Jarrod
Jarrod feasted on the sound of her departure. It was a
sound that had increased in its significance ever since that Monday when his
own plans for life at 8am changed forever. Or, at least, until a new job became
available. For now, 8am was departure time for those without the guts to quit,
the hour that reinforced – more than any other – that he had made the better
choice, that he was the ‘progressive thinker’ who watched all those around him
submit to ‘tradition’, or whatever it was that compelled them to continue
working in and for a world they didn’t understand.
It was a compelling argument and one that certainly
sounded far more heroic than the feeble ‘I got bored’ that he had ashamedly
whispered down the phone when his parents had demanded to know just how he
intended to keep paying the rent. He wasn’t sure exactly why they were so keen
on him being at the forefront of the world of data entry; perhaps they hoped
he’d stumble across the cure for cancer, scribbled down on the back of a list
of names by some careless scientist that didn’t feel it was worth committing
the idea to the screen, and that he, Jarrod Bowman, would now type the words
and numbers (the cure would probably have numbers in it somewhere, he assumed)
that would save millions, becoming instantly famous as the ‘cancer clerk’ or
something equally alliterative. Also, the rent was going to Dawn, not them, and
so he was surprised that they sounded so flustered by his latest decision, as
if they were in some way going to miss out on the income they were depending on
to fund their
long-intended-but-never-going-to-happen-at-least-not-until-we-have-a-greater-income-and-the-children-have-left-home-and-are-able-to-fund-themselves-which-will-enable-us-to-save-up-enough-money-to-make-our-dreams-come-true
holiday to Peru. He certainly hadn’t been aware that he had been secretly
funding a trip to Machu Picchu but it was, he supposed, possible that Dawn had
been funnelling a share of the profits into some secret account, each month
bringing them that little bit closer to affording the camera they would need to
make the trip a lasting, high-definition, memory.
There was something thrillingly liberating about
quitting, or progressing, as he had
come to call it. Work had brought an unwelcome structure to daily life that he
felt - and he was certain Lawrence would have agreed - shackled his creativity,
kept his spirit chained, blinded him to the mysteries of the world around him.
Any words he typed on his laptop this morning would be his words, motivated by his desire to type. If he decided to type a
list of names, perhaps even accompanied
by addresses and telephone numbers, then that was fine because it was his choice and no man, Gavin, Gareth or
Gaveth, could tell his fingers what to do. He was fingering freedom, caressing
creativity, massaging meaning, and, every now and again, pouring potential into
the coffee cup of tomorrow.
He stared at the words before him. There was something
unbearable about the phrases he had just committed to screen and he soon found
his finger erasing the last sentence. His mouse point hovered over the ‘undo’
button, briefly considering giving ‘coffee cup of tomorrow’ another go, before
a misaligned tissue box to his left captured his attention and led his fingers
away to perform a different form of correction.
There was no plan for the day ahead. Meals could be taken
at anytime and no-one would ever know! He could, perhaps, go for a mid-morning
walk past the office windows, finally achieving his long-sought-after goal of
being able to see what he would have looked like from the outside while at
work. A few audible tuts and shakes of the head would accompany his unusually
slow-paced walk and he would take a moment to linger by the end window, as if
suggesting a remnant of regret, before marching off at a defiant pace, his walk
perfectly representing his new-found detachment and freedom. Maybe he would
even slide around the side of the building to listen in to Gaveth’s cigarette
chit-chat, no doubt overhearing such wearisome laments as: ‘he was the best
we’d ever had’ and ‘I don’t know how we’ll ever replace him’. It would be like
attending his own funeral, with the bonus of not having had to have died first.
There was, he remembered, one item on the otherwise-plain
to-do list: buy a book. He checked his watch – 8.10 – and glanced towards his
wallet. He would have her soon. Although he had abandoned schedules, he knew that
others had not been so brave and so he would, unfortunately, be at least 50
minutes away from finally catching a glimpse of Mansfield’s enticing glow.
There was something exhilarating about buying a book; it
was like finding an unusually-shaped key in a dusty drawer and then hunting
around the entire house trying to find the door, cupboard, window or box that
it opened. It struck Jarrod how peculiar it was that pages and pages of private
thoughts, desires, fantasies and struggles were so freely and willingly made
public, as they waited patiently on shelves around the world, ready for another
stranger to pry and probe, like a sniffer-dog seeking out the cocaine in the
criminal’s zipped-up pocket. There would, of course, be no cocaine in
Mansfield’s velvet jacket, but he could not deny that he would at times play
the role of the dog, revelling in the diary-like revelations that leapt from
the page like over-eager trainees, each vying for their voice to be heard, each
competing to deliver the idea that you will remember long after the book has
found its resting place on the over-crowded shelf.
He glanced at his well-worn copy of Women in Love. Was there anything he remembered about it apart from
Birkin wanting the world destroyed, or at least for it to be only populated by
him, Ursula and ‘a few other people’? Was this the full impact of over 500
pages of Lawrencian discourse? He paused to think. At the time, Birkin’s plan
had sounded magnificent, albeit austere, and he had caught himself smiling as
he read and re-read the proposal. But now? What could he make of the idea in
isolation, as a sound-bite for his generation, a well-learned quotation to drop
into conversation when the moment arose?
Torn-off triangles of note-paper jutted out from the
book, marking the pages he had marvelled at, perhaps even put pencil to as a
few chosen lines found themselves underlined and bracketed-off, highlighted
(albeit in grey) for future reference, like a self-made abridged version of the
novel, a collection of the vying voices demanding a second hearing. There were
a least twenty triangles, like a sparse mountain range, each reaching skywards
to claim the highest peak, and yet, when he skipped through each bookmarked
landmark that morning, Birkin’s plan was nowhere to be found. It was as if
another explorer had removed the flag from the top of the mountain, smoothing
out the dent left by the once-steady pole, and coolly climbed back down,
careful not to leave footprints that would enable easy retracing of his steps.
The voice had been hushed, the door opened to doubt as the opportunity for
confirmation and reminder was swiftly ushered out. To hear those words again,
to feel their impact and understand their intention, the long 542-page path
would need to be walked once more. Only, a second reading could never be the
same as the first. No longer were blind eyes being opened, wondering at the
beauty of the world they were seeing for the first time. Now, to read would be
to rummage, to search through the piles of previously seen and heard ideas, to
feel a disappointing familiarity, whilst ever craving that sign that would
point to the now-flagless peak nestled between the landmarks he would speed
through with almost blasphemous nonchalance, eager to find again the words that
had left their indelible mark, only to be swept away like sand beneath his
fingers.
He lifted Lawrence into his arms, cradling the words that
had meant so much to him. His fingers flicked through the pages, the numbers
racing through the hundreds until resting at 542 as he reached the final stop.
‘Hmm,’ he said, audibly, before hurriedly placing the
book back on the shelf.
Short stories had suddenly become unimaginably appealing;
his lust for Mansfield was growing by the second.
---------
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