The Stars’ Tennis Balls

III. The Island

Finally, finally, finally, finally.

Paper.

Two pens.

Felt-tipped, to stop myself doing damage to myself. To stop myself doing damage to somebody else.

It is very difficult to describe how they feel in the hand. I have not held a pen for a long time. I am taking an age to complete each word. I put myself off by watching my hand so closely that it becomes self-conscious and forgets how to shape the simplest letters.

I have been having the same trouble with my voice.

Sometimes days go by and I do not say a word. I am afraid of talking to myself. Sometimes I hear other voices shuffling past and they sound like mad voices. I do not want to sound like this.

When I do decide to talk to myself I make sure that what I say is ordered and sensible. ‘Today I shall do three hundred press-ups before lunch and five hundred press-ups after lunch,’ I might tell myself. Or, ‘This morning I shall run through the Lord’s Prayer, the General Confession, all the hymns I know and every capital city I can remember.’ And I remind myself out loud that I must not despair if I forget. Frustration and disappointment are the enemy, I have found. Some time ago I forgot the capital of India. It seems stupid, but for the longest time I was weeping and screaming, punching myself on the chest and wrenching at my hair so violently that it came out in bloody knots, and all because I could not remember the capital of India. Then, for no reason I can be sure of, I woke up one morning with ‘New Delhi’ on my lips. It had caused me such misery and pain, its absence, that I was almost angry to have remembered it, and for it to be such a simple place-name too. I know that the forgetting, even for a few days, had done more than make me miserable: it had given me spots and constipation and utter despair. I decided that in the future I would laugh and smile when I forgot even the simplest thing.

There was a time, for example, perhaps a year ago, when I forgot the name of my biology master at school. I laughed with pleasure. I actually made myself laugh with pleasure at the idea that my brain had buried Dr Sewell below the surface. Why should New Delhi or Dr Sewell be instantly available to me here? This way of dealing with memory has actually helped. Now that I am not forcing myself to remember, or judging myself by my ability to remember, all kinds of things actually stand out more clearly. I could sit down tomorrow, I think, and pass all my exams with ease. Mind you, looking up at the first two pages I have covered, I would have to admit that any examiner would disqualify me on the grounds of the illegibility of my handwriting. And of course, I know now that Dr Sewell was not my biology master at school. He and my school were imagined.

It is very interesting to look back up at what I have written. I notice that I keep trying to double letters. I even started to spell ‘disqualify’ with two Qs. I wonder what that means. I have a sense that it is something to do with a fear of finishing things too quickly. I have learned to eke everything out here. Each spoonful of food, each push-up, press-up, sit-up or organised room-walk that I undertake is very rigorously planned and very thoroughly thought through. Oh! Doesn’t that look wonderful! Thoroughly thought through!