It was a Dan Air Boeing 727. It felt old and out of date even then. I was about seven years of age. It was a small, cramped aircraft, and I distinctly remember liking the food we were provided with. I can’t remember what it was we ate. I especially liked the turbulence as we started our descent and the view from my small window. It was a night flight and everything was lit up below — even when we crossed the sea it was easy to spot the faint light from the lone ships 30,000 feet below. As a surprise my father had arranged a quick visit into the cockpit for me. I was elated. When the stewardess eventually ushered me in I was amazed to find the pilot and co-pilot casually chatting to each other like they were in the pub, or waiting at the bus stop or something. I remember thinking that I had been transported into the future. I remember thinking that everything below us, as I looked out of the cockpit’s windows, was magical, transformed, beyond my ordinary imagination. When the pilot allowed me to sit in his chair, seeing the entire world below me, I remember something seeping into me that I had never felt before: importance. I felt powerful. I felt like I could control the world.
I arrived at the bench around ten a.m. The rain had abated a little. An old man was sitting on it. He was positioned dead centre and I hesitated momentarily, uncertain about which side to sit upon. I eventually opted for his left, hoping that he would shuffle up along the bench to my right. He didn’t. Our legs were almost touching and I felt extremely uncomfortable. He seemed quite content with my intrusion; he was humming a tune I didn’t recognise. He seemed to be humming the same part of the tune over and over again. It sounded classical; maybe Beethoven’s Ninth, but I wasn’t too sure. Two bags rested on the damp earth by his feet. I noticed that a soggy cigarette end was stuck to his shoe. He had a huge pot belly that hung over almost to his knees. It reminded me of my own grandfather’s when he was alive. It looked rock hard, solid. His face was weathered and wrinkled like folded pasta on a plate. It didn’t take me long to notice that he was missing an arm. His right arm, above the elbow. He stopped humming his tune, and, of course, it didn’t take that long for him to strike up a conversation with me.
“Of course, I’ve travelled the world, you know. I left home at fifteen to visit China.”
“Really?”
“How time has passed me by. Just another sixty years would suit me.”
“Where else have you travelled to?”
“Russia. I liked Russia. Always friendly to me, the Russians. This myth that they never smile on public transport. Hogwash. Always happy to see me, the Russians.”
“Really?”
“Yes. A harsh life, rough terrain, you see. Topographically unpleasant.”
“Russia?”
“No, Afghanistan. Went there in my twenties, before all this stuff that’s happening over there, when I was young and as fit as a thoroughbred boxer. I wasn’t no hippie. Just curious, that’s all.”
“Did you travel alone?”
“Oh, yes. Always alone. Alone.”
And then silence — like he had drifted off into the realm of the dead. That was all he said. I didn’t bother to continue the conversation. I was happy with the silence.
I’m not sure what type of tree it was. I used to go there to be alone; to do nothing, to be nothing. I was probably about ten or eleven years of age when it started. It was my spot. My own tree. It started much by accident: my older brother was forced to babysit for me when my mother and father embarked on their weekly Soho pub crawl of a Saturday evening. One night my brother, instead of shutting himself in his room and leaving me alone to do what I wanted, invited about eight of his friends around to the house as my mother and father were whisked away in the taxi. He bundled his friends inside the house with purpose. When they saw me there were numerous grunts, grumbles and gesticulations towards me. They acted like I couldn’t see or hear them, like I was nothing, a blip on their landscape. My brother shrugged his shoulders at them. Then, without saying a word, he took me by the arm and manoeuvred me out into the garden. He told me to wait there until he came back. Then he walked calmly back into the house like he owned the place. I could hear his friends laughing. He shut the door and closed the blinds so I couldn’t see inside — not that I was in the least bit interested in them. At first I kicked my heels and looked into next door’s garden to check that no one had seen me. Then I looked up into the night sky for passing aircraft, but the cloud was too low and I could only make do with the drifting ache of their engines filling the air — one after the other behind the thick belt of cloud. I wanted my CB radio that enabled me to tune into the pilots’ frequency so I could listen to them arrange with the control tower their landing coordinates, but this would have meant knocking on the back door for my brother to let me in — which would have been impossible now that they had their music blaring. So I walked to the tree at the bottom of the garden and plonked myself down beneath it. The earth was damp. I didn’t care. I immediately felt safe. I immediately felt alone. Truly alone. A strange feeling began to course through me, to fizz in my bones: a nothingness, an emptiness: Boredom. It glued me to the spot. The whole world could have imploded and I wouldn’t have cared. I was deliriously happy.
I must have dozed off because when I looked back up to my right the old man with one arm had gone and she was there sitting beside me. She looked different. It took me a while to notice that her clothes weren’t as colour coordinated as usual — for all I know this could have always been the case — in fact there seemed to be no coordination whatsoever. She was wearing red Converse All-Stars and tight black jeans; her v-neck sweater looked about two sizes to big for her; her hair was ruffled and she carried what looked like a Burberry’s Mack under her arm — navy blue — but it could have been Aquascutum. It was quite an incongruous look for her. It was the first time I noticed that she was probably younger than me — maybe eight or nine years younger. It was hard to tell. She began to yawn, as per usual. I had never known anyone to yawn as much as her, far too long for comfort, long drawn-out things that seemed to last perfect aeons. She did this like it was the most natural thing in the world and I was sure that she would break into such antics no matter where she was or whom she was with: a first date, a job interview, during sex, at a friend’s funeral. She began to rub the palm of her left hand with her right thumb, slowly at first, but then with more vim and determination. She seemed to be thinking about something. Something seemed to be troubling her.
“Hullo.”
“Hullo.”
“I didn’t see you arrive …”
“That’s because you were asleep … Snoring … I’ve been here for a while actually.”
“Oh … How embarrassing … What have you been doing?”
“Nothing.”
“You look tired … Date last night?”
“No.”
“Did you go out?”
“No.”
“Friends?”
“No.”
“What did you do then?”
“Nothing. I told you. Nothing.”
“Nothing, really?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh.”
“…”
“…”
“I like to watch the planes …”
“I like to paint …”
“You do?”
“Yes, I do …”
“What’s your name?”
“Oh, come on! How many times are you going to ask me this? You don’t need to know my name, like I don’t yours. Let’s leave it at that, okay?”
“Hmmmm.”
“Okay?”
“Well, okay, what do you paint?”
“Not much.”
“When do you find the time to paint? You’re always here.”