The Conversation

By John Gardner

Two arthritic, old spooks coincidentally meet up in a small Spanish town and their conversation brings back memories they would prefer to forget. Sunday lunch with an active Bulgarian spy takes Neil back to his past but he struggles with the history of his life. Does our past catch up with us? Can we always tell reality from dreaming? So much smoke and mirrors that neither knows which side of the mirror they are now on. Does the anxiety and fear ever go? And rule number one, trust no one. Nothing is as it seems. Except the loneliness.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!" Lewis Carroll

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Gardner
• Release date: Nov 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463797419

John Gardner

Writing is a passion, as are photography and music, they have defined much of my life.

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Copyright John Gardner 2019

This edition published by John Gardner 2021

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

John Gardner reserves the moral right to be identified as the author of this Work.

Other books published by John Gardner:

I, The Accused

The Money Virus

The Stress belief Paradox

Stress – the Profit Killer

The Lefirt Diaries (Diary One)

Conspiracy of Fire - Geoffrey Bolting

Conspiracy of War - Geoffrey Bolting

Open Your Eyes

Pleasure Mounds

The Lord, The Manor and The Murders

Bed Time Stories

The Bizznis

Shorties

Why 64 million Frenchmen are wrong!

Acknowledgements

No book is just the product of the writer’s imagination, which interweaves fact and fiction to give us a story. There are editors, proof readers, artists and friends involved in the process, all of whom help writers do a better job. In my case I had my plants, always good listeners; my barber who doesn’t understand a word of English and a sometimes inebriated Irishman who likes to be known as Brendan, although his name is Colum.

Dedication

To a friend now gone. No more smoke and mirrors. No more Rule Number One. No more Room 101.

R.I.P.

Is life really as it seems? Does our past catch up with us? Can we always tell reality from dreaming? It’s a muddle that gets two arthritic old spooks reminiscing and yet fearing what they might remember. The smoke and mirrors gets them thinking… which side of the mirror are they on?

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

Lewis Carroll

Nothing is as it seems. Rule number one: Trust no one.

CHAPTERS:

Old Memories

Neil

Gangsters

Rule Number One

The Dream Thief

A Ripe Plumb

The Poem

The Tortoise Legged It

Room 101

OLD MEMORIES

Room 101. The thought makes me laugh. But it’s not funny, Room 101.

I hang on by a thread. But nobody notices. I stare at walls and plants and nobody notices. It’s not as if they think I am meditating or being, deep. No, they just don’t notice at all. I continue to stare, watching the air move around the plants but I feel nothing. I am adrift from that thing I call my life. It is a bleak reality that kindles no warmth, as yet another mosquito decides to feed.

Lately I have begun to ask, ‘Where the fuck am I?’ I have no idea. The mosquito knows.

People around me are talking but I don’t hear them. No more than they hear me. Nobody is interested in what I have to say. Nobody asks me what I am doing, what I am working on, what I am writing. Nobody. Not a single solitary sole. It’s as if I am not here. I am like a speck of dust in the air. When I talk they get confused. The message in my head, the words I speak are heard differently by those who hear them, which confuses me. I choose my words, I speak clearly yet I am constantly misunderstood. Maybe it’s because they are not abbreviated text speak words with funny little faces. They are actual words. But maybe it’s because people have a developed a different communication code to me.

‘How many times have you been to that restaurant?’ I ask and the answer comes back, ‘Oh, it’s quite good.’ The answer should have been a number. Four, five, ten times but not, ‘Oh it’s quite good.’ Did I ask, ‘Is it any good?’ No. I asked for a number. Happens all the time. ‘What do you fancy for dinner?’ A simple question that prompts the reply, ‘Oh I think I would like to eat earlier.’

So where can I buy some earlier and how do I cook it?

I stop talking.

Every morning I lie in bed thinking, should I get up? I feel as if a plug has been pulled out of my body and all my energy has leaked out and gone down the pan. Is it just age? Is this an advanced case of OFD, Old Fart’s Disease? Or is something else happening? I can understand why people commit suicide but that’s not how I feel.

How I feel is fucked.

Without the wet bit.

I wanted to talk with a friend about my feelings but he left. Went to the other side of the world to save the kangaroos from the blood lust of his beer-drinking kinsmen. That’s the damnable part, not being able to talk with anyone. It leaves a stain like a bleak mid winter and yet here I am living in the sun in Bleak House and yet… and yet it is not all dark. Far from it. But why is it overtaking me like this? I thought this was a sign of mental degeneration so I went on-line to do a series of tests, which only proved I am in total command of my faculties, which are well above the average for my age, which is getting on. And, my reflexes are fast even for a person half my age. Verdict? The nut box is just fine. Theoretically.

But something is toasted.

I lie thinking that I used to be able to fly, actually fly. Nobody would believe it of course so I never mention it. I remember the first time it happened, when I was a kid playing chases. I ran down two stairs, at least I thought I had, but after twenty feet or so I realised my feet were not touching the ground. I had literally stepped off the top step into mid air and kept going. It was an amazing feeling that suddenly dropped me back to earth with a gentle thud as soon as I thought about it. All night I dreamed about it and for weeks afterwards I tried to make it happen again but couldn’t. It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that the gift came back to me. I could fly. Yes fly. I bet you can’t.

I bet you don’t believe me.

To be able to fly you must first believe it is possible and your thoughts must be pure, you cannot think about it. It must come to you and when it does the sensation is incredible but it is very private. You can tell no one. I tried to tell someone I had known almost my entire life and he smiled then spoke to me as if he had just phoned a mental institution and was waiting for the men with the white vest to arrive and carry me off to a place where electrical wires would be attached and inserted in places where electricity was never meant to flow.

These days I don’t fly. I can’t. Something has changed and I want to get it back. I am earth bound with bog bound people. I need air under my feet.

Some days my liver hurts, my kidneys hurt and I promise myself every day to cut down on the wine. We’ve all made these promises haven’t we? And we’ve all broken them. Human nature. Why deny ourselves? It gives a little lift to the day – and I like it. Not every day but most days. I am making an effort not destroy my vital organs because, according to Wikipedia, I need them. But what am I preserving myself for? Death? With this thought I am reminded of something Hunter S. Thompson wrote, Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming Wow! What a Ride!"