeting room seats to fit in such duties), elegant walking stick in hand. Loathing children and never having succeeded in forming another romantic attachment since his divorce he lives alone, whiling away the weekends at his computer screen creating cities and controlling every detail of the lives of their inhabitants. Increasingly gin and tonic represents his only sustenance, anaesthetising him from the pain of isolation and the rotting teeth nobody dares mention to his face. The whole sorry incident reminded me of those news stories in which police break down the door after neighbours complain of the stench, the pile of reminders and final demands on the mat the only tokens of contact with the outside, the putrid remains of the former occupant greeting them from the kitchen floor or living room carpet.

Or the wonderful SD, whom KC accurately described as “the greatest raconteur” he had ever met. An endorphin-addict and marathon runner who dons his trainers and shorts to pound the pavements oblivious to frosts or slippery autumn leaves, SD awoke one morning to discover that his abdominal muscles had seized up. Bent double, he was admitted to hospital for a lumbar puncture to determine the cause of his unusual ailment. Lying flat on a trolley in an ill-fitting gown with a large needle sticking out of his spine, a young nurse enquired as to his state of mind.
“I’ve not had so much fun since my dog died,” his reply.
“Oh, when did he die?”
Apart from his tale-weaving skills, SD exerts an irresistible charm over women. “Handsome in a haggard sort of way” the verdict passed by one of his innumerable conquests. His boyish grin and irrepressible mischievousness part of his appeal. He occasionally staggers into work after an all-night drinking session, breath reeking with booze, but otherwise immaculately turned out without the slightest dip in the quality of his performance. AM once remarked at dinner that in spite of their diverse backgrounds, ages and professional credentials, every woman around the table had one thing in common: they had each tumbled into bed with him at some stage or other (not entirely true, as I have never succumbed to the temptation, fond of him though I am). His enviable fitness somehow apt for a son of the home of mint-cake with its mountain slopes and brooding clouds.

“Certain beverages have been developed to prevent ‘Night Starvation’ – and this was the claim of Horlicks during the early 1930s. The firm of J.&W. Horlick was formed in Chicago in 1873 by two English brothers, William and James Horlick. James was a qualified pharmacist and was interested in the work of Gail Borden, who, a few years earlier, had taken out a patent for the evaporation of condensed milk. James himself had experimented with the evaporation of a malt food and William had already started to manufacture an artificial infant food. In 1883 they registered a patent for ‘malted milk’ – an extract from a mash of malted barley and wheat flour mixed with whole milk, this being evaporated to dryness under vacuum. The resultant powder could then be mixed with hot water to give a beverage suitable for infants and invalids.
(…) Arctic explorers Amundsen, Evans, Scott and Shackleton all took Horlicks Malted Milk with them on their arduous journeys”.
Maurice Baren, How It All Began in the Pantry.

Seeking relief from the high-adrenaline, satellite-broadcast and net-streamed grillings of Commissioners-designate I immersed myself in undemanding reading-matter, one article in particular catching my eye. Apparently humble Horlicks has caught on amongst party-goers and bleary-eyed insomniac executives shambling home to their minimalist apartments in the early hours. Genteel old ladies in dressing gowns and slippers in rocking chairs by the fireplace with its glowing coals no longer the advertisers’ preferred target. Clubbers can order it to soothe their nerves as the speakers throb bass powerful enough to interfere with their cardiac rhythms. According to Professor Catherine Geissler of the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics at King’s College, London, however, the sought-after drowsiness is more likely to be triggered by tryptophan in the milk or by the ritual of preparing the bed-time drink itself than any ingredient in the powder. In the freezing rooms of Albion Road where we would wrap ourselves in duvets, fully-clothed, for warmth, a mug of Horlicks revived stiffened finger joints. The empty jars were also handy for storing flour or ground coffee (a rare treat from the specialist supplier in the Waverly Market Shopping Centre below Princes Street with sacks of roasted beans labelled Arabica, Mocha or Columbia).

Hot chocolate has long since supplanted its wholesome-imaged cousin as my comfort-beverage of choice when in the grip of caffeine-overdose trembles, although for the most part its sickly sweetness acts as a deterrent except on the dullest of afternoons. My true addiction has been to Coffee Mate, the non-dairy creamer, found only on my parents’ shelves. I am perfectly capable of loading instant or filter with teaspoonful after heaped teaspoonful of the hydrogenated vegetable oil-based concoction, although I have at last succeeded in banishing it from my diet. The latest outbreak of alimentary hysteria has rubbed off on even my sceptical self it would seem (at one of the hearings we were collectively dismayed by the allegation of one of the speakers, a qualified doctor, to the effect that even yoghurts are loaded with carcinogens – why bother making the effort to renounce taste bud overload for the sake of health when even the supposedly beneficial option turns out to be tainted?). No longer a vegetarian armed with my paperback listing the derivation of every single e-number (yes, I would take it with me whilst shopping to scan the ingredients obsessively in the interests of establishing whether they truly were of plant origin). It depresses me that the food industry is concentrated in the hands of a tiny number of ruthless multi-nationals (engaging in dubious promotional practices), the take-over of Rowntree-Mackintosh and subsequent closure of its confectionery factory in my home town a case in point.

Tea, it seems, has so far escaped the ire of experts, its high anti-oxidant content eliciting approval. For years, my Mother was forced to order Brooke Bond Dividend in the weekly delivery from the grocers. Even the antics of the Typhoo chimps could not compete with the allure of the cards, which my brother and I fought over and swapped in the playground.

[1997]

On board the train to King’s Cross, surrounded by Sloanes wittering in booming voices about the unparalleled virtues of vintage cars, avidly debating the merits of Alan Clark’s latest hardback, I cannot say that this impulse to write has been inspired by a feeling of ironic or even amused detachment. The females are young, slender in designer-style ankle-length black coats, the males tall and dressed in aristocratic green with open-necked shirts. Certain of the other passengers have “connected” with me in a temporary solidarity of antipathy towards them. They disturb and disrupt with their intrusive conversations, descending into mutual out-bellowing sessions, all careers and contacts. To my right, at the opposite window, sits a scowling blonde, a refugee from a painting and drawing class, copying stylized sexual intercourse positions from a glossy.
They still intimidate me. I would never aspire to their vision of life, I would never even wish to. They epitomise wealth without intellect, what I always find galling is when one of them actually has some substance behind the bluster. It is difficult to actually hear anything they might wish to say beneath the posturing. They imagine themselves paragons of wit and sophistication, yet they are looked upon with a mixture of envy and contempt. They are both oblivious of and impervious to this, all part of their trademark. Their concerns and goals are so utterly alien to me and to my conception of what is of value to the universe that I am incapable of listening to them. I imagined all members of the nobility to be thus, and JMCD proved me wrong, though only in part. To the Ts, the family is the overriding concern. Real feelings and real talents are of no worth, unless they represent a threat or potential benefit within the existing framework of the family. I can better perceive my own worth along a continuum of this type. Take Liz as an example. She earns my undiluted contempt because she is a parasite, and a privileged one at that. Had I but a fraction of her time and material comfort, I would use it usefully. She has no greater intrinsic value in moral terms to myself, though she may have possession of title deeds to multiple properties in St. A’s, F or wherever, and therein lies the complete moral bankruptcy of JMCD, who, knowing, not merely knowing, but fully apprehending my moral superiority over her, still would not run the gauntlet of peer disapproval, preferring the material inducements she offered. He could not bear the loss of those objects. This is probably the explanation of the “success” of these families, they sacrifice everything for their own greater material glory. Fortune has distributed her gifts unevenly indeed, and an intelligent Sloane is too painful a reminder of that sad fact. The ancestral pile imbues them with a sense of superiority from birth (I am aware that I am confusing Sloanes with aristocrats). Similarly, money. So what if it is simply by virtue of having had to fight and struggle for my achievements, pitiful though they are. They are born with everything and never need to suffer. Lack of suffering = lack of depth, remember JMCD? I cannot stomach lack of depth. Sudden lull in their cross-cutting monologues.I do not, then, feel inferior to them in absolute terms, but they fill me with inadequacy alongside my contempt. Their sleek confidence and unshakeable certainties could not contrast more vividly with my fears. Their easy eloquence and upper-class chiffon and satin tones prevent me from opening my mouth, except perhaps in abuse, in their presence. Having said that, being a Scot in England is being a socially uncharacteristically fluid and eel-like being, acceptable in almost any context, because immediately and identifiably different. My flat “e”s and lilt exempt me from instant classification on the social ladder, largely because of my counterparts’ ignorance. Provided that I do not have an easily recognisable stereotypical Glaswegian or Glasgow-region accent that singles me out as “rough trade”. This experience of sudden classlessness and fluidity is amusing. Previously, I assumed that to be Scottish in Southern England was to be branded automatically and unthinkingly as stupid, drunken, common, stingy, or whatever other characteristic happens to be the fashionable attribute to pin on at any given moment. In academic circles at least, this is not the case. There is even a degree of admiration for us there. After all, we are the products of a superior education system, with a lesser insistence on specialisation at an early stage.