I know I haven’t the brain of a scholar and that, if I did, a good memory would come naturally. But I can make myself clever. There’s no reason whatsoever why not. So I practise. When I read a sentence in a book, I read every sentence three times, close my eyes after each one, and repeat the sentence in my mind. This trick is not only good for my brain, it helps me to ignore the whispering and teasing, and it helps me not to think bad thoughts. The more I do it, the more I begin to see that it will help me with other things too. If I am going to do important things, and become a great person, then having a good memory is sure to come in handy.
I check in the Guinness Book and see that, on the 14th October, 1967, a man recited 6666 verses of the Koran from memory, in six hours. This man, Mehmed Ali Halici, has an eidetic memory and he can remember everything he has read.
By the time the lunch bell rings, I have spent several hours without feeling nervous, and I have discovered a new way to think. I get my lunch and meet Brendan at his desk. ‘Let’s go,’ I say.
‘I want to stay inside,’ he says.
‘All right,’ I say. ‘We’ll stay in.’
He looks at his desk. ‘I want to stay in by myself, I mean.’
‘Come on. Let’s go to the shed,’ I say.
On cold days — and this is a cold enough day — Brendan and I usually sit by the stove in the caretaker’s shed and read all the annuals and my favourite Beano comics. The caretaker likes Brendan and me, and we talk to him and he is happy for us to be in his shed, and he comes and goes, and works around us.
‘It’s too cold for the shed,’ says Brendan.
‘So?’ I say. ‘We can sit by the stove and then it won’t be cold.’
‘I’m sick of sitting in the caretaker’s shed,’ says Brendan. ‘It stinks.’
‘It doesn’t stink,’ I say.
‘It does.’
‘So?’
‘So, I just don’t want to go in today,’ he says. ‘I want to stay inside the classroom today.’
‘Fine.’ My anger makes me nervous and I don’t know what I’ll do, so I leave Brendan without looking at him.
During class, I wait for him to look around at me, but he doesn’t. I stare at the back of his head sometimes, but mostly I read and memorise things, or look out the window to stop my anger from hurting my teeth.
On the way home, I recite the things I have memorised during the day and, when I can’t remember, I stop walking and close my eyes until I do. When I reach the tree with the doll stuck in it, I stop and look up at her.
Her hair has gone. I thought she had blonde hair. This was the one thing about her that hadn’t changed or decayed. But she has no hair. There is only black scalp. Maybe the person who put her in the tree has come to take her hair. Maybe it fell out gradually and I didn’t notice. I feel angry with people and I run home.
When I get to the last field before the cottage, I stop and look across at the lighted window in the kitchen. I can see the dark outline of my mother, father and grandmother. They stand by the table, my father nearest the range, their dark shapes moving slightly, and my father’s hand goes up, then down, and then my mother’s hand takes hold of her long hair and she lifts it away from her shoulder. I want to know what they are saying, I want to know what is happening, but even if I dart across the road and through the gate and down the gravel path and get through the front door as fast as I can, I’ll never know what they have said. This part of what has happened will always be missing. And they will stop talking and change the subject as soon as they see me.
But I am happy to see the light on, to know they are there and it is warm and there’s a place for me at the table.
‘You’re late,’ says my father. ‘It’s after five.’
‘I walked the long way,’ I say.
He goes to the cooker and takes out a plate. ‘Here. Eat these,’ he says. ‘They’re jumbo fish fingers.’
I sit at the table and my mother sits too. Granny stays by the stove, stirring a pot of custard.
‘How was school?’ asks my mother, and I notice that her eyes are bloodshot and her hair is messy. ‘Good,’ I say.
‘Do you want me to fry an egg to go with your fish fingers?’ she asks.
‘No,’ I say. ‘Why is your hair all messy?’
My father stands up from the table so abruptly that his chair falls backwards. Nobody speaks. We wait to see what he will do. He leaves the kitchen and when he comes back he stands behind my mother and brushes her hair.
‘There’ll be hair in the baked beans,’ she laughs.
I watch my father brush my mother’s hair and can see that the knots are catching and she must be hurting.
I say, ‘With the hair in the beans we can say, “Whose bean hair?”’
She reaches under the table and strokes my knee. ‘Want some more food?’
‘No,’ I say as I push the beans around the jumbo fish fingers.
‘Eat your fingers,’ says my father.
After tea, my father brings out a large box of Cadbury Roses and we sit together on the settee in front of the television and take them one by one out of the foil and paper wrapping and eat them. He has agreed to let me stay up late to watch an Alfred Hitchcock film, Strangers on a Train.
‘If you can spot Alfred’s appearance, I’ll give you a quid,’ he says.
‘All right,’ I say. ‘Consider yourself one pound poorer.’
‘Want to know one of the reasons chocolate is addictive?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’
‘Because it melts at blood temperature.’
‘Maybe before the film you and Mammy could teach me how to do cryptic crosswords.’
‘We need a good afternoon to do that. Remind me on Saturday.’
‘Did you remember my present?’ I ask.
‘What present?’
‘The one you promised.’
‘These chocolates are your present and I’ll get an even bigger one for you later.’
The book from the Wexford library, The Truth About Lie Detection, is the best book so far and I have copied thirty-five pages of it into The Gol of Seil.
I will memorise as much of this book as I can. Already I can recite several passages, such as this one, which I say out loud on the way to school.
‘Many people mistakenly believe that if somebody lies they will not make eye contact and will rub under their nose. Neither lack of eye contact nor nose rubbing is a sure sign of lying. It is vital to look for a cluster of signals. It is also important to compare the way a person is behaving with the way they usually behave.
When a person is lying he needs to concentrate on keeping his story straight and will often slow his speech or become more hesitant. Some people try to control their facial expressions, but most people are not able to keep their feelings from showing, because some of the muscles of the face involved in expressions are not under conscious control, especially when people feel strong emotions.’
The author of The Truth About Lie Detection also says that these strong emotions are called primary emotions and that they show, for a fraction of a second only, as micro expressions.
I also know from reading this book that only a small group of people are exceptional at spotting lies and these people are sometimes called wizards. Such a person can pick up behavioural signals that most people miss, most of the time.
I copy four more pages from The Truth About Lie Detection into my book and then I write a letter to the Guinness Book of Records: