Quinny

So I wrote 4000 words of a novel today and just typed it up at Sam and Fiona's. 

If I was to say it reminded me of any author I'd have to say Nick Hornby (who wrote About A Boy, High Fidelity, Fever Pitch, etc.)

Here's the first draft of the first chapter for those who want to read it, I hope it's amusing but it doesn't get into the action until the second ;) ...

Ch. 1 You can call me Quinny, if you have to.

My name is Claire Quinn. Quinny for short, or if we're intimate, which we're not, and Clarissa exclusively if you're my mum because no one else who knows the name given to me at birth by my drunken father, may he rest in pieces, would dare call me it to my face.

Now where was I? Oh yes, my name is Claire Quinn and I'm going to see my ex-boyfriend for the first time in a year. Almost a year exactly. I know because we broke up on the 15th of May 1996, spoke on the phone twice in June, and then once again at the end of July when he asked if he could borrow my couch between the 1st and 6th of August, which, feeling obliged for the time he let me stay in his house for two weeks when he was on holiday and I was between flats, I allowed him to, and barely spoke a word to him while I did. Looking a little glum he left on the morning of the 6th, thanking me half-heartedly, and never got in touch with me again until recently, save to send a thank-you card.

I know what you're thinking. This Claire, or rather, Quinny, as you've probably got me pegged by now, thinking that we're intimate because I've shared all this with you, we’re not, or just because it's the more memorable of the two names I've mentioned (yes, two,) she's rather particular, is what she is. She's very pedantic. Well, people have said that I'm pedantic, and I don't mind it at all that much at all. I think that precise details make everything sharp, and a lack of clarity simply leaves everything confused, but I digress. I suppose you're thinking, 'She sounds rather obsessed with this chap really, a whole year and she's remembering all these tiny little details,' but in fact I'm not obsessed with him thank you very much, and I only remember all these details because of the particulars of the situation. In fact I'm only cogitating over them and sharing them with you because it's a worthy distraction from what I'm experiencing now, which is a mixture between dread, butterflies, and a healthy dose of acrimony. 

Ah, yes, that's it you see. Now we're into the meat and potatoes you say, this sounds interesting! Dread, butterflies and acrimony, that I can sink my teeth into, you ruddy bunch of sadists. Well I shan't be willing to talk about it, so you can all go hang so far as I care.

Oh all right then. I don't like to talk about my feelings in retrospect, and certainly not in the present tense, but since you've all been kind enough to turn up and hear my story told, you curious lot of voyeurs, I might as well share something worth sharing, mightn't I? Otherwise this whole piece will just descend into a continuous prevarication of the matter at hand, and it would be a shame to waste such an endearing literary style as mine on a mere bagatelle.

It seems a shame to use the term bagatelle in the derogatory sense though, since Beethoven composed many very lovely ones. (I particularly like no. 1 from op. 119.)  I could have said trifle, but that would only turn our attentions to our stomachs, lets face it, and Wild Goose Chase doesn't put it correctly either. How about divergence? Yes, that seems to fit. I wouldn't want to waste your time on a meaningless divergence (if you can think of a superior substitute send it on a post card) and I suppose it's not too late as this is a novel, not a poem, and we're merely a couple of pages in.

The short story forces one to be economical but nothing is wasted in a novel really, especially one put in the first person, as you always end up learning something about the character by the way it's written, and if you've read this far (praise your efforts) I can only assume that you're sufficiently bemused, amused, or otherwise entertained by my perceived quirkiness, or some other quality, to want to learn more about me. Only time will tell whether or not your optimism, which I am nonetheless thankful for, is misplaced.

I'm not different from most people, I don't suppose. Not that different from you most likely. Perhaps a little more posh, although I try not to let it show. But this is how we operate isn't it? If we aren't enjoying our experience we escape into our thoughts, don't we? We could be anxious or worried, maybe hurt, emotionally or physically. It's so easy to ignore a back pain, for instance, until it becomes unbearable.

Then there are some of us who do the same thing in the opposite way. They obsess over the little particulars of the situation. All the little details. And speculate what they'll do in this situation or that. 'If they say this, then I'll say this.' - 'I won't let them get away with doing that again. I'll tell them straight this time.' But that's still avoiding the experience of the moment. That's trying to anticipate the future, or as many of possible futures as their mind can muster, but there's no end to it really. No real solutions to be had ahead of time. Every question brings up a hundred more questions. You think that you can figure it out but you can't, because the mind is like the trunk of a tree, and thoughts are like branches coming out of the trunk, or roots, and the more they grow the more other branches can grow out of them, and the more branches can grow off the branches, and then leaves off that one, and then sinews off the leaves, and on and on into infinity. They're like a sequence of numbers that can keep going on, that can keep growing indefinitely. See if you can recognise the pattens in these ones:

0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 …

01101001100101101001011001101001...

ok that one's admittedly quite tough, let me make it easier for you,

01 0110 01101001 0110100110010110 ...

and this one:

3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751...

That last one is pi by the way, and if you managed to find a pattern you're probably be due a nobel prize because top scientists haven't found one yet and likely never will, but I put it in to make sure you were paying attention, and to amuse myself mostly. It didn't work, but it did help me to continue procrastinating, and therefore avoid speaking about my problems while increasing the tension in the narrative and possibly eliciting a laugh all in one fell swoop. 

See I like to think that I know what I'm doing with this writing business otherwise I probably wouldn't be trying it out, such is the bent of my nature, but I don't want to grow tiresome, so I'll return to the story. Well, what little of it I was able to depart from.

So, I'm taking the train into Portsmouth. I've always liked taking the train. It affords a certain comfort which the bus lacks, but, it's more expensive as it so happens. Also, you can read on the train, but you can't on the bus, which, being as I am, I am doing of course in an attempt to distract my attention from my thoughts and what I'm feeling, not that I'm having much luck focussing on either, unsurprisingly. The words just rattle in my head emptily as my mind goes off in a tangent, and I find myself reading the same passage over and over again.

I've not long since left work in Southampton. I work in a legal office. No, I'm not a lawyer as it so happens and I'd thank you not to presume! I'm sorry, it's a bit of a touchy subject really. You see, I know that like most people you probably assumed that because I'm smart, fairly polite, a little cultured, and very well spoken (need I add modest?) that I probably have a glamorous job like be the editor of a newspaper, or at least a university professor. Or more likely a lauded upper-middle-class profession like a lawyer or a doctor, but life doesn't always work out that way. The truth is I'm just an assistant.

It's not that I think there's anything wrong with working in a place like this, honestly I don't. I'm not a snob. I was just hoping to be doing something a bit more personally fulfilling with my life by this age, or at least on the way there by now. Yes, I know I'm only twenty-six, but sometimes I honestly feel like my life's already over. I don't meant to seem melodramatic, but I just can't see a way out of the routine for me. 

I finished my art degree in   , the after a year out travelling I did my masters in fine art at . That's where I met Rich by the way, while I was doing my masters, not travelling, if I wasn't clear enough. Then I figured I'd make some cash while I tried to figure out what I wanted to do next and just kind of got stuck here.

Yes, it's the kind of job where you leave your work at the office at the end of the day and don't have to take it home, but I'm usually just so knackered by the time I get there that I just want to make some dinner, watch a DVD, then go to bed, not to speak of even doing any art which I hardly ever do now. And it's getting more and more stressful. More and more they have me making outbound calls to tell people things they don't like hearing and I don't like telling them.

A year after I left uni Andy and I broke up and now it's about a year after that. Yes, I know I called him Rick last time, but I've decided to change his name periodically on the off chance that you know him or worse, grow attached to him and therefore become biased in his favour, even if it is in part because you perceive me to have some quality that annoys you, such as scattyness (although I don't know where you'd get that idea from.) Next time I should call him Tony and see where it goes from there. Or perhaps because I remind you of some quality you have in yourself which you are against. It happens you know. It's called projection, or externalisation or something like that, and it's something to do with Carl Jung's concept of the shadow. He was a student of Freud's but they fell out because Jung disagreed with some of Freud's wackier theories, and then came up with some of his own such as the idea that everyone is linked by a collective unconscious and that when you die you become part of it or something like that. 

Look, I understand that because I'm the one telling the story you're invariably going to be somewhat biased by virtue of hearing it from my end, but it is my story after all, and I'd like you to sympathise with me first, if you can. I suppose I just want you to like me, is that so wrong? Surely it's a compliment if anything. I promise to try and be as impartial as possible, and here, as an act of contrition, let me do something brave and be straight with you. 

You know how I early told you that AnRickTonich only contacted me once to send me a thank you card up and till recently? I told you a sort of falsehood there. Well, yes, ok, that is just a nice way of saying I lied. I lied to you slightly. The thank you card was followed by a short letter.

Now before we go on, I acknowledge that I'm your one and only source of information on this account, and we need some trust here. If I lie to you the whole thing falls apart. You don't know what is real and what's false, and there's no actual story any more, just a ragtag fantasy mix of possible-truths, half-truths and doubtful uncertainties that don't make up a coherent or fair representation of anything at all. You can't make a fair judgement if I don't give a fair account. I understand that. But maybe you'll forgive me for being selective with the truth when I tell you want I omitted.

The letter said…

Hey, I wanted to thank you again for letting me stay when I needed to, 

you really made my life a lot easier and I appreciate that. 

I also have to say I was sorry you felt the need to treat me more like a

stranger in your house than the friend I would have liked to 

think I was. 

That really hurt.

I didn't write sooner was because I felt I should get my responsibilities out 

the way so I could give it my full attention, and I also wanted to make sure I

was feeling neutral before saying anything I might regret, but I figured you

could do with some space as well so I hope you have benefited from that and

don't think me rude.

I hope you're doing well and life is good for you,

best wishes,

Ebeneezer Algernon Lauri-Adams Sinclair Bain

Now how do you suppose I responded to a letter like that?

I didn't obviously.