I woke up for the 5th time since the sun first filled the room this morning, feeling wide awake and hungry for muesli just after 6.30. Considered getting up and having an early start but the idea of being on my perch at the table in the main building by 7am just seemed preposterous and unnatural so squeezed between my deliciously clean sheets again and managed to go back to sleep until 7.30.
When I opened the curtains, the Conflict Zone theatre group were doing exercises outside the pods. It looked like Tai Chai, or some sort of warm-up. There were only 3 of them and the trainer to begin with, then the others starting turning up half asleep with Surit last, trying to hide her face-like-thunder under a red hoodie.
As I moved my chair to get a better look, they all started marching in formation towards the pond opposite my cube, doing what looked like duck movements as the real ducks and a few sheep looked on bewildered.
Went for a shower and noticed I have so many midgie bites on my face and neck I’m starting to resemble Charles Bukowski. As I dressed, I listened to Fred MacAuley on Radio Scotland (the only station I can get reception for here). It was report cards they were talking about today. Nearly everyone that phoned in (most of them for some reason from Bearsden) said the same thing - that their own and their children‘s report cards had said they talked too much in class. It seems that every report card since the introduction of report cards has said that, except in odd cases where the children were mute.
I threw bread to the spiky-headed female duck who was uncharacteristically in the pond alone. She polished off nearly a whole slice before the other male and female arrived, swiftly followed by the squawking tyrant duck the Israeli poets had christened Lady Macbeth. At one point the male grabbed her by the neck and dragged her round the pond, forcing her head underwater. I wasn’t sure if they were fighting or mating, or if she’s the granny, the wife, the ex wife, or just some demented tart. I like her despite her rather forthright manner and the racket she makes. She’s plucky.
A couple of weeks after I first arrived here I looked up mallards on Google and discovered that 19% of Mallard pairs are male homosexuals. I also read about rape flights where groups of male Mallards focus on and attack single females. No doubt I will write something about Mallards while I‘m here, whether it be a short story or a sex and violence strewn ‘Watership Duckdown.’
I walked up the path to the main building, stopping half-way to try and ascertain what ever-changing mood the loch and mountains were in today, and to prevent myself being such a wheezing wreck when I got to the top. When I arrived, I stuck on the kettle and sneaked an empty wine bottle I’d been quaffing in my cube amongst the ones for recycling.
Alexia came over with The Guardian which she’d kindly bought me on the way in again, and some redirected mail. She said I’d got a great suntan over the weekend. Bless her. I thought I had radiation sickness.
Asked Irene, the cleaner, how to work the washing machine again. She patiently took me through the whole complicated process for the third time since I‘ve been here. Think I’ve got the hang of it now - open the washing machine, insert washing, add soap powder, press start. She’ll be thinking “bloody writers.” She probably already was.
Answered a few e.mails and rejected a few slightly dodgy stories for my website - some a bit twee, some unfathomable, some just plain awful.
Mickel, the Conflict Zone director asked me if it would be ok if a few of them did an improvisation exercise in the room. He said it was a silent exercise so they’d try not to disturb me and if I wanted to join in, I was welcome to. It sounded intriguing.
The scene involved the group pretending to be staff cleaning up a restaurant after closing time. I sat working away on the laptop as they swept, polished and cleaned glasses around me. I noticed that my clandestine Chardonnay bottle had become a prop. I felt strangely proud to see it there and wondered if it might end up on the Fringe this year with the rest of them.
The next half an hour was gloriously surreal, with the Conflict Zone people all method acting tidying up as Catherine and Irene, the real cleaners, tried to negotiate their way round them to do the real thing. As it was a silent exercise, nobody could actually explain what was going on. As each of the actors had to clean up in different frames of mind based on their characters’ circumstances issued to them by Mickel them before the exercise started, they were all performing their tasks in different ways - Jamu distraught as his character had just discovered his brother back in Nigeria was sleeping with his wife; Push because his daughter wanted to desert the family in Jerusalem to move to London to become a singer; Surit because her daughter had fallen in love with a Palestinian; Mariam because things weren’t working out with her Kosovan boyfriend and Essam because his character was being ostracised by his local community after he’d been interviewed by the anti-terrorism squad.
Fantastically captivating as it was, I needed to go to the toilet. When I came back, Julian had just arrived and was watching Mariam, close to improvised tears, banging chairs up on the table.
“What a good idea, putting the chairs on the table. I’ve often thought we should do that. Excellent,” he said, trying unwittingly to cheer her up.
It’s strange. When I first came here I thought what I was seeking was solitude and isolation, but it’s made me realise that, in many ways, artistically, that’s what I already had. Now I have time, space, complete freedom and peace (when I want it) to work, but also the lovely warmth and support of the staff (most of whom are acclaimed artists and former residents themselves) and a continually changing and challenging environment to engage with and consistently confound my preconceptions. What more could a writer really ask for and how the hell am I supposed to remain a life-long cynic in a place like this?
I went back down to my cube for lunch about 1.30 and decided to make some soup. As the bacon was sautéing in Lurpak Spreadable, I reached for my grater and accidentally knocked a wine glass which smashed onto the cooker, some landing in the pot. Cleaning it up, I fished out the bacon, feeling it for broken glass, sieved the melted butter through the tea strainer, washed out the pot and started again. Stuck some turnip in as well.
Typed up some notes as the soup bubbled away. It smelt like my grandma’s house when I used to go round for Sunday lunch when I was young. It was quite delicious, despite the inadvertent embellishments and I supped down 2 bowls as I read an article in the Guardian on The Five Best Pod Hotels in the world which had a lovely photo of my very cube. It said Cove Park was “essentially a sophisticated artists’ retreat.” And then I arrived, I thought.
As it was such a glorious afternoon, I sat out on the decking taking notes from my original novel for the sequel. At about 4 o’clock I heard the sound of children’s voices and before I knew it, there were five young kids playing on the decking beside me. A young lad of about 3 and 4 little girls, swinging on the rail, dipping their feet in the pond, shouting at the tadpoles and ducks. They just seemed to appear. I asked one of the girls if they’d been at the art club. She told me they’d been making masks. All of them had bits of plaster of paris still stuck to their faces. She informed me that although she was the smallest, she was in charge. The little boy clutched at himself and said he needed to wee-wee. One of the other girl’s sandals came off in the pond and I had to help her fish it out. Then, as quickly as they’d arrived they were gone.
Returned to my notes, in between watching the 3 male mallards and one of the females fighting or mating or both, as the birds I think are wagtails dive-bombed the pond around them. There’s an amazing number of species of birds around here, many of which I’ve never seen before. I can’t believe how many robins there are. I may be stupid but I really only thought they appeared in the winter. Have I been brainwashed by all these cheap Xmas cards over the years? Maybe this is where they hang out before they go to the cities to do their festive chores each December.
Geetanjali knocked on the door at 6.30 to ask if I wanted to go for a walk or if it was too hot. She knows how sweaty, irritable and lethargic I can get if the temperature swelters over 18 degrees but as I didn‘t think I could possibly have much more perspiration left to expel, I said I‘d be happy to if she was. She went to get her hat and sunglasses as the sun tends to give her headaches. I took my own bedraggled combat jacket as I always do, like a safety blanket to carry my essentials - mobile, cigarettes, lighter, tissues, Visa/Sainsbury’s Nectar/and organ donor cards, Cove Park and house keys and about a kilograms worth of small change. I like to be prepared for any eventuality, even on a short walk in the countryside.
We walked down past the pods and studios and through the Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe-like hole in the fence onto the Barbour Road. As we walked along we laughed (as always) at the ways the various drivers on the road acknowledged our moving to the side to let them pass - friendly waves, thumbs up, slight finger twitch on the wheel, scowl, begrudging nod, pained grimace, wink, and several looks like we were lucky they didn’t deliberately swerve to hit us - bloody arty types that we are.
Geetanjali told me she’d enjoyed reading my short stories and asked me lots of questions about them, many of which I’d never even considered before myself. She’d seemed to be able to read between the lines with such unerring insight, at points it made me wince. I felt quite humbled and thanked her for the thought and time she’d put into reading my work.
We talked about my going to visit her in India. We agreed some time between November and March would be best as the rest of the year the country is either in stifling heat or monsoon season. Geetanjali hopes I can get beyond the culture shock and vast extremes of the place and eventually see India as a place I’ll visit again and again on my own terms. I‘ve devoured everything I‘ve learned about India during the time we’ve spent together here and feel incredibly excited that a previous travel-phobic like myself might have the chance to visit her and the people I feel like I’ve got to know through her telling me about them there soon. I remembered after Julian told me on the phone before I came to Cove Park that the other writer in residence was from India me worrying how I would get on with someone from such an alien culture or how they could possibly get on with a curmudgeon like myself. My limited imagination could never have allowed me to anticipate such a close friendship growing between us.
Walking past a field of cows, they stared at us in a dopey, placid, slightly curious manner as they munched grass. We noticed one odd looking calf that looked like a cross between a cow and a donkey and commented on how sweet it was that its mother overlooked its unorthodox appearance and was so attentive of it, until she nearly stood on it, accidentally kneed it in the head then pissed on it lackadaisically.
As we walked, Geetanjali asked (and told me) the names of various flowers and shrubs. Being from the land of pigeons, litter and tourists they call Edinburgh, I didn’t know any of them, other than the thistle which I’d once seen on the wrapper of a macaroon bar.
We passed the house which usually has a vicious dog outside we’d encountered on previous walks. I noticed the gate was open so ascertained it must be locked up safely for the night. No sooner had I said this, we saw the owner and dog approaching, the beast immediately lunging at us, snarling, drooling and goosing us mercilessly until its mistress finally caught up. As Geetanjali stood frozen in terror, the woman casually pulled the lead from her pocket, attached it and asked how our novels were coming along. The dog continued menacing Geetanjali. The woman said calmly, “when she does that you should just put your hand to her mouth to let her know you’re a friend.” We thanked her, smiled and walked away with our trembling writerly fingers rammed firmly up our sleeves.
Approaching the steep slope in the road where we usually turn back, we noticed a spectacular double rainbow. Geetanjali had forgotten her camera but we agreed that some things are too ethereal to try and capture and should be savoured in the moment. As we sat on a wall under a tree, continuing to savour it, it started to rain. I suggested we’d maybe angered the gods by daring to even suggest photographing a rainbow.
As we watched it, Geetanjali asked me if I remembered an old advert in which a Zen guru tells a student to describe the things he can hear. The student, eager to impress says “the distant thunder, waves crashing” and other majestic sounds. The guru asks, “so you don’t hear that cricket in the grass then?” She said it reminded her of my writing, in that I concentrate on small moments that ultimately have a larger significance. I felt very touched and flattered and admitted that I’d often been criticised by reviewers for focusing so much on seemingly insignificant characters and experiences. Geetanjali said she’d like to write about my work herself and to hell with reviewers. I didn’t know what to say. I felt quite choked up.
As the rainbow finally disappeared we gave up on it drying up and began walking back. The rain, seeming to notice, intensified accordingly. Geetanjali joked that we’d had all the extremes of weather today - burning sunshine, rainbows, downpours - all that was missing was hail-stones.
Within a couple of minutes we were both completely soaked through, our clothes leaden and clinging to us, Geetanjali‘s hat stuck to the side of her head. It no longer mattered that the rain was driving in our faces, still managing to get heavier. We were as wet as it was possible to be. Our only defence was to laugh back at it, despite our discomfort. Then, almost because we’d dared it to do so, it started hail-stoning. Then lashing rain again. I could feel water sloshing up and down my shoes with each step. I said this was maybe our Argyll baptism. As the water nipped our eyes it was hard to see where we actually were or work out how long it would still take to get back - 25 minutes do you think? No, no more than 10 minutes? Have we passed Knockderry House yet? I don‘t have a clue, I can‘t see any more. Our only protection and spur was defiant laughter and telling each other that in some perverse way this was fun. Stupid, simple, childlike fun. I guess it is why they send school kids up the moors in awful weather, even if it ends up killing them. Because sharing something like that is like sharing nothing else. Sharing nothing and everything.
When we finally crawled towards the entrance back into the Cove Park, the rain, it‘s point made and now bored with us, stopped dead. As we stood in the sodden ditch outside, looking up in disbelief as the dark clouds hurried off to pick on someone else, a Porsche flew past and treated us to a final projectile slap of mud. We struggled back through the hole in the fence, our sodden clothes magnetically drawn to the barbed wire we’d always somehow managed to avoid before. As we trudged towards the accommodation and studio blocks I thought the door to Torsten’s cube looked like it was open. ’Oh God,’ said Geetanjali but I was mistaken. It had just been a mirage after our ordeal.
Another very Cove Park day, as Julian would say.
