chips and despair

INSANE Mikan Tsumiki.

Love begins with such tenderness

Even the tears are made of joy!

What wonder it holds in that time,

Oh, what magic it does employ!

The many things that irks love now

Were what held away all its fears.

Who could truly know that sadness

Would supercede past joy in tears?

Each twist in the body was seen,

As some Grecian statue of old;

Now twists are seen with angst and pain

And addressed with

{Go to Part II} {Go to Part III}

The balsa wood dream

The classroom door opened and the short, stout, bald-headed figure of Mr Kempson leaned in. The class fell instantly silent, well aware by now of Kempsons volcanic temper.

This time, however, the demeanour was not punitive, not even mildly threatening, but, Chris noted, puzzled. Then he realised that two other adults were standing behind Kempson, outside the room, almost hidden from sight. As he identified his Mum and Dad, Chriss heart started to race.

Kempson was asking a question of the class, Does anyone not have something in the exhibition?

Chris dropped his head so as not to catch his teachers eye and willed his arm to stay down. Nobody else raised theirs. After a minute, during which Chris could feel Kempsons gaze sweeping over the classroom, the teacher turned to the two figures, shook his head, reinforcing the gesture with some words that were inaudible inside the room, and left, closing the door behind him.

A cold sweat had broken out all over Chriss head and body. His head was swimming and his eyes wouldnt focus. A watery sensation filled his mouth warning him that he might be sick. If he had been untruthful before, to a teacher, or to any other adult, he couldnt recall it. Other children, he knew, lied easily and almost constantly but he did not. He was proud, and protective, of the appreciation he received from the grown-ups around him for his manners, his respect and his semblance of precocious maturity, and he had taken great care not to jeopardise their willingness to embrace him. That privilege, he understood, had a price tag: he had to maintain their trust. Now, he felt as if he had fallen in an instant through into another world where everything was familiar but nothing could be relied on, including himself. It scared him. He wanted not to be there, wanted the old order to reach down and save him. And if that could not happen, then he wanted them to come back and confront him so that he could confess the truth, be forgiven and, hopefully, be rehabilitated in their eyes.

But they didnt come back. All day nothing was said. He thought, they must have known, gone back to check again among the paintings and models on the table in the hall, found no label bearing his name. At any moment, Kempson would come bearing down on him, drag him from the room, as he had seen him do with others, roaring his disgust into his face. It had never happened to him. The dread of it, of the humiliation of it, like the thought of being hauled in front of the class and slippered, was enough to keep him well-behaved, dutiful.

When that didnt happen, he expected to go home to be told of his mothers disappointment, a punishment felt far more keenly than his fathers angry hand. But no, there was just a faint chill edge of forced normality, and even that had gone by the next morning.

The hanging silence brought no relief, however, still less any pleasure; no internal voice crowing that he had got away with it. Instead, the feeling grew in him that they had quarantined him, that they had sealed the tear through which he had slipped, leaving him now forever trapped in this strange back-to-front world: a world where deception had ousted honesty as the common language, where trust had given way to wariness where they would always be watching him and where he would never again be at ease.

It should not have been like this. At the start of the summer term, Mr Kempson had announced to the class that there would be a display of work at the end of it and that parents would be invited. Everyone was to make something to put on show. It could be a piece of art or a poem or yes, Janice, it can be crochet dont be foolish, Dobson This is your last term before you head off to big school next year. This is your chance to show your parents how well you have progressed here at Christchurch.

Chris had known at once what he wanted to do. At Easter, he had been taken to the Motor Museum at Beaulieu where he had fallen for a gleaming, green liveried Renault AG from 1910. He had bought a postcard of it and fixed it in his scrapbook. Now, he would make a model of it. Out of balsa wood. Yes, he would need balsa wood, a Junior hacksaw, a modelling knife, sandpaper and glue. And a pot of Humbrol paint, British racing green. Paintbrushes. And maybe a pot of gold for the coach lines, if Dad could be persuaded to fork out the money. It would be perfect and Mum would give him one of those misty-eyed smiles of approval and even Dad might nod his head at a job well done. In his mind, he saw Kempson, too, beaming for the first and only time, and the rest of the class looking on, uncomfortably aware of how their own meagre efforts had been outshone.

But that was six weeks ago. Now, on the day of the exhibition, the pieces of his dream lay tucked away at the back of his desk, hopefully out of sight until he could find a way of smuggling them out and disposing of them. So far from bringing him admiration, the glimpse of them induced fear and shame. He had failed. The boy who always did well. The boy who, for four years, had vied each week with Deborah Hills and David Balfour for the prized blue badge that signified top of the class.

He knew he had failed, but nobody else must know. And so began the lie. When the class had been told to line up in pairs and take their work into the hall, he had found a place in the middle of the queue, clutching the white cardboard shoebox in which he had kept his work for the past weeks, as if protecting his entry from public gaze until the last possible minute. As they had shuffled out, he had edged to the side of the line that would mean he did not have to pass too close to Kempson. Out in the hall, he approached the horseshoe of trestle tables and went through the motions of choosing his spot, among the other items, keeping his back between his box and those milling around him, then quickly turned away, ostentatiously replacing the box lid, and marched back to the classroom, where he took advantage of the confusion of the class reassembling to slide scraps of balsa wood into the deepest part of the desk. As he closed the lid, a part of his brain that normally registered his academic and social triumphs, offered the same admiration for the execution of his plan of deception. Ashamed, and not wanting to feel the least bit proud, he tried to shut it out and found, instead, memories of the past six weeks of agony piling in.

What had gone wrong? Everything. From the start. In his head he had expected it to be easy but the moment he looked at the wood and the tools his confidence collapsed. He didnt know where to begin. And, at that moment, he felt Kempson looking over at him from the big desk. He knows, he thought, he knows: he mustnt know. And with that he made a play of getting down to work. A wheel. Thats just a circle. Ill cut out a wheel. But the first attempt was crude and not round. It had to be round. How? Use a compass, that was it. And so he reached for his pencil case, took out his compass, adjusted the pencil and began to scribe a circle. The point of the compass sank through the soft wood. That didnt matter, he would have to pin the wheel to the cars body anyway.

I trust you are not damaging the desk, Hatch, Kempsons voice sounded threateningly across the classroom.

N, no, Sir, Chris responded, cheeks burning.

But then the sharp tip of the pencil gouged into the flimsy plank of balsa, tearing it. He tried again, with more delicacy. The line was faint but visible. He cut round it as carefully as he could and looked at the result. Its imperfection stared back at him mockingly and he felt things he was not used to welling up inside him: doubt and despair.

Setting the disgusting circle aside, he thought to try a simpler part of the model. He looked again at the picture. At the running board, a flat step on the side of the car that swooped up at each end to become the front and rear wings. How difficult could that be? He had watched his dad build a model boat from the same stuff, watched him bend it round to form the elegant curve of the prow. He cut a strip of wood and tried to bend it to shape the way he thought Dad had done it. At first, it was pliable but when he released his grip it started to straighten. He tried again, using more pressure. With a small, sharp crack, the wood snapped. He looked at it in shocked disbelief and realised that he was close to bursting into tears. He fought them back but now his whole face was on fire. He had the feeling that everyone was looking on, witnessing his abject failure. Failure. Him.

Suddenly, the bell rang for the end of the period and Chris quickly and gratefully gathered all the bits together and placed them in the shoe box. He tried to forget the past forty minutes and at the end of the day when his friends asked about what he was making he put on a show of quiet, assured, satisfaction. It convinced them, he could tell, and it almost convinced him. Today was just a setback. Next week it would all come right.

That night, in bed, he looked again at the postcard. What had been a thing of beauty, capturing his heart, now seemed to be aloof from him, mocking his presumption. I am beauty, I am perfection. You think you can recreate me? He studied the wheels and saw the enormity of the task right there. They were not flat, solid pieces of wood. A sunburst of delicate wooden spokes connected the bulbous hub to the rim; and around the rim a fat, black tyre ran. How, ever, was he going to do that?

Maybe Dad could help. Well, not help. This had to be something he did for himself. If he got Dad involved he would take over. Chris would be left standing to one side, watching, like when he got the trainset for Christmas. He would say that he had to make the thing at school, which was not a lie, because that was where the wood and tools were now. But he would ask Dads advice. Dad would like that.

Dad?

Yes? Be quick, I need to go.

Its just this model Im making at school. Im not sure how to make the wheels. Look. Chris showed his Dad the postcard, noticing for the first time that one corner now had a crease in it and was starting to fray. His Dad took it, looked at it appraisingly.

Its the spokes, see, Dad. I dont know how to make them.

His Dad, handed back the postcard without looking down and picked up his briefcase. Turning towards the door, he said, Draw them on. Use a soft pencil, and left.

Chris looked again at the car. Draw them on? Anger mixed with dismay and swirled around inside him, making him feel queasy. Draw? Like a child? Heres the house, heres the door in the middle, here are the windows, two up two down, heres the chimney and heres the smoke. And heres Mummy and Daddy and little baby Chris?

No. No, not good enough. Not nearly good enough.

Next free period, he tried again. But the wood resisted his attempts to cut anything as small and delicate as a spoke. Even the hub was impossible to get right. Then the glue spread as he tried to apply it and, lifting his thumb, he found it stuck to the pieces, which fell apart as he tried to extricate himself. It was hopeless.

Beaten down by this new awareness of his own lack of ability (it could only be that, the image in his head of how it should look was good, perfect), he took up the circle of wood from the previous week and his pencil case and tried to draw on the parts of the wheel. Sitting back, he looked at the result. Awful, a smudged line here, an uneven gap, here. He wanted to crush it and throw everything across the room. As if taking pity on him, the bell went and he quickly put the pieces of wood and tools away.

At home, again he studied the photograph. He tried not to look at the wheels, this time concentrating on the bonnet. It was a simple shape, solid looking. If he cut a piece off the thick block of balsa, it would just be a matter of sanding it into shape.

So next week, that was what he did. He measured, and cut and then took up the sandpaper. After five minutes, his fingers already red and stiff and sore, he looked at the block in his hand. It had hardly changed. Two of the long edges were starting to be soft but it was still just a block of wood. He went back to work.

At the end of the lesson he held the block up over the photograph. The lack of resemblance was horribly evident. The Renaults bonnet had a gentle slope but then dropped away suddenly before flattening out, like the slide in the playground. Chriss block had, by comparison, all the elegance of a brick.

By the fourth week, Chris had realised that sandpaper alone was not going to transform the block. He needed to help it along. If he cut the front of the block at an angle then maybe he could smooth out the hard line into that graceful curve.

At first the cut seemed okay. But, no, a bit too steep, perhaps. He tried a second cut. This time it was too flat but if he tried to rectify that he would shorten the bonnet. Perhaps now he could sand it into the right shape?

He rubbed and rubbed, after each burst, holding the block up to the photo. No, still not enough. No, still not right. No. NO!

The bell sounded but this time, as the class were packing away, Kempson boomed the awful reminder that they had just two weeks left before the exhibition. Make sure your work is ready. If any boy or girl is having trouble or in need of help, come and see me at the end of the day.

To Chris, these words were meant for him and him alone. But to take up the invitation would be to expose how little he had achieved; and worse, to admit that he was defeated, to admit his failure.

It was then that an unworldly calm had come over him. The impossibility of his task fell a way. With it went all recollection of the past weeks of failure. He became focused on one thing. The end of the block of wood in his hand must be made to match the curve in the picture. It must be perfected. He spent the next and last free period sanding and sanding his block, holding it up to the photograph and scolding himself. Not good enough. Wont do.

At the end of the day, with as little fuss as possible, he picked up his shoe box and made to leave. Kempson noticed.

Taking your exhibit home, Hatch?

Yes, Sir. Just some finishing touches.

Make sure they are your finishing touches, Hatch. This is not an exhibition of parental prowess.

Yes, Sir.

The snide inference was not lost on Chris. It stung more than all the misery contained in the box. He could not ask for help. That would be the worst failure of all.

{Go to Part II} {Go to Part III}

The balsa wood dream

The classroom door opened and the short, stout, bald-headed figure of Mr Kempson leaned in. The class fell instantly silent, well aware by now of Kempsons volcanic temper.

This time, however, the demeanour was not punitive, not even mildly threatening, but, Chris noted, puzzled. Then he realised that two other adults were standing behind Kempson, outside the room, almost hidden from sight. As he identified his Mum and Dad, Chriss heart started to race.

Kempson was asking a question of the class, Does anyone not have something in the exhibition?

Chris dropped his head so as not to catch his teachers eye and willed his arm to stay down. Nobody else raised theirs. After a minute, during which Chris could feel Kempsons gaze sweeping over the classroom, the teacher turned to the two figures, shook his head, reinforcing the gesture with some words that were inaudible inside the room, and left, closing the door behind him.

A cold sweat had broken out all over Chriss head and body. His head was swimming and his eyes wouldnt focus. A watery sensation filled his mouth warning him that he might be sick. If he had been untruthful before, to a teacher, or to any other adult, he couldnt recall it. Other children, he knew, lied easily and almost constantly but he did not. He was proud, and protective, of the appreciation he received from the grown-ups around him for his manners, his respect and his semblance of precocious maturity, and he had taken great care not to jeopardise their willingness to embrace him. That privilege, he understood, had a price tag: he had to maintain their trust. Now, he felt as if he had fallen in an instant through into another world where everything was familiar but nothing could be relied on, including himself. It scared him. He wanted not to be there, wanted the old order to reach down and save him. And if that could not happen, then he wanted them to come back and confront him so that he could confess the truth, be forgiven and, hopefully, be rehabilitated in their eyes.

But they didnt come back. All day nothing was said. He thought, they must have known, gone back to check again among the paintings and models on the table in the hall, found no label bearing his name. At any moment, Kempson would come bearing down on him, drag him from the room, as he had seen him do with others, roaring his disgust into his face. It had never happened to him. The dread of it, of the humiliation of it, like the thought of being hauled in front of the class and slippered, was enough to keep him well-behaved, dutiful.

When that didnt happen, he expected to go home to be told of his mothers disappointment, a punishment felt far more keenly than his fathers angry hand. But no, there was just a faint chill edge of forced normality, and even that had gone by the next morning.

The hanging silence brought no relief, however, still less any pleasure; no internal voice crowing that he had got away with it. Instead, the feeling grew in him that they had quarantined him, that they had sealed the tear through which he had slipped, leaving him now forever trapped in this strange back-to-front world: a world where deception had ousted honesty as the common language, where trust had given way to wariness where they would always be watching him and where he would never again be at ease.

It should not have been like this. At the start of the summer term, Mr Kempson had announced to the class that there would be a display of work at the end of it and that parents would be invited. Everyone was to make something to put on show. It could be a piece of art or a poem or yes, Janice, it can be crochet dont be foolish, Dobson This is your last term before you head off to big school next year. This is your chance to show your parents how well you have progressed here at Christchurch.

Chris had known at once what he wanted to do. At Easter, he had been taken to the Motor Museum at Beaulieu where he had fallen for a gleaming, green liveried Renault AG from 1910. He had bought a postcard of it and fixed it in his scrapbook. Now, he would make a model of it. Out of balsa wood. Yes, he would need balsa wood, a Junior hacksaw, a modelling knife, sandpaper and glue. And a pot of Humbrol paint, British racing green. Paintbrushes. And maybe a pot of gold for the coach lines, if Dad could be persuaded to fork out the money. It would be perfect and Mum would give him one of those misty-eyed smiles of approval and even Dad might nod his head at a job well done. In his mind, he saw Kempson, too, beaming for the first and only time, and the rest of the class looking on, uncomfortably aware of how their own meagre efforts had been outshone.

But that was six weeks ago. Now, on the day of the exhibition, the pieces of his dream lay tucked away at the back of his desk, hopefully out of sight until he could find a way of smuggling them out and disposing of them. So far from bringing him admiration, the glimpse of them induced fear and shame. He had failed. The boy who always did well. The boy who, for four years, had vied each week with Deborah Hills and David Balfour for the prized blue badge that signified top of the class.

He knew he had failed, but nobody else must know. And so began the lie. When the class had been told to line up in pairs and take their work into the hall, he had found a place in the middle of the queue, clutching the white cardboard shoebox in which he had kept his work for the past weeks, as if protecting his entry from public gaze until the last possible minute. As they had shuffled out, he had edged to the side of the line that would mean he did not have to pass too close to Kempson. Out in the hall, he approached the horseshoe of trestle tables and went through the motions of choosing his spot, among the other items, keeping his back between his box and those milling around him, then quickly turned away, ostentatiously replacing the box lid, and marched back to the classroom, where he took advantage of the confusion of the class reassembling to slide scraps of balsa wood into the deepest part of the desk. As he closed the lid, a part of his brain that normally registered his academic and social triumphs, offered the same admiration for the execution of his plan of deception. Ashamed, and not wanting to feel the least bit proud, he tried to shut it out and found, instead, memories of the past six weeks of agony piling in.

What had gone wrong? Everything. From the start. In his head he had expected it to be easy but the moment he looked at the wood and the tools his confidence collapsed. He didnt know where to begin. And, at that moment, he felt Kempson looking over at him from the big desk. He knows, he thought, he knows: he mustnt know. And with that he made a play of getting down to work. A wheel. Thats just a circle. Ill cut out a wheel. But the first attempt was crude and not round. It had to be round. How? Use a compass, that was it. And so he reached for his pencil case, took out his compass, adjusted the pencil and began to scribe a circle. The point of the compass sank through the soft wood. That didnt matter, he would have to pin the wheel to the cars body anyway.

I trust you are not damaging the desk, Hatch, Kempsons voice sounded threateningly across the classroom.

N, no, Sir, Chris responded, cheeks burning.

But then the sharp tip of the pencil gouged into the flimsy plank of balsa, tearing it. He tried again, with more delicacy. The line was faint but visible. He cut round it as carefully as he could and looked at the result. Its imperfection stared back at him mockingly and he felt things he was not used to welling up inside him: doubt and despair.

Setting the disgusting circle aside, he thought to try a simpler part of the model. He looked again at the picture. At the running board, a flat step on the side of the car that swooped up at each end to become the front and rear wings. How difficult could that be? He had watched his dad build a model boat from the same stuff, watched him bend it round to form the elegant curve of the prow. He cut a strip of wood and tried to bend it to shape the way he thought Dad had done it. At first, it was pliable but when he released his grip it started to straighten. He tried again, using more pressure. With a small, sharp crack, the wood snapped. He looked at it in shocked disbelief and realised that he was close to bursting into tears. He fought them back but now his whole face was on fire. He had the feeling that everyone was looking on, witnessing his abject failure. Failure. Him.

Suddenly, the bell rang for the end of the period and Chris quickly and gratefully gathered all the bits together and placed them in the shoe box. He tried to forget the past forty minutes and at the end of the day when his friends asked about what he was making he put on a show of quiet, assured, satisfaction. It convinced them, he could tell, and it almost convinced him. Today was just a setback. Next week it would all come right.

That night, in bed, he looked again at the postcard. What had been a thing of beauty, capturing his heart, now seemed to be aloof from him, mocking his presumption. I am beauty, I am perfection. You think you can recreate me? He studied the wheels and saw the enormity of the task right there. They were not flat, solid pieces of wood. A sunburst of delicate wooden spokes connected the bulbous hub to the rim; and around the rim a fat, black tyre ran. How, ever, was he going to do that?

Maybe Dad could help. Well, not help. This had to be something he did for himself. If he got Dad involved he would take over. Chris would be left standing to one side, watching, like when he got the trainset for Christmas. He would say that he had to make the thing at school, which was not a lie, because that was where the wood and tools were now. But he would ask Dads advice. Dad would like that.

Dad?

Yes? Be quick, I need to go.

Its just this model Im making at school. Im not sure how to make the wheels. Look. Chris showed his Dad the postcard, noticing for the first time that one corner now had a crease in it and was starting to fray. His Dad took it, looked at it appraisingly.

Its the spokes, see, Dad. I dont know how to make them.

His Dad, handed back the postcard without looking down and picked up his briefcase. Turning towards the door, he said, Draw them on. Use a soft pencil, and left.

Chris looked again at the car. Draw them on? Anger mixed with dismay and swirled around inside him, making him feel queasy. Draw? Like a child? Heres the house, heres the door in the middle, here are the windows, two up two down, heres the chimney and heres the smoke. And heres Mummy and Daddy and little baby Chris?

No. No, not good enough. Not nearly good enough.

Next free period, he tried again. But the wood resisted his attempts to cut anything as small and delicate as a spoke. Even the hub was impossible to get right. Then the glue spread as he tried to apply it and, lifting his thumb, he found it stuck to the pieces, which fell apart as he tried to extricate himself. It was hopeless.

Beaten down by this new awareness of his own lack of ability (it could only be that, the image in his head of how it should look was good, perfect), he took up the circle of wood from the previous week and his pencil case and tried to draw on the parts of the wheel. Sitting back, he looked at the result. Awful, a smudged line here, an uneven gap, here. He wanted to crush it and throw everything across the room. As if taking pity on him, the bell went and he quickly put the pieces of wood and tools away.

At home, again he studied the photograph. He tried not to look at the wheels, this time concentrating on the bonnet. It was a simple shape, solid looking. If he cut a piece off the thick block of balsa, it would just be a matter of sanding it into shape.

So next week, that was what he did. He measured, and cut and then took up the sandpaper. After five minutes, his fingers already red and stiff and sore, he looked at the block in his hand. It had hardly changed. Two of the long edges were starting to be soft but it was still just a block of wood. He went back to work.

At the end of the lesson he held the block up over the photograph. The lack of resemblance was horribly evident. The Renaults bonnet had a gentle slope but then dropped away suddenly before flattening out, like the slide in the playground. Chriss block had, by comparison, all the elegance of a brick.

By the fourth week, Chris had realised that sandpaper alone was not going to transform the block. He needed to help it along. If he cut the front of the block at an angle then maybe he could smooth out the hard line into that graceful curve.

At first the cut seemed okay. But, no, a bit too steep, perhaps. He tried a second cut. This time it was too flat but if he tried to rectify that he would shorten the bonnet. Perhaps now he could sand it into the right shape?

He rubbed and rubbed, after each burst, holding the block up to the photo. No, still not enough. No, still not right. No. NO!

The bell sounded but this time, as the class were packing away, Kempson boomed the awful reminder that they had just two weeks left before the exhibition. Make sure your work is ready. If any boy or girl is having trouble or in need of help, come and see me at the end of the day.

To Chris, these words were meant for him and him alone. But to take up the invitation would be to expose how little he had achieved; and worse, to admit that he was defeated, to admit his failure.

It was then that an unworldly calm had come over him. The impossibility of his task fell a way. With it went all recollection of the past weeks of failure. He became focused on one thing. The end of the block of wood in his hand must be made to match the curve in the picture. It must be perfected. He spent the next and last free period sanding and sanding his block, holding it up to the photograph and scolding himself. Not good enough. Wont do.

At the end of the day, with as little fuss as possible, he picked up his shoe box and made to leave. Kempson noticed.

Taking your exhibit home, Hatch?

Yes, Sir. Just some finishing touches.

Make sure they are your finishing touches, Hatch. This is not an exhibition of parental prowess.

Yes, Sir.

The snide inference was not lost on Chris. It stung more than all the misery contained in the box. He could not ask for help. That would be the worst failure of all.

{Go to Part 1} {Go to Part III}

A good man

Youre a good man, David said, But youre too generous for your own good. You let people use you.

Chris couldnt respond because what he wanted to do was scream, No. No you are wrong. You dont see. I am not agood man. But it was no use, it never was. Goodness and generosity. Kindness. How many times had he had to listen to himself described in those terms? Everyone had decided that he was good and kind and they were blind and deaf to anything other than confirmation of his goodness and kindness. His attempts to protest his ordinariness were not so much dismissed as co-opted as proof of his saintliness.

And it wasnt just goodness and kindness. Tell people that he was a lawyer and immediately he was a legal eagle. Tell them he liked to sit down at the piano and he became an accomplished pianist. Try his hand at writing and he became Chris, the Great Writer. Tell them that he was proud of his children and he was branded as the perfect parent.

Was that so bad? He had asked himself many times. Surely, it was better to be thought well of? Some people might consider it ungrateful, arrogant even, to reject the worlds assessment in favour of his own. Anyway, people saw what they wanted to see. If that was what they saw, or thought they saw, was it his problem?

The answer, he knew, was yes. Tempting as the argument was, it ignored the burden that fell on him as a consequence. His whole life until now seemed to have been devoted to propping up the image that people had of him. Because they would not have it any other way, that was the image he had to maintain. He had become, if not the embodiment of a lie, then a character in a play that could not end because the audience would not allow the curtain to fall.

And it had all begun, he was certain, with the dream of making a model to impress his mum and dad and his teacher. A dream made of balsa wood. A simple dream begun with utter confidence but one that proved as hopeless at it was flimsy. But a dream that could not be seen to fail.

*****

There had been no hesitation about the deception once it had formed in his mind. He thought about that much later on in life when he was remembering how it all started. No Jiminy Cricket alighted on his shoulder to give him a ticking off. No miniature Chris in white robes and halo. It was the only solution. He could not meet the expectations he needed them to have of him. He could not let them down by showing them how far short he had fallen. Better to show them nothing. Let them fill in the undrawn canvas. The only question was how. And now, at this distance, fifty years on, he found that, to a degree, he could admire the almost effortless shift in planning from making the perfect model car to creating a perfect lie. Time, and his forty years experience as a servant of politicians, had made him cynical and cynicism had given his thinking nuance, the ability to recognise something as awful and yet to appreciate the cleverness of it.

But time had not drained the shame. That first terrible encounter with the thought that he was not as good as he needed to be, had sent a shock through him so intense, so visceral that each time it resurfaced he had to clench his fists and slam the door on it in his mind. Sometimes, the need to shut it out provoked an actual howl that he had quickly to stifle in case the company he was in should think him in pain or mad. And it was no longer alone. Many more had joined its ranks and sat on the walls as he walked down the streets of his life, taunting, calling out the worst obscenities imaginable. Useless fuck. Tosser. They broke into his house and stood around his bed as he tried to sleep chanting failure, failure, youre rubbish, mate, until he feared that the neighbours and his family would hear and realise the truth about him. They followed him into work and sat in front of the screen when he was trying to read some dense legal judgment reminding him that he was not clever enough to understand it. They followed him into the pub and whispered to him that his friends there would shun him if they knew.

Knew what?

Objectively he was a success. Objectively he had done well. But according to his own assessment it was unmerited. He was a fraud. A fraud trapped within his own scam, forced each day to perpetuate the lie of his worthiness by the insistent self-deception of those around him. Maybe not an actor, no, more like a conjuror required to keep pretending to pull coloured silks from his mouth because the audience, believing him to be a real magician, would not let the trick end.

*****

One lie, done to save face, had set the pattern for another and another. It was like when you had boarded the wrong train, which was now rolling through the countryside, and all you could do was look out of the window and let it carry you on. The train Chris had boarded took him away from his home station of truthfulness and diligence to deception and disguise. The gentle but relentless motion of the train and the passing landscape through which he was carried, remote and indifferent to his existence, gave his lulled mind space to admit a new and awful thought: that you didnt have to stand and face your failures. You could leave them behind, just by keeping the momentum going, and just as long as you didnt force the people who stood in judgment over you to question the good impression they had of you.

It was a thought that came wrapped as the present of comfort but something about its slipperiness and the way it seemed to change shape as he tried to look at it made him feel queasy. Everything about his life up to now had seemed solid and dependable, based around standards of integrity as ancient and unyielding as monoliths. His Mum and Dad had made it plain that they expected nothing less from him. He must not be as others were, sloppy minded and careless of the value of honest dealing.

But all that was back there, at home, out of view. He wanted to stop, to go back. But the train was in motion and the ticket in his hand was for a one way journey and somehow he already knew that the gift he had been given, this brazen insight, was something that he would have to carry with him, concealed, all his life. And with that, anxiety, a feeling he had not known until he tried to build his dream car, welled up again inside his stomach and churned and burned like an acidic hunger.

*****

At the grammar school, Chris found himself alone, buffeted and mocked by boys tougher than he was, beaten in class by people who were brighter than he was and knew more than he did, humiliated on the rugby pitch and on the athletics field and in the swimming pool. Each day he could feel himself shrivelling inside. He wanted to cry, to howl out his misery but he knew that any slight display of weakness would be caught and picked on. He wanted to run away but he couldnt let his parents down. He couldnt let them see him defeated. It couldnt be his failure.

His stomach began to hurt again. It wasnt much but it was enough to make a start.

Yes, Hatch?

Please, sir, I dont feel well. I think Im going to be sick.

Take yourself to the office, boy.

And on the way to the office, he found he had induced a cold sweat. He heard himself sounding disorientated. He hadnt intended it but some part of his brain had taken over the task of lending authenticity to his ploy. And in moments he had his permission to go home. He checked himself from showing any sign of pleasure or relief and by the time the bus came he almost believed that he was ill. And his mother received him with concern, put him to bed, brought him hot milk and honey.

In time, he could set himself off within the space taken up by the first hymn of Assembly.

His schoolwork suffered. It wasnt just the missed days. It was the homework not done because he was afraid of committing to paper and risking the red crosses and starkly scrawled admonitions that showed he had got something wrong. It was the books he couldnt concentrate on because he was afraid he wouldnt be able to make sense of the words. It was the times when the teacher asked if anyone needed something explained and his hand remained down because to raise it would risk admitting that he didnt understand. But, as if to confirm the rules of his ordeal, just as it had been with the balsa wood car, none of this brought investigation or judgment or punishment. At worst, an end-of-year report would say disappointing, or could try harder. And nobody asked him what was wrong.

He lived his days now in a fog of terrifying unhappiness and fear and his nights chasing away dreams filled with anxieties and recriminations. He felt a drenching cold loneliness even in company but still he must perform for those around him. This was his punishment, his penance. Every day he rose and put on the make-up of a dutiful, sensible schoolboy and went out onto the stage to play his part. It was all they wanted of him. His teachers would speak positively about him and his parents would lap it up. Because, he realised, they were not looking at him at all. They were looking at the image he had created for them, the image of a boy he had once learned to be to gain the grown-ups approval, quiet, well-spoken, polite. It was what they wanted to see and they could not, did not want to, see behind it to the tired and frightened child anxiously holding up the mask for them to admire.

Once, just once, Chris tried to talk to his mother about the sadness and anxiety that he felt inside. She shut him down in an instant. Nobody wants to know, Christopher. Christopher. The name she reserved for when she was displeased.

At the time it had seemed so cruel. Only later, when he had come to understand his own condition, did it dawn on him that she had been chiding herself, not him.

Failure succeeded failure, each one dressed as success. His O and A levels a mess. A poor degree. A poor showing in his Bar examinations. A worthless pupillage. And then, when it was plain that he could not sustain himself at the Bar, a civil service job that owed much to his fathers reputation and had the approval of his mother.

He wanted so much to do well but his mind was so wrapped in its own misery that it would not support him. And the world would only accept the version of him that he had painted for their pleasure. Heres the house, heres the door in the middle, here are the windows, two up two down, heres the chimney and heres the smoke. And heres Mummy and Daddy and heres grown up Chris immaculate in his suit and shiny shoes. See how the sun shines on his smiling face. He is a success. He is happy.

{Go to Part II} {Go to Part III}

The balsa wood dream

The classroom door opened and the short, stout, bald-headed figure of Mr Kempson leaned in. The class fell instantly silent, well aware by now of Kempsons volcanic temper.

This time, however, the demeanour was not punitive, not even mildly threatening, but, Chris noted, puzzled. Then he realised that two other adults were standing behind Kempson, outside the room, almost hidden from sight. As he identified his Mum and Dad, Chriss heart started to race.

Kempson was asking a question of the class, Does anyone not have something in the exhibition?

Chris dropped his head so as not to catch his teachers eye and willed his arm to stay down. Nobody else raised theirs. After a minute, during which Chris could feel Kempsons gaze sweeping over the classroom, the teacher turned to the two figures, shook his head, reinforcing the gesture with some words that were inaudible inside the room, and left, closing the door behind him.

A cold sweat had broken out all over Chriss head and body. His head was swimming and his eyes wouldnt focus. A watery sensation filled his mouth warning him that he might be sick. If he had been untruthful before, to a teacher, or to any other adult, he couldnt recall it. Other children, he knew, lied easily and almost constantly but he did not. He was proud, and protective, of the appreciation he received from the grown-ups around him for his manners, his respect and his semblance of precocious maturity, and he had taken great care not to jeopardise their willingness to embrace him. That privilege, he understood, had a price tag: he had to maintain their trust. Now, he felt as if he had fallen in an instant through into another world where everything was familiar but nothing could be relied on, including himself. It scared him. He wanted not to be there, wanted the old order to reach down and save him. And if that could not happen, then he wanted them to come back and confront him so that he could confess the truth, be forgiven and, hopefully, be rehabilitated in their eyes.

But they didnt come back. All day nothing was said. He thought, they must have known, gone back to check again among the paintings and models on the table in the hall, found no label bearing his name. At any moment, Kempson would come bearing down on him, drag him from the room, as he had seen him do with others, roaring his disgust into his face. It had never happened to him. The dread of it, of the humiliation of it, like the thought of being hauled in front of the class and slippered, was enough to keep him well-behaved, dutiful.

When that didnt happen, he expected to go home to be told of his mothers disappointment, a punishment felt far more keenly than his fathers angry hand. But no, there was just a faint chill edge of forced normality, and even that had gone by the next morning.

The hanging silence brought no relief, however, still less any pleasure; no internal voice crowing that he had got away with it. Instead, the feeling grew in him that they had quarantined him, that they had sealed the tear through which he had slipped, leaving him now forever trapped in this strange back-to-front world: a world where deception had ousted honesty as the common language, where trust had given way to wariness where they would always be watching him and where he would never again be at ease.

It should not have been like this. At the start of the summer term, Mr Kempson had announced to the class that there would be a display of work at the end of it and that parents would be invited. Everyone was to make something to put on show. It could be a piece of art or a poem or yes, Janice, it can be crochet dont be foolish, Dobson This is your last term before you head off to big school next year. This is your chance to show your parents how well you have progressed here at Christchurch.

Chris had known at once what he wanted to do. At Easter, he had been taken to the Motor Museum at Beaulieu where he had fallen for a gleaming, green liveried Renault AG from 1910. He had bought a postcard of it and fixed it in his scrapbook. Now, he would make a model of it. Out of balsa wood. Yes, he would need balsa wood, a Junior hacksaw, a modelling knife, sandpaper and glue. And a pot of Humbrol paint, British racing green. Paintbrushes. And maybe a pot of gold for the coach lines, if Dad could be persuaded to fork out the money. It would be perfect and Mum would give him one of those misty-eyed smiles of approval and even Dad might nod his head at a job well done. In his mind, he saw Kempson, too, beaming for the first and only time, and the rest of the class looking on, uncomfortably aware of how their own meagre efforts had been outshone.

But that was six weeks ago. Now, on the day of the exhibition, the pieces of his dream lay tucked away at the back of his desk, hopefully out of sight until he could find a way of smuggling them out and disposing of them. So far from bringing him admiration, the glimpse of them induced fear and shame. He had failed. The boy who always did well. The boy who, for four years, had vied each week with Deborah Hills and David Balfour for the prized blue badge that signified top of the class.

He knew he had failed, but nobody else must know. And so began the lie. When the class had been told to line up in pairs and take their work into the hall, he had found a place in the middle of the queue, clutching the white cardboard shoebox in which he had kept his work for the past weeks, as if protecting his entry from public gaze until the last possible minute. As they had shuffled out, he had edged to the side of the line that would mean he did not have to pass too close to Kempson. Out in the hall, he approached the horseshoe of trestle tables and went through the motions of choosing his spot, among the other items, keeping his back between his box and those milling around him, then quickly turned away, ostentatiously replacing the box lid, and marched back to the classroom, where he took advantage of the confusion of the class reassembling to slide scraps of balsa wood into the deepest part of the desk. As he closed the lid, a part of his brain that normally registered his academic and social triumphs, offered the same admiration for the execution of his plan of deception. Ashamed, and not wanting to feel the least bit proud, he tried to shut it out and found, instead, memories of the past six weeks of agony piling in.

What had gone wrong? Everything. From the start. In his head he had expected it to be easy but the moment he looked at the wood and the tools his confidence collapsed. He didnt know where to begin. And, at that moment, he felt Kempson looking over at him from the big desk. He knows, he thought, he knows: he mustnt know. And with that he made a play of getting down to work. A wheel. Thats just a circle. Ill cut out a wheel. But the first attempt was crude and not round. It had to be round. How? Use a compass, that was it. And so he reached for his pencil case, took out his compass, adjusted the pencil and began to scribe a circle. The point of the compass sank through the soft wood. That didnt matter, he would have to pin the wheel to the cars body anyway.

I trust you are not damaging the desk, Hatch, Kempsons voice sounded threateningly across the classroom.

N, no, Sir, Chris responded, cheeks burning.

But then the sharp tip of the pencil gouged into the flimsy plank of balsa, tearing it. He tried again, with more delicacy. The line was faint but visible. He cut round it as carefully as he could and looked at the result. Its imperfection stared back at him mockingly and he felt things he was not used to welling up inside him: doubt and despair.

Setting the disgusting circle aside, he thought to try a simpler part of the model. He looked again at the picture. At the running board, a flat step on the side of the car that swooped up at each end to become the front and rear wings. How difficult could that be? He had watched his dad build a model boat from the same stuff, watched him bend it round to form the elegant curve of the prow. He cut a strip of wood and tried to bend it to shape the way he thought Dad had done it. At first, it was pliable but when he released his grip it started to straighten. He tried again, using more pressure. With a small, sharp crack, the wood snapped. He looked at it in shocked disbelief and realised that he was close to bursting into tears. He fought them back but now his whole face was on fire. He had the feeling that everyone was looking on, witnessing his abject failure. Failure. Him.

Suddenly, the bell rang for the end of the period and Chris quickly and gratefully gathered all the bits together and placed them in the shoe box. He tried to forget the past forty minutes and at the end of the day when his friends asked about what he was making he put on a show of quiet, assured, satisfaction. It convinced them, he could tell, and it almost convinced him. Today was just a setback. Next week it would all come right.

That night, in bed, he looked again at the postcard. What had been a thing of beauty, capturing his heart, now seemed to be aloof from him, mocking his presumption. I am beauty, I am perfection. You think you can recreate me? He studied the wheels and saw the enormity of the task right there. They were not flat, solid pieces of wood. A sunburst of delicate wooden spokes connected the bulbous hub to the rim; and around the rim a fat, black tyre ran. How, ever, was he going to do that?

Maybe Dad could help. Well, not help. This had to be something he did for himself. If he got Dad involved he would take over. Chris would be left standing to one side, watching, like when he got the trainset for Christmas. He would say that he had to make the thing at school, which was not a lie, because that was where the wood and tools were now. But he would ask Dads advice. Dad would like that.

Dad?

Yes? Be quick, I need to go.

Its just this model Im making at school. Im not sure how to make the wheels. Look. Chris showed his Dad the postcard, noticing for the first time that one corner now had a crease in it and was starting to fray. His Dad took it, looked at it appraisingly.

Its the spokes, see, Dad. I dont know how to make them.

His Dad, handed back the postcard without looking down and picked up his briefcase. Turning towards the door, he said, Draw them on. Use a soft pencil, and left.

Chris looked again at the car. Draw them on? Anger mixed with dismay and swirled around inside him, making him feel queasy. Draw? Like a child? Heres the house, heres the door in the middle, here are the windows, two up two down, heres the chimney and heres the smoke. And heres Mummy and Daddy and little baby Chris?

No. No, not good enough. Not nearly good enough.

Next free period, he tried again. But the wood resisted his attempts to cut anything as small and delicate as a spoke. Even the hub was impossible to get right. Then the glue spread as he tried to apply it and, lifting his thumb, he found it stuck to the pieces, which fell apart as he tried to extricate himself. It was hopeless.

Beaten down by this new awareness of his own lack of ability (it could only be that, the image in his head of how it should look was good, perfect), he took up the circle of wood from the previous week and his pencil case and tried to draw on the parts of the wheel. Sitting back, he looked at the result. Awful, a smudged line here, an uneven gap, here. He wanted to crush it and throw everything across the room. As if taking pity on him, the bell went and he quickly put the pieces of wood and tools away.

At home, again he studied the photograph. He tried not to look at the wheels, this time concentrating on the bonnet. It was a simple shape, solid looking. If he cut a piece off the thick block of balsa, it would just be a matter of sanding it into shape.

So next week, that was what he did. He measured, and cut and then took up the sandpaper. After five minutes, his fingers already red and stiff and sore, he looked at the block in his hand. It had hardly changed. Two of the long edges were starting to be soft but it was still just a block of wood. He went back to work.

At the end of the lesson he held the block up over the photograph. The lack of resemblance was horribly evident. The Renaults bonnet had a gentle slope but then dropped away suddenly before flattening out, like the slide in the playground. Chriss block had, by comparison, all the elegance of a brick.

By the fourth week, Chris had realised that sandpaper alone was not going to transform the block. He needed to help it along. If he cut the front of the block at an angle then maybe he could smooth out the hard line into that graceful curve.

At first the cut seemed okay. But, no, a bit too steep, perhaps. He tried a second cut. This time it was too flat but if he tried to rectify that he would shorten the bonnet. Perhaps now he could sand it into the right shape?

He rubbed and rubbed, after each burst, holding the block up to the photo. No, still not enough. No, still not right. No. NO!

The bell sounded but this time, as the class were packing away, Kempson boomed the awful reminder that they had just two weeks left before the exhibition. Make sure your work is ready. If any boy or girl is having trouble or in need of help, come and see me at the end of the day.

To Chris, these words were meant for him and him alone. But to take up the invitation would be to expose how little he had achieved; and worse, to admit that he was defeated, to admit his failure.

It was then that an unworldly calm had come over him. The impossibility of his task fell a way. With it went all recollection of the past weeks of failure. He became focused on one thing. The end of the block of wood in his hand must be made to match the curve in the picture. It must be perfected. He spent the next and last free period sanding and sanding his block, holding it up to the photograph and scolding himself. Not good enough. Wont do.

At the end of the day, with as little fuss as possible, he picked up his shoe box and made to leave. Kempson noticed.

Taking your exhibit home, Hatch?

Yes, Sir. Just some finishing touches.

Make sure they are your finishing touches, Hatch. This is not an exhibition of parental prowess.

Yes, Sir.

The snide inference was not lost on Chris. It stung more than all the misery contained in the box. He could not ask for help. That would be the worst failure of all.

SCHN DASS DU mich nicht anmachst / NICHTSbleibt

Titel: SCHN DASS DU mich nicht anmachst

Thoughts:

Im desperate! I dont know anything anymore!

Dont even remember if Im normal or mad,

if Im awake or dreaming, if Im sitting here or just imagine sitting

my God, sometimes I think life is not real but

just imagination! You adore a woman for many years,

consider her for being just everything,

the entire being and then

Who is to

Into Every Artist a Little Self-Absorption Must Fall, So You Can See More Clearly When It HasGone

If youre struggling with making stuff, and most of us do, a lot, try doing nothing about it while you consider why its happening and what you want.

If you dont know what you want, its hard to create from unknown ground. You dont know where you want to go, so you end up wandering, and that can last years.

Easier to decide somethinganythingand work from that. Its so easy to forget! We.

Out of the Dust, October2018

Morsels & Stories: I introduced our next prayer station and talked about the history behind labyrinths.

Sermon: The consolation and hope of Psalm 22.

The lessons can be found by clicking here (link). I worked most closely with Psalm 22.

Listen: https://theologybird.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/p28-stp-14oct2018.m4a

SCHN DASS DU mich nicht anmachst / NICHTSbleibt

Titel: SCHN DASS DU mich nicht anmachst

Thoughts:

Im desperate! I dont know anything anymore!

Dont even remember if Im normal or mad,

if Im awake or dreaming, if Im sitting here or just imagine sitting

my God, sometimes I think life is not real but

just imagination! You adore a woman for many years,

consider her for being just everything,

the entire being and then

Who is to

Love begins with such tenderness

Even the tears are made of joy!

What wonder it holds in that time,

Oh, what magic it does employ!

The many things that irks love now

Were what held away all its fears.

Who could truly know that sadness

Would supercede past joy in tears?

Each twist in the body was seen,

As some Grecian statue of old;

Now twists are seen with angst and pain

And addressed with